Post by fflurcadwgawn on May 3, 2017 13:30:02 GMT
Just a little one-shot I wrote one day when work issues were overtaking my sanity.
A Father’s Love
Laura and Gertrude have gone out of town to a distant cousin’s funeral. Fenton is stuck babysitting a young Frank and Joe when developments in a case force him to bring the boys with him to a stakeout.
--
Fenton Hardy struggled with the ancient gas stove in the kitchen of his house, sourly mulling over the fact that he was the reason his wife, Laura, or sister, Gertrude, always did the cooking. When Laura had battled cancer right after Joe was born, Gertrude had moved in and had been a godsend with helping out with the boys while Laura was in the hospital. Now, Laura was three years cancer-free, but still weak. Gertrude had stayed on to help raise the boys—“Just in case,” as she put it. Not that Fenton blamed her. Years ago, Fenton and Gertrude had lost their own mother to cancer after a lengthy battle, and they still remembered the struggle their family had gone through during that time.
But this time, Fenton struggled with the stove and the long wooden kitchen matches because Gertrude and Laura had gone out of town to a distant cousin’s funeral. The funeral was for one of Laura’s cousins, someone Fenton had never met. So it didn’t make sense for him to go. Gertrude went only because she was still over-protective of Laura after the cancer scare. And so Fenton was left to babysit the boys and was currently inwardly swearing at himself for never having learned to cook anything other than scrambled eggs and toast.
“Daddy!” Franklin whined as Fenton finally was able to get the stove started. The dark-haired youngster was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen, a children’s field guide to frogs and toads in his lap, watching his father fumble with a whisk and a bowl of eggs. Fenton couldn’t see the book in its entirety but even from his limited position, he could see the crayon marks along the edges of its pages. “I’m hungry. And Joey won’t stop coloring in my books!” From the living room came vocal sounds of Joey playing with his dump trucks.
“I do not color in your books!” came the indignant reply. “Daddy, make him stop calling me Joey!”
Fenton couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes. How Laura and Gertrude managed the two young boys was beyond him. But then Fenton glanced at the clock—7 pm—and felt a twinge of guilt. He quietly sighed and set the bowl of eggs and the whisk down, an idea coming to him.
“Frankie?” he said, turning to face his eldest son. He immediately regretted it at the glare Frankie gave him.
“It’s Frank,” the boy muttered. “Not Frankie. Frankie is for babies. I’m almost six!”
“Frank,” Fenton conceded with a nod. “Aunt Gertrude lets you help her with the cooking, right?”
Frankie’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! And she doesn’t mind when Joey and I lick the bowl afterward if she’s making cookies.”
There was hope in the world after all. “Has she taught you to scramble eggs yet?”
Frankie gave him the Look that Fenton was quickly starting to interpret as duh. “Can we put cheese and onions and mushrooms in them?” the boy begged. “That’s how Aunt Gertrude taught us.”
Fenton grimaced again, because he hated mushrooms, and knew Joey did, too. He strongly suspected that Frankie’s “us” actually meant “Frankie.”
“I don’t think we have any mushrooms,” Fenton said, backpedaling fast. It was true—he and Joey despised them so much that Gertrude and Laura limited them in their cooking.
Frankie’s face fell, and Fenton quickly backpedaled again. “Although,” Fenton conceded, “I do believe we have cheese and onions.” He opened the door, and Frankie put the closed field guide on the counter to join him.
Fenton pulled an onion out of the vegetable crisper, and handled Frankie the block of cheddar cheese. Frankie made a face. “Not this stuff,” he whined. “It’s orange and I hate the taste. Do we have the white kind with holes?”
White kind with holes……oh, Swiss cheese. Fenton shook his head. “I don’t think so Fra—” and caught himself. “Frank. We’ll go to the store tomorrow,” he promised.
Frankie’s face fell further when the old rotary phone on the wall by the stove rang.
“I’m sorry, Frank. I need to answer this,” Fenton said. “Fenton Hardy.”
“Fenton, it’s Con Riley.”
Fenton tilted his head to hold the receiver between his ear and shoulder as he set the onion on the counter and fished a knife and the cutting board out of a drawer. “This had better be good,” he grumbled. “I still haven’t made dinner for the boys yet.”
Con gave the brief huff he made whenever something made him wince. “Need me to send Martha out to help you?” Martha was Con’s sister.
“Nah,” Fenton said, “Gert has been working with Frankie and teaching him how to cook.”
“FRANK!” came the indignant correction as the youngster in question struggled to open the package of cheese.
Con laughed outright this time. “That offer of Martha stands, because we’ve got ourselves a situation with the stakeout.”
Fenton groaned. “What is it this time?”
“Senator Kinnsey’s aide just pulled into the client’s driveway. It looks like he’s concealing and carrying. That simple fraud case just got a lot worse.”
Fenton whistled. “I’ll say. What do you need to do? Want to have one of the station boys help you out?” But he already knew the answer.
“Fenton, you know as well as I do that Ezra is the aide’s uncle. I don’t think we’d better. If that isn’t a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is. Let me give Martha a call and see if she can watch the boys for you.”
“Okay, Con. Keep an eye out and be careful.”
“Will do.”
The call ended and Fenton turned back to Frankie, extinguishing the stove’s lone flame as he did so.
“I’m sorry, Frank. We’re going to have to make something a little simpler. Where does Aunt Gertrude keep the peanut butter?”
--
“Fenton, bad news.”
The phone signal faded in and out ten minutes later. Fenton covered his other ear to drown out the sounds of Frankie and Joey wrestling on the floor in the living room. Although he’d had a state-of-the-art car phone installed in a car to use on stakeouts, the signal was still shoddy on the landline. Why, oh, why couldn’t they just invent portable phones?
“I don’t like it when you use phrases like that, Con.”
“Martha is out of commission with the flu bug that’s been going around.”
Fenton sighed, running a hand over his face. “Con, I can’t bring the boys on the stakeout! They’re six and four years old!”
“Fenton, I know. Can Mrs. Phelps next door take them?”
“She’s in Florida for the winter.”
Con swore most creatively. “I don’t want your kids winding up being used as collateral any more than you do.”
“Anything on the wire tap?”
“The aide is definitely involved. He’s on a trip to Europe next week and wants the client to disappear with him.”
Fenton just barely caught himself from swearing as well. He could practically hear Gert and Laura’s dismay if the boys learned any of that language.
“Okay, I’ll come help. What do you think it will come down to?”
“If you hurry we can catch them red-handed together. This is the evidence we need. You know what will happen as much as I do.”
Fenton started to hang up, then thought of one more thing. “Oh, Con?”
“Yeah?”
“Got a couple extra pairs of handcuffs and some rope?”
“What, for the aide and the client?”
“Nope, Frankie and Joey.”
“You’re serious on this, aren’t you?”
“Got a better idea?”
“Have Ezra watch them at the station. We’re talking potential murder, Fenton. If they get desperate, I don’t want the kids in the way.”
Fenton chuckled weakly. “You’re right.” They hung up and Fenton dialed the police station, wincing as the boys crashed into an end table. He caught the antique lamp that tipped over just as Ezra Collig answered the phone. Whew, that lamp was Great-Grandma Rose’s, Gert would have killed me and the boys both…
“Ez, Fenton Hardy here." He set the lamp on the kitchen counter, safely out of the reach of the wrestling duo. "Say, I was wondering…….”
Laura and Gertrude have gone out of town to a distant cousin’s funeral. Fenton is stuck babysitting a young Frank and Joe when developments in a case force him to bring the boys with him to a stakeout.
--
Fenton Hardy struggled with the ancient gas stove in the kitchen of his house, sourly mulling over the fact that he was the reason his wife, Laura, or sister, Gertrude, always did the cooking. When Laura had battled cancer right after Joe was born, Gertrude had moved in and had been a godsend with helping out with the boys while Laura was in the hospital. Now, Laura was three years cancer-free, but still weak. Gertrude had stayed on to help raise the boys—“Just in case,” as she put it. Not that Fenton blamed her. Years ago, Fenton and Gertrude had lost their own mother to cancer after a lengthy battle, and they still remembered the struggle their family had gone through during that time.
But this time, Fenton struggled with the stove and the long wooden kitchen matches because Gertrude and Laura had gone out of town to a distant cousin’s funeral. The funeral was for one of Laura’s cousins, someone Fenton had never met. So it didn’t make sense for him to go. Gertrude went only because she was still over-protective of Laura after the cancer scare. And so Fenton was left to babysit the boys and was currently inwardly swearing at himself for never having learned to cook anything other than scrambled eggs and toast.
“Daddy!” Franklin whined as Fenton finally was able to get the stove started. The dark-haired youngster was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen, a children’s field guide to frogs and toads in his lap, watching his father fumble with a whisk and a bowl of eggs. Fenton couldn’t see the book in its entirety but even from his limited position, he could see the crayon marks along the edges of its pages. “I’m hungry. And Joey won’t stop coloring in my books!” From the living room came vocal sounds of Joey playing with his dump trucks.
“I do not color in your books!” came the indignant reply. “Daddy, make him stop calling me Joey!”
Fenton couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes. How Laura and Gertrude managed the two young boys was beyond him. But then Fenton glanced at the clock—7 pm—and felt a twinge of guilt. He quietly sighed and set the bowl of eggs and the whisk down, an idea coming to him.
“Frankie?” he said, turning to face his eldest son. He immediately regretted it at the glare Frankie gave him.
“It’s Frank,” the boy muttered. “Not Frankie. Frankie is for babies. I’m almost six!”
“Frank,” Fenton conceded with a nod. “Aunt Gertrude lets you help her with the cooking, right?”
Frankie’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! And she doesn’t mind when Joey and I lick the bowl afterward if she’s making cookies.”
There was hope in the world after all. “Has she taught you to scramble eggs yet?”
Frankie gave him the Look that Fenton was quickly starting to interpret as duh. “Can we put cheese and onions and mushrooms in them?” the boy begged. “That’s how Aunt Gertrude taught us.”
Fenton grimaced again, because he hated mushrooms, and knew Joey did, too. He strongly suspected that Frankie’s “us” actually meant “Frankie.”
“I don’t think we have any mushrooms,” Fenton said, backpedaling fast. It was true—he and Joey despised them so much that Gertrude and Laura limited them in their cooking.
Frankie’s face fell, and Fenton quickly backpedaled again. “Although,” Fenton conceded, “I do believe we have cheese and onions.” He opened the door, and Frankie put the closed field guide on the counter to join him.
Fenton pulled an onion out of the vegetable crisper, and handled Frankie the block of cheddar cheese. Frankie made a face. “Not this stuff,” he whined. “It’s orange and I hate the taste. Do we have the white kind with holes?”
White kind with holes……oh, Swiss cheese. Fenton shook his head. “I don’t think so Fra—” and caught himself. “Frank. We’ll go to the store tomorrow,” he promised.
Frankie’s face fell further when the old rotary phone on the wall by the stove rang.
“I’m sorry, Frank. I need to answer this,” Fenton said. “Fenton Hardy.”
“Fenton, it’s Con Riley.”
Fenton tilted his head to hold the receiver between his ear and shoulder as he set the onion on the counter and fished a knife and the cutting board out of a drawer. “This had better be good,” he grumbled. “I still haven’t made dinner for the boys yet.”
Con gave the brief huff he made whenever something made him wince. “Need me to send Martha out to help you?” Martha was Con’s sister.
“Nah,” Fenton said, “Gert has been working with Frankie and teaching him how to cook.”
“FRANK!” came the indignant correction as the youngster in question struggled to open the package of cheese.
Con laughed outright this time. “That offer of Martha stands, because we’ve got ourselves a situation with the stakeout.”
Fenton groaned. “What is it this time?”
“Senator Kinnsey’s aide just pulled into the client’s driveway. It looks like he’s concealing and carrying. That simple fraud case just got a lot worse.”
Fenton whistled. “I’ll say. What do you need to do? Want to have one of the station boys help you out?” But he already knew the answer.
“Fenton, you know as well as I do that Ezra is the aide’s uncle. I don’t think we’d better. If that isn’t a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is. Let me give Martha a call and see if she can watch the boys for you.”
“Okay, Con. Keep an eye out and be careful.”
“Will do.”
The call ended and Fenton turned back to Frankie, extinguishing the stove’s lone flame as he did so.
“I’m sorry, Frank. We’re going to have to make something a little simpler. Where does Aunt Gertrude keep the peanut butter?”
--
“Fenton, bad news.”
The phone signal faded in and out ten minutes later. Fenton covered his other ear to drown out the sounds of Frankie and Joey wrestling on the floor in the living room. Although he’d had a state-of-the-art car phone installed in a car to use on stakeouts, the signal was still shoddy on the landline. Why, oh, why couldn’t they just invent portable phones?
“I don’t like it when you use phrases like that, Con.”
“Martha is out of commission with the flu bug that’s been going around.”
Fenton sighed, running a hand over his face. “Con, I can’t bring the boys on the stakeout! They’re six and four years old!”
“Fenton, I know. Can Mrs. Phelps next door take them?”
“She’s in Florida for the winter.”
Con swore most creatively. “I don’t want your kids winding up being used as collateral any more than you do.”
“Anything on the wire tap?”
“The aide is definitely involved. He’s on a trip to Europe next week and wants the client to disappear with him.”
Fenton just barely caught himself from swearing as well. He could practically hear Gert and Laura’s dismay if the boys learned any of that language.
“Okay, I’ll come help. What do you think it will come down to?”
“If you hurry we can catch them red-handed together. This is the evidence we need. You know what will happen as much as I do.”
Fenton started to hang up, then thought of one more thing. “Oh, Con?”
“Yeah?”
“Got a couple extra pairs of handcuffs and some rope?”
“What, for the aide and the client?”
“Nope, Frankie and Joey.”
“You’re serious on this, aren’t you?”
“Got a better idea?”
“Have Ezra watch them at the station. We’re talking potential murder, Fenton. If they get desperate, I don’t want the kids in the way.”
Fenton chuckled weakly. “You’re right.” They hung up and Fenton dialed the police station, wincing as the boys crashed into an end table. He caught the antique lamp that tipped over just as Ezra Collig answered the phone. Whew, that lamp was Great-Grandma Rose’s, Gert would have killed me and the boys both…
“Ez, Fenton Hardy here." He set the lamp on the kitchen counter, safely out of the reach of the wrestling duo. "Say, I was wondering…….”
