WeWriWa—A memorable end to the visit with Santa

Happy Christmas to all those who celebrate, and happy eighth night of Chanukah!

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This year, my Christmas-themed excerpts are coming from the currently-numbered tenth book of my Saga of the Sewards series, set during December 1943. I’ve done almost zero editing on any of these books since I converted their obsolete file formats, so any edits made will be as I’m preparing these posts.

Elaine’s new boyfriend Roger is a department store Santa, and Elaine is his assistant. In the last two snippets, Elaine’s cousins and stepcousins took their turns, and now the youngest members of the family are up, the 22-month-old quints. The first one on Santa’s lap is Amy, who was born third.

“What might you want, little girl?” Roger asked.

“Teddybear.”

Mr. Seward lifted the other four quints on and off of Roger’s lap one by one. Andrew cried the entire time; Paula pulled on his beard and asked for a dollhouse; Susie squirmed as she asked for a toy phone; and then it was Peggy’s turn.

“What do you want?”

“Candy.”

In the next moment, Peggy got a strange look in her eyes, and Roger’s eyes widened. Roger’s entire face was contorted into a grimace as he hoisted Peggy off of his lap and held her as far away from him as possible, revealing a big puddle underneath.

“I’m so sorry,” Bambi said. “Peggy’s been having a lot of accidents lately.”

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Mr. Seward shook his head. “Children should have no accidents by twenty-two months old. We need to have a long talk with Cynthia about why she hasn’t been working harder on toilet-training them, and why she didn’t start sooner. I’m sorry my nanny’s negligence caused you to be disgraced in public, Wilkes.”

The elf who’d gotten Roger fired came storming up. “I would go to the boss and get you fired again, Wilkes, but he doesn’t believe a word out of my mouth now that you made him think I’m crazy! Thanks a lot for saving your own skin at the expense of my reputation! Now everyone we work with thinks I’m an insane, jealous little person who made up a scandalous story about you because I’m jealous of you for your height and good looks, and because I’m not tall enough to play Santa!” The elf gave him the finger before storming away.

Happy Halloween!— WeWriWa: Halloween surprises

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This year’s Halloween-themed excerpts come from the eighth book in my Saga of the Sewards series (formerly known as Max’s House). It needs a great deal of editing, rewriting, and revision, along with a new title, so I’m doing preliminary edits and fleshing it out as I go this month.

It’s now near the end of Halloween night, and Mr. Seward’s stepdaughters and younger children have finally come home from trick-or-treating. He’s very displeased, to say the least, when he learns about what happened without his knowledge or permission.

“It’s eleven-thirty!” Mr. Seward raged. “Where have you been all night? It never took that long to trick-or-treat before!”

“We were at the older kids’ party at school a lot of that time,” Harold said.

“Gene ran off, and we searched everywhere!” Cora Ann yelled. “When his mother dropped him off at the party, neither of them apologized for scaring us so much.”

“Mommy gave me really good candy and cocoa,” Gene said. “I got bored of trick-or-treating, and it was cold, so I decided to visit her.”

“That was illegal!” Mr. Seward shouted, shaking his fist in the air. “Clara knows damn well I have full custody and that she’s not allowed to see you again unless it’s by accident in public!”

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to complete the scene.

Gene peeled the paper off of a candybar and began eating it. “I don’t care if you tan my hide for visiting Mommy. We had a lot of fun, and I’ll visit her again whenever I feel like it. She missed her favorite child.”

“Clara said many times she had no interest in motherhood, and made no attempt to even pretend to care in all those years before our divorce. Even her spoiling of you was constantly interrupted by her many trips abroad with her much-younger lovers. I refuse to believe she’s had a radical change of heart after so much time.”

“I’m sleepy, Daddy,” Amy whimpered.

“Who are you?” Mr. Seward asked. “Did you follow my kids home?” He took a double-take.  “Four strange kids followed you home!”

“What?” Adeladie asked. “Who? There are only ten of us, not fourteen.”

“My God!” he went on. “Where are the other four quints? Did somebody steal them?  Who’s the only quint here?”

“All the quints are here. Take off their costumes if you don’t believe me.”

Mr. Seward yanked the sheet off the ghost to reveal Andrew. Peggy was underneath the seal costume, Paula was under the peanut, and Amy was under the marshmallow.

“Quints, that was terrible, dressing in different costumes! You are not individuals! I’ll have some serious words with Elaine when she comes home, since she was the one who bought you these costumes instead of all five clown outfits.” His jaw clenched as he pointed at the staircase. “Go on up to bed, all of you. Thanks to Gene’s stunt, it’s well past all your bedtimes.”

WeWriWa—An unpopular costume choice

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This year’s Halloween-themed excerpts come from the eighth book in my Saga of the Sewards series (formerly known as Max’s House). It needs a great deal of editing, rewriting, and revision, along with a new title, so I’m doing preliminary edits and fleshing it out as I go this month.

The Sewards are now at a costume store, and Mr. Seward, who has very rigid ideas about almost everything, decides for his youngest children, 20-month-old quints, what they’re going to dress as.

“Clown,” Susie said.

“Ghost,” Andrew said.

“Peanut,” Paula said.

“Marshmallow,” Amy said.

“Seal,” Peggy said.

“Oh, no, you five will all be clowns,” Mr. Seward said.

“Clowns scare me, Daddy!” Amy bawled.

“No want face paint!” Peggy wept.

“Itchy pants!” Andrew said.

“Itchy wig!” Paula sobbed.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

Mr. Seward found five matching clown outfits in the quints’ size.

“Peanut, peanut!” Paula wept.

Tiffany glared at their father. “Why do you treat them like one person with five bodies? At least your attempt to make them as famous and exploited as the Dionnes didn’t last long.”

Mr. Seward glared right back. “Multiples are supposed to always do everything exactly alike. If quints weren’t so rare, I’d demand they marry another set of quints too. Elaine, would you check the costumes out while I take the younger children to the limo? The other patrons don’t deserve to be subjected to this tantrum.” 

The moment her uncle left the store, Elaine put four of the clown outfits back on the rack. She then got the other four desired costumes.