Chapter 5
"Done," Frohike announced. The paper was ready to go to press. He looked at his watch. It was almost eight o'clock and he was hungry. Emma had to be starving. She hadn't eaten much at lunch. "Who wants dinner?"
Langly was, of course, quite willing to eat. Emma was more than ready and Byers agreed that it sounded like a good idea.
"What do you think, Emma, should we take these two out to dinner?"
"Sure!" Emma liked the idea of treating her new friends to a meal out. "Can we go in the VW bus?"
"I don't see why not."
Emma sat in the back of the van with Langly. He showed her as much of the equipment as possible while they were moving. When they got to the restaurant he demonstrated how the periscope worked. Frohike finally had to insist that they get out of the vehicle so that they could go to dinner. "You two can play around with all this junk tomorrow. Let's go!"
Dinner was nothing fancy but still very good. Emma had suggested ice cream for dessert but Langly vetoed the idea. The milk she had for dinner was bad enough but adding ice cream to that was way too much mucus food. Frohike requested that the word mucus not be used at the dinner table. Langly pressed the point and they all had pie for desert: three ala mode, one plain. Emma was not happy about it but Langly promised to take her for a huge hot fudge sundae when she had shaken the asthma completely.
An hour and a half later, the plates long since cleared away they sat talking over coffee. Emma had fallen asleep leaning against her dad. He got her to lie down in the back of the big semicircular booth in which the hostess had seated them. Byers' jacket was in use as a blanket.
Frohike knew he should take her home but he was enjoying a chance to catch up with his two oldest friends. Langly looked down at Emma then over at Frohike. "Fro, I owe you an apology. I've been a real jerk these last few weeks."
"That's okay, buddy, I knew you'd come around to my way of thinking eventually since I'm always right."
"Yeah, but then you're just a smug s.o.b. aren't you?" Langly slung back at Frohike with a grin.
"I guess I am at that."
Langly became serious again. "Man, you know if there's anything I can do to help, I'm there."
Byers seconded that offer.
"I wanted to do it on my own but I've discovered that it's a lot harder than I thought. I'm trying to do everything right but I'm not always certain what 'right' is."
"You seem to be doing pretty well so far," Byers told him.
"I should have brought her around to meet you guys before this."
Langly agreed. "It might have made things easier. At the very least Jimmy wouldn't have been so obnoxious trying to get you to let him meet her. I was ready to lock him in a closet."
"He's going to be really unhappy that he wasn't here today." Byers added.
"Where is he anyway?" Frohike asked.
"He said that Yves wanted his help with something." Byers couldn't imagine what that could be but Jimmy had jumped at the chance.
Langly laughed at the idea of Jimmy helping Yves but knew Jimmy had it bad for the woman.
"Who's Yves?" Emma asked propped up on one elbow. She wasn't completely awake.
"She's an associate of ours." Frohike explained. "Are you ready to go?"
"Anytime," she replied but then flopped back down on the seat.
All three men laughed at her. She got back up. "What?"
"Let's go. Do you have everything?" Frohike asked as he got up out of the booth. He wanted to make sure they did not leave without any vital medication.
"I don't know. What time is it?" She looked around to find her backpack but Langly had it slung over one shoulder. "Have you seen my backpack?" She started to crawl under the table. Byers stopped her. She looked up at him as he pointed to Langly. "Oh, thanks." She slid out of the booth almost tripping over her own feet as she tried to stand up. Frohike took her arm and turned her toward the door.
"Come on, Sleeping Beauty."
"Hey, don't make fun of me. I'm sick remember."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're walking now."
They finally made it out to the VW bus. "Can you guys just drop us off at home?" Emma had been strapped into the front seat and had already fallen back to sleep. "I don't want to wake her up to change cars again."
"No problem, but you won't have a car." Byers hated to leave them without transportation. "Do you want me to come get you in the morning?"
"That would work. Thanks."
Byers arrived as promised at 9:00 AM. Emma must have been watching for him because she had the front door open before his foot hit the first step. "Good morning, John." She found it easier to call him that now that she had gotten to know him a little. "Dad's almost ready." She ran over to the bottom of the stairs and yelled up it, "Dad, he's here."
Frohike appeared at the top of the stairs. "You don't need to shout. I figured that out when I heard the front door slam."
Emma ignored him. She had learned that he could be grouchy in the morning but it soon passed. She turned back to Byers. "Would you like a tour of the house?"
Byers and Langly had seen most of it the night before but he let her lead him around while Frohike got some coffee. Upstairs she quickly made Frohike's bed and grabbed the wet towel out of his bathroom and threw it in the laundry room. Byers realized that Emma was taking care of Frohike almost as much as Frohike was taking care of Emma.
He'd heard the story about the piano so he didn't ask if she played when they got back downstairs. They met Frohike in the kitchen. He did a quick check to make sure Emma had all her homework and medication.
Emma was a little disappointed that Byers had brought the Honda and not the VW bus. Langly had needed it to run some early errands, mainly to go grocery shopping if Emma was going to be with them all day. Beer and pretzels was not an appropriate lunch for an 11 year old.
Emma rode in the back seat talking about things that excited her during the trip to the warehouse. She would get so intent on what she was saying that Frohike had to keep reminding her to sit back in the seat. Byers was pleased to see that she was feeling better but Frohike looked very tired.
Langly was not back yet when they arrived. Jimmy wasn't around either. He hadn't come home the night before but no one was really worried. Emma was disappointed that neither man was around.
"This is actually better," Frohike told Emma, "because you still need to finish your homework."
"But, Dad, I've got all weekend to do it."
Thank you, Langly, for putting that idea in her head. "Don't 'but, Dad' me. We had a deal. You agreed to finish your homework first thing this morning."
"I know but there isn't that much to do."
"Emma, if you're going to give me a hard time about this we'll go back home right now."
That was the end of the argument. Emma looked around for a clear table space that would be big enough for her math text and notebook. Finding none she asked if she could move some stuff.
"Come with me. You can use the table in the kitchen." Frohike led her up the stairs. She was surprised to find a whole living area up there. It was much brighter here where windows let in the daylight. There was a kitchen area, a table with four chairs, a TV viewing area, and a space that looked like a workout room with a bunch of weights on a rack.
"Did you live here before you came to live with me?"
"Yes. Here, you can work at the kitchen table." Frohike cleared away some newspapers. "I'll be right downstairs if you need me."
Emma sat down at the table and spread her school stuff out before looking around. Down the hall to her left, she could see a series of doors leading to other rooms. She listened for sounds of her father going down the stairs. She tiptoed over to the top of the stairs and cautiously looked down. She couldn't see him so she waited for a few seconds. Yes, she could hear the two men talking.
Good. She walked silently back past the table and down the hall. Most of the doors stood open. The first one was a bedroom. It was extremely neat and well appointed. "This must be John's room," she correctly guessed. She respected her new friend too much to invade his privacy. She similarly identified and stayed out of Langly's room and Jimmy's room.
Her father's room, on the other hand, she did not hesitate to enter. Flipping on the light she saw that the bed was made, something he seldom did at home. There was a nightstand with a bedside lamp. She went over and sat near the head of the bed. There wasn't much here. He must have brought almost everything with him when he moved in with her.
She opened the drawer of the nightstand. There were lots of little odds and ends here but nothing of true interest. On the floor against one wall were three silver briefcases. She picked one up and put it on the bed. Opening it she discovered a very large telephoto lens for a camera. "Okay, this is in the 'If I'm Even Found Touching It, I'm Dead' category," she quietly told herself. Using extreme caution, she closed the lid and put the case back on the floor where she found it. She ignored the other two cases figuring they held similar items.
In the closet she found some clothes that looked nothing like what Frohike usually wore. That must have been why he left them there. There were some old shoes and a black jump suit with lots of pockets. She couldn't imagine what that was for. There were also some winter coats and a funny, fur lined vest.
She looked in a couple of boxes stored in the back of the closet and found some old papers and letters. These looked important so she put them back where she found them. She found a large shoebox full of photographs. She took this box out of the closet and set it on the bed. She checked outside the door to make sure no one had come up the stairs. She went back over to the bed and started going through the pictures.
Her father was in very few of them. Most of them appeared to have been taken fairly recently. She had hoped to find some really old pictures: family shots, group or individual pictures of her dad as he was growing up. There were several of John and Langly and a few of Jimmy but one person showed up more than any one else.
She was a red haired woman with fine features and an intelligent face. This woman was almost always in a suit, usually with a skirt and she wore a necklace with a small gold cross on it. Often there was a tall, good-looking man with her but she was always the focal point of the picture.
She went through the pictures again just in case she had missed something, just to be sure. But she never found any family photos. She had asked Frohike a couple of times about his family. She had learned that his dad, her grandfather, had died many years ago and that his mother had died only six years ago.
She had missed a chance to know her grandmother. She found out that she had an uncle but that neither man, her father nor her uncle, would have anything to do with the other. She had always wanted to be part of a big family with brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousin, etc. When she had found out about her father, her first thought was that now she might have grandparents and everything. But Frohike didn't even know if his brother was married. Emma had been deeply disappointed by that. She had lost the only family she had ever known when her mother died. 'Auntie' Cordelia didn't count. At least she had her dad now but they were still just a family of two.
Emma sat feeling a little sorry for herself when she heard the buzzer from downstairs. She figured Langly must be back from the grocery store. With the kitchen on this floor she knew that she would have company in short order. Emma quickly put the pictures back in the box and shoved it in the closet. She turned off the light and peeked out the door. She could hear them on the stairs. There was no way she could get back to the table in time.
Seeing that no one had reached the top of the stairs yet she ran then slid across the hall to the bathroom. She closed the door noiselessly, flushed the toilet, washed her hands and dried them. She walked out of the bathroom as the three men were putting bags of groceries down on the counter. At the last minute she realized that there was no math work on the page of the notebook she had left open on the table. She mentally crossed her fingers hoping that no one would notice.
"What's our little 'funky poacher' doing now?" Langly asked.
They had put all the groceries away and left Emma upstairs to finish her homework. Frohike checked the monitor. "Now, she's actually doing her Math."
"How long would you have let her rummage around up there before telling her that she was on 'Candid Camera'?"
"The only room she went into was mine. If it had been any of yours I would have stopped her."
"Are you going to give her a bad time about it?" Langly knew that Frohike was unhappy about her snooping but Langly didn't think it was that big a deal.
"What if she had gotten into something dangerous?"
"There's nothing dangerous up there. Is there?" Then something scary occurred to Langly. "You don't still have that old gun do you?"
Frohike shook his head. "No, I got rid of that ages ago. There's nothing dangerous up there but down here is another story. If I can't trust her to be alone without getting into things, I won't be able to bring her around as much as I'd like."
Langly agreed with him on that. "Well, just don't yell at her."
"I'm not going to yell at her but it looks like we'll have to lay down some ground rules. I'll talk to her tonight. There are some other things we need to discuss as well."
Once her homework was complete, Emma and Langly went out to the "Mobile Command Unit" to finish exploring the equipment. Emma loved the name assigned to the ancient vehicle and messing with all the surveillance gear. The periscope and parabolic microphone were her two favorites. The only thing that she did not get a chance to try was the night vision goggles but that could wait.
While Emma and Langly were keeping each other entertained, Byers went to the printers with the disk for the newest edition. Frohike had been yawning excessively. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Every time he heard a noise from Emma's room he woke up.
He hadn't noticed before that she talked in her sleep. Often she just murmured but sometimes she spoke very clearly. She talked to or about her mom most often. It broke his heart to listen to her. At one point she was even crying. He didn't wake her though. Sleep seemed the best choice. He was relieved that she had no problems with her asthma during the night. Needless to say he got very little sleep himself.
He trusted Langly to stay with Emma so he went up to his old room to try and catch a few Zs. Once there he looked around to see what she could have been doing in this room for so long this morning. The three cases of camera equipment were all undisturbed but in the closet he found his box of photos with the cover askew. He took it out and quickly looked through it. He wasn't sure what all had been in there but found nothing that could have shocked or traumatized her. He replaced the lid and stored the box in its original spot in the closet. He fell asleep immediately once he lay down.
He was shocked out of sleep by the sound of Emma screaming. He jumped up and ran out into the hall. He heard her scream again. She was downstairs in the work area. Where on earth was Langly? He flew down the stairs and stopped dead.
"Jimmy, what the hell are you doing to her?"
"This," Jimmy demonstrated. He grabbed Emma from behind with his arms under hers and swung her around, her feet flying out in front of her. This time she didn't scream because she realized she'd been thoughtless and woken up her father.
Frohike's pulse was racing. "You two are going to give me a heart attack! Put her down and knock it off!" Frohike hadn't intended to shout. Jimmy did as he was told. Frohike went back upstairs to get his glasses. When he came out of his room, Emma was waiting for him in the hall.
"I'm really sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to wake you up." She looked near tears. She knew he was worried about her and that he wasn't getting enough sleep. She hadn't meant to make so much noise but Jimmy had surprised her.
Frohike felt bad for yelling at them. "Come here." He hugged her tight. "I was just grouchy because you scared me. I'm not really mad."
"I'm sorry, I won't do it again."
"It's all right. I just have to learn the difference between excited squealing and frightened screaming. But for right now let's just say no screaming or squealing indoors. How does that sound?"
She nodded.
"Why don't you go let Jimmy know everything is fine."
"He knows. He's standing right there." Emma pointed down the hallway toward the kitchen. Jimmy ducked back behind the wall to Byers' room not wanting to get caught spying on them during a private moment.
"Jimmy, I can still see your shoes," Frohike called down to him. The toes of Jimmy's shoes also disappeared. Frohike chuckled at his friend. Emma was smiling, too.
When they went back downstairs, Frohike discovered that Yves was there. In all the commotion, he hadn't noticed her. She took her first opportunity to tease Frohike having met Emma earlier.
"So, Melvin, you weren't kidding about having a whole litter."
Frohike shot her a dirty look. Emma watched the two of them sensing that this was an old joke between them and that it probably would do no good to ask what Yves meant.
Emma wasn't sure what to make of Yves. She was very beautiful and exotic and had a great accent. Emma wished her hair looked like Yves'. At times, she was very cool to all the guys, almost disdainful. But then, when Yves wasn't careful, Emma could tell that she really did care about them. She wondered why Yves felt she needed to hide this fact from them. What was she afraid of? No one here would hurt her. They had all readily accepted Emma and they had known Yves for a lot longer.
Yves was very nice to her. She had even teased her a little asking how she liked living with all these men. Emma had explained that she didn't live at the warehouse but in the home her mother had bought before she was born.
Emma noticed after talking with her for a while that Yves was very good at turning the conversation away from herself and back to Emma and the Gunmen. Emma didn't push it though. There was something going on with Yves that she did not understand so she just decided to accept her at face value.
Yves didn't stay for very long. Jimmy was obviously reluctant for her to leave.
As soon as Yves was gone, Emma asked Jimmy, "Is Yves your girlfriend?"
Jimmy didn't answer. He just looked down at the floor.
"Emma!" Frohike shook his head at her.
"I'm sorry, Jimmy." She retreated behind Langly's computer and watched as Jimmy went upstairs. She sat down next to Langly. "What did I do wrong?"
Langly patted her back to offer reassurance. "You didn't do anything wrong. That's just a really sore subject."
"That Yves is Jimmy's girlfriend or that she is not his girlfriend?"
"That he would like her to be his girlfriend."
"Oh, I didn't know."
"How could you?"
"Will he be okay?"
"Yeah, he's pretty tough. He's also very patient."
After about twenty minutes Jimmy came back down stairs. He brought a basketball with him. Emma was more than willing to shoot a few baskets and between the two of them, they talked Langly into going outside with them.
Emma couldn't really play with the two tall men so she just had a good time getting in the way and stealing the ball in the most outrageous ways. She would grab the back of Langly's t-shirt and keep him from moving very quickly. When he would turn to disengage her, she would knock the ball out of his hands, run off with it not even trying to dribble, and take wild shots at the basket.
She would also wrap her arms around the ball and not let go. At one point, Jimmy held the ball up in the air with her dangling from it. She could not maintain her grip on it for long and dropped off. She accused him of cheating and then grabbed the ball from him when he stopped to protest that he was not the only one.
Needless to say, she had a wonderful time and was pleased to note that after an hour of such strenuous activity, that she had not thought about her asthma even once.
The call to dinner interrupted their game and then it was time for a tired father and daughter to head home. When they had gone Byers told Langly and Jimmy how he figured they could do a little remodeling. They sat down at a computer and started plotting out how the living room/workout room could be converted to make space for Emma.