Backyard Read Online Free PDF

hairline fracture threading across the base of the stem.
    â€œMe three!” cried Deanne with a shrill cackle as she balled her left hand into a tight fist and began punching at invisible targets in the air. “Yep! Keep ’em comin’, barkeep.” Nan shot an icy, semi-panicked glance at George. That was her signal for him to figure out a solution to this unfolding drunken-Mikkelsons problem. The lightbulb that occasionally went on in George’s brain flickered for a moment, then shone forth in all its slightly dimmed luminosity.
    â€œHere’s something that just occurred to me,” he said. “We have a special vintage we’re looking for someone to try. It’s very strong and very rare. A wine magazine has called it the finest wine from the best grapes ever grown. The grapes actually come from a very tall hill overlooking the craggy coast of Oregon. They’re called winter surf grapes. Very rare.”
    Nan pursed her lips and arched her eyebrows into one of those quizzical Nan looks.
    â€œWe consider you special guests. Would you like to try it? There’s a proviso here. The alcohol content is very, very high, so high, in fact, that it’s almost impossible for the palate and brain to detect. Also, this is especially fine wine, very precious, and we can only afford to spare it on those who will properly appreciate it.”
    The Mikkelsons, their heads wobbling like baseball bobble-heads, looked at each other and chortled.
    â€œOf course, damn it!” screamed Sievert.
    â€œBring it on, mo-fo!” Deanne shouted. With Nan visibly confused, George gathered up the Mikkelsons’ glasses and ducked quickly through the back door. He soon emerged carrying the two glasses, now topped off with burgundy liquid, and perilously close to spilling over the rims.
    â€œAl-rrrigght!” the Mikkelsons screamed in unison. They sloshed half their drinks onto themselves and the tabletop, laughed heartily, then dispensed with the remaining contents in a long, noisy gurgle.
    â€œAhhhh,” said Sievert. “That’s delicious!”
    â€œDoggonit,” said Deanne. “Doggonit. Doggonit. Dog-g-g-gonit.”
    Nan and George smiled politely.
    â€œMore?” asked George, winking at Nan, whose eyes had widened in alarm. After seven rounds and two trips each inside to the bathroom, the Mikkelsons had undergone their second transformation. Perky, talkative, and fidgeting to beat the band, they had nevertheless lost the monster edge that threatened to turn them into droolingly spastic boozehounds incapable of getting up from their chairs without farting or falling over. A certain shy, yet restless demeanor had been restored to them. They began blurting out long-winded and very rapid apologies for their behavior, rose abruptly, almost upsetting the table in the process, apologized some more, and shook hands three times each with Nan and George. Then, off they went, storming down the steps feeling braver and happier than they had been a half hour earlier.
    â€œGood Lord, George, what did you do to them?”
    â€œNothing. I just filled their wineglasses with Cullen’s power drink, Cranberry PowerPressPlus. Twice the sugar, three times the caffeine of a regular Coke. Looks like wine, smells and tastes nothing like wine. It’s the power of suggestion that did it.”
    After that, the Mikkelsons were frequent visitors. They eagerly lapped up the Fremonts’ hospitality, and even offered to pay for their prodigal appetites, with George and Nan graciously ignoring them. They had not, however, shown up at all so far this summer. Puzzled and perhaps a little hurt and concerned, the Fremonts wondered whether Sievert and Deanne had returned to their abstemious ways or, worse, discovered their own special vintage, pounding it down by the barrel all day and all night, their lives wrecked by that first sally into the epicurean sinfulness of the Fremont backyard.
    It