Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 by Claudia Hall Christian Read Free Book Online Page A

nodded
toward the men.
    “ Why should those jerks
ruin our nice day?” Colin said. “Piggyback ride?”
    He tossed her on his back and she squealed
and giggled. Julie helped Paddie climb onto to his father. Colin
held his hand out to Julie and they walked to the Denver Zoo.
    ~~~~~~~~
    Saturday evening – 5:45 P.M.
     
    Seth opened his eyes to what had been his
childhood play room. As a child, he’d spent long hours locked in
this room. Even though Maresol had left the door partially open, he
felt trapped.
    He’d felt fine after waking up from his long
sleep. That was last night. The doctors had told him that he was
physically healthy and fit. They’d released him to Ava and
Maresol’s care at around ten this morning.
    He was home for less than an hour when he
noticed a pain in his little toe. Within ten minutes, he had felt a
burning pain in every joint in his body. He was in so much pain,
the doctors were afraid to move him back to the hospital. They’d
wanted to knock him out again, but he’d refused. Sandy was in
Arizona closing the final chapter of her abuse. There was no way he
wasn’t going to help her.
    Plus, if everything went as well as he
expected, the woman who’d pretended to be Sandy’s mother would
reveal herself as the head of the child pornography ring. When you
combined that with selling Sissy and Charlie to Sandy, or as the US
District Attorney liked to call it: human trafficking, the woman
was going to jail for a long, long time.
    And one, two, three, it had all gone
down.
    Seth would have smiled, but smiling required
movement and movement caused pain. His friend and medical doctor,
Bumpie, had entrusted Maresol with a syringe. The moment the
document from Sandy came in his email, Maresol had put him out.
    He had no idea what woke him. But he did
need to use the bathroom.
    He made a slow, painful journey across the
room. The journey back to bed was almost worse than the journey to
the bathroom. He stopped and leaned against a shelf midway to catch
his breath.
    God, he hated this room. His father would
lock him in here with a piano and disappear. If there was one
reason he started composing music, it was to get out of this room.
He had to get that kid Dale to do something with this room. Taking
a breath for courage, he made it back to bed. He was almost to the
bed when he saw something on the edge of the white sheets.
    What was that?
    He squinted. The back end of a brown animal
was sticking out of the edge of his covers. Its tail was flying
back and forth. There was a scratching sound as if its front paws
were going a mile a minute.
    “ Hey,” Seth tried to say.
He got the ‘H’ out before he groaned with pain. It sounded more
like ‘H-groan-ay’. His mind chortled at his Zombie
impression.
    The animal jerked around to look at him. Its
eyes seemed to dance with recognition and laughter. In what had to
be a mimic of his ‘Hey’, the animal growl barked. He took the
remaining steps to the bed.
    “ Who are you?” Seth
asked.
    Beaming at Seth, the puppy barked again.
    “ All right, all right,”
Seth said. “Give me a second.”
    He fell more than dropped to the bed. The
puppy walked onto his lap and licked his chin. Gritting his teeth
against the pain, he rotated the collar to look at the tag.
    “ Clara?” Seth asked. “Are
you Clara?”
    The puppy gave another quick bark in
agreement.
    “ Well, Clara,” Seth said.
“I’m Seth. It’s very nice to meet you. According to this tag, I own
you. But let’s be clear from the start. You own you. I own me.
We’re friends. Like all friends, I will honor our friendship by
caring for you in my human way. I expect you to honor our
friendship by caring for me in your dog way. Does that work for
you, Clara?”
    The puppy licked his chin again.
    “ I assume the younger
members of the house have fed you and taken you out. You look like
you’ve had at least one bath.”
    The puppy seemed to nod.
    “ Good,” Seth said. “I’m
not really up