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

us a magical, wonderful planet,” Max stood up. Everyone agreed. Harry grinned.
“Now all we have to do is find some power crystals so we don’t have to be in the dark for most of that time,” he teased and they all laughed.
“What about the dogs and cats, will they live longer too?” Brian stood up and asked. Everyone suddenly looked worried. Harry grinned.
“That’s a good question, Brian, and the answer is yes,” he informed them and everyone grinned. “We did scans on all of our cats and dogs and found the same results. They age normally until the age of one and then the aging process slows down so they’ll all live to about eight, nine thousand years or more depending on the cat or dog,” he said and everyone cheered and clapped.
“Do we know what’s causing our aging process to slow down like this?” Cindy stood up and asked. Harry shrugged.
“It could be anything, it could be something in the atmosphere, the ions, something in the air that we breathe, something in the water, we have no idea, but we do know that both humans and minosians share a double-strand helix in our DNA. That’s about the only thing we have in common so whatever it is, both species are affected by whatever it is that’s causing our aging process to slow down,” he told them.
Then they threw a big party to celebrate and Harry was the person they loved the most. Everyone kept hugging him, even Max and Charles. Jackson was a happy little boy once again. He loved it when they cheered for his dad.
“Good thing I brought down all those extra stores, we’re going to need them,” he said to Jake while they were dancing. Jake grinned.
“Just how many extra stores did you bring down, babe?” he asked. Harry giggled.
“A thousand,” he answered softly. Jake whistled.
“Oh, babe, they bitched when we had fifty, they’re really going bitch at a thousand,” he teased. Harry shrugged.
“With a thousand stores, I’ll share,” he decided and Jake kissed him.
“You’ve got a pretty fine ass for an old man of a hundred and twenty-eight,” Jake teased and his hands roamed Harry’s ass. Harry giggled.
“I bet you say that to all the geriatrics,” he teased back and they laughed. Then they took their kids home to celebrate in private before they got arrested for indecent behavior on a dance floor.
Violet saw them acting up on the dance floor and was disgusted. She couldn’t understand the fuss everyone made over Harry’s stupid ass, so what if it was cute and sexy. She had a nice ass and no one made a fuss over it like they did over his. Everyone was making such a fuss over Harry, how wonderful Harry was. Who the hell cared? Now they were stuck on this stupid planet at the edge of the universe with nothing to do and no place to go and they were going to live forever. Who cared if you lived forever if all you could do was plant some crops and drive around nothing? There was no place to drive to. She drove up and down that stupid ocean highway Harry had built and it went nowhere, just sand and water, nothing to see, no people, nothing. And that country road just led up to the mountains and the lake, there was nothing up there either. This planet was filled with nothing and no one and all there was to do was have sex with the same boring people and even Gloria’s sex game were beginning to get boring. Maybe when the kids grew up it would be more exciting but right now Violet was just plain bored out of her mind.
“Whatcha got there, babe?” Jake asked a few days later as Harry poured over the list of stores he had on the computer. The kids were lying down for their naps and Fran had escaped to her sunroom to watch a movie. Harry smiled and lifted his head for a kiss which he got, of course.
“This is the list of the thousand stores I brought down, I’m looking to see if anything looks interesting enough to build now instead of later,” he informed him. Jake grinned and sat down next to him. He peered at the list.
“You got anything in mind?” he teased and Harry nodded.
“There’s a mini putt-putt course that would be great for the kids,” he told him and Jake nodded.
“I love putt-putt, what else?” he asked. Harry gasped and pointed to the screen. Jake’s eyes got wide.
“Oh, my God, Harry, babe, we’ve got to build that one,” he declared and Harry wrote it on the list. How could they not build the Coke Cola Bottling Company? They would have sodas for the rest of their lives, everyone would love them forever.
They picked out three hundred stores that they wanted to keep and put the other seven hundred in a separate file so that the others and the kids when they grew up could pick twenty for their own. And they’d still have more left over for future kids to have.
“Let’s not tell them about the stores just yet, let’s wait a hundred years or so until the newness wears off and everyone adjusts to being here. No sense building everything at once, we don’t need it and what’s the sense in having it if we don’t need it?” Harry said reasonably. Jake nodded.
“But the putt-putt and the Coke, we need that now, babe,” he stressed the word ‘need’ and Harry giggled.
“Of course we’ll build the putt-putt and the Coke plant, honey,” he told him and they kissed then Harry sighed. “Do you know who makes Dr. Pepper, honey?” he asked with a big grin on his face. Jake grinned too.
“Coke Cola?” he guessed and Harry kissed him.
“You got it, honey; we are never running out of Dr. Pepper again,” he gushed and they both laughed.
He got up and sent out an email asking for volunteers to baby-sit their kids while they built their Coke Cola plant and volunteers to help them build it. Everyone in town volunteered except for Violet who just shrugged.
“Why should I help, I’m banned from their damned stores and so are you, Susie, why are you helping?” she sneered at her. Susie glared at her.
“Don’t you see, Violet, this could be a way of getting un-banned plus I know everyone who shows up is going to get free soda and we haven’t had any soda for years. Don’t you remember soda? I love soda and if you think I’m sharing any of mine with you, you can forget it,” she snapped and rushed out of the house. Violet pouted for an hour and finally realized that if she didn’t show up to work on the damned building then no one would share their soda with her so she put on shorts and drove to the site and volunteered for duty. Harry saw her and smiled.
“Its about time you showed up, Violet, for a while there I didn’t think you weren’t going to show,” he teased her and she smiled. He put her to work and made a face behind her back. Little Miss Smart Ass, showing up late and only showing up because she wanted the free soda, he couldn’t stand that girl. Kathleen smiled at him and he giggled.
It took them three weeks to build the plant and then Harry made a batch of every brand of soda they carried and they brought them out and divided it equally among everyone in town. Everyone was ecstatic to get their favorite soda again and Harry was once again everyone’s favorite person and Violet hated his guts.
“This is great, isn’t this great soda, Jackson?” Jake asked his eldest son who took a sip of Dr. Pepper and grinned. All the kids were loving the soda. Fran poured some Fresca over ice and grinned.
“I am never running out of Fresca for as long as I live, God bless you, Harry,” she said with glee. All the kids giggled. Harry hugged her.
“You’re welcome, Frannie, I’ll always make sure you have Fresca,” he teased. Jake grinned as he sipped his Dr. Pepper. Then he grinned.
“Hey, let’s make some vanilla ice cream and have root beer floats,” he suggested. They all grinned. Harry smiled.
“Let’s get everyone to make vanilla ice cream and have a big root beer float party down at the Center,” he suggested. They all nodded. Jake sent out the e-mails and two days later everyone gathered at the Center for a root beer float party. They all brought their barbecue grills and grilled hot dogs, hamburger and chicken and the ladies all made salads. It was a great party and once again Harry was the hero. Jackson really loved that. He walked around the park listening to everyone praise his dad and grinned.
“I can’t believe Harry had a Coke plant and he didn’t even know it,” Lily Wong gushed. Cindy giggled.
“I’m so happy, now we all can have soda whenever we want it,” she gushed. All the ladies agreed that was a good thing. Violet snickered at them.
“It figures that little freak had a Coke plant and he didn’t tell anyone,” she sneered to Susie who was getting tired of her. Susie shrugged.
“We should be grateful that he finally realized he had one and we built it,” she tried to be diplomatic. Violet rolled her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re defending the little freak now, Sus. I thought you hated him as much as I did,” she snapped. Susie shrugged again.
“No one hates Harry as much as you do,” she teased and walked away to talk with Mike. She hated being around her friend when she ranted about Harry. Mike grinned and hugged her.
“Couldn’t take old Violet anymore could you?” he teased. She blushed.
The following year they all built log cabins at the lake so they’d have a place for summer vacations and ski vacations since it was near the ski lift Harry and Sarek planned to put in. They had to wait until winter to do that to see how the slopes would run but once they did, everyone rushed to the slopes for skiing and ice skating on the frozen lake. It was a nice change from Hawaii and the surf and sun.
On Jackson and Emma’s first day of Kindergarten Harry dressed them in jeans so that they would be comfortable and Fran cried as he and the two kids were getting into the Jeep for the drive to school. Jake and the other kids waved goodbye.
“Bye, Emma, bye, Jackson; have fun at school,” Jake called out. Adam, Cassie, Ryan and Sean waved and blew kissed. Jackson and Emma beamed because they were ‘big kids’ and old enough for school. Cassie and Adam were both jealous and couldn’t wait until next September when they would be old enough. Jake took them back in the house and distracted them with coloring. Fran had one year-old Danny and took him in to play with his blocks.
“Now, you’ll see all of your cousins in school today so you’ll know everyone,” Harry told his two children