Snow Bunnies
31 July 2000
About twenty minutes later Orlando and Tess walked into the dining room, hand in hand and carrying their ski jackets. The others were already seated at a long table and as they approached Sean and Dom both looked at their watches before shaking their heads at them for their tardiness. Orlando showed them his middle finger as he put his jacket on the back of the chair and pulled out the next chair for Tess.
“Tess has bunny rabbits on her jumper,” Sean and Christine’s daughter Ally pointed to Tess.
“Yes she does,” Sean looked over and it took a second for him to click at exactly what the bunnies were doing. Ally turned to her mother asking for more toast and forgetting the jumper as the need for food took over.
Orlando and Tess were trying very hard not to laugh as she innocently poured coffee into two cups. They had already had a good chuckle over her jumper when he had seen it in their room. The others saw Sean’s reaction and took a second look at what Tess was wearing.
She had put on black ski pants along with a white polo neck lightweight jumper and had then slipped another pale pink jumper over the top. On the front of this across the top was written “F&#*IN’ SNOW BUNNIES” followed by nine pairs of white bunnies doing what comes natural.
“Tess, I’m shocked,” Dominic pretends to be mortified as he broke into a grin.
“I want to know how they do that middle one without injuring something.” Elijah questioned as he reached for the butter.
“I asked if we could try this one but she slapped me,” Orlando told them as he pointed to the left bottom row of the bunnies. Tess smacked his hand away with a laugh as she flicked her long pink scarf over her shoulder and into his face before she grabbed her plate as they both got up to get their breakfast from the buffet.
* * * * * *
Not long after they are all out on the snow, Sean and Christine taking Ally to the kiddie slopes for the morning before joining the rest of them for lunch and the afternoon when Ally went to a kids fun afternoon organised by the resort. The freedom from work was like letting the chimps out of the zoo for the others, their schedules forgotten as they created havoc across the mountain, but only amongst themselves, never causing trouble for the other guests. They may want to come back here one day and it would not be good to be blacklisted like they had been threatened in that town on the south island earlier in the year. The remaining five took to the slopes on snowboards and skis, racing each other down or at the very least trying to knock each other flying.
Elijah stood at the top of the rise on his snowboard, surveying his friends below, evil fun making his eyes sparkle mischievously. He had already taken out Billy earlier in the day and Dominic on the last run down, making him crash when he startled him as he jumped a rise directly above him. Now it was the elf’s turn to eat dirt, well snow actually. Orlando was a good snowboarder, in fact very good, but Elijah knew he could take him, as long as he was seriously sneaky.
“If you’re planning on taking him down I want in.” Elijah swung around to the voice right behind him. He had been so deep in thought trying to work out how he was going to get Orlando he did not hear Tess come up behind him. He was sure she had been down the bottom of the hill only moments before but when he looked back down he saw it was another lady.
“Christ woman, you scared the living daylights out of me. Don’t sneak up on people like that.”
“You should pay closer attention, Lij. Lucky I wasn’t after you on this run, huh?” she gave him a cheeky grin as she wiggled her eyebrows at him making him laugh as they both turned to look part way down the hill again watching Orlando, Dominic and Billy start throwing snowballs at each other, completely oblivious to the evil being hatched above them.
“So do you want to join forces or you want to go solo?” she asked as Orlando ducked below a high snowdrift, dodging a shot from Dominic.
“Well, if we join forces I won’t have to worry about you assaulting me from behind, will I?” When he got no response he looked around and into Tess’ eyes, “Will I Tess?”
“Sure Lij, we can go with that if it gives you comfort,” the wicked gleam in her eyes had him worried, could he trust her to go after Orlando or would he be attacked by her.
“Oh, that instills confidence. Thank you very much.”
“Come one, you can trust me, I swear I won’t betray you Frodo, on my honour,” she lifted her gloved hand to place it on her heart when Elijah noticed her first two fingers were crossed, “Oops, how did that happen?”
“You have no honour, Darling,” Elijah laughed as he turned to look down the hill, deciding it would safer to have her close where he could keep an eye on her.
“So how are we going to get him?” Tess gestured towards Orlando.
“I have an idea, follow me and I’ll show you.” Elijah said over his shoulder as he clicked into his board and took off to the left of the ridge closely followed by Tess.