If you have talked to me much about my writing, you will know that I often employ something I call a “mini-story” to illustrate some aspect of a character. I step outside the plot stream and have the narrator relate a short, “There was this one time …” kind of story. If you’ve read the first Talisgate book, you will no doubt remember the shoestring mini-story. Below is a little sneak peek from Talisgate Book 2 that runs along those same lines. As of this writing, I’m still working on my first draft of the new book, but I thought it might be worth sharing this little nugget. I hope you like it. It’s an illustration of the relationship between Troy, his mother, and his brother. I took the opportunity to insert this mini-story at a point where Troy was explaining how people, when confronted with something that doesn’t seem to make sense, tend to believe what is most likely, even if it’s not the truth.
This one time, back when I was about six or seven years old, my brother Andrew really ticked me off. Back then, Mom wouldn’t let me ride my bike on the street unless Andrew was with me. He was probably eleven or twelve at the time, and he didn’t like his little brother tagging along every time he went out to ride his bike around the neighborhood.
Andrew was going to ride to the edge of the neighborhood, almost all the way to the four-lane that ran along the western edge of the neighborhood, to go to the 7-Eleven store. I, of course, wanted to tag along. They have this frozen drink called a Slurpee that is just about the most delicious thing in the whole world, especially the cherry one. So good.
He was almost all the way out the door before I caught him. “Wait up,” I yelled, scrambling to get my sneakers on.
He didn’t wait. He just hurried on down the walkway, hopped on his bike, and pedaled away, leaving me hopping after him with one shoed foot and one sporting a dangling, mostly white, sock. Jerk.
I wasn’t going to let that slide. I had to get some kind of revenge on Andrew, but I didn’t want to get caught. He was, and still is, a lot bigger than me. So, I cooked up a plan. Andrew was starting to get to the age where he was getting pimples on his face. Some kids struggle more than others with that. I’ll be twelve in a few months. I have never had any pimples at all yet. I hope I never do. Andrew was plagued with them at an early age. He still fights them all the time. He has creams, ointments, and soaps he uses to try to keep them at bay. Back then, he just had this blue glass jar of some kind of cream he used to wash his face. It smelled weird, but he claimed it helped. Whatever.
Anyway, what I did was replace about half of that cream with mayonnaise I got from the fridge. I stirred it up real good in the jar until it was blended all the way through. Then, all I had to do was wait. I think he used it a couple of days before the mayonnaise started to really get rancid in the jar. It was great, at least for me. The combined odor of that medicated face cleanser cream and spoiled mayonnaise was spectacular. He used it twice a day, so it was a gradual thing. The last time he used it before throwing it out I thought he was going to puke his guts out.
Of course, he blamed me, but he really couldn’t prove what caused the cream to go bad, and I certainly wasn’t going to clue anyone, Andrew, Mom, or Dad, that it was a big old dollop of Hellman’s mixed into Andrew’s face cleanser that made it so stinky.
“Come on, Mom!” Andrew wailed. “You know Troy did this. He had to. He’s the only one who would.”
This is where people believing what makes the most sense came in handy for me. I just stood there, eyes watering from the fumes emanating from Andrew’s pimply cheeks, looking as innocent as a newborn lamb. “What?” I said, lightly touching my chest with my fingertips. “Why? How?”
Mom, ever ready to defend me, and leaning on the normally reliable logic of probability, said, “Please, Andrew. How could Troy have anything to do with this? He doesn’t use your face cream. How could he make it go bad? It’s probably a defective batch or something. Throw it away. I’ll get you more.”
Looking first at Mom with a face that said, “You are so wise,” and then at Andrew with a barely stifled giggle, I quietly turned and went to my room, confident that the message had been sent and that I had completely gotten away with it. It was a proud moment indeed.