Ronald's diner

chapter 12

I.

Ronald awoke to the sensation of his eyelids being pulled open and the sight of Hana filling his field of vision.

"Morning Ronald!" Hana announced happily as Rufus released his hold of Ronald's eyelids.

"Well, morning Hana, you too, Rufus." Ronald said as she slowly sat up in bed. The previous night, his mother had gently threatened Ronald that she would disown him if he didn't stay to get a good night's sleep in the families' guest bed room.

"I wanted to tell you good morning before I go to school." Hana said proudly.

Go to school? Ronald wondered just how late had he slept? "What time is it?"

"It's almost nine in the morning, which means you had better get a move on young lady." Barbara Stoppable said from the doorway, "Now finish telling your brother goodbye."

"Ok. Bye Ronald, love you." Hana said as she gave Ronald a big hug.
"Love you too, Hana." Ronald said as she returned the hug and added a small kiss to the top of her head. "Guess that leaves just me and Rufus here today then."

"Uh, uh." Rufus said, shaking his head no.

"What? Rufus, you don't want to spend time with me?" Ronald asked in mild surprise.

"Rufus is coming with me to show and tell today." Hana said proudly.

"Huh huh, show and tell." Rufus said as he scrambled into Hana's open backpack.

"Oh, well, ok then, you two have fun at school today." Ronald said as he masked his disappointment. He had hoped that he could at least spend a few hours with his old friend Rufus before leaving his parents' house to go see Bonnie and to return to his own home in Lowerton.

After Hana and Rufus left, Ronald made his way downstairs for breakfast. In the dining room, he found his mom finishing packing up Hana's lunch when she saw her son enter the room. "Good morning Ronald, how did you sleep last night?"

"Pretty good mom, or at least until Hana and Rufus came to wake me up."

"Well, don't be too cross with them, I told them they needed to wake you up before you slept the whole day away."

"And what's wrong with that?" Ronald asked in mock annoyance.

Barbara simply smiled as she closed the lid on Hana's lunch box, "I'm glad to see that some things about my boy haven't changed. Your father has already left for work, and I need to go to the grocery store after dropping Hana off at school so you'll have the house to yourself for most of the day. There's food in the fridge so help yourself to some breakfast." Barbara instructed as she herded Hana out the door. "Oh and Ronald, one last thing, I know that you're going to visit Bonnie at the hospital today, but I hope that you find time to try and talk to Kim and Ron also. I know you're not happy with them, but please, for your mother, at least try to patch things up with them. After all, they are family."

Making his way to the kitchen in order to make some breakfast, Ronald began to think about what his mother had said about Kim and Ron. Opening the refrigerator door Ronald simply stared blankly at the food inside, while normally Ronald would have loved nothing better than to put his cooking skills to the test by seeing what sort of meal he could come up with based on the random ingredients in some one else's kitchen, today he simply did not feel in the mood to cook. Making himself a cup of coffee instead, he tried to sort through his thoughts about his encounter with Kim and Ron from last night.

Yes, his mother was right about Kim and Ron being family, but that still didn't excuse Ron's actions. Trying to patch up his relationship with Kim and Ron had not been high on Ronald's to do list, and last night's tiff was a clear indication of just how hard of a project that was going to be. Besides which there was still a small part of his mind that was vocal in expressing its anger towards Kim and Ron and would be happy to never see or hear from them again. If Ronald was going to be to be honest with himself and others, then he had to admit that fact.