QUEENOLA BELL chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

On the last day of school this year nobody did anything but play. Everyone in my homeroom class was throwing paper at each other and sticking spitballs on the ceiling. Me and Lisa start home after school, when three boys in a ford truck stop on the side of the road and start talking to us. They asked us our names and age. Then ask us if we date. Lisa has never been on a date but she wanted the boys to be impressed with her so she tells them that she dates a lot. The boys ask us where we live, we tell them we live in Gainesville Mills, then they ask to see us again we said okay. We giggled and ran all the way home. Lisa comes to my house; she’ll probably be there all summer, her mama and don’t care where she goes. Her daddy is never home, when he is home he’s drunk. Lisa became my friend when I moved here four years ago. She’s the only friend I’ve ever had. Well after we get home I tell Lisa we didn’t give the boys our phone number, so how are we going to date these boys if they don’t even have our numbers to call us. Lisa says not to worry about that, that they’ll find us because we told them where we lived.

I ask Lisa what she wants to do Saturday night, she said we’d go bowling which is boring to me. We are kind of limited with what we can do because we have to walk every where and there’s not much within walking distance and of course mama wants us in the house by ten. We have a bowling alley and game room that we walk to but these get old after awhile you outgrow this kind of stuff.

My aunt Sybil calls Friday night. I answered the phone she asks me if I would like to stay with her some this summer. I say yea sure, but what about Lisa, she said Lisa could come too. I talked to aunt Sybil awhile we agreed and mama agreed that we could go Saturday if aunt Sybil would come pick us up. Aunt Sybil said I’ll see you tomorrow then hangs up.

Aunt Sybil has a big farm in the country. She has chicken houses, horses, cows, and pigs. All kinds of animals I love going to her house. Maybe she’ll let me help work in the chicken houses. I’ve always wanted to see inside one. But aunt Sybil said that I didn’t need to go in with the chickens, but she let me help clean the eggs and pack them up last year. We didn’t sleep much Friday night; we stayed up and packed our clothes. Lisa was at her house but she kept me on the phone for an hour asking what she should pack.

Saturday, aunt Sybil got to the house early, she helps mama cook breakfast and helps wash dishes after breakfast. I was glad she helped do dishes because I usually get stuck doing them. Aunt Sybil visits mama and daddy for awhile, I’m about to burst with excitement, ready to go. I sat right up under her afraid she would leave without me, but when she says lets go we almost broke our necks getting our bags loaded in her car, which is a nice car. She has a Lincoln Town Car, with power windows, power seats, power locks, it even has a power trunk. I’m not used to this nice of a car mama and daddy always drove an old station wagon (and for a long time they drove it with no back windshield. If we went down a dirt road the dust would smother you to death.) We called the station wagon the dragon wagon. We still have it too.

Well we’re in Aunt Sybils town car going to the chicken farm. We fuss over who’s gonna sit in the front (meaning Lisa & me). We stopped at Walden’s Grocery on our way, we switch places then Lisa gets to ride the rest of the way to the farm in the front seat. When we were in Waldon’s Grocery Aunt Sybil bought us a Coca-Cola and some salted peanuts, but we wouldn’t open them in her car so we waited until we got to the farm. It took about thirty minutes to get here from mama’s house we were kind of disappointed because we loved riding in the fancy car. I was hoping the prissy rich girls in the mustang would go by us so they could see me in this town car, I would have probably hung them a finger, but I don’t know because I was raised better than that. And if mama or daddy found out they would shit a gold brick, (excuse my language that’s what my brother always said they would do).

At Aunt Sibyl’s house we unload our bags, I had one bag and Lisa has three counting her big pocket book. I think she carries her whole bedroom in it. Aunt Sybil shows us to our room, it’s pretty everything is pink even the furniture. Aunt Sybil never had any kids but she raised her neighbors little boy from the time he was two years old, his name is David. He’s about Ken’s age maybe a couple months younger. Well we go to the living room or den (I never know the difference but Aunt Sybil has two of them). I ask if we can go out and walk around the farm. Aunt Sybil says sure go ahead just don’t mess with the pigs in the barn. We go to the horse barn first. Aunt Sybil has a couple donkeys and horses, she said no one ever rode them except David. We walk down in front of the stalls and I noticed Aunt Sybil had two ponies in one of the stalls. I know she didn’t have them last summer. We were standing there petting the ponies when David walks up behind us and says, “hey girls what’s up”? I turn around and say hey David I noticed he looked different somehow. David asks if we want to ride the ponies. Lisa was so excited about this and before I can say no not really. Lisa squeals yes we do. I had heard that ponies are real mean. I’ve ridden horses a lot but never a pony. David gets the ponies out puts a halter on them ties a rope to each side of the halter and said go ahead get on. I ask David “where’s the thing that goes in their mouth”? David says you don’t need them with ponies.

Before I could straddle my pony (who’s name was Slim) Lisa is on the other pony (named Dozer) before I could say wait on me Lisa the pony starts running through the barn toward the yard where Aunt Sybil had put up a fence around her rose bed. The pony is running fast, I thought he was going through the fence and he heads right at it, but when he gets to it he turns quickly to the left but he didn’t slow down. Lisa is bouncing around on the pony, feet dangling on each side. I heard David laughing. I get mad and stomp out of the barn to find Lisa and Dozer. I run through the yard to the back of the house. I see Dozer and Lisa going down between the chicken houses. I take off running again, when I finally found Lisa she was sitting in the middle of the run off hole, where all the chicken mess gets washed into. I couldn’t help but laugh at Lisa when Dozer comes up behind her and stands there so sweet, just looking at her. We get Dozer by the halter lead him in the stall. Lisa smells so bad; I can’t stand to get near her. David had put Slim back up so we found the water hose and some dog shampoo in the barn and gave Lisa a bath. I told Lisa she’d better be glad it’s summer time or she would freeze with the wet clothes on. David disappeared of course.

After we rode the ponies, we walk down to the pasture to see the cows; we could walk up and pet some of them that was fun. We started back for supper. Aunt Sybil had a thing about eating supper; she wanted everyone cleaned up and at the table by 7:00 p.m. If you were late she’d make you do extra chores. We all had chores to do at Aunt Sybil’s. I always got to cook breakfast. Which I enjoyed because I had the kitchen all to myself. Now that Lisa was here she would help with that and we would wash dishes after breakfast.

After supper we all sat in the den and watched movies and ate popcorn. We watched Harry and the Henderson’s which is my favorite, then we watched Lethal Weapon, which David liked. After the movie Aunt Sybil tells us to go to bed because we have a long day tomorrow. I don’t know what she means by that but I can’t wait to see.