Too, too, too embarrassing! Whoops! blogfest

Thanks to everyone participating in today's blogfest! I can't wait to pop round to see all your wacky gaffes, bodacious blunders and excruciating embarrassments.

Here's my offering from WIP-1. The setting is Durham Cathedral, in northeast England. My teen protagonist is having a day out with family, and squeezing in a little homework as well.

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Aunt Cecily motions for me to join her near the quire, where a group of mostly old folks have gathered for cathedral tour. Oh, right, I’m supposed to be doing research for that stupid history presentation. I pack up my sketching supplies and head up the main aisle.

The guide has already started her spiel about the cathedral’s history by the time I reach my aunt. I expected my little cousin to be weaving through Cecily’s legs and swinging back and forth from her purse strap. But Janie’s nowhere to be seen. Maybe she decided to pick up our game of guerrilla stealth with her sister.

“This is not to be missed,” Cecily whispers. “Adèle is the best guide here.”

I get lost in Adèle’s magical voice, the slight Frenchness in her British accent. Every detail seems lusher when she describes it with her whispery consonants and throaty vowels. She leads us into the choir stalls, describing the artisans' techniques for crafting the ornate fretwork that rings the top of the stalls. It’s like an enchanted skyline bristling with Gothic spires. The group fans out and we weave through the rows to get a closer look.

From out of nowhere, a tiny hand grabs my ankle and a piping voice says, “Boo!”

I squawk like a strangled rooster and jump back, crashing into someone behind me. Someone male. He yelps in surprise as we topple onto a pew. A really lumpy pew. It shifts under me—muscle and bone and a pocket full of something I don’t care to think about because holy crap I’m in some old creep’s lap! ACK! I leap up like I scorched my backside on a griddle.

“Sorry, sorry, so sorry!” I gush in a whisper, afraid to make eye contact. I back away, staring at brown wide-wale corduroy legs and huge oxford shoes.

I’m going to kill that twerp Janie! I can’t believe she’d guerrilla stealth me here in the middle of these so-serious geezer tourists.

“’sall right. No worries,” the mysterious male says. Australian words, but the accent is totally London. That’s weird.

“My cousin and I were playing a game and—”

“You’re in big, big, big trouble, miss!” Aunt Cecily jabs my shoulder with each “big.”

“It got a little out of hand,” I finish feebly and finally peek up at my victim. It’s not a grandfatherly sixty-something like I expected, but a college-aged guy with murky eyes. He leans languidly in the pew and slowly slides a finger across his thick lower lip. I turn away, blushing, and see the group moving on toward the high altar.

Aunt Cecily grabs Janie’s slim arm and hisses, “Jane Louise, come out this instant!”

“Sorry, Mummy, sorry!” Janie scrambles to her feet, ashy pale.

“Enough! Both of you, come with me.” Cecily grabs our wrists and drags us from the quire. I hope she knows I’m too old for spankings.

“I’m terribly sorry for squashing you,” I tell the guy I’d sat on.

He smirks and raises an eyebrow. “I’m fine” he mouths, squinting in a way that’s almost…I don’t know, seductive?

Cecily leads us to a chapel off the back of the nave. “So what do you two have to say for yourselves?”

“Sorry,” I mutter. “We shouldn’t horse around in a cathedral. It’s a house of God.”

“Right. And you?”

Janie grins. “Thanks, Mummy!”

“Well done!” Cecily high-fives her.

“She jolly well sounded like a chicken, didn’t she, Mummy?”

“Don’t know—I’ve never heard a person make a sound like that before.”

I goggle at them. “You mean I’m not actually in trouble?”

“Lord, no.” Cecily laughs. “You must know how dead boring this is for Janie. It was awfully good of you to come up with a game to get her through it.”

“But…” I frown at Janie. “You weren’t supposed to tell your mum.”

“You never said that.”

Cecily sniggers. “The chap she sat on, that was a great bonus. And you know what?” She waggles her eyebrows. “I think he rather liked it.”

Categories: blogfest, humor