After a quick lunch, and a few face wipes, Chuckie, Danny, Tommy, and Stu headed out the door to visit the new neighbors.
“So, wait a minute!” Chuckie exclaimed, turning to Danny. “I don’t gets the lastest part! Jobs can move to different towns, too?”
Danny nodded. “Yes, Chuck. They can.”
Chuckie glanced at Danny with a puzzled look on his face. “This whole neighbors thing is too confoosing! It makes my head hurt!”
Danny looked puzzled himself. “Why do I feel like I just went through this whole routine before?” he asked, to no one in particular.
“’Cause you did!” Tommy said, answering Danny’s question for him.
“Thanks, Tommy.”
“Don’t mention it, Danny!”
As they came closer to the neighbors’ house, Tommy suddenly realized something. He tugged on Danny’s T-shirt sleeve. Danny glanced down at him. “What is it, Tommy?”
“What if the new neighbor does gots kids?” Tommy asked. “Shouldn’t we gives them something to welcome them?”
Chuckie nodded. “Tommy’s right, Danny!” he exclaimed. “We should at least welcome them with something!”
“Okay!” Danny said, happily. “I brought four small bags of Gummi Dummi Bears to last me through the weekend. It’s not much, but I can at least give away two of them!”
Chuckie searched through both of his pockets, and pulled out a cherry sucker. “My chin gets really messy from these things anyways!” he explained.
Tommy rummaged through his diaper a bit. “I gots an extra Reptar Bar from today’s lunch!” he cried, pulling his snack out.
“I think that’s enough for a good welcome!” Danny exclaimed. “Now, let’s head inside!”
Stu approached the door and rang the doorbell. No more than ten seconds later, a smiling, African American, lady with short, dark brown hair opened the door. From what Chuckie, Danny, and Tommy could tell, she seemed nice.
Stu introduced himself. “Hello, there! My name is Stu Pickles. I live just across the street.”
The lady nodded. “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “Didi told me you would possibly be stopping by!” She stuck out her right hand. “I’m Lucy Carmichael.”
“Nice to meet you Lucy.” Stu said, shaking her hand. He bent down toward the babies. “This is my son Tommy, and his friends Chuckie and Danny. I hope you don’t mind I brought them along.”
“Not at all!” Mrs. Carmichael exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get my three year old daughter, Susie, some friends to play with. She always used to tag along with her sister and her brothers when they went out to play with their friends.” She chuckled to herself. “Kids will be kids. Oh, please, do come in!”
What Mrs. Carmichael said made the babies grin. They had a new friend to play with!
Mrs. Carmichael bent down toward Danny. “You can lead the babies upstairs, dear. Susie should be up in her room. It’s the second door on the left side of the hall.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Carmichael!”
The three boys slowly headed up the stairs. The hallway was very wide, and a little bit dark. But it was light enough so the three of them could find their way to Susie’s room. It was a good thing, too. There were lots of boxes everywhere!
“Tommy,” Chuckie whispered, “I’m ascared of the dark!”
“Don’t worry, Chuckie!” Tommy exclaimed. “We’re almost theres! Besides, I’m sure Susie has plenty of lights on in her room!”
But, the strange thing was, when they got to Susie’s door, the door was closed. A light shone out from underneath the crack, indicating that someone was in there. But, the boys couldn’t hear anyone moving around in the room.
“What should we do, you guys?” Chuckie asked, nervously.
Danny thought the best approach was to knock on the door to see if anyone was inside. After all, he and his friend Sam got locked in their own classroom once after the Tommy, Chuckie, and his other friends purposely locked the door on them. The babies only did that because he and Sam got into a huge fight. But Danny wouldn’t take any chances.
He slowly knocked on Susie’s door.
Knock! Knock! Knock! “Hello?”
Nothing.
Danny tried again. A little harder this time.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! “Hello? Is anyone in there? We came here to welcome you!”
This time someone responded. “Just a second!”
A few seconds passed before someone opened the door. A little African American girl stood in front of them. She had long curly brown hair tied up into three different colored pink tails. She wore a yellow shirt with purple flowers that went down to her knees, purple pants that matched the flowers on her shirt, and red shoes. The girl smiled at the three boys. When she did, they could see that she had a huge gap on her top, front teeth.
“Sorry, about that!” she exclaimed. “I would normally leave my bedroom door open, but since we just moved here, I kept my door closed ‘cause my room’s kind of messy! Come on in!” The girl held the door open for the three of them.
As the boys stepped into the girl’s room, Tommy exclaimed, “So you must be Susie!”
“That’s right!” Susie said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t knows your guys names yet!”
“Well,” Tommy started, “I’m Tommy, your new neighbor from across the street, and that’s Chuckie, and Danny, my two bestest friends.”
“Hi’ya, Susie!” Chuckie said, shyly. He rummaged through his pockets a bit. “I brought you a lollypop!” he said, pulling it out and holding up to his new friend.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Danny cried. He took out the two small Gummi Dummi Bears packages and tossed them on the ground. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Susie!”
Tommy pulled the Reptar Bar from out of his diaper. “We know this isn’t much,” he said, “but we wanted to gives you something to welcome you.”
“Aw, you guys didn’t have to do this!” Susie exclaimed.
“We knows.” Chuckie replied. “We just wanted to.”
Susie smiled.
Tommy glanced around Susie’s room, confused. The only type of furniture in there was Susie’s bed and dresser, plus a couple of boxes. Other than that there was nothing else in the room. There were no toys in there at all. Tommy was also surprised to see that Susie’s window didn’t have any curtains.
“How comes you only gots your bed, your clothes holder thingy, and some boxes in here, Susie?” he asked.
Susie giggled. “We only just moved in here about an hour ago,” she explained. “so we haven’t unpacked much of our stuffs yet!”
“Oh!” Tommy exclaimed. He paused. “Does this mean your Mommy and Daddy told you and your brothers and sister that you was moving ‘cause their jobs moved?”
Susie’s smile turned into a surprised look. “I didn’t know jobs could move.” she said, amazed.
Chuckie cut in. “They sure can!” he said, nodding. “Just ask Danny. He’s the one who knows a lot of stuffs!”
Danny was caught totally off guard when Chuckie had said this. He didn’t know what to say. “I…well…uh…” he stammered. He decided to go with the easy answer. “Yes. Jobs can move to different towns.”
Susie grinned once again. “I guess that explains why I moved here. My Daddy said we needed to move so he could go to his job at the Dummi Bears convention!”
“Wait a minute!” Danny exclaimed. “Your Dad works for the Dummi Bears?”
Tommy and Chuckie glanced at each other excitedly.
“That’s so cool!” Tommy cried. “What does he do?”
Susie frowned. “I’m not sure. But it has something to do with making toys and stuff for the Dummi Bear show.”
“Sweet!” Danny said, smiling. He paused for a moment and asked, “Did your Dad work next to any of those guys who did the toys for Reptar?”
“Yeah! He used to work for them until he got promoted for being in charge of the Dummi Bear toys, whatever that means. Why?”
“My parents used to make the gadgets there for Reptar’s show.”
“Wow! What are their names?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Fenton.”
Susie looked puzzled. “I don’t think my Daddy knew anybody who’s last name is Fenton. I’ll ask him later, though!”
“Great!”
Chuckie shuddered. “No fence or anything, Susie, but can we turn another light on in here? It’s really dark in here!”
Susie sighed. “Sorry, Chuckie. There is no other light in here! The lastest people who used to live here painted this room black, so it makes the room dark even when the light’s on!”
“Why would someone want to paint a room black?” Danny asked.
Susie shrugged. “I don’t know. But I don’t likes it!”
“Neither do I!” Chuckie exclaimed.
“My Daddy said that if any of us didn’t like the color of the paint in our rooms, he would paint them whatever color we liked.” Susie sighed again. “The only problem is that I don’t know what color I want my room to be!”
Tommy stood still for a moment frowning, with his left eyebrow furrowed in concentration, and his left hand on his chin.
Susie was staring at him. “Is Tommy gonna be okay?” she asked, worriedly. “He doesn’t look so good!”
“Huh?” Danny turned to look at his playmate’s face. Then he smiled and faced Susie again. “Don’t worry, Susie! Tommy’s all right. That’s just what he looks like when he’s thinking!”
“Is that a good thing?”
Danny nodded excitedly. “That means something fun’s gonna happen!”
“Or dangerous.” Chuckie added.
“Yeah, or-,” Danny paused. “This could also mean trouble.”
A minute later, Susie’s light bulb flickered and brightened up the room once again. “I gots it!” Tommy exclaimed.
“Got(s) what?” his three friends asked him eagerly.
“I gots an idea how to help Susie paints her room!” Tommy said, happily. “When me, Chuckie, and Danny goes back to my house, we’ll draw some pictures! Then tomorrow, Susie can comes over and looks at the pictures and she can choose which one she likes the bestest! Then that picture,” he continued, “can be the painting that goes on Susie’s wall!”
“That’s a great idea, Tommy!” Chuckie cried. “What do you thinks, Danny?”
“Let’s do it!” Danny cried. “I think I’ve already got some ideas!” He paused. “But first, we’d better see what Susie thinks.”
Susie nodded. “That’s not a bad idea, Tommy! Goes for it!”
“Goes for whats?” Tommy asked, puzzled.
“Goes for those crayons and paper, and start drawing those pictures!”
“We will, Susie! We promless we’ll have some good pictures by tomorrow!”
Rugphan
