Penny & Squirt: A Love Story

by T. M. Haught

  Jonah shook his head ‘no’ in earnest. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I’m serious,” Penny told him, but still cracked a smile. “When I’m with you, Jonah, especially when we’re doing it, the last thing I want to hear is a word that reminds me of my dad. Major buzz kill! Know what I mean?”

  “Understood,” said Jonah. “You don’t remind me at all of a pumpkin, anyway. More like a sexy fairy tale princess.”

  “Okay, then. I like that.” She uncovered her sandwich and picked up half of it. “Is there anything your mom calls you that I should avoid?”

  He thought about it. “Not really. Sometimes she calls me ‘dear,’ but that’s pretty generic.”

  “I’ll avoid it anyway,” she said.

  They began eating and were silent for awhile, just enjoying their food and each other’s company and listening to the kitchen radio that was playing in the background. Then Penny’s expression turned serious as she gazed off into space.

  “What do you think it will be like when we go back to school Wednesday?” she said.

  Jonah frowned a bit at the thought, too. “Dunno. I wish we could just kinda sneak in unnoticed and do our normal routine, without any fuss. But I know that won’t happen.”

  “Yeah,” said Penny.

  “The main thing is, as long as you’re safe, I don’t care what else happens.”

  Penny smiled. “Oh, I don’t think anyone will mess with me, now. Not unless they want to incur the wrath of ‘Ninja Nerd’! I might have to protect you, though.”

  “Huh?” Jonah gave her a puzzled look.

  “From some of the girls there,” Penny explained. “One of them might want to steal you from me.”

  Jonah grinned. “Fat chance of that.”

  “Yeah, well, just let one try,” Penny said with a smirky smile. She made a fist and waved it meaningfully, then laughed.

  “One Punch Penny,” Jonah said appreciatively. “You sure kayoed Tiffany.”

  Penny took a sip of cola. “She had it coming. Guess the team is going to be one cheerleader short of a full squad, now.”

  “One quarterback short, too,” said Jonah. “We may not be too popular with some folks there.”

  Penny sighed. “Yeah. I know. Well, at least we’ve got each other.”

  “Always.”

  “Maybe I’ll call Isabel later,” Penny said. “She can tell me what’s going on at the school and if things have cooled down, like the principal hoped they would.”

  They continued to eat their lunch in silence, each lost in thought. Then after they had finished their sandwiches and had a couple of brownies for dessert, Penny suddenly turned to Jonah with a curious look.

  “Well, we explored the mystery bathroom, especially that great tub,” she said brightly. “Is there anyplace else in the house that I haven’t seen?”

  Jonah shrugged. “I don’t think you want to see the basement. It’s pretty icky. And then there’s the attic.”

  “Attic?” said Penny. “Wait a minute, I thought our rooms were in the attic.”

  “Our rooms are on the third floor,” he replied. “But on the other side of the hall, across from our rooms, is a space that we use for storage. It’s kinda like an attic.”

  “I don’t remember seeing a door across from our rooms.”

  “It’s around the corner,” Jonah said. “Close to the stairs.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “After we do the lunch dishes, will you show it to me?”

  “Sure.”

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Jonah went out to check the mailbox after they had finished the lunch dishes, then they made their way up to the third floor. But instead of going their usual path down the hallway toward their rooms, they angled the other way to the corner of the hall along a narrow corridor. The door that stood there was in a shadowy portion of the wall and hard to notice unless you were looking for it. Jonah approached it with Penny close behind him. He pulled out his keycase and found the key for the lock, quietly twisted it in the keyhole and heard the latch click. He turned the knob and opened the door.

  “I’m not sure why we keep this one locked,” he said. “But we usually do.”

  Penny looked intrigued, but also as if she might be having second thoughts about this little adventure. “Hope there’s nothing creepy in there,” she said.

  “No, just old stuff,” he told her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Still….”

  “Hey, you found a secret panel between our closets, so who knows?” Jonah said. “That worked out great.”

  Jonah reached in and flipped the light switch on the wall just inside the doorway. The light fixtures were nothing fancy in this room, just a couple of bare bulbs hanging from short cords that reached down from the ceiling. A decent amount of light came in through the dormer windows that matched those on the front of the old house’s mansard roof, although these window panes looked a bit dusty and greasy compared to the ones in their bedrooms. Unlike the bedroom area, this space was fully open and not divided by interior walls.

  There were a number of pieces of old furniture, some that looked like real antiques, some wooden crates and stacks of cardboard boxes, an old hat rack, a dress maker’s dummy and a few mystery objects that were covered with gray tarps. There were no wall panels covering the structural parts of the house, so the bare wood siding and vertical two by fours were visible.

  Penny took it all in. “Reminds me a little of the attic in the Haunted Mansion.”

  “Yeah,” said Jonah. “But no audioanimatronic ghosts here.”

  “Swell,” said Penny, glancing around nervously. “How about real ones?”

  Jonah shrugged. “I’ve never seen any.” He noticed the edgy look in her eyes and took hold of her hand to give it a reassuring squeeze. “Relax. There’s no ghosts. And no annoying speaker guys to bust us, either.” He winked.

  “That’s nice,” said Penny. “Not that I’d want to get frisky up here.”

  “You never know,” Jonah said as they passed a dresser with its upright mirror and a wardrobe. “Take a look at that---”

  He indicated an old brass bed that looked as old as the house itself, beautifully crafted but now tarnished and greatly in need of polishing. The mattress on it was gray and dusty, and cobwebs filled the gaps between some of the uprights.

  Penny made a face. “Major icky, Jonah. Maybe if I was a Goth girl I could go for that. But I doubt it.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I agree. The one in your room is much nicer.”

  As they neared the far end of the storage area they came upon a permanent ladder that reached from the floor up to the ceiling at a slight angle. Both the vertical supports and the steps were made of wood that was as dark and old as the structure of the house itself.

  “Wait a minute,” said Penny. “If we’re in the attic, on the top floor, then what’s up there?”

  Jonah shrugged. “The roof. Wanna take a peek?”

  “Maybe.”

  He led the way up the steps and worked a couple of latches when he reached the top. As he pushed up on the panel there the old hinges squeaked. He raised it all the way, letting in sunlight and fresh air from the outside. He climbed on up through the opening, then turned and reached out to help Penny up as well.

  The next minute, they were both standing on the flat roof of the old Victorian house. Since the mansard walls were slanted in slightly, the area was a little smaller in square feet than the floor of the third story. The entire surface was well covered with tarpaper and tar, with drain holes in the four corners leading to downspouts. There was a low wall about a foot high running around the entire area, surmounted by a decorative metal spike row.

  “Wow,” said Penny, looking around in awe as the breeze rustled her long hair. “That attic is spooky, but this is worth the trip. I can see the whole neighborhood from up here. This is the tallest house around.”

  “Yep,” Jonah agreed. “You should see it at night time. Nothing but stars ove
rhead.”

  “Hmmm…” Penny said. “That must be a sight.”

  “Well, ready to go back downstairs?”

  “I guess we’d better,” she replied.

  They returned through the opening and Jonah secured the hatch with its waterproof edging, then they worked their way back through the attic space and turned the lights off before closing the door and locking it. Jonah made a brief detour to his room to get his backpack of textbooks, then the two of them took the front stairs back to the first floor and the living room, where their laptops waited.

  “Thanks for showing me that, Jonah,” Penny said. “Guess we should get the homework done now. We have plenty of time before my dad gets back with your mom.”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said with a sigh. “We probably have the rest of the assignments in our emails by now, too. And I still want to finish that project. Work, work, work.”

  She sat down on the sofa next to him and flashed him a coy look. “Our day hasn’t been all work, Mister.”

  Jonah smiled, remembering their bathtub adventure, and the backrub. “You’re right.”

  “And after you get all that done, we still have tonight to look forward to,” Penny reminded him….

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Dinner was at 7:30 in the dining room. Robert had returned with Rebecca around 6:15 and after settling in Rebecca had put together a beef casserole and Penny and Jonah had helped fixing the salad. Once the food had been placed on the table and they took their usual seats, the four of them began to eat and compare notes.

  “Well,” said Rebecca, “did you two have fun today?”

  Jonah swallowed quickly. “If you can call homework fun.” He decided to change the subject. “How was it at Myri-Sinclair? Nice place to work?”

  Rebecca gave a little shrug. “Not bad, as corporate offices go. It’s a medium-sized pharmaceutical company, so the typing I was doing was all word processing documents about various pills and other products to be used in brochures and fact-sheets. The sort of thing their sales reps will send out to doctors and other medical professionals.”

  Penny made a face. “Doesn’t sound too exciting.”

  “There are worse jobs,” said Rebecca. “Believe me. And it looks like I’ll be there tomorrow, too, since the person I’m filling in for will be out for another day. Do you mind?”

  “It’s okay,” said Penny. “You gotta do what you gotta do. More carpooling?”

  “We may as well,” said Rebecca. “It does save gas.”

  Penny smiled knowingly. “Do you want me to pack you a lunch in the morning?”

  “Or I can,” Rebecca told her. “We can play it by ear.”

  Robert sat down his glass after taking a sip. “Oh, before I forget…” He reached in his pocket and brought out a thumb-sized flash drive, then placed it on the table near Jonah. “Here’s the data you might need for your science fair project on the cell phone signal booster. There’s no sensitive info here that my company would be uncomfortable about having you see, just some basic statistics on range, both indoors and outdoors, the tower relay systems, frequencies, some simple schematics and whatnot. And as soon as you’ve made your design and are ready for the electronic parts, just let me know.”

  Jonah brightened and picked up the flash drive. “Great! Thank you so much.”

  “Keep in mind,” Robert added, “there have been some commercially manufactured cell phone signal boosters before, and some are still on the market, so the science fair judges may take that into account when grading your project.”

  “Yes, sir, I know,” said Jonah. “But the ones out there are pretty expensive and are all designed at the factory to match only one or two cell phone providers’ signals. I have a few new ideas on how to improve on that.”

  “Good,” said Robert with an approving nod. “So Jonah, tell me about the app you designed for Penny. My curiosity is piqued.”

  “Sure. Since we’re going back to school on Wednesday I wanted to give her an extra edge, just in case of any emergency, so she could quickly let me know her location in the building since most of our classes don’t overlap.” His expression became serious. “I hope she never needs it, but…”

  Robert mirrored Jonah’s sober look, remembering the incident the previous week. “Understood.”

  “Anyway,” said Jonah, “I know there are already some ‘panic button’ apps out there, but most use GPS signals to pinpoint locations when an alert is sent, and those don’t always work indoors, or with great accuracy as to a highly specific spot.”

  Robert nodded. “I’m following you so far. How does your app work?”

  Jonah scrunched his mouth a bit. “Sounds a little crazy, but I figured out a system that uses hybrid technology combining signals from GPS, cell towers, signals emitted from Penny’s cell phone itself and other data to pinpoint her location in the school if she needs me. And I devised a special algorithm that kinda compares notes between the different signals to narrow down a location, and should be accurate within a foot or so of where she actually is.”

  Robert raised his eyebrows. “That would be pretty impressive, for a non-military system.”

  “If it works,” Jonah said with a shrug. “Won’t know until we can test it at the school. I found a blueprint of the high school complex online and used that to create a simple diagram of the building and grounds so the location of Penny’s cell phone, and mine, can be displayed on top of that.”

  “And you did all that today?”

  “Actually, only part of today,” said Jonah. “I had homework, too. I had made some notes months ago about how the algorithm might work, just for fun, so I only had to fine-tune it for this. My design is only set up for the school area at this point, but I hope to expand it to other locations later.”

  “That’s… remarkable,” said Robert. “And this is ready for Penny to use?”

  “Yes, sir. Once I finished the app and double checked it, I emailed it to Penny’s cell phone and she installed it.”

  Rebecca beamed as she listened to him explain it all. “My son the engineer!” she said. “Your father wasn’t a techie, but he would be so proud of you… for that, too.”

  Jonah blushed. “Thanks, but we’d better wait and see if it works, first.”

  Penny beamed in her own way. “I bet it does.”

  They continued to eat their dinner, and once they had finished it, Rebecca cleared the dishes and returned to ask, “I don’t suppose anyone would like ice cream for dessert…?”

  She got three positive responses….

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Research, research

  After dinner the four of them had watched television in the living room for a few hours, then Jonah excused himself to go upstairs to work on his science fair project statement. Penny remained for awhile with her dad and Rebecca, then she too said goodnight and headed upstairs.

  In his room, Jonah had spent roughly an hour glancing through the data given him by Robert and composing a concise description of what his science fair project would be, it’s purpose and the intended manner of achieving the goal. It was only a few pages, but it was sufficient for what he needed to turn in to his science teacher on Wednesday when they were back in school. He checked it over twice for errors and typos, then printed it out and laid it on his desk.

  Jonah glanced toward his closet door and checked his watch. He was pretty sure he had heard Penny walk down the hall and enter her own bedroom a little earlier, but hadn’t heard anything more since. Maybe she was finishing up part of her homework, or maybe she was listening to music, or maybe she was just waiting until it got late enough that “the parental units” as she called them had turned in and would be less likely to bother them. She had definitely seemed to have plans for tonight for the two of them, as usual. He sighed. He hoped he would not be sleeping alone, not that he hadn’t already spent a lot of quality time with her today. They didn’t even have to have sex as far as he was concerned. He just wanted to be with her.


  He went to the bathroom to make a pit stop, brush his teeth and freshen up a bit as he stripped out of his street clothes. Down to his boxer shorts, he secured the lock on his door and went to his bed to turn down the covers, even though he was unsure where he would be spending the night. Actually, he decided, where wasn’t the important part. It was with whom that mattered.

  He turned off the main room light and just let the light from the open door of the bathroom illuminate his bedroom, in addition to the light coming in through the window from the streetlights, the stars and the waning moon. He considering getting one of his books to read, but his mind and his heart weren’t really in it. He had just started to sit on the edge of his bed when he heard the familiar scraping noise that meant the sliding panel between their two closets had been moved to the open position.

  Jonah eagerly got to his feet and approached the closet door. After a few seconds, that door opened partway and Penny stuck her head around the edge to look at him coyly.

  “Knock, knock,” she said teasingly.

  Jonah nodded in understanding. “Who’s there?”

  “She,” said Penny.

  Jonah frowned in a puzzled way, but said, “She who?”

  Penny winked. “She who must be obeyed.”

  Jonah laughed. “Well, unless you’re turning into a dominatrix, I assume you’re referring to the H. Rider Haggard novel.”

  She laughed lightly as well and came on into his room. She was wearing her favorite pastel striped T-shirt and nothing else but a little perfume. “Right! Since my guy is a book nerd, too, I figured I’d better come up with something literary.” She walked up to him and planted a kiss on his lips. Then she flashed her best smirky smile. “But don’t rule out the dominatrix idea entirely, Squirt.”

  He studied her a moment, his gaze curious. “Meaning…?”

  “Well,” she said, “after your industriousness last night, I decided to do a little internet research myself, and I found something special, just for you.”