Chapter 61

Sean and Suzie were seated at the table behind her house. Suzie was reading the nicely printed out poem while Sean was watching pensively, awaiting her verdict of his poetic masterpiece. Suzie was doing her best not to laugh.

Finally, Sean could not hold back a moment more and asked, “Is that not the greatest poem you’ve ever read?”

“It almost rhymes,” Suzie said finding it hard to talk. Every time that she opened her mouth, a laugh threatened to burst forth.

This had been the worst poem she had ever read. She bit down on a knuckle to keep from cracking up. She was lucky that Lily and Sean’s mother had called to warn her that he was coming over with a poetry masterpiece. It was hard to believe that it was so bad.

“I was going to footnote the inaccurate descriptions of the flowers, but...” Sean said. He shrugged his shoulders as if he was unsure about the rightness of his decision.

Suzie said, “There’s no need for footnotes. The poem was completely understandable without them.”

“Are you sure? I can always go back and add them,” Sean said.

In his opinion, she didn’t seem all that enthused about this poem. She sure didn’t react in such a lukewarm manner to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She had gone wild listening to that poetry. Of course, so did his parents and observing that hadn’t been much fun. He shivered at the memory of hearing their moans.

“I’m quite sure,” Suzie said.

Sean said, “Maybe it comes across better if I read it to you.”

“Please don’t,” Suzie said quickly, holding up her hands to stop him. Seeing the hurt look on his face, she said, “I doubt I would be able to control my passions.”

“What’s the problem with that?” Sean asked. To tell the truth, that was his goal in writing it.

“Daddy is home and he’s cleaning his guns,” Suzie said thinking quickly.

“We don’t want to excite your father. Still...”

Thinking that a little reinforcement might be in order, Suzie said, “Mom was talking to the vet this morning. I think your name came up in the conversation.”

“Perhaps it would be best if I didn’t read it to you,” Sean said while cupping his hands over his private parts in an attempt to protect them.

“Thank you for the lovely flowers,” Suzie said deciding that it would be a good time to change the subject.

“I’m glad that you like them,” Sean said. “I bought them from the flower lady.”

She picked up the bouquet and smelled the flowers. She said, “I like daisies.”

“I tried to get them in blue,” Sean said.

Surprised, Suzie asked, “Why would you try to get blue daisies?”

“I have recently discovered that flowers have suddenly started changing colors. Roses used to be red, but now they are white, yellow, blue, and orange. I thought violets were blue, but discovered there are violets that are pink, purple, white, blue, and a bunch of colors in between,” Sean said.

“So?” Suzie asked.

Sean sat there thinking about how difficult it had been to write his poem. He wondered if other poets had encountered the phenomenon in which the colors attributed to various flowers weren’t quite the correct colors. In fact, he was beginning to think it was kind of suspicious.

Suzie noticed that Sean was suddenly distracted. She asked, “What are you thinking?”

Sean said, “Something strange is going on.”

“What?”

Sean leaned over and whispered, “Someone is messing with plants.”

“What are they doing with plants?” Suzie asked.

“Someone is messing with the colors of the flowers. Before you know it, the bees won’t know how to pollinate the plants. Bees will become extinct. Flowers will become extinct. Life on this planet will disappear,” Sean said. “It is up to me to discover who is behind this evil plot.”

“They are breeding them,” Suzie said.

“They?” Sean frowned. Suspicious, he asked, “Who are ‘they’?”

“I guess the flower growers,” Suzie answered.

“Those fiends,” Sean said. He hit the palm of his left hand with his right hand that was clenched in a fist.

“Fiends?” Suzie asked.

Sean said, “I didn’t recognize that we had a diabolical plot here in our nice little town.”

“What diabolical plot?” Suzie asked.

“The diabolical plot to confuse the bees and thereby end life on this planet as we know it,” Sean answered.

“To do what?” Suzie asked with a frown.

Sean said, “They are going to confuse the bees so that they can’t pollinate the flowers anymore. Then the bees are going to die off. Once that happens, the plants won’t be able to have anymore baby plants. All of the plants will die off. Without plants, every animal will die of starvation. Once that happens, people will become extinct.”

“I don’t think that is the plan. People just like flowers in different colors,” Suzie said.

Sean said, “The flower lady must be a part of this plot.”

“I don’t think so,” Suzie said.

“She’s subtle. She’s always showing us her spectacular ass knowing that it will distract us from what she is really doing,” Sean said.

Suzie crossed her arms and said, “You might want to tone down the talk about other women’s asses being spectacular.”

One look at Suzie and Sean knew that he was busy digging another hole for himself. Holding up his hands, he said, “She might have a spectacular ass that is known throughout the county, but it doesn’t compare to yours. You’ve got the best ass in the state, if not the country.”

“You say the nicest things,” Suzie said.

“I’d kiss it all day long if I could,” Sean said.

“That doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Suzie said.

She was about to explain how his comment sounded when there was a loud scream from the area near the path behind Suzie’s house. It didn’t sound like someone getting attacked. It was more like the sound of a woman getting her bottom pinched. Suzie and Sean turned to look in the direction of the woods.

Wondering what caused the scream, Suzie asked, “What was that?”

“It sounded like a scream,” Sean said sitting up straighter in his chair.

A flesh colored blur ran past them and disappeared into the house. It looked a lot like his mother. She didn’t appear to be wearing much.

Sean asked, “Was that my mother?”

“I think so,” Suzie answered.

“What was she wearing?”

“It looked like half a bra, panties, garter belt, and stockings,” Suzie answered.