Jenna knew riding
the bus would be unpleasant, but she was totally unprepared for the pungent
aroma that now pummeled her senses. With furrowed brows and wriggling nose, she
turned her head from side to side, searching out the offending odor that seemed
to be all around her at once. That’s when she noticed the scruffy gentleman
sitting next to her. He wore a beat-up olive-green army jacket and a navy blue
toboggan pulled down to his ears. His face was black with a combination of dirt
and five o’clock shadow. Jenna leaned in close and sniffed.
“You stink,” she said.
Far from taking
exception, the man flashed a broad, toothy smile tinged with yellow and
something green between the lower incisors. But it wasn’t his teeth that struck
Jenna dumb(er), but his eyes. They were so… brown. They reminded her of that
song, “Brown-eyed girl,” but in Jenna’s mind, where she now heard the chorus,
the word girl had been replaced with boy. “You’re my brown-eyed boy,” she
mumbled breathlessly.
“I am?” The man
asked.
“Oh… um. Not you,”
Jenna hurried to conceal her thoughts. “I certainly didn’t mean you. I was thinking about
this other stinky, brown-eyed boy I know. I don’t know why I thought of him.
He’s nothing like you.”
“The name’s Hunk.
Hunk Stormdrain.”
“Oh my,” Jenna
said. She touched her heart, which was suddenly beating madly. She began to
feel faint.
Hunk leaned
forward and spat in a paper cup.
Jenna took the
opportunity to recover her bearings. “And what do you do, Mr. Stormdrain,” she
asked.
“You’re lookin’ at
it, Princess.”
“You’re a
professional spitter?”
“For a time. For a
time. Now I mostly ride The Hound from one end of the country to the other.
Then, I hop on another bus and ride the other way.”
“You live on a
bus?”
“Yep. Extravagant,
ain’t it?” He wiped a bit of tobacco juice off the corner of his mouth with his
sleeve.
“Ew,” said Jenna,
her voice somehow combining disgust with overt longing.
“Yep. It’s the
life all right, but I can afford it. You’d be surprised how much money falls
out of people’s pockets while they’re asleep. ‘Course, I do other things when
I’m short on funds. I make trades with the drivers. Change tires, oil, that
sort of thing.”
“Did you say you
change the oil?”
“Yes’m.”
Jenna held her
breath and leaned in close. “I don’t suppose you have any secrets about that do
you, Mr. Stormdrain?”
“Nope. I’m an open
book.”
“Oh.”
Jenna was dazzled
by that smile of his, and also by his exotic lifestyle. For the first time in
several hours, Jenna began to consider what her life might be like if she
didn’t return to the post office. Sure, Hunk didn’t have the money and the
power that Postmaster Koop J had, but he did have most of his teeth. At that
moment, she came to an important albeit impulsive decision.
“Oh, Hunk. I’m
coming with you. I want to ride The Hound with you.”
“What’s
that?” Hunk held a cupped hand up to his
ear, but it was no use. He was deaf in
that ear.
“Oh, I don’t care
what people think. I don’t even care how smelly you are—although we’ll be sure
to take care of that at the next rest stop—the important thing is that I love
you.”
“Look, lady. I’m
not really interes-” At that moment, Hunk’s words were cut off by Jenna’s
tongue, which had entered his mouth. He struggled momentarily, but Jenna’s grip
around his torso was too strong. As the greyhound roared down the highway,
Hunk’s muffled protests were drowned out by sound of the engine. Within a few
miles, Hunk decided to go with the flow. Long ago, he had given up on trying to
predict the future. There was only one thing he knew about the future: that it
was full of secrets. What he didn’t know
was that some of those secrets could be very oily.
More Oiliness:
Chapter
1 Chapter
2 Chapter
3 Chapter
4 Chapter
5 Chapter
6 Review
of Novel-in-Progress Chapter
7 Chapter
8
Dinosaur Ghost:
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