Chapter 14

Gaby and the rest of the Bond clan had just finished up their dessert and were heading out the door when she heard a taunting voice behind her.

“Well, look who’s here … it’s the girly boy. I thought you were in the hospital?”

Chapter 12

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (yeah, yeah I know – but the writer of this fine story has always wanted to say that) Fran, Jessica, Sandy and Mary were all sitting at the kitchen table discussing the ‘Em Situation’.

Chapter 10

It's not easy love, but you've got friends you can trust,
Friends will be friends,
When you're in need of love they give you care and attention,
Friends will be friends,
When you're through with life and all hope is lost,
Hold out your hand cos friends will be friends right till the end

Friends Will Be Friends – Queen

Chapter 8

“……….I’m not totally sure. In many ways I comfortable as both. Although I do seem to get on better as Gaby, I have to admit. Except for cycling, sport isn’t really my thing, and I seem to be able to relate to the girls better than I do the boys.”

“*Sigh* and if I’m really honest, I have more friends as Gaby. And I find it easier to talk to people.”

Chapter 6

Maggie turned to Karen. “Would you like to wait until Drew wakes up and talk to him a bit this evening, or would you like to wait until tomorrow? I'm going to go in and sit with him until he wakes – he's met me before, and I already knew his secret, so he should feel safe with me.”

Chapter 5

“My Drewbie is in a hospital bed because of me! If I hadn't made him be ‘Gaby' so often, this never would have happened!”

“Well Maddy” said Maggie, “Could you tell about the first time you got Drew to dress up for you, and why you asked him to?”

Chapter 3

Mrs. W had headed back out to the waiting room, and she was not a happy woman. Her daughters, with the apparent complicity of a lot of people including Drew's chaperones, had deliberately hid the fact that Drew was a boy. And now, because of it, Drew was in a hospital bed, virtually catatonic. She was absolutely incensed that the chaperones would go along with this charade, and put a child in harms’ way for their own personal agendas. As for her daughters, well, they would be lucky if she didn't ship them off to private school for now and VMI (Virginia Military Institute) when they were old enough. They were certainly going to be grounded and broke for the foreseeable future.

This is a Gaby Fanfic. It takes place during Gaby's Trip to America. It's an alternative look at what might have happened.

So far there are 15 chapters that I will be posting over the next week or 10 days. I finally have it worked out how I'm going to complete the story, so the remaining chapters should start showing up in just a few weeks.

‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SURGERY

With apologies to Clement Moore

'Tis the season, and I thought I would re-post this. I am working on some new pieces and continuing a series I started a long time ago, but this struck my funny bone tonight so I thought I would share it.

Cheers.

Kate

When our connecting flight from Bangkok finally arrived at ‘Tan’* we quietly made tracks. We managed to successfully return to our own area, while barely avoiding a work detail or two which Trank happened to note were forming up shortly after we arrived. Even at our own compound he was working point.

As my band of happy miscreants worked their way through the tunnels, point suddenly gave the hand signal to halt before indicating there were enemy ahead. When we stopped to think about what we were hearing we could tell there were muffled voices somewhere ahead. How he could have heard them surprised me until I heard a loud but brief grunt of pain rising above the low background noise. I tried to make out what the voices were saying but it was mostly just indistinguishable from the background. We continued to move in but more cautiously and as quietly as possible.

Sarge and Gunny had phoned their buddy over the weekend so he was primed and ready when we arrived. That battery of tests they told me about were administered to me but I wasn’t told the results, at least not right away. All I could get out of the three of them was, “you did good, kid.” Other than a physical we polished off all the paperwork including my enlistment options and the copy and filing of the four letters Gunny and Sarge had been holding for me. Their buddy didn’t say a word about them, he just smiled and gave Sarge a thumbs up.

I bristled a bit at being called ‘kid’, but when I thought about it for a second, I realized that to him, anyone my age was just a kid. So I answered politely and respectfully.

“No sir, I don’t. But I don’t think I’m going to get a choice. So I’ve been trying to get as fit as I can, and Sgt. Joyce has been teaching me all he can about weapons.”

Looking at Sgt. Joyce, Gunny said “Well, at least he’s sane Marv. He’s smart enough to know that going to Nam is not a good thing…. But since he looks like a frickin’ girl!, he’s gonna have a hard time at Basic and probably even afterward, and you and I both know it.”

I awakened... fully alert, although not certain exactly why. My brain was firing on twelve of its eight cylinders and the turbo boost was well engaged, as it attempted to make sense of the shadows which my semi-focused eyes were saying were dangerous unknowns looming all about me in our dark bedroom. My ears began straining to hear whatever it was that might have been that which had awakened me. It’s hard to believe how sinister a dark room seems when you can’t really focus on anything due to the near absence of light. You’d think that after sleeping for at least a few hours your eyes would be accustomed to the lack of light and you should be able to see, if not well then at least somewhat upon immediately opening them.