Kyle awoke to a strange scratching sound that simply wouldn’t quit.  “Scritch scritch scritch..”  Whatever it was, it wasn’t far from his head.  Groggily, he tried to rub his eyes, but an odd weight was pressing down on his left shoulder and arm.

“Don’t move,” someone commanded, and something rapped him across the bridge of his nose hard enough to sting.

“What the…” he started to ask what was going on, but got rapped across the bridge of the nose once more for his trouble.  

“Hush, and hold still!”  He was awake enough now to tell that it was Fanny who was bossing him around in the middle of the night.  “You’ll wake her, if you’re not careful, and then I can’t finish!”

Wake her?  Finish?  Kyle slowly rubbed his good eye with his right hand, wary not to get smacked across the nose again, and slowly glanced over to his right.  Fanny was standing at the side of his bed, hovering over him all creepily stalkerish, and furiously sketching or scribbling in a notepad.  Kyle had no clue what the heck she was doing; this was weird even for Fanny; and slowly he turned his head to see what was holding down his left arm.

With his left eye still bandaged up, he was having trouble turning his head far enough to see without moving his body, but he did manage to catch a faint whiff of cherry blossoms.  Suddenly his mind connected the dots and he was fully awake!

Sera had come to his room last night, and they’d sat up and talked until late. At some point, their conversations started taking a bit longer for each person to respond as they were both tired from the long hours they’d spent staying up and playing with everyone all weekend, and eventually they must have fallen to sleep.  

The weight on his arm must be Sera snuggled up against him, and Fanny was probably sketching their profile so she could turn him in to the police, or show Franklin and have him neutered, or something else horrible.  A few beads of sweat started to form on his forehead from his rising nervousness, and Fanny inhaled her breath quite sharply.  

“That’s good!  Oh!  That’s real good,” she encouraged.  “A little more of that, if you can!  This is perfect!”

Oh….

Hell…..

He was getting encouragement from Sera’s mother – he had no idea what for, but it couldn’t be anything good in a situation like this!  His mouth dried out almost instantly, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as even larger beads of sweat formed and started to cover his forehead.  

“Pssst!”  Kyle tried to blow some air out of the corner of his mouth, to try and wake Sera, but unfortunately she had always been a deep sleeper.  “Sera….  Hey….  Sera…”  Praying for a miracle, he whispered her name lightly, but to no use.  The scribbling, if anything, got even faster and more frantic sounding.

Trying to swallow back a lump in his throat, Kyle was going to try and ask Fanny what was going on, but then loud, firm, footsteps stomped up the steps and his mind went blank and he froze.  Only one person sounded like that, and that was Franklin.  Praying for the best, he tightly shut his eyes and tried to look innocent.  

‘O please, oh please, let me keep my wang through this,” he prayed silently in his head.  “Anything!  Oh, goodness, anything but that!”

Some God out there must have heard his prayer because the sound of many feet were stomping quickly up the steps now!  Thank you Lord!  At this point, he didn’t care if the cops arrested Franklin, or if he was the one arrested, just so long as it was before he was neutered!  ‘Play innocent!  Play innocent!’, he repeated to himself.

The sound of footsteps stomped down the hall, and suddenly the light in his room flared into life with no warning.  “WAKE UP!”  Franklin boomed at them both, and suddenly icy cold water splashed across both him and Sera, drenching them and everything else in his bed.

“Waaahhhh!!”  Kyle couldn’t help but jerk upright from the sudden shock, and Sera did the same, gasping and sputtering.

“Wha…   Wher….   Huh?”  Her baffled almost questions, mirrored how Kyle felt completely.

“Take this!”  Franklin poked something hard into his chest, and by reflex Kyle grabbed it.  Something small, hard, and cold was dropped into his hands.

“And this is yours,” a strange woman’s voice said, stretching and holding a box and a large bouquet of flowers over to Sera.

The room was packed full of people.  There was Fanny and his mother off to the side.  Fanny was still scribbling insanely, and his mother looked like she was going to cry while holding a wad of crumpled tissues in her hands.  Three other women were crammed over against the window, while Franklin blocked the door with his massive frame.  Some old man with tussled bed hair and some sort of white robes was now standing by the bed holding a book of some sort.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“What’s going on?” Kyle whispered shakily.

“YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED!”  Franklin yelled at him loud enough to shake the rafters.  “YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT, AND WE DON’T TAKE REFUNDS!”

“Ma..  Maa…”  Kyle couldn’t even get the word out.

“Married?”  Sera finished with a whisper.

“YOU!”  Franklin pointed a massive finger over to the man in front of the bed.  “START!  They got the flowers.  They got the rings.  And I got my fists!  We’re all ready.”

Letting out a large gulp, the man paled slightly and started, “Dear guests, we’re gathered here tonight to….”

“SKIP THAT JUNK!”  Franklin demanded.  “GET TO THE DOS OR BLUES!”  He popped his knuckles to show what he meant, as if anyone had even the smallest doubt!

“Do you…  umm boy.. “ The priest obviously didn’t know his name, but he went on anyway after glancing back once at Franklin.  

“.. take this girl…”  Franklin growled lightly, and the priest quickly changed what he was saying.  “… this fine and upstanding young woman to be your wife?”

“HE DOES!”  Franklin answered for him.

Gulping loudly, the priest then asked, “And do you, young lady, take this man to be your husband?”

The room was silent for a moment, and Franklin growled deep in his chest.  “I.. I do?”  Sera questioned.

“Then, by the power invested in me by the state, I can inform you that you’ve now been punked.  You may not kiss the bride.”

Blinking, and half in a daze, Kyle and Sera both leaned in for the kiss, but were stopped when Franklin suddenly yanked Kyle out of the bed with one arm and unceremoniously dropped him onto the ground at the priest’s feet.  

“Don’t you listen boy?”  He half yelled.  “He said you may NOT kiss the bride.  We got ya!”  All at once he burst out into a loud guffaw, and laughter echoed from everyone else in the room.

Kyle just blinked blankly, trying to sort out what the heck had just happened, while Sera got up and beat her father left and right with the bouquet of flowers. “You… You…  You…!!”  She was so angry she couldn’t seem to finish her sentence.  Flower petals flew everywhere, and scattered to the ground in a wild dappling of colors.

“Out!  OUT!  OUT!”  Sera yelled and stomped on her father’s large foot, causing him to laugh even harder.  “The next one’s gonna be yer balls!” She yelled as she drew back her foot and Franklin turned and ran out of the room.   Still swinging what was left of the flowers, Sera chased out after him.  “Come back here and die,” she screamed as she chased him down the steps.

After a few moments, the sound of Sera’s wild pursuit of Franklin died down as they must’ve ran outside from the sound of it.  The laughter continued for a few more moments with everyone else in the room, before Kyle’s mother finally starting shooing people out with large sweeping motions of her hands.  “Shoo!  Shoo!  Time to go!”  The three women and the priest, who Kyle didn’t know at all, let themselves be herded out and down the steps.

“Best lesson ever for a boy his age,” he heard one of the women saying.  When they were all gone, Kyle was left alone, still lost and befuddled, with no clue as to what had just happened.  The only sound was the slight drop of water falling onto the floors, and frantic scribbling come from where Fanny still wrote furiously in the corner of the room.

Looking down, in his hand, Kyle finally noticed the black box in his hand.   Slowly opening it, there was a wad of red cotton in the bottom of it, and a single small piece of folded paper.  Taking it out, he unfolded it with numb fingers and slowly read the message scribbled there.

“Next time, don’t get caught.

Love,

Mom.

XOXOXOXXO”

Slowly, Kyle folded the paper back up, put it back in the box, and shut the lid.  Softly walking over, he gently pushed Fanny to the side and sat the box down on top of his dresser. Opening his dresser drawers, he pulled out a clean pair of sweatpants and draped them across Fanny’s left shoulder, using her to hold them while he stripped out of all his soaking wet clothes.  Naked, he finally grabbed the sweatpants back off Fanny’s shoulder and walked out of his room and into the upstairs bath for a hot shower.

Fanny was still scribbling frantically away in the corner…