Thursday, 5 June 2014

It must be nice to have parents who are around and, you know, not evil

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“It must be nice to have parents who are around and, you know, not evil.”
She glanced at him. He was holding a framed photo of her family.
She took it out of his hand and put it back in its correct place. Her mother would know if it had moved a centimetre.
“Your parents aren’t evil,” she said.
He gave her a sceptical look.
“Okay,” she conceded, “They are not often around and sometimes your father does some freaky things.”
“Freaky?”
“There was that experiment with the-” She stopped. “I don’t even know what to call it.”
“Chimera,” he added. He picked up another shot of her family. “The fire breathing was painful.”
She chuckled. “Sure was. Lucky it wasn’t very large.” Asking what had happened to it might be more painful, too.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“My great-grandparents.”
“Seriously? They look like Egyptologists.”
“Yes, they were. Archaeologists, technically.”
“Were they trained?”
“Not really. People were self taught in those days and archaeology in the 1920’s mostly consisted of drinking a lot and blowing stuff up.”
“Like that movie?”
“Yep - pretty close.” She studied the figures in the old style photo; the female standing as decorum required just behind his chair, but that was about their only concession to it. The clothes they wore were frankly outlandish. “They adored each other and she just refused to stay at home. It was her money so he argued that she had to come, but the truth was he would never have left her behind.”
“Great-grandparents?” he checked.
“You trying to do the math?”
He shrugged.
“No, you’re right. My grandfather was a very late and unexpected baby.”
“Lucky. Otherwise the estate would not have had an heir.”
“True.”
“And their adventures came to an end?”
She snorted. “Not those two.”
“They sound fascinating.”
“What about your grandparents?” she asked him.
“How long do we have?”
“Really? They were... different, too?”
“Of course! Where do you think the chimera recipe came from?”
“There's a recipe?” She looked astonished.
“You know what I mean.” He grinned at her.
“What other recipes do you have?”
He slung his arm around her shoulders. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would; I really would.”
“How healthy is your family bank account?”
“All those ancient artefacts were priceless, you know.”
“Excellent. The ingredients are often very expensive”
~~~~
© AM Gray 2014


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