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

in there watching her,” she informed him. He grinned.
“It’s not every day this house gets four puppies,” Harry declared and Fran shook her head.
“Just what this house needs, four more kids,” she said and they both laughed. Jake stuck his head in the door.
“Puppies come yet?” he asked, slightly out of breath. They shook their heads. He grinned. “Good, I didn’t miss it, the kids in there?” he asked and they nodded. He started to leave and then turned back. “I see you got your buddy there, hi, Harry’s buddy,” he teased and waved at his son who giggled and waved back. Harry laughed and feed Danny a piece of strawberry this time.
“Don’t pay attention to him, he’s just jealous cuz you’re better looking,” he told him and Danny giggled. Fran rolled her eyes. Then Adam ran in.
“Daddy, Daddy says to come quick, the puppies are coming and Gertie needs you to touch her,” he yelled and Harry grinned and picking up Danny he hurried to the bedroom. Fran and Adam followed. He handed Danny to Jake and all the kids moved aside for him as he knelt down next to Gertie who moaned in pain and snapped at him. They all screamed a little.
“Is Gertie going to bite Daddy?” Emma asked; her little face worried. Jake hugged her.
“Oh, Gertie’s in pain right now, but Daddy’s going to touch her and make the pain go away, then she’ll be just fine,” he assured her and all of the kids. They all huddled around him.
“Its okay, Gertie, let me just feel your belly, its okay,” Harry cooed to the dog who now licked his hands and he took away all of her pain and she wagged her tail and whined. Bo whined too and the boys kept him away so Gertie wouldn’t get scared. Then they all watched the miracle of birth and the girls thought it disgusting and the boys declared it gross and cool. Then the puppies were all born safe and sound and began to nurse and everything was alright, Daddy had come and made everything alright. All the kids cheered and clapped and started to name their puppies. All the older boys were getting one, Danny was only three and he had to wait till next time but Harry and Jake promised to share Bo and Gertie with him.
Both of the girls wanted the cats, Cassie wanted kittens but Emma wanted George and Martha, she loved those two old cats and they both loved her and followed her everywhere so Harry had given them to her. Martha had just given birth to four kittens and two of them were going to Cassie and two were going to Irene, DJ and Grace’s daughter. There were never enough cats and dogs to go around and everyone hated that Harry and Jake were keeping all of Gertie’s puppies and giving them to their sons. But they insisted that a boy needed a dog and their boys wanted a dog just like their Daddy’s dog.
“Poor Fran, living in that house with all seven kids, four cats and six dogs, it’s a zoo, not a house,” Linda remarked and all of her friends laughed.
“Four puppies, my God, they’ll pee all over the place, the house will smell like piss,” Myra made a face. Shelley shook her head.
“You don’t know Harry like I do, I guarantee he’ll have those puppies paper-trained and out in the yard faster than anyone can blink. That is one clean freak,” she retorted and they all laughed.
“Max has been inside Phillip and Stuart’s house and he says it’s the same way, those kind of men are like that, that’s how you can tell, if your son is too neat, that’s a sign that he’ll turn out gay,” Linda informed them. They all laughed.
“Well, that let’s my Georgie off the hook, I can’t even see his floor anymore for all the clothes and papers,” Shelley retorted with relief and they giggled.
The puppies were all house-broken in record time and there were a few accidents but the boy responsible for the pup got to clean up the mess so they learned early to look for the signs and rush their dogs outside quickly. Jackson named his male puppy Hero which was cute and Adam named his female puppy Lucky because he said he was lucky to have her. Ryan named his male puppy Zap and Sean named his female Zip so together they were Zip and Zap which was adorable and funny like the two brothers who were always laughing and making up silly jokes that only made them laugh.
They turned the game room into the dog room and took out the pool table that they never used anymore and put in dog beds and chew toys and some cat stuff and the kids had a ball playing in it. All their cousins came over to play with the puppies and Harry’s house became the place to hang out which he loved and always had cookies and healthy snacks like yogurt and fruit for them to eat. And, of course, the mothers would come with the kids and they’d hang out with Harry and they’d talk.
Harry decided to keep his beer at home too and not take it to the plant and bottle it. Maybe when the kids all got older, he would turn the beer making over to one of his boys and they could take it to the plant and bottle it, but he wasn’t ready to make it a full time job, he had enough on his plate.
The mini putt-putt was a big hit, especially since it was seventy-two holes of family fun that Harry left open twenty-four hours a day in the spring, summer and fall, closing only in the winter when the weather closed him down. He left the gate open and the shack unlocked so anyone and their kids could play whenever they wanted to and didn’t charge a penny which everyone loved and made a few people like Doug and Lily who charged for bowling and the movie theatre feel guilty. They felt so guilty that they stopped charging for those two things and started leaving them open twenty-four hours like Harry did and soon everyone else who owned things like that did too.
DJ left the roller rink open twenty-four hours, Roger and Zach left the YMCA open twenty-four hours and Sissy left her exercise club open all the time. It soon became a trend that you could do anything in town you wanted whenever you wanted; it was very easy and fun. And the adults finally realized that all of the food places that Harry and Jake owned were always opened and unlocked too and they could go in and fix themselves and their families a pizza, or tacos, or Arby’s anytime they wanted. And it wouldn’t cost them a dime, they were ecstatic!
“Kathleen, did you know that MacDonald’s is open all the time and Harry doesn’t charge for anything in it, all he asks is that we clean up after we use it?” Meri asked her daughter in an excited tone. Kathleen laughed.
“It’s been like that since he opened it, Mother, didn’t you read the email he sent out, he sent everyone an email telling you all that,” she informed her. Meri shook her head.
“It was so much fun, last night we went to play putt-putt, then we went bowling, then we ate at MacDonald’s and it didn’t cost us a dime, we had a terrific time,” Meri gushed. Kathleen giggled.
“We kids have been doing that for years, do you know that we don’t charge each other for stuff in our stores, we just trade what we want,” she told her mom who looked surprised.
“But why would Harry do that, he and Jake have all those stores, they could make a fortune,” she protested. Her daughter laughed.
“And do what exactly with it?” she teased her. “They already have a fortune and every single possible thing they could ever need, they don’t need anything else, we give them anything they want from our stores and we get anything we want from their stores, it works out just fine. Ask them if you can join their club, I’ll bet they say yes.” Meri looked surprised and nodded.
When she brought it up to her group of ladies they were all surprised and intrigued.
“Anything we like from Macy’s and all we have to do is give them anything they want from our stores; that’s quite a deal,” Linda remarked and they all agreed, that was quite a deal. So they all talked it over with their husbands who thought it a good deal and went one further, if Harry could do it, so could they. So they all decided to give each other carte blanch in one another’s stores and shook hands over it. And when all the other farms found out they got in on it too except for Gloria and David who snarled and said no one was getting anything for free in their stores.
Everyone went to Harry who grinned and gave them the same deal he was giving the kids and everyone was extremely happy, he and Jake had the best stores. He celebrated by giving everyone shopping in the store of their choice and most of the women picked Macy’s of course and some of the men picked the Home Depot and he and Jake opened stores and handed out key cards and let the town go wild. Except, of course, for Gloria, David, Susie, and Violet who all stayed home and sulked.
Then of course the whole thing went sour when everyone began fighting about who was getting more stuff from who’s store and who was taking advantage of whom and people starting locking certain people out of their stores and everyone reneged on the whole thing and informed everyone that the whole free shopping thing was ridiculous and how can they make a living and support their families for twenty thousand years if they let people just come off the streets and grab stuff. So everyone said the deal was off and it went back to the way it used to be but everyone had a wonderful time shopping for the short time.
Then Max and Charles came up with the bright idea that they needed an economy if they were going to survive as a town and for that they needed a bank and paper currency. Everyone was sick and tired of carrying around gold to pay for everything; it was heavy, cumbersome and a nuisance. So they asked Harry if he had brought down a bank.
“Actually I did bring down a bank, do you really think we need one now?” he asked and everyone nodded. They were all sick of carrying around gold. He nodded.
“I brought down a depository also, where we can print money and make coins, but you know, you just can’t print money, someone is going to have to deposit gold into the depository for the town’s economy,” he informed them. They all looked at one another. No one had that kind of gold or wanted to put it up. Harry shrugged.
“I’ll put up twenty million dollars and we’ll print twenty million dollars worth of currency but it’ll be my bank, the First National Bank of Edenville,” he declared and everyone was fine with that. Then he grinned.
“And my picture goes on