ACROSS THE STREET AND TWO DOORS DOWN by Spanky de Bautumn

“Exactly, the same with the piano, I’m only thinking about that next chord.”

“Where is everybody?”

“My mom’s shopping and Patty went to the lake with the neighbors.”

“When’s your mom going to be back?”

“Bout half an hour.”

“I think it’s going to rain, not a good day to go to the lake.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

“Play another song.”

In the middle of his third song, his mom walked in carrying two bags of groceries. Hearing Jamie playing made her smile. When a strange voice started belting out the lyrics, she had to take a look and see what was going on.

She set the bags down and peeked around the door jam to see Jamie standing up and banging on the keys, while Matt was strutting around like Mick Jagger with some rolled up sheet music for a microphone. Matt knew most of the words and tried to make up the rest which only made the whole scene that much sillier. When Jamie hit the last note, his mom jumped into the room and started cheering like a teenage fan girl. This embarrassed both boys to no end. She started laughing and said, “You boys are lucky I didn’t have a camera. That was some kind of entertainment. I’m just not sure what kind.” I think I’m beginning to see where Jamie got his sense of humor. The boys didn’t think it was that funny and went outside when she laughed all the way to the kitchen.

***

“Your mom is funny,” Matt said, his smile returning to his face after the embarrassment faded.

“She has her moments.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“I don’t know, what about you?”

“Nobodies home at my place.”

“How come?”

“My parents are working and Carrie took Itsy back to the old neighborhood.”

“What are they doing back there?”

“Carrie went to see her boyfriend and a couple of Itsy’s friends wanted to celebrate her birthday and they’re going to a pizza party, I think that’s what they said. I really wasn’t listening.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

As they walked across the street, Matt looked around and seeing that nobody was looking their way, reached down and took Jamie’s hand. It startled Jamie and he looked around to see if anyone saw them, but he didn’t let go.