Part 55 (1/2)
The next sound you hear, folks, will be my mouth.
Not my voice, my mouth. If you get my drift.
Mmmmm.
”AAAAH! f.u.c.k! OW! GIMME THAT, YOU FU ...!”
Part Nine.
Gunplay.
Chapter Thirty-seven.
”What if the car breaks down?” Andy asked.
Good question, Jody thought. They'd left the highway about ten minutes earlier, and now they were on a dusty road surrounded by miles of wasteland. ”I suppose we'll all die,” she said.
”The car isn't going to break down,” Dad a.s.sured them. ”And if it does, we'll just send Officer Miles running off to fetch a rescue party.”
”That's right,” Sharon said. ”I'll trot east till I hit Blythe.”
”How far's that?” Andy asked, his nose wrinkled.
”Not more than about forty miles,” Dad said, then added, ”as the vulture flies.”
”Very funny,” Jody said.
”We want to go shooting, don't we?” he asked. ”Well, this is how it's done.”
”I know, I know. But it's gonna be hot out there. We're gonna cook.”
”It'll be a blast,” Sharon said.
Jody leaned forward and jabbed her fist through the s.p.a.ce between the seatbacks. Her fist connected with Sharon's upper arm, but not very hard.
”Hey!”
”Pun punch,” Jody informed her.
”What?”
”It's an old family tradition,” she explained. ”If you come out with a really horrendous pun, you get a pun punishment punch. Which you just got.”
Sharon rubbed her arm. ”Somebody should've warned me.”
”Sorry,” Dad said. ”I'd forgotten all about it. It's actually a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.”
”I'll be sure to honor it from now on.” She grinned over her shoulder at Jody. ”Better watch out.”
”Oooo, I'm trembling.”
Sharon laughed.
”Girls, girls,” Dad said. ”Can't we all just get along?”
That got Sharon laughing even harder. Dad's right hand let go of the steering wheel. It crossed the s.p.a.ce between seats-down low, maybe so that Jody wouldn't notice. But she did notice. She saw him grab Sharon's side just above the hip. The same place where he sometimes targeted Jody for a round of tickles.
Sharon, squealing, used her elbow to force his hand away.
The same way I do.
Andy gave Jody a look.
”Touch me,” she said, ”and I'll cut your hand off.”
He seemed to take that as an invitation or a challenge. Chuckling, he turned and reached for her. She was ready for the attempt. Surprised, though. She'd expected him to go for a side tickle or a thigh squeeze. Instead, his hand made straight for her right breast.
She stopped his hand an inch from its goal. Caught it by the thumb.
Andy yelped as she forced his thumb backward. ”I give,” he gasped. ”I give, I give.”
”Do I look like someone who cares?”
”Ow!”
Keeping her grip on the thumb, she drove his hand down against his leg. He made sounds that were half-laugh, half-whine.
”You gonna behave?” she asked.
”Yes!”
Dad looked back at them.
”Just taking care of business,” she told him.
”Is she hurting you, Andy?”
”No. Ow!”
Sharon twisted around in her seat to see what was happening.
”Don't hurt him,” Dad said.
”I'm not.”
”Ow!”