Team Tiny Pepper presents : The 2015 Blog Hop Story, now with 100% more legos and dinosaurs.
Eli stumbled into the compartment, flush and out of breath, and took the only available seat next to an old woman and a child. After months of planning, he suddenly had a bad feeling about this and stood right back up again, but at the same time, the train started moving.
There was no going back. As if to accentuate the point, the jerk of the train starting thrust Eli into his seat. Was he doing the right thing? Was he doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Eli didn't really know. What he did know was that the old lady had fake teeth that hadn't been cleaned in a while, and the child reminded him of all the scary movies he'd seen about children. But that was besides the point. Eli was on a mission. Kind of.
He cringed, wishing he had planned this trip differently. The train ride lasted a full hour, plenty of time for things to go wrong when split-second timing was needed.
A droplet of sweat beaded at the end of Eli's reddened face as he tried to catch his breath. Luckily, the old woman seemed to be busy telling the child a long and rambling fairy story. She hadn't even noticed her fellow passenger.
Eli meant to keep it that way.
The child Eli had noticed was Rory, who was on a "real-life Thomas the Train trip" with his Gramma. Eli was right to note that Rory looked a little scary. The poor child did look a lot like Chucky from the classic horror movie Child's Play...but then maybe that could be said of any three-year-old with red hair and freckles.
Rory, normally the sweetest of all kids despite his devilish appearance, loved his Gramma. Today though, her lack of a smart phone and insistence that "banana you glad" was the punchline to that knock-knock joke about fruit didn't play well with his preschool-aged attention span. Especially on this long trip. Instead, he turned his attention elsewhere...
"GRAMMA, WHO'S DAT MAN?" Rory exclaimed, using his "outside voice", pointing directly at Eli.
THAT MAN RIGHT THERE GRAMMA! SEE? SEE THAT MAN?!
DAT MAN DARE, GRAMMA! SEE? SEE DAT MAN?!
That man was the conductor of the train and he had an announcement to make. The passengers gave him the solemnity and respect fairly due to any person wearing such an official uniform.
He coughed sternly and spoke rapidly: "I apologize for the delay, but we're going to disembark a little early while necessary repairs are made. We apologize for the inconvenience. Accommodations have been made for all passengers in the nearest town. We think you'll find the quaint, quiet rhythm of Bubbleville to be your liking. The town is rich with, well- let's call it history."
...
Credit for everything not in green writing goes to the following authors:
And then there was me, Rarasaur! And I'm passing the torch to my dragon-hearted blogsister over at To Breathe Is to Write. Take it away! (If anyone is curious about the origins and the rules, you can visit the fishbowl of the brainchild behind this.)