Page 64 of Truly, Madly Viking

Oh, no! No, no, no, no! Do not be thankful for me. And do not call this my home. I am just a wayfarer passing through. The only reason Jorund kept these sentiments to himself was that he'd promised Mag-he not to hurt her daughters.

He looked at her for help.

Mag-he just nodded her head, seemingly at a loss for words, too. Why didn't she correct her daughters?

It was her job to steer the children's thinking toward the right path.

On the other hand, Mag-he might also be thankful that he had "come home." More likely, she was thanking her One-God that she had peaked three times the night before under Jorund's expert fingers.

She should be thanking her One-God that Jorund was going to bring her even more pleasure at the first opportunity. He knew that he was thanking the gods that she was a woman with enthusiasm for bed sport. He could not wait till he showed her the renowned Viking S-spot. She would be more thankful than she'd ever been in all her life, he would warrant.

"Actually," Beth began, "it was really the Vikings who discovered America. So we should probably be thankful today for the Vikings."

"Funny you should mention that. I had forgotten. You know, that Leif Eriksson was a barmy fellow...just like his father Erik the Red. I remember one time he..." Jorund's words trailed off as he realized that Mag-he was staring at him with dismay. He assumed he was not supposed to be speaking of his ancient past around her children.

"What are you thankful for, Joe?" Sue-zee asked.

Caught was his first thought. He'd been caught having lewd thoughts in the midst of a family event. His mother really would have clouted him now, having an intuition concerning her boys' lustful fantasies, even when they were no longer boys. His eyes went involuntarily to Mag-he's shert front—made of another of those stretchy materials that he loved—which clearly delineated her nipples.

She blushed, sensing his wayward thoughts, then frowned in warning.

"I'm thankful I'm alive," he blurted out, grasping at the first thing he could think of. When he saw the expression of disappointment on their faces, he added, "I thank the gods that they have given me a family with whom to share this special day."

Jorund wished he were dead.

He was strapped into a metal box, with Beth and Sue-zee on either side of him, and they were in the midst of riding a metal monster called 'the Comet,' or 'the Vomit,' depending on which child was speaking. Sue-zee was laughing gaily. Beth was tapping her fingers with boredom, much preferring another trip to the orca park, where there had been not one single message from Thora. And Jorund was holding on to the front bar with white knuckles, his Thanksgiving turkey in his throat, along with the candy apple and cotton candy and root-beer Slurpee he'd just consumed. If his brother, Magnus, ever heard that he'd consumed a beverage called a Slurpee he would roll on the rush floor with laughter.

Mag-he—the coward, or the wise woman, depending on one's perspective—was standing down below, waving up at them. He was going to wave something at her, like a birch rod, if he ever survived this ordeal. She should have warned him about the danger of this amusement ride, which he thought was ill-named. There was nothing amusing about putting oneself into a metal box that rode up one hill, then down another, higher and higher into the sky, sometimes upside down, then hurled the passengers straight down at excessive speed till their stomachs lurched and rose to their bulging eyeballs. Then the procedure was repeated over and over again. It was insanity, pure and simple.

They ought to establish a Rainbow Hospitium right in the midst of this chaos.

If Mag-he ever again dared to refer to him as a type-tea personality, he intended to set her crooked mind straight. There might very well be men—or women, or children for that matter—who enjoyed great thrills by making their hearts nigh stop beating, but he was not one of them. In truth, a Saracen horse soldier had once put a scimitar to his throat while dangling him off the side of a cliff, and Jorund had not felt such fright as on this rolling hell-ride.

Why could they not have stayed at Mag-he's home and watched football—a brutal game more to his liking, where grown men tried to beat each other's brains out—on the tee-vee box? It was the custom of most Americans in this land on this day. But no, these three lackbrains had to make one last trip to the Orcaland park before it closed for the winter.

Soon—though not soon enough for Jorund's satisfaction—they emerged from the demented ride. He staggered on weak legs over to a bench, where he plopped down and put his face between his outspread knees. Sue-zee sat down beside him and exclaimed happily, "Wow! That was so cool. Can we do it again?"

He raised his head slightly and slanted her a look that he hoped conveyed his feelings on the subject. He was afraid that, if he spoke aloud, foul words would spew from his mouth.

"Can we go on the Ferris wheel now?" Beth asked her mother, who sat down on his other side and stared at him with concern.

"What's a fair-ass wheel? Is it a fright machine, like the rolling coaster?"

"No," Mag-he said with a short laugh. "Even I am not afraid of the Ferris wheel."

So they walked over to another area, where the girls quickly jumped into another metal box. He and Mag-he followed in the next box. If Jorund hadn't been so disoriented by the effects of the rolling coaster, he would have paid more attention to his surroundings. It was only as the fair-ass wheel began to move, backward and upward, that he let his gaze roam skyward and saw just how high this fair-ass wheel was. Enormous. Then he glanced down at the fence that enclosed the fair-ass wheel arena where a sign clearly proclaimed, World's Largest Ferris Wheel.

That was all Jorund needed to learn. "You people are barmy," he declared, unbuckling his seat belt. He began to climb out of his metal box, which was already high up in the air.

"Joe! You can't do that," Mag-he cried out. "Come back here."

"Way to go!" Sue-zee, the bloodthirsty little type-tea, was cheering.

"Be careful," Beth shouted down to where he was dangling from the slow-rising box. Despite her concern, it was obvious she was enjoying his wild antics, too.

"Joe, you have to stay on the Ferris wheel till it stops," Mag-he informed him with chagrin.

"Not bloody likely," he said, equally chagrined, swinging an arm out to grasp at a metal supporting pole, which he used to shinny down to the ground.