03 - The Family Feud
Story index at the bottom
By Mister Mistoffelees [mention]MisterMistoffelees[/mention]
Fictional TUGs Stories
Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:52 pm
Note 2014: I've been asked to re-post this tale to get rid of the bad coding from the site change some years ago, and since some of what goes on here ties into (nice pun, eh?) my current tales The Land of Snowden: Summer (Tie-Up) School and My Dear Sally Diary: University Days (both of which I'd love for you to read!), I've decided to go ahead and re-post from the old file. I won't be adding any coding for italic characters in the text to shorten the time it takes to re-post this, but it shouldn't detract too much from its readability. Enjoy, all!...
This is a little tale I've built from my Snowden Snoops characters (bios on my Snoop Primer page at GDIT). Hope you enjoy, and let me know if you want to see more!
The Family Feud
(or, You Bet Your Life)
by Mister Mistoffelees
1 You’re On (m/f)
In normal circumstances, Lana Morgan’s face was one to launch the proverbial thousand ships. High cheekbones. Large, wide green eyes set well apart and veiled with naturally-thick golden lashes of the same brilliant hue as the mane of elbow-length hair which fluttered behind her as she strode down the second-floor science hallway of Darius Allen High. A small, full-lipped pink mouth which nearly every sophomore boy at Darius Allen, Snowdenite or Wiltontowner, would like pressed to his. A slim, shapely frame, dressed today in a casual Aeropostale sweatshirt and fleece pants and brand-new Skechers, which caused no small number of male onlookers to walk into unseen walls, doors, corners, and stairwells.
But the big green eyes were flashing with anger as she stalked down the hall, the golden mane of hair swishing with her petulant stride, the delectable mouth compressed into a bitter frown, and the long lovely hands already curled into small, tight fists. The boiling anger on Lana’s face cut a furtive wake among the Darius Allen sophomores gathering their things for the trip home that bright but cool mid-autumn 2:45 Friday afternoon. Someone was in serious trouble…
The someone in question was picking through her locker for the books she had decided to pretend to study that weekend. She too was a sophomore, tall and even leaner in build than the lissome Lana. Her big, mischievously-lit gray eyes were set in a dewy, rounded, freckled face whose incisive gray eyes and sardonic red-lipped mouth were framed by a bob of glossy raven-black locks which curled pertly around her chin. Her sense of fashion quirkiness was expressed in a black-and-white striped pirate-style tee top and a gray-plaid pleated schoolgirl miniskirt whose length—or lack thereof—would have fallen seriously afoul of the Allen County dress code but for the skin-tight black capris which she wore beneath it, and the glossy patent-leather granny boots which she had added. The only color in the whole ensemble was a ribboned red hairband which kept her shiny raven locks behind her ears, a red which perfectly matched the whites of Lana Morgan’s eyes as her shadow fell on the tall raven-headed girl—
“Felicity Mabrey!” Lana hissed, starting Felicity’s black-haired face toward her with a quizzical glint in the gray eyes. “I always knew you were total sneak, but I never thought you’d stoop this low! I ought to just break your silly face open, you know that? You lying little”—
“Wait a minute!” Felicity interjected hotly as a knot of students quickly clotted around the two girls. “What are you even talking about, Lana? I didn’t do anything to you!” Which only served to stoke Lana’s outrage another couple hundred degrees—
“You lying little witch! You know exactly what you did! I always knew you were jealous of me and Zack, but to tell him I was seeing Richie Dwight behind his back! I should have known you wanted to break us up! I ought to”—and the raising of Lana’s fists prodded a quick gasp from the gathered crowd—
“You ought to find out if somebody else did it before you smash Lissy’s face in!” a small but strong assertive redhead, whose casual jeans and sweatshirt and Reeboks and the uncomplicated ponytail in which her long fire-red tresses hung marked her simple, blunt nature, interjected incisively, stepping between the two putative combatants. “If you’re going to get ten days OSS for slugging somebody, make sure it’s the right one!”
“You get out of my way, Chelsea Parker!” Lana hissed truculently, disguising well the trepidation having to fight through Chelsea Parker struck in her. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!”
“Oh,” Chelsea retorted with a snort, “so there’s no possible way that Devan Jensen’s spreading that rumor to get back at Richie for ditching her and going out with Paula Ryan? Is that what you’re saying?” Which possibility cooled Lana’s anger somewhat—
“But I saw her talking to Zack, and then he”—
“I was telling him I thought it was a lie, you stupid blonde!” Felicity Mabrey—Lissy to Darius Allen friend and enemy alike—yelled in belated defense of herself. “He asked me if I thought it was true, and I told him I didn’t! Now I’m sorry I told him! It’d be what you deserve, you idiot!” The mortified dread which whispered to Lana that she might have slandered her friend Lissy relieved itself in another fit of pique—
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Lana snapped angrily to a Felicity angrily gathering up her books and slamming her locker door shut. “It’s not like I can read minds, you know! I saw you there with Zack after hearing that crap, what was I supposed to do, huh?”
“An apology might be a good idea,” Chelsea muttered at Lana as the blonde pursued Felicity down the hall toward the front doors and the bus the three of them shared…
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The destination of that particular Darius Allen bus was the rather upscale Snowden neighborhood of Valleyview Estates, an upper-middle-class aggregation of homes belonging to various professional and other white-collar families lying above the town proper with rolling green lawns and backyards shaded from the afternoon autumnal sun by a peppering of trees left from the old forests of Zed’s Mountain when the development had been built. The Hartmans, whose patriarch was a successful contractor in the nearby county seat of Center City, lived on Valleyview Drive. There too was the al-Fashir family, whose Egyptian-born patriarch was a well-regarded cardiologist and whose British-born matriarch was a professor of history and archaeology at the town’s pride and occasional joy Snowden State University; the O’Haras, a mixed family whose ex-cop criminalism-professor husband and attorney wife each brought a bright, intelligent seventeen-year-old daughter to the new family table; the Houselys, whose patriarch kept a lucrative position as an executive at Center City’s Jennings Industries and whose wife kept a beautifully-maintained home and two energetic and occasionally obstreperous ‘tween-age sons. And the Morgans of Timothy Morgan, M. D., lab director of the new Snowden State Research Center of MediChem Labs, Inc. And of course the Mabreys of Ken Mabrey, top financial advisor of Center City’s Allen Financial Services LLC.
The high school bus was not the first to arrive at Valleyview, as evidenced by the bustle of elementary and middle-school age youth along Valleyview Drive. Young Aisha al-Fashir, the bright sixth-grade daughter of the Doctors al-Fashir, was pedaling her bike up the gentle slope of Valleyview Drive under the watchful eye of her professor mother—Aisha was precociously learned, but far from athletic—alongside her near-neighbor and classmate Lisbeth Morgan, a charming young lady with much of her eldest sister’s looks and a distinct degree of her attitude. The Hartman children—sixth-grader Sammy and eighth-grader Skyler—were lounging on the Hartman front lawn enjoying the pleasantly unexpected warmth of the afternoon before attempting their homework. On the Mabrey front yard, fourth-grader Charity Mabrey—tall, slim, raven-haired like her two elder sisters, and even brighter than either of those two intelligent young women—was turning cartwheels with her two classmate friends Jilly Burton, the bespectacled class bookworm, and plump, pleasant strawberry-blonde Meredith Howland, youngest child of the town’s veterinarian. On the wide Housely front porch, Leslie Morgan, the brilliant but troubled middle daughter of Dr. Morgan’s brood, whose face was perhaps a trifle softer than Lana’s or Lisbeth’s but still charming even with the stylish new glasses concealing the deep green eyes she shared with her sisters and mother, sat on the step awaiting ninth-grader Jimmy’s arrival on the high-school bus and the chance to talk to her sometime boyfriend. And up in the spacious Housely back yard, eighth-graders Joey Housely and Serenity Mabrey were entertaining themselves…
Of all the remaining passengers on the high-school bus, none was more relieved to reach the Valleyview stop than Chelsea Parker, Felicity’s guest for the afternoon and evening. She had played the increasingly-harried referee for Lana and Felicity the entire way, scolding Lana for her precipitous leap to a false conclusion and Lissy for her disdain for Lana’s dignity, not to mention her thousand-and-first ‘blonde’ gibe. Lana and Lissy were still quite frosty with each other as the bus stopped…
And it would be a fine social opportunity missed. The upcoming weekend was of the three-day variety because of a Monday in-service day for the teachers, and on top of that bounty was the cherry-on-top bonus of seeing both the Mabrey and the Morgan parents away for the weekend. Mr. and Dr. Mabrey were folding a romantic getaway into a convention of the AAUW while Dr. and Mrs. Morgan were already on their way to a MediChem exhibition at the corporate headquarters. Had Lana and Lissy been on speaking terms, the weekend would have been one of great promise, despite Mrs. Housely’s and Mrs. Dr. al-Fashir’s promise to their neighbors and friends Hope Mabrey and Lainie Morgan to keep a close eye on the doings at the Mabrey and Morgan households. As it was, Chelsea Parker was hard put to keep Lana and Lissy from throwing a catfight instead of a party…
The high-schoolers spilled off the bus with a languid energy which was the hallmark of a warm Friday afternoon; seniors Hannah and Maggie O’Hara sharing senior-class gossip all the way into Chez O’Hara, freshman Jimmy to the front porch of his home to have another long talk with Leslie Morgan, and Lissy Mabrey and Lana Morgan arguing their way toward the Morgan house with Chelsea between them. Until something in the Housely back yard caught their eyes. Their first smiles of the afternoon boiled up to their lips as they ran toward a secluded tree in the Housely back yard—
Where Serenity Mabrey, looking trim in a thin black t-neck long-sleeve top and a short, tweedy rust-orange skirt, black tights and patent-leather mules on her long legs and shiny orange barrettes in her glossy raven locks accenting her smart autumnal outfit, stood with her back against its trunk. Her long slim arms were pinned behind the trunk at her back, and the black-orange theme of her appearance was ruined only by the white of the clothesline wrapped and knotted around her slender wrists and her long, coltish legs at ankles and knees. Her languid, smiling wriggles against the tree bespoke not a care in the world until—
“Oh-my-God!” Chelsea blurted at the scene before her, which made the languid young eighth-grader start in red-faced embarrassment—
Which Lissy, a huge, maleficent grin on her face, decided to stoke for her own personal enjoyment. With a chortling laugh, she clasped her hands behind her back, pulling her elbows tightly behind her as well, and wriggled in mock distress as her sister’s freckled face glowed in crimson humiliation. “Ooh, save me! Save me!” Lissy chortled in a damsel-in-distress falsetto as she wriggled in mock distress, borrowing youngest sister Charity’s frequent gibe at Serenity’s games with Joey. The gibe succeeded not only in embarrassing Serenity about her favorite game with Joey—humiliation enough in itself—but, with Felicity’s pulled-together elbows pushing out her chest in reflex, also wordlessly needling Serenity about her comparative lack of development compared to her sister. Felicity rarely passed up a chance to needle Serenity about having the flattest chest in the Snowden Middle eighth grade, if not the whole school… “Oh please Mr. Burglar,” Lissy continued to mock Serenity with her lilting, mocking falsetto, “please don’t forget to tie me up tight!”
“Shut up, Lissy,” Serenity muttered red-faced as she feverishly twisted her wrists free of Joey’s ropes.
Felicity had no such intention. She wriggled even more theatrically knowing that around a nearby corner, Joey was probably as embarrassed as Serenity. If not, Jimmy would work on it later, she decided… “Oh, Mr. Burglar,” she cooed loudly enough to reach her own front yard and her youngest sister, not to mention the Housely front porch, “I promise I won’t fight back while you tie me up tight and make me your prisoner of love!” Chelsea and Lana were snorting gales of laughter as Serenity freed her hands—
“I told you to shut up, Lissy!” Serenity yelled as she tugged shakily at the knots binding her knees together, wishing she could dissolve into the earth. “Or I’ll”—
“Ask Joey to tie you up even tighter?” Lana sniggered. “Please, Mister Kidnapper,” she mocked as Serenity’s trembling hands finally found the knots tying her knees together, “I don’t want to be able to run away, so please tie me all up nice and tight!” Now Leslie and Jimmy were there, grinning widely at Serenity’s distress—
“Lana,” Leslie rejoined with a smile significantly less malevolent than anyone else’s around the tree, “be nice. After all, they’re just playing!” Which brought an incisive snort from her elder sister—
“Oh, don’t even, Leslie!” Lana snorted haughtily. “ ‘Oh Jimmy,’” she mewled in a humid impersonation of Leslie’s reedy, somewhat nasal high-alto voice, “ ‘I just love playing terrorist-and-hostage with you! You tie me so wonderfully!’ You guys want to hear my recording of her?” Leslie’s own red face declared that she herself would rather not, but Lissy, finally mollified to her contretemps with Lana by the hilarious scene in the Housely back yard, chortled her agreement—
“Oh, don’t you either!” Serenity, finally free of her bonds, bawled at Felicity. “Where do you think Jimmy got so good at tying? ‘Please Jimmy,’” she mocked in her own turn to relieve her own mortification a small degree, “ ‘tie me to the chair. You like tying me to chairs, don’t you?’ You remember, Snotface?” Serenity for one remembered that particular scene clearly…
“I just didn’t want hogtied on the ground!” Lissy bawled back at her sister. “You make it sound like I like it like you do, you little pervert!”
“Pervert?” Serenity shouted back. “Just who was the one who met Chris Dunleavy at the boat dock every night at camp in a string bikini, huh? ‘Don’t wear anything hard to get out of, Lissy!’” There were certain difficulties attendant upon having two sisters working as CITs in the same Camp Evergreen cabin, particularly as regarded post-lights-out entertainment and personal secrets…
“Why, you sneaky little pervert, I’ll”—
“Well,” Lana snorted back a wet-eyed laugh, “that explains why you always walked funny in the mornings, Lissy”—
“You just shut your mouth, Lana Morgan!” Felicity fired back angrily. “Your swimsuit stayed awful dry when you went swimming with Zack Morton that night that”—
“Stop-right-now!” Chelsea halted the quickly-boiling classmates. “None of us were complete angels at camp, so just stop it!” Certain evenings with her boyfriend Colby Burns kept Chelsea from being too pious about the matter…
“But she”—Lana and Lissy protested simultaneously.
“Shut it!” Chelsea commanded, her blue eyes glinting with an idea. “If you guys can shut up a minute, I know how you guys can settle this argument!” She grabbed her two classmates and pulled them to her. Everyone else tried to hear as she whispered to Lissy and Lana…
“I will if she will,” Lissy glared.
“And I will if she will,” Lana agreed mulishly.
“All of you,” Chelsea asserted. “You two and all your sisters. That’ll get it all out of all your systems!” She turned commandingly to Serenity and Leslie, Lisbeth and Charity. “All of you to Lana’s house. We’re settling these fights once and for all.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Four Mabrey and Morgan sisters sat on the spacious Morgan living-room sofa while the three eldest of the group—Chelsea, Felicity, and Lana—settled the details.
“It’s like this,” Chelsea explained. “If Lissy wins, Lana has to apologize in public for accusing Lissy of lying about her. If Lana wins, Lissy has to apologize in public to Lana for making blonde jokes about her. If you guys want to make your own side bets, go ahead.”
“Wait a minute!” Lisbeth protested. “I don’t get the game!”
Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Okay, again. It’s you, Leslie, and Lana against Felicity, Serenity, and Charity. You play all weekend until your parents get home. The side that captures and ties up all the sisters on the other side wins. If neither side catches all of the other, the one that has the most of the other side tied up by the time your parents get home wins. If anyone gets loose, they don’t count. You only win when you have all three of the others tied up at the same time.”
“Sort of like that game of capture-the-flag we did at camp the night before the campers got there,” Serenity snickered, not at all displeased by either game. The Camp Evergreen counselors had created their own version of capture-the-flag that tended to put greater emphasis upon capturing the other team’s counselors than capturing their flag, as the smile bubbling up on Leslie’s lips made clear she remembered fondly…
“If you surrender as soon as we start this time,” Lana warned her sister harshly, remembering Leslie’s behavior in that well-remembered game, “I’ll make you so sorry, you’ll never want to be tied up again!”
The idea of throwing the game in order to enjoy being tied up made Charity’s eyes narrow suspiciously on Serenity. Felicity too had her suspicions of her sister… “What?” Serenity blurted, seeing the hard stares at her. “You think I’m letting any of those guys tie me up?” Not noticing the sly smile forming on Lana Morgan’s face…
“Anyhow,” Chelsea pronounced, “the game starts at eight tonight, so you guys all have time to eat supper and stuff. May the best kidnappers win!” Leaving no room for further debate, she immediately left the Morgan house and headed down their front stoop—
“So that’s it?” Chelsea was asked as soon as she was off the Morgan front porch. Hannah and Maggie, intrigued by the afternoon entertainment on Valleyview Drive and bored by the day’s gossip, had invited themselves along with Chelsea, and followed her out onto the road, and Hannah had been grinning at the whole affair. “No tricks or anything?”
“I didn’t say that,” Chelsea grinned covertly as she strolled in the general direction of the Mabrey house where dinner and homework awaited, but with her eyes on the house beside it.
“Isn’t it cheating to let the Housely boys play too?” Hannah, a slender, bespectacled blonde with intelligent hazel eyes glittering mischievously in the late-afternoon sunlight, giggled. “That’d make it five against three!” Knowing the affinity Jimmy and Joey had for tying up Felicity and Serenity…
“Unless we get to play too,” Maggie of the dancer’s build and sparkling wavy black hair and dark southern-Italian eyes winked. “That’d make it even. Five on five.”
“Oh it gets even better than that,” Chelsea grinned as she pulled away from the O’Hara sisters and fairly skipped to the Housely domicile…
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Welcome to Snowden! Enter at your own risk...
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Mister Mistoffelees's stories
- 01 - A Bind of My Own Making: All Grown Up in Archives for Adults
- 02 - A Bind of my Own Making (m/f)
- 03 - The Family Feud (m/f, m+f+/m+f+)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section