They Wear What
Under Their Kilts?
By Katie Maxwell
ISBN 084395258X
January 2004/Smooch
Subject: Plaid, plaid, everywhere!
From:
Mrs.Legolas@kiltnet.com
To: Dru@seattlegrrl.com
Date:
Hoots mon, it's a
bracht bricht moonlit nicht!
Yes, yes, we're here in
I think she's just jealous
of my stunning use of cosmetics.
So there we were, the Fam
(minus Bess, she's off with her BF Monk—I still don't see why she gets to go
off on her own just because she's nineteen) and me and Holly—oh, I meant to tell
you, Holly finally got the OK to do her work experience here too, which is
utterly coolio, because although Alec is a really hottalicious Older Man, and
Aunt Tim is pretty cool for an aunt despite the squinty-eyed glares, they're
both elderly with a capital EL. Holly is fun, even though she is a year younger
than me, and let me tell you, I'm going to need major copious amounts of fun to
survive a whole month out in the middle of the Highlands on this muddy sheep
farm. Although it is cool that the
schools in
I know, I know, you said all
along it was a mistake to spend my whole month of work experience on a farm in
Scotland, but the only other job I could find was at the library, and you might
just as well give up all hope of having any sort of cool if you're stuck
in the slave's quarters at a library. Old people work there! If nothing else,
the hottie quotient is very low in a library, whereas at least in
Where was I? Oh, yeah, so we
were all standing around outside Alec's and Aunt Tim's house, bundled up in our
coats and scarves and gloves because Scotland is evidently in outer Siberia,
looking at mud, mud, a couple of dogs, and surprise of all surprises, more mud,
when all of a sudden, Brother goes completely mental. Not that that’s saying
much about a man who everyone calls Brother (even Holly calls him Brother
now!), but you know just how mental my father can go when he wants to.
"Timandra, I expect
that you and Alec will both keep an eye on Emily and Holly while they're
here," he said, waggling his Unibrow at Aunt Tim and Alec. "And just
in case the phrase 'keep an eye on them' is too vague, let me elaborate."
I groaned and tried to look
like Brother hadn't had Parent Sex with Mom sixteen and three-quarter years
ago. No, wait, that's when I was born, that would mean…um…sixteen years and
nine months, plus nine months of Mom being pregnant with me…let's see, that
would be seventeen years exactly if I borrowed three months from Mom being
pregnant, which leaves six left over, except she said I was a bit late in
coming, so you have to add on a couple of extra weeks…oh, never mind, let's
just call it seventeen and a half years ago, ‘K? Back to what I was saying—I
tried to look like Brother wasn't really my father. Because, I knew, you see,
just what he was going to say.
It had to do with boys. It always has to do with boys, everything Brother
talks to me about these days has to do with boys. You should have seen
him before Christmas when I told him I needed some more money to buy Christmas
presents.
"For whom?" he
asked, all suspicious and nosy. Have I told you he's started to pick up an
English accent? Four months in the country and he's saying things like
"brolly" for umbrella, and "ta" instead of thanks.
To be honest, I like the ta thing, but I'll die before I admit that to
him.
Where was I again? Oh, yeah.
Before Christmas.
"Fang and
"You’re going to
what?" Brother asked, and cocked the Unibrow at me in the way he thinks is
so intimidating, but really just makes me want to laugh. "You're buying
presents for your boyfriends?”
"Bro-THER!" I said, giving him A Look.
Honestly, the things I have to suffer having a medieval scholar for a medieval father. He is just so
Ancient Times! It's all “duty and honor” this, and “no inappropriate touching”
that. Are you sure you don't want to trade dads? I'd be happy to put up with
your dad's new trophy wife if you want to take Brother. “
The Elderly One muttered
something about me trying to drive him into an early grave, which is just
ridiculous because we both know he's about a hundred years old now, so there's
nothing early about it. But that was a couple of weeks ago, earlier
today I just knew that he was going to embarrass the pants off of me by saying
that Alec and Aunt Tim were supposed to protect our honor and guard our
chastity with their lives.
"—and we all know how
boy-crazy girls are these days, so Chris and I expect you to do everything
humanly possible to protect their good names and honor against besmirchment,
not to mention guarding their chastity like it was a gold-plated…er…ewe."
"Come along, Brother,
the girls will be just fine," Mom said, tugging him toward the car.
"Not that I expect
miracles, mind you." Brother dug in his heels and gave Alec that father
look (you know, the one that fathers exchange with each other—the one that's
almost an eye roll). Alec just looked puzzled, in a hottie Older Man sort of
way—he does puzzled much better than Brother. "Do
everything you can to keep them chaste, but don't put your life at risk."
"Thanks for the ride to
"Eh…" Alec said,
eyeing Holly and me, his view of our extreme coolness obviously being tainted
by my father's slander.
"They can spot a boy at
distances beyond the range of normal human eyesight, you know," Brother
added. Alec looked startled.
"Dear, we really should
be starting back. I'm sure Emily and Holly will behave like adults," Mom
said, trying to haul Brother over to the car.
Brother's hair ruffled in
the wind and formed into his traditional horn of hair that made him look like
part rhinoceros, part man (with an emphasis on the rhino). "Is that
supposed to make me feel better? Good God, Chris, you've armed the girl with
condoms and contraceptives and informative pamphlets, and God only knows what
else. It’s not like it used to be in the Middle Ages,
I can tell you that! Back then, fathers knew
what their daughters were up to. They locked the little darlings into towers
until the day of their wedding. There’s much we can learn from from our
medieval ancestors. Chastity belts, for one."
Aunt Tim snickered, then tried to cover it up by pretending to cough.
"OHMIGOD, Brother!"
I yelled, and socked him on the arm. "Just embarrass me to death, why
don't you?"
"Embarrass you? Nothing
embarrasses you!" He turned back to Alec. "You should see the
avaricious light that comes to their eyes when they spot a boy. It's positively
frightening. The last four months with Emily have taken off at least ten years
of my life."
He's going senile, of
course. That's the only thing that explains why he talks that way. "You'd
better stop somewhere and get a hot water bottle for Brother," I told Mom.
"I think his brain has frozen up."
"Why, just today I was
almost trampled to death when we stopped at a mall."
"It wasn't a proper
mall, it was a shopping center," I thought it only right to point out.
"There was no theater, no piercing place, and no pizza! It's not
technically a mall if there's no pizza."
"Never cross a teenage
girl's line of sight when she has a boy in the crosshairs," he warned Alec. "You're taking your life in your hands
if you do."
Aunt Tim snickered again,
this time not even trying to make it sound like a cough. I let Brother glare at
her because I was too busy trying to set things straight. "Oh, for Pete's
sake, all we did was go around you so that really cute
guy wearing the kilt wouldn't know you were with us."
"They shoved me to the
ground, both of them. If I hadn't been quick, they would have run right over
the top of me to get to some knobby-kneed kid in a kilt standing outside a
music store."
"Brother lives in his own little fantasy world. We humor him as much
as possible," I told Aunt Tim. I figured that as his sister, she should be
the first one to know the truth about him.
"Ah! There, do you see?
That's the look, the one Holly is wearing. That's your warning sign, Alec. If
you see either of them wearing that look, run for cover lest you be trampled to
death in their lust to get their clutches on some unwary male."
I looked over at Holly to
see what on earth Brother was making such a fuss about. Holly stood stiff as a
rock, her eyes huge, her mouth hanging open as she stared
down toward the big barn across the yard. I turned to look, and just about fell
on my butt in surprise.
A hunk, a hottie, a god in
jeans and a black leather jacket walked out of the barn toward us. He was the
most droolworthy, hottalicious, utterly coolio boy I've ever in my whole entire
life seen, and that includes seeing Orlando Bloom live and in person at the
Hard Rock Café in London (I know you're not into The Lord of the Rings
or Legolas, but I'm sorry, Orlando as The Leg Man is just too nummy for words).
This guy was tall, had long red hair (red!) that brushed his shoulders, and the
most amazing walk!
I stared at him, and I have
to admit, I almost drooled. Really, I almost drooled,
I could feel the slobber gathering up on my tongue. I had to swallow a couple
of times, it was that bad. I grabbed Holly's arm as the vision of hunkitude
walked toward us, and she grabbed mine. He was so fabu,
we had to prop each other up to keep from falling over into a major faint. No,
wait, fabu isn't good enough—he was mondo coolio über-fabu!
"Who…who…who…" I
couldn't get the words out because my tongue was broken. It felt all swollen
and huge, like it was glued to the top of my mouth.
"Who is that?" Mom
asked, nodding toward the red-headed god as she gave me one of her pitying
looks. I tried to smile at her in appreciation, but I think my lips were broken
too, because they didn't smile properly, they just kind of hung there, flapping
in the wind.
Everyone turned to look at
the boy who stopped to pat one of the black and white sheep dogs.
"Ah. That'll be
Rwawruahwr."
I know, I know, but I swear
to you that's what it sounded like Alec said. It started with an R and kind of
turned into a gargle, but I didn't care. This guy could be named Booger and my
heart would still be his.
"Who?" Brother asked, narrowing
his eyes.
"Rwawruahwr," Alec
said again. "He's helping me out for a few months while Mark is in
Mark is Alec's shepherd.
He's kinda nice, but really, really old—almost fifty.
"Rrrrwowry?" Brother asked, his Unibrow all scrunched up.
"Mmmrrrowr," I
purred, then sucked in my cheeks so I'd look like I had real cheekbones, not
the kind that are put on through the skillful use of makeup.
"His name is
Rory," Aunt Tim said. "Only it's pronounced the Gaelic way, with a
little extra fillip at the beginning, and you roll the Rs. It's spelled
R-U-A-R-A-I-D-H."
"Surely you jest,"
Brother said, flaring his nostrils, which, I have to tell you, is not a pretty
sight since he's evidently growing the
"Eighteen," Alec
said.
Holly's hand tightened on my
arm as the gorgeous hunk of flesh straightened up and smiled at us. Eighteen!
He was eighteen! How very fortunate that I like older men!
"Um. Does he…uh…have a girlfriend?" I asked, figuring it was worth
risking the embarrassment of asking the question in order to find out.
"Oh, god, eighteen and
male," Brother groaned, and put his hands over his face. Mom patted his
arm and made soft little murmuring noises in his ear. “Where’s a tower when you
really need one?”
Beside me, Holly squeaked.
She does that when she's excited. I'm trying to break her of the habit, but you
know how it is—once a squeaker, always a squeaker.
"I'm of a mind he
doesn't," Alec said, giving me a thoughtful look. "But you might be wantin' to ask the lad himself that, Emily."
"No, no, no. It's
doomed, the whole visit is doomed," Brother said, still moaning into his
hands.
No girlfriend! Bwahahahahah!
He's mine, all mine! Well, he would be as soon as one
formality was taken care of…
"Dibs the hottie,"
I said at exactly the same time that Holly whispered, "Bagsies he's
mine!"
Bagsies, unfortunately, are
the same as dibs. Rats.
"I called dibs
first," I whispered back, my words a bit slurred because it's hard to talk
with your cheeks sucked in.
"No you didn't, I
bagsied him before you finished your sentence."
"Hullo," Ruaraidh
said as he came up to where we were all standing next to the car. "You
must be Timandra's family. I'm Ruaraidh Andrews."
He held out his hand for
Brother to shake. I managed to get my lips working again, and tried to look
very coolio and casual and all that while still maintaining my cheekbones.
Brother stared at Ruaraidh's hand like it was made up of toads or something.
"He's got six
fingers," Brother said hoarsely. I blinked at him a couple of times, then looked down at Ruaraidh's hand. He was right, Ruaraidh the Scottish God of Love had six fingers on
his right hand. SIX FINGERS! OHMIGOD!
"Dear God, he's
eighteen, male, and has six fingers on one hand,” Brother said, turning to Mom.
“I hope you're happy, Chris, I just hope you're happy! Because you said
she would be fine up here for a month, we're going to have grandchildren with
twelve fingers."
"Grandchildren?" Ruaraidh's eyes opened up
really wide as he turned to look at me. I tried to smile at him. I couldn't. I
was too mortified.
"Um…I'm adopted. He's
not my real father. In fact, I don't even know him. He was hitchhiking by the
side of the road when we drove up here. My mom thought it would be fun to
pretend he was my father. Ha ha ha," I said, praying he would think I was
telling the truth.
Holly said something that
sounded like, "Gark!" I knew just how she felt.
Two dark red eyebrows
swooped upwards over beautiful dark green-ish/grey-ish eyes. He obviously
didn't believe me.
Brother took a deep breath
and started into another lecture about us not committing any "carnal
acts" (his words, not mine). Fortunately, Mom got him into the car before
he could do too much more damage, but all things considered, it was too late.
So that's it, Dru. One day
in
This is going to be a very
long month.
Hugs and kisses,
~Em