When we got to the school, it was still early, so we slopped around the area for a while, not really doing much of anything. More just sitting around and talking, waiting for the bell.
Mom was working in the library, and she came around to see me, and said I looked like I need a good scraping. Actually, I think I need a good meal. I felt starved, and just drained of energy.
Mom helped me take my stuff back home. She carried the backpack and I carried the sleeping bag. I think it was as much as I could manage, and I was thankful Mom felt that way too.
It was a real nice, sunny day, and pretty warm, and the birds were singing in the park, and the park looked so funny. As though I hadn’t seen it for years. And our house, over at the other end of the park looked kind of unfamiliar.
Mom said everyone missed me, and she hated going into my room, when I was gone. It made her feel sad, she said. I told her I missed her too, although not the guys so much, and then said what’s for supper?
I ate so much at suppertime that Mom was worried we hadn’t gotten enough to eat at the camp, so she had to know what we had for every single meal.
“Oh, there was lots, a real lot. We could eat as much as we wanted. We had hamburgers, and hot dogs and chips, and oatmeal, and stew, and French toast. Hey! We made the French toast, and it was fun. And I hope you realize, we didn’t have all that stuff, like the hot dogs and oatmeal and French toast all together. It was for different meals.”
“Of course, I realize that”, Mom said, and she looked at me thoughtfully. “You don’t like stew. You never want to eat it at home. Did you eat any of it there, or just go hungry?”
“Why would I do that, go hungry? Sure, I ate it. It was really good!”
I never eat oatmeal at home either, or French toast. Just Daddy and Larry have it on Sunday mornings. Mom makes pancakes for me and Brian. I knew she was thinking what a spoiled brat I was, eating all that stuff there at the camp, and liking it too, and never wanting to eat it at home. Well, what’m I supposed to do? It was really good there, and I don’t like it at home!
Boy, it sure didn’t take long for us to get all bogged down with schoolwork again on Monday morning. I’m pretty sure teachers have a conspiracy pact, like if they think we’ve had a good time or something, we’ve got to pay for it later, or something. They didn’t even give us a chance to catch our breath, or anything. We had tests all over the place, and everybody was going around with a real sour look on their faces.
Wouldn’t you know it; now our usefulness was over, and all that, silly-Sally’s gone back to her friends. Well, they can have her, and welcome! Mr. Henderson never did say anything to us about the sweater-thing, so we don’t even know if she did tell him. Probably she did, but we think he kind of knows what goes on between us, and didn’t bother saying anything.
After school, Jennifer brought her guinea pig over to my house for the first time, and we thought we’d introduce the three piglets to one another. It was real cute how she brought Lumpy over, because Jennifer rode her bike over and she put her pig in the wire basket, all wrapped up in her own towel, and she seemed to really like the trip. Jennifer says she’s done it a couple of times before, and Lumpy doesn’t move, or anything. Just her sharp little face peeking out of a corner of the towel, with her beady-black eyes looking at everything.
Actually, I guess that’s not too accurate, because the guinea pigs have such poor eyesight, they only look like they’re looking at everything, but they’re not. If you get what I mean?
First, we brought Lumpy in, and put her down on the little rug in the kitchen beside the side door. That’s where Grumpkin and Munchkin play around in the house, when I take them out of their cage. They’re kind of trained in a sloppy, piggish way, to use a newspaper that I put down for them. Still, they do tend to get kind of careless, and I have to watch them.
Anyway, like I was saying, Jennifer brought her little pig in and held her for a while near mine before she put her down, but Munchkin and Grumpkin didn’t seem too interested. They didn’t even care about sniffing her, much. It was different when Jennifer put Lumpy down, though.
“Hey! What’s that sound?”
“You mean that clicking sound?”, and I told her that when one of the pigs gets mad they do that. “And have a look at her rear end”, I said, because Grumpkin started moving her rump slowly from side to side. It really looks funny, and she does it when she’s in a bad mood, which isn’t all that often really, but that’s why she’s got that name.
“Is she mad at my little Lumpy? I better move her away.”
“No, leave her. They never really fight. They just kind of threaten each other. Let’s see what they do. They’ll get used to each other. They’re not goin’ to do anything harmful.” That’s what I said, but it wasn’t exactly how I felt, just a little nervous, but I was also really curious and didn’t want to stop this little experiment in getting-to-know-you.
Just then, Mom walked into the kitchen and she said, just like she always does when I drop my ings like I usually do: “going Dear, GOING”. I felt like acting stupid and saying, where to, Mom? But I didn’t.
“What’s going on?” Mom asked, and she came over to look at the three pigs, mine circling Jennifer’s, and Jennifer’s just standing there, like wondering what all the fuss was about. They looked so silly, they really did; my two, that is.
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