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Court and Spark - Chapter 5

Author - Ragua
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Court and Spark

By Ragua


Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers in Chapter 1.

A/N: Sorry it has taken so long to get this chapter out. Real life has been oppressive of late.

A/N: For those who find the Tuckers a bit over the top, I should probably mention that most of their escapades are based on real life events. So now that I have admitted to coming from an extremely dysfunctional family, be nice!

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Chapter 5

T’Pol eyed the windmill dubiously, recalling an ancient Earth text about a senile old man who attacked such structures from the back of a spavined equine. At the moment, the Vulcan felt an illogical sympathy for the mentally imbalanced literary character.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Trip mumbled nervously for the fourth time. “No one will think any less of you.” He shifted uncomfortably. “We all know it’s not a Vulcan thing. Everyone would understand.”

She switched her attention to her mate, regarding him solemnly. “This activity obviously has great meaning for your family. I wish to participate in the exercise that I may better comprehend. It will be a valuable cultural experience.”

With that, T’Pol returned her gaze to the tiny object on the ground at her feet. After focusing for a moment, she struck the dimpled blue sphere soundly. It rolled straight and true toward the gap at the base of the windmill. Unfortunately, she had once again miscalculated: one of the revolving blades denied the ball entry, knocking it back down the slight slope to its starting point.

She heard a snicker behind her, followed by a smack and an “Ow!” Obviously, Daniel found her predicament humorous, but one of the other family members—most likely Jean or Mrs. Tucker—felt that his amusement was disrespectful and had reacted accordingly.

As T’Pol attempted for the fifth time to calculate a successful trajectory, Mr. Tucker walked over and scooped up her golf ball. “Don’t worry about it, T’Pol,” he consoled. “Hardly a thing in the world as frustrating as putt-putt! ‘Specially when it’s your first time.” With that, he tossed the ball clear over the windmill, where it bounced several times on the worn green surface and rolled toward the hole that was its ultimate destination.

The Vulcan furrowed her brow. Was she being patronized? Did these humans believe her species incapable of correctly guiding a miniature sphere through an obstacle course with a crooked metal stick? However bizarre a ritual it was, T’Pol was determined to master it. Even the children had managed to safely transfer their spheres past the windmill after only one or two attempts. Surely she, a scientist, should be able to accomplish as much!

Before she could protest, however, the entire human contingent had followed Mr. Tucker’s lead and was moving on from the tee box to the green. Gerald Monaghan and the children were awaiting them at the tee for the next hole, having sunk their brightly colored golf balls into the windmill hole already. T’Pol stood quietly, analyzing technique, as those with spheres still aboveground took turns knocking them toward the hole. When it was finally her turn, she was gratified that she managed to sink her sphere after striking it only twice.

As her group proceeded to the next tee box, T’Pol found herself walking between Carlos and Daniel. Trip was trailing behind, having stubbornly denied needing any assistance. The young Vulcan addressed her mate’s brother.

“I fail to understand why your family refers to this activity as... ‘putt-putt,’” she commented. “I was under the impression that the official designation of this pastime was ‘miniature golf.’”

Danny Tucker gave her a bemused look. “Well...it’s just...it’s putt-putt. It’s always been called putt-putt.” He pondered for a moment, then assured her confidently, “Yep. Everyone calls it putt-putt!”

T’Pol cocked an eyebrow, letting her gaze drift over his red head to the bright green, red, blue, and yellow neon sign that blared, “Buddy’s Miniature Golf! Fun for the Whole Family!”

“Everyone except the proprietor of this establishment?” she inquired innocently.

A bark of laughter told her that Trip had overheard her comment. There was even a suspicious rumble from Carlos. Daniel Tucker, however, waved her query aside with a scowl and a disparaging noise. “It’s putt-putt,” he affirmed in a tone that brooked no arguments. Seeing the Vulcan’s skeptical gaze, he went on. “Ya don’t have chippin’ and drivin’ like ya do in regular golf. Ya just putt. So it’s called putt-putt!” Daniel nodded his head once, as if to punctuate that this was the end of the matter. He seemed to feel that she was impugning the pastime by questioning the origins of its name.

T’Pol found it curious that such a trivial subject could elicit such a serious response from the usually lighthearted human. She mulled over the topic in silence as they waited for the other group to take turns knocking their golf balls along a narrow lever that Jean Tucker had called a “seesaw.” Frankie had to strike her sphere several times: her first attempt rolled off the edge of the lever and into a chasm that spat the ball back toward the tee box; her second attempt was straight, but was of insufficient velocity to enable the ball to tip the lever on its axis, so the ball once again rolled back to the tee box.

The young Vulcan monitored the attempts of the other players in order to identify all the variables of the obstacle. To her relief—although she would never allow the humans to see it—the “seesaw” hole proved much easier for her than the windmill hole. It was a simple matter of physics, with no factors other than the trajectory and velocity of the ball coming into play.

Once they had completed the “seesaw” hole, T’Pol continued her inquiry. “I understand the use of the verb in referring to this activity,” she explained to Daniel Tucker. “What seems illogical is the repetition of the word. Should not the activity simply be referred to as ‘putt?’”

Once again, her mate was forced to stifle his laughter, while Carlos too rumbled with amusement. Even Daniel Tucker, heretofore so serious on the subject of miniature golf, broke into a smile. “Well, T’Pol,” he drawled, sounding much like his brother. “It’s actually real logical, when ya think about it. If ya could hit the ball into the hole with just one swing, callin’ it ‘putt’ might make sense.” His grin widened. “But considerin’ the number of swings most of us have to take, ‘putt-putt’ is a more appropriate...” He trailed off, attempting to come up with the proper word.

“...appellation,” Carlos supplied.

Daniel beamed at his mate. “Appellation. Perfect!” He slanted his eyes back at the Vulcan, wickedly. “’Course, for some people, it would make even more sense to call it putt-putt-putt-putt-putt-putt—” The redhead might have gone on for quite a few more “putts” had his brother not come up behind and thwacked him on the head.

“That’s enough, Dan,” Trip chided, amused at the joke, but unwilling to allow his brother to tease the Vulcan too much. Carlos casually herded Daniel away, in order to prevent yet another possible sibling tussle.

As the couple moved ahead, T’Pol glanced at her human. He grinned sheepishly. “Dan’s just playin’,” Trip explained, with a slightly worried expression. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

T’Pol slowed her pace to match his. “I was not offended.” Her mated gazed at her curiously. “It has become apparent,” the Vulcan elaborated, “that your family commonly uses insults and teasing as a means of expressing affection and camaraderie. That your brother chooses to mock me implies that he accepts and appreciates me as an individual.”

Charles looked somewhat bemused at her ready acceptance of his family’s human foibles. Then he sighed in appreciation and relief. Before he could respond, however, several shouts of warning drew their attention to the tee box ahead.

“Fore!” “Heads up!” “Look out!” “Incoming!” Gerald Monaghan, Mr. Tucker, Jean, and Daniel all cried out simultaneously.

T’Pol caught a brief glimpse of a club rotating through the air toward a multicolored clown face before her attention was entirely claimed by a bright red golf ball on an intercept course with her head. She threw herself to the ground, dragging her mate down with her. The tiny sphere shot past them and buried itself in a wooden bench to their left, its velocity enabling the tiny sphere to wedge itself between the slats.

The ball’s landing was immediately followed by a loud “chunk!” announcing that the airborne club had made violent contact with the clown’s face. The plastic obstacle was in no way damaged: it’s maniacal expression remained unchanged, the faded pink tongue forming a ramp to its mouth—the path the potentially lethal red golf ball should have taken.

All eyes turned to the individual responsible for the dual assault. Four-year-old Frankie was frozen in position, like a hologram paused as it demonstrated a textbook golf swing. The child’s form might have been admirable on the tee box of a 385-yard Par 5 hole. On a miniature golf course, however, it was just short of catastrophic.

Frankie finally moved, staring at her empty hands as if wondering why her club was no longer there. The other children remained still, eyeballing the adults in trepidation, wondering what the response might be. For their part, the adults still on their feet simply stared at each other, wondering what their response should be.

Before any of them could decide upon the appropriate course of action, a disheveled red head peeped up over the bench in which the errant golf ball had imbedded itself.

“Good God Gertie!” Daniel Tucker bellowed theatrically. “My life flashed before my eyes! It was like deja vu, all over again!” There was the briefest of pauses, and suddenly, just like that, all the Tuckers were laughing hysterically.

T’Pol, taken aback, stared at her mate. “No, no!” he cried to his brother. “It’s genetics. It’s gotta be. I betcha we’re doomed to experience this at least once every generation!”

As the laughter continued, Jean joined the hilarity. “You were only five,” she gasped between giggles, her eyes watering as she tried to focus on her younger brother. “I can’t believe you remember that!”

“What can I say?” Daniel Tucker grimaced at the memory. “A backswing to the ‘nads leaves a lasting impression.”

At this statement—incomprehensible to the Vulcan, but generating a new wave of merriment among the humans—Carlos’ head popped up from behind the bench. He contemplated his mate for a moment, amusement glittering in his heavy-lidded eyes. “Obviously, no lasting damage done, eh, querido?”

Now it was Daniel’s turn to laugh, his face turning a red to match his hair. The other Tuckers were not long in joining in. T’Pol glanced around, hoping for enlightenment. The only humans not laughing at this point were the children, and it seemed as if David Monaghan was on the verge but couldn’t decide whether or not such a display of amusement would be appropriate to his adolescent dignity.

The young Vulcan felt left out. Her mate caught her puzzled gaze, and he smiled warmly between chuckles, grasping her hands. “It’s a long, sordid story,” he gurgled, by way of explanation.

“Sounds like something I’d love to hear!” Gerald Monaghan encouraged. Carlos nodded several times in quick succession, which was, for him, an expression of intense enthusiasm. He caught the Vulcan’s eye and favored her with his slow, amiable grin.

T’Pol felt comforted. They would not exclude her. She added her voice to those of the other family-members-by-proxy. “Yes. I find the stories of your childhood most intriguing. Particularly those in which you and your siblings ‘wreak havoc.’”

T’Pol suspected that her words might elicit further amusement from the Tuckers, and she was not disappointed. Howls of laughter greeted her deadpan statement. The young Vulcan felt an electric jolt of satisfaction. She had made a successful joke! A gentle squeeze at her elbow told her that Trip recognized both the intentional nature of the joke and her pleasure in making it. Still, she was Vulcan. She schooled her expression carefully, but as she did so, she allowed her eyes to meet those of her mate, and for a nanosecond, they shared a joke of their own.

Then Mrs. Tucker stepped up to explain the original source of mirth. “Anyone with half a brain will tell you that it’s not too smart to give kids basically what amounts to a weapon.” She waved vaguely at the golf club that had bludgeoned the forehead of the plastic clown and now lay innocently on the faux grass in front of the obstacle. “But it was our first time takin’ all four of the kids to putt-putt, so maybe we had an excuse.”

“Maybe,” echoed Mr. Tucker doubtfully, inspecting the large dent in the forehead of the plastic clown.

T’Pol found herself agreeing with the initial statement. When they had first begun the activity, she had wondered at the wisdom of allowing children free access to what were essentially steel clubs. Now she felt somewhat vindicated.

“Anyway,” Jean took up the narrative, “Lizzie had obviously been watching too much golf with Dad on the holovids.”

“Hey, don’t try to put it all on me!” Mr. Tucker protested. “I can’t help it if she was interested in the sport!” When his children turned sour looks on him, he went on undaunted. “And I don’t care what you say, she had great form. Why, if she had ‘a taken up the sport, she’d ‘a been hittin’ it 300 yards off the tee regularly!”

Daniel eyeballed his father skeptically and let loose a scornful snort before continuing the story. “So there we were, all minding our own business, while Lizzie was set to tee off on her very first hole of putt-putt—”

“Oh, ‘minding our own business’ my ass, Danny!” Jean chortled. “You were heckling Lizzie something fierce. It’s no wonder she clocked you!”

“Yeah,” Trip agreed with his sister. “I always thought she planned on nailing you. Unfortunately, Jean and I were collateral damage.”

Mrs. Tucker took up the narrative once again. “Basically, Lizzie got all three of them with one swing.” At the startled looks on the faces of Gerald and Carlos, she elaborated. “She caught Danny with the backswing,” she explained, nodding at her younger son. “Then the ball hit Jeannie in the eye.” Jean pointed to her right eye, so the audience would know exactly where she had been wounded. “Then the club flew out of her hand and caught Trip in the back of the head.” Surprised, T’Pol turned her attention to her mate, who looked very aggrieved at the memory of the unprovoked assault.

“And I really was just mindin’ my own business!” he exclaimed. “I was getting a drink of water!” The explanation was followed by a gesture to one of the many fountains that dotted the miniature course. His indignation did not prevent the others from laughing at the picture his words presented. After a moment’s pause, Mr. Tucker continued with the tale.

“So there we were: one kid blinded, one kid castrated, and one kid knocked out.” The older man shook his head in chagrin at the memory. “Mother and I must have stared at each other for a good five minutes, trying to figure out what to do.”

All eyes turned to Mrs. Tucker to find out how the situation had been handled. The older woman gave them a world-weary grin.

“We decided we’d had enough putt-putt for the day. We packed all the kids up and went for pizza and beer.” She grinned at the memory, then drew herself up with sudden dignity. “I mean, Charlie and I had beer. The kids had pop.”

“And three ice packs,” Danny added with a touch of asperity.

This grouchy statement generated another bout of laughter. T’Pol looked at her mate with some concern.

“While I appreciate the colorful nature of these stories from your childhood,” she began, “they all seem to involve a great deal of...carnage.”

The Vulcan’s statement, which a pause in the laughter made audible to all, caused still more hilarity. T’Pol cocked an eyebrow at her mate.

“So now ya know,” he explained with a grin. “All that trouble I get in on Enterprise is just par for the course.”

T’Pol gave him a searching look. “Indeed,” she stated, glancing around at the members of his family, still laughing at the shared memories. Mrs. Tucker, in particular, caught her eye and smiled as she laughed. The young Vulcan again felt an unfamiliar warmth touch her, somewhere deep inside.

The feeling was not at all unpleasant.


Chapter 6

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A whole mess of folks have made comments

Wow !!! Great story !!! I like Trip's family , especially Daniel , he seems to be a funny guy with a good sense of humor .

Oh my God that caused a painfull flash back!!!!!
Great chapter even with the very painfull memories.

Fantastically hysterical!!!!

Oh the joys of family life. Great chapter.

You do not disappoint! That was hilarious, can't wait for more! :)

Oh My GOD that was hilarious! Can't wait for the rest!!!

Thanks for the update, this is so funny. I wish I had this much fun in my family as a kid. Can't wait for the next installment

Great chapter as usual! The scenarios you put them in are just too funny.

yeah - you're back!
I really enjoy the way this story paints a beautifully vibrant picture of such an ordinary situation...more soon please :o)

Thanks for adding to this! Loved the miniature golf..oops...I mean "putt-putt"...I see I'm not the only one having flash-backs!

LOL Yay! Chapter five! Man, that chapter really reminded me of when me and my friends go putting. I swear one of us always end up with an ice pack for some reason or another.... Very painful memories.... Though I'd say the worse is going skateboarding afterwards. I would tell, but the guys might cry! LOL Great story! Can't wait for more!!!!!!!!

I adore this story, never doubt this, but I´ve missed T/T-moments in this part very, very much. A smile here and there is not enough...

oh, my - weeping - was removed.

Love this story, please update soon. A few more TTs would be great

Keep up the good work. I hope to see more soon.

Hey, Vaux, are you still around? If so, what did you mean by your second comment—the one with "weeping" in it? I don't get it! :-(

Thanks!

NOOOOOOO!!! i just began this series this morning and was reading all day...i had a massive heart attack (or something similar) when there wasnt a new chapter link to click on. please post it soon, this story is so amusing!