the Scuffy - 18. Chapter 18

The rest of the week was normal, up at five thirty, mourning routine, breakfast at Marge’s and leaving the office at six.

Wednesday we stopped at Grandmother’s and gave the boys their banks. I had to go to Peter’s room to watch him put his money in his bank. I think he slept with that bank that night.

Thursday, Nicky had his second party. There were two more boys beside Nicky and Jaime. The party seems to be going well when Jamie came up. “Kevin, Johnny is acting a little funny, I need to call my dad.”

“Glen, would you go down and see what’s going on?”

“Kevin, my dad will be here soon.”

Glen came up with Nicky and a young man who I assumed was Johnny. Looking at the boy you could see he wasn’t right. “Sit here, Glen get him a glass of water.” Glen sat the glass down in front of him.

Jamie left and soon returned with his dad. “Johnny, are you okay?”

“Yes, sir”

“Have you been taking anything?”

“Only aspirin for my headache”

“Do you have anymore?”

“Yes”

“May I see them?”

Johnny took a small cellophane package with two tablets out of his pocket. He gave it to Jamie’s dad. Johnny and Jamie left with Jamie’s dad.

“Nicky, did you know that Johnny was into drugs?”

“No, he’s usually a quiet kid. I was surprised he came.”

“Do you think he believes he had aspirin?”

“Yes, there are these two guys who like to play tricks. They probably told him they were aspirin.”

“You better go back to your party, I’ll send Jamie down when he returns.”

Two hours later Jamie returned, “Jamie, did you dad say Johnny was okay?”

“I think dad’s a little suspicious. There are drugs being passed around at school. Johnny might help him find out who is doing it.”

“Kev, the kid didn’t look like he was on drugs. He looked okay when he arrived. I’d think if he was on drugs, he’d have taken them sooner.”

“I hope you are right and Bob can get a line on who is involved.”

“Kev, can you give Jamie a ride home?”

“Sure let’s go Jamie, you’ll need to show me where you live.”

“I hope Johnny’s problem doesn’t stop Nicky from having his parties. The movies are awesome.”

“Are you going on the boat with us tomorrow?”

“No, I have to work the Pizza Parlor but I’ll be there next week.”

“That’ll be fine.”

Dropping Jamie off, arriving home, “Where’s Glen”

“He went to bed. Kev, I’m sorry about Johnny, I hope you aren’t mad.”

“I’m not mad Nicky. You can finish cleaning up tomorrow. I’m going to bed.”

It was strange, I showered by myself. Crawling in bed, trying not to waken Glen, I drifted off to sleep.

When I woke at five thirty, Glen was nestled in my arm why his head on my chest. “Morning, let’s get going.”

“Can’t we snuggle a little, I missed my snuggle last night.”

I passed up the workout to snuggle with Glen, and I wasn’t sorry. We snuggled till six and then we had to get out of bed. “Let’s shower and get dressed.” This morning shower made up for missing last night’s shower. I was almost ready to lock the door to the workout room, forsaking our morning routine. Almost, but I knew that the workout was important for Glen and I.

“I hope Nicky made coffee.”

Walking into the kitchen holding hands, no Nicky. I heard the vacuum cleaner, “Nicky, do you want coffee?”

“Yes, thanks, I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

I started the coffee, Glen poured the orange juice. “Do you want some toast or a piece of leftover pizza?”

“Just toast, we are going to get something at Marge’s right?”

“Sure, this is just to take the edge off. All finished?”

“Yep, are you going to make breakfast?”

“Nope, but you can. There are eggs and turkey bacon in the fridge, help yourself. As soon as we finish our coffee, we need to get going.”

It didn’t take long before Nicky was fixing his breakfast. The food smelled delicious , “Glen, we better get going because if we stay any longer we’ll be late. That breakfast smells really good.”

“If you have time today, can you do some shopping for the boat. I think those lasagna dinners went pretty well, so let’s get more of those. We can get chicken at Chicken Shack. You can get some bakery buns, we can get corned beef and pastrami from Stella. What you don’t get, we can get at lunch time.”

“Do you have ice in the ice chest ?”

“Yes, I have enough. With the frozen food it should be ok.”

“Okay, let’s get some breakfast and then I’ll see how busy we are. Maybe Dad will let me go and do some shopping.”

The rest of the day went pretty much as any Friday, We told Stella what we wanted for the sandwiches. By the time we finished lunch, she had it ready to go. I went back to work, Glen took the food to the car and put the lunch meat in the ice chest.

I was ready at three but I waited for Glen, “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes, I was waiting for you”

“Good, you can carry these bags.”

Arriving home, Nicky was ready to go. Glen and I changed from suits to shorts, we were ready.