Dad pointed a finger at Chase. “I ain’t doing nothing wrong, so you can’t run me.”
“Um, okay.” Chase’s eyes locked on mine, and I shook my head.
“Dad, he doesn’t want to run your name through the system. Geez.”
“That’s what they tell you,” Dad said, “right before they arrest you.”
“Larry,” Mom said sternly, “if you can’t play nice, we’ll go home.”
“Fine,” Dad said, his eyes never leaving Chase. “But I’ve got my eyes on you.”
“Good,” I said, “then you can see he’s taking very good care of me while I’m on house arrest.”
Dad shrugged. “I admit, you don’t look like he’s been torturing you. Let me see your fingernails. Any bamboo shoots?”
“Larry!” Mom shouted, then engulfed Chase in a big hug. “Thank you for taking care of my daughter. You’re a good boy. I can see it in your aura.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I almost snorted. I wondered if his answer to my mom meant he was taking care of me or that he acknowledged she could read his aura.
“We got the trash bags,” Mimi said. “Let’s get going.”
We spent the next hour walking ditches and picking up litter. Or discarded treasures as Mom called it. She always brought her own bag to stash recyclable items in. Her ability to make trash into treasure paid the college classes I take every now and then.
“Look at this,” Mom exclaimed.
Chase, Mimi, Ingrid, Dad, and I headed over to where Mom was tossing items in her bag.
“Whatcha got there, Starla?” Dad asked.
“Windchimes,” Mom sang out.
Mimi frowned. “I see an empty wine bottle and some discarded silverware.”
“Exactly,” Mom said. “I can cut the bottom off this beautiful blue bottle, use a diamond bit to drill little holes around the edge, and then string fishing wire through, and tie off with these spoons, forks, and knives. All I have to do is add one of the many bells I have in my workshop, and I have a completely recycled windchime I can sell. Cost me virtually nothing to make.”
“What else did you find?” Dad asked.
Mom motioned him closer to the edge of the forest, while we all headed back toward the lake to continue working. There was plenty of trash in the tall weeds near the water.
“I bet you’re loving this,” Chase said to Mimi.
Mimi cackled. “This is better than I could have ever hoped for.” She turned to me. “It must have been a hoot growing up with them?”
“Not always a hoot,” I said honestly, “but two people more in love you won’t find. And they instilled in me the love of nature and animals.”
“And a distrust of authority and the government,” Chase said.
“Ha!” I scoffed. “The system did that on its own.Theyjust made me aware of the bureaucratic brainwashing.”
Mimi and Ingrid doubled over in laughter.
“Agree to disagree,” Chase said.
“We say that a lot,” I pointed out.
Chase nodded once. “And we probably always will.”
