Shall We Go A-Shearing?
A.K.A. Jamie Buys A Clue
By Elena
Disclaimer:
Just your average run of the mill standard disclaimer. These characters are
mine and will tend to resemble everyone and no one in particular. Oh yeah,
the nursery rhymes aren’t mine and can be found in any good Mother Goose book.
Violence:
There is a rather nasty run in with some trees and bushes, but before I have
Green Peace breathing down my neck rest assured that they fair better than
our two heroines.
Sex and Subtext:
Well we’ll see. I can assure you that there is more than enough subtext. You
may need to take Jamie’s advice and jump in a nice cold lake.
Type: This is a filler story for the time between "Now I Lay"
and "My Soul To Keep". It’s my first attempt at a script type format
so I must ask kindly that you bear with me. J
There will be Xena-Uberness in this for those who know how to watch for it.
Constructive comments can be sent to: elena@beltran.nu
As Always: A thank you to my editor, Sinjen Kai. And also, to my own "Jenny", you know who you are. J
Same day
Small cabin in rural
mid-west
1 pm
Jamie: Arg! What the ….?!? (more cursing)
Jamie (spiting out flour and shaking
her head a bit): The bag of flour that was in the cupboard fell on me.
I was trying to put the groceries away and every thing just sort of…fell.
Jenny (raising one eyebrow): Talk about “Old Mother Hubbard”…hold on and stay put, I’ll get a broom and dustpan. How the heck did the flour fall on you?
Jamie (deciding that flour felt itchy): Not sure, I just opened the cupboard and it fell out. Who’s “Old Mother Hubbard”?
Jenny (back with a broom and dustpan from a small utility closet): You know, “Old Mother Hubbard, went to her cupboard”, the nursery rhyme. Why would the flour be up against the door of the cabinet?
Jamie: What nursery rhyme? How should I know how the flour ended up against the cabinet door? Did you know that this stuff itches?
Jamie begins to shake her head more at which the white itchy stuff begins to fly everywhere.
Jenny: Hey! Don’t shake; you’re getting it all over worse.
Jamie (stopping and trying to control herself): It’s already all over worse!
Jenny: Just stand still while I get it swept up. What do you mean “what nursery rhyme”? Don’t you know the “Old Mother Hubbard” rhyme?
At Jamie’s blank stare Jenny assumes not, and wonders at her friend’s upbringing yet again.
Jenny (reciting in a sing-song voice): Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard, to fetch her old dog a bone. When she got there the cupboard was bare, and so her old dog had none.
Jamie (after a pause): Are you saying I’m a dog?
Jenny (after an equally long pause): Well not exactly. I mean if you were, then I’d have to be Old Mother Hubbard right? Uhm…never mind. Here, take off your shirt and I’ll clean that off as well.
Jamie looks at Jenny pointedly and remains still.
Jamie: …
Jenny: What’s wrong?
Jamie: I can’t take off my shirt.
Jenny (realizing what she has just said and blushing): Oh! Okay, never mind. Just…here brush as much of the flour off as you can and you can go change.
Jenny moves to help Jamie brush some of the white powdery flour off as Jamie starts shaking her shirt to remove the flour stuck underneath. The blond woman’s hands become quite absorbed in brushing the flour off of the dark haired woman.
Jamie: I think you got
it all…Jenny?
Jenny: What? Oh, sorry.
(one last brush) There you go, go ahead
and get changed now.
Jamie wonders off into the other bedroom to change her shirt. Jenny decides to place the last remaining groceries into the cupboard her friend was stacking stuff in.
Jenny: Eeek!
Jamie (running
in from the other room pulling a clean shirt over her head): What’s wrong?
Jenny (backing
quickly away from the cupboard and pointing at it):
There’s a huge…thing in there.
Jamie: What? In the cupboard?
Jenny (eyes wide
and not leaving the open door of the cupboard):
Yes! Get rid of it!
Jamie (dragging
over a stool and standing on it): I don’t
see anything…Ah!
Jamie jumps back as a raccoon pokes his head out of the cupboard door. The dark haired werewolf topples off of the stool she is perched on and falls onto her backside.
Jamie: Damn it! What in
the …!
Jenny (backing
up even further into a corner): Get rid of
it!
Jamie morphs partially into her werewolf form, her face taking on the appearance of a wolf.
Jamie (to the raccoon
staring at them from the cupboard): Boo!
Terrified squeaks are emitted as the raccoon jumps out of the cabinet and down onto the floor, taking off to a far corner of the cabin. Jamie gives chase, wondering if her friend is any good at cooking raccoon.
Jenny (watching
the scene incredulously): Don’t kill it! Just…get
rid of it.
Jamie (shooting
her friend an incredulous look of her own): I was trying to get rid of it.
Jenny: Hold on, I’ll open
the door. You can shoo it out.
Jamie (starting
to herd the raccoon towards the door): Go
on get out. I guess you’re not dinner tonight.
Jenny (shutting
the door firmly behind the exiting raccoon):
Dinner? You WERE going to kill it, weren’t you?
Jamie: Well…Hey, how did
it get in?
Having diverted the conversation a bit to something less incriminating, Jamie walks over to the cupboard again and looks inside.
Jamie: Wow, they must
have burrowed in from the outside. There’s a hole in here…actually it looks
like something fell against the side of the cabin and then they made the hole
bigger.
Jenny: Why do you keep
saying ‘they’?
Jamie: It smells like
there could be more than one around, at least more than one having come into
the cabin at one time or another.
Jenny: Are there anymore
here right now?
Jamie (cocking
her head to one side to listen): None that
I can tell. Hey, why don’t you do that cooking thing and I’ll go patch up
the hole from the outside. How does that sound?
Jenny: Uh, sure. Cooking
thing?
Same day
6:30 PM
Jamie patched over the hole on the cabin with some of the lumber left over from a deck addition by the owners. She and Jenny have finished their meal some time ago and have just returned from a walk around the property.
Jamie (holding the door open for the woman behind her): Now what do we do? It’s getting too dark for you to walk around safely anymore.
Jenny (running a hand through her hair): Ack! I still have leaves in it. Why do roots have to hide like that?
Jamie (turning toward Jenny to help pull out more of the bits of twig that have been lodged in the blonde’s hair): Sorry ‘bout that. I don’t always remember that humans can’t see as well in the dark.
Jenny: That’s okay, no permanent damage.
Jamie: You do have quite the knack for getting into trouble you know.
Jenny: Me?!? I’m not the one who got them kidnapped. (at this Jenny sees that Jamie looks quite upset) Wait! I didn’t mean that, that wasn’t nice to say. You got hit with something quite powerful and you got our buts out of there in the end as well.
Jamie: Still…
Jenny: Hey, you’re still my hero so don’t worry about it, okay?
Jamie (stunned slightly at Jenny’s words): Your ‘hero’?
Jenny (blushing a bit): Err…you know what I mean. You saved the day and all that. Um, let’s watch one of the movies I brought with okay?
Jamie: Uh, yeah. Is that what people do on vacation? Watch movies?
Jenny (looking at the dark haired woman with wide eyes): When was the last time you were on vacation again?
Jamie (smiling a crooked smile): Heh, I’m just teasing you. How about I go chop up some wood first and we can have a nice fire going while we watch the movie.
Jenny (smiling back): Don’t mock me! I’ll make the popcorn, you chop the wood.
A little later a
nice cozy fire is roaring in the fireplace, the light bathing the two women who
are stretched out on the floor in front of the television. Both Jamie and Jenny
are have settled into their sleeping bags with a bowl of popcorn in front of
them.
Jamie (staring at the television screen with a grimace on her face): Why did you rent Titanic again? When is that dumb guy going to die? Why is that girl even with him? Is she confused about her sexual identity and just wanted to experiment? I mean, really, what the heck does she see in him? When is he going to die? He does die, doesn’t he Jenny? Please tell me he does.
Jamie looks at her companion who has fallen asleep. Deciding she doesn’t really need to know the end of the movie Jamie turns off the television and settles down into her own sleeping bag. Soon, she too drifts off to sleep.