Shaken

Chapter 5

     Days soon turned into weeks. Early September got old and the leaves on the tree outside Abby’s apartment bedroom started to turn yellow. October came and Abby had temporarily moved into Traci’s house. The clothes had been moved into the closet, and the trundle bed was permanently set out on the floor. Abby had gone back to the apartment several times to turn things off, or to pick something up.

     It was Thanksgiving break, and Abby was at the Supermarket with Traci arguing with her about which flavor of pudding they were going to get for the big dinner tomorrow.

     “Pistachio is more creative than just ‘chocolate vanilla’!” Traci said pointing at the picture on the front of the Jell-O box.

     “But it’s green.” Abby argued back. “Who wants green goop on their plate?”

      They continued to argue, until Traci’s mom came down the isle with the shopping cart and picked up the tapioca pudding on the bottom of the shelf of Jell-O puddings. Abby and Traci looked at each other and started laughing. They walked through the rest of the store, stopping to pick up a few extra things, then checked out.

     When they returned home, Abby thought of Clark. For the past few weeks, Abby often saw Clark at the hospital with who she guessed was his mom. She wasn’t one to butt into other business, so she didn’t know exactly what was wrong with Clarks' mom. As they unpacked the food brought in from the car, and put it away in it’s various places, Abby decided to do something nice for Clark.

     “Traci,” Abby said quietly, so Traci’s mom couldn’t hear, “Do you think we could make cookies for Clark and his mom?”

     Traci was silent for a moment, then “ Sure. But, why?”

     “I don’t know. I but I have a feelings there’s something very wrong with Clarks mom, health wise.” Abby answered.

     “I was kinda having the same thought.” Traci said.

     As Traci’s mom got dinner ready, Abby and Traci took the cook books upstairs to their room and searched through the various cookie recipe’s. They didn’t know if Clark had any allergies, so they crossed out all the cookies involving nuts and chocolate. They finally decided on Molasses cookies.

     They ran downstairs to the office and copied the recipe in the all-in-one Office jet printer. They waited anxiously for dinner to be over, did the dishes quickly and told Traci’s parent’s they were going back to Abby’s apartment to grab something. They jumped into the car and drove to the apartment complex. The electricity would not shut off for another 2 weeks, so they turned on the oven and put the ingredients on the table.

     About an hour and a half later, 24 Molasses Cookies sat on the counter top, flour on the floor, and cookie doe in the two girls belly’s. They put the cookies on a large dish and covered it with sticky wrap.

     “Aaah, that was fun.” Traci said, rubbing her belly as they swept up the flour on the flour and wiped off the counters.

     “Yeppers!” Abby laughed.

     They put their shoes and coats on, walking out of the apartment. Abby took one more glance into the room, then closed the door. They walked down the sidewalk towards the car, Abby holding the still warm cookies in her cold hands. Traci unlocked the car and started to get in. But she stopped and squinted across the street. A tan F-150 was parked opposite of Traci’s. Sitting in the passengers seat was Braena. She was hunched over something, with her ear buds plugged in. A man came out of one of the small houses on that side of the street and slammed it. He got into the F-150 and yelled something at Braena, then drove off.