Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved.

CHAPTER EIGHT: FIFTH GRADE

D A T E : August - September 2006

✖ bollocks ✖

It took a while, but eventually Fynn's parents broke the news to Mom. It wasn't until they got back from England, dead set on a gorgeous five bedroom tudor with masonry and stone work paired along with the classic English timbering. They showed her all the pictures of the vast open space of the fresh, pastel kitchen, the master bedroom, and—oh my God the pool in the backyard amid a garden of hedges and shrubbery. It was all so fantastic, Mom had to dab her eyes full of tears and cheer up a bit at the sight of the gorgeous stone walkway to the front porch.

Fynn didn't find out about the whole endeavor until he was already in England that summer, and he didn't really have much of a choice since he couldn't storm to his room—it was all the way back in Port Bergen. Instead, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents drinking English-styled tea and refining his accent.

No one quite knew that I was all too familiar with the changes. When they came back, I knew Fynn was too terrified to tell me about it. He'd wring his hands a lot, rub his blushed neck, and stammer whenever I asked about the trip. At that point I knew they'd told him, and the first person I confronted was Parker on one of the days Fynn and I played hide and seek and Parker didn't want to join, so he holed himself up in his room.

So while Fynn was downstairs counting to ten, I knocked on Parker's door and entered before he could say no.

"What'd you want? I'm busy." He then turned in his swivel chair, saw it was me, and turned back around. "What is it?"

I bumped the door closed behind me and twisted my earlobe around as I stepped over to his desk. He kept typing on his bulky computer keyboard until he realized I was waiting for his attention and stopped. "What?" he demanded, this time irritated.

"I heard you guys are moving," I said, having determined that I was going to act calm and casual during this discussion, but I could already feel it like a hard shove to the chest.

He looked at me with his massive green eyes and swallowed hard, turning away and confirming it with a simple, "Yeah."

"When?"

"After my eighth grade graduation," he reported, tugging a hand through his hair and acting like he had the entire time he'd known—awkward, fidgety, and cold towards his parents. "Who told you? Did Fynn say it?"

"Well, no. I've known for a while—I think before he found out," I admitted. I jumped up to sit on his solid wood desk and crossed my legs at the ankles. "Did you guys go looking for houses when you were there?"

"Yeah. I didn't go until they found 'the one', whatever that means," he muttered under his breath. He sighed and plopped his head on his hand and looked at me cautiously. "And you've known for... how long?"

"Pretty much all summer, actually. I bet you guys are gonna go back there for Christmas break, huh?"

"Yeah. Grandma and Grandpa Walton are really excited about it. We'll probably be, like, five miles from their house," he told me. "They hate coming here in the winter. They say it's too cold, and there's too much snow."

"But snow's so much fun! Y'all're gonna have to play in the fog and stuff," I complained, and he laughed and muttered a simple, "Yeah, we are," sotto voce.

My heart was pounding in my chest, and it started to heat up my face with the idea of never seeing Parker again. "I'm gonna miss you guys when you go."

He lightly slapped my arm and said, "Don't say that now. It's too soon. Here, I'll show you pictures of the house. We'll have a pool, and there's a bunch of extra bedrooms for when you guys come to visit."

I knew it would be impossible for us to visit them. I mean, it was all the way across the ocean. Wouldn't I need a passport for that? Didn't that stuff cost money? But I didn't argue because the idea sounded fun, and the house was gorgeous, perhaps even more beautiful than this lakeside house that would probably sell for a little under a million dollars. Two stories of modern class and a renovated home theatre in the basement? Five bedrooms for a growing family? And the lovely neighborhood just a walk away from a public park, and a short trip to the beach on a sunny day.

He was talking about his room, and how it would be facing the backyard, and how he'd probably get a loft built in for his bed, when Fynn abruptly barged in with a, "Ha ha! I found you!" before he realized what we were actually doing. His entire visage dropped, his shoulders slumped, and the scowl on his face said just what he thought about the entire ordeal.

A second later, he marched out of Parker's room and slammed the door.

"Bloody hell," Parker groaned, rubbing his hands over his face as he said, "Mum doesn't want us bringing it up 'round him. He gets pissy if we do."

"I'm gonna find him," I reported, bouncing off the desk and racing out the door after the sound of Fynn's heavy footsteps down the hall. Before he had the chance to slam himself in his room, I budged the door open and slipped in. He groaned loudly, throwing his arms in the air as he flopped down into his bed.

He didn't say anything for a while, and I almost thought he was suffocating himself in his bedsheets before he sat up with a red tinge around his eyes. He fixed his glasses up and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

I jumped up onto the bed next to him and simply crossed my legs, not saying a word. Eventually he sighed and said, "I didn't wanna tell you."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not!" he shouted. "How could you say that?"

I should have expected the explosion, but it caught me off guard and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from tearing up. He must have caught on to it, because a moment later he threw his arms around me and apologized for yelling. "It's just--I don't wanna go. I hate England! I never wanna go there again!"

"I dunno. It sounds kinda cool. I mean, they have good chocolate," I said, sniffing and rubbing my eyes from beneath the lens of my glasses. "You can send me letters, and little souvenirs."

"This whole thing is bollocks!" he moaned, voice breaking and tears swelling in his eyes. He looked like Parker did when he was in fifth grade, upset over the fact that he had a B in Comm Arts because he "lacked creativity". It wasn't his fault his imagination was a bit off kilter, and it wasn't Fynn's fault that they were moving back to England.

Not knowing what else to say, I muttered, "I know."

Because it was true. This entire situation was bollocks.

—

Between Mom and Lucas, it seemed Lucas was harboring the most pity. He walked on eggshells around me because I tended to snap at him without meaning to. On one day when it was his turn to take Parker, Fynn, and I to school since Mrs. Walton was "working on something", he made up a game for us.

"It's called Would You Rather," he said, turning the volume down on Britney Spears on the radio.

"Ugh, played that game before," Parker said. "What about iSpy?"

"I'm too tired to play iSpy," I whined from the backseat. "What's Would You Rather?"

"I give you two options, and you have to pick between the two," Lucas said, and Parker ducked out of the game faster than we could say, "Okay."

The game started as we exited the steep slope out of the neighborhood. The first question was, "Would you rather have a fish or a hamster?"

"Hamster!" Fynn and I said in unison. We laughed and punched one enough, yelling, "Jinx! You owe me a soda!" "Bloody- fine, alright."

"Hamster or bird?"

"I dunno, birds are pretty cool. Like a parrot?"

"Yeah, a parrot."

"Parrot or cat?"

"Cat!"

"Cat or dog?" Fynn and I disagreed on this one. I'd prefer a dog any day.

We dropped Parker off at school after a few more rounds of, "Would you rather drink ketchup or mustard?" He jumped out of the car like he was saving himself from some dreadful conversation. In the next moment we were pulling into Lucas's preferred parking spot on the opposite side of the lot separating the elementary school from the middle school. Fynn and I jumped out of the backseat, our backpacks in hand, and began the walk towards the mob of students waiting to be let inside.

Joni met up with us and showed me the burn she'd gotten on her arm from her kitchen stove. "Ouchie, doesn't it hurt?"

"Yeah, but I have this ice pack to help," she informed me, holding up a polka-dot printed ice pack that was losing it's impact. It was an unusually warm fall evening, which meant hardly anyone was wearing a jacket, unless their moms told them to.

It was around fifth grade that Joni started reading a lot of books, and by a lot I meant a lot. We had calendars to mark our reading minutes, and she had hours upon hours listed on hers. Her mom was like my mom--she loved books and had an entire collection in their living room. Parker was the same, and he'd read books to Fynn and I and help us with our reading homework.

Fifth grade was the year Joni convinced me to give reading a try after I saw her across the room with a big fat black, white, and red book in her hand next to the polka-dot printed ice bag.

"What's that?"

"This? It's my new book."

"Yeah, but what's it about?" I asked. It was silent reading time, and we'd claimed the bean bag chairs in the library among Fynn, Ryan, and a kid named Brock who read books with pictures of trucks in it.

"It's about love and vampires, and werewolves and high school," she told me, showing me the small print on the pages, and the illustration of an apple in the pale hands of a stranger. "You should read it, you might like it."

I scrunched up my nose and said, "No thanks. Maybe later."

Joni giggled and told me about how she swooned whenever her favorite character was mentioned, and I think that was the start of "ships" and "teams" where she got a sticker that said "Team Jacob" on her expandable folder. Joni was a fangirl before anyone else in our grade, and was a year ahead of anyone because in sixth grade, everyone was all about Twilight, Twilight, Twilight. Heck, even I was.

As embarrassing as it was, Twilight was the very first real book I read.

Reading wasn't all that exciting for me until middle school, so I stuck to a series filled with fantasy and fairy tales, and illustrations with such detail, I'd stare at them for hours like a Where's Waldo? picture.

I was all about Puck in The Sister's Grimm series.

Grandma Hemming bought the entire series for me, and that was the start of my collection. I piled them all up on my bookshelf at home that was filled with trinkets instead of books. Joni added to it with all the books she had finished and thought I would like, and I never got around to them that year in school. I'd look at them, ponder reading them, and never had the motivation to read over a hundred pages.

After school that day, Joni and Clara came over and the four of us gathered together in the far back seat of Mrs. Walton's soccer mom van with Lucas in the driver's seat and Mom in the passenger's. As we drove away from the elementary school after picking up Parker, I realized we'd left Lucas's slick black car in the parking lot.

We made a turn away from our neighborhood, and upon my correction, Mom said, "We're going on a field trip."

"To where?"

"Apple picking?"

"No, pumpkin farm!"

"I dunno about you guys, but I could go for some ice cream," Parker said loudly, causing us four in the back to laugh for a solid five minutes about ice cream and apple picking, and all things fall and Halloween.

We drove through alfalfa fields and corn fields, past farm houses and small neighborhoods in the-middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin. Port seemed long gone the farther we strayed from it, but in a matter of thirty minutes we found our destination.

It was a small ranch out in a field of barley with a sign out by the country road made of cardboard. It said, "BERNESE MOUNTAIN DOGS FOR SALE".

"Oh my gosh," I breathed, gasping at the sight of the sign. "Oh my gosh!"

In the front I heard Mom giggle to herself, and I could practically hear the sound of Lucas smiling in accomplishment. We all scrambled to press our noses against the window as we approached the house where three cars were parked out in the grass. Lucas pulled up to a stop next to one of them, and soon we were all piling out after Parker, hardly able to pick ourselves off the ground at the sight of the black fur-balls corralled out in the grass. Before any humans could welcome us, a massive, fluffy Bernese Mountain Dog bounded up with a notable white stripe of fur running between his eyes and encompassing his muzzle, like someone poured milk down the middle of his forehead.

"Aw, what a handsome young man," Mom cooed. "Hey there, Hercules."

The dog nuzzled his head against her side while we all crowded around him, throwing ourselves into his fur and reading off the name tag. His name was, indeed, Hercules.

The owners of Hercules approached us, apparently excited to see Lucas and Mom again. I was so overwhelmed with love for Hercules and his love for me that I nearly forgot that we weren't here for Hercules.

We were here for the bundles of joy out in the grass.

The owner opened up the gate to the area, allowing us kids to be engulfed by the generous supply of puppies. Hercules sat outside of the fenced-in area, his chest puffed out as the proud father of seven gorgeous littleuns.

"Oh my gosh, look at him! His face is all scrunched up!" Clara cooed, nuzzling her nose against the fur coat of the puppy. He couldn't seem to keep his tongue in his mouth, and ended up slobbering all over her pants, as if she cared. They were all too cute to worry about something as trivial as dog slobber.

As I sat there stroking the head of a tired little fella bundled in a blanket, my sights caught on a puppy sitting straight across from me. The thing that struck me the most was the pale blue in his right eye, and he deep chocolate brown in the other. When he noticed me staring, he started panting and slapping his tail against the ground. When I smiled, he jumped up and pranced towards me.

I must have laid there with that puppy for an hour before I saw Lucas's shadow cast over me. "Well? What do you think?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, sitting up and placing the little guy in my lap. He'd fallen asleep and nestled his head in the crook of my knee.

"Do you like this one?" he rephrased, crouching down to stroke the head of the puppy in my lap. I stared at him for a solid minute, wondering if this was a joke or not. Could it be? Was I about to get a dog of my very own?

"This one's my favorite," I declared truthfully. Lucas sat down beside me and lifted one of the puppy's paws, commenting that they were large, which would mean this little guy would one day be a big guy, perhaps twice as big as me. I didn't care--that would mean there would be more of him to love.

As it turned out, the puppy with the one blue eye was reserved for a couple that came in yesterday. Lucas was adamant, though, that I would get this one and no other. Mom stood with me by the gate, my friends out running around the yard with Hercules, and asked me, "Are you sure you want this one? Have you looked at the other six?"

"This one's my favorite though."

"Yes, but someone's already claimed him." I frowned. I never liked the idea of "dibs", but it seemed like this one was serious. The longer I looked down at the little guy, the sadder I got because I knew I couldn't have him.

He sat there wagging his fluffy tail, looking up at me like, "Take me, please!"

At the same time, I didn't want to take him from someone who loved him just as much as I did, so I entered the fenced in area again and looked around at the other puppies, but the blue and brown eyed one followed me everywhere, trying to nudge his way back onto my lap.

As if his empathy towards me wasn't already bad enough, Lucas felt even worse that I'd gone and fallen in love with a puppy I couldn't have. After a long conversation with the owner, the man went inside to call the people who reserved the puppy. They said they'd give him up for an extra fifty dollars.

"We can afford it," Mom told the man, ecstatic that they wouldn't leave with a depressed daughter and no puppy.

Fynn picked up the bicolored-eyed dog and stared him in the face before asking me, "What're you gonna name him?"

"How about Sampson? I've always liked that name," Joni suggested, rubbing the puppy's head and babbling to it.

I told them I'd think about it on the ride home, because I didn't want him to go nameless for too long. I did enjoy the name Sampson as well, but this guy wasn't a Sampson to me. He was something else, something better.

Something like my favorite book character.

We went to PetSmart and went shopping for a dog bed, a collar, and a leash because Mom and already purchased the kennel while we were at school. Parker and the others went down the isle of dog toys while I carried the nameless puppy over to the back wall where Lucas pulled down bed after bed, testing the density of the cushioning, the size of it compared to the dog, and the pattern I loved best. We settled for a bed three times the size of the dog, because he insisted, "He'll grow into it, trust me."

"I think he's name's gonna be Puck," I blurted out, drawing Mom's attention to me, as if it wasn't already there--I was holding a dog for goodness sake's. What if I dropped it?

"Puck?"

"Yeah, like from The Sister's Grimm," I said, and she smiled graciously at me.

Lucas grinned, tucking the dog bed under his arm and saying, "Puck it is, then."

Puck grew like magic. One day I could barely hold him, and the next I couldn't carry him at all. He pranced around the house with his nails clicking against the wood and thumping against the carpet. He got fur everywhere, especially on warmer days when Fynn, Parker and I hosed him down outside on the driveway. Around spring, he wasn't allowed in the Walton residence because they were preparing it for open houses, which were crazy experiences because the four of us; Puck, Parker, Fynn, and I would sit in my yard and watch cars park up against the curb and people tour the house.

We'd all pretty much come to terms with their future in Europe.

Puck slept with me at night, kept me warm in the winter, and provided support when I needed a backrest for movie watching. The thing he loved most besides scratches behind his ears was popcorn and walks on the beach. When the water wasn't so cold, we'd spend hours throwing tennis balls out into the water and watching Puck battle against the waves crashing onto shore. By the time summer came, he was so well trained, he'd memorized his walking route and didn't need a leash.

Puck's companionship was best spent on the days in the summer when I missed Fynn the most, or when our new neighbors moved in across the road--a family of three who promptly became friends with Bluebell's parents. They had a kid three years younger than us, and Bluebell ended up babysitting for him on the weekends.

The day the Walton's left, the sky was overcast and sprinkled over the lake. Mr. Walton was talking to Lucas about keeping his boat in check out by the pier, and he promised he would. Mrs. Walton hugged Mom more than once, promising to call her when they arrived at the airport, and when they arrived at the airport in New York, and then again at the one London.

Parker screwed his eyes shut and rubbed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, groaning about how he wasn't good with goodbyes. He was still a bit teary-eyed about his farewell with Kylie and the friends in his eighth grade class. Eventually he sniffed and took a deep breath in, and I tried to laugh but it was too forced to seem real.

"Well, I guess... I'll see you later? I mean, maybe."

"Yeah. Email me if you get the chance. Send pictures," I told him, and he nodded, throwing his arms around me and hugging me so tightly, I thought I might snap in two.

At that point he gave Mom and Lucas a goodbye hug before declaring he was done for the day, and hopped into the back seat of their rental car from the airport.

Before Fynn could say a word, he was hugging me and I was hugging him. Puck scratched at my leg, probably because he could smell the brackish scent of salty tears. "I'm gonna miss you. Promise me you'll email me back," Fynn said, and all I could do was nod into his Port Bergen sweatshirt.

"Don't forget about me," I told him, squeezing harder around his scrawny frame. His hair smelt like mint and basil, the strongest smelling herbs that used to be in the Walton's kitchen, but where now stored on my kitchen sink windowsill.

"I won't."

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" I said, and he laughed and pulled away, crossing his chest and swearing the Oath of the Mighty Maple Tree over our heads.

"Stick a needle in my-"

"Gross, no," I giggled, shoving his shoulder. "That's disgusting. You just gotta cross your heart."

"I did! I did cross my heart, and now you gotta. You best not forget about me or I'm gonna bloody come back here and-"

"Wait, what's your name? I suddenly forgot." He pursed his lips and smacked me in the arm, muttering about how he didn't like sarcasm because his mom was sarcastic enough as it was. Still, I crossed my heart and swore the oath his mother taught us back when we were in third grade.

Fynn knelt down and hugged Puck goodbye, and he answered back with a slobbery kiss in the ear. Fynn scrubbed his ear against his shoulder and sniffed, declaring that he would email me as soon as he was able too--he would even email me off of his dad's laptop if they couldn't get the family computer up and running fast enough. I agreed, already planning to email him hourly updates on Puck and I as soon as I got inside.

Before the Walton's got into their car, they turned their eyes one last time on their own home. Mrs. Walton's garden in the back, the swing on their half of the oak tree, the massive lake-side windows all belonged to someone else now.

Puck understood better than anyone gave him credit for what was really happening when the Walton's drove down the road for the last time, because he whined when he saw Fynn crying into his sweatshirt sleeve, and saw Parker wave at us from the backseat.