The Grandparent Trap

By Allegra Pescatore and Christopher Russell

It could only happen in Florida. 

 

The town of Williston is known for only one thing: being the birthplace of Foolish Pleasure, winner of the 1975 Kentucky Derby. 

 

That is, until a greedy dragon moves in. 

 

With the Dollar General on fire and a dastardly Scandinavian dragon sitting on their bank, five elderly Floridians must do what retirees do best: protect their pensions at any cost.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ao Collective Publishing
• Release date: Dec 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215631317

Book preview

The Grandparent Trap

Allegra Pescatore & Christopher Russell

Copyright © 2020 Allegra Pescatore & Christopher Russell All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-952348-20-4

Cover design by: Allegra Pescatore

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

1. A Dragon Flies into Florida

2. Broadcastin’ in from the Bone Throne

3. The Hazardous Plan Is Hatched

4. Talkin’ As Smooth as a Scale

5. Odds and Ends to End an Occupation

6. Kooky Old Ladies With Cookies

7. Don’t Mess With Dotty

8. Marvin The Malcontent Magus

9. Caterwauling For Combat Advantage

10. For Whom the ‘Curse’ Tolls

11. An Arthritic Angel of Death

12. Sign on the Dotted Line

13. Vehement’s Valueless Venture

14. A Most Expensive Barbeque

Thank You For Reading

About the Authors

A Dragon Flies into Florida

Bill

You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.

This was Williston, Florida. We were used to pythons crashing our 4th of July BBQs, iguanas pooping on our floors, and alligators eating the odd octogenarian or drug dealer. Or both—as I said, this was Florida. What I didn’t expect to see when I looked up from the game of Pinochle was a dragon incinerating the Dollar General. Jeremiah glanced up from his laptop for half a second before diving back into his kooky video game: World of Wombats, or whatever the hell it was called. There was a literal fire breathing dragon outside. Why play fantasy games when we’d been living in one for the last thirty years?

You get a bad hand, Bill? the hunched over geezer asked with a chuckle.

"I get nothin’ but bad hands. That ain’t the problem. Where am I gonna get my smokes now that the only store for ten miles has gone up in smoke?

"Dotty—my cross table partner—reached her liver-spotted hand over the card pile to pat my arm.

It’s okay, Bill. You should take this as a sign from above that you need to quit.I sighed.

Dotty, I already have cancer, and my smokes keep me sane in this . . . I waved at the darkened rec room of Sunny Acres: A Welcoming Home for Active Seniors, filled with peeling floral wallpaper, overstuffed recliners, and haphazard oxygen cords, ". . . asylum."

"Well, the dragon did fly in from above, so Dotty’s not wrong," Gertrude chimed in as she laid a Pinochle on the table. Damn her. She always got a natural Pinochle off the draw.

The door to the hallway burst open and Karen’s walker preceded her like a battering ram. I knew this would happen! Didn’t I say just yesterday that Barb down at the Dollar General bought magic insurance? And now there’s a dragon in Williston.

I sighed again, but Karen wasn’t finished.

"Fishy,