Did you ever figure out what that thing is I asked Dylan pointing at his balloon animal We were crossing the parking lot after work The Pines were headed out on the road so we had to load up the bus after the game It had been a long day Maybe it’s a mosquito Dylan said He made the balloon thing fly then landed it on his arm and made slurping sounds Spike knows I’m going camping this week at Otter Lake Sounds like fun Dylan liked animals He probably loved camping out all that nature It’s great during the day he said I get to go hiking and swim in the lake I just don’t like it at night It gets so dark Don’t you have a lantern They don’t make a lantern big enough for how dark it gets Dylan replied There might be bears out there He shuddered We got to the end of the parking lot where we usually split up and headed home Guess I’ll see you next week Dylan said Don’t get eaten by a bear I told him Don’t even joke about that My giraffe was pretty much done for even with my first aid I kept it anyway since it came from a friend I set it next to the other balloon animals on my dresser I didn’t know why Abby kept giving me jungle animals but they did look good together even if the giraffe was the shortest one up there I thought about how Wally had reacted when the giraffe
popped He nearly jumped out of his chair and the pop wasn’t even all that loud Maybe he was scared of balloons Maybe that was why he was taking Balloon Day off It was funny to think of a grizzled old guy like Wally being afraid of balloons but people are afraid of all kinds of things I once saw a neighbor shriek and run inside after seeing a caterpillar and he was a grown man Even Dylan had just told me he was afraid of the dark I was only scared of one thing and it wasn’t silly at all I was afraid of that coffeemaker
y dad had over a thousand books about everything from bread mold to black holes I figured he had to have one about making coffee Dad saw me going through the shelves Looking for something to read He sounded hopeful I need a book about coffee I need to know how to make it Your mother already made some Anyway you’re too young to drink coffee Drink it Bleah Coffee was just a mud puddle in a cup For some reason adults hadn’t figured that out I need to make coffee next week at work Oh Well watch me make it tomorrow morning We have the wrong kind of machine Ours didn’t shimmy or shake or make whistling noises It just gurgled a bit and dripped glop into a glass pot OK Then read the instructions that came with the coffeemaker I don’t know if we still have them The Pines machine was so old the original instructions probably came carved in
stone I’m sure you’ll be fine Dad left the room whistling He probably didn’t mean to sound like the coffee machine at work but he did I looked at his books for a while Dad is interested in everything He has books about history science cooking business and entertainment I saw a book about balloons and took it off the shelf If he had a book about making balloon animals I could have taught Abby a thing or two But it wasn’t about that kind of balloon It was about the kind of balloon you ride in That book was kind of interesting It made me want to ride in a hot-air balloon
