Snow Day
By Missy Title: Snow Day
Author: Missy
Fandom: Laverne and Shirley
Pairing/characters: Gen, though with some background canon pairings (Shirley/Carmine and Edna/Frank); entire main cast and ensamble-heavy.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me, belongs to Garry Marshall/CBS Television/ABC
Rating: G
Notes: Written for Becky (Hippiegeekgirl’s) for the Ninth Annual Laverne and Shirley Holiday Fanfiction Fest!: Prompt: “It's a snow day in Milwaukee! ... Okay, so we all know they're used to snow, but this time a serious winter storm's about to roll in. How does our gang prep for it, and what happens when it arrives?”
Word Count: 2,553
Spoiler: General show spoilers; set somewhere in season 5, after Edna and Frank were married.
Warnings: (if any or choose not to warn) : g-rated all the way
Summary: The gang hunkers down for a Milwaukee blizzard…everyone except for Lenny and Squiggy, who have gone missing.



“…And the snow continues to pile up, reaching heights of around one foot when this all winds down on Monday morning!” Shirley raised an eyebrow as she glanced at the radio settled upon the end table, fiddling with the tip of her Nancy Drew spoon and frowning.

“But if it’s getting here on Monday…and today’s Sunday…” She slapped her forehead, dropping the mug of tea hard and fast upon the end table. “LAVERNE! Laverne, get in here!”

“Waaah?” Laverne emerged after she’d shouted twice more, a tweezer clutched between her fingertips. She still sported her pajamas and a scowl, and Shirley wondered for the millionth time in her life why Laverne even bothered to dress herself on a Sunday.

“We need to get dressed and get to the market before it gets swamped,” Shirley said, dashing toward her closet and snatching up her coat. “The storm turned toward Lake Michigan, and we’re going to end up with six inches by midnight!” Shirley’s eyes narrowed as she peered around the closet door and then slapped her hat on. “Wipe that look off your face.”

Laverne had apparently been completely absorbed in her smutty thoughts, for she shot Shirley a look that contained nothing but confusion. “Were you sayin’ something, Shirl?”

Shirley plucked Laverne’s hat and coat from the rack before her and shoved them in Laverne’s direction. “Go throw something on! I’ll start the car.”

“All right!” Laverne stomped toward the bedroom. “Don’t panic!”

“I’m not panicing!” Shirley replied. “We have six hours to stock our kitchen, winterize the car and buy candles thick enough to read by.” Taking a deep breath, Shirley said quite simply, “I’m not panicked, I’m ORGANIZED.”

“Keep tellin’ yourself that,” Laverne glowered, retreating into the bedroom. “It’s just a little snow, Shirl! Geesh, you’re acting like aliens are gonna land on our front steps or something!”

SLAM! “Hello!”

Shirley grabbed Squiggy by his collar and tried to herd the boys back out the door. “No no no! We’re in the middle of a natural disaster! Neither of us has time to check your hair for deer ticks!”

“Hey! It just so happens, SHIR-LEY,” Squiggy drawled, putting emphasis on both syllables of her name in mild contempt. “That we weren’t coming to visit on account of that.”

“Oh?” Shirley tugged her winter hat over her ears and glared Squiggy down.

“Yeah!” Squiggy said, drawing himself up to his full height. “It just so happens me and Len was gonna offer to take you gals down to Scolneck’s Pond!”

“It’s forty below!” Shirley yelled. “We’ll all go stiff as boards!”

“That’s what we was hoping for!” Lenny piped up. “We wanted to see if you girls wanted to go skinny dipping!”

“Yeah, after all…” Squiggy grinned. “Everything gets bigger

“OUT!” she said, shoving him.

Squiggy managed to regain his dignity with great effort. “Fine! We’ll go! But when the flakes start blowin’ and the wind starts snowin’, don’t you go looking around to us for help, ‘cause we ain’t gonna be there!”

“YEAH!” Lenny said. “If you’re gonna insult us, wait in line.”

Shirley closed the door, dusting her palms against her thighs. “And good riddance!”

At that moment, Laverne stumbled out of the bedroom, her eyebrows crooked, tugging on her hem. “Do I look all right?”

Shirley groaned, and another fifteen minutes was wasted on carefully fixing hems.

***

Twenty minutes later, two disheveled girls stumbled through the front door, their arms laden with various blizzard proof provisions. “I don’t believe it! We survived!” Shirley started stripping off her winter gear, abandoning Laverne in the kitchen.

“You did, but my earrings sure didn’t!” She rubbed her lobes and pouted. “I just got those at Woolworth!”

“You’ll get another pair,” Shirley sighed. She immediately got to work carefully blocking any drafts that might slip through the cracks of their street-level windows. “It’ll all be fine, Laverne – We have batteries, we have non-perishable foods, and we have warm scarves….” She trailed off, watching Laverne stuff with refrigerator with assorted treats. “You bought ice cream and ONLY ice cream, didn’t you?!”

“No,” Laverne whined, shoving the last bit of sandwiches into the back of the freezer. “I got some ice pops, too!”

“LAVERNE! How are we going to survive off of Nutty Buddies and Rocket Cones?”

“Well…” Laverne shrugged. “We won’t have to worry about ‘em melting.”

“That’s very wise of you,” Shirley replied dryly. “So wise that even the prophets would be stunned to receive this little pearl of wisdom . Now help me duct tape the windows so the drifts won’t get in.”

Laverne frowned, carefully climbing onto her own perch to join Shirley at her work. “Shirl, doncha think you’re going a little bit overboard with this whole thing?”

“Overboard?” Shirley chortled. “Laverne, there’s a forty-mile long cold front set to barrel down out of the north and on top of our heads tomorrow. Do you want to be completely unprepared or do you want to be warm, dry and well-fed?”

“….Yeah?” Laverne said tentatively.

“Then keep on taping!”

Both girls worked in companionable silence until Frank’s sudden, harsh bark of a voice in the doorway bit through the air, causing them both to nearly lose their rickety balance.

“Whatt’re the two of you doin’ up there? You’re gonna give some sailor a show!”

Laverne threw a glare toward him, one hand posed precariously against the wall. “Pop, we’re wearin’ turtlenecks!”

Frank glared back. “So what? You don’t think some guys ain’t into that?”

“No,” Laverne remarked, staring at her shoes.

“Get down and lemme do that!” Both women dismounted the counter and Frank climbed up, tacking and taping until both the view and the window seams were completely guarded.

At that moment, Edna burst through the door, holding a stack of pizzas in her arms that obscured her face. Quickly, the girls rushed up and helped her carry the pizzas into the kitchen.

“Thanks, girls,” she said once unburdened, settling down in the kitchen. Then, to her husband, “no thanks, Frank.”

“You’re welcome,” a distracted Frank responded.

“Why’d he let you go down all of those stairs with those pizzas?” Laverne wondered.

“Your father and I have an agreement,” declared Edna. “He makes the pizzas and I carry them. Besides, he doesn’t know how to fend off Lenny and Squiggy when they try to sneak off with a box.” Confusion abruptly showed on her face. “Speaking of, where are the boys?”

“You haven’t seen ‘em?” wondered Shirley.

“No, and they’re normally scratching their way down the hallway to get fed by now.” She raised an eyebrow, glanced at the ceiling.

“Well, maybe they flew south for the winter,” Laverne suggested.

“No,” Shirley wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know exactly what’s gone wrong, but there’s something really odd going on with those two.”

“So what’s new about that?” Frank said, climbing down from the girl’s tables. “Come on and sit down! I brought ya pizzas, and I brought extra in case Carmine or those two show up.”

“I’d rather you not classify Carmine in the same category as Lenny and Squiggy,” Shirley said, settling down to her first slice of mushroom-laden pie.

“He mooches off of me, he works for me when he needs extra money and he plays around with my honorary daughter’s heart – he’s WORSE than Lenny and Squiggy.”

There was a knock at the door, Carmine’s knock. “You see that?” Shirley said. “He heard you!”

Frank, the only man still standing, opened the door, allowing a snow-laden Carmine to enter the room. Shirley jumped to her feet and helped him shake off the curtain of snow that had bedecked him. “You poor thing! It must really be coming down out there.”

“This is just from walking down from the bus stop!” Carmine said. “I wanted to check in with you girls, make sure you were all okay!”

“They’re fine – we’re feedin’ em,” Frank said. “Hey, you want some pizza?”

“Did you bring some pepperoni?” Carmine wondered.

“Two pepperon, one mushroom, and an everything,” Frank said. “And, for entertainment…I brought albums!” Frank crowed, pulling a big, heavy, leather-covered book from underneath the stacks of pizza.

“Heh, my day just got better,” Carmine observed.

“Pop,” Laverne squirmed. “They don’t need to see those!”

Frank already had opened the pages to Laverne’s past as Carmine, Shirley and Edna crowded around with their paper plates filled with pizza. “Lookit these! She was a little teeny ballerina back then!”

Laverne sunk in for a long, long evening of humiliation.


****

A few hours later the snow had begun to fall in thick droplets, stacking up in frozen heaps around hydrants and near the window.

“And here’s Laverne at day camp!” said Frank.

“You can really see the pimples!” Carmine said, chomping on his pizza.

Laverne faked the broadest yawn she could. “Aww gee, lookit the time,” she hinted. “You guys oughta start out if you wanna beat the snow.”

“We live in this building,” Carmine reminded her.

“I mean…” she said, twisting his arm, “you might wanna get to bed. Soon.”

“I think I might wanna go to bed,” Carmine echoed, wrenching his arm out of Laverne’s grip. He got up, disposed of his paper plate and headed off to hug Shirley goodbye.

Edna tugged on Frank’s shoulder. “Come on, that’s our cue to leave.”

“But we we’re at her junior prom!” Frank grinned proudly. “Look at her cousin Vito! That pomade really shows off his forehead…”

“Now, Frank.” Edna said.

“All right already!” he gathered up the albums and headed for the front door. “We’ve gotta get a head start on our cat time.”

“You don’t have a cat,” Laverne said, ushering Carmine to the landing.

“It’s his nickname for Cuddling And Tussling time,” Edna declared. “Don’t ask.”

“I didn’t wanna know,” Laverne told her, then hugged them both goodbye and closed the front door with a sigh. “Saved by the bell, eh, Shirl?” She frowned. Shirley sat beside the living room window, studying the quarter-inch slot of bare window she could, watching the minimal foot traffic outside their door. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the boys.”

“Oh geez…”

“I just know that they would’ve followed the pizza down here. There’s something very wrong this time.”

“Shirl, you’re getting yourself all twisted up for nothing!” Laverne headed to the dumbwaiter and opened it. “Watch, I bet they’re just napping or something…” She stuck her head into the shaft to yell, only to end up with a note, dangling from the chord outside the dumbwaiter plonking into her mouth.

“What does it say?” Shirley was off the counter in a wink.

“Dear whom-it-may-concern, we’re hitching to where the sun’s warm and the life is good. Don’t worry about us if we can’t make it as nude oil wrestling judges, we’ll get jobs making ice sculptures for the poor. Don’t try to find us. Goodbye, ya crumbs! Love, Lenny and Squiggy.”

Shirley peered at the note, tears pouring from her eyes. “They spelled Lenny with two w’s!” she bawled.

“Aww geez, not with the waterworks again!” Laverne hugged her best friend. “I bet they ain’t gotten far! Let’s just bundle up and go looking for ‘em!”

“All right,” Shirley said, blotting her face against Laverne’s shoulder. “This is all my fault! I never should have kicked the boys out in their moment of need.”

“They’re ALWAYS having a moment of need,” Laverne pointed out. “Remember when Lenny couldn’t tie his shoes? He started crying!”

“Laverne, that was last Thursday.”

“I know…wouldya just get dressed?”

And so Shirley donned her coat and scarf and gloves; Laverne was already outside by the time she was ready.

The whipping wind and heavy drifts didn’t make life easy for them. They staggered down the street, hugging each other and the light poles for support. They made it to the end of the block and to the park, where they finally spotted Lenny and Squiggy, huddled up under a street lamp.

“WE TOLDJA NOT TO FOLLOW US!” Lenny yelled over the wind.

“NEVER MIND!” Laverne shouted. “COME ON!”

The four of them barely managed to make it home with their bodies intact; indeed, Squiggy’s hair worm had frozen in place.

“Why’d you do that, huh?” Laverne asked, poking Lenny’s shoulder. “You could’ve died out there!”

“Hey, we were doing all right!” Squiggy insisted. “We just got a little turned around looking for the bus stop!”

“D’you think the buses are gonna run on a day like this!?” Laverne yelled.

“Well, if it weren’t we coulda got some dogs from the pound and taught ‘em to mush!” Squiggy declared. “And we toldja not to follow us, anyway!”

“What’s the big idea, huh?” Laverne wondered. “Why were you running away this time?”

“Becauuuuse,” Lenny dragged out. “We didn’t have no money to prepare for the storm.”

“So we were gonna hitch out to Lenny’s sister’s place and bum there til it was over.” Squiggy admitted.

“Yeah, in that we ran outta money on Sunday. It was either that or sleep in the truck,” Lenny agreed . “And last time we did that birds tried to nest in my hair. It was terrible.”

“Fellas,” Shirley said gently, “you should’ve told us that.”

“Yeah,” Laverne said. “Whenever we’re broke, we always find a way to take care of each other.”

“Yeah?” The boys asked.

“And we woulda been happy to take care of you…not in that way,” Laverne said, cutting off the boys in mid-leer. “We could’ve spared some extra pizza and a blanket,” she declared.

“And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” Shirley said. “I was so worried about what might happen during the storm I almost missed the problem that was right in front of me.”

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Squiggy agreed. “We know you girls ain’t advanced animals like us.”

“So, can ya still spare ‘em?” Lenny wondered. “Maybe?”

“Yeahhh,” both girls admitted.

Lenny promptly swept her up in a hug, and Squiggy did the same to Shirley – and was slapped away when he tried to deepen his embrace.

“C’mon, Len,” Squiggy said, “let’s get downstairs before all the pieces with chocolate syrup and tuna on ‘em are gone!”

Both boys rushed downstairs, and Laverne shuddered. “I hope we don’t regret this…”

“Would you rather be looking at pictures of your bare bottom with your father?” Shirley asked.

“Yeah, this is better,” Laverne agreed, looping an arm around her best friends’ shoulder and following her downstairs.

****

By early morning the snow had stopped falling, but the girls and boys were still up eating pizza and talking. That was the scene Frank stumbled on in the morning.

“So you found ‘em?” Frank asked.

“Yes,” Shirley said. “It was a lot of work – but I’m so glad we did it. This is my family.” Shirley slapped am arm around Frank’s waist and grimaced as her hand came in contact with a patch of pizza sauce on his hip pocket. “Heaven help me.”

At that point, the power flickered off.

“Oh great,” Laverne grumbled.

“Whatt’re we gonna do now?” wondered Shirley.

“DOUBLE MAKE OUT!” cried the boys.

“It’s a good thing I bought more albums!” Frank said.

As the sound of slaps landing upon cheeks filled the air, Frank said, “here’s Laverne tap-dancing when she was thirteen! Lookit those chubby cheeks…and those pimples…”

THE END