It's summer again, and that means Maribel's goin' to Girl Scouts on Saturdays, home on Sundays and babysat by Gilbert (not my choice) on Mondays and Tuesdays and Joel DeBoer (Elise's daddy, and still not my choice) on Wednesdays and Francis and Arthur on the others, after she gets back from whatever thing they did at Antonio's summer activity camp that day. It's tirin' for me, 'cuz I have to drive her to everything, 'cuz Nat can't drive and works. If she'd stay home like a normal wife, then we wouldn't have this problem.

I also don't like bein' the only dad at the Girl Scout meetings. I swear they think I'm a single parent tryin' to do good for my kid. True, if I was, I'd do it, but I ain't, and I don't like them assumin' things about me.

One day, though, I don't got work, 'cuz they still don't trust me outside of the machines on the worksite, and Maribel ain't got nothin' 'cuz Antonio's sick and there's no Girl Scouts, and Nat's at work, so we're just sittin' there with nothin' to do.

"Daddy, kin we do somethin'? I'm bored!" Maribel says, lookin' up at me.

"Well... whaddya wanna do?" I ask her. She sits there for a moment and thinks.

"We should... go on a trip. Tell Mama and Toni and Mrs. G. that we'll be back when we're back." she grins up at me, clearly thinkin' even more about this as she goes, "And we should take Marina and Elise, 'cuz they ain't never been on a real trip before! Elise ain't never even left the city!"

Well. My lil' girl's certainly got a sense of adventure in her, wantin' to travel. Most kids'd hate bein' in a car for days at a time, but when we drove from Palmito all the way to New York, she didn't complain, not once.

"But Maribel, I got work." I tell her.

"So? Call Mr. Grubbs and tell him yer sick, or... yeah! Tell him that yer gonna go on a spirit's journey, to find yerself in the mountain spirits, like the monks on TV!" she says.

"Hmm. Alright, but you gotta back me up." I tell her, makin' my face as serious as possible with the way I wanna smile. Maribel nods, just as serious as me. I take out my phone and hand it to her. "You tell Mr. Grubbs that I'm too sick with... I dunno, somethin' to talk to him, and I'll be back when I'm better, alright?"

"Hello, Mr. Grubbs?" She asks on the phone, "My name's Maribel Jones and my daddy J.G. got... ebola-swine-flu and can't talk to ya right now. He wants me to say that he ain't got an idea of when he'll be back, but it'll be when Dr. Mason says he's better 'nuff." She tips her head to one side, "Yes sir, ebola-swine-flu is a real thing, and a con-sit-able serious one, too!" she frowns a bit at the phone, "No sir, it ain't real ebola, thank Gods above, but it makes the same sickies as the real thing! Daddy's real lucky he ain't dead! He's gotta stay in bed, so he ain't comin' in fer a while! Thank'y fer understandin', Mr. Grubbs! Bye!" she looks at me and hands the phone back. "Did I do good?"

I grin at her. "You did real good. I raised up a good lil' actress, didn't I?"

"Now," she says, "I gotta go run to the tunnel and tell Mr. DeBoer that we're takin' Elise fer a while, and then to the East End Projects to tell Mr. Beilschmidt that we's takin' Marina, and-"

"Hey, hey, hey!" I say, grabbin' her arm. "You might be a good actress, but yer only six on the outside. Lemme go with you, 'specially by the projects. 'Member the bad men that'll hurt lil' girls?"

Joel is pleased that his kid'll get to travel, and Gilbert's glad to have the wild Marina off his hands for a while. He tells me people say she acts just like he did at that age. I beleive it. While the girl's are packin', I call Nat.

"J.G., what is it? I'm workink." she asks.

"I'm takin' Maribel and her two friends on a roadtrip. We'll likely be back in a couple weeks." I tell her. She sighs.

"I knew you wouldn't want to stay in the city for very long at a time." She says.

"So you ain't upset that I'm just leavin' with three six-year-olds in the car?"

"Gettink upset would not stop you, so I will not try." she says, simply.

"Well, thanks fer not gettin' mad." I tell her, "Love ya!"

"I love you too, J.G. Have fun on your trip."

So, with that, we're off on the road, first stop, checkin' up on Big Farm in South Carolina.