Suzie’s House 179: A Boy’s Opinion

“It’s not my fault,” Gene growled as he followed Ben and into Ben’s room. “I never told her to do it.”

Lisa let the two boys charge ahead. They were so full of testosterone it was better to just get out of their way. She waited for Tracy to pass through, too, because walking in front of Tracy tended to be an iffy proposition. It meant she went unnoticed as she entered the room, which suited her just fine.

“Well someone must have, because I can’t see my mom coming up with the idea of adopting you on her own.” Ben wind-milled his hands in frustration.

“I swear, I never said a thing.”

“It’s true,” Tracy said with an eager nod. “I’d have noticed if he had.”

“You aren’t here all the time,” Ben countered.

“Pretty close,” Lisa muttered under her breath. She’d seen more of her cousin in the last couple of weeks than she had in years, thanks to the boys.

Ben gave her a hard look. Lisa shrugged, hands up in apology. She didn’t mean for him to feel embattled. The comment had simply slipped out.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Gene commandeered Ben’s chair, straddling it so his back wedged against the desk and his legs spread around the chair’s back rest.

“What? Don’t you want to be adopted?”

“Not if you don’t want me to be.”

“I…” Ben flapped his jaws. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Well, I know what I’d want if I were you,” Tracy offered. They all looked at her, waiting for whatever words of wisdom or idiocy she cared to share. “I would want my mother to ask my opinion. Then I could be all graciouslyness and say how I didn’t mind a bit, but I get to keep all my inheritance to myself.” Tracy grinned.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I want,” Ben said.

“You don’t want me to inherit anything?”

“Not that. I mean I want to be asked. But once Mom gets like this there’s no way she’d stop to see what I wanted. It’s like when she starts cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Once the Turkey is in the oven, get out of the way because there’s not stopping her.”

They all laughed. They’d seen Mrs. Hammacker in the kitchen often enough to know how single minded she could get.

“So? You want me to talk to her?” Gene had scooped up one of Ben’s pencils and was messing with it, his eyes not looking at anyone or anything in particular.

“It won’t do any good. Not yet anyway. But yeah. Maybe later we both should say something.”

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