“I’ll punch you in the face,” said Fenrir.
“You’ll get punched,” Shaughneigh shot back. “And I mean, when I punch, I’ll punch that schnoz right through your --”
“Pizza!”
The knock at the door ended the brawl before it began.
Image from Pixabay.
“Who ordered pizza?” Shaughneigh said climbing up on the pink La-Z-Boy, sliding the curtain to the side, and looking out at the delivery boy standing in the cold on the front porch.
“I don’t know,” Fenrir said, looking around. “We’re the only ones here.” His countenance fell as his eyes dropped to the floor with shame. For a split second, he looked pensive.
“Well, answer the door,” Shaughneigh whispered, motioning with his hands.
Fenrir snapped out of his momentary lapse of thoughtfulness and leaped toward the door. It was more like a skip, but the first hop was definitely a leap. A big one too. Shaughneigh rolled his eyes.
The door flew open. Fenrir’s back crashed into the wall behind him. He wanted to curse, but he couldn’t muster the breath to do so. He knew there was a rib broken. What the hell just happened?
He hadn’t even touched the door knob. He reached, but just as he rose to the tip of his toes the door smacked him and the delivery boy stuck his head in. “Order a pizza?” He smiled.
The delivery boy couldn’t see Fenrir trapped between the door and the wall. He saw Shaughneigh standing on the back of the La-Z-Boy, one leg out in a handsome arabesque, and his cute little sailor hat tilted to one side of his little cute head. The pizza boy’s smile faded. Shaughneigh knew what the boy was thinking. It was the same thing one of those bipedal giants always thought when they caught a glimpse of a garden gnome doing anything other than standing motionless in the rain. He hopped off the back of the chair, turned a flip, and landed on the heels of his sailor boots.
Before the pizza boy knew what hit him, Shaughneigh’s sailor boots caught him in the gut. The boy bounced off the front door and fell toward the front porch. The door released Fenrir, who, despite the pain all over his body, went for the pizza. He dove, catching the box on the tips of his ten fingers just before it hit the ground.
“The pizza should be here any minute!” A door in the back of the house slammed.
Shaughneigh looked at Fenrir, eyes wide. Fenrir looked back, grimacing. They recognized that voice right away. Fenrir dropped the pizza, flew by Shaughneigh before the younger gnome could budge and dive-rolled into place, striking his favorite pose, motionless as a work of art. Shaughneigh followed, his first boot planted square on the pizza boy’s nose, and somersaulted into position on the opposite end of the garden from Fenrir.
“Oh, my god!” A lady’s voice rang out. “Call nine one one!”
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This post originally appeared at Narrative.