Dollar Runaways

Chapter 15: Old Friends

THE NEXT MORNING, I found myself woken up early. "Isn't Sunday for sleeping in?" I whined. Mom had just laughed though, pushed me to get dressed, and out the door to feed the birds. As soon as the morning chores were done Mom walked with me upstairs.

"Okay, first thing you need to do is take a shower. Go ahead and use a shower cap on your hair though - I think it still looks fine and I don't want to redo it yet."

I nodded, 'It still looks pretty.'

"Then put on this dress," she told me, pointing to a cute flowery sundress we had picked up.

"Okay," I sleepily responded.

As I took the shower, I woke up a bit more and wondered why we were up earlier. It had actually been just barely past dark this morning and I'd needed the lights they had around the pens to even be able to see. George didn't even attack me that morning - he seemed to think it was too early for such foolishness too.

I turned the shower off and made sure that my 'Hi Madison' still looked good before wrapping myself in a towel and going out to my room. 'This is the last morning I won't have to fight for the shower...' I thought a little glumly. Really even if I was my real age I would have worried about Madison, but being the kid five years younger than her I figured that she would want nothing to do with me. 'That's the way boys are at least...'

The dress Mom had picked out was by far the dressiest dress I'd worn yet. I held it up by the two, inch-wide straps. There was a white base to the dress, but it was covered with watercolor style flowers in a shade of blue, a shade of aqua, and black. The many blue flowers almost made the dress seem blue at places. At the bottom there were some weird gathers to the skirt so that it became tiered with three layers of skirt at the bottom that ruffled a bit. I untied the ribbon that made a bow at the back, unzipped it, and then pulled over my head.

I fought for several minutes to try and get the zipper up, but I just couldn't do it!!! I finally had enough and went across the hall, opening Mom's bedroom door. She was putting a pair of earrings in her ears, "Mommy, can you help me?" I said and turned around to show her the zipper.

"The zipper monster got you, huh?" She asked me. I could tell there was a smile on her face without even looking at her.

"Something like that."

I felt her reach down, pull the fabric together and zip up the dress. She messed around at the top for a moment and then I felt her hands tug on the ribbon.

"I never would have gotten the bow like that," I told her, as I turned sideways to see the bow that she tied in back.

"You will someday with practice," she told me with a smile. "Turn back around for a moment," she told me. I felt her tug a little on my hair.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, your hair mostly stayed perfectly last night, but the bow in the back I tied at the end was lopsided." She paused for a moment, "It was bugging me."

I gave her a hug when she was done, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Why are we dressed up?" I asked her.

"Church," was her answer.

"But we usually do mass on Saturdays..."

"We're going to Gloria's church."

"Oh," I said, "what kind of church is it?"

"Non-denominational."

"What's that?"