Chapter Thirty Five
The next day, Wednesday, my parents are at work, so I get out of bed and blast my sterio so I can sing. A while later, I'm totally bored with that activity, so I went over to the garage to try to find something interesting to do. I stood out there for at least five minutes, just stairing at our junk. Nothing. I left the garage.
"I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored." I chanted, wandering the empty house. "I hate to admit this, but I think I need to go to school." I thought to myself. "Next year." I agreed to that and continued wandering the house. I opened the fridge. "Maybe I can make some cookies or something." I searched the cupboards and found a chocolate brownie mix, and a bag of chocolate chips with the recipie for cookies on the back. "Brownies or cookies. Brownies or cookies. Cookies." I got the bowls, measureing cups, pans and ingredients. Then I started.
"Tay." Ike wispered ans shook his sleeping brother. "Tay." He shook him harder. "Wake up!"
"What? What!" Taylor sat up straight. "Oh. Ike. It's just you." He said thankfully relieved.
"What's that supposed to mean? It's just you. Well, good morning to you too."
"Sorry Ike. Good morning."
"Now. Tell me about last night. Do you like her? Not like her? What?"
"Ah, she's still the same, I guess."
"The same?" Ike raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah. I mean, I like her the same."
"Oh. Anyway, I want details." Tay gave his curious brother a weak smiley and began to tell his story.
I brought the final batch of cookies out of the oven. I set them on top of the stove, took off the hotmits and threw them onto the counter.
"I'm done, I'm done." I did a little victory dance. "Now what should I do?" I questioned myself. "I know." I ran over to the phone and dialed my mom's work number. "May I please speak to Rachel McCoy?" I asked the secretary.
"Please hold."
"Mom!"
"Hi Love!"
"We need a dog."
"What?! Why?!"
"We need a dog. I'm bored. If we had a dog, I could take it out on a walk and actually maybe meet people."
"Well, I don't know. How about this. I'll call your father and tak to him. Okay?"
"Kay! I made chocolate chip cookies today."
"You did? Are they all gone yet?"
"No. I've not eaten any."
"Love, I have lots of work to do. I'll call him in a few minutes. Talk to you later. Bye Love."
"Bye." We hung up. "Now what am I gonna do, since that idea was so successful." I grumbled out loud. "Maybe I'll take a walk. Rollerblade!" I ran up the stairs by twos, grabbed my rollerblades and ran back down. I went out the front door, locked it, then sat down to lace up. I looked at the old people house. My mom said their names were Edward and Gilda. Ther were, as usual, working in their garden. I looked over at the Hanson's house. Nobody was outside. I turned my attention back to my blades. I remember seeing a little town-like road with a bunch of stores and stuff. Maybe I'll go there. I put my shoes in my bag and checked my pockets for money. There was some in there. I was wearing jean shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. I stood up, tripped, but shakilly regained my balance. I went in the direction I remembered the mini town was.
"So you had fun, huh?"
"Yeah. I did. Corey was kind of weird though. It was kind of a surprise what the story between Love and Corey was. No wonder she was so bitter when she called him all those names at the mall."
"Yeah. So now that you've been thinking about her, do you like her more or less?"
"The same."
"Taylor! Isaac! Come down here! I'm going to the store and I need help picking out what we're going to have for dinner for the next few days."
"Where's everybody else?" Isaac shouted back.
"Gone."
"We're coming." Taylor yelled. They dropped the subject completely. They climbed into the car with their mom. They saw Jessica walking along the road, so Diana pulled over. Taylor stuck his head out the door. "Jess, come on. We're going to the grocery store."
"Okay." She came over and climbed in. A few minutes later, Jessica exclaimed, "There's Love! She's walking with her rollerblades over her shoulder."
"Where?"
"The candy store." Isaac and Taylor leaned on their sister to look out the window. Isaac and Taylor exchanged looks.
"Mom? Can you drop me off here please? I need to talk to Love."
"Fine." She sighed. "When you're done, meet us in the grocery store, kay?"
"Okay. Thanks mom." Taylor gave his mom a kiss on the cheek as he left the car. "Love!" He called across the street. I turned around and saw Taylor.
"Hi Tay!" He crossed the street.
"What're you doing over here?"
"Rollerblading. Killing time. I was bored and I already made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and called my mom to ask her for a dog."
"Are you gonna get a dog?"
"Maybe. My mom was going to call my dad and ask him. I want to be able to take walks with a dog and play in the park and pull me on my rollerblades. A big dog that licks everybody and slobbers on everything. One that can curl up on my bed and sleep with me at night."
"Sounds fun."
"Yeah." There were a few seconds of uncomfortable, awkward silence.
"Uh," Taylor kicked at a pebble that sat nearby. "Where were you going?" He looked up at me.
"I was going to get some candy. Wanna come with me?"
"Yeah!" We went into the candy store.
"Wow. They have lots of candy here." I looked around the store in excitement.
"We love this place, Zac, Ike and I."
"I can see why. What are your favorites?"
"Red Jelly Beans."
"Those are good. I'm more of a chocolate person though." I went over to a wall that was lined with complete chocolate. "I don't know what to get." I told Taylor. He was raiding the jelly beans. I finally decided on a mix of different candies and found Tay. "Well, I'm ready to go."
"Me too." He had a big bag of mixed jelly beans and a seperate slightly smaller bag of just red jelly beans.
"Wow Tay, you're really going to eat all those?"
"Planning on it."
"You're gonna get sick." We paid for our candy and went back outside. "So what are you supposed to be doing Tay?"
"Grocery shopping with my mom, Ike and Jess."
"Sounds fun. Do they have samples there?"
"Samples?"
"Yeah. I take it they don't. Samples are when people- usually little old ladies- stand in the isles handing out trial samples of products. They're usually on Saturdays. It's so much fun. We had them back in San Jose."
"Cool. Well, I just wanted to say that I had fun yesterday, and I'm glad I went. Now, I have to go meet everybody at the store, so I guess I'll be going now. Oh. Can I have your phone number?"
"Sure. 915-8226." He wrote it down on his hand with a pen he fished out of his jeans pockets.
"I'll call you later."
"Okay Taylor."
"Bye."
"Bye." He dashed off towards the grocery store, so I continuted my stroll down the street. I found a bakery, a little bookstore, a liquer store and the grocery store. At the end of the block, I sat down and put on my rollerblades again and went to the park a couple blocks down. I stayed there for a little while, then went home. When I got there, my parents were both home. An unusual task for my dad lately. With his new job, my mom and I have barely seen him since we moved. I took off my blades and ran to the living room. "So? Can I?"
"Can you what, Love?" My mom asked innocently.
"Get a dog! get a dog! Come on! I have five months until school starts. What am I gonna do without a dog? I'd go nuts! In this house by myself, all day, every day. Please?" My parents looked at eachother in silent conversation, then looked back at me.
Then my mom said, "You can get one if you get it from the Humane Society. You have complete responsibility of it. All we'll do is pet it and buy the food,and maybe occasionally ask to take it out, but what time do we have? Okay?"
"Yea!" I jumped up and ran to my parents and gave them a big hug and kiss. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! When can we go?" I asked anxiously.
"Right now. Then we can go to dinner." My dad had a grin on his face the size of a clowns.
"Come on you slow people, hurry up!" I called out of the garage.
"We're coming." My mom yelled back.
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