The Secretive Seven

types of odo: dazzling eyes, spontaneous fits of nostalgia, mango ice cream, reciting Greek poetry to the king of Sardinia

[quote="Mrs Figg yeah where are the freekin Moderators when you need em? its quite salacious lies. I fell on that Scrum Halfs sausage. [/quote]

Raw or cooked, Mrs Figg? It might jusrt be important....

THE SECRET SEVEN


14


"Can you run it by us just once more..." David said to Halfred, still not quite able to understand the information the Physics Major was imparting.

"Well," Halfred started again, talking less excitedly now, indeed, far slower so that even a farmer could understand him. "I chewed a hole in the sack, and then pushed out my head, then my body, tearing the hessian very slowly and quietly; the plash of the Fjorianlandians' row-strokes masking any noise I made. Luckilly, of course, I was under a seat in the prow and their bare muscular backs were before me once I'd escaped."

"What about your hand bindings?" Peter asked, also still not sure how to grok what had happened.

"I rubbed and rubbed the prow spit protruder until they split and broke..."

"The prow spit protruder?" David asked.

"Don't start hitting me with your nautical knowledge, Farmer Boy! ... Anyway, once I'd done that, I had my hands free. I grabbed up two cudgels the Fjordianlandians had carelessly left in the under-prow vestible, and...

"Under-prow vestible?"

"... shut up, David! --- I grabbed the cudgels and bip! bop! I knocked out the first two Fjordianlandians."

"I thought they had unbreakable granite-like heads?"

"Who said that?" Peter wanted to know.

"The narrator, you stupid fuck!" Halfred snapped impatiently. "I wish you'd pay attention! And will you let me finish, anyway! Where was I? Oh yes. I then threw their unconcious bodies overboard. After that, I just meticulously worked my way toward the stern bip-bop bip-bopping all the way. Before you could say, 'Petty wears Westminster fabrics,' our brawny smugglers were all overboard. Their heads may as well have been unbreakable granite, judging by how swiftly they sank."

"Isn't that murder?" Peter asked nervously.

"Not when it's Fjordianlandian smugglers, it's not," Halfred retorted.

"I must say, it all seems too easy," David opined.

"You're just jealous you didn't rescue us, Farmer Boy!" Halfred retorted in an obnoxious high filutin tone which is not at all rare among Physics Majors (it's said).

"Don't keep calling me Farmer Boy!"

"What are you going to do about it then?" Halfred challenged him, holding up his fists.

David saw red and held up his fists too. "Go on then. Start it!"

"No, you start it!"

"You!"

"You!"

"You!"

"You!"

"I said it first!"

"No you didn't!"

"Yes I did..."

Peter noticed a bottle of buckie under one of the seats.

"Bless Eru," he sighed.


to be continued....

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


15


"types of odovacar:
dazzling eyes,
spontaneous fits of nostalgia,
mango ice cream,
reciting Greek poetry
to the king of Sardinia

types of julia:
groping sausages,
unbidden crimes of passion,
treats to salivate,
oh Heracles
where are your
cranesbills
while
Icarus melts before our eyes...

alack! aloo! alang!
to do or not to do
or make a do-do
falling falling...
oh to fall upon a
Scrum Halfs sausage.... "

"What on earth are you saying?" April wanted to know as they descended the path toward Smugglers Cave. "Julia! Snap out of it!"

"What? What? Oh it's you, April. I was in a strange place!"

"You can sure say that," Amy opined. "I'll put it down to tiredness...and aren't we all?"

"Is that the sea I can hear?" April asked suddenly.

"It's the gentle lapping of the waves," Amy agreed. "Quick, let's descend further. The path appears to descend abruptly just ahead, though it's difficult to say, what with all the coastal shrubbery here abouts and the confused lattice of moon-edged shadows."

Before long they had descended a rough cut stairway and came out on to coastal gravel at the bottom of a cliff.

"Look!" Amy hissed. "There's a dark inkspot just along a bit which ight just be a cave mouth and probably is. Carefully it goes. Watch out for smugglers. Quiet now!"

But the place seemed deserted. They came to a black maw which, indeed, was the mouth of a cave.

"Have you got your torch, Julia?"

"Here!"

"Was that actually in your handbag?"

"Yes."

"Oh..."

"Come on. The place appears to be deserted."

Julia shone her torch about the cave mouth. "Look! Footprints. Let's go inside."

The cave was quite small at the front, only one girl could walk abreast. Julia lead the way. Her hand shook as she followed a long tunnel. Suddenly, they came out into a large cavernous space filled with timber boxes and casks of herring oil.

"Well, that proves it then," Amy exclaimed. "This is a smuggler's cave."

"And look!" April avowed. "Three bodies have been lying in the sand here. My goodness! It's the indentation left by three boys of about sixteen, no doubt Halfred, Dave and Peter! Oh my Gawd! They were tied up in sacks like yummy dwarves!"

"You can tell that just by looking at three sandy indentations?" Julia asked in surprise, with that facial expression she wore whenever she thought someone was talking utter crap.

"Apparently," April answered.

Amy kneeled down and studied the indentations closely. She sniffed the air just above the sand. "It's definitely them - you can smell Peter from miles away! - but they've been gone for hours."

"Let's go down to the water and see if there's any sign of a smuggler's boat having recently been pulled up on the shore," Julia said solemnly. "I fear the worst!"

"You can't be thinking the boys have been captured and spirited out to sea?" April asked in shock.

"Err... yes.. but I was thinking of my new shoes too... The beach is quite gravelly you know... Oh well, I suppose they're already ruined anyway."


to be continued...

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


16


"The Spartans, of course," Odovacar was pontificating, "are a case in point. They had no aversion to man on man calisthenic activities, while remaining positivly heterosexual. Sex with women seemed effeminate to them, you see. They were bold warriors at heart who only had sex with women secretly so as to promulgate the species while avoiding a flogging from their Camp Commanders."

"Camp Comanders?"

"Oh tosh, dear, dear, sweet, Roddy. You knew what I meant! And, yes, like those brazen Spartans I've slept with a boy occasionally, but I always took the heterosexual role I assure you."

"And now, with me in your snugly arms?"

"Well, to be perfectly frank, I don't see you at all as a boy. To me you're a young woman. You may as well be. You're a gorgeous girl."

"And so what about my penis? You certainly don't seem to mind me having one."

"Well, no, but to me it only complements your wonderful breasts. Mmm... lovely... wobbly... but not too wobbly...."

"I still think you're repressing your latent homosexuality."

"You would say that, Roddy, but no, no, I think you're wrong."

"Then why are you even now stroking my penis in such an affectionate manner?"

"You score a superficial point only. You see, I stroke it in a very heterosexual manner. Notice, how readily and keenly I transfer my hand back to your breasts. Tell me it's the fumblings of a latent homosexual. I think not. The point is, and you've said it yourself, you think of yourself as a girl with a penis, and that's exactly how I view the matter as well."

"To be honest," Roddy said, "All your talk just now makes me suspect you're quite uncomfortable about your sexuality, latent or not."

"Okay! Okay! Get your penis snipped off if that's what I have to say to prove to you that I'm a full blooded heterosexual. Go on! I'm even prepared to bite it off with my teeth if that's what you want! See! Deep down I'd prefer you without the offending member. I've only been accepting of your wonderful penis because I want to be manly and supportive of my girl."

"Liar liar pants on fire."

"Oh shut up, you, and give us a kiss."

But even as they kissed, Odovacar was beginning to have misgivings about how things were going and, frankly, who could blame him?


to be continued...

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


17


Peter rowed magnificently, and Halfred and David - who both had arms too sore to row from having held up their bellicose fists for ages and ages before they accepted a draw - kept him fueled on the bottles of buckie they found under the rowboat seats. The Forumshire moon shone beautifully on the gentle swelling sea.

"Look! On the shore!" Halfred raised his voice in delight. "Those well dressed female figures... it has to be.... It is!"

And sure enough, when the rowboat crunched onto the gravelly shore, it was met by the three girls.

"Where have you been?" Julia wanted to know, tired and surly. "It must be two am!"

"We were captured by beefy smugglers and only escaped an hour ago," David told them.

"I rescued us," Halfred said proudly.

"You?" the girls articulated, with eyebrows raised in question marks.

"I did!" Halfred yelled. "I did! I did!"

"He did, actually," Peter explained. "I was there and saw it all."

The girls, of course, were speechless.

"Where's Odovacar?" David asked, deliberatedly changing the subject.

"Yes. Why isn't he with you guys?" April asked.

"He ran off to get help when we were being stuffed into sacks," Peter said loyally.

"I thought he was off formulating a brilliant plan," Halfred mentioned. "Mind, he didn't have to because I saved us. Me!"

"Well, you don't have to go on about it," David grunted.

"If it was Odovacar, he'd go on about it - and endlessly!"

"True. So you're comparing yourself to Odovacar now, are you?" David asked.

Halfred was about to say something. Then he thought about it. Then he was going to say something else. But he thought again. Then... he decided David had won this round.

"Let's go home," Amy yawned. "It'll take hours and I'm bushed already."

"Off we go then," Peter said and began to walk toward the stairway up the cliff of the headland....

.... out of the deeper shadows beneath the cliff a dark figure strode....

..... then another flanking him....

... sinister figures!

And one of them - the one on the left - held a gun!


to be continued....

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


18


Odovacar had much on his mind as he headed home after kissing his beautiful Roddy goodnight.

"I always thought I'd finish school, take up a job in insurance or car sales, take over my employer in a hostile takeover, buy an island where I could breed with a hand picked selection of gorgeous gold diggers from every nation on earth, and change my name to Ghandi... but Roddy has thrown a spanner in the works... I mean, I think I'm in love. But even if Roddy has the full change, he won't be able to bear children for me, not even one snotty nosed runt. And it's not as if IVF has been invented yet. And even IVF was invented, who is going to donate a womb? Not Amy, April or Julia I bet. They're too self centred for that... But Roddy isn't the type to accept a casual relationship. He's the steady kind of girl, dear romantic silly boy that he is."

So you see Odovacar had much to think about.

Only when he got back to the terraces did her think of the others.

"Oh the lads!" he cried. "I forgot about them. Oh dear! I bet they're dead already!"

And he began to cry on his pillow.

It wasn't so much the loss of his friends, of course, that upset him, because there were plenty of fish (friends) in the ocean, it was just.... well, he had gone and lost his heart to a curvaceous young boy who had a girl inside him and two perfect breasts to go with the package, but he knew it could never work... not openly in respectable society anyhow...



to be continued...

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


19



Peter acted quickly and rushed the man with the gun. A powerful wrestle occurred in the gravel.

Julia gave the other sinister figure a karate kick in the quoits. Amy threw herelf on the figure when he crumpled to the beach. April was on top too in a flash. Halfred and David held their handbags, which was very brave when you consider their sore arms.

"So who have we got here?" Peter asked. "Hey! It's Cook the cook."

"And who have we got here?" Amy demanded to know.

"Oh gawd! It's Gerald Manley!" Julia almost groaned. "I don't understand!"

"We'll, I'll tell you the truth, you'll only get it out of me anyway..." Gerald said. "I'm a traitor to the realm."

"I thought he was too good to be true," April grumbled. "Men! They always disappoint you in the end."

"I thought Cook the cook was on our side," Julia wondered aloud.

"I think he was," Amy said scratching her head.

"No, he was in cahoots with those Fjordianlandian smugglers," David said angrilly. "He should have both his apples plucked!"

"No, he was honestly on our side, as far as I know," April thought aloud. "I remember Gerald talking about him in an unrecorded part of our journey in the back of the lorry."

"But if Gerald has turned out to be a traitor..." Julia contemplated.

"I've got it!" Peter shouted. "Cook the cook must be a double agent."

"I'm not sure all the threads have come together properly...." Halfred put in.

"Oh shut up!" David cried. "I really have had enough of you tonight. Let's get these traitors to the police station."

After the traitors had been lodged at a local police station, they headed home.

"You know, Halfred was right, David," Amy said judiciously. "I've thought it all out but this ending doesn't join all the dots - one or two maybe - but not all of them.""

"I think everyone's too tired to work it out now anyhow," Peter averred. "

"That's probably it," April agreed.

"If I didn't know better, I'd suspect the Narrator is too lazy to work out a proper resolution," Julia said rather pointedly.


to be continued...

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


20


The tired Six found the Seventh asleep in his bed. When Julia turned on his light, she frowned enormously.

"Hey! What are you doing here?"

Odovacar sat bolt upright. "Struck by lightning! Struck by lightning!"

"I'll strike you with lightning, alright," David grumbled. "What are you doing here when you should have been rescuing us!"

"I got tied up with other things," Odovacar said uneasily.

"What? With some sexy trollop in a short skirt and an even shorter list of morals!" Julia yelled.

"Not exactly," Odovacar answered meekly.

And he began to cry.

"You people will never understand," he accused them. "Never never ever."

And the boy began to punch his pillows furiously.

"Never never never ever!"

"Well, I'll be fooked!" Julia said.

But that, dear reader, will have to wait for another story.


THE END

Smugglers and Snugglers, oh my!

How did I miss a whole week of this?

As far as I can tell, you were the hero in the end, Halfy. Fancy missing that!

I must have been drunk at the time. It's the only way a furball ends up being the hero.

Orwell wrote:Halfred was about to say something. Then he thought about it. Then he was going to say something else. But he thought again. Then... he decided David had won this round.

So keenly observed...

wait...I won?

hey my lover

''You can tell that just by looking at three sandy indentations?" Julia asked in surprise, with that facial expression she wore whenever she thought someone was talking utter crap''.

I seem to be wearing it a lot recently.

hey my other lover

David H wrote:wait...I won?

I guess you did too. You certainly made Halfy speechless there for a moment. Hurrah!

CC12 35 wrote:hey my lover

David?

CC12 35 wrote:hey my other lover

Mrs Figg?


My goodness, Kooky! You've gone and given this thread a very unwholesome twist!

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN
THE CASE OF THE FJORDIANLANDIAN COUSINS
by Orwell Blyton



1



War was about to break out. France was overthrown by the Huns. England was on a war footing. America was keeping a keen eye on Wall Street. Amy Diaphonous was sitting on her bed in her chamber at Floggonkokken Manor in Berkshire frowning immeasurably.

"It won't be as bad as you think, I'm sure," April Manchester said gently. "Your Fjordianlandian cousins can't be bad people if they are anything like you."

"If they are like Amy, they might be," Julia Figginbottom said, trying to help.

"But how can I be sure they are my cousins?" Amy continued to frown. "I mean, until Mother got the wire from Skattykatzenberg, she thought her sister Hetty Herring dead all these years; killed as a child in an elk attack. Mother swears she can remember going to the funeral."

"You did say your Mother was only young then,"April said solicituously. "She may just remember wrong. Perhaps it was another family member."

"And who knows," Julia brightened. "They may be beautful people like you. Who are they? Eric, Ringo and Nora Herring? They sound such nice solid names."

"That's the other thing. Why ever would anyone in my family ever marry a Herring? I mean - how many Herring men have ever fathered children? I mean - you must have heard what the Hering men are like."

"Herring men?" Julia mused. "Fisherfolk, I gather."

"If fishing for men is what you mean, yes, generally speaking," Amy said poignantly. "Sad really. Such handsome folk."

"With rather renowned thighs as I hear it," April said. "Well, I've read all about them in the Fjordian Fashion Almanac, you know," April added quickly and with some excitement. "They hardly ever wear trousers, you know, just short shorts. Lovely thighs, it's said...." April's expression had taken on a dreamy look.

"I don't care about their thighs, nor should you if you know what's good for you," Amy got out in a sudden burst of annoyance. "Many's the lad who got entangled by the allure of their thighs. You don't want that to happen to you, do you?"

"Get tangled in their thighs?"

"Yes," Amy answered forthrightly, her eyes full of warning.

"Did you say, 'lads'?" Julia put in.

Amarie's brow cleared immediately. "But of course! Lads! Sorry, April, you should be safe from them. My apologies. I'm just worried about who these mysterious cousins are... and why are they coming to England?"


...


The other four sevenths of the famous Secretive Seven were in another room at Amy's parents' manor while all their parents were attending a very important toga party in Leeds.

"Peculiar business," David Farmer was saying.

"What is?" Peter MacKilty asked as he was laying out his kilt for the day.

"Amy's mysterious cousins."

"Oh that," said Halfred Fysicsfreke, as he worked at a side table on a jet propulsion system protype he was developing in hope it would be finished in time to help the war effort, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration. "So what if she'd never heard of them before. Not knowing about them doesn't make them suspicious."

"It's queer though, turning up like that," Petty said.

"Fjordianlandians are queer, I grant you," Halfred said. "But being queer doesn't make you mysterious, it just makes you... well, queer."

"What was that?" Odovacar Moneybags asked suddenly, looking up from where he lay on a bed scribbling a letter to his pen-pal Roddy. "Who are you saying is queer?"

"These Fjordianlandians. A queer bunch if ever there was a race of queer folk."

"Roddy is rather fond of them, so I guess they must be okay. He spends a lot of time with them."

"Lovely thighs as I've heard," David said.

"Aye," Peter agreed having heard the same thing.    

"Roddy says they are fine, but he pays no attention to things like that," Odovacar said, seeming surprisingly earnest about it.
 
"This Roddy. Who is he again?" Halfred asked.

"Just an old school chum. Nothing more. You don't have to read anything else into it," Odovacar shot back.

"Read what into it?" Halfred asked taken aback by Odovacar's apparent venom. "It was just a simple question. What could I possibly be reading into it?"

"Anything! You could be reading anything. Frankly, I won't begin to guess."

"Leave him alone," Peter put in. "He goes all queer when you ask questions about his friend Roddy."

"Yes. That's right! A  friend. And that's all. A friend!"

The other three boys exchanged meaningful glances.

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN

2

The Secretive Seven had gathered on the main balcony, hiding behind Grecian urns with ferns in them, and peering down at the rather large Fjordianmobile pulled up in the drive.

"Must have brought it over by boat," Halfred opined.

"What?" David asked.

"The Fjordianmobile."

"Oh."

"Don't stick your head out so far," Amy hissed. "They'll see you."

"Why are we peeping anyway?" Peter wanted to know.

"Because we're the Secretive Seven, that's why," Julia snapped.

"Oh."

"Will you just look at them!" Amy hissed. "They look wrong somehow."

The three Fjordianlandian visitors had by now climbed out of the Fjordianmobile. A tall lad, another lad slightly shorter, and a girl somewhat shorter again and scowling. They had clean white skins and furtive eyes and wore short shorts like they were Swiss really, but they were Fjordianlandians alright, the Secretive Seven could smell the fisk even from twenty metres away.

"That girl looks positively monstrous," April exclaimed.

"Gothic I would have thought," Halfred said. "Black top, black hood, black knickerbockers. Fjordian Goth all over. And the scowl. Pure Goth!"

"What's a Goth?" Julia wanted to know. "Sounds like some kind of anti-establishment retard from the future."

"Exactly," Halfred told her.

"So you're a Futurist now, are you?" David laughed scornfully.

"I might be," Halfred said coyly.

"Will you two stop it," April complained. "Why must you always fight?"

"Because one's a physics student and the other a horticulturist," Amy said, for she had read about a lot of things like that in the Librarian Course she had completed last Autumn in Greenwich. "They're like chalk and cheese."

"No they're not," Petty said.

"Why are you always so literal?" April complained again. "Shush! Amy's Fjordianlandian cousins are walking toward the portico."

"The taller one, that must be Eric..." Julia breathed. "He's rather scrumptious."

"He's the eldest isn't he?" April asked.

"He's the eldest apparently, and step-brother to the other two," Amy grimaced. "Eric Bluebottlle-Herring. We mustn't let his dashing good looks delude us. He'll be cunning. He's a trainee Lawyer, you know."

"And the other? Is that Ringo Herring? He looks gorgeous too," April cooed.

"And oily, I bet - incredibly oily," Amy grimaced again.

"But what lovely thighs," Julia cooed too.

"It's true what they say then... about Fjordianlandian thighs..." Petty said. "Not that I'd be interested in their thighs..."

"The girl looks rather attractive in a piss-off sort of way," David offered. "Nora isn't it?

Just then, Nora looked up and saw David peeping around a fern frond and she gave him a rather brisk and expressive hand sign.

"Was that a friendly greeting?" David asked perplexed. "It did not seem like one."

"No," Halfred agreed. "It didn't."

"We better go down and meet them, I guess," Amy sighed with manifest resignation. "Mother did tell me I must be polite and welcoming. It's just -- well --- I feel so intuitively suspicious of them."

"You probably just don't like Fjordianlandians," Odovacar opined.

"How ridiculous," Amy growled at him. "I was born in Fjordianlandia! My parents are Fjordianlandian. My whole ancestry is Fjordianalandian."

"Familiarity does breed contempt," Julia helped.

Amy just grimaced again.

I do enjoy getting to read a new story from the Bugle.

More fun ! more fun ! la la la la la laaaaaaaaaaaa !

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN

3

On the gathering a shadow brooded. Not a shadow you could see, just one you could feel on your skin and within your Id. All of of them recognised it. The Secretive Seven and their supposed Fjordian Kin alike. They were in the dining room standing each in their own group, eyeing each other after having already made their terse - superficially warm - greetings.

"So, you're Amy's cousins. Is that right?" Halfred asked after a time, trying to sound friendly. "From Skattykatzenberg?"

"That's right," Eric said.

"So... so you're the children of Amy's Mother's dead sister, is that right?" Peter asked, his tone laden with a goodly dram of ancestral suspicious blood-hate he usually reserved for the English.    

"Our Mother isn't dead," Nora stated with a steely stare that revealed nothing, though her scowl told them a lot about her, possibly everything.

"And why have you come over to England?" David asked, as if innocently.

"Why, we so much wanted to meet out dear cousin, Amy, that's why," answered Ringo. "Isn't that a good reason - even to the English?"

And though Ringo seemed a nice young man with shapely thighs, there was something not altogether totally open and honest and transparent about him.

Odovacar, who was making a close examination of his impressive crotch, even wondered if his apparent youthful potent manliness knew the benefit of a sock. Ringo caught Odovacar's keen appraisal and smiled demurely. Odovacar went pink and pretended then on to appraise Nora's white scowling face, even trying to grin suggestively. Nora stared back at at him as if she were studying a poisonous toad - which, coincidentally or not, wasn't the first such look he had received.

"We seem tense," said Eric smoothly. "Come now. We must loosen up. I mean, this is meant to be a happy occasion."

"You're right, of course," April said pragmatically. "I for one would like to get to know you better, Eric. You seem a handsome young man of goodly proportions. I should like very much to know you better..."

"Know?" Eric said with pursed ironic lips.

April blushed.

"My dear," Eric went on. "It may help if you call me Blue. That's what my friends call me ---- Blue."

"I think we'll stick with Eric for the nonce," David said, and Peter and Halfred agreed, studying him through narrowed eyelids, while Odovacar seemed withdrawn, perhaps preoccupied mentally.

"I'm happy with Blue," said April, and the two other girls nodded in agreement as they too scrutinized the tall and handsome Fjordianlandian from head to toe, and back again, and then again...  

"We must show you to your rooms," Odovacar said suddenly, as if recovering from a daze. "I'll have the butler take you up... Eldorion!" he cried. "Eldorion!"

"Yes," said Eldorion, the Butler, as he hurried in neatly and precisely. "You called, Master Odovacar?"

"Of course I called... What stupid question! Take our guests up to their rooms will you --- at the back of the mansion near the servants quarters."

"Aha! So you are currently Master of the House are you?" Ringo said sweetly as he threw back an errant lock of Fjordianlandin hair from his forehead. "I trust my Cousin Amy is satisfied with your.. err... Mastery of her House?"

Odovacar blushed pink. "Err... well, Amy is my cousin.... and... and... and I suppose I am the Man in charge at the moment..."

"Indeed, you are," Ringo smiled. (Odovacar did not know if he had a gold tooth or something, but he swore he saw a bright glint emanating from Ringo just then). "I'm in the Skattykatzenberg Militia," Ringo went on, "and I know a Man when I see one."

Odovacar did not know what to say.

"Yes, Eldorion," Amy cut in, as if she too had broken from a daze. "Please take my... cousins.. to their rooms...."

Eldorion performed a perfect bow and lead the Fjordianlandians out.

"'Call me 'Blue'," David scoffed immediately they were gone. "What? He thinks we'll trust him because he tells us his nickname?"

And Peter and Halfred laughed scoffingly, while Odovacar had fallen unnaturally quiet again.

"Well, Blue seems very nice to me," Julia opined.

And Amy and April nodded in agreement, and the three girls exchanged a knowing glance or two.

"Don't tell me you're falling so easily for that Fjordianlandian's charms!" Halfred almost yelled in disgust.

"Not at all!"  Odovacar shot back angrily. "Don't be such a dolt!"

And Odovacar hurried from the room looking rather angry and vulnerable.

The others now exchanged glances both surprised and perplexed.