Chapter 6

Over dinner, their mother asked them about their day, and Freddie decided to tell an abbreviated version of what went on. Yes, they went to the mall, stopping at McDonalds on the way, and after shopping for swimsuits, they proceeded to the park and went swimming in the lake, and had just gotten back a few minutes before she got home from work. By the way that the kids were looking at each other, she knew there was more to the story, but she wasn't going to push it. At least her kids were getting along, and not fighting with each other like most siblings. She might be shocked if she knew how well her kids were really getting along.

Next door, Jerry was talking to his mother and father, about changing rooms. "I know you already said that if I fixed up the attic, I could move my bedroom up there, and I really want to be done before Vince gets home from summer camp. But it's really hot up there in the summer, so I was wondering if maybe I could use the storage room in the basement instead. It stays a whole lot cooler, and there's a bathroom down there, too. All the stuff that's stored downstairs can just as easily be stored upstairs."

"Let us think it over," his father told him. "We'll let you know after dinner."

For Jerry, it was an agonizing twenty minutes. After they finished eating, he even voluntarily cleared the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher, hoping that it help his case. When he was done, he sat back down at his place at the table, obviously waiting for his parent's decision.

"Give us a few minutes to talk about it Jerry," his father said, "we'll call you when we're ready to talk to you, OK?"

"OK Dad," he said, and shuffled off to his room to wait. It wasn't but a few minutes before he heard a knock on the door. "Come on in," he called out.

Both of his parents were standing outside the door, and he motioned them to come in. They sat down on Vince's bed, facing their oldest child. They didn't know it, but their daughter Leah was standing just outside the door where only Jerry could see her, with her fingers crossed.

"Well, Son," he father started, "we have come to a decision. Moving into the basement will be fine, but with a couple of conditions."

That got Jerry's attention. "Thanks Dad! What are the conditions?"

"First of all, no staying up later and watching TV just because it's in the next room. Second, we'll have to add a doorbell down there so when you are alone, you can answer the door. Third, we need to have another telephone put in down here so you can answer that too, and be able to call out in an emergency."

"Thanks Dad! Thanks Mom!" he said, jumping up and hugging them both. "It shouldn't be too hard to do those things, and as for the TV, you know I don't watch that much as it is."

Jerry was almost bouncing off the wall with joy, and ran out of his room nearly knocking over his smiling sister in the process, and headed down to the basement to check out his new room. He hadn't ever really explored the room that much, and a lot of the stuff had been there far longer than he had been on this Earth. There was some old furniture, and a few odds and ends, but the biggest lot was all in boxes.

He was just standing there, looking at the mess, trying to figure out where to start when his father walked into the room. "What a mess!" he commented. "Are you sure you really want to get into this? I don't even remember what most of this stuff is."

"Yeah," Jerry said, "Freddie and I only worked up in the attic for a couple hours in the morning yesterday, and we almost sweated to death."

It was then that his mother poked her head into the room, and looked at what her husband and her son were doing. "Doesn't look like you're getting a whole lot done here guys," she commented with a snicker.

"Gee, Mom, you're very observant tonight," Jerry replied dryly. "Actually, I was just assessing the situation, and trying to figure out where to start."

"Well, this pile of boxes here, is all the Christmas stuff, and it needs to accessible when you are all done here. As for the rest of this junk..." she started, and opened a few boxes, and lifted up a few dusty things, then dropped them down again, "look through the boxes. If it looks like something that we would want to keep, like old photos, or something of value, take it upstairs. If it's obviously something that should have been thrown out, maybe your Dad here can help you haul it out. I have a feeling, that most of it is just stuff that we need to get rid of, and needs to be put in the garage, so your father and I can look through it later. Maybe it's a good time to have a garage sale, or maybe just give a lot of stuff to Goodwill or something."

His parents wished him luck, and left him to his project. Still unsure he was doing the right thing, stirring up all this dust, he started by moving all the Christmas decorations to a pile in a corner of the recroom, so it was out of the way. There was a lot of antique furniture, and the stuff that was light and small enough for him to carry, he pulled that out of the room too. He did leave a small table and a chair that he found, so that he could sit down to look through the boxes.

Most of the boxes did, in fact, hold useless junk, that would end up at the Goodwill Thrift Store. One by one, he stacked them by the stairs so he could move them up later. There were a few cool old things that he set aside for his own use, like a couple old Hallicrafters Shortwave radios, and some posters that would look nice on his walls.

Jerry had sorted out quite a few boxes, and pieces of dusty furniture, and had piled them in several different piles according to where they were going. Most of the furniture, he decided to actually keep, and use in his room. There were a few bookcases, lamps, chairs, and the like, and he could always move them to the attic later if he changed his mind. He didn't mean to work so long, but after he got started, he didn't pay any attention to the time. It was just after midnight when he stopped to rest for a moment and to take a drink of his by now warm iced tea. He didn't even turn on the TV as he stretched out on the couch, and relaxed. It was just before eight the next morning that his mother found him sleeping there and woke him up.

His mother wanted him to go back to sleep in his bed, but pushed him towards the shower when she saw how dusty and dirty he was. She told him to go back to sleep when he was done, and then she left for work while he was still in the shower. Jerry had every intention of going back to bed too, but when he got out of the shower, he was much too wide awake, so he grabbed a little breakfast and returned to his sorting and cleaning in the basement.

He got quite a bit done the night before, and without much in the way of distractions that morning, he was able to see an appreciable change. The were three pretty large stacks of boxes in the big room, as well as an odd collection of furniture. Inside his soon-to-be bedroom, Jerry was just sweeping up a section of floor when a sudden noise at the door behind him nearly caused him to jump out of his skin.

When he looked up and saw that it was his sister was standing in the doorway, he exclaimed, "Jeez, Leah, don't do that!"

It took her a few minutes to stop laughing at her big brother, but she eventually was able to speak. "You should have see how high you jumped Jerry," she said, still laughing a little, "It was just like in the cartoons!"

Jerry jumped up and started after Leah, and it was her laughing that was her undoing, if you want to call it that. "So, you think it's funny, do you?" Jerry asked. "I'll show you funny!" He exclaimed as his hands made contact with her ribcage and he started to tickle her.