The Dangers of Pomegranate Salad

Chapter 7

Chapter 8 Secret Agent Girl And The Wacky Weather.

I get up and get ready. In the bathroom I give myself a little pep talk “after mom’s plans you are going to get ready for when Haden comes over, when he gets here, you are going to kiss him. So when you get back you’d better get ready. For the kiss” I say. That was a lame pep talk I think.  I keep getting ready.

 A few minutes later and I head down stairs. Mom, Henri and Jen are all sitting at the table, waiting for me. “Ok, so we have a lot to do today, and only a day to do it. So we’re going to do secret missions.” Mom says Jen pumps her arm, “yes!” she says. Secret missions were a thing we used to do when we had a lot of stuff to get at a store, my mom and dad would give us each a specific item to find and we had to go find it and bring it back. It was fun when we snuck around like spies. We haven’t done secret missions in a long time.

 “Ok, I need library books taken back; I need someone to get dog food, cat litter, milk, laundry detergent, etc. I need Jen to pick out a present for Alice, and I need someone to clean up the house.” Mom says. “Henri and Terre, you are taking the books back and cleaning the house. Jen and I will go to the store to get groceries and Alice’s present. Now, go, go, go!!!” we rush out to the cars. Henri and I get into the car me holding the bag of library books. Henri starts the car and we head for the library. We don’t talk for a while, “So, how’s that job of yours going?” asks Henri. “Oh it’s going good. I’m almost done.” I tell him. “Cool” he says. We sit awkwardly in the silence the rest of the way there. We arrive and I drop off the books, make a quick hello to my librarian friend then head back to Henri’s car.

 We drive home and then we start cleaning. And by we, I mean I start cleaning. Henri disappears to his room. I don’t pester him about it and just clean. I finish pretty quickly and go outside to my garden. The sky looks kind of overcast and I hope it doesn’t rain. I let out Zero and K-9. They run around, happily chasing each other.

I work in my garden for a few hours until mom and Jen get home. I go out to help them bring in groceries. We put everything away while Jen tells us the adventure she had trying to find Alice a present; apparently Wal-Mart didn’t have any of the things Alice had wanted so they ended up getting her a gift card. But for some reason the gift card wouldn’t work so they had to get a different gift card. It was weird hearing about it, but according to Jen it was very exciting. We finish putting away the groceries, and Jen and I decide to play Monopoly in the living room. Mom watches TV while we play. Jen is the shoe and I’m the little dog. We play for a while and it seems like Jen is winning. Then someone knocks at the door. “Terre will you answer it please?” mom asks. I nod and run over to do so. I trip on my way down the stairs and tumble the rest of the way, somehow landing on my feet.  I open the door and standing there is Haden. I had completely forgotten to say something to mom.  “Terre who is it?” mom calls from the living room. “Oh, um, I forgot to tell you, um...” mom comes out of the living room. “Oh, it’s Haden” she says surprised. “Yeah, Uh, I forgot to tell you that I had asked him to come hang out in the garden. He wanted to see it” I say.

 I’m not normally impulsive, but last night I had been. Something about Haden makes me so scatter brained. “Well, ok. I guess that’s fine. But you should have said something” mom says frowning. “Sorry. I forgot” I say quietly, ashamed of myself. “It’s fine, but please tell me next time when you decide to invite friends over” I nod. “Ok” I say. “This way” I say, leading him to the back. Zero and K-9 come up to Haden and sniff him thoroughly. Haden pets them, and smiles. “I’m a dog person” he tells me. I nod; we keep going with the dogs following.

 “I half expected you to come knocking at my back door” I tell him once we’re in the garden.

 “I almost did, but then thought that would be odd. So I went around to the front of the house.” I laugh. “So this is my garden.” I say.  He nods. “I like it. It’s got a magical feel to it.” He says as he looks around. “I especially like the gate thing. That just looks awesome.” “Thanks. I worked hard to get this whole thing to look like this. We sit down on a bench together. “So… How was your day?” I ask him.

 He shrugs “boring” I nod. “What about you?” he asks.  “I went to the library.”   It’s about now that I realize we are really close to each other. Really close. I could kiss him right now…. Haden and I lean closer together, our lips almost touching. And then it starts down pouring.

 “Gah!” I yell at the sudden cold. We back away from each other immediately.  We run under the deck to get out of the rain, laughing as we do.  I open the door to the house and we rush inside out of the rain laughing at our bad luck.  We head into the living room where mom and Jen are. Mom looks at us suspiciously. “Why are you wet?” she asks. “It’s raining” Haden says. Mom nods. “Uh huh” I roll my eyes “can we perhaps play monopoly in here?” I ask. “Yes” mom says. “But you have to let your sister play” she says. Jen smirks at me. “Ok, that’s fine” I say. We set up monopoly again, this time Haden is the dog, I’m the shoe and Jen is the thimble. We turn on doctor who and Mom watches us as we play, making sure we don’t get into any ‘shenanigans’ but we don’t, and even if she wasn’t here we wouldn’t do anything in front of Jen.  We play through half of series five of Doctor Who before Haden decides he should go home. “Bye” I tell him, “see you Monday” he says and then he leaves.