Read Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 13 for Free Online Page B

know what you girls are gonna do, but I'll come up with something."
    The Dahlton twins were seething as we trooped across the living room, but I presumed they'd survive and slap together some really yummy cheese sandwiches. The rest of us hiked up to the field.
    None of the existing planks beneath the bleachers were salvageable. Larry Joe managed to keep everyone busy carting away the debris, hammering the metal frames back into shape, and measuring the spans for fresh planks. The boys, if not the girls, were all accustomed to taking directions from him, and we'd made significant progress by noon.
    I took in their sweaty faces and dirt-caked fingernails. "Go to your cabins to wash up, then hustle to the lodge. Lunch should be ready when you get there."
    "Yeah, cheese sandwiches," said Billy Dick. "I can hardly wait."
    "Don't forget the applesauce tonight," Amy Dee said with a smirk. "Maybe Mrs. Jim Bob will give you an extra scoop if you're mannersome." She began to chant, "Billy Dick, he makes us sick; we all think he's such a prick."
    Cousin Lynette from Paris and Heather found this most amusing, but Billy Dick did not. Once Larry Joe had tackled him and I'd come damn close to whacking the girls upside the head, I said, "Clean up and be at the lodge in ten minutes for lunch. Eat the cheese sandwiches or not -- it doesn't matter to me. Getting through this week does, however. I'm going to close my eyes and count to ten. Anyone left will be scrubbing garbage cans with a toothbrush!"
    I grabbed Larry Joe before he could dash away with the others. "Not you," I said wearily. "We have a problem. These kids aren't going to work every day for eight or nine hours and then sing hymns until bedtime. If they don't get decent meals and some organized recreation, they'll find ways to have some of an entirely different sort. Neither of us can stay awake all night for a week."
    "Like I ain't been teaching high school for fourteen years? What say we work from eight till eleven in the morning, then play softball before lunch? In the afternoons, we'll knock off at three or so and go down to the lake. I'm not sure there's much we can do after the lights are out, but I guess we can try."
    I shrugged. "What about the food? By tomorrow, they'll be adopting Diesel's diet."
    Larry Joe pulled out a worn leather wallet. "All I've got's a twenty. Add that to what you've got and tell Mrs. Jim Bob you need to drive into town to buy a four-inch drill bit at the hardware store. We can feed 'em hamburgers this afternoon. Maybe some of them brought a few dollars, but after that, I dunno what we can do."
    "Me, neither," I said as I took his bill and tucked it into my shirt pocket.
    Larry Joe trudged down the hill toward the lodge, leaving me alone on what would have been home plate had there been anything whatsoever pounded into the dirt. A rabbit bounded into the infield, eyed me, and scampered into the woods. Unless Larry Joe and I fed the kids, the rabbit's life expectancy was less than nature dictated. Flopsy and Mopsy might find their way onto the menu by Monday; Cottontail and Peter would be history by Wednesday.
    Mrs. Jim Bob was not impressed with the urgency of my request, but grudgingly gave me the key to the bus. Feeling as though I were driving away from a refugee camp, I kept my face averted as I drove under the camp sign and headed for the nearest outpost of civilization.
    Dunkicker was twice as ugly as Maggody, but only because it was twice as big. We had one block of abandoned stores; Dunkicker had two. It did have a public library housed in a trailer, as well as a feed store and an establishment called Buttons and Bows. A building with metal siding purported to contain city hall, municipal court, the post office, and the police department. There were no jaunty gingham curtains in the windows or cars parked out front to indicate the offices were currently occupied.
    It was impossible to slide into town unobtrusively in a blue bus with a