A “Spectrum” Halloween story:
By Cwissy
"Colonel White ... mmm ... Oh yes,
you're the geezer that Captain Grey saved from drowning." A pretty girl called
Tamara addressed the older man with white hair at the Halloween party they and
many others were attending at the Spectrum Headquarters in New York.
"What?" the stunned Colonel asked,
completely mystified.
"He told me all about it.
While you were very enthusiastically bobbing for apples last Halloween,
you fell into the barrel and got stuck and Brad dragged you out before it was
too late."
Colonel White was so shocked that he was
rendered speechless for once.
"Lucky he was there, eh?" she declared,
as she gave him a playful elbow nudge. Obviously, the Spectrum HQ civilian
employee had no idea to whom EXACTLY she was speaking to.
"'Lucky' is not the word I would use in
connection with Captain Grey right now," Colonel White seethed.
"Have to say," Tamara continued,
seemingly oblivious to the man's growing anger, "you're a game old bugger for
even trying to bob for apples. I'm
hopeless at it with real teeth and I must be a quarter of your age."
"How ... How old are you?" asked Captain
Ochre, whilst holding off a choking sensation.
"Twenty five."
"Oh dear," muttered Captain Blue,
contemplating Captain Grey's probable and painful demise.
The girl started laughing.
"It must have been a funny sight afterwards, you know, with that apple
still floating there and having false teeth stuck in it. Brad said that showed real determination
and ..."
"It never happened," the Colonel
growled.
"Did the apple sink?" she queried.
"There were no apples."
Tamara was confused.
"Oh ... but, what were you bobbing for?"
"I wasn't," he snapped with fury.
"None of it happened and
my teeth are real."
"I don't understand ..."
"Um, I think you will find that Captain
Grey sort of made it up," Captain Blue told her in a diplomatic tone. "Er, he was probably trying to impress you." He added the last bit, hoping in vain
that the Colonel would be mollified by the excuse.
"Brad wouldn't have made something up
like that to impress me," Tamara chuckled, "besides, he told me that what he
admired most about me was my quick mind."
The men looked at the curvy brunette and
found that statement a little hard to believe.
"So, he'd realise that I'd recognise an
untruth," she finished off with a smug grin.
"Well, you didn't this time," claimed
Captain Ochre.
She eyed them off.
"Naturally all of you would pretend it didn't happen. Grandpa Whitey ..." She then noticed the Colonel's
purple-faced rage. "Oh, don't be
angry Mister Colonel Sir - that is a term of endearment that they all use for
you ..."
"I assure you we
don't!" cut in Blue,
with alarm and indignation in his voice.
"Fibber," Tamara claimed. "As I was saying, Gran ... er ... Colonel Whitey would be too
embarrassed to admit the incident happened - which is silly; because it is the
sort of thing that could happen to anyone, let alone someone of his advanced
years. And the rest of you would
deny it, because you all stood around like gaping simpletons and if it wasn't
for Brad manfully taking charge - well, you'd all have a different head man
today. He tells me that he is
always having to get you lot out of scrapes of one sort or another and that you
often fail to show proper gratitude."
"Oh, do we now?" said Captain Ochre,
with a dangerous ring in his voice.
"Don't worry, we'll treat him in a most deserving fashion when he does
eventually turn up."
"He shouldn't be long now," Tamara
stated. "He jokingly said that he wouldn't leave
me alone amongst so many sex-starved men for long. I'll admit that he may have stretched
the truth a bit there, because some of you are rather cute." She gave Ochre a light pat on the
bottom. "Aren't you the one that
usually gets around with his head inside a hollowed out pumpkin on these
occasions?" She skipped off to say
hello to some other people before the aghast captain could sputter out an
answer.
"Hey, what's all the scowling about?"
asked Captain Grey of his work colleagues, when he joined them five minutes
later. "Anyone would think that the Mysterons
were hosting this event, I've never seen such a collection of sour pusses in my
life."
"Captain Grey!"
barked an irate Colonel White, advancing on the group of captains. "I want a word with you, NOW!"
"What's going on?
What's happened?" A
bewildered Captain Grey was feeling more than a bit worried at the sight of his
wrathful superior bearing down on him.
"How would you expect a group of
'simpletons' like us to know?"
answered Blue, with a steely gaze.
"Huh?
But ..." Then he noticed, off to
one side, Tamara smiling very sweetly at him.
"What's she ... Oh God!"
A cold feeling of imminent doom struck him.
Tamara watched Captain Grey being
roughly marched off to another room and she could still hear the ensuing
shouting a few minutes later as she left the building and met up with a friend
in an awaiting car.
"See Vicky," she pronounced as she
addressed her friend, "I told Brad that he'd have Hell to pay this Halloween for
dumping me like that."
2nd September,
2002
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