The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [80]
Ma gave up half a smile, saying, “Well, all right,” and then she frowned. “No, we can’t. Someone has to take care of the chickens!”
After all we’d gone through to save them, I had to agree, someone did. “How about we get Boots Odum to come clean up their doo-doo?”
Oh, the looks I got! “Just joking,” I said. “Just joking.” Sheesh. No way did I really want that guy poking around on our property. Especially not in the henhouse with the secret tunnel entrance.
Then Jed stepped into the discussion. Fluffy Kitty had just given up playing with him to chase after a noise in the woods. “Look, you guys can go camping without me. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things. Who knows, there might still be repercussions from the explosion. Somebody ought to stick around, just in case.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Grum called. She was leaning in the doorway now. “Jed, you’re going with them, and I’m going to hold down the fort, with the help of God and Smith & Wesson.” (That was Pa’s kind of rifle.) She had us all smiling when she added, “My mind’s made up. Now go.” And Grum being Grum, that was the end of that.
Since there hadn’t been a holocaust after all, we took out the garbage bags of supplies we didn’t need for camping. Then the Daniels family took off for Lake Exton in the SUV, Ma and Pa in the front and us three kids in the back, with Grum standing on the porch waving.
On the way to Lake Exton we listened to the news on the radio. It was all about the evacuation. A representative from ORC came on and said that there had been an earthquake right underneath ORC. This earthquake had led to a colorful explosion of industrial chemicals, but there had been enough advance warning for everyone to get out unharmed. The complex had been completely destroyed, with losses amounting in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the operations of ORC would continue in other offices. All Kokadjo employees who wished to continue in their jobs would be offered transfers. Upon completion of cleanup, the site would be restored as parklands and donated to the county.
“Wow, that’s quite a story,” said Ma.
“That lying, cheating, paralyzing blankety-blanking blank,” cussed Pa. “He’ll be inflicting his shady shenanigans on another innocent town now. Well, good riddance from the perspective of this ol’ buddy ol’ pal.”
“C’mon, now, Pa,” said Jed. “Stan never meant to hurt you or anybody else. He’s a scientist, after all, and—”
Jed suddenly interrupted himself laughing. It was so strange and unexpected, I couldn’t help but laugh too. Then Barbie giggled, and Ma joined in, then Pa cracked up. Ma pulled the car over so we could laugh ourselves out without going off the road. My stomach was sore from it.
“What was so funny, anyway,” Barbie said when we were moving again.
Jed smiled sheepishly and said, “Never mind.”
But I could guess. I considered it pretty funny myself that the two of them, Pa and Jed, had completely switched sides on the goodness or badness of Boots Odum. But they were still arguing. Some things never change.
It rained most of the time we were camping. We had an okay vacation anyway. We spent long hours in the tent telling stories and playing games. Pa bet Ma he could keep a bonfire going the whole time, and to everyone’s surprise, he did. He wasn’t the blankety-blank Pa anymore. Well, I can’t lie—he still swore like a sailor’s parrot, but he wasn’t a blankety-blanking blank himself. He didn’t even drink one beer, not even in the fishing boat. But he wasn’t the Pa from when I was little, either. Back then he used to spend every minute doing something. Now he spent a lot of time just sitting and staring at the lake. I could live with this Pa, though. In fact, I spent some time sitting next to him, until I had a little accident of the imagination and fell in the water.
On the last day us kids gave up waiting for the rain to stop and went out fishing anyway while Pa watched us from the shoreline. It was pretty boring. Barbie had brought a book and umbrella to read under. Jed sat hunched in his rain