by Chris Lynch
“Hold it there, soldier. About-face,” I commanded. “This is not going to be—”
I was cut off by the sad little screams outside. I turned just in time to see Jerome airlifted from the window, his dangling arms and legs clawing and kicking at the air.
The He-Men gasped.
“What was that?” Wolfgang called.
“I never seen nothin’ like that afore,” cried Cecil.
“We have to save him,” Steven said, rushing to the window to see.
It was as if an unseen hand, from some unknown life form, had scooped our little friend up and removed him from the surface of our humble, primitive planet.
Only I saw the hand. And the life form was not—unfortunately—unknown to me.
“So what are you doing crawling around outside my house?” asked the voice of my sister, Rock.
Steven narrated from his spot at the window. “She’s got him lifted right up off the ground!”
“With one hand,” I added without even looking.
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“It’s my sister, home from boarding school.”
“She’s stronger than you,” he said, stunned.
“She’s stronger than everybody, everywhere.” I sighed.
“She’s carrying him now,” Steven went on. “Jerome’s stopped struggling. He’s hanging there in her grip like a rubber chicken.”
We all sat still while we listened to my sister’s size-fifteen Timberlands come pounding down the stairs. This time, of course, there was no knock at the door.
“Somebody here lose this?” Rock asked, kicking the door open. She displayed Jerome as if he was something her dog had flushed out of the bushes. “He said he was a friend of yours, Ling, but I told him that couldn’t be possible since you don’t do the friend thing.”
I could have sworn her vacation wasn’t until next week.
My hearty assistant, El Matador, slid behind me, shrinking from the mighty presence of Rock.
Wolf, though …
He wheeled right up to her, looking straight up, smiling.
“I love you,” he said. Then he spun toward me. “I love her. She’s so big. She’s so beautiful.”
Wolf was a little confused. If he was her brother, he’d be able to see her more clearly. I wanted to help him.
“She’s not beautiful,” I said. “She’s a big fat beast.”
Rock just smiled, as if she found me amusing.
“No,” Wolf said, wheeling toward me. “Let me show you. She is a mighty sequoia. This”—I could see it coming a mile away, as he reached out both hands to grab my belly roll with both hands—“is fat.”
Of course, they bonded instantly. “You know,” Rock said to him, “I’ve tried. I’ve offered to train him a million times, but he refuses.”
Wolf faked sincerity. “I know, I know, I’ve tried to train him myself. But we still have to lay newspapers all over the clubhouse floor.”
So embarrassing. Even Jerome was laughing, as he dangled five feet off the floor. I froze them all with a fierce glare.
Rock lowered Jerome into Wolfgang’s lap, then approached me.
I braced myself for the struggle. It would not have been our first.
“Lighten up, will you?” she said, laughing and slipping around behind me. Then it was my turn as she hoisted me, squeezing me so tight around the waist, I could feel HoHos climbing back up my esophagus.
“Ling wants to get into the Guinness Book,” she said to her audience, “for reaching the age of eighteen without once cracking a smile.”
“You are embarrassing me in front of my men.”
She shook me. “Go on, have a laugh why don’tcha?”
“Laugh?” I asked over my shoulder. “At myself? I think not. I have my dignity.” My shirt was rolling up over my belly and I stretched to touch the floor with my toes.
Steven walked up to us like we were a museum sculpture. “Awesome. It’s a shame she’s a girl.”
“Shame, shmame,” Wolf cracked. “We got the wrong Ling. I say we trade up and take the Rock.”
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by Chris Lynch
cover design by Elizabeth Connor
978-1-4804-0463-2
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
THE HE-MAN WOMEN HATERS CLUB
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia