Free Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures by Elaine Orr

were babysitting with those kids you don’t like,” he said.
    “That was earlier, remember? And they’re kind of growing on me. Not so whiney anymore.”
    It had snowed longer than we had expected, only just stopping . After making sure that Aunt Madge didn’t have any immediate stuff she needed help with in the kitchen, we headed outside with the snow shovel and broom.
    It was wet snow, the kind that’s really good for snowmen and snowballs . Much of Aunt Madge’s small yard is taken up with the parking lot for guests, but that was a good thing today because it gave us a lot of snow to roll up for snow people, as Scoobie called them.
    Petey would run ten feet from us and run back . It looked really funny to see his deep black fur in the white snow. It also took him about five tries to figure out that the snowballs Scoobie would throw for him to fetch were not something he could really bite. He had to keep licking snow off his nose.
    “What do you have against anatomically correct snow women?” Scoobie asked, as I used the broom to sort of wipe the boobs off the female snow person.
    “I’m cool with it.” I nodded my head to the B&B, which was behind me. “I don’t know if Aunt Madge would…”
    There was a honk from a car pulling into the small lot .
    “Nuts!  My parents,” I said . I sighed. “Come on. You can enjoy my mother.”
    “I should go,” he said, quickly.
    “If you leave now I’ll tell Sean O’Malley I think you’re gay.”
    “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” we said, together, quoting the Seinfeld show.
    We were laughing as we walked to the car, and I was glad that we were. Maybe it would make my parents realize that I was getting along fine without them, maybe they’d decide if they left me in Ocean Alley for the second semester of junior year that I wouldn’t want to go home at all. I wish.
    To my great relief, Renée was with them . When she got out of the car she was holding some kind of a pie. Scoobie stayed a bit behind me as I kissed my dad and walked to my mom’s side of the car. I was finding it much harder to stay angry now that they were here.
    “Hi, mom .” As I gave her a kiss I had a sudden rush of guilt. I had a pretty rose-colored scarf for my sister, but I hadn’t gotten either of my parents a present. I hoped Aunt Madge didn’t mention the small cross I had given to her.
    “So, you’re talking to me?” she said as she shut the car door.
    “Mother,” Renée said.
    “Of course she’s talking to you!”  My father said this in his usual booming voice, which has just a trace of a Canadian accent . He was born in Vermont, near the border with Canada, but he had cousins only a few miles away who were full-fledged Canadians. When I hear him speak French to them his accent sounds just like theirs.
    “Hi to you too, mom,” I said, with memories of her trying to make me wear a dress to first grade when I wanted to wear a cool tee-shirt that said Niagara Falls, which we had visited over the summer.
    I gave them each a quick look, trying not to stare. My mother is very trim, but her five-foot four frame looked as if she had lost some weight. It was kind of hard to tell with her coat on. My father is not trim, but he’s quite tall, so you don’t notice so much. It looked as if he had gained a bit. Mother must be making him a lot of butterscotch brownies .
    My father stuck his hand out to Scoobie . “Glad to meet you. Renée said you know how to build dog houses.”
    I took a quick glance at Scoobie as I let my mother rest her hand on my arm for the walk from the car to the Cozy Corner’s side entrance . My dad has a way of making people relax, and it seemed to be working on Scoobie.
    “When do you guys leave for your trip?” I asked.
    “Day after tomorrow,” she said.
    Her response was very clipped . Since I had told her how angry I was that she only wanted me home for two days, she must have thought I was criticizing her. I wasn’t. It was