Page 61 of Rascal

“What the fuck?” I gasped.

“Go to the children’s room now. No snacks, and you’ll wait for punishment,” another man ordered. His patch said Banshee.

“What?” Brax exclaimed, his hand going to his heart in horror.

“Nope, you deliberately traumatised Uncle Chatter, and he’s not recovered from last time.”

“But he’s so easy,” Troy replied.

“The room, now! Go!” Kenny bellowed, and the kids quit arguing and rushed away.

“Chatter has a phobia of dolls, which is really tragic because Lavender is a leading expert in identifying, valuing, and repairing dolls. Her home is crammed full of them! You can’t even say the word doll around Chatter without him having a meltdown,” Clio explained.

My eyes widened as Kenny began sobbing with laughter. She passed the phone to Clio, and I peered over her arm. There was a dug-out fire pit and a stack of rubbish in it. The children were surrounding it, apart from Finn, who was recording it, and Kit. The bonfire had already been started.

“Uncle Chatter, Aunt Lavender said this needs burning too,” Kit stated, approaching at speed.

“Stay back,” Chatter warned, and then threw the large box on. Nothing happened for a few seconds before a pop sounded. Chatter looked over and frowned. The kids cocked their heads, and then something exploded and ripped through the box. A doll’s head landed at Chatter’s feet, and he shrieked. Moments later, several more pops occurred, and some arms and legs went flying.

The cardboard disintegrated in the fire, and suddenly there was a large explosion, and doll body parts rained down. Chatter full-on screamed and then began gibbering in a rush. I was laughing too hard even to work out what he was saying as Clio screeched next to me. Chatter backed up, leaving the kids who were rolling around crying as he was smacked with body parts. Finally, his legs gave out, and he collapsed on the ground and tried to crawl away.

He screamed once more as a blackened, melting doll’s head landed in front of him. His gibberish began again, but even faster. A woman ran from the house and dropped-kicked the head, making Chatter screech. The horror on his face shouldn’t be funny, but it was. The poor guy.

“You little fuckers!” the woman I guessed was Lavender yelled.

The kids couldn’t answer because they were laughing too much. Damn.

“They need punishing; it took four of us to pin him down and sedate him,” Banshee said with a grin.

“Holy crap,” I gasped.

“Yeah, Chatter don’t do dolls. We can’t even mention that around him. He and Lavender call them Gremlins,” Kenny explained.

“I shouldn’t laugh; he was terrified, but that was so damn funny,” I commented.

“Be grateful the Hellions aren’t here. There’s often a full-scale war between them,” Clio added.

“Hellions?”

“The Hellions are the Rage MC kids, and the Holy Terrors are the Hellfire MC brats. And both sides are very imaginative. It’s got to the point now where Chance sectioned off a piece of land; we throw them on it and shout them when it’s time to eat. They can kill each other in private.” Clio grinned.

The door opened, and Lavender walked in. She had faint smudges of soot on her face.

“Where are they?” I tried not to laugh as fingers pointed to where the children were. She stomped over.

“You little fuckers. Uncle Chatter has been sedated, which means he can’t paint my fence tomorrow!” she yelled.

“I can do that, Aunt Lavender!” Brax offered helpfully.

“Oh, all of you are. With these!” Lavender held up a pack of children’s paintbrushes.

“We can’t use those; they’ll take ages!” Kit exclaimed.

“Then don’t terrify your Uncle Chatter!” Lavender snapped.

“But he’s so easy!” Troy whined.

“Yup, he sure is. But that doesn’t mean you can target him. If you can dish it out, you can take the pain,” Lavender retorted.