Suzie’s House 144: Sharing the News

“Mom! I did it! I talked to Mrs. Audrey.” Ben whipped into the house about five times as fast as he was supposed to. He ran down the hall to the kitchen. “And she said yes!”

Intstead of finding Mom there, he found Miranda, who was packing one of Mom’s travel boxes. The travel boxes looked like toy boxes about the size of a picnic basket. They were great for holding the food on camping trips and stuff.

“Where you going,” Ben asked, forgetting about his big news.

“Vin and I are going to South Dakota to visit his family.” She put in a jar of peanutbutter, took out a can of hash, tossed in a couple of cans of tuna, then grabbed the hash again.

“Oh wow! I bet you’re gone for a while.”

“Two weeks. We’ll be back in two weeks. Leaving tomorrow morning” She didn’t even look up as she stuffed a fist full of napkind in the box. Like that they were going to get messed up, but he didn’t bother to tell her so.

“Oh. Ok. See you.”

He bounced out of the kitchen, ran up the hall, and stuck his head in Mom’s office. She wasn’t there either. So he ran up stairs. He heard her voice coming from her bedroom and started to shove the door open, but then he heard Drew’s voice too. Maybe now wasn’t a good time to tell her the good news.

Mrs. Audrey was going to read one of his stories! And tell him what she really thought! If she liked it, maybe she’d help him get it published. Excitement made him hop around like something half way between a bunny and a rhyno. The floor rattled under him.

“Ben? Is that you?” Mom pulled the door open. “Don’t jump in the hallway.”

“Mom! Guess what! Mrs. Audrey is going to read one of my stories and everything! She said she would. Which one do you think I should show her; the one about the moose that swims to Antarctica, the one about the dogs that sing in a rock and roll band, or the one where the moon turns purple?”

“Shouldn’t you show her the one you gave to Principal Greear?”

“That one? That one hardly counts. I want to really impress her. How about…”

“Ben,” Mom interrupted with a hand sticking out like she wanted to make him feel better but wasn’t going to back down. “I know you’re excited, but I need to talk to you about something else.” She sounded so serious he got worried.

“Alright. What’s wrong?”

“Drew and I will be leaving for a few days starting tonight.”

“Yeah? Where you going?”

“We’re going to spend a little time in Door County together.”

“Ok. So about the story…”

“I’m not through yet. I haven’t told you about your babysitter yet.”

“My WHAT?!” Him? With a babysitter? Ben didn’t think so.

“Diane will be staying here until I get back.”

“I don’t need a babysitter!”

“It isn’t just for you. It’s for Gene, too.”

“Humph!” Like that made it any better.

“I wouldn’t, but there won’t be any adults in the house for three nights otherwise. So you will simply have to put up with it.”

“But what about…” No, Miranda and Vin were going too. “Why can’t you….” They couldn’t put it off because Drew was moving away. In fact, he might not be coming back here from Door County at all. ‘Cause wasn’t he supposed to be gone already?

Mom stood there all pacient and understanding, which made him kind of mad, but he didn’t really care. It wasn’t like he had to worry about getting sent to see his dad or something anymore. She’d be back, and Diane wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it was going to be fun to see her again since she hadn’t come around much lately, even if he did have to call her something stupid like ‘babysitter’.

“So I guess this means I can’t throw any wild parties,” Ben grumbled.

“Um… no. No wild parties.” Mom smiled, but he could tell she didn’t think it was all that funny.

Well fine, ‘cause neither did he.

If you enjoy Suzie’s House and would like to see more, please leave a comment. Suzie’s House is powered by its readers.