Here are some bits of BB. Enjoy!
__________
Light dawned over
Chauncey’s face. “Why not?” he
said. He looked at Grimm’s nonyielding
expression. “Look, Grimm, if we want to
get out of here someday, we must grasp at every chance we get.”
For a moment,
Grimm looked like he was weighing the possibilities in his mind. The other three held their breaths in
hope. Even Annie stopped her sweeping to
watch his face.
Then Grimm shook
his head. “No way,” he said. “There are too many things that can go
wrong.”
Annie sighed and
returned to her sweeping.
Chauncey opened
his hands expressively. “But should that
stop us from taking a chance? Come on,
Grimm,” he pleaded.
Grimm stood to
his feet. “If you want to take the
chance, then ask him,” he said, with a jerk of his head indicating the master’s
bedroom. “I wash my hands of it.”
~BB
__________
Rounding a
corner in the path, she suddenly saw it.
There were big iron gates, covered in ivy. The mansion behind them was dark and in
ill-repair. It didn’t look like anyone
had lived there for an hundred years.
“This must be the
Rottly place,” Belle commented to her cat, who was nowhere to be seen. Slowly she approached the gates. “I don’t see how Ronald Leen could have seen
smoke from THAT place.”
The gates were
slightly ajar. Belle wrapped her fingers
around the cold metal and stared at the mansion. “Someone lived there once,” she said
aloud. Somehow, even as foreboding at
the place appeared, it tickled her story-loving mind and she wanted to know
about its previous inhabitants. “Too
late for that now,” she murmured.
“They’ve been gone for a century or more.” Belle turned away from the gate as if closing the back cover of a book.
~BB
__________
The entire
village had gathered in the town square.
Belle pressed into the throng, trying to see the cause of this universal
turnout. In the center of the crowd
there was an open space. But the
attraction was not her papa nor his machine.
Instead, the village had gathered around two people – Curt Hanson and
the stranger from the forest – creating a large ring around them. The two men each had a long, stout stick, and
they were dueling like two swordsmen.
“What’s going
on?” Belle asked, shouting above the noise.
A couple of men
from the village turned to answer her.
“You know how Curt loves a good game of crossing sticks,” one said,
grinning.
The other man
shook his head, his eyes already bright with victory. “Nobody can beat Curt Hanson,” he said.
“Only a stranger
doesn’t know that – and this one will find out soon enough, eh?” rejoined the first
man, still grinning.
The stranger was
proving to be Curt’s most able opponent yet.
Both men were drenched with sweat, their bodies coiled like springs
ready to launch their next onslaught.
Curt’s eyes were lit with the fire of the fight.
Clatter! Clang!
Clang! The two opponents rushed
at each other, twirling their sticks in offense and defense. Each blow by one was parried by the
other. A collective sigh went up from
the crowd as both men dropped back to circle one another.
“How long have
they been at this?” Belle asked.
But no one
answered. The men in the crowd now held
their fists as though they were the ones wielding the sticks. Women, with their hands on their hips, peered
around, unwilling to miss any of the excitement. And the girls watched with hands clasped, all
rooting for the handsome hometown boy.
They were at it
again. Clack! Clack!
Clack! Their sticks crashed
together with tremendous force.
Suddenly, Curt found the opening he sought. He brought his stick down across the
stranger’s head. Thwack! The stranger had not been able to parry
fully, and he staggered as blood poured from his head. Curt spun his stick catching the stranger in
the ribs. The stranger fell, gasping, to
the ground.
Time stood still
for a moment as the stranger caught his breath.
Belle’s stomach felt queasy at the sight of the stranger’s blood. But the stranger smiled, ruefully, and wiped
the blood from his face. “Good
game,” he croaked, hoarsely. He coughed,
and pushed himself to his knees. “I
didn’t think I could be beaten by a villager.”
~BB
__________
It was probably
Chauncey, talking in his sleep. The
social butterfly was meeting people in his dreams now. Grimm made a face and lay down again.
~BB
__________
By the way, I am over 23k words into BB now!
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