Suzie’s House 257 : When the Truth Broke Loose

“Would you quit being so pissy already?”

“Ben?” Lisa and Tracy both looked at him like he’d just grown another head.

Gene didn’t bother to look at him at all, just kept walking. Then again, he was well ahead of them on the sidewalk, so maybe he couldn’t hear. Or he just didn’t want to hear.

“What? Don’t I have a right to get fed up with him? Weren’t both of you just complaining about him?”

“Complaining. Not… well, not really.” Lisa waffled like a coward. It made Ben even madder.

“Humph!” Gene glanced back at them, just enough so they all knew he was listening.

“It’s not that bad,” Tracy said like it was nothing.

“You don’t have to live with him!” Fed up, Ben shoved past both Tracy and Lisa, and then right past Gene.

“Hey, wait,” Lisa ran to catch up.

“Just go without me. I’m going to Mrs. Audrey’s place anyway.”

“Now who’s acting pissy,” Lisa muttered real loud.

“Who rumpled your feathers?” Tracy said to no one in particular. Ben ignored her.

“Pissy and secretive,” Ben said to Gene now that they were even. “You’ve got something you’re trying to not tell me, right? Just spill already.”

Two blocks from home, Gene stopped. He gave Ben a hard look, then lifted one eyebrow like a question or a challenge, or maybe both.

“It’s about my mother, isn’t it. Because she kissed the lawyer.” Ben laid it out there.

“So you were spying.” Gene sneered.

“It’s my mother.”

“She wants to be my mother too.”

“And you hate it so much that you just gotta take it out on the rest of us.” Ben didn’t get this mad often. Now it broke loose and ran away with him and he didn’t even care. “What? Isn’t she good enough for you? Just because she tried to kiss the lawyer on the cheek and he twisted it all around?”

“You’re mother is probably the best mother in the world. But I only want my own mother.” Gene looked surprised, like he didn’t even know he was thinking it and here he was saying it.

“Oh.” Tracy said.

Lisa looked kind of surprised.

Ben couldn’t say a thing. Gene’s mother had walked off so long ago. How could he still even remember her, let alone care?

“Sorry.” Gene said. “Guess I just needed to do some thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Tracy looked all air-headed. Sometimes she was a real idiot.

Gene tipped his head, like he was doing some thinking, then said, “Dependence?”

That didn’t make any sense to Ben, but he didn’t care. Gene was in a better mood, so that meant all the rest of them could relax. He dug out his cell phone and looked at the time.

“I gotta go. I want to show Mrs. Audrey something I wrote.”

“Really? What?” Lisa looked all interested.

“Homework.”

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