Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [13]
“Bo,” Peter said when he’d approached close enough behind her to be heard.
She turned around and regarded him, without expression. He knew right away it was a practiced gesture. She’d rehearsed this moment, planning well in advance exactly where she’d be when he first saw her and exactly what she’d be doing. He was surprised, realizing that it was an adult thing to do — something that should have been beyond her few years. He could never imagine arranging such a scene himself. She was a little girl on stage, starring in a play that he was also part of, except that he’d forgotten to learn his lines. Not knowing what he was expected to say next, he said nothing.
“Welcome back, Peter,” she finally said, in a way that made him feel anything but welcome. “We’ve missed you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to greet you right away when you’d arrived, but I’ve been ever so busy with my lambs. See how pretty they are?” Peter started to say that he did, but she spoke quickly to cut him off. It seems there was more to her speech. “All except the black one of course. He’s sickly and doesn’t eat well. He’s also stubborn and doesn’t know how to mind like the others. I don’t know why I keep him. One shouldn’t become fond of stupid and stubborn things.”
By then Peter knew exactly what was coming next.
“I named him Peter,” she announced.
Of course.
“After you,” she added. She didn’t need to. He’d fully understood her intent. Some of this play was still being written by an uncertain little girl. “I’m positive I’ll win all of the prizes this year with my lambs, don’t you think? I won’t enter Peter the Lamb though. He couldn’t win anything and would make me look bad just for having him. He’ll have to stay here when we go to the fair, where he’ll likely be chopped up for our dinner some night.” This year, for the first time that he could recall, Bo wasn’t dressed in the rough and tumble, good-to-get-dirty-in sort of clothes that she’d always favored in the past. Now she wore a pale green and tan summer dress, which should have been put away by this time of the year, but she’d probably insisted on it, and the days were still warm enough. Her long blonde hair, a bit lighter than that of her five golden-haired sisters, was tied behind her with a pretty blue ribbon. She held her own miniature shepherd’s crook, made just to her size. All in all, she looked very much like a pretty little girl, and not much at all like the Bo he’d known in the past.
When enough time passed that Peter was sure she’d finished everything she’d memorized to say, he said, “I’m sorry I made you cry.”
“What do you mean, Peter?” she said. “Made me cry? When?”
“Last year at the end of the fair. You kissed me and I wiped it off, and you cried.”
“I never did. You just don’t remember right.”
“You did and I felt bad all year,” he said.
“No, no, no,” she said, angrily tapping the end of her crook in front of her, like a blind man tapping his cane. Little tufts of grass were torn out with every stab. “I didn’t cry because of anything you did. I think a bee stung me that year, and it hurt. That’s all.”
“I’m still sorry and I’d like to be friends again, and that’s all I had to say.” Peter turned to walk back to the house, a little hurt and a little confused, because it looked like this had indeed become one of those talking-only kinds of friendships — if they were still going