Suzie Elliot, Evil Genius?

Chapter 6

Saturday mornings were a nice routine for Suzie. She always got up, got dressed, and went downstairs to the kitchen where there would poached eggs and pumpernickel toast waiting for her. Today was no different, and she was smiling and happy after a good night sleep. She didn't notice Yilin's relief at her good humor, but set right to eating. She had a busy day planned. At noon the NATO backup e-mail servers would have completed compiling the e-mails from the week, and would be ready for her to sift through for nuggets of information. With everything going on, she thought it might take her longer than usual since she intended to dig and dig until she learned everything she could. Normally she would just do a quick scan of the e-mail topics to see if anything of interesting going on, but not today.

In the meantime, she had several hours to kill. Seeing as the temperature was warm enough, she changed into her bathing suit and took a pitcher of ice water and a fruit salad out to the pool deck and jumped into the pool. She shivered as she hit the cool water. The pool's solar heater was working fine, but in the mornings the pool was still just a little chilly this time of year. After a few moments of getting used to the temperature, she started to methodically do laps. It was another way she used to get her mind focused, as the repetitive strokes let her drop into a trance like state until her body was tired enough to let her know it was time to get out and rest. Then she could use the fruit and water to get energy back before continuing her day. Today, the trance came easy, as she had already readied herself for the day's activities, but it was still a nice way to start the day relaxed.

She was several dozen laps into her routine, when it was interrupted by a loud yell.

"Cannonball!"

The water surged as Johnny jumped in right next to Suzie, sending water right up her nose as it engulfed her. Spluttering and coughing, she made her way to the side of the pool, where she was able to hang on while she cleared her nose of all the water. Johnny, oblivious to her discomfort, was cavorting all over the pool, continuing to splash water at her and diving deep like a seal.

Once she was able to breathe correctly, Suzie calmly hoisted herself out of the pool. She walked calmly over to the table and lounge chairs and picked a big strawberry out of the fruit salad, and popped it into her mouth, savoring the sweet flavor. Then she carefully lifted the pitcher of ice water, carried it to the pool, and dumped it over Johnny's head when he surfaced from a dive.

She was pretty sure the scream could be heard in the next county.

"What did you do that for?" Johnny yelled.

"I could ask you the same thing," said Suzie coldly.

It took Johnny a few seconds to understand that. "Oh, well, it was hot, and I knew you had a pool, and I saw you swimming, so I thought I'd join you for some fun!" he explained reasonably.

"I wasn't swimming, I was doing laps. It wasn't fun, it was relaxing. And what do you mean you saw me swimming? How? Were you spying on me?" There was no way to see the pool from the street, so he must have been in a tree or over the fence in order to see her. Her voice started to get higher as she got angrier.

"Umm, well. No. I was umm, looking for my cat in the tree and just happened to look over and see you swimming."

"Right. Get out. Now!" She turned and walked back to the house, pausing only to retrieve the rest of the fruit.

"Can I borrow a towel?" he called to her back. The slamming door was his only answer.

Once she was dried off and changed back into comfortable shorts, Suzie flopped down into her desk chair, frustrated that her tranquility had been completely shattered by that nuisance of a neighbor. If she didn't have the two margays, she would already have been calling about big guard dogs to patrol the yard. Instead, she wondered if she should just get an electric fence, before realizing that might hurt her cats too. One way or another though, she was going to have to take care of Johnny and his visits.