Growing Up Neighbors

by Frances Hoelsema

  “Well, did you wave back?” Robyn started to relax and laid back down again.

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t think that anyone could see me so when he waved I got scared and hopped back on my bike to come and find you,” Deborah replied.

  “Well, that was stupid,” Robyn teased. “You could have at least waved back.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “I was wondering what you were up to because once I got to the back yard I noticed you weren’t behind me anymore,” Robyn mentioned.

  “Sorry, sis, I just wanted to take a peek across the street.”

  “It’s okay. I still can’t believe you didn’t wave, you chicken,” Robyn laughed.

  Deborah threw her a playful punch to her right shoulder, which seemed to make her stop the teasing.

  After a few moments of lying down in relative quietness, the girls heard the door to the deck slide open. They both glanced in that direction and saw Alex stepping out, looking ready to play with them.

  “Hey, guys. What are you up to now?” Alex asked as he made his way down the stairs and towards his sisters.

  “Not much,” Deborah answered.

  “Just lying here watching the clouds,” Robyn added.

  “Oh. Got tired of riding your bikes already did ya?” Alex joked. “Anyway, mom wanted me to let you know that dinner was going to be ready in about an hour. Plus I got done playing my game so I thought I’d join you guys out here. What do you want to do?”

  The three of them ran ideas back and forth amongst themselves and settled on playing in the backyard in the new tree house/play set that their father built for them over the summer. It was a really neat contraption that they had. The tree house part sat about seven steps off the ground in one of the many trees that blanketed the far end of their property in the back. The tree looked as if it was two in one because it had a wider base and grew out on two different sides, one on the north side and one on the south side. That formation made it possible for the tree house to be situated on the base with a part of the tree on one side of the house and the other part on the other side. The other two sides, the east and west sides, of the tree house that were hanging off the base of the tree were supported by wooden poles that their father put together.

  The blue and gray tree house, colored the same as their real house, was something that every little boy or girl would love. It was big and tall enough for more than one person to play inside standing up if they wanted to, it had a few windows around it and a door in the front to the left of the tree and it sheltered girl and boy activity paraphernalia.

  On the left-hand side of the tree house one could walk over to a slide accessible from inside the tree house or from the back that also had seven steps reaching up to it. Then on the right-hand side of the tree house there were two swings and a teeter totter attached, accessible only from the ground.

  While Robyn liked the tree house that kept play kitchen utensils inside, Deborah loved the swings and Alex’s favorite part of the whole play area was the huge sandbox their dad made to go around the entire piece. Alex owned all sorts of sandbox toys ranging from buckets and shovels to dump trucks, bull dozers and other vehicles. His usual routine would be to build a sand mound and then drive the vehicles through, on or around it.

  The three siblings raced each other to the far back of the yard to the play area and each took up their favorite activity. Robyn immediately went up the house to play inside, Alex got out his sandbox toys from underneath the house and Deborah hopped on the swing closest to the teeter totter, pumping as hard as she could to get as high as she dared.

  After a few minutes of swinging and getting high enough to the point that she thought she’d swing all the way around the top pole, Deborah decided to join Alex on the ground and started playing in the sand. She liked drawing things in the sand with any stick that she could find nearby.

  “So did you end up seeing anything out front, Deborah?” Alex questioned.

  He had a feeling that she at least saw something because she was pretty good about spying and getting the information that she always wanted.

  When Robyn heard her brother starting to question if anything had happened, she immediately got up from the tree house floor and proceeded down the steps saying, “Hey, Deborah, why don’t you tell Alex what you told me?”

  “Shh, Robyn,” Deborah said, glaring at her sister.

  She didn’t feel like telling Alex just yet about the boy she didn’t wave back to. She knew that if he had found out that he probably wouldn’t stop teasing her for being so stupid, and since Robyn made her feel stupid enough as it was, she didn’t need someone else to make her feel worse.

  “Something happened?” asked Alex with interest. “Did you see someone or talk to someone? What? Tell me!”

  Robyn gave a little laugh when she remembered what Deborah had said to her a while ago, but then silenced herself as her sister gave her another nasty look.

  “Okay. Fine, I’ll tell you,” Deborah decided.

  When she divulged all the details, he did exactly as she had feared. He pointed a finger at her and started laughing.

  “It’s not really funny, Alex!”

  “Yes, it is,” he replied. Robyn started laughing with him, even harder than she was before.

  “Look, it’s not like I was too chicken to wave back. It was just that he caught me off guard is all,” Deborah tried to explain, as Alex and Robyn continued their snickering. It was getting to the point where Robyn could hardly breathe.

  Mrs. Harrington watched her three children through the slider door to the back deck as they played in the sand, two of them laughing.

  I’m so glad my children can play well together, she thought.

  She had no idea that Alex and Robyn were actually making fun of Deborah at that moment. Hating to put a stop to their playing, she put off asking them to come into the house to clean up and get ready for dinner. However, only a few minutes later, she slowly opened the slider door and stepped out onto the deck.

  “Alex, Deborah and Robyn, time to come inside to clean up and get ready for dinner!” she said at a level just short of shouting.

  All three of the children immediately got up, brushed the sand off from their clothes and put everything away so that they could run inside and eat.

  Thank goodness, Deborah thought, heading towards the house. Maybe now they’ll shut up and leave me alone.

  ---------------

  With approximately a half hour to go before dinner, Nicholas tried to make himself useful by unpacking some things in his new room. Even though this house was significantly smaller than the one he used to live in back east, it still had enough bedrooms for each of the two brothers to have their own room. They had to share a bathroom though, but they were already used to that so it didn’t matter much to Nicholas.

  I wonder where I’ll put this, Nicholas contemplated, staring at one of his model cars he was starting to collect.

  He used to have a lot of shelving in his old bedroom that his dad had put up for him where he could start displaying them; one of the few things his dad did do for him. Here, however, he’d either have to keep them stored away or try to put them on top of his dresser. The bedroom didn’t have any shelving and he didn’t think there would be much space for shelves later seeing on how the layout was.

  Nicholas had a corner bedroom overlooking the back yard. As one would go through the door, there was a couple of windows on the right, north side of the room and a window directly ahead on the west side. There was a small, rectangular shaped closet on the west wall next to the window, which meant his bed had to go along the south side of the wall or maybe the east wall. However, Nicholas didn’t think he’d have enough room to put his bed and night stand along that wall seeing that the door was there. He had a corner room back home too, but it was large enough and the windows were spread out enough to the point that he could have shelves on a few of the walls if he wanted.

  Hmm, maybe mom can put shelves u
p for me somewhere. Probably this wall here by my door, Nicholas thought as he started to stand up, facing the west wall.

  Wanting to see if that thought was even possible, he started to head downstairs to go and find his mom and ask her.

  Nevertheless, the ten year old got side tracked when he had reached the top of the stairs. Through the corner of his left eye he saw his supposedly sick brother, Robert, lying down in his room on his bed that wasn’t even made yet.

  “Hey, you okay?” Nicholas asked.

  “Yeah, just feel queasy is all,” Robert answered back. “I think I’m just nervous about the whole move and going to a new school and everything.”

  Robert had just confessed to Nicholas what Nicholas already knew all along; that Robert wasn’t really sick. He always tended to make a big deal out of nothing. It made Nicholas mad that he had to do most of the hard work when his fourteen-year-old brother could have helped. But no, their mom was convinced that Robert really was sick this time even though she knew that Robert sometimes faked it or over played the sick card.

  Mom should have made him help. And Robert shouldn’t have milked his sickness just so he could get out of everything, he thought, annoyed.

  Trying to shrug off his anger by taking a deep breath, Nicholas decided to tell Robert about the neighbor girl he had seen earlier in hopes to calm some of Robert’s nerves.

  When Robert asked if there was just one, Nicholas explained, “Well, I know there are at least two girls that live across the street because I saw both of them riding their bikes.”

  “Oh, okay,” Robert said unenthusiastically.

  He was hoping there would be some boys around their age that they could both play with like there was in their old neighborhood. The boys used to live in a ritzy subdivision that was full of kids around their ages that they used to hang out with all the time.

  Nicholas continued his story of how, while going in and out of the house to unload their vehicle, he noticed the one girl looking back at him. He shared with Robert the fact that he waved at her to be nice and then how she ignored him and started riding her bike again.

  “I’m not sure why she did that. I either scared her or maybe she’s just rude. I don’t know,” Nicholas finished.

  “Maybe she’s just shy or perhaps she never even saw you, Nick,” Robert suggested. “Maybe she just happened to start biking again when you waved.”

  “Yeah, who knows? Anyway, it’d be nice to go and meet them sometime, the two of us together. What do ya say?”

  “Sure,” Robert replied and then added, “Hey, do you know if dinner is almost ready? Believe it or not, I’m getting hungry.”

  “Probably. I know that when I came up here to start unpacking that it was supposed to be ready in about a half hour. I’m sure it’s got to be soon,” Nicholas answered as a smile started forming with his lips.

  My story must have made him feel better after all, he thought.

  Just then, their mom called up the stairs to say that dinner was ready. When they reached the kitchen, they noticed that they weren’t having anything fancy, just macaroni and cheese with garlic bread, and that the kitchen table was still cluttered with boxes.

  “You’ll have to stand and eat or find a place on the floor,” the boys' mom said in response to Nicholas asking where they should eat.

  When dinner was over, the two boys helped their mom clean up the dishes. Afterwards, they proceeded up the stairs to their prospective rooms in order to make their beds and put some more of their belongings away. As Nicholas passed by his mom, he remembered he wanted to ask her about putting shelving up in his room.

  “Hey, mom, can you come upstairs for a moment? I have a question that I need to ask and show you.”

  “Sure,” she replied.

  They both went up to his room and Nicholas asked about the shelving.

  “I think we can figure something out. It’s not at the top of my list, but when we get settled and have some time, we’ll see what we can do, okay?”

  “Okay,” Nicholas said.

  Nicholas’ mom came up to him and gave him a hug, feeling a little guilty for making him to do most of the heavy lifting. “I’m sorry for being a little tough on you today.”

  “It’s okay,” he replied and added, “I knew Robert wasn’t too sick though.”

  They both giggled a little bit at his remark.

  “Yes, you were right,” she agreed.

  As Ms. Michaels started leaving his room, Nicholas asked, “Hey, mom, would it be okay if Robert and I go across the street sometime to meet our neighbors? I saw a couple of kids over there today while I was unloading the SUV.”

  “Sure, but it’ll have to wait a little bit. I want us to get completely settled in our home first and I want to make sure that you are both doing okay in school before you go off playing,” she answered.

  “Okay. Thanks, mom,” Nicholas said with a smile on his face. He was excited about meeting his neighbors.

  After Ms. Michaels finally went downstairs, Nicholas headed over to Robert’s room to let him know what their mom said.

  “Cool!” Robert exclaimed.

  That is cool! Nicholas thought.

  ---------------

  It was Deborah’s turn to wash the dishes, which she always hated to do on a Saturday night. It was the only night that the Harringtons ate a huge, home-cooked meal, meaning there would be a ton of work. Mrs. Harrington worked Monday through Friday in an office so she wasn’t home most evenings until five or later. Mr. Harrington, being a realtor, sometimes worked crazy hours. He was technically done by four, but if he had showings or closings to do then he could be home a lot later. Needless to say, during the week the Harringtons ate simpler meals that required less clean up.

  On this particular night though, Deborah was thankful to be stuck doing the dishes by herself while everyone else went off to the living room far away from her. This way she didn’t have to listen to her brother and sister teasing her or have to worry about her mom and dad finding out about her little fiasco.

  Deborah compiled the dishes in a way that would allow her to easily maneuver from one type of thing to another. She always washed the dishes in the same way: plates first, large before small; bowls; cups; silverware; and then odds and ends such as pots and pans or cookie sheets or plastic containers.

  As she washed the dishes, careful that they were completely clean, she thought about her day. As much as she didn’t want to, she couldn’t stop thinking about how stupid it was to not wave back at the neighbor boy.

  He probably thinks I’m such a huge dork, she thought, shaking her head slightly and rolling her eyes. I can’t believe I did that.

  When she had finished her chore, she went to join the rest of her family in the living room where they usually spent time watching TV or a movie on Saturday nights. She found her brother and sister sitting in the middle of the pale green L-shaped sectional they had while her mom and dad were sitting in their personal recliners that were attached by a little table in between. As usual, the TV was on and they were flipping through the channels, trying to figure out what to watch.

  “There’s never anything on TV so let’s just watch a movie,” Deborah suggested. Everyone else agreed with the idea.

  The Harringtons had a huge movie collection that Mrs. Harrington got up to look at. She listed off some movies clean enough for the kids and that she wouldn’t mind watching. They all agreed to watch Free Willy, one of Deborah’s favorites.

  When the movie had finished, it was time for the kids to take their showers and head to bed. Deborah got out her Little Mermaid pajamas that she liked to wear while waiting for Robyn to get done with her shower. As she walked by the bedroom window, she glanced across the street. It was already pitch black outside so she couldn’t see a whole lot of what was going on over there, but did notice they still had lights on.

  I wonder what they’re like, she thought. Or if we’ll even like them.

  Deborah was so deep in thought tha
t, when her mom knocked on the door, she jumped a little and tried to pretend she wasn’t staring at the new neighbors’ house.

  “Did I scare you?” Mrs. Harrington chuckled.

  “Just a little. I was just thinking,” Deborah answered.

  “About those neighbors, right? I saw you looking over there and Alex told me about what happened earlier.”

  “He did? That weasel,” Deborah said angrily, trying to think of a way to get back at him for being such a tattle tale.

  “It’s okay,” her mom assured her as she went over to where Deborah was sitting and joined her, putting her left arm around her back in a half hug. “I understand you're curious and everything. It’s no big deal so don’t feel bad about it. However, try to leave them alone for a little while so they can all get settled in.”

  “I will. I didn’t plan on doing anything else anyway.”

  “Okay. That’s good. Until then you can take a look every now and then if you’re curious,” her mom said and then started to smile as she added, “And please do wave back if someone waves to you.”

  “Okay. Maybe. We’ll see,” Deborah joked as she gave her mom a smile back.

  “Anyway, that’s all I really came up here for. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” With that, Mrs. Harrington quietly left the room.

  “Okay. Thanks, mom.”

  Not more than a minute after her mom left, Deborah heard Robyn coming down the hallway, apparently done with her shower. That meant it was her turn. She grabbed the pajamas that she wanted to wear and headed towards the bathroom, bypassing Robyn without saying anything.

  When Deborah got back into her and her sister’s bedroom, she saw Robyn already in bed turning the pages of one of her favorite books. She too felt like opening a book so she climbed into bed and grabbed one of the Little House on the Prairie books she left off on. She tried to read, however, she found herself not being able to concentrate, thinking too much about everything.

  “You okay?” Robyn asked when she saw Deborah staring blankly at her book. “You haven’t turned any pages in a while and you look like you’re spaced out or something.”