Eager Beaver

Chapter Forty-Three - Laurie's Party

It looked like there were only three adults at the party: Laurie's Mom Mrs Love, running around desperately trying to entertain the kids who seemed hell bent on destroying the house; my own Mom, who was on Julie duty and was completely preoccupied entertaining the almost two year old; and Huey's Mom, who was was wearing just a plaid shirt and some jeans. I almost asked if she was dressed as a lumberjack, but it turned out she wasn't wearing any costume at all.

I was confused by the whole arrangement, really. The kids here were very little, the number of babies and toddlers almost matching the grade schoolers. I went up to Laurie and Leo who were whispering between each other. "Who is everyone?" I asked.

Laurie pointed first to Julie, who I knew already. "That's Charlie's sister." Then to Ari and Garrett. "I invited Ari, but he already said he was trick or treating with Garrett so I invited him too." He continued to Huey and Harper. "Harper's Garrett's sister, and she's best friends with Huey, so he was trick or treating with them too. They all arrived together with Huey's Mom." I nodded along, slowly piecing together the complex web of friendships. Even with Laurie's explanation however, that still left out the mysterious boy in the mummy costume. Did Laurie even know who he was?

Before I could ask, Laurie's Mom ushered us into the living room as if she was herding sheep.

"No more dilly-dallying." she said cheerily. "Let's get this party started!"

The living room looked completely different to when I had last been at the house, all set up for the party. The furniture had been pushed back to the walls to leave a large open space for the kids to play in, and several black and orange streamers were hanging from the ceiling. Ari and Garrett couldn't be contained. Their nerf guns confiscated, they sprinted out onto the rug brandishing nothing but their fingers, continuing to scream and shout and imitate loud gunshot sounds.

"Got you! You're dead!" Ari insisted, adopting a smug smile and pretending to blow imaginary smoke away from the top of his finger.

"Nuh-uh!" Garrett giggled. "I'm not dead. I'm...a zombie cowboy!" He decided, jumping up on the couch against the wall and then pouncing down athletically on top of Ari to easily wrestle him to the ground. I cringed fearfully, worried that the bigger of the two boys might have hurt the little brown tail beaver, but I needn't have worried - Ari snorting like a delighted piglet as he rolled around with Garrett on the rug.

Mrs Love tutted, seizing each boy by their cowboy bandanas and prying them apart like misbehaving puppies. "Enough boys." she said more sternly. "We're all going to play together now."

Red-faced and panting, Ari sat up on his knees - looking up at Mrs Love with a big smile on his face. "Why don't we all play cowboys?" he suggested.

"Yeah!" Garett agreed, hopping to his feet and striding confidently over to the remaining kids all watching from the door. "We can do big kids versus babies." He declared, pointing judgmentally at each kid as he separated them into teams. "Me, Ari, Leo, that other kid, and Cooper are the big kids." he said smugly, before turning a cruel smirk towards Laurie. "And Julie, Harper, Huey and Laurie are the babies."

I cocked my head in suspicion, taken off guard by the little boy's brazen remark. To be honest, I was so surprised that I wasn't being made fun of for once and had been grouped in with the "big kids", that it took me a moment to register the obvious jab at Laurie. My fellow beaver let out an aggrieved growling grumble, sounding just like Zach did when Nate provoked him, except at a much higher pitch. I wondered if this Garrett kid was often picking on him.

"I'm not a baby." Laurie whinged. "I'm in Grade One!"

Garrett tittered. "You are too. Big kids don't pee their pants and cry."