The twins’ father arrived two days later, and Mrs. Conrad invited the men and boys she had met to join the family for lunch. It was a lovely day, and they ate outside on a picnic table. Mrs. Conrad introduced her husband as Calvin. While the table was a little crowded, they managed.
Mr. Conrad was a slender man who had a good sense of humor and was able to engage everyone in conversation.
“What name do you use for your family?” Mr. Conrad asked.
“We think of ourselves as the Webster-Curtis clan, but usually we just go by Webster because that’s the boys’ last name as well as my own.”
Rodney grumped a bit at being left out of the name, but he did it in good fun.
At the end of the meal, having checked with Ben earlier, Joey invited the Conrads to join him on the whale watch and they agreed.
The children, including Charlie, repaired to the beach where they flew their new kites. The wind was perfect, and they played for a couple of hours before deciding it was time for a swim. While all the parents sat on the beach watching, the children paddled about and splashed each other, giggling all the time.
On Joey’s birthday, they drove to Provincetown in two cars and parked on MacMillan Pier. Ben and Rodney paid for the tickets, and they got in line to board the boat. Ben suggested that they would see a lot more if they went to the upper deck.
Joey and the twins were all agog as the boat moved out of the harbor. Charlie tried to remain cool, but he was secretly as excited as the younger children. None of them had ever seen a whale or been on a seagoing boat before.
When they were out of the harbor and on the ocean, there was a cooling breeze which was quite comfortable on the warm day. The boat plowed ahead until eventually it slowed down.
They had sailed into a pod of humpback whales, and as the crowd watched, the younger kids on the boat were jumping up and down with excitement.
Like everyone else, they moved from side to side on the boat to get the best views of the whales. Charlie watched Ben and Rodney closely. Several times he saw them place hands on the children’s shoulders. He was tempted to say something when Ben touched Joey. His dad had told him about gay men grooming vulnerable kids, and he wondered if Ben was doing that with Joey, but he decided to simply watch for the moment.
When that pod dived, the boat moved on slowly until it found a single humpback with her baby.
“That’s a baby?” Debbie, exclaimed, “It’s huge!”
“The poor mother,” said Mrs. Conrad, and the adults all chuckled.
Eventually the boat turned around to return to Provincetown, while they all sat enjoying sandwiches and drinks which the Webster men had packed.
“Don’t they have food on the boat?” asked Rory.
“Yes, they do,” answered Rodney, “but it’s overpriced and not terribly good, so we thought you’d enjoy what we brought instead. When we get back to Truro there’s birthday cake.”
The boat returned promptly, and the two families took a little time to explore the town. Joey especially wanted the twins to see the puzzle store.
Back at Truro, both families congregated in the Websters’ dining room for cake, ice cream, and more beverages. Joey managed to blow out all the cake candles on the first try, so he crowed that his wish would come true. When he was asked what his wish was, he refused to tell.
Then came presents, including some items from the Provincetown puzzle store, clothes, and a CD player. Charlie gave him several CDs and mentioned jokingly that now he wouldn’t have to share his own.
*******
One day, Joey said to the uncles, “I’ve been wondering something.”
“Okay, shoot,” said Rodney.
”Well, don’t you two have jobs? You never seem to go to work.”
Both of the men smiled, before Ben said, “We don’t go to work because we work here, although we’ve taken some time off to be with you. It turns out that Rodney is a math whiz and a genius at playing the stock market. He’s taught me to play it too, and that’s how we get our income.”
Charlie listened with interest. “But don’t you sometimes lose money?” he asked.
“Occasionally, but even when the market is falling, we can make money. We do lay aside enough of what we make so that in emergencies we have money to fall back on.”
Sadly for the two boys, the end of August was almost upon them, and they would return to school in September, on the Wednesday after Labor Day.
Because of the way their birthdays fell in the year, the boys were only three grades apart. Charlie considered himself four years older than his brother, but Joey thought of himself as three years younger. They often squabbled good-naturedly about it.
Joey would be going to the Truro Central Elementary School, which only went through the fifth grade. Charlie would be going into the 8th grade at the Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans.
The day after Joey’s birthday, he, Charlie, and the uncles went to their schools, stopping first at Joey’s new school. There the men registered him for the school year and got a list of supplies he would need. Again, Ben put his hand on Joey’s shoulder and Charlie nearly said something but refrained, not wanting to make a spectacle in public. Joey was surprised at how small the school was, having gone to a city school in Waco.
From there they drove to Orleans to find Charlie’s school, the Nauset Middle School. A boy there gave the family a tour of the school. When he was registered and they were headed for home, Charlie was silent, while Joey chatted away.
Ben asked Charlie what he was thinking about. At first he didn’t want to say, but with some prodding he said that he was nervous about going to the new school, that he wouldn’t know any of the kids, and that he had no idea whether his education so far would measure up to what his peers at his new school had learned.
“Charlie,” Ben replied, “you don’t need to worry about measuring up. Students in your school come from several towns. Some are advanced, many are average, and some will be slower. I’m sure the teachers are able to help the kids adjust.”
Charlie wasn’t convinced and he was silent for the rest of the trip.
On the Wednesday after Labor Day, the boys waited outside for their busses. Joey looked at Charlie and said, “Don’t worry, Charlie, you’ll be fine. I know you’re smart and you’ll probably be at the top of your class.”
Charlie wasn’t sure, and he sighed as he got on his bus.
Looking around he saw there were several empty seats, and he took one by a window toward the rear of the bus. As the bus made its way towards Orleans, a few more boys and girls got on at each stop.
When the bus was fairly full, a boy plunked himself down in the seat beside Charlie.
“Hi,” he said. “I don’t know you. I’m Jared Williams.”
Charlie glanced up and muttered, “Charlie Webster.”
“What grade?” asked Jared.
“Eighth.”
“Me too,” replied Jared. Then, having gotten through the important topics for middle schoolers who are just meeting each other, Jared remarked, “You have an interesting accent. Where do you come from?”
Charlie of course didn’t think he had an accent. He thought Jared did. “Waco, Texas,” he replied.
“Wow, that’s pretty far away and a big change. How are you liking the Northeast?”
“Okay,” Charlie replied. “I’ve been here most of the summer with my little brother. We’re living with our uncle.” Charlie was careful not to make that last word plural.
The two boys chatted until the bus pulled up at the school, though Jared was doing most of the talking. Charlie did, however, take enough looks at Jared to scope him out. He concluded that his seatmate was quite cute. He had curly brown hair hanging down to his ears, dark, almost black eyes, and above all an impish grin, which he flashed frequently.
Having been shown where his homeroom and locker were when he visited, Charlie went directly to them and put items in the locker he wouldn’t need until later.
He looked around at the kids in his homeroom. They were full of chatter about what they had done during the summer. A couple of boys who sat near him said hi to Charlie, and he replied. That was the extent of his interaction.
Charlie was pleased to find that Jared was in his math class as well as his English class.
In the lunchroom, he looked around for an empty table until Jared waved him over to one full of boys. Charlie sat in the last available chair. Jared introduced him to the other boys and told them he was from Waco, Texas. The boys absorbed that information. None of them had ever met anyone from Texas before.
“Quite a change?” asked one of the boys.
Charlie only nodded.
“Charlie’s the strong, silent type,” said Jared, smiling as he said it.
Charlie fielded questions like, “Is your dad a cowboy?” or, “Are there Indians in Waco?” He wasn’t quite sure whether the boys were serious or whether they were teasing him a little. If it was teasing it was good natured, and he decided they were really being kind as they welcomed him into their group.
At the end of the school day, when Charlie went out to his bus, Jared boarded and sat beside him.
“How was your first day?” Jared asked.
“Okay, I guess. At least I didn’t do anything too stupid.”
Jared laughed. “I think you’ll find that the kids here are pretty friendly. Offhand, I can’t think of anybody who isn’t. The teachers really enjoy teaching, and they make the classes interesting and often fun.”
They talked easily until Jared left the bus and Charlie rode the rest of the way to his own stop.
Entering the house, he was greeted by Joey, who babbled away about his first day.
Over supper, the boys were asked questions about their schools and classes and whether they’d made any friends.
“Well, I already have the twins, so I have friends. But really, everyone was friendly except one boy who seemed sort of angry. The other kids just left him alone, so I did too.”
Charlie told the others briefly about Jared as well as the boys he ate lunch with. When he told them about the questions the boys had asked, they all laughed.
Neither boy had any homework after the first day, so the family watched a movie before the boys went up to bed.
Charlie realized how tired he was. He’d been pretty tense all day, looking for bumps in the road but finding few and none that were unmanageable. Lying in bed, he began rubbing himself. He found himself thinking about Jared and wondering what he looked like naked. He knew he would find that out on Thursday when they had PE.
After relieving himself and cleaning off, he fell into a deep, restful sleep.