The Kids Grow Up by Trish Hanan (novel24 .TXT) 📖

copilot’s seat.” Martin got flying lessons along with his husband and all the boyfriends booed and hissed but Harry remained firm. If they weren’t married they didn’t get to fly the Elizabeth. DJ called it emotional blackmail but Harry laughed and called it reality.
“That ship is part of my family and face it, buddy, you’re not, you’re just the man boinking my daughter,” he declared and Emma giggled and blushed.
“Really, Dad, that’s rude,” she said and DJ laughed.
“I’ll just have to marry you, darling,” he teased and she hit him.
“You’ll marry me because you love me, you ass, not because you want to fly the damned ship,” she told him and he agreed.
The Sunday after the kids got home Harry called a town meeting and grudgingly everyone came in hopes that he would fill their stores. Instead he gave them the same speech he had given the kids about their time living among the alterians coming to an end and wanting answers from the three doctors. Sarek stood up and demanded the same answers. Dr. George and his fellow doctors walked to the front of the room and looked extremely uncomfortable, a sign Harry didn’t like at all. Dr. George held up his hands for silence.
“Harry, as usual, you’re blowing things way out of proportion, things are not that bad and they’re not liable to get that bad. Dr. Bentley is a very reasonable man,” he insisted. Harry shook his head.
“Why don’t you tell us what he’s asked for and let us be the judge of how reasonable we think he is,” he told him. Dr. George sighed.
“He’s asked for blood samples and tissue samples yes but that’s all,” he informed them. Everyone gasped and looked frightened. Dr. George sighed.
“See, this kind of panic is what we’ve been trying to avoid, Harry, you’re just trying to frighten everyone, for what reason I don’t know,” he said in his pompous tone.
“What kind of tissue samples, George; they wouldn’t have been liver samples now would they?” Harry asked and everyone looked confused except for a few. Carl stood up.
“Why would they want liver samples, Harry?” he asked. Kate stood up.
“Because your liver is the only organ in your body that regenerates itself, you can slice a piece of it off and it will actually grow back,” she informed them. They all gasped. Sarek stood up.
“If they have asked for liver samples then they have asked for brain scans and body scans, have they?” he asked solemnly. Dr. George nodded. Lily stood up.
“What are they looking for?” she asked. Kate stood up.
“They’re looking for the reason we live five hundred years so that they can develop some kind of magic pill or liquid that they can drink to expand their own lives. If they can find the part of our bodies that controls our aging process, the gland or cells, then they can figure out a way to transfer it to their own bodies and they can live longer,” she explained. Everyone looked horrified. Cindy stood up.
“But there is no part of our bodies that does this, we don’t know why we live longer,” she protested. Harry nodded.
“That’s why we stressed when the alterians arrived that it was important not to tell them anything until we knew whether or not the planet affected them the same way it did us. If their aging process slowed down like ours, we wouldn’t have this problem but it didn’t and who knows why, do you, Dr. George?” he asked him. Dr. George sighed.
“The nearest thing I can figure is that we and Sarek and his family share a common bond,” he explained. “You see, even though we look different on the outside, on the inside we’re very much the same, our DNA is the same, and we each have a double-strand helix. The alterians however, their DNA is completely different, they have a triple-strand helix. There is no way they would ever be able to develop any kind of magic elixir even if they could identify a gland for our aging process.” Harry sighed.
“Do they know about the different DNA strands?” he asked and Dr. George nodded.
“They’re very frustrated about that actually and Dr. Bentley wanted to know if there were a dead body he could exhume to examine but I told him that none of us had died and we probably wouldn’t for many years, that seemed to frustrate him a great deal,” he admitted. Jenna stood up.
“That’s enough for me, I want to move to Sherwood,” she said and a lot of people seemed to agree with her. Gloria stood up.
“What, because Harry says move to Sherwood, we should all move, why, he’s been in Mykonos for the past twenty years, what does he know, we’ve all lived here with the alterians, have we ever felt threatened? Frightened before he brought all this up?” she asked. “No, I say let’s stay here and be careful, so what if Dr. Bentley has asked for some samples, Dr. George and the other doctors will watch him carefully and let us know when to panic. This is all just a bunch of crap. I say the most important thing to ask Harry is when is he going to fill our stores again?” she said sweetly. Everyone looked at Harry. Linda stood up.
“Yeah, Harry, when are you going to fill our stores, I’m empty and I’ve nothing to sell,” she demanded and everyone nodded. Harry sighed. He raised his hands for silence. They all got quiet.
“Has it ever occurred to any of you that the reason Harry hasn’t filled your stores is because Harry doesn’t have any more stores?” he asked them calmly. They all gasped. His mother stood up.
“You mean to tell us you haven’t got any more stores, Henry?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I’m all out of stores to fill your stores, Mother,” he informed them. They all looked shocked. “It was bound to happen eventually, I only brought down so many. There wasn’t enough time to bring them all. I could have brought down more if you had let me bring you down first like I wanted to, but Max and Charles insisted that I do things their way and so I could only bring down what I could in the time I had.” Everyone looked at the two men who shrugged.
“Don’t blame it on us, the little brat was a smart-ass, you all agreed to the way we said,” Max defended his stance. Charles nodded.
“What are we going to do then?” June asked. Harry shrugged.
“Get a hobby, I took up sculpting and found it very relaxing,” he suggested and a lot of people laughed. Lily stood up.
“You’ve been cutting down a lot of trees, Harry, what are you building?” she asked.
“I’m building four huge petrified log warehouse stores,” he informed everyone. They all looked shocked. Linda stood up.
“But I thought you said you didn’t have anymore stores, what are you going to put into these stores that you’re building?” she demanded to know. Some people looked angry.
“If you must know I brought down some personal bins and I’m going to pull everything from them and put them into the stores, that’s why I’m calling them warehouse stores,” he explained. Myra stood up.
“That’s not fair, you get to have stores and we don’t,” she snapped. A lot of people looked angry, most of them the original sixty-seven. Harry shrugged.
“I’ve filled all of your stores three times, during which time I’ve done nothing for myself. I’ve done the travel show and I’ve been on Mykonos, now you tell me it’s unfair that I finally do something for myself, that’s a bit greedy don’t you think?” he asked softly. A few look sheepish. The people of Farm One did not. They still looked angry.
“Who cares about you, you haven’t filled my stores,” Violet stood up, her face flushed with anger. Harry laughed.
“Oh, who cares about you, you fake-tittied husband stealing little slut, sit down and shut up, no ones speaking to you,” he declared and everyone burst into laughter. She turned to her husband.
“Are you going to just sit there and let him speak to me that way?” she demanded. Jake shrugged.
“Well, sugar, I didn’t hear him lie, did you?” he asked and she screamed and sat down. Everyone laughed. Kate stood up.
“You know, Henry, those personal bins you brought down belong to the whole community, at least to the original sixty-seven of us,” she informed him in a smug tone. He grinned.
“And I suppose you figure that out because you were all on the Roosevelt and that entitles you to my bins,” he said and everyone nodded. He shook his head.
“I handed out computers with the list of all the stores and all the houses and personal bins and except for the little kids like Eric and Lucy and them who were much too young, the rest of you all had the same chance to select all the bins and stores that you wanted. You could have all picked fifty houses, a hundred stores, five hundred personal bins. You could have picked five hundred stores and a hundred houses, you could have picked a thousand stores and I could have brought down a hell of a lot more than I did. I made trips with half the stuff that ship could have handled simply because you all didn’t tell me to bring down more,” Harry explained. “We were coming down to a planet that had nothing and we had a ship full of everything and all of you adults didn’t tell a fourteen year-old boy to bring you down more than one house and six stores. Hindsight is a bitch ain’t it? And David Marshall, please don’t say you wanted more bins because everyone here knows your sorry ass waited until the ship was breaking up to ask and by then it was too late.”
“Fine, Henry, be selfish, I thought I raised you better than this,” Kate said and sat down. Harry grinned.
“Sorry, Mother, guilt isn’t going to work, but I’ll tell you all what, to show I’m not completely heartless, I’ll give everyone here three personal bins to do with whatever they like except of course for Jake and Violet,” he said. “Sorry Jake, only because I know you’ll give yours to Violet and she’s never getting anything from me. I don’t give things to fake-tittied, husband stealing little sluts,” he declared and everyone laughed. Jake grinned and Violet screamed and walked from the room.
“That’s very generous, Harry, thank you,” Carl stood up and said. Everyone cheered and Harry finally got his thanks. He took a bow and left the room.
He took his kids with him to Sherwood and let them fly and they arranged the bins on the grass and he made them unlock them and remove the gold telling them he had a plan for it and that everyone had already made enough gold from him and they didn’t need anymore. Then being on Sherwood reminding him of flying so he informed all of his sons and Cassie too, just in case she got it too because she did have the extra lobe in her brain that they had better