Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Quagmire: Day 8

Word Count: 48,033

Summary of Events:
Jesse went to take his brothers to visit his oldest brother's grave and Georgia wanted to go along, Jesse didn't let her, but she managed to escape and join them anyways. Jesse woke up early and was getting Maureen's gift out of the drawer he stored the money when Rose surprised him; he managed to convince her she hadn't seen any money, even though she probably had. Jesse went with his family to Mass, where he was bored out of his tree, but not for too long . . .

Excerpt of the Day:
"At the sound of giggling Jesse turned to look at the boys beside him. David had his hands clasped together tightly and was smiling mischievously. Jesse shifted his jaw in suspicion, wondering what sort of animal David was hiding — as there was no way it could be anything but an animal.
Jesse watched as David raised the fingers of one hand and peered in. Because of the way he'd clasped his hands Jesse was able to see what he was hiding between them: it was a mouse, whose head he had pinned firmly in place — probably so as to keep the rodent from biting him.
Carefully Jesse raised his arm so it was folded back on itself. He was going to need to startle David into dropping the mouse before it was close enough to anyone to crawl on them.
Slowly he started sliding his hand along the top of the pew behind Solomon's shoulders toward David, who started extending his hands toward the back of the oblivious parishioner's neck in front of him almost at the same time.
Jesse kept his face forward, but his eyes were as far over to his right as he could extend them without it hurting, watching as he slowly reached for David's neck, his hand curled to fit around it.
He snapped his hand closed around David's neck. David startled and released the mouse, which managed to catch a forepaw in the material gathered about the neck of the woman who'd been David's intended victim.
The mouse scrambled up adeptly and within moments the woman was shrieking and flailing and pretty much the entire sanctuary had devolved into chaos. Jesse dug his fingernails hard into David's neck, not only in fury that David had brought the mouse, but in his own frustration that he hadn't gotten to David's neck sooner and caused the mouse to fall the three or so feet to the floor.
He released David as soon as the priest rushed over to see what was the matter as the woman still shrieked and flailed and screamed one word: mouse.
Finally the frightened, traumatised rodent popped out pretty much from whence it'd gone into the woman's attire and rushed across the back of the pew — causing more women to cry out in fright at the sight of it — before scurrying down the side of the pew and racing along the wall out of sight.
Jesse glanced up at the priest, who levied an incredibly condescending look at David before returning to the front of the sanctuary and picking up where he'd left off as if nothing had happened.
Leaning against the back of the pew, Jesse seethed through the remainder of the service before finally being able to get up — nearly depositing Georgia on the floor — and stalking out of the sanctuary with a hand fast around David's upper arm."

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