Junior's Luck

Junior's Luck-Chapter 8

On Saturday mornings, Kelsey's mother always fixed waffles. She made them for his father, a break from fried eggs and cold cereal. The waffles she made from scratch and cooked in the old grease-stained waffle iron were so tender a fork could cut them.

When Kelsey's mother discovered frozen toaster waffles, it ended her scratch waffle making forever. The frozen waffles came out of the toaster, ready to eat, in a matter of seconds, with no mess to clean up.

Kelsey didn't like the toaster waffles. They were hard and dry. It took a knife with a serrated edge to cut them. What flavor they had came from the syrup he poured on them.

He had never heard his father complain about the change, but Kelsey noticed he only ate two of the frozen waffles instead of the four or five he used to serve himself. He said he was too old to eat more than that. Kelsey didn't believe it because when they took trips and ate breakfast on the road, his father always requested a double order of waffles.

"You're returning the blueprints to those people today, right?" Kelsey's mother said to his father as she put a plate of waffles on the table.

Kelsey had forgotten he'd have to take the blueprints back. After what happened in the alley Tuesday afternoon, he hadn't thought about them. He'd spent the rest of the week trying to avoid Olivia.

Any further involvement with her would not be right. After all, she was his best friend's girl. He couldn't betray Junior again, especially when he was dying. And Kelsey didn't think of Olivia in that way. Oh, he considered her a friend. She was cute, and she had a great body. He enjoyed kissing her and being close to her. He reveled in the attention she gave him. But he'd rather have Arlene for a girlfriend.

If he walked Olivia home again and kissed her and all that, he would be using her. That was wrong. That's what Mike Stephenson and Carrot Walker did. They bragged about how many girls they had kissed and how some let them do more than that. Girls didn't enjoy being used, did they? Didn't they want someone who cared about them? Someone who respected them? A knight in shining armor? A hero? Arlene didn't want Mike Stephenson to take advantage of her, did she? How could any girl kiss Carrot Walker with his green teeth? Yuck!

"Well, I guess we should see if they need those blueprints," Kelsey's father said as he patiently sawed on one corner of his waffle. "We can stop there on our way to pick up the cans."

"Don't forget those bags of cans by the garage," Kelsey's mother said. "I don't want dogs getting into them." One day after work, she had canvassed the neighborhood and collected cans for Junior.

"Okay." Kelsey's father stuck a chunk of waffle into his mouth. He winced at the effort it took to chew it, drank some coffee to soften it up, then he added, "Maybe they won't want them. Blueprints that old won't be of any use."

Kelsey wasn't taking any chances; after breakfast, he pulled out the sheets that showed the secret passages and hid them under his mattress. Enough sheets remained to make the roll of blueprints appear complete.

*****

"May I assist you?" a spooky old man in a faded uniform inquired.

Kelsey and his father sat in the pickup, which had rolled to a squeaky stop at the wrought-iron gate that blocked the entrance to the estate.

"We might have taken something by mistake from the auction last week. We are here to see the owners." Kelsey's father shouted through the open window of the truck. The old man nodded his head once, then disappeared into a shed the size of a phone booth that stood next to the gate. A minute later, he came out, opened the gate, and motioned them through.