Kisses And Kids (Congratulations Series #1)

by Andrea Edwards

  “And the next one who starts singing about bottles of anything falling down is going to get his tongue ripped out by the roots.”

  For a split moment there was absolute, total silence. It was beautiful. But like so many beautiful things—a snowflake, a soap bubble, a sunset—it didn’t last long.

  “That’s an awful thing to say,” Trisha said.

  At least, Pat thought that was what she had said. It was hard to hear her since Rulli had begun wailing like an ambulance siren, spilling crocodile tears on everyone within thirty feet of him.

  “Miss Stewart, Rulli’s gonna wet his pants,” Angie called out.

  “And not very bright,” Trisha told Pat, before turning back to Rulli. “It’s okay, Rulli. He didn’t mean to yell.”

  “He’s always got to go when he starts crying,” Angie was telling them.

  Pat could feel the world crumbling around him. All he’d wanted was some peace and quiet, a little consideration for his feelings. Damn, he should have come down with beri beri and called in sick.

  “There’s a gas station up ahead,” Trisha said. “Get us over there, please.”

  “We better hurry,” Angie said. “Rulli’s gonna go real soon.”

  He turned in his seat, fumbling with the hand brake.

  “I already have eight kids I’m responsible for,” Trisha said. “I don’t need another. So get us to that service station or let me drive.”

  “I’m going, I’m going,” he snapped. He got the hand brake released, put the damn van in gear and was off toward the service station. He threw a little gravel just to show everybody that he could move fast when he wanted to.

  “You ain’t got your seat belt fastened.”

  Oh, gag. It was Angie again. “I don’t need a seat belt,” Pat snapped. “I’m Captain Magic’s brother.”

  “Captain Magic don’t have no brother,” Angie replied.

  “How do you know?” Pat asked. “Are you a friend of the family?”

  “Children.” Trisha ought to have been addressing the kids in back but she was looking at him. “Let’s behave.”

  “I didn’t start anything,” Pat said.

  “Drive.”

  He wanted to point out that that was exactly what he was doing but he wasn’t sure that Trisha was into such fine technical points. How could he have thought she was beautiful or soft and gentle? How could he have felt attracted to her, even for a moment? She wasn’t his type at all.

  They were at the station within minutes. Rulli took off running for the men’s room before they were barely stopped. Then the other kids climbed out. Pat drifted after the boys to keep an eye on them while Trisha did the same for the girls.

  It was hot and muggy outside, with waves of heat rising from the blacktop of the service station. But every so often a gentle breeze would bring a hint of relief along with the scent of rich, wet earth and the sound of birds calling in the distance. Pat took a deep breath, feeling his tensions unwind slowly and fall away.

  They really weren’t bad kids, he thought as he tried to fight off pangs of guilt. They were just lively. And probably nervous about going to camp. He’d bet none of them had ever been away from their neighborhood before.

  His conscience began to really rag at him. He should have been the adult, the mature one. He could have done it without yelling.

  “Yo, Pat.” The kid was a husky, aggressive boy named Douglas. “How about you buy a few pops for me and the guys?” The boys, all done with their turns in the washroom, had gathered around Pat.

  He was about to agree but Trisha was really in charge of the kids. “Let’s check with Miss Stewart.”

  The boys all made faces.

  “Hey,” Pat said, herding the boys before him, “she’s in charge.”

  Like most little boys, they were probably male chauvinist piglets, but everyone kept their mouth shut as Trisha and the girls approached.

  “The guys want something to drink,” Pat said. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  Trisha glanced at her watch. “We’re about forty-five minutes away from the camp. It should be okay.”

  “It’ll be my treat,” Pat said. He pulled his wallet out and then held a ten in his hand, trying to decide whether he should go in with the kids or whether Trisha should.

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  Before he could react, Angie had snatched the bill from his hand and was leading the other kids into the little convenience store attached to the service station.

  “She’s such a shy little thing,” he said. “I wonder how she’ll ever survive in this hard, cruel world.”

  “Angie lives in a crowded household. She has to be aggressive or she wouldn’t have survived this long.”

  Pat leaned against the van and stared out over the road at the pastureland beyond. Brown-and-white cattle dotted the hillsides, with a few horses mixed in for good measure. He’d bet most of those kids hadn’t even seen a pasture before. And he was the one who’d behaved as if he shouldn’t be let out of his room.

  “I’m sorry for acting like a jerk,” he said to Trisha.

  She turned from watching the kids in the store to smile at him. There was no doubt about it; she was a beautiful woman.

  “They can get to you sometimes,” she said.

  “I’m an adult, so I should have known better. Kids have a lot of energy and they have to burn it up.”

  She nodded and turned back to look into the store. “Want a word of advice?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Never make a threat you can’t keep.”

  “You mean the ‘rip out their tongues’ thing?”

  “That’s going to come back and haunt you.”

  “Think they’ll tell their parents?”

  Trisha laughed. “I thought you grew up on the west side.”

  “Yeah.” He felt that familiar tightness in his stomach. “So what?”

  “So you should know that these kids don’t go running to anybody for help.”

  A chattering sound escaped the store, rolled over the blacktop and filled his ears. He turned to watch the kids come spilling out, sipping at their cans of soda and talking at the same time.

  “They know you’re not going to rip their tongues out,” Trisha said. “And you better believe they’re going to call your bluff.”

  He looked away from the kids and into Trisha’s sparkling green eyes.

  “So, good luck, fella.”

  * * *

  “You see all them trees and bushes and stuff?” Douglas asked, waving his arm in a sweeping motion. “Them’s woods. You know, like a forest. The kinda place where Bambi and Robin Hood live.”

  All the other kids were occupied with hauling their gear and following Trisha up the path to their cabin. Nobody seemed to be listening to the big kid. Pat was bringing up the rear.

  He had done some soul-searching on the rest of the drive up here and had decided he could do a lot better than he had. His life had been so structured lately that he’d forgotten that sometimes you just have to go with the flow. It would take a little effort on his part, but he could do it. It was how a man handled things.

  “And you know who lives in the woods?” Douglas was going on. “Bears. Man-eating bears.”

  Rulli’s head darted from side to side, but none of the other children seemed to be paying attention.

  “Oh, yeah?” Angie said. “I heard they like fat people best.”

  Angie was walking just behind Rulli. Maybe the bigmouth was a mother hen, someone who hated injustice and didn’t like to see the weaker ones picked on. Sighing, he tried to put that thought out of his mind. It would be hard to keep a good irritation going toward the girl if he found that she had a good heart.

  “And you got enough blubber on your body to feed a hundred bears for a week,” Angie continued. “So we’re all safe.”

  “Angie. Douglas,” Trisha said without looking back. “We’re going to try and get along this weekend, aren’t we?” />
  The two kids stuck their tongues out at each other, but it looked as if Trisha was using the silence-is-consent rule and didn’t bother to turn around to look at anyone.

  “Oh, look. There’s our cabin.”

  They’d rounded a corner in the path and stopped at the edge of a clearing where a small cabin stood. It was about forty feet by twenty, with an open breezeway cut through the middle.

  “It’s all made of logs.”

  “I bet Abraham Lincoln used to live here.”

  They moved forward, the kids stopping once they stepped into the breezeway. Pat eased past them and peeked into one of the open doors. There was a bathroom to one side, a small enclosed room that was probably for a counselor on the other side, and beyond that a single large room with bunk beds along the wall and a table in the center.

  “Okay, guys,” Trisha said. “One side is for the boys and the other is for the girls.”

  “Give them that one,” a girl said, pointing to the door where Pat was standing. “It stinks the worsest.”

  “Mary,” Trisha said. “That’s not nice.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Angie assured them. “The boys already stink.”

  “Girls.” Trisha’s voice had grown firmer. “I want us to be polite to one another all weekend.”

  There was a great deal of blinking by both boys and girls. Pat thought there was also a little pain flitting through their faces, but he refrained from laughing. Trisha probably had enough of his antics for a while.

  “So,” Trisha said. “I think we should—”

  “We’ll take this one,” Pat said.

  “Are you sure?” Trisha said.

  “Absolutely,” Pat replied. “This is the one we want. Right, guys?”

  The boys all looked at one another and shrugged. Well, no one said he had to run a democracy. He opened the screen door and walked into the cabin, pausing to drop his bag in the tiny counselor’s room. The boys filed past him into the big room.

  “Pee-ew,” a boy named Marty said. “What is that stink?”

  “Bear pee,” Douglas replied.

  “I thought they pee in the woods.”

  “Not when it rains,” Douglas replied.

  The three older boys dumped their bags on a single lower bunk and started climbing up to the top bunk of one of the beds. Pat found Rulli sitting by himself on a bunk bed farthest from the other boys. The little guy looked like the odd man out and Pat hadn’t helped earlier. He walked over and sat down next to the kid.

  “Man,” Pat said. “This is really gonna be great.”

  “Yeah.” The kid’s eyes darted at his companions climbing and jumping on the beds. “Yeah.”

  “We got a roof over our heads. Someone to cook. A whole big set of woods and stuff to play in.” Pat shook his head. “Can’t beat that.”

  They watched the other boys run into the bathroom and listened to them shouting and laughing.

  “Are there really bears out here?” Rulli asked quietly.

  Pat shook his head. “Nah. You saw how we got here. We drove through a bunch of towns and past some farms. Bears need lots of open space.”

  “But there’s a lotta woods here.”

  “Still not big enough for bears. They eat mostly berries. And it takes a whole lot of woods to grow enough berries to fill a bear’s stomach. Put a bear in here and he’d starve to death in less than a week. The worst they got here are squirrels and raccoons.”

  Pat looked up toward a window on the far wall. A blue jay was hopping around on the branches, sending insults their way.

  “And birds,” Pat added.

  “We got all that at home,” Rulli said. “Douglas don’t know nothing.”

  The other three boys came running back into the room, ignoring Pat and Rulli, to pile on one of the lower bunks and engage in a three-way wrestling match. Nothing was getting bruised, so Pat didn’t say anything. The blue jay took umbrage to the goings-on, though, and left.

  “You gonna sleep in that little room by yourself?” Rulli asked.

  Something in the kid’s eyes stopped Pat, something that wasn’t quite pleading but damn close. It had been a long time since somebody had really needed something from him, something that had nothing to do with his pocketbook, and it awoke a touch of fear in him. He had stayed clear of this type of involvement, first by choice, then by habit.

  He looked away and blew a lungful of air past his lips. Damn it. He knew this weekend was going to be trouble. All he had to do was read the signs. And there had been more than enough of them.

  “Are ya?” Rulli asked.

  “Nah.” Pat turned back to look at the kid. “I’m gonna bunk on one of these beds over here.”

  Rulli’s eyes lit up. The hope growing there was almost too painful to watch. “How come?” he asked.

  “That other room’s too small, man.” Pat put a big smile on his face. “I like a lot of room when I sleep.”

  “Yeah.” Rulli’s head bobbed like one of those toy dogs people put on the back shelf in their cars. “Me, too.”

  “Got more windows here,” Pat said. “Makes for more fresh air.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you can hear the sound of the water running in that little brook outside.”

  Rulli lifted his head and listened, as if he were hearing the gurgling for the first time. “We hear water like that at our house,” he said.

  Pat looked at him. The kid didn’t look as if he were making something up. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, the toilet’s broke. The landlord, you know, keeps saying he’s gonna fix it but he never does.”

  Pat slumped back against the wall and exhaled slowly.

  “You guys ready to head back to the main area?” Trisha had popped her head through the door. “There’s a welcoming ceremony in a little bit.”

  Pat was so glad to see her that he sprang up off the bed. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten how low the top bunk was and whacked his head into it. Hard.

  “Damn.” He rubbed the top of his head, biting back the words that wanted to come. “That smarts.”

  Rulli stared at him while the other three boys roared with laughter.

  Trisha rushed to his side. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” He stood up. “My grandmother always said I had solid bone between my ears.”

  “Well,” she said, putting her arm through his. “I have some aspirin if you need it.”

  “I’m fine. Really.” Although he had no objection to her leaving her arm right where it was. She felt good so close to him, her gentle scent teasing his senses and threatening to make his head swim even more than the whack on the head had.

  The boys started streaming out of the cabin, pulling Rulli along with them, so Pat and Trisha followed.

  “Hey, Rulli,” Douglas said. “Is Mr. Butthead a friend of yours now?”

  “He ain’t no butthead,” Rulli said, bristling.

  “Well, he sure ain’t too smart.”

  “So what?” Rulli replied. “He’s nice.”

  He could feel Trisha squeeze his arm. “Looks like you have yourself a friend,” she said.

  “Great.” Pat grinned down at her, unexpectedly touched by the boy’s endorsement. “But it’s a good thing that I don’t need a character reference right now.”

  * * *

  “Oh, Great Spirit. Give us your light that our fire may burn.”

  Trisha smiled and stuck her hands in the pockets of her shorts. They’d been welcomed, fed dinner and then introduced to one another through some silly games. Now, after an evening snack of cookies and juice, they were gathered around a huge pile of wood down by the lake. The kids were up close; she and Pat were sitting on a log a ways behind them.

  A gentle breeze blew in from the west, easing the weariness from her mind. The trip up had been a challenge, one she hadn’t foreseen, and she’d been ready to admit she’d made a major mistake. She shouldn’t have forced Pat to come; her instincts had been all wrong. But then he’d s
eemed to mellow, reacting to the kids with a gentle understanding that had surprised her.

  “I don’t think the great spirit is listening,” Pat said, interrupting her thoughts.

  She looked over through the darkness to the still-unburning pile of wood. “Don’t be such a cynic,” she said.

  “I don’t see any fire,” he said.

  “You gotta have faith.”

  One of the camp’s regular counselors had dressed up as an Indian chief and had given a short talk about the earth and all the creatures that shared it. The kids, a little over fifty from various Boys and Girls Clubs in Indiana and Michigan, had listened and behaved very nicely. Unfortunately, the chief’s assistant was now having trouble getting the bonfire to go and the little lads and lassies were getting restless.

  The chief looked toward a clump of trees just behind him and apparently received a signal.

  “Okay, boys and girls,” he said. “We’ll try again. But this time everybody has to repeat after me.

  “Oh, Great Spirit,” the chief said.

  “Oh, Great Spirit,” the kids repeated.

  “Give us your light that our fire may burn,” the chief shouted.

  The children had no sooner finished repeating the words when flames literally exploded from the woodpile. One large, collective gasp of appreciation floated up to the stars above them.

  Though Trisha had expected it, she felt herself jump back slightly, bumping into Pat’s arm as she wobbled on the log. He reached over to steady her. A sudden warmth that had nothing to do with the campfire raced through her. This was not the plan for the weekend, she told herself, no matter what her mother had advised. Trisha gingerly moved aside a few inches as if returning to her former spot. He let his hand fall.

  “That was pretty neat,” she said quickly, hoping to cover up her reaction to him.

  “It’s just old wood,” Pat said. “A little gas, gunpowder for oomph and a battery on a long wire for a spark.”

  She kept her eyes on the fire, now burning nicely. “I know how they do it, but I still think it’s neat.”