The Voice of Caroline

Chapter 10 - Gordie's Surprise

Finding Caroline's uncle was proving difficult.

At least by Gordie's methods anyway. It occurred to him it would save a lot of time if he enlisted his father's help. A simple background check could provide all the information they needed, and Gordie's dad could do that at the station. But in order to do so he would need Caroline's uncle's birthday. He strongly suspected she didn't know but even, so he felt it was still worth a shot.

Now Gordie wished he had Caroline's phone number so he could call and ask instead of having to wait until the end of the week. But Caroline said it was better if she contacted him. If her foster mom answered, she could get into a lot of trouble. Caroline didn't have a cell phone of her own, so she had to use the landline at her house. As she was constantly being told she wasn't to tie up the phone line.

With so much going on Gordie nearly forgot his birthday. He had never really cared much for birthdays especially after his mom had died. But his dad still liked to make a fuss, so Gordie pretended to enjoy the decorations, the musical birthday card playing "Celebration," by Kool and the Gang and tickets to see the Jonas Brothers.

"Stacy at the station said that's who all the kids are listening to these days."

Gordie nodded, "Thanks dad."

"There are three tickets so you can take Lina and Bryant."

"Great, I'm sure they'll love that." Lina would anyway; thought Gordie.

Gordie decided to wait until after school to mention his birthday present since they already had plans to come over.

When they walked through the front door, Lina immediately grabbed his hand and pulled him upstairs.

"Show me your room. I've never seen it!"

"There's not much to see," Gordie said, stumbling along behind her.

"What's that?" Lina asked, pointing to the draft table in the corner when they had arrived.

Gordie had decided to leave it there rather than lump it in with all the junk in the basement and garage.

"My grandpa used to be an architect," Gordie explained. "He worked from home a lot toward the end before he was forced to retire."

"Forced? Did they fire him because he was too old?"

"No, he had arthritis and couldn't do the drawings anymore."

"Oh, well that makes sense."

Lina began examining the posters on the wall above his bed of his favorite superheroes: Iron Man, Captain America, the Flash and Wonder Woman.

"You would think they would have more female superheroes." Lina commented.

"Comics and superheroes aren't really popular with girls."

"Well, they could be, if we knew more about them. You can teach me!"

"How?"

"With movies of course!" she cried logically. "I'm not actually reading any comics that would be too confusing."

"Okay you guys can come down!" Bryant called up the stairs.

"Oh good!" Lina squealed, grabbing Gordie's hand again, "Let's go."

When they entered the kitchen Gordie saw his dad, Grandpa Arnie and Bryant clustered around a cake decorated with green frosting that said, Happy Birthday Gordie, in red icing and topped with fourteen candles.