Not Exactly Allies

by Kathryn Judson

CHAPTER 48 – COME MORNING

  Just after dawn, Dennis Uppington was trying to ride herd on two ravenous street boys without waking anyone else. It felt odd to be at work in another man's kitchen with strange young foreigners watching his every move, but breakfast seemed very much in order.

  "We washed, remember?" Conan said, aggrieved that he'd been made to scrub before heading to breakfast. "What's the hold-up now?"

  "We're starved," Mauger said. "Starved. Even more starved than when we got up. Seems like hours ago. What's the deal?"

  "The deal," Dennis said, in French tainted with English, "is that I'm getting my bearings yet. Drink your orange juice. You won't die whilst I figure out the local pots, pans, utensils, storage arrangements, eatables, cutlery, dishes, and menu. Not to mention the cooking apparatus."

  Mauger and Conan looked at each other. "I think he's trying to be cute," Conan said.

  "I didn't get to sleep until quite late, and I'm staggered. Give me a break," Dennis said.

  "Not a morning person. Definitely," Mauger said, with authority. He looked at the orange juice in his cup. "Are you sure men drink this slop?" he asked.

  "Drink it or wear it," Dennis said. In undiluted French.

  "I will excuse you on the grounds that you are not awake," Mauger said, magnanimously. Having declared himself not the least cowed, he nevertheless set about drinking his juice posthaste.

  Vincent came stumbling in. He sidled next to Mauger to whisper in his ear.

  "He can't find a toilet," Mauger said.

  Conan rolled his eyes, but jumped up and gently led Vincent to the bathroom. When they came back, Conan was swaggering. "Got him to wash up," Conan said. "Had to sit on him first, but he washed." Conan shot a look at Dennis that mixed triumph with defiance. Before he could expand on his theme, he noticed movement behind him. Lancelot was tiptoeing around, cautiously peeking in doors. Conan called out to him, "Hey, did you lose something?"

  Lancelot stood up straight. "No. I was just doing recon. That's all."

  "How's Vincent?" Conan asked.

  "Fine, last time I checked," Lancelot said.

  "You stink as a sentry," Conan said.

  Vincent started to call out, but Mauger clamped a hand over his mouth.

  Lancelot came into the kitchen, saw Vincent, and proclaimed, "I knew he was here, you imbeciles. Why else did you think I felt free to go do recon?"

  "Sit down and have something to eat," Dennis said.

  "He hasn't washed yet," Conan and Mauger said at the same time. Leaving Vincent under Dennis's eye, they hauled Lancelot screaming to the bathroom.

  The screaming scared Janice out of a fitful sleep. She stumbled out of her room and scrambled to Dennis's. Finding it empty, she called out to him, with occasional scared yelps for Vincent and Lancelot (who hadn't asked permission to leave her sight).

  "We're down here!" Dennis called, trying to keep his voice down but make it carry at the same time. "In the kitchen!"

  Vincent didn't like the shouting or being separated from his buddies. He whimpered. Whimpering proved insufficient. He screamed at the top of his lungs for Lancelot.

  Hippo stuck his head cautiously out the door of the room he'd shared all night with his patient. After taking stock of the situation, he walked to the kitchen, Janice on his heels hanging onto his bathrobe.

  "Good morning, Uppington," Hippo said. "Do we have a problem, or just a lot of noise?"

  "I… I'm sorry," Dennis said, trying to cook, reassure Vincent, and talk to his host at the same time. "I think our visitors are just a bit disoriented this morning."

  The older boys came back. They glared at Hippo. "He made us wash," Mauger told him.

  "Quite right. No one eats here without cleaning up first," Hippo said. "Them's the rules."

  "Well, I don't mind washing if everyone else has to," Conan announced.

  "What's everyone saying?" Janice asked.

  "Have some coffee?" Dennis asked. "Hugh bought organic, just for you."

  Hippo bet himself that Richard had bought Janice overpriced coffee, probably shipped into the country by a corrupt co-op with a world-class PR department and staggering administrative costs, simply to make life easier on everyone who lived with Janice. But to say so would undermine the good deed. He went to reassure the chief that the turmoil was nothing more or less than having a pack of children in the house. Then he dragged back to the kitchen to oversee operations. Seeing from the doorway that Dennis had enlisted Janice's help, and figuring they needed practice at being domestic, he detoured for a peek out various windows (all quiet, thank goodness), then shuffled wearily back to bed. It had been a long night, and it promised to be a long day.

  -

  Somewhat before eleven, Dennis happened to peek out the back window and saw a couple walking away in the cow pasture. He called a general alarm and ran around looking for binoculars.

  Hippo looked out, and called off the alarm. "It's just Richard and Emma," he said. "And they'd have called if they needed help or wanted us to keep our heads down."

  "I got a question," Conan said.

  "Just one?" Dennis asked, having answered approximately a thousand and a half questions (by his estimation) during the course of the morning.

  "Very funny," Conan said. "But, seriously, what's a guy like my guy The Brains doing with a woman like he went out with last night, when he's got a hot young thing of a wife? Is he crazy, or just insatiable or what?"

  "What's he saying?" Janice asked.

  "Don't ask," said Dennis.

  "You ask The Brains. We don't dare answer that one," Hippo said.

  "I don't blame you," Conan said. "My guy's tough."

  "You're just jealous of my guy Carterson," Mauger said.

  "They did this all night," Dennis said.

  "Did what?" Janice asked.

  "Argued," Dennis said.

  "That's not nice. You should have stopped them," Janice said.

  Dennis opted to not get drawn into that conversation. He took another look out back. "What in the world are they doing?" he asked.

  Hippo took another peek. "Helping each other over the stile, it looks like," he said.

  "But they went over it and back again, back and forth, genteel-like, like they were rehearsing for a play or something," Dennis said.

  "Probably were, in a manner of speaking," Hippo said.

  "Now what? He's twirling her like they're dancing?… Oh, never mind," Dennis said, hastily shutting the curtain.

  That got the boys over.

  "Oh, they're kissing, that's all," Mauger said. "My guy would kiss better, I'll bet you."

  "Would not," Conan said.

  "Would too."

  "What are they doing walking over stiles for no reason anyway?" Janice asked, forcing the conversation back to English. "I thought Ms. Hugh was disabled. She uses a cane, you know. Shouldn't she be taking it easy?"

  "Mrs. Hugh prefers being called Mrs. Hugh, for starters," Hippo said, politely but firmly. "And she manages to get about so well because she makes a point of getting about as much as possible, to keep up her stamina and flexibility and strength. She's diligent about her exercises, too, same reasons. She's got twice as much reason to limp as you do, young lady, but she opts to overcome it as much as possible, which places her in the stronger-than-the-average-couch-potato disabled class. As for the going over stiles and dancing in meadows, the pair out there very much love one other, and aren't afraid of saying so, verbally or physically. I wish you the same happiness someday, but I'm not holding my breath until you learn to unbend a bit."

  "You're a sexist pig," Janice said.

  "Go look in a mirror for that," Hippo said.

  "That's not fair," Janice whined.

  "I get along with most people. Do you?" Hippo asked.

  Conan was plastered to the window. "My guy knows how to pick women," he proclaimed.

  "I'm almost afraid to ask," Hippo said, matching French to French.

  "That lady's sexier tha
n she looks," Conan said.

  "I knew I should have kept my mouth shut," Hippo said to Dennis.

  "I'm trying to be invisible over here, if you hadn't noticed," Dennis said.

  "Smart man," Hippo said.