Calamity Mum. Diana Palmer

me. Where are we going to live?”

      She knew her expression was as perplexed as her thoughts. “Look, you’re a nice boy…”

      “I’m twelve and a half,” he said. “I have all my own teeth, I’m in good health, I can do dishes and make beds. I don’t mind cooking occasionally. You can trust me to feed and water whatever pets you possess,” he concluded. “Oh, and I’m an Eagle Scout.” He raised three fingers.

      She glared at him. “Two fingers, not three fingers! Three fingers mean you’re a Girl Scout!”

      He snapped his fingers. “Darn.” He looked at her. “Does that mean I have to give back the green dress?”

      She burst into laughter. After the shock of seeing him almost drown, and the strain of rescue, her sense of humor came back in full force. She fell back onto the beach and laughed until her stomach hurt.

      “I can’t stand it,” she choked.

      He grinned down at her. “Great. Let’s go and feed me. I do eat a lot, but I can get a part-time job to help out with groceries.”

      “Your father is not going to give you to me,” she told him somberly, and flushed when she remembered what his father had said to her two days ago, and what she’d said back. She’d been lucky, because she’d managed to avoid him ever since.

      “Why not? He doesn’t want me. He’s trying to give me to a school with an R.O.T.C. and after I get out of there, he’s going to sell my soul to Harvard.”

      “Don’t knock college fees,” she told him firmly. “I’ve had to fight every step of the way for mine.”

      “Yeah, Dad and I saw you with the other college students,” he agreed. “Dad was right. You really are pretty,” he added critically, watching her look of surprise. “Do you like chess and can you play computer games? Oh, you have to like dogs, because I’ve got one.”

      She looked around to make sure he was talking to her.

      “Well?” he persisted.

      “I can play chess,” she said. “I like cats, but my dad has two golden retrievers and I get along with them. I don’t know about computer games…”

      “That’s okay. I can teach you.”

      “What am I auditioning for?”

      “My mother, of course,” he said. “Dad’s business partner has this daughter, and she’s done everything but move in with us trying to get Dad to marry her! She looks like two-day-old whitefish, she eats carrot sticks and health food and she takes aerobics. She hates me,” he added curtly. “She’s the one who thinks I belong in a school—a faraway school.”

      “And you don’t want to go.”

      “I hate guns and stuff,” he said heavily. They were both beginning to dry out in the sun. His hair was dark brown, a little lighter than his father’s. He had those same silver-gray eyes.

      “I know what you mean. My parents didn’t want me to go to college.” She leaned toward him. “My dad’s an investment counselor. All he knows are numbers and accounting.”

      “Sounds just like my dad.” He scowled. “Listen, you won’t hold that against him? I mean, he’s real handsome and he has good manners. He’s a little bad-tempered,” he confessed, “and he leaves his clothes laying all over the bedroom so that Jennie—she’s our maid—fusses. But he’s got a kind heart.”

      “That makes up for a lot,” she said, thinking privately that his father hadn’t been particularly kind to her.

      “He likes animals, too.”

      “You’re very nice to offer me your life, and your father, to boot,” she said pleasantly, “but I’ve got at least three more years of college to go, and I can’t think about a family for a long time. I want to be a social worker.”

      “My dad’s real social,” he remarked. “You can work on him.”

      “God forbid,” she said under her breath.

      “He’ll grow on you,” he persisted. “He’s rich.”

      She knew about being rich. She came from old money herself. His father seemed to think that she was after his. That was almost laughable.

      “Money can’t buy a lot of things,” she reminded him.

      “Name three.”

      “Love. Happiness. Peace of mind.”

      He threw up his hands. “I give up!”

      “Try to give up swimming alone,” she advised. “It’s dangerous.”

      “Actually,” he confessed, “I didn’t just jump in on purpose as much as I tripped over a bucket and fell in. But I would have been just as dead.”

      “Indeed you would. Keep your mind on what you are doing,” she admonished.

      He saluted her. “Roger, wilco.”

      “You might like R.O.T.C.,” she said.

      He shrugged. “I like to paint birds.”

      “Oh, boy.”

      “See what I mean? My dad hunts ducks. He wants me to. I hate it!”

      This boy had a real problem. She didn’t know what to tell him. His father was obviously rock-headed and intractable.

      “Have you been without your mother for a long time?” she asked gently.

      “All my life. She died just after I was born. Dad and I get along all right, but we aren’t close. He spends so much time at work, and out of the country on business, that I almost never see him. It’s just Jennie and Mrs. Brady and me most of the time. They’re good to me. We had a wonderful Christmas together….”

      “Where was your father?” she exclaimed.

      “He had to fly to Paris. She found out and got on the plane when he wasn’t looking. Since he couldn’t send her home, she went with him,” he muttered.