The Strangers of Kindness by Terry Hickman Read Free Book Online

grew up, and they were mostly jeans and shirts, so the boys could wear them, too. She spotted her old teddy bear and flop-eared rabbit sitting on a box. “Oh my darlings,” she thought, “do I know some little bodies who need you.
    She distributed likely-sized clothes into the two extra bedrooms on the second floor: things for Curt and silent Joseph in one room, and things for Winnie and Sissy in the other. On Joseph’s pile she placed the blue-furred rabbit. In the bedside lamp’s soft glow his eyes sparkled at her. Sissy’s clothes she crowned with the bear, wrapping the sleeves of a sweater around him like a hug.
    The kids were putting away their seconds and thirds of stew, with large slabs of homemade bread and milk to wash it down.  
    Surgeon even ate with his strange gloves on. None of the kids seemed to notice. Theo sat watching them, grinning. When it looked like they’d topped out, he leaned back and casually pulled the Dalmatian dog cookie jar across the counter. “Full? Oh, that’s too bad. You probably don’t want any cookies, then, huh?”
    They quickly corrected his faulty assumption. He smiled at Jennifer over their heads. When the cookie-distribution hubbub died down in a symphony of crunching, she announced: “Okay, troop, it’s bath time. I’m going to go start the tub, and you guys decide who goes first. There are clean clothes up in the bedrooms; go pick out pajamas or whatever you want to wear to bed and bring it down to put on after you’re clean.”
    They decided to bathe in ascending age order, since Sissy and Joseph were both sleepy. Winnie took them upstairs to get their pajamas. A few minutes later they returned clutching p.j.‘s and stuffed animals, regarding Jennifer with wide, almost frightened eyes.
    “What’s the matter?”
    Winnie spoke for them. “Are these things for them to keep? Or just for while we’re here?”
    “Oh, to keep! Sure! Come here,” she gestured to the kids, who drew near, and she put her hands on their shoulders. “Now, you can have them, but only if you promise to take really good care of them. They were mine when I was little, and they’ve got lots of good love in them. They need somebody to take care of them. You have to find good names for them. Will you do that?”
    Solemn nods.
    “Okay, go get clean, you two.”
    It took an hour and a half to get everybody bathed and ready for bed. Winnie scrubbed the smaller kids.
    At last Winnie and Sissy lay snuggled under the blanket, Sissy hugging “Boom-Bear.” Curt had helped Joseph name his rabbit “Ferrari,” and the three of them slept soundly to the music of Curt’s soft snores.
    Surgeon bathed last, and put on clean jeans and shirt. He went out to the kitchen where Jennifer and Theo were brewing a last cup of coffee and gleaning the crumbs out of the cookie jar.  
    Theo shoved a chair out for him with a foot. “So, pretty good so far, isn’t it?”
    I think my stomach’s going to explode,” Surgeon said, an oblique thank you. Jennifer smiled at him. He looked at her, then at Theo, speculatively. “So . . . how do you fit in here, anyway?”
    It was a challenge question, between the two males. “Darn it, why do guys always have to have a pecking order?” Jennifer groused.
    Theo’s answer deflated the challenge. “She bought me at the sidewalk sale.” He let it hang in the air over the table.
    Surgeon nodded. “That’s probably where I’ll end up. They’ll catch us eventually. How’d they get you?”
    “They got both of us,” Jennifer said, and she told him her situation, and Theo’s. “So this is our last little party,” she finished. “I have to find someone to buy him who’ll treat him decent or he’ll have to go to prison. By January first I’ll be married to Glen.” She shuddered. “Or maybe I’ll check into one of their convents.”
    “You don’t want to do that,” Surgeon said. “Believe me.”
    “What do you know about them?”
    “If they’re anything