Retreat Re-Treat

Pensioners' Paradise

Words: 1617

"Do I have to?"

"No, dear, you certainly don't have to, but your Aunt Edna and I are asking you to, requesting you to."

"Mom, I'm sixteen. What'll I do with a bunch of old fogies ..."

"Now you cut out that tone, young man. All right, this is not a request any more. It's an order. You'll accompany your grandfather to the pensioners' retreat. I expect you'll find other young people there accompanying their grandparents."

"You might even meet a nice young lady and fall in love," Aunt Edna piped up, and she and Mom giggled. Women never outgrow giggling, even when they're Moms and aunts. One thing I know, if I do meet a young lady at this retreat, I'll make sure I never hear her giggle. If I do hear her giggle, I won't fall in love with her.

Grandpa was pretty excited about the retreat. I was a bit surprised at that, I thought Mom and Aunt Edna had had to talk him into going just like they'd talked me into accompanying him. But he was humming when I went over to his place early on the day. He hummed and grinned as we put his clothes and various geriatric accessories into a backpack.

"You're going to enjoy this?" I asked finally.

There came the sound of a horn tooting.

"There's the van," he said. "Come on, Jimmy. Yes, yes, I'm going to enjoy this."

I shrugged, picked up his backpack and mine and headed for the front door.

"Jimmy," came a loud whisper behind me.

"What, Grandpa?"

"I should've told you earlier. Samuel Patrick is going to be on this retreat."

"Who is Samuel Patrick?"

The tooting outside was getting more insistent. I reached the door and turned the handle.

"Jimmy, boy, wait. I haven't told you about Samuel Patrick?"

"Grandpa, there's no time for stories now. They're yelling for us."

"Okay, but I'm going to get my revenge on Samuel Patrick."

My stomach gave a lurch. I knew that look in Grandpa's eye. Everyone in the family – Mom, Aunt Edna, their respective husbands (Dad and Uncle Henry), my older sister Kathleen, my cousins Jody and Maryann (Aunt Edna's girls) and I had learned the hard way that that gleam in Grandpa's eye meant one thing. Trouble. Whoever this Samuel Patrick was, he was in for it. There being no time to get a low down on the backstory, I could only look up skywards and ask Grandma-in-heaven to stop her husband from doing too much damage.

"Ah, good morning, good morning," Grandpa trilled cheerily, striding toward the van. "This is Jimmy boy, my grandson. Hey there will the luggage, Jimmy."

The driver and I strapped the luggage on top. Grandpa got in next to his buddies and I squeezed in on the front seat, squashing a boy about my age who was next to the driver and looked as gloomy as I felt.

"Well, here we all are," Grandpa said, as the van started up. "Daniel Mathew, you look as young as the day we took our graduation photo. Benjy, who picked your sweater? You never wore yellow in college. And Samuel Patrick, how are you, how are you?"

I gave an involuntary twitch at the name Samuel Patrick. The boy next to me noticed it. He turned to look me full in the face and raised his eyebrows. I grimaced. I jerked my head backward, indicating Grandpa and Samuel Patrick. He pursed his lips, frowned, and nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. We had to communicate without the whole vanload hearing us.

'Are you Colin's grandson?' he typed. I nodded.

'My Grandpa is Samuel Patrick. Do you know what happened?' I shook my head in response to this second question on his screen.

Both of us shrugged. He put his smartphone back into his pocket. He stared in front of him, I stared out the side window. Behind us, the vanload sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad".

I got Grandpa to myself for a few minutes in our room before lunch. "What's going on?"

Grandpa chuckled. "At last I can pay Samuel Patrick back for what he did to me. It has been my lifelong ambition – well, my ambition ever since that day in Freshman class, to avenge myself."

"What did he do?"

"We had a band, see? And I played the guitar. And that Samuel Patrick, he wanted to play the guitar, but I outplayed him and got in the band and he didn't."

"You play well, Grandpa, I hear you every Christmas."

"Ah, yes, I do play well, even if I say so myself. And you've heard me with only carols, but I can turn my hand to almost anything."

"So Samuel Patrick was jealous?"

"Yes, and not only that, there was this girl on the band. Now Samuel Patrick wanted to get on the band to impress her. But I did, and I impressed her. Your Grandpa was mighty handsome in his day, he was!"

"So Grandma told me. Anyway, Grandpa, the gong will go for lunch any minute. What did Samuel Patrick do?"

"There was this concert we'd got up, see? Not a tiny affair in a barn, oh no, we hired a hall, a proper stage it was, with curtains and everything. And posh seating. We charged people a ticket fee to get in. Other concerts we'd just pass the hat around and collect some coins, but this one we had tickets. Rehearsed for weeks, we did."

"Yes, Grandpa, what did Samuel Patrick do?"

"The big night. All of us in our posh full-sleeved shirts and bow ties and what not. Some of us even got our hair done."

"What did Samuel Patrick do?"

"It was my big solo, it was, when it happened."

"What happened, Grandpa?"

"A toad jumped out of my guitar right on to that pretty young girl's pretty red dress."

"Toad?"

"Yes, a great warty thing, like a frog only uglier. Samuel Patrick had put a toad in my guitar."

"But how did he get hold of your guitar? And a toad?"

The gong went for lunch. I held Grandpa's arm tightly.

"I know you're hungry, Grandpa, but you're going to tell me the rest of this story before we go out of this room."

"We'd left our instruments backstage. He must've got at my guitar then. That girl giggled every time she saw me after that. Could never ask her out. Knew she'd only think of toads when she saw me. Anyway, I've sworn to put a toad in his wheel some time. Now can we eat?"

"You don't put toads in wheels," I protested silently as I followed Grandpa to the dining hall.

I got him alone again that evening, for a few minutes before dinner. "It's good you didn't marry that girl in the band," I tried saying. "Giggling girls don't make good wives. Samuel Patrick did you a favour, Grandpa."

"You may be right about giggling girls," he mused. "Your Grandma was a fine one, she was, and never once giggled. Laughed loud and hearty if she found something funny, she did. Lovely girl she was, your Grandma, Jimmy, and never you forget it."

"You miss her, don't you?" I whispered.

"Every day, Jimmy boy, every blessed day. Almost cried in the van over here singing the railroad song, we'd sung it on our first date."

"You wouldn't have met her if you'd married the band girl," I persisted.

"Don't talk me out of getting back at Samuel Patrick for the thing he did me, Jimmy. Don't try to overcome me with sentiment like this. There's the dinner gong."

I hadn't expected to enjoy the retreat, but with this hanging on my head, I not only 'didn't-enjoy' it, I was tense and miserable. The way the retreat was planned meant I couldn't keep an eye on Grandpa the whole time – games and activities were in teams and we weren't on the same team. Each time we were reunited after a few hours' separation, he winked mysteriously at me and I waited for the blow to fall.

It was the fourth and last night of the retreat. There was a campfire. A good, old-fashioned campfire with long twigs on which we toasted marshmallows, potatoes and other stuff.

I know what you're thinking, and no, it wasn't that. Even my Grandpa isn't gross enough to put a toad on a toasting twig.

But Grandpa did fulfill his lifelong-since-Freshman-class ambition. Not only did he fulfill it, he upped it. And he upped it with the help of Samuel Patrick's grandson, who happened to be on the same team as he was. I don't know how much he bribed that boy, but it must've been a lot.

At the campfire, each pensioner sang or recited or something, and after each performance the hat was passed around for old times' sake. Everyone had their pockets full of coins in readiness.

When the first singer, Benjy, completed his song and the hat was going around, Samuel Patrick put his hand in his pocket and pulled out ...

"A snake!!"

Samuel Patrick threw the unfortunate reptile on to the ground, where it vanished from view at once. He clutched his left side and toppled on to Daniel, who held him yelling, "Sam, Sam! He's having a heart attack!"

There was a doctor at the campfire.

He checked Samuel Patrick and then quickly turned to check Grandpa.

Samuel Patrick was fine.

It was Grandpa who needed to get an injection.

"Thought I'd killed him," he muttered, as he opened his eyes. "Achieving that goal wasn't as much fun as I'd thought."

Prompt ▼

Character Prompt for May 2025:
Write a story where a character who finally achieves the lifelong goal they've
been working toward. What did they just achieve, and what do they do next?
"What a Character! : Official WDC Contest"