Bookshelf Battle

Mack sat at the kitchen table watching as his nephew arrange his power action ninja soldiers all over the table in a harrowing battle.

“And this one is Doctor Laserface,” Dylan explained. “Because he…

“…shoots lasers out of his face,” Mack said. “Got it.”

“And this one is Wrecker,” Dylan said. “Because he wrecks things.”

“Naturally,” Mack said.

“Then you’ve got Spelunker, Freewave, Battlecaster, Corporal Slice,”

“And these guys are all ninjas?” Mack asked.

“And soldiers,” Dylan replied.

“Makes sense,” Mack said.

“What rank were you?” Dylan asked.

“Were.” That word hit Mack pretty hard.

“Lieutenant,” Mack said. “I was a lieutenant.”

“Cool,” Dylan said as he held up a rather brutish looking action figure that was sporting big muscles and a buzz cut. “Then you’d be this guy. Lieutenant Paine McDanger.”

“Awesome name,” Mack said as he picked up the figure. “And not a bad likeness.”

A flustered Abby buzzed into the kitchen carrying two suitcases. “Dylan, where are your swim trunks?”

“I don’t know,” Dylan said. “Do I need them?”

“Yes you need them,” Abby said.

“I hate swimming,” Dylan said.

“You love swimming,” Abby said. “I won’t be able to keep you from the pool once you get to the hotel.”

“I don’t know,” Dylan said. “The bottom of my closet maybe?”

“Can you just go look?” Abby asked. “The bottom of your closet is a crap covered hellhole I want no part of.”

“OK,” Dylan said as he delicately placed a small, plastic weapon into the hand of one of his figures. “In a minute.”

“Now, Dylan.”

“I said, ‘in a minute!’”

Mack winced at Dylan’s flagrant disregard for authority.

“Mom!” Paige bellowed as she bursted into the kitchen. “Where’s my tablet?”

“I don’t know, Paige,” Abby said. “I’m not the keeper of your electronic gadgets.”

“Well,” Paige set. “This is going to be hashtag the worst trip ever if I can’t live stream everything that happens on Lifebox!”

“All your Lifebox friends are losers,” Dylan said.

“No one asked you, doofus,” Paige said. “And aren’t you a little too old to be playing with baby toys?”

“These aren’t baby toys,” Dylan said as he put one of his ninja soldiers behind the wheel of a plastic truck. “They’re collector’s items.”

“Mom, this is the worst!” Paige complained.

“I don’t know, Paige,” Abby said. “Keep looking and if you can’t find it you can just live stream everything you do with your phone.”

“What?” Paige asked as she held up her phone. “You mean this pathetic little sixteen gig weakling? I need my tablet to tell everyone what I’m doing at all times or I’m going to end up hashtag so yesterday.”

Dylan made explosion sounds as he knocked his toy truck over.

“You know Paige,” Abby said. “When I was a kid people thought you were the worst if you made them look at your vacation pictures.”

“I don’t care what they did in Jurassic times, Mom,” Paige said. “Here in the now I need to make everyone believe that everything I do is awesome or else that see you next Tuesday Heather Haskell will be with Tommy forever.”

Abby scrunched up her face in confusion. “See you next what now?”

“Pew, pew!” Dylan shouted as he made laser noises and knocked his soldiers over one by one. “No one can defeat Doctor Laserface!”

The fighting. The shouting. The silly noises. It all became too much for Mack.

The giant stood up and from the bottom of his gut pushed out the loudest, most visceral, “Atten hut!” his family had ever heard.

All three of his family members stopped what they were doing.

“Not you, Abby,” Mack said as he stood up.

“Oh,” Abby said. “Right.”

Mack clutched his hands behind his back and took on the stance of a drill sergeant.

“Dylan!” Mack shouted. “You will stop playing with your baby toys and you will brave the depths of your crap hole closet and you will not come out until you have located your swim trunks, have I made myself clear?”

“Sir,” Dylan shouted. “Yes, sir!”

The boy instantly ran to his room.

“Paige!” Mack shouted.

“Sir?” Paige replied.

“You will think about where you last used your tablet and you will report to that location and you will no doubt discover it there when you do so,” Mack said.

“OMG,” Paige said as she gave herself a light bonk on the head. “I left it at Kelly’s house next door.”

Paige walked off, leaving Mack and Abby alone.

“You have got to teach me how to do that,” Abby said.

“It’s pretty simple,” Mack said. “Create an aura around yourself that indicates you’re not willing to take shit from anyone.”

Abby shook her head. “I’m not sure I have much to work with here.”

“You do,” Mack said as he sat back down. “You just don’t realize it.”

On the opposite side of the kitchen, there was a desk up against the wall. Abby took a seat and started going through her mail.

“The thing I’ve learned over the past year,” Abby said. “Is that when parents are separated, kids tend to rise to the level of the most carefree parent.”

“Meaning?” Mack asked.

“Meaning,” Abby said as she ripped an envelope open. “Scott picks them up every once in awhile and lets them do anything they want. Thus, when I try to instill some rules they look at me like I have two heads.”

“Not really my place,” Mack said. “But when are you going to get rid of that guy?”

“I don’t know,” Abby said as she crumpled up and tossed a piece of junk mail. “He said he needed some time to find himself. I thought that meant he’d go be by himself for two weeks, but that was a year ago.”

“I never liked him,” Mack said. “Mom and Dad, God rest their souls, never liked him.”

“I understood a little bit where he was coming from,” Abby said. “We were fresh out of high school when I got pregnant with Abby. We were trying to do the right thing by getting married but we were never right together.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Mack said. “Translation: he’s an ass whose lucky to have a wife and kids who love him and he’s too stupid to realize it. Time to find someone who will.”

“Son of a…”

“What?” Mack asked.

Abby sat down at the table and tossed Mack a bill that was replete with ominous red lettering.

“He took out a new credit card in my name!” Abby said.

Mack read the bill out loud. “Eight hundred and eleven dollars at the Gentleman’s Funbag Enthusiast Club…one thousand fifty nine dollars at the Meow Meow Kitty Kat Lounge…two thousand two hundred and four dollars at the Skank Factory?”

At that moment, Abby did something very un-Abby like. She huffed. She puffed. Then she lifted her head up into the air and screamed. “Arrrrrrrghhhhh I hate his stupid face!”

“Time to call a divorce lawyer,” Mack said.

Angry Abby left. Sad Abby took her place. She sobbed. She cried. She moved over and rested her head on her big brother’s shoulder.

“But I still love his stupid face,” Abby said.

“We can’t choose who we love,” Mack said. “Just what we let them to do us.”

“What do you know about it?” Abby asked.

“A thing or two,” Mack answered.

“Classified?” Abby asked.

“Yes,” Mack answered.

“Whatever,” Abby said as she lifted her head up and dried her eyes. “I really wanted us to work. I hoped if I just kept giving him his time and his space that he’d come around but all he ever does is keep asking for more time and more space and now this.”

“I don’t want to tell you what to do, Abby,” Mack said.

“No,” Abby said as she stood up. “I know what to do. I’m going to enjoy Wombat World and then Scott’s ass is gone for good as soon as I get back.”

“Bravo,” Mack said. “You need any help packing?”

“No,” Abby said as she opened up a cabinet above her sink and took out a small, plastic case.

“Dylan’s bee problem never got better?” Mack asked.

“Nope,” Abby said. “He has to carry a shot with him wherever he goes. This is his spare. Figured it’d be good to bring it just in case. Just one more addition to the Lane family’s lifetime bad luck-a-thon.”

“I don’t remember the Mackenzies having it that good either,” Mack said.

Abby hoisted a suitcase up onto the desk, unzipped it, placed Dylan’s shot into it, then zipped it back up. She then took a seat and stared up at a collage of old family photos on the wall.

“We had some good times,” Abby said as she pointed to a photo of her smiling parents.

“Yeah,” Mack said. “But call it God, call it cosmic forces or whatever, but them both coming down with cancer and dying within three years of each other…”

“Not fair,” Abby said.

“I’ve expected nothing to be fair ever since,” Mack said. “And life hasn’t disappointed.”

Abby smiled as she looked over the collage. Christmas photos of a little her and a little Mack opening up presents. Halloween photos with a little her dressed up as Princess Paulina and Mack dressed up as a soldier.

She stopped and tapped her finger on one photo in particular. In the background, there was the gigantic, magnificent Wombataorium, a marvel of modern architecture that was visible for miles, serving as the main attraction of Wombat World.

In the foreground, there was a ten year old Abby wearing a Wombat hat and a “I Love Willy Wombat” T-shirt with a look of sheer, unbridled joy on her face. She was standing next to her fourteen year old brother, Mack, who looked as though he would have rather been anywhere else.

Scrawled underneath the photo in black pen were the words, “Mackenzie trip to Wombat World, 1993.”

“Say, Mack?” Abby said.

“Yeah,” Mack said.

“You remember this?” Abby asked.

Mack stood up, walked over to the desk and looked over his sister’s shoulder at the photo.

He snickered. “Oh yeah.”

Abby dug into her suitcase and pulled out a plastic card with a picture of Ferdinand Ferret’s dopey face.

“I’ve got an extra all-access pass to Wombat World that Scott isn’t going to use,” Abby said.

Mack blinked, unsure of where his sister was going with this.

“And you happen to find yourself unemployed at the moment,” Abby said.

Mack scratched his head. “Oh, no…I don’t think…”

“Why not?” Abby asked.

“It wouldn’t be right,” Mack said.

“It wouldn’t be right to not use this,” Abby said. “It’s not like I can cash it in.”

“This is a place for children,” Mack said.

“They’ve built it up so much since we went there as kids,” Abby said. “They have stuff for adults to do too. They’ve got a Wombat Race Track, a Wombat Ball Park, Wombat Gourmet Restaurants, a Wombat Golf Course. Maybe they’ll let you play if you promise not to blow the course up.”

“Abby,” Mack said. “It’s just that…”

“It’ll be just like the time Dad drove us all down in the station wagon,” Abby said. “Only if you and I take turns we can get there faster.”

“Abby,” Mack repeated. “You don’t understand…”

Mack looked around and realized that the kids had been eavesdropping for awhile.

“Uncle Mack’s coming?” Dylan asked as he handed his mother his smelly swim trunks.

“Yeesh,” Abby said. “These need a wash.”

“Hooray,” Paige said as she hugged her uncle. “Uncle Mack is coming! Hashtag best vacation ever now!”

“Oh right,” Abby said. “Now you say it’s the hashtag best vacation ever now.”

Dylan joined in on the hugging.  Mack felt a need to shut it all down quick.

“Kids…kids…enough!”

The kids backed off.

“Thank you,” Mack said. “But I would not be any kind of a man if I went on this trip. I’m out of work and the first thing I need to do tomorrow is to pound the pavement and apply for jobs. No man worth a damn would go on a trip to a park dedicated to a cartoon wombat in my situation.”

“Please?” Dylan asked.

“Pretty please?” Paige asked.

“No,” Mack said. “That’s my final answer. You kids will understand when you’re older.”

“Boo,” Dylan said as he sat down at the table and returned to his power action ninja soldiers.

“Hashtag worst vacation ever again,” Paige said as she handed her tablet over to her mother for packing.

“You know your hashtags really hurt sometimes, Paige,” Abby said.

“Hashtag sorry not sorry,” Paige said as she left the room.

Abby continued packing for awhile. Dylan made more “pew, pew” sounds as he knocked down his soldiers.

“Ack!” Dylan shouted as he knocked his Spelunker figure down on the table. “Spelunker’s down! I gotta go on without him!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mack said.

Dylan stopped playing. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘go on without him?’”

“Spelunker got shot in the leg,” Dylan said. “He’s a goner. He’s just gonna weigh Freewave down.”

“Not on my watch,” Mack said as he picked up Spelunker and leaned him up against Freewave.

The giant then pointed a finger at his nephew. “Listen, kid. Whether its in a dumb game or in real life, you never leave a soldier behind, you got me?”

“I got you,” Dylan said.

“Good,” Mack said as he tussled his nephew’s hair. “Get to bed already. You got a big day tomorrow.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Dylan said as he collected his fingers and left the room.

Abby checked her suitcase one last time, then zipped it up and set it down by the front door.

“You sure I can’t talk you into this?”

“I’m sure,” Mack said.

“Because its not like you’ll be able to find a new job in one week,” Abby said.

“The sooner I get to work on it the sooner it happens,” Mack said.

Abby’s face turned grim. “It’s just that…”

Mack sighed. “I swear I won’t touch it.”

“Alright then,” Abby said.