One funny thing happened a little while after our guests had left.Connie had come upstairs to see if I needed changed, which I most certainly did. Nugget was reclinin’ on my bed and I was sittin’ near the foot of my bed.Connie looked at Nugget and said, “Unless you want diapered too you better get.”

At first Nugget didn’t move; I think he might have been shocked by her comment, or maybe he just wanted to be diapered like my two younger brothers and me. Whatever it was that caused him to hesitate was gone the second she moved toward him with a diaper in hand. With a fear filled cry he bounded off my bed and out the bedroom door like his backside was on fire.

I laughed through the whole diaper change and when he returned Nugget confessed that he thought she was really goin’ to do it.

Vincent -Lee told him, “Well, she probably would have too.”

And Benjamin who had been quietly reading a comic book added, “Yeah, you were smart to run.”

I felt that I needed to add a bit of silliness into the heavy moment so I said, “Yeah and screaming like a girl as you ran away was a nice touch.” I got two punches in the arm for saying it.

Whispering he asked me, “How can you stand havin’ your sisters do that to you? Isn’t it embarrassing?”

“Don’t bother me none!” I said and he climbed back onto the bed.

“But you know what really bothers me?” I added once he was comfortable.

“What?” he said.

“Your face!” I joked.

All four of us laughed.

Nugget and I began readin’ a book which we have to do a report on for school next week. The book is called ‘Father Martini’s Children’. It’s about this Italian monk that rescued hundreds of Jewish kids durin’ World War II by smugglin’ them through a tunnel under his church. At the end Father Martini was caught and executed and his church was burned to the ground. Since the book has 317 pages we both figured it would be so dang borin’ and we had been puttin’ off readin’ it.

Before we started readin’ I honestly felt at the time that I could have found somethin’ else to occupy my time like counting each rock on our property. But Nugget convinced me that we really needed to get it read. Especially since our book report was due next week. About halfway into the first chapter we both started to like it and didn’t want to stop reading. We even got in trouble ‘cause we were sittin’ up in my room readin’ the book even after pa had asked us to help wash dishes. When pa came back and we were still readin’ he said it was good to be readin’ but there is a time for readin’ and a time for working. He then said, “You had best put the book down and get busy or else.” Well, we could guess what ‘or else’ meant so we slammed the book closed and got downstairs fast. However, as soon as the dishes were washed, dried and put away Nugget and I returned to my room and the book. That’s where we stayed the rest of the day.

Nugget and I didn’t know it at the time but we later learned that Saturday evenin’ Pa, Christopher, Meggin and Mr and Mrs. Griffith met at the church to have a sit down with our Pastor.

Ma was so upset that she couldn’t go but Doc Wilson had put his foot down on that one. You should have heard him spoutin’ off, “No! No! A thousand times no! The world was spinning long before you came down from heaven to take bodily form and the world will continue to spin long after you have returned to Abraham’s bosom!” It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me but he went on and on like that until ma promised that she wouldn’t try to trick pa or anyone else into takin’ her to the church.

The two of us were up very, very late finishin’ the book. Yeah we should have been sleepin’ but we just couldn’t stop readin’; that’s how good the book was. A few times I got ahead of him readin’ and a few times he got ahead of me; when that happened we would bug the other to, “Hurry up, will ya!” We were careful to keep our voices soft and low and stayed under the covers of my bed with a flashlight while we finished the book. As soon as we both finished readin’ we began talkin’ about how we would go about writin’ the report.

Eventually we found ourselves lyin’ side by side on my bed tellin’ each other silly jokes and smotherin’ ourselves with the pillow to keep from bein’ heard giggling. Nugget kept pullin’ his artificial hand off and doin’ the weirdest things with it. He would stick one of the fingers in his nose, or in my nose. Once he took it and stuffed it down the front of my pajama pants and inside my diaper. It was funny but weird too. I guess that’s why Nugget and me get along so well, we’re both so weird that we don’t care that the other is weird.

I don’t know what time it was that we actually fell asleep but I’m guessin’ it was around two or three in the morning, maybe even later than that.