Saturday Morning

It was a warm and sunny Saturday morning. In the neat and tidy backyard of the Thompson’s house, ten-year-old Ron Thompson was noisily pitching a tent. Ron was a Cub Scout. His fifteen-year-old brother, Little Russ, was lifting weights nearby. Their father, big Russ, called weight lifting pumping iron. Big Russ worked for the Olympian Construction Company.

Suddenly, a window on the second store of the Thompson’s house whooshed open. Big Russ leaned out on the windowsill and stuck his head and shoulders out. Even though he’d just gotten out of bed and was still in rumpled pajamas, Mr. Thompson already wore his favorite hat, a Giants baseball cap, pulled down low on his head. He glared at his watch and then down at the kids.

“What are you two doing? ” he yelled. “And at this hour? ”

Ron continued hammering away. He called to Big Russ without looking up at him, “Pitching a tent, Dad.”

“Don’t you know I’m sleeping? ”

“But you’re talking to us, Dad.” Ron looked up at the window. “You look wide awake.”

Ron smiled innocently at his father. Big Russ glared back, then withdrew his head and slammed the bedroom window shut.

Ron slumped to the ground with a disappointed look on his face.

“What’s wrong, Ron? ” his brother asked.

“This, ” Ron waved at the tent, “is sissy stuff.”

“What is? ”

“Camping in the yard. I want to camp out in the real jungle. with wild animals. Cannibals. Grizzly bears….”

Little Russ made a sour face at Ron. “Grizzly bears don’t live in the jungle, ” he said.

“They do in my jungle. And they’d eat wieners like you for breakfast.”

Ron liked to tease his brother as much as he liked to upset their father.

Little did either of them know that Ron was going to get his wish for a wild jungle. And soon. Amy Szalinski was watching the Thompson boys that sunny Saturday morning. She studied them, mostly Little Russ, from the kitchen window of the rundown Szalinski house next door to the Thompson house.

Amy sighed. Like Little Russ, she was fifteen. But she was tall, rather than short like Russ. And she wore glasses. Russ just didn’t seem to notice her. She sighed again and returned to making breakfast for the rest of her family.

Amy’s mother had had an argument with Amy’s father the night before, and her mother had spent the night at Amy’s grandmother’s house. Amy was feeling in for her mom as best she could.

But cooking wasn’t one of Amy’s strong suits.

She picked up the bowl of eggs she had just finished beating and looked down at the nine-years-old brother, Nick. He was seated across the table, reading science fiction paperback, as usually. Amy put some bread in to the toaster near Nick. “Watch the toast for me, Nick, ” Amy said.

“Sure, ” Nick said without looking up from his paperback. The book he was absorbed in that morning was called Peace Feelers and Other Stories. Amy noticed that Nick’s current book had the sort of weird creature cover Nick seemed to prefer in his light reading. Nick was small and thin, and seemed to be allergic to everything. He was not much help around the house.

Amy walked to the sink and ran cold water into the bowl of eggs. Then she crossed the kitchen to the stove and poured the mixture of eggs and water into a waiting frying pan. She turned the flame down to low heat. Nick laid his book down and walked over to the stove. On his tiptoes, he peered into the pan.

“Mom never made scrambled eggs that looked like that, ” Nick said, gazing back and forth from the eggs up to Amy’s face.

“Mom’s not here.”

“When do you thing she’s coming back? ” Nick asked, glancing at the eggs up suspiciously again.

“I don’t know. Maybe never….” Amy said.

“I hope she comes back soon, ” Nick replied.

“How is the toast coming? ” his sister asked.

“Fine, ” Nick told her, without looking at the toaster.

“Then how come it’s smoking? ”

Nick strolled back to the table and sat down.

“Is it hot? ” he asked brightly. He popped the toaster handle. Two smoking black squares rose slowly into view.

Amy walked to the table holding the frying pan and scraped some of its contents onto the plate in front of Nick. “A straight-A student, but you can’t make toast, ” Amy complained.

“I want to be a scientist like Dad. Not a cook, ” Nick told her.

“Where is Dad? ” Amy asked him.

“Upstairs, ” Nick told her.

“As usual.”

Glossary:

shrink – зменшити;

neat – охайний;

pitch – розбивати;

rumpled – пом`ята;

slump – падати (різко);

sissy – ніжний;

wiener – шніцель.