The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Three: Sunny, Fall, 1971

Sunny looked out the window at the gravel driveway, willing his mother and father to pull up. He was tired of being looked after by his grandparents, and he wanted to see his new sister. They'd called from the hospital and told him he had a sister. They'd gone to Royal Columbian Hospital, which was supposed to be far away, but to five-year old Sunny, even the next block over was far away, so he didn't have a concept of how far away the hospital was. Was this why they hadn't brought him along? Was it because he would have been gone long after his bedtime? Yes, that had to be it; they'd been gone a couple of days, and Sunny wouldn't have wanted to be away from his bed even one night, away from his street, where his new friends were.

Speaking of his new friends, there they were, emerging from their respective houses, having just finished breakfast on this cold Saturday morning. He saw Rachel first, of course, since his house was almost right across the street from hers. She was escorted by Mrs. Anderson, who looked after her while her dad was at work, which was a lot, because her mom wasn't around. 

He saw Joe next, coming from further up the street to his right. Rachel brightened when she saw him, and the two started chasing each other, with Mrs. Anderson admonishing them to be careful; Sunny could hear her even through the window. 

Al came from the end of the street to his left, accompanied by his mother. When his mother saw Mrs. Anderson, and the two exchanged a few words, she left Al in the older woman's supervision. It looked like Mrs. Anderson was the child minder today.

"Grandma!" he called to his father's mother in Punjabi. She and his grandfather didn't live with them because his father wasn't their first born son, but had come to stay to look after him and help with the new baby for a while. Their English wasn't as good as their Punjabi, so he used the latter to converse with them. "Can I go play with my friends?"

"Did you have breakfast yet?" she called back from the kitchen.

"I'm not hungry! I'm too excited about my sister! Can I eat later, when they come?"

"All right, but put your coat on before you go outside. It's cold today."

He hurriedly put on his sneakers, grabbed his coat from the coat closet and raced outside to meet the others. They called out greetings when they saw him.

"Sunil," Mrs. Anderson said, "have you heard anything more about the baby?"

"It's a girl!" he said. "I have a sister! They should be coming home soon."

She clapped her hands together in delight and said, "Wonderful! Another girl on this street! Maybe poor Rachel will finally have someone to partner with. Won't you like that, Rachel?"

Rachel shrugged, seeming happy enough playing tag with Al and Joe.

"Have they come up with a name, yet?" Mrs. Anderson asked.

"They haven't told me."

"Are you going to be a good big brother?"

Sunny shrugged. "I guess. Why?"

"It will be hard for a while. Your mother and father will be paying a lot of attention to your sister in the first few months. She's going to cry a lot, and that's just natural, so you'll need to be ready for that. She'll need to be fed often, and unless your mother and father have decided to bottle feed her, then only your mother will be able to do it, so you'll need to be patient with her."

Sunny had no idea what she was talking about. "My grandmother makes the best  Aloo Parota. Why can't she just have that?"

Mrs. Anderson hooted laughter and patted Sunny tenderly on the shoulder. "Oh, dear, because your sister won't have teeth! At least not until she's a year old. How are your grandparents, by the way?"