Babbler Excerpt No. 6

Tent boy takes off
He'd had it up to here!

Reprinted courtesy of The Beemer Babbler

Daniel Beemer packed his sack and headed for the door and when Remy caught up with him on that cold, moonless night he was almost to Gardenia Avenue.

Having misbehaved and been banished to his room while his parents were out looking at computers, he'd taken stock of his home life and decided enough was enough. So, into his Power Rangers backpack went two stuffed toys, a jacket, his jammies, and his blanket, and on went his parka, his mittens, and his rubber boots, and out the back door went Daniel Lee Beemer, 6 years old.

"I had to pick him up and carry him back home," noted Remy, 16, who'd been left in charge of her siblings. "And he was kicking and screaming like crazy."

"He said he hated everybody and everybody hated him and he was running away," added sister Kelly, 11, who witnessed the incident aghast with incredulity.

Naturally, the news of their son's narrowly averted departure sat poorly with Suffy and Shortboy, occasioning sanctions swift and severe.

"The tent came down and I mean pronto," said Shortboy, referring to the nylon pop-up camping shelter which Daniel had once again erected in the middle of his bedroom and in which he'd been spending every night for nearly a week. "And I pulled the plug on his Sega system, too, and gave him one heckuva scowl."

Susan nods affirmatively. "You were brutal."

"You gotta be tough or it ain't 'tough love,'" her husband soberly suggests.

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Babbler Excerpt No. 4

Got a staring problem?
Reprinted courtesy of The Beemer Babbler

The ranks of the myopic have swollen by one at the little beige house on North Connecticut affectionately known as "904." Kelly Beemer has slipped-on the spectacles, making Remy and Daniel the last two Mohicans in the tribe of the normally sighted.

With both of their parents and now four of their siblings the slaves of supplementary refraction, what are the odds that Remy and Daniel will never take a number at the optician's?

Pretty dang good according to Gloria Beemer, their paternal grandmother and one-time darling of the radio airwaves. As geeked as ever to cop herself a mention in The Babbler, she speculates that Remy and Danny won't sport specs before middle age.

"It's in their DNA," she asserts. "They're both left-handed and I'm left-handed and I didn't need glasses until I hit the double nickel."

She grabs a section of Remy's cheek and pinches it with vigor. "We're just a couple of lefties, aren't we, Thea."

Batting her grandmother's hand away with a crisply applied karate chop, Remy rolls her eyes toward the ceiling and stomps out of the room while Kelly looks on, aghast.

"Wow! I saw all of that really clearly!" she exclaims. "That was cool!"

But, generally speaking, how cool does she find wearing glasses?

"Well, everybody thinks I look great in them—which I do, of course—so image isn't a problem. And I really love seeing all the details I used to miss, like Remy's eyeballs rolling up into her head. But there is one big drawback, and I'm not sure if I should mention it, 'cause it has to do with my dad—"

She pauses a moment as though expecting a proffer of cash for the intelligence.

"Well, I hope he doesn't get mad when he reads this, but Dad's always saying he's fat and ugly, and now I've either gotta keep my mouth shut or figure out something else to say besides, 'No you're not.'"

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