Her father didn’t need her help. He pitied her out on the grass alone reading to herself. He occupied her with menial task after menial task and she grew increasingly restless but she didn’t complain. Soon her mother returned and then Penny was transferred to dinner duty. Before everyone sat down to eat as the sun began to sink in the sky, Penny cut in that she had to run outside and get her books.
Her mother nodded as the family took their seats.
Penny ran across the grass to the pile of books abandoned beneath the tall tree. Tommy was gone. She stacked her books and slowly trudged into the house. She looked back but he was still gone.
The following day after school Penny walked home with her sister as always but she noticed Tommy. On the other side of the street, trailing by a hundred feet or so, Tommy followed her home. Penny rushed through her chores and asked to go outside.
Penny grabbed Charlotte’s Web as she tore through the front door. She went to the tree and rested her back against the fence. He was there waiting on the other side.
Again she began to read aloud and as she turned the page she said under her breath,
“Sorry I didn’t come back yesterday.”
“No worries.”
And she kept reading.
When the rumble of the old station wagon would sound in the distance Tommy would depart as to not be spotted by her father as he made his way home from another long hard day of work. This routine continued until summer. Tommy was put to work for his father. No one was entirely sure what his father did for a living. All Tommy’s brothers worked around the house at the quasi home headquarters.
Tommy’s house was big, huge, massive, but it wasn’t fancy by any means. The décor was basic and there was little furniture and never food. Once Tommy confessed he was jealous when Penny had to go help with dinner for he had gone without homemade food for weeks. The only thing his father could make was toast and eggs. He purchased greasy takeout food every day. Penny told Tommy she was jealous of that, but he told her she wouldn’t be if she was him. Penny rarely ate out and if she did her family would never take food from a restaurant home to eat. Eating out was a big deal to them. Eating out was reserved for only the most special occasions or on an arbitrary Sunday after church when the sermon encouraged such indulgences, and that was rare.
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