Solidarity

We had teatime today for the first time all week. Last week we finished the Thursday Next book we were reading, but come Monday, the next book still hadn't arrived at our cute local bookstore. (Since I do reread this series every so often, I am investing in the volumes we didn't own as we read through them.) Today at co-op I got a call that it had arrived, so we made a detour on our way home to pick it up. Everyone was very excited to be able to start the next book. 

There is a fourteen year gap between the events of the last book and when this book, First Among Sequels, begins. So Thursday's and Landen's (her husband) son, Friday, is now sixteen. As with all first chapters, there is a bit of exposition to get the reader up to speed, but there was also this fantastic exchange:

" 'He's [Friday] behind with his homework,' added Landen, 'and since you're at least six times more scary than I am, would you do phase one of the teenager-waking procedure? Sometimes I think he's actually glued to the bed."

'Considering his current level of personal hygiene,' I mused, 'you're probably right.'

'If he doesn't get up,' added Landen with a smile, 'you could always threaten him with a bar of soap and some shampoo.'

'And traumatize the poor lad? Shame on you, Mr. Parke-Laine.'

Landen laughed, and I went up to Friday's room.

I knocked on his door, received no reply and opened it to a fetid smell of old socks and unwahsed adolescence. Carefully bottled and distilled, it would do sterling work as a shark repellent, but I didn't say so. Teenage sons react badly to sarcasm. The room was liberally covered with posters of Jimi Hendrix, Che Guevara and Wayne Skunk, lead guitar and vocals of Strontium Goat. The floor was covered with discarded clothes, deadline-expired schoolwork and side plates with hardened toast crusts on them. I think the room had once been carpeted, but I couldn't be sure anymore.

'Hiya, Friday,' I said to an inert object wrapped up in a duvet. I sat on the bed and prodded a small patch of skin I could see.

'Grunt,' came a voice from somewhere deep within the bedclothes.

'Your father tells me that you're behind with your homework.'

'Grunt.'

'Well, yes, you might be suspended for two weeks, but you still need to do your coursework.'

'Grunt.'

'The time? It's nine right now, and I need you to be sitting up with your eyes open before I leave the room.'

There was another grunt and a fart. I sighed, prodded him again, and eventually something with unwashed dark hair sat up and stared at me beneath heavy lids.

'Grunt,' it said. 'Grunt-grunt.'

I thought of making some sarcastic remark about how it helps to open your mouth when talking but didn't as I desperately needed his compliance, and although I couldn't actually speak teenage Mumblegrunt, I could certainly understand it.

------

'... I'll expect you to be all bright-eyed, alert and bushy-tailed, washed showered, scrubbed and all homework finished by the time I get back.'

I stared at the picture of slovenly teenagerhood in front of me. I'd have settled for 'awake and/or coherent' -- but I always aim high.

'Allrightmum,' he said in a long slur.

As soon as I closed the door behind me I heard him flop back. It didn't matter. He was awake, and his father could do the rest.

'I expect he's raring to go?' suggested Landen when I came downstairs. 'Had to lock him in his room to curb his enthusiasm?'

'Champing at the bit,' I replied wearily. 'We'd get a more dynamic response from a vapid slug on tranquilizers.' (p. 10 - 11)

I was amused. I might have even laughed out loud at the bit about it helping to actually open your mouth when trying to speak. I'm not sure the adolescents in my home thought it was as near as funny as I did as I read it. I have one more weaving class to finish the session, so one more day of being away from home all day. It's been a good week, but exhausting, thus the resort to other people's writing. Plus, for anyone else with a household full of adolescents, there is some solidarity in reading about similar experiences.