Chapter 59

I had a king sized mattress all to myself that night. It's funny how you can get used to having someone next to you in only a few nights. Messing around was nice, but what I really missed was having Jill in my arms as I slept. I tossed and turned for a while and finally dozed off.

I heard some men joking and laughing just before the alarm went off. As if the beeping was a signal, Alex and another man walked in just as it went off.

"Oh, Jack. I'm surprised you're still out here. We're going to have to kick you out while we're doing the work. I thought you knew that."

"I didn't even think about it."

"We're going to make a mess, running the water and lowering that platform. And we'll be in here at 6 every morning we're on the job. This is my foreman, Fred. If I'm not here, he will be."

"Hi Fred. I've got some stuff in that wardrobe. Will it be OK till tonight?"

"Sure. We're not going to mess with it."

He excused himself and then told Fred to get the others and start unloading the stuff on the shelves. The plan was to pile it on one side of the garage while still having enough room to work on lowering the platform. Fred went outside and came back with a couple of other guys. They moved my bed to the side, then set up a ladder and Fred pulled things out while the other two started stacking it.

I went out to go into the house and saw Sara feeding her puppies.

"Wow, you're up early."

"I figured I was spending too much time in bed."

"Speaking of spending time, I've got a bunch of homework assignments for you in my backpack."

"Good. That will give me something better to do than watching TV all day. Boy, that's getting boring."

"How are the puppies doing?"

"They're doing good. I've been thinking about what you said and I'd like to go door to door trying to give them away. Could you go with me sometime?"

"Sure. How about Saturday?"

"Saturday sounds good. That flier thing you were talking about does, too."

"OK. We'll take some pictures first thing Saturday and put something together. Let's just print up 20 or so and we can leave them at houses where nobody's home. When we decide to come back, we can put the rest on windshields. If we don't get rid of them and you need more, I'll email it to Kinko's and have them print up a hundred or so."

"Ooh, that sounds good."

"So, are you feeling better?"

"Yeah. Kind of bored, though."

"Would you like to go to the football game with us tomorrow night?"

"The Fernmont game?"

"No. Jill goes to Highpoint. We go to their game each week. They're a better team this year, anyway."

"I don't know if Jill's ready for that."

"She said she'd like to be friends with you. This would be a good time to start. I'll give her a call and see how she feels about it."

"OK."

I called Jill and she said she was fine with it. She told me her father wanted to know if Mom was coming this week.

"I'll ask her."

"He wants to know now. I'm not supposed to hang up until you let me know."

"All right. Hang on."

I went back to Mom's room and knocked on the door. She asked what I wanted so I had to shout through the door. She hesitated a bit then agreed. Mary's door opened and she said "I want to go."

I went back and told Jill who wanted to go.

"Boy, I don't know if there's room in Dad's car for everyone. With Wanda there will be three of us. Four of you makes seven. There are two seats up front so that means five people will need to sit in the back."

"You can always sit on my lap. We can give it a shot. If it's too crowded, some of us can go in Mom's car."

"I think my dad wants your mother to ride with him."

"I'll say one thing for him. He's persistent. Mom's not the only one who can drive her car, you know. If you and I take her car, that leaves your dad and her in the front and three girls in the back."

We agreed we wouldn't know for sure until just before game time and left it at that.

I walked to school by myself. I couldn't see anything I was doing to screw it up, but it seemed I couldn't keep a partner to go to school with recently.

Jeff and I walked to school just about every day from fifth grade until Jill came on the scene. Chris had moved into the neighborhood in the summer between sixth and seventh and he joined us as soon as school started. He and Sara had started being friendly and a day or two later we had the incident where Jill had tagged along, trying to make it clear to Sara that I was taken. She did a good job. Sara had been scared of her and Chris told me the next morning that he and Sara were going to walk by themselves. I remember seeing Sara hiding behind the hedge at the edge of our property while Chris told me at my front door. I'd have thought that Chris would start back with me after Sara was beaten up. Maybe he figured she'd walk with me when she was better. And of course Mary started walking with us back when Sara and Chris were still with me. I'm not sure if it was the day Jill came with us or just before. But I remember Mary's comments when Jill left to go to her own school. Well, Mary met Charlie over at Jill's and the rest is history.