Mom winced when she hugged me. “Raym . . . (cough, cough) . . . You’re so thin . . . Phew! . . . So tan. You look wonderf . . . Woo . . . Raymond, what have . . . (gag) . . . you been into?”
“Hi, Mom.” I hugged her again as she tried to push me away.
Across the kitchen, Dad twitched his nose and squinted. “Um, you’re looking a little red, Ray.”
“It’s the tomato sauce. We get to take baths in it.”
Bash ran into the kitchen. “Ray-Ray poked a skunk with a stick!”
Mom stepped back again, one hand over her mouth and nose, the other ready to throw a football block on Bash. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why were you poking a skunk with a stick?”
“Um . . .” I shrugged. It’s hard to tell which plans will work and which won’t until you dive in. I learned that from watching Bash all summer.
Mom squeezed her nose. “A thtunk! A thtick! Whath were you thtinking?”
Uncle Rollie chuckled. “They weren’t. They’re boys. No thought cells were harmed in the making of this adventure.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it. I figured Uncle Rollie might be right. Instead, I rushed into another subject. “I learned how to swim. Aunt Tillie told us we can swim all day long in the duck pond if we wish. All night too!”
Aunt Tillie shrugged. “I thought it would help.”
“Stinky boys!” Darla yelled from her high chair.
Bash narrowed his eyes. “I bet Mary Jane taught her that.”
No time to get sidetracked now. I had a whole summer to tell about. “Aunt Tillie’s letting us eat all our meals outside at the picnic table. And we get to camp out in a tent too. We would have camped out in our tree house, but it capsized.”
Mom started to rub her temple, then grabbed her nose again. “How doth a tree houth capthithe?”
“When we set sail in it, remember? I called you about that. But it capsized. I think the Pirate Pig of the Pond weighed too much.”
“The pirate pig? Of the pond?”
“Seriously, Gulliver weighs too much.”
“Gulliver? What happened to the pirate pig?”
Basher started pacing. Mom and Dad winced every time he breezed past. “It’s simple, Aunt Patti! We built a pirate fleet using Look Out Fort as our flagship, but Gulliver J. McFrederick the Third—that’s my riding pig—tipped it over just before Uncle Jake O’Rusty McGillicuddy Jr. saved Beamer from drowning. So I taught him to swim, which is great now that the skunk squirted us. Got it?”
“Raymond drowned? I thought that was another wild tale he made up hoping we’d let him come home early. You know, like when he made up the story about riding a cow in traffic.”
“We did! We rode cows all the way to the ice cream stand. And you shoulda seen him dragged down the midway by a cow. My cousin Beamer is the funniest guy I know.”
Mom sat down. I would have thought she would have pulled out a chair first, but I guess she was tired. Aunt Tillie rushed over to her. “Now, Patti, it didn’t happen quite the way the boys described—”
“Sure it did, Ma. Oh, and Beamer, remember when we wrapped Jig in flypaper and pushed him out the hayloft so he could fly!”
Mom clunked her head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. “What’s a jig in flypaper?”
“Jig Gobnotter. The kid who lives a couple farms over.”
Mom rubbed both temples. “You pushed boys out the hayloft? And drowned Raymond?”
“Just one. And he flew. Until he splatted into the manure pile. And Ray-Ray didn’t drown. He’s right here. You shoulda seen when he put that soup can on his head in church so I could shoot him with my slingshot!”
It was the first time I ever saw that tic in my mom’s eye. Dad looked a bit dazed. He turned to Uncle Rollie and opened and closed his mouth a couple of times without anything coming out. Finally, he said, “So, Roly-Poly, how are the crops?”
“Oh, fair to middlin’. I reckon the corn will do okay. If it doesn’t, we’ll always figure it should have.”
“So the boys were active? It doesn’t sound like you told us everything that went on this summer.”
Uncle Rollie grinned. He pulled out his handkerchief, blew his nose, wadded up the hankie and stuffed it back into his overalls pocket. “Oh, business picked up a bit at the sheriff’s office. Ah, not really. Actually, Frankenstein, they thought up a couple stunts that would have done us proud all those summers ago. But they missed a few, like the time we rounded up all those cans of spray paint and sneaked over to Vendetti’s sheep farm and . . .”
Uncle Rollie suddenly noticed that Aunt Tillie and Mom were glaring at him. He shrugged and chuckled. “Hey, don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”
Bash and I nudged each other. Mary Jane Morris had a goat. We’d seen both orange and green touch-up paint on Uncle Rollie’s workbench.
Aunt Tillie’s glare suddenly whipped full force onto us. “Not on your life. And it will be your life as you know it.”
There was something else I hadn’t reported in the phone calls home. “Mom, Dad, I’ve been saving the best part as a surprise for when you got here. I gave my heart to Jesus.”
Mom’s hand dropped from her nose to her heart. Dad whooshed out a breath like a feed sack fell off his shoulders. I knew they’d been praying hard for me.
“Wonderful!” Mom crawled over and hugged me without flinching—almost—before pushing me away again. She was getting used to the smell.
Dad stretched way forward for a quick, long-distance handshake, jumped back, pinched his nose, and saluted instead. “How’d it happen, son?”
“I wanted to go to heaven. I wanted to love life like Bash and the rest of the kids. I wanted the big blob of pond scum out of me. So after Henrietta Herbie ran me through french fries and an elephant ear, I sat in a barn with Bash and Georgie and Mildred the lamb, and while a pig had piglets, I talked to Jesus.”
Dad arched an eyebrow. “Okay, I understood some of that. I think.”
Mom wiped her eyes. I thought she’d gotten used to the skunk smell. “I remember how I used to have that cold pond scum sloshing against my heart.” Mom didn’t seem confused anymore. It’s funny how muddled grown-ups’ minds can get, and then suddenly they’ll surprise you by latching onto something you didn’t explain.
I dropped my head and scuffed a sneaker on the kitchen tile. “Anyway, I’m sorry for not listening to you guys, and not cleaning my room when you told me to, and all the times I was bad just because I was angry, and all the other stuff.”
“Welcome to the family, Raymond,” Mom said quietly.
“But I’ve always been part of the family. Unless I was adopted. Was I adopted?”
Dad nodded. “Yep. Just now. You were born to us, but now you’re adopted into God’s family too.”
I tried to figure this out. “I guess that makes sense. More than Bash calling the Bible a farming and fishing book.”
Uncle Rollie rubbed his chin. “Well, Jesus does use a lot of farm talk. My favorite is Mark 4:30–32: “And He said, How can we illustrate the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use to describe it? It’s like a mustard seed that, when sown in the soil, is smaller than all the seeds on the ground. And when sown, it comes up and grows taller than all the vegetables, and produces large branches, so that the birds of the sky can nest in its shade.”
Dad clapped Uncle Rollie on the back. “Roly-Poly, you harvested a crop for me. Thank you, and thank the Lord.”
I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. I just knew that I’d miss this nutty farm and yes, even Cousin Bash. He did teach me to swim, after all. And to enjoy adventure, even if it sometimes kinda stinks.
“Can I stay again next summer?”
Bash jumped up. “Yeah, can he? We haven’t built our grain barrel racecar yet.”
Mom blinked a couple times and turned to Dad. “Frank, aren’t you going to tell them?”
Dad snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah. The firm offered me a transfer to the Ohio office. We’d be back in the neighborhood.”
Move to Ohio? Live near this weirdo farm? Would that mean . . . ? “Could I take Amy to the fair next year?”
Mom smiled. “Amy? Raymond, did you find yourself a little friend? Did you buy her cotton candy?”
“Mommmm, don’t be gross.”
Bash jumped in. “Nope. He walked around the fair with Henrietta Herbie, and she’s a real cow.”
“Sebastian, it’s not nice to call a young lady a cow.”
I slapped my forehead. “Mom, she is a cow. A Jersey. And Amy’s a calf. But she will be a cow.”
“Oh.”
Bash paced a circle in the middle of the kitchen. The grown-ups scrunched their noses every time he breezed by them. “And Beamer saved her life. He ruined some dumb, ol’ quilt, but he saved her life!”
“I didn’t ruin it. Amy did. And you’re the one who ran it to the barn!”
“You wrapped it around her!”
“Boys!” Mom and Aunt Tillie chorused.
Dad took over. “Anyway, yes, Ray, if we take this move, you could visit as often as you like as long as it’s okay with Uncle Rollie and Aunt Tillie.”
“And maybe . . .” Mom wiped another tear from her eye and gagged just slightly. “Maybe we could just leave you here in the meantime and not have you stuffed in the car with us for nine hours all the way back to Virginia to pack up the house.”
Bash paced faster. He did kinda stink. “That would be so cool. There’s so much more we could do. Are you sure we can’t spray paint Mary Jane’s goat?”
Aunt Tillie’s eye ticked. “Nicholas . . .” Aunt Tillie tapped Mom’s arm. “I could send both boys back with you to help pack. This place needs a chance to air out.”
Bash hooted. “We could go surfing in the ocean. I could pet sharks.”
I stomped my foot. “Aren’t we forgetting something? How’d I end up out here in the first place? You prayed me out here. Shouldn’t we ask God now what’s best?”
Dad shuffled close enough to put his arm around me and wrinkled his nose. “Raymond, you’re learning. We have prayed over it. We want you to do so too.”
“I bet it’s yes. Let’s pray now. Besides, Amy needs me to help raise her or Bash will give her back that stupid long name.”
“It wasn’t stupid, it was distinguished.”
Mom cut in. “Anyway, we could spend all the holidays together.”
Bash rubbed his hands together. “April Fool’s Day is my favorite. Well, Christmas, then April Fool’s Day. I’ve got some good ones planned. The cows are gonna give chocolate milk. You wait and see.”
Aunt Tillie sputtered. “How are the . . . What plans? No. No, I don’t want to know. Stay calm, Tillie, stay calm . . .”
Even as we bowed our heads for prayer, I noticed Aunt Tillie’s nervous eye tic winding up for takeoff.