Weekly Wordzzle 126

As Bart Simpson might say, Ay, Caramba!  This week's just flown past, taking the two or three ideas I had for other posts with it.  Been a busy weekend too, hence the lateness of this post - well, that and the fact I couldn't figure out what to do with the words, LOL.

Go to Raven's Nest for other players' writings and next week's words.

The Mini (lawn mower, sheets and towels, smashed, bookcase, pinky finger)

My little finger? Oh that! You Americans call it the pinky finger, don’t you? Yes, it’s been like that since, hmm, let me see, since I was about six, I think. My big brother ran over my hand with the lawn mower and broke it – the finger, I mean, not the lawn mower, that would be silly, wouldn’t it? All the little bones were smashed up pretty thoroughly, I can tell you. I remember running into the house, screaming my little head off and my mother was very angry at first because she thought I was being silly. But when she saw the blood – and there was quite a lot of it - she just fainted on the spot, knocking over that very bookcase and leaving me to look after myself. Well, I’d seen on the television that you were meant to put bandages on things like this, so I went to the airing-cupboard, yes, this one here as a matter of fact, but all the sheets and towels were far too big, of course. So I searched a bit more and managed to find something a bit smaller. Just then, mother woke up again and rushed me straight off to the hospital. When the doctor unwrapped my hand, though, he had a very strange look on his face, like he was trying not to laugh. My makeshift bandage was none other than a pair of my mother’s pink lacy knickers. She was mortified! Aah, she doesn’t even know who I am nowadays, of course, poor old stick, but she still remembers those knickers, bless her! Now, through here, we have the master bedroom….

The 10-Worder (charm, judge, flowers, mixed nuts, earthquake, politics, sugar and spice, bricks and mortar, neurosurgeon, blinking lights, plastic bag)

New to Harold? The story so far is here.

“Mr Jackson, we’d like to take you up on your offer – or at least some of it anyway,” said Mercury.

“OK,” rumbled the big man, “What do you need?”

“We’d like a place to work from, somewhere private where we won’t be disturbed – preferably with an internet connection.”

Mr Teeth produced a small note book and began writing. “Anything else?”

“That’s it for now, but we might need an extra car later, maybe if that’s alright.”

“OK, then,” Mr teeth said, tearing a page out of the notebook and holding it out to Mercury, “Go to this address, It’s my own place and it’s plenty big enough for all of us. Now I have some business to attend to, so I’ll meet you there when I’m done - in about an hour. Key’s in a plastic bag in the pond – look for the mermaid statue.”

“OK ,” said Mercury , “and thanks, your help is much appreciated.”

Mr Teeth grunted acknowledgement and left.

“So, not only are we working with demons, we’ve taken up with criminals now as well?” India had been against accepting Mr Teeth’s help from the start

“Agent India,” said Mercury. There was just a hint of a snap in his voice and his use of her formal title caused her mouth to shut with an almost audible snap. “We’ve been through this and, as squad leader, I am making this decision and I will take responsibility for it.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Look, we’re all still tired. Let’s get packed up and get out of here as soon as we can.”

“Ooh, I think your charm must be working at last, old sock,” whispered Teatime gleefully, “You apparently rank slightly above the local criminal fraternity now – a step up, if I’m any judge.”

“Well, it had to happen sooner or later,” grinned Harold. “What with me being so irresistible and all.”

-0-0-0-

Dr Evangeline Flowers quickly scanned the document Haynes was holding out to her and scrawled her signature on the bottom. She sighed as he took the clipboard back and walked away. Was this what her life had come to? Scribbling on documents and organising the movement of boxes, crates and tanks?

It hadn’t always been like this, of course. She’d never been a ‘sugar and spice, all things nice’ kind of girl – had only ever wanted to be a neurosurgeon like her beloved father. She’d done well enough at med school to get an internship in a good teaching hospital – she’d even made Resident there and was looking at Attending in a couple of years, hospital politics permitting.

Then she’d slipped over on – of all the stupid things - some mixed nuts she’d spilt in her own kitchen, and had broken her arm, broken it badly enough to cause permanent nerve damage, leaving her right hand just a bit less sensitive and precise than the left. Not a big injury and, for anyone else, not even an inconvenience, really, but it was an earthquake of magnitude ten toppling the bricks and mortar of her ambition. Unable to bear the thought of having to start over in some other specialism, she’d turned to research. She’d done well at that too, and had found it fascinating in its own way - there were, after all, still plenty of diseases out there that needed to be conquered or at least understood properly.

She hadn’t been able to believe her luck when she’d got the call. Her own lab, her own staff and a budget she’d only been able to dream of before. All this to do pure research into why certain people had certain abilities and how they might be replicated technologically. That’s what they had told her, anyway.

And it was sort of true, she supposed. She cast a practised eye over the row of blinking lights on the side of tank three – all nominal.

Only the ’people’ hadn’t exactly been people.