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Message-ID: <47460asstr$1081973406@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "virgosun" <virgosun@internode.on.net>
Subject: {ASSM} Beryl and the Polymorph 1/9 {virgosun} (mf rom slow nosex mutant)
Lines: 706
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:10:06 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d


<1st attachment, "poly01.txt" begin>

*BERYL AND THE POLYMORPH*

by virgosun (c) April 2004
*******************************

Beryl Crabtree backpedalled to brake, and brought her 
heavily-laden bike to a halt. High wire gates loomed 
over her, secured by heavy iron chains and a padlock the 
size of a waffle iron. There seemed to be nobody about, 
so she jingled her bell several times emphatically.

Nothing stirred but the hot breeze that sprinkled her 
ankles with dust. A motorised ripsaw screamed in the 
distance, somewhere behind the tin walls of quickly-
erected workshops in the midst of the fenced-off 
property, a broad and barren patch of scrubland. The 
dirt track, rutted by the passage of heavy lorries 
during wet weather, went toward the workshops; this was 
obviously where her cargo was meant to go.

The large wicker panniers that almost totally concealed 
the back wheel of her bike emitted a sweet, slightly 
nutty aroma that she ignored out of familiarity. 
Crabtree Delicatessen was stamped in inky black letters 
on the sides. Just last week, one of the strangers had 
come into the shop and made a lucrative contract for the 
Crabtree business to supply cut lunches, pies and cakes 
to their workforce for an indefinite period. Dad had 
been making the deliveries in the van, but this week the 
clutch had burned out - again - forcing the family to 
make deliveries using other means. Mum had not been keen 
on Beryl making the bicycle delivery, for wild rumours 
abounded about the strangers. Beryl insisted the bike 
was the perfect size for carrying the complete order in 
one go, and the car was needed for making longer-
distance runs, so wasn't it the best idea?

Of course she was curious. All the younger generation 
were.

It was said that these workers were left over from the 
project that had recently built a dam across the Iomann 
River twenty miles upstream. The reservoir had yet to 
fill, but it would provide irrigation and flood control 
to the entire district, and it even ran a small 
electricity plant. Hydro-electricity, the men called it, 
nodding knowingly.

Most of the dam workers, engineers and itenerant labour, 
had moved on. Some, however, had cast their lot with the 
strangers. These mysterious men seemed to have money to 
burn, and had bought up a huge lot of land on the 
western fringe of town. They were digging an irrigation 
canal from the river, had put up the workshops, and 
shipped in heavy machinery on groaning flatbed trucks or 
towed by the largest tractors they could hire. They 
worked most of the night as well as all day, and a dull 
red glow came from that part of the town in the 
nighttime dark. And it was all being done privately, 
secretly, with no visitors or cameras allowed.

"Don't you stay there a minute longer than you need to!" 
Mum had scolded after reluctantly allowing Beryl to make 
the delivery. "Them people ain't from around here, they 
keep to 'emselves and that's good enough for me!" It was 
widely held they were criminals or had criminal 
connections, which explained their wealth. They were far 
too wealthy to be gypsies. They were foreigners, mixed-
breed and inbred, and it was whispered some of them had 
hideous birth defects. The townsfolk weren't sure 
whether to take a closer look, or leave them alone.

Now Beryl shaded her eyes and peered at the workings. 
Somebody had always met the delivery truck at the gate, 
according to her father. Then she cupped her hands 
around her mouth, filled her lungs, and bellowed in a 
most unladylike manner, "Hall-oo-oo! Lunch orders!"

The distant figures of two men appeared from around the 
framework of a new house, one carrying a bundle of long 
planks over his shoulder. The other turned and shouted 
to someone else out of sight, and Beryl smiled relief. 
Somebody knew she was here. Uncappping a flask she 
carried strapped to the sissy-bar of her bike, she took 
a sip of water, then brushed her pedal-pushers straight 
and adjusted the scarf that kept her flyaway brown hair 
in check.

A putt-putt engine that sounded like a motorbike became 
audible, and a peculiar little vehicle now came along 
the track toward the gate. Instead of being a motorbike 
with two large skinny wheels, it had four little, round 
wheels, and it bounced and wiggled along the road. A 
girl no older than herself rode the contraption, 
clutching the handlebars with small, skinny, weak-
looking hands and arms. Beryl flashed her most welcoming 
grin as the little car pulled up. The other girl stared 
back from big, round, slightly bulging black eyes that 
reminded Beryl of an upset dairy cow; a look that said 
beware the sudden sharp kick.

Her passenger got slowly off a tiny trailer that had 
been towed behind, little more than a padded seat on 
wheels. She was a midget and wore a shapeless brown 
dress, clutching a four-pronged walking stick in one 
hand and leaning heavily upon it as she shuffled 
forward. Although her hair was grey, her face was smooth 
and round, as smiling as her driver was defiant. She 
shuffled up close to the gate and peered through, while 
the other girl pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit 
up while she waited.

"Hi, I've brought the lunches that were ordered from 
Crabtree Deli," Beryl said cheerfully. The young-old 
lady peered myopically at her through coke-bottle 
glasses, breathing noisily, her whole hunched body 
trembling with a slow-motion shake. A shiver crept up 
Beryl's neck as she noticed the drool silver on the 
elder's chin, and the kindly docility fixed on her face. 
Her eyes had a slanted, slitty quality.

"Hullo, pet, you's early arn'tcha?" she said slowly with 
a pronounced slur and lisp. Beryl could hear the gossips 
in the shop saying _birth defects_ again. This lady had 
some kind of handicap; was the kind of person Beryl had 
only ever heard about in tragic and maudlin stories of 
special schools and institutions. "Where's your chuck?"

"Um, it broke down I'm afraid."

"So's ours too," the woman grinned, digging in a deep 
pocket with a hand that swung about as if barely under 
control. Keys jangled, and at length she managed to 
engage one of a bunch in the padlock. "Smells luv fresh 
and make me 'ungry, I better 'urry! Sylvie help now."

"Right, Gran." Sylvia swung gracelessly off the bike, 
which was okay given she was dressed in overalls, but 
Beryl suspected she'd have moved the same way if she had 
been wearing a skirt. Beryl helped her lift and drag one 
of the gates inward.

"We can't get that lot on this stupid quad," Sylvia 
declared, glaring at the bike's panniers. "We might get 
one lot in your chair. I'll have to do more than one 
run, and you'd have to wait out here. Poppa's busy."

Gran snorted, spraying spittle. "Poppa always busy, don' 
bother him. Din' tink of how much lunches to bring." She 
giggled girlishly, and Sylvia rolled her eyes in the 
long-suffering-teenage manner.

Ever mindful of customer service, Beryl spoke up 
helpfully. "It'd be no trouble at all for me to deliver 
them right to the doorstep, if you like. I could ride in 
so you wouldn't have to fool about making several 
trips." Gran gazed at her, so that she thought she 
hadn't been properly understood. Sylvia puffed smoke.

"You'd need a permit. We don't like people nosing 
around."

"All I'd need to do was get to a shed or even just a 
table where I could offload, I wouldn't need to see 
anything you didn't want me to," Beryl said earnestly. 
"I have to get back to the shop as soon as I can anyway, 
so I won't be hanging around."

Sylvia gave a deep, chesty cough and scuffed at the 
ground with a bootheel. "Tank you love, dat's real kind 
of you, we's a bit mixupped this morning," said Gran. 
"Bring bike in so lockup, it'll be okay, not going right 
inside. Summun else'll let you out again."

Beryl walked her bike through, while Sylvia and Gran 
closed the gate behind her. She waited patiently while 
Gran clambered back into her chair, this time helped 
with an arm-up from Sylvia. The teen then straddled the 
buggy and kicked it to life. It didn't travel fast, so 
Beryl was able to follow in its fumey wake. She trailed 
them into the midst of the new houses that were 
springing up from the soil. There were a few old cars 
parked around, and caravans. New fences of fresh timber 
were being nailed-up, dividing the homes into even yard 
lots, and Beryl could see two groups of four. These 
people owned the land, and of course they were staying. 
Men and women worked alike, favouring her curious looks, 
and she saw quite a few children playing about the dusty 
street, kicking scooters and throwing balls rather than 
being in the town's school. She was sure she'd seen some 
of those faces come into the deli, without knowing where 
they'd come from.

Behind the houses, a large wooden structure was being 
built, as high as the houses again. Above that loomed a 
crane, and she gazed up watching a man guide a large 
section of steel mesh as it was lowered behind the 
formwork. An even taller crane was being raised behind 
the structure, but that was all she could see. Sylvia 
and Gran had pulled up beside a long trestle-table that 
was being cleared of blueprints. Soon Beryl was 
offloading her tasty treats, assisted by willing and 
hungry hands. It was now, as faces smiled and people 
gathered to sample the fragrant, tasty food that Beryl 
enjoyed her work the most. The simple pleasure of food 
brought happiness to even the oddest of places.

"Hi!" smiled a small whipcord of a girl whose dark brown 
hair stood out in a fluffy, unkempt halo. Her deep blue 
eyes were so intense and staring they almost popped out, 
showing four whites around the iris. "I'm Tempest, how 
are you?" Keys jangled noisily as Beryl greeted her. 
"Granny Stone says I'm to show you out again. Are you 
going to be making all the deliveries this way?"

Beryl nodded. "So far as I know." Tempest looked like 
she should have been in Beryl's school class from last 
year; again, Beryl was sure she'd seen her in the shop, 
but never in school. At sixteen, Beryl like many of her 
friends had left school. Many were being courted; some 
were engaged. Only a few had gone to the colleges of 
learning in the big city.

"Okay then, have you got a whistle? They reckon you 
should blow a whistle when you arrive so's someone can 
get the gate, and tomorrow we'll have a pavillion set up 
so the lunches can be unloaded there and everyone knows 
where to come for lunch. Sound okay?"

"Sure, no problem."

They walked, Tempest fiddling endlessly with the bunch 
of keys she carried, eyes darting across the cloud-
spattered skies. "Storm coming this afternoon," she said 
quickly, as if the notion excited her no end. Beryl eyed 
the cumulus skeptically. It was the dry season, and such 
clouds seldom developed into thunderheads until later in 
the year.

"You think so?"

"Right about four, I'd say. Get your washing in by 
then," said Tempest confidently. "The boys here will be 
packing up by then. I told them not to pour any more 
concrete. I know stuff about the weather, you see."

"Really?" Beryl had lived in Kennarthen from birth and 
knew the patterns of the seasons. She doubted Tempest - 
nobody could tell the weather exactly, not even elderly 
grandpas with rheumatism who had lived here seventy 
years. "Well," she sighed, humouring the girl rather 
than disagreeing, "it's so hot I wouldn't mind if it 
poured right now!"

"You've got a long ride in the sun, back down to town, 
haven't you?"

"Oh, I'll be all right, I've got plenty to drink."

"You know Douggie, don't you?" Tempest asked curiously. 
"He said your name was Beryl when he saw you, and he 
reckons your pie shop's the best."

"Douggie?" Beryl frowned quizzically. Obviously one of 
the workmen who called in regularly, but she knew faces 
far better than names, which she explained to Tempest.

"He's kind of tall, slicked-back black hair, big crooked 
nose, moustache?" Tempest giggled. Beryl felt she should 
know, but still couldn't quite place him. Slick hair was 
fashionable for men, and there were a few moustaches 
around.

"No...sorry." They moved aside as a truck came rattling 
along the track. Tempest brandished her bunch of keys; 
the driver slowed.

"Got a set, it's okay," the driver called before 
crunching and grinding away. From what Beryl had 
glimpsed, he had seemed quite thoroughly bald for a man 
with such a young voice.

"Hey!" Tempest yelled after the vehicle. It should have 
raised a choking pall of dust, but a sudden shift of 
breeze blew the dirt away from the young women. "_You_ 
can't go outside! The nerve! Pro Phillips, I'm telling 
on you!" She propped her hands on her hips petulantly 
and fumed, then resumed walking.

"Can I ask what it is you folks are building out here?" 
Beryl resumed conversationally. Tempest shrugged.

"Sure, though it should be obvious. We're building 
somewhere for our families to live and work, all 
together. We have to stick together because of, well, 
the way we are I suppose. People always looked at us 
strange, wherever we lived before, because of our 
Enabled skills. Enabled, not disabled, that's what Poppa 
Stone calls us, and he's the boss. We gotta stick 
together so that normal folks won't pick on us, and then 
we can use all our different Enabled skills together to 
help people. That's what old Pyrus says, and it's a neat 
idea."

"Enabled?" Beryl asked. "What, do you mean like..." 
Deformities was the word that came to mind, although 
Gran and the odd-looking truck driver were the strangest 
people she'd seen. "Um," she trailed off helplessly.

"Yeah, exactly, um," said Tempest, not without rancour. 
"Oh don't worry, we get 'um' a lot when outsiders see 
us, and that's just the obvious ones." She drew a deep 
breath, as if to beg for patience before instructing 
some dumb hick. "Enabled skills are special things we 
can do or abilities we have, that other people don't. 
Sometimes those Enabled skills make their owners look 
weird, but that doesn't make them lesser people, you 
know?"

"Sure," said Beryl quickly, not wanting to offend. "Like 
blind people have fantastic hearing to make up for..."

Tempest shook her head, a sneer akin to Sylvia's 
flashing briefly onto her mobile face. "Not exactly, but 
you're getting there. Here's a better example. You know 
how there's hundreds of different kinds of dogs, right? 
Like, huge muscular shaggy hounds that are bred to 
rescue people in the mountains, and tiny little ratty 
dogs that can go into rabbit holes, and dogs with extra-
good hearing and others that can track smells, and fast 
dogs that race really quickly? Well the human race is 
like that too. We can be bred just the same way. That's 
where our Enabled skills come from. Our ancestors were 
slaves in the far West, and they were bred together 
until the Enabled traits started to appear. Our 
grandfathers used their Enabled abilities to escape from 
the slavers and came to the East a long time ago, so now 
they and their families are here. We just want somewhere 
to live, and to give back something to the lands that 
have treated us so kindly. That's why we're here in the 
middle of the country. We just want somewhere quiet to 
live."

"Wow!" Beryl gasped. Most of the eastern world dwelled 
in fear of the dreaded slave traders of the far West; 
many nations had united and formed a defense pact to 
guard the western frontier from the slavers. All of that 
was half a world away from the idyllic life of a 
shopkeeper's daughter in a country town. "Was your 
grandma a slave?"

"My grandma? Oh, you mean Granny Stone back there. No, 
only our grandfathers. There's four different clans of 
us, and only our grandpas were slaves. No, Granny 
Stone's just born like that. Because she was a bit 
funny, ordinary people didn't like her much, but she 
fitted right in with Enabled people."

"Sure." Beryl remembered when the yellow-skinned Choktau 
family from the south had moved into the neighbourhood 
to run a horse stud. They were well-known about the 
place now, but at first things hadn't been easy, and the 
kids had been tormented at school. "It's not fair when 
people get picked on because they're different."

"You're not wrong," Tempest agreed, "and it's really 
hard not to fight back either! Pop Stone's got a bad 
reputation because he used to kick back when others came 
down on him. That's where Pyrus and the other grandads 
come into it. They say we got to keep our cool, and that 
we can show outsiders we're good at stuff, and we can 
help. And then we can make more friends than enemies."

"Good luck," said Beryl sincerely. "Proving yourself to 
the people around here isn't always easy. But I think 
we're generally fair and square. Stick to the rules and 
don't break the law, and pay your dues, you know."

"Yeah, well, it's the closed minds that are the hardest 
ones to deal with," said Tempest dubiously. "That's why 
we're building our own school, for a start - you did ask 
what the buildings are for. Some of the kids are normal, 
they don't have Enabled skills, and they can go to the 
regular school here. But Enabled kids would be treated 
cruelly by normal kids, so they need to go to a school 
where they would feel safe and also be able to learn how 
to use their Enabled skills to best effect. Some Enabled 
traits are easy to deal with, and others can be hard to 
live with. Like, my brother's got a really weird 
ability...hmm..." She stuck her hands on her hips, 
glaring toward the gate which was now unlocked. The 
truck had stopped, and its driver was just finishing 
pushing one of the gates wide. He now had a wide-brimmed 
felt hat on his head, and he gave the girls a cheery 
wave.

"I'm sorry," Tempest snorted, suggesting a temper that 
made her name very appropriate. "Will you excuse me? He 
is gonna be in SO much trouble!" She took a few running 
steps toward him, but he swung himself up into the cab. 
"He'd better not...hmm, what's he doing now?" The truck 
had crunched into gear and moved slowly in reverse. "He 
shouldn't go out because his Enabled look can really 
bother people who aren't used to him, and he'll forget 
himself one day and cause a scene, when we really should 
be trying to blend in so we can make friends."

"Why, what's he do?" Beryl couldn't help asking. But 
Tempest was scowling as the truck backed toward them, 
and yelled out above its noise.

"What are you doing? You left the gates wide open!"

The driver had his elbow and head out the window, 
looking back and watching the girls as he backed up. 
When he reached them he throttled down and idled, and 
called his response. "There's no-one coming, it's all 
right, it's not like we're gonna be invaded. I should 
have offered you two a lift, I just thought, seeing as 
you were obviously headed this way with your set of keys 
there. Darn silly of me not to think of it - could have 
put the Lunch Lady's bike on the back and given her a 
lift, and saved you the trouble, Windy."

"_Don't_ call me Windy!" Tempest blazed, rising in 
colour and volume. The driver flashed a grin as he 
opened the door and slipped in one fluid motion to the 
ground, facing them. "Can I offer you a lift?" he asked 
Beryl gallantly, sketching a bow then grabbing at his 
hat before it dropped off.

"You most definitely can not!" Tempest retorted. "You 
don't look right yet! Your ears need practice!"

"Ahh, but my nose is perfect!" He smiled, looking at 
Beryl. "Why don't we ask the Lunch Lady? I look all 
right, don't I?"

Beryl was caught with an amazed grin on her face, frozen 
between laughter and amazement. He was not quite six 
feet tall, dressed in boots and overalls much as any 
other workman, and the felt hat. His skin was unevenly 
mottled with brownish patches, and had a thin, shiny, 
hairless sheen although in places it was pocked and 
dimpled. It seemed as though he had suffered burns, or 
some kind of major skin rash, and his earlobes were 
somehow wizened or malformed. He had an oval face with 
an outright impish smile, but his eyes were simply 
astonishing - they were turquoise blue in colour, all 
over, with no whites or pupils and a translucent 
quality. "Um," she demurred, patting her breastbone as 
if that would still the way her heart had jolted. It was 
always, always hard to look at a person with a 
deformity. "Well, you look fine, fine, although...those 
eyes, maybe they're a bit...um."

He grinned and reached behind him into the cab, and 
perched a pair of sunglasses on his nose. Now he just 
looked like an eczema patient. There was something 
peculiar about his teeth too, but she couldn't quite see 
what it was. "Pardon me, but I didn't catch your name 
with my darling sister making such a fuss."

"Beryl, Beryl Crabtree, hi."

"A pleasure, Beryl. Pro Phillips at your service. Look, 
I was just on my way to the lumber mill, so I could 
spare you most of the ride back to town in this heat if 
you'd like a lift."

Beryl didn't have to answer immediately. "You _can't_ go 
to town looking like that!" Tempest insisted. "Do they 
know you're going?"

"Where would I have gotten the keys from, ma'am?"

"They can't send you, surely somebody else's free? What 
about Reg?"

"All busy. They gotta finish that concrete pour just 
like you said."

"Or one of the regulars, like..."

"Douggie?" Pro managed to grin and purr, nudging close 
to his sister, and her blush deepened. "Nope. He's busy 
too. I'm one of the few that know nothing about 
concrete, so it's down to me."

"Get!" she demanded imperiously. "I'll drive it then!"

"You don't have your licence."

"I'll get Sylvia!"

Pro gave a hoot of laughter. "She's younger than you! 
I'm sorry, Beryl, we're holding you up; frankly, Sis, 
you're holding up the grinding wheels of industry too."

Beryl had glanced at the gate. She could have been 
riding out it already if she'd kept going while the 
siblings argued. Instead, she looked at the flat deck of 
the back of the truck, and Pro caught her gaze. He poked 
a finger at Tempest's eye-level, and started to sing a 
few words, all tease.

"And Windy has stor-my eyes..."

Her hair billowed as if caught on a storm gust. "Don't!"

Pro didn't seem to have fingernails. Then he did 
something truly peculiar. It was a tiny gesture - he 
waggled his finger mockingly at his sister - but instead 
of bending at the proper joints, the whole digit seemed 
to coil and swirl like a tentacle. It was the smallest 
of movements, something Beryl was sure an accomplished 
magician could have done, an optical illusion.

"_Don't_!" Tempest insisted. A puff of hot breeze 
slapped uncomfortably about them, bringing dust into 
Beryl's eyes.

"Temper, temper, go and count to ten," Pro mercilessly 
teased his sister. "Or I'll tell Douggie you've been 
childish!"

"You're the childish one!" she retorted, turning a hot 
gaze to Beryl. "He's a double-jointed freak, you asked 
what he could do, but his Enabled skill is annoying 
people! As for you, Pro, I'll fix you well and good!" 
She spun on her heel, storming back toward the 
buildings.

Beryl assumed her chastising-mum look. "That was mean, 
stirring her up like that. She seems a nice girl."

"What, Tempest?" He raised a finger. "Just hold that up 
in front of her and she'd get cranky. I pity the man who 
ends up marrying her. So, what's it to be?" he asked, 
looking at the bike. "Since you haven't ridden off 
during our silly spat, I take it you're for the lift?"

"Thank you, I'd like that."

Together they lifted the bike onto the trayback, then 
Beryl climbed up into the cab and they motored as far as 
the other side of the gate before Pro slipped out to 
lock it behind him. Whatever his physical difficulties, 
he had a marvellously liquid, agile way of moving that 
was easy to watch.

"So," he said without preamble, "Windy told you about 
the Enabled, did she?"

"Well, not a lot," Beryl replied. "I think she was more 
at pains to warn me not to think of your families as 
somehow, um, deformed or handicapped, because you've all 
had a pretty hard time."

He nodded with a grin, eyes on the road. "You could say 
that. We're a pretty paranoid bunch, especially the most 
Enabled of us, because people being people they do make 
some weird faces at us. And who can blame them? If I saw 
me coming up the street I'd look twice to be sure my 
eyes didn't deceive me."

"I hope I didn't do that," said Beryl in a small voice. 
She was still stealing glances at how his skin was 
pigmented and its odd texture, and trying to work out 
what it was about his teeth. It was as though they were 
fused, perhaps that was it.

He smiled over at her. "Oh, you did, in your own way. 
Don't worry about it, like I said, I'd look twice. If 
you were too uncomfortable with what you saw, you 
wouldn't have accepted the ride," he said cheerfully.

"So your Enabled ability is that you're double-jointed, 
is that it?" She didn't want to linger on the awkward 
topic of social insensitivity. He gave a deep, bubbling 
laugh that was irresistibly infectious.

"Nope, my Dad's double jointed - I'm more like hundred-
jointed. I won't do it; I know people can be really 
queasy about double joints."

"I'm not," said Beryl keenly, for a moment being a girl 
in the schoolyard peering in gruesome fascination at a 
friend's thumb. "Can you do that thing when you put your 
thumb out?"

"I can but I won't, it looks stupid," Pro demurred. 
Then, before her startled eyes, his throat pulsed and 
his whole head bobbed and wobbled sickeningly on his 
neck. He grinned again at her cry of impressed horror.

"Ooh, God, yuck!"

"That's the least of what I can do, but Tempest's right 
when she says we should be careful what we do in front 
of outsiders."

"How did you do that?"

"I'm Enabled. Some people say we should have been a 
circus, but there's too much family pride for that."

Something else had been rolling about in the back of her 
mind all the while, never mind the strange families that 
she had just visited. She snapped her fingers suddenly. 
"Douggie! That wouldn't be Douglas Franklin, surely?" 
Pro offered her a quizzical look. "Tempest said some 
fellow called Douggie knew who I was, black hair, mo?"

"Oh yeah, Doug Franklin, yeah. Between you and me, she's 
got a heck of a crush going on Mr. Franklin."

"He's hardly the Douggie type," Beryl agreed. Douglas 
was a local who had worked on the dam project, then 
graduated to the strangers' workings. He was a quiet, 
stern-faced young man said to be highly moderate of 
habit, a teetotaller and miser, far from the most 
colourful of characters. She did know him from the shop 
- he came in for his cheese and lettuce sandwiches and a 
sweetroll every morning, and seldom said more than two 
words in a row, at least to Beryl.

"Love works in weird and wonderful ways, I suppose," Pro 
shrugged. "Who knows, maybe he's patient enough to put 
up with her, and in that case good luck to him."

"You're not trying to marry your little sister off, are 
you?" Beryl teased.

"Ohh no, me? Of course yes." He bubbled with laughter 
again, then sobered. "No, seriously, I doubt he even 
knows she exists, while she hangs off his every word, 
you know, puppy love. I think he's got other interests."

Beryl sniffed. "If he does, nobody else knows about it. 
I've never seen him with anybody."

"And I'll bet if there's a centre for local area news, 
it's Crabtree Deli!"

"No, that's not true!" Beryl managed to look affronted, 
although she couldn't keep the smile off her face and 
Pro's laughter made her want to laugh too. "Everyone 
knows the news that matters comes from Norrises 
Butchery!" This time they laughed together merrily.

Pro pulled over to the side of the road. "Alas, our time 
together has been way too short," he said with mock 
sorrow. "This is as close as I go to the main street on 
my errand, unless I take us up the lane."

"That's kind of you to suggest, but it's really tricky 
to get big trucks out of there. Thanks anyway, Pro."

"The pleasure's been all mine, believe me," he said. "A 
pretty lass like you deserves a hunk like me!"

"Cheeky!" Beryl frowned. "I hope you don't get in 
trouble. Tempest seemed really upset about you going 
out."

"Naw, don't worry about me. I'm sick of living in that 
goldfish bowl out there, and I'd like to meet a few more 
real people. I'm only the second-ugliest guy out there, 
you know. You think I've got a skin condition? Should 
see Basil Blake!"

"But you're not ugly, Pro, not really, just a bit 
different...ah, yeah." He had lifted his sunglasses a 
fraction, exposing those uncanny all-blue eyes, a 
knowing smirk on his lips. "All right, but people could 
get used to that."

"I hope you do, Beryl - I hope we can keep in touch. 
Maybe I can wave to you from the battlements above the 
lunch tent, eh?"

"Should do, I'll be back again tomorrow," Beryl promised 
cheerfully.

He helped her offload her bike from the truck, then gave 
a friendly wave from the cab as they resumed their 
separate journeys. She hoped she could convince her 
mother to let her keep making the deliveries, for what a 
fascinating group of people the strangers were going to 
be!

That afternoon, against all expectation, a storm broke 
over the town. It poured with rain a few minutes after 
four o'clock.
<1st attachment end>


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