Kristen and I ran up the stars skippin’ every other one. I let her go take a hot bath first and went to get something to cover myself up with. The first thing I spotted was a pair of Benjamin’s underwear. I pulled them on, it felt funny since I hadn’t worn underwear in a while now. I didn’t doddle over those feeling too long; I wanted to race back downstairs to check on Doc Wilson for myself and to show ma my new farm license.

“Wow that is a big goose you got!” I said admirin’ the bump on the back of his head. He shot me a crooked smile and closed his eyes as he rested a towel filled with ice against his throbbin’ welt.

Without openin’ his eyes he said to pa, “When you’re ready to slaughter that pig, you’ll let me have first whack at it won’t ya?”

Pa grinned, “You got it! How about next weekend?”

When Doc Wilson was feelin’ up to it, pa insisted that he drive him home. After a little fussin’ Doc Wilson gave in and pa drove the Doc’s car while Christopher followed them with his own truck.

You know, in the Bible it says that everything works out for the good and I guess now I understand that better now. Durin’ the drive back pa and Christopher got to do a load of talking. You should have seen how relieved Meggin was when the two of them came home laughing.

Pa, Christopher and Meggin spent the better part of that evenin’ talkin’ in pa and ma’s room. The rest of us were curious ‘cause we couldn’t hear nothin’ that was goin’ on inside either so we tried to keep busy to keep from goin’ crazy with the not knowing.

I guess everyone was extra hungry too ‘cause the whole lot of us ate enough for two meals. Connie cooked up a mess of Stew Bake. If’n you don’t know what Stew Bake is, it’s loads of taters, corn, beans, bacon, and whatever other stuff you want to toss into a big fryin’ pan. When it’s almost done you got to pore cornbread batter over the lot of it and shove the whole thing in the stove for a bit. Connie makes it good but ma makes it loads better.

 

Later, after everyone had gone to bed Vincent woke me up by pokin’ me in the forehead and asking, “Are you awake?”

“Well I am now!” I grumbled. I’d been havin’ a really nifty dream were I was a secret agent and now I was annoyed that Vincent had interrupted it.

“I’m hungry,” he said and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“You’re what?” I asked bitterly.

He made a face as if I was the one bein’ bothersome, “Well I don’t know if it is ok to go get a snack or not.” He said.

I rubbed at my eyes, “What are you talkin’ about?”

He pulled my hand impatiently away from my eyes, “What if they are still awake and talking?”

“What—what time is it?” I asked.

It was Benjamin that answered energetically, “Nearly 1:30!”

“In the morning?” I whined with disbelief.

“Do you think it is ok to go get a snack?” Benjamin asked.

“Yeah we’re hungry!” Vincent added.

I was gettin’ really upset now. I mean, that was a really good dream and those two rat-brained buffoons woke me up just to tell me they had a case of the munchies?!

“What are you askin’ me for? It’s not like we’ve never snuck down in the middle of the night!”

I must have been talkin’ louder then I thought because Vincent pressed his hand against my mouth. Takin’ a page out of Kristen’s book I gave his hand a good chomp. I could tell that it hurt by the way his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He sucked on his bottom lip, pressed his achin’ hand against his thigh and moaned softly.

“Dangit that hurt!” he sniveled.

“Serves you right!” I said softer this time, “Now leave me alone so I can go back to sleep!” I huffed, rolled over and squeezed my eyes tightly closed hopin’ I could continue dreamin’ that same dream. But my brothers weren’t willin’ to let me alone.

“Come with us?” Vincent pleaded and I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was scared but was tryin’ not to show it.

“Ok but if we get caught I am tellin’ dad that it was your idea!” I said throwin’ off my covers and climbin’ out of bed. My diaper felt a little heavier then it had when I’d gone to bed and I knew I’d already wet in it at least once but wasn’t worried ’cause I was sure it could take a lot more.

The two of them made me take the lead; they are both such cowards! We crept down the steps and I stopped at the bottom to make sure everyone was indeed in bed; they were. However when I had stopped my stupid brothers kept comin’ down and nearly plowed me over.

“Hey watch it!” I grunted softly.

One of them, I don’t know which, whispered, “It’s so dark!”

“Yeah what were you expecting?” I shot back, “Christopher and Meggin are probably sleepin’ in the other room.”

Back to belly the three of us tiptoed through the dark to the pantry. I knew from experience that if I opened the door too fast that it would squeak so I was careful to open as slowly as possible. Once it was opened I pulled out a jar from the very back of the third shelf from the floor. The third shift is where ma keeps the jars of sweet peaches and I was sure to take it from the back ‘cause those are the freshest ones; plus I figured pa or ma would be less likely to realize that we’d snuck it.
Now typically whenever we sneak a late night snack we’ll smuggle it back up to our room to limit our chances of bein’ caught but for some reason this time we didn’t. Instead the three of us sat down on the kitchen floor knees touchin’ and ate our late night snack under the cover of darkness.

At the time none of us gave any thought to the fact that when we opened the jar it didn’t make that familiar burpin’ sound. It wouldn’t be until days later that we would realize that we hadn’t heard the sound made when the seal is broken between the cannin’ lid and the glass jar.

Without speakin’ we took turns thrustin’ our eager fingers into the jar and pullin’ out a wedge, then quietly slurpin’ it down like a big fat noodle. Once the peaches were gone we took turns sippin’ the juice straight from the jar until we’d drained the very last drop.

Like I said before, we’d done these late night snack raids before and we knew that to keep from havin’ the evidence discovered in the morning we had to take the empty jar back to our room and stash it away were it wouldn’t be found.