Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan Read Free Book Online Page A

"It's me! They're all looking for me! Oh-oh. We're in so much trouble."
    Before I can stop her, she jumps off the wooden steps and calls out, "Here I am. I'm here. Here I am."

Chapter Five
    OKAY, TROUBLE ISN'T the word for it. I'm standing in Lam's parents' cabin after "lights out," getting an earful about how if I had read the rulebook, I would know that I'm never to have a camper alone with me in the cabin.
    "Do you understand the worry and trouble you put us through? Do you realize the trouble you could be in if she decides to tell somebody you molested her?" Mrs. Lothrop asks.
    "Wait a minute. Molested?" I fall backward and hit the doorframe. Are they freakin' kidding me?
    "Yes! Molested.
M-O-L-E-S-T-E-D.
" Mrs. Lothrop spells it out. She's pacing, and her large, capable feet sound like blocks of wood being smacked together.
    "Why would she do that? I didn't touch her—well hardly, but not like that! Give me a break!"
    Mrs. Lothrop's face is so red hot I don't know why I don't see smoke rising off her head. Oh, wait—maybe I do.
    "I just can't get over how stupid, how completely stupid and inconsiderate you were to take her to your cabin. You should have taken her right back to the dining hall. And
your
cabin of all places. From now on, no camper is allowed in that cabin, even if he or she is with a chum. It's unwholesome."
    Right. I want to give the lady a whole shitload of unwholesome, but she's my new MIL—mother-in-law—so I bite down on my lower lip till I practically draw blood and say nothing. Meanwhile, Lam's screwing some bimbo at a party and will come home plastered and then some, maybe throw up or pass out right in full view of all the campers, but all he'll get is a "Clean yourself up before you come to work, will you my dearest, sweetest, most precious, darling perfection?"
    How is it some parents can be so completely blind to their children's faults? Just because Lam is their one and only, they dote on him like he's God Almighty himself.
    Mr. Lothrop, my FIL, looks too tired to say anything, so he just glares to show he's with her—the MIL. Lam has told me all about the first-night-of-camp after-dinner speech, so I know the FIL has spent the last couple of hours yammering to all the campers gathered in the main lodge about the rules—fifty rules that start with "Don't ever..." and a hundred that start with "You better not..." and another fifty of "If we ever catch you..." Then he talks about all the fun everybody is going to have, which to me seems to be a total contradiction of all the rules of starvation and exercise and "You're dead if you..." warnings, but who am I to say?
    Finally they dismiss me, but not before the MIL calls me back from the doorway. "And Eleanor," she says, and I look back, "don't ever wear that dress again."
    I don't say anything. I just leave, but you can bet your life that I'll be wearing this same dress tomorrow and maybe even the next day. I'm pregnant, lady! How many mother-to-be outfits does she think I have? And these tent dresses are the most comfortable. Of course I hadn't planned on dressing like a pumpkin again even if it is comfortable, but now that I've been challenged, I can't resist. What can she do to me, anyway? Ban me from the camp? Oh, boo-hoo!
    ***
    Lam doesn't get back to our cabin until five the next morning. I didn't sleep much, anyway, because I had to keep getting up to go to the bathroom, which meant putting on some kind of shoes and a bathrobe because everyone must wear shoes and a bathrobe to go to the bathroom at night. It's rule number 5,987 in the camp fun book. Then I have to grab my flashlight and tiptoe around on piles of rocks and roots up the hill to the bathroom hut. It's a fifteen-minute ordeal at least, and I went through it some twelve times before I decided to just sit on the toilet and lean against the wall to get some sleep. That was the best sleep I got all night, but I didn't want to be found there and get into more