-33-
--
It was Saturday morning. The kids were yelling outside. Their voices filled the seven o'clock fog. I heard Old Man Wickard's ventilator flip open and the zip of his para-gun, playfully touching around the kids. "Shut up!" I heard him cry, but he didn't sound grouchy. It was a regular Saturday game with him. And I heard the kids giggle. Priory woke up and said
"Shall I tell them, Chris, you're not going with them today?"
"Tell them nothing of the sort".
Jhene moved from the door. She bent out the window, her hair all light against a ribbon of fog.
"Hi, gang! Ralph and Chris will be right down. Hold gravity!"
"Jhene!" I cried.
She came over to both of us.
"You're going to spend your Saturday the way you always spend it with the gang!"
"I planned on sticking with you, Jhene".
"What sort of holiday would that be, now?"
She ran us through our breakfast, kissed us on the cheeks, and forced us out the door into the gang's arms.
"Let's not go out to the Rocket Port today, guys"
"Aw, Chris why not?"
Their faces did a lot of changes. This was the first time in history I hadn't wanted to go. "You're kidding, Chris". "Sure he is".
"No, he's not. He means it" said Priory.
"And I don't want to go either. We go every Saturday. It gets tiresome. We can go next week instead".
"Aw ..."
They didn't like it, but they didn't go off by themselves. It was no fun, they said, without us. "What the heck we'll go next week". "Sure we will. What do you want to do, Chris?" I told them.