Suzie’s House 377 : Emma Gets Scooped Up

“Hey, Emma. Whatcha doing?” Arrogant as ever, Bruce came up behind her and threw an arm across her shoulders as if he had a right to do so. Emma shrugged him off.

“Leave me alone.”

“Oh. Isn’t that the house where you like to sing?” For someone so crude, Bruce caught on quick.

“Y-yes. Yes, it was.”

When she’d first seen the people moving into the abandoned house that had become her refuge, Emma thought her world had come to a screeching halt. She had no idea how long she’d stood there with her mouth open. Even though he was crude and obnoxious, Bruce had easily knocked her out of her visions of zombie apocalypses and alien invasions. The world wasn’t right, but it might be a little better.

“Ouch.” Bruce shook his head in commiseration. “I’ve lost a few sanctuaries like that. It’s no fun. Sometimes it takes a while to find a new one.”

“Y-yeah.” Find a new one? She hadn’t even thought of that yet.

“I guess you’d rather not go home. I was going down town to this bar… oh. Nevermind.” He scratched the back of his head and looked around as if a brand new abandoned house might magically appear right in front of them.

She didn’t say a word, but there was no way she was going home right now. Even if she had to sleep on the street, she wasn’t going home until she could be sure her brother wasn’t mad about the way she’d run away.

“Emma! Bruce!” Tracy waved from across the street. “Wait there. I was just coming to find you.”

She dashed across the street, darting between parked cars and paying no attention at all to the moving van in front of Emma’s once-abandoned house.

“Come with me to Gene’s house. He just wrote this great song. You’ve got to hear it.” She came up and grabbed Emma’s wrist, and turned around like there was never any question that Emma would come along.

Actually, it was kind of nice to get swept up like this. No more question of where to go. She knew for sure that where Tracy took her would be all right because then she’d be with the gang. The gang always liked it when she sang. They never questioned anything she did.

Suddenly the abandoned house didn’t seem so important anymore.

“It’s a really powerful song. Kind of scary, though.” Tracy glanced over her shoulder to where Bruce followed.

“Scary? Sounds like my kind of song.”

“It’s not about me, or anything. All right? It’s about… well, you’ll see.”

“Hey, you think Mrs. H. will let Emma stay tonight?” Bruce interrupted whatever else Tracy was going to say about the song. He sped up so he could look right at Emma. “I’d let you stay at my place, but I’ve got a rotten big brother, too.”

“Oh, I’m sure it would be all right. We just have to come up with the right supple lies.”

“Supplies? What supplies?”

“No, No. I mean we have to come up with a story. Something we can tell Mrs. H. and Emma’s family. Right?”

From the way Tracy stared off to the side, she was already coming up with something. Yep, everything was going to be all right now that Emma was with her band.

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