Life had moved on, but not entirely.
Mr Crowe had returned and, for some reason Eddy couldn’t fathom, they’d taken him back in. Reagan told Eddy that her dad had promised to be good and never hit her again. Not only that but he’d got himself a job too. Not a suit-and-tie job though. Dressed in old clothes, he’d get picked up every morning in a van and get dropped off every evening in old and dirty clothes.
Eddy never asked Reagan about that. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do.
On this particular day, with winter now struggling in fits and starts towards spring, Eddy and Reagan were back out on Mr Tree, sharing another load of good old jam sandwiches. Her bruise was a distant memory, at least physically, and she seemed to be in a happy-go-lucky mood. Just the way Eddy liked it.
As always, Grandma Daisy was tucked away downstairs somewhere and Eddy now knew where in fact that was. She was watching one of those television thingies. Eddy hadn’t even known there’d been one in the house until Reagan had told him. She said she could see it through one of her downstairs windows and she also said that Grandma Daisy watched it for hours on end. If so, that was just fine by him.
‘Do you ever want anything different than jam?’
‘Nope. J-jam’s my favourite.’
‘Okay.’ Reagan shrugged her shoulders and tucked deep into her second sandwich. ‘We got honey.’ She said this through a mouthful of bread.
‘J-just jam. Always jam.’
‘Fair enough. Guess what?’
‘What?’
‘Richard Duggan asked me out yesterday.’
‘Oh.’ That went way over Eddy’s head but if he had to take a stab, he didn’t like the sound of it.
‘In the cafeteria, right in front of everybody. Can you believe that?’
‘Nope.’
‘I said “no” of course. You’re supposed to say no the first time.’
‘Oh.’
‘That’s what Molly says anyway.’
‘Wh-who’s R-Richard D-Duggan?’
‘A guy at my school, silly.’
‘Oh.’ Eddy didn’t like this subject any more. ‘Are you going out today?’
‘Yep. Mum and I are going to the shops.’
‘Cool. Are y-you going to g-get that new music thing y-you wanted?’
‘I have to wait till next week for that. Mum says I don’t have enough money yet.’
‘Oh.’
‘Whew . . . it’s getting pretty warm out here.’ Reagan placed the last of her sandwich to one side, pulled her thick woollen jersey over her head and tossed it easily through her bedroom window before picking her snack back up and treating herself to the last bite.
‘Wh-what are they?’ asked Eddy curiously, pointing at her T-shirt.
‘What?’ replied Reagan looking down to where he was pointing.
‘Th-those.’
‘What?’
Eddy reached over to try and touch one of the things he meant.
‘Eddy!’ squealed Reagan, pulling away and laughing a little at the same time. ‘Don’t do that. You’re not supposed to touch ladies there, it’s rude.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s my boobs.’
‘Y-your what?’
‘My boobs.’
‘What’s b-boobs?’
‘You know, like grown-up women have.’
Eddy thought about this for a few seconds and finally it dawned on him what she meant.
‘Oooh,’ he said with wide-eyed wonder. ‘You mean those. Like Grandma Daisy.’
Grandma Daisy did indeed have very large ‘boobs’ but Reagan seemed quite perturbed by that.
‘If I ever get boobs like your grandma, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stand up again.’
‘Wobble, wobble,’ said Eddy out of nowhere.
‘Wobble, wobble,’ echoed Reagan as she wiggled what little chest she had and they both cracked up laughing, Eddy nearly choking on the last of his sandwich.