Cousins: Taking It To The Streets

During the Party at the Hive, shortly after the arrival of the
Ratpack.

McLisa hadn't understood Janette's French remark on seeing her
shirt, but the intention was clear. Fortunately McLisa had bad
blood,as LaCroix had discovered some years ago on biting her
during a war when she was young, idealistic and spying for Nick.
(Crazy too, of course, but that went without saying with
McLisa.) This did not preclude Janette from taking her least
favorite cousin for a moonlight ride over Lake Ontario and
dropping her off somewhere in the vicinity of the US-Canadian
border. The one that runs through the water.

LaCroix's response had been nonverbal. It hadn't needed to be.
He had simply nodded and smiled at her. Pityingly. That was the
scary part.  Why did LaCroix pity her -- was it too late to go
home and join the Green Acres fandom instead?

Suddenly a wheeled thing pulled by rats in tiny hospital scrubs
on which perched Libby and someone McLisa hadn't yet met, also
wearing hospital greens, and Screed in ...

No!" This McLisa wailed aloud and bestowed a glare that rivalled
Cousine Moses's best on her bottle of Strawberry Kiwi juice.  No
alcohol, not even a taste of one of Miklos's zombie
beachcombers, although she had had to put on her best listowner
sharp manner to get his attention and oblige him to keep his
snickers to himself when she insisted on the plain fruit drink.
So now she was as potted as the palm behind which she was trying
not very successfully to hide.

She must be. Screed appeared to be wearing a hospital gown,
which was a possibility if a swap meet had gone strangely. What
made McLisa sorry she had been so forceful with Miklos in
turning down that zombie beachcomber was the fact that Screed's
hat was being impersonated by a possum. Or at least, she saw a
possum.

At least it lacked a a bow, but still, would even Screed wear a
possum to a party for Janette?  McLisa turned on her heel, came
down like the celebrated wolf on the fold to the bar, and
demanded a zombie beachcomber in a voice that brooked -- heck,
it rivered -- no argument.

Half the glass later and the possum was still there, although it
was staring pointedly at the chocolate pretzel in McLisa's hand.
Ok. McLisa might be off the wagon, but at least she knew what
she saw.

Only, she wished she didn't because all at once a hole opened in
the space time continuum and a conga line of list hamsters, all
wearing little party hats and blowing little noisemakers.

"Shoe!"  yelled McLisa. "Get back to the listserv!!"  She
charged. The list hamsters apparently paid cash. Either way fate
must have been taking bribes or else the fanfic fairies must
have been nibbling on funny mushrooms. Somehow when McLisa's
hands closed on the last hamster, her fingers stuck. McLisa was
dragged, yelling deletion threats and congaing, out through the
hole and onto the streets of Toronto.

McLisa
cecily1349@yahoo.com