On Falling In And Out Of Storyside...

Part 9

"What are you, Public Enemy #1 around here?" Jerry asked her.

"Are you kidding?" she gasped, still running. "I'm Public Enemy Numbers 1 through 10."

And she's a well known felon, Jerry said to himself. Great. Just perfect.

Naomi and Jerry came out of the brush again, this time in front of the castle moat. Jerry looked around for Magbert and Mia and was surprised to find them nowhere near. "Where's Magbert and his kid?" he asked.

"Taking care of themselves, if they're smart," Naomi said, pushing him forward. "Jump."

"Wait a minute, man," Jerry protested. "Moats have moat guarding creatures in them like dragons and serpents and..."

"Alligators, so get in," Naomi said, shoving him. Jerry toppled into the water with a splash and Naomi jumped in after him. "Under here," she said, swimming toward the drawbridge. As they swam closer, Jerry could see there was a crawlspace underneath where the tip of the drawbridge rested on the ground. The two made for this space, Naomi making it before Jerry.

She looked back to see what he was doing and found him treading water. "Come on," she hissed, "you're taking forever!"

"I'm trying, man. I think I'm caught on a branch or something," Jerry protested, trying to swim forward. He tried to look down in the murky water to see what the problem was. "My shoestring's tangled on it."

"Well..." Naomi paused in midsentence, her gaze frozen on a spot behind him, a spot that was closing on him fast. "Jerry, give me your hand," she said calmly.

"What?" he asked, not really paying attention to her.

"Give me your hand," she repeated, more urgently.

"I've almost got..."

"Gimme your hand now!" she demanded.

"Okay, here!" He reached out and locked arms with her indian style and she hauled backward with all her might, just as the alligator closed in on him. It grabbed him from behind with its front claws and tried to take him underwater. Jerry yelled in pain, trying to escape, while Naomi kept a death grip on his arm. With her other hand, she reached into her boot with great difficulty. Finally, she pulled a dagger from it and, taking a brief second to aim, threw it straight into the gator's eyes. With a hiss of pain, the gator let go of Jerry and swam away, writhing in agony. Now Naomi pulled and finally got Jerry, along with his shoe, loose of the submerged branch. She dragged him up onto the low __ and laid him out to examine him. He was gagging some from nearly drowning and his arms were punctured and bleeding from where the claws had dug in. Naomi looked at his arms with a wince.

"Damn," she said, "That must hurt."

Jerry whimpered slightly in response. "God, what a drag your reality is," he gasped. "You know, if I were home, I could be doing something easy, like...like falling face first on the rink floor at 35 miles an hour."

"Been there. Done that," Naomi replied, shaking her head. Jerry couldn't help but laugh at this obvious reference to his own world, but pain stopped him. Naomi laughed a little, too, then tore off one of her sleeves as she said, "You may not believe this, but being crushed and punctured by a gator hurts considerably less than being on the pointy end of a guard's sword."

"Have you done that before, too?" Jerry asked, half seriously.

Naomi hiked up her shirt high and pointed to a straight scar about 3 inches long down her abdomen. "The hilt was about here," she said, gesturing about 8 inches in front of her, "and the tip was in the tree behind me."

Jerry laughed faintly and said, "Alright, you made your point."

"Bad choice of words," she smirked, bandaging up his arm with the sleeve.

"Why didn't you tell me there was a gator behind me?" he asked.

"Because I didn't want you to panic and not give me your hand. If that alligator had grabbed you and you hadn't been holding onto me, he'dve taken you under until you drowned," Naomi said, not looking at him. "You're lucky he didn't just crush you."

"Oh, yeah, I really feel lucky," he said wryly. He paused for a moment, then said, "So you actually do care about me. I thought you were just messin' around."

I was," she replied. He gazed at her steadily and she looked up at him. They held gazes until Naomi, embarrassed, returned to her work.

Jerry looked at her while she worked on his arms. She didn't seem nearly as obnoxious right now; in fact, all in all, she was kinda pretty when she wasn't being sarcastic or smug. She reminded him of someone he knew, although he could place the face. He guessed she was about 17, maybe 18, which wasn't too old for him. "How old are you?" he asked.

"I'll be 120 years old in a few months," she said.

Then, again, this whole fairy-human relationship thing is probably not for me, anyway, Jerry thought to himself, clearing his mind of all thoughts of Naomi.

Previous           Next
Back To DTJ Stories
Home