“OH MY GOSH!” an oddly falsetto voice gushed before Frank even had a chance to get out of the van. “I am so sorry! Are you hurt? Are you okay?!”

Turning his head to the side to see the driver, the young sleuth did a double take. Maybe he had hit his head or something –

That could not be a young man wearing only a black leather vest and black chaps? He blinked and then rubbed his eyes. The image didn’t change.

“I am sooooo sorry!” the other driver wailed dramatically again, wringing his hands and apparently oblivious to the frigid December afternoon, Frank shivered just looking at him. “I dinged your pretty van! My bad! I wasn’t paying attention…” Frank was transfixed by the spectacle in front of him. “You know how it is… One minute you’re driving along cranking it out with the Village People – I just love that Construction worker, ooh a man in a hard hat – and the next thing you know there’s a red light.” He paused. “There was a red light, wasn’t there?”

Frank cleared his throat. “Uh – yours was.”

“Oh tushy!” the lively exhibition cursed and then quickly covered his mouth with one rather effeminate hand. “Sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

“It’s okay.” The older Hardy pushed open the van door and got out to check the damage. Around them traffic in the intersection had turned ugly but Frank ignored the beeping horns and angry looks. What did they expect him to do? Push the vehicles out of their way?

The small, inappropriately dressed man followed Frank – too closely – as he moved to the passenger side. Frank groaned and scrubbed his hand across the back of his head. Crap.

Luckily enough the van wasn’t too badly damaged, thanks to the other car being a very small vehicle, but it would definitely need some body shop time. The other car though, didn’t fare as well, its whole front end was dented in and coolant colored the slushy street. He turned towards the other driver. “Are you okay?” Now there was a loaded question if there ever was one.

The other man was watching him in a way that made Frank roll his eyes as he had to work to get the man’s attention off his rear-end. “Hey! I asked, are you okay?”

“Oh – what? Sorry?” the scantily clad man blushed slightly and looked at Frank. “Did you say something…” he batted his eyes, “darlin’?”

The nineteen year old groaned and then clarified things bluntly. “Don’t waste your breath, I’m straight.”

“That really is too bad…” the other man sighed, paused and then brightened. “Do you have a brother?”

ooooooOOOOOOoooooo

“So?”

Joe blinked and looked at the old woman who was turned around and talking to him from over the front seat. She waited expectedly for an answer and he blinked again. He had no memory of where he had just been or how he got here – and the woman? Scratch that, make it the two elderly women, as he caught sight of the top of the head of the driver, or rather, of the driver’s hat complete with a huge pink bow, he didn’t have a clue about them either. But apparently they were in the middle of a conversation…and he was sitting upright in the backseat of a car, safely belted in –

Could this get any stranger?

“Wha’?” his voice was oddly slurred and he licked his lips and tried again. “Wha’ happened?”

The woman, a blue haired ancient, smiled patiently. She reminded Joe of his grandmother. “Not much. We found you sleeping in a snow bank and offered you a nice cup of Ovaltine™ to help warm you up!” Joe frowned. He didn’t remember any of that…. Her wrinkled face suddenly crinkled up even further with concern. “Oh dear, you don’t look very well!”

“’M okay,” Joe automatically denied, even as he reached up and touched his head. Ouch! It throbbed painfully and he found it hard to think past the pain. His fingers rubbed stitches and he frowned. He cast his companions in new scrutiny and wondered if they had hit him with something. But why? Was there a geriatric kidnapping ring working in Bayport? Did he have something they wanted? Everything was just so mixed up –

And where the heck was Frank? Shouldn’t he be right here mothering the living daylights out of Joe? Or at the very least protecting his obviously less than well younger sibling from whatever threat this diabolical duo might pose?

“Heavens to Betsy, Gladys, would you stop fussing and turn back around. You know how nervous I get driving in the snow!” the driver, the hat and bow lady, scolded.

“Oh fiddlesticks, Myrtle, why do you always make such a fuss?” Gladys turned around and faced forwards anyway. “I just asked him his name!” The old woman folded her arms across her chest and – Joe didn’t have to see it to know it – pouted.

“For the love of,” the driver sounded exasperated. “He said he can’t remember, remember?” The hat and bow shook, “Sometimes I swear, little sister, you’re losing your mind.”

“Myrtle!”

“Joe!” Joe inserted desperately as a distracted Myrtle swerved into the other lane briefly. “My name is Joe!”

“Well then why’d you say you didn’t remember your name if you did?” Gladys twisted back around to glare at him this time. “It’s not nice to lie to old ladies you know.” She firmed up her chin, “You’ll go to hell for that!”

His vision swam as two of Gladys chewed him out. Joe opened his mouth to explain when his vision suddenly grayed and his head felt like it was about to explode –

Joe groaned out loud and then blinked again. He was going to be sick.

“Sick,” he managed, his hand already scrambling for the handle.

Myrtle barely got the car stopped before Joe was out and retching on the side of the road. The slushy water soaked his jeans and by the time he was done, he was a shivering mess. He barely registered the two very worried women or the warmth of the car blanket that was suddenly placed over his shoulders.

“C’mon Joe,” one of the women said, he couldn’t tell which, “let’s get you back in the car. The house isn’t much further…”

He wasn’t particularly sure he wanted to go with them. He wanted his brother…Frank – but then his eyes rolled back in his head and he barely managed to fall into the backseat before passing out. Again.

…

Gladys Greene stared with concern at the once again unconscious young man lying in the back of her sister’s car. “I really wish he’d stop doing that,” she sighed.

Her older sister just rolled her eyes and hurried the other woman into the front seat. Mrytle’s knees creaked as she then moved to her own door and slid back into the seat; her old body was not used to all this ‘excitement’ and had no qualms about threatening what it might. “Drunk, I tell you,” she muttered as she put the car into drive and checked for oncoming traffic, “a boozer if I ever did see one…”

Gladys peered over her shoulder at the young man and frowned. “I don’t know, Myrt,” she confessed. “Something just doesn’t feel right about this.”

“A lot doesn’t feel right,” the older woman huffed. “Starting with us inviting a stranger home, ‘especially a young man! They’re all sex-starved, I’m telling you, sex-starved!”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Gladys needlessly reminded. “And I just got a feeling that whatever’s wrong, it isn’t us who’s in the need of saving.”

Myrtle didn’t really believe her but decided her breath was best saved for doing other things, like breathing. All she knew for sure was this was going to be the worst Christmas yet.