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  Pon-Pon

  Book Three

  By L.N. Cronk

  Published by Rivulet Publishing

  Smashwords Edition

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  Cover Photography by Steve Mcsweeny.

  Spanish translations provided by Vicki Oliver Krueger.

  Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  . . . if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules. 2 Timothy 2:5

  ~ ~ ~

  I LOOKED AT his picture before I took it off the wall. Then I pulled it down and looked into Greg’s eyes.

  “We’re going home!” I told him. Just in case you’re wondering, I don’t usually talk to pictures of dead people, but I was particularly excited about moving back to Cavendish and I really wished I could share it with my best friend.

  “Did you say something?” Laci asked, sticking her head in the door to my office.

  “Nope.”

  She looked at what I was holding.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m great,” I said, smiling. “How ’bout you?”

  She nodded and tried to smile, but mostly she just nodded. She was nowhere near as excited to be leaving Mexico as I was, but God had let her know what He wanted us to do: He wanted us to go home. Laci always did what God told her to do and I was only too happy to comply.

  We’d just finished the paperwork for Lily’s adoption and she was all ours. As far as I was concerned, once I got the pictures from my office wall and had my family on a plane back to the United States, I didn’t care if I ever set foot in Mexico again.

  Lily started crying from the other room.

  “Dorito!” Laci called. She looked at me. “He woke her up . . . I know he did. He just can’t leave her alone . . . she was sound asleep.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Dorito called back.

  Okay, technically his real name is Doroteo, but by now even Laci called him Dorito most of the time. When we’d first met him he’d been a toddler . . . recently abandoned in a nearby park. She’d harped on me for months about how I shouldn’t call him Dorito, but a good nickname’s hard to shake and eventually she’d given up. We figured by now he was about five years old, but we’d never know for sure.

  He was all ours too.

  “Are you in Lily’s room?” I asked, sticking my head into the hallway and looking toward her room. He poked his head out of her doorway.

  “I was just looking at her . . . I didn’t do anything!”

  Lily was still crying. Laci looked at me and sighed wearily.

  “I’ll get her,” I said, leaning Greg’s picture against the wall of my office.

  “No,” she said. “But if you could just please, please keep him busy for a little while . . .”

  “Come here, Dorito,” I said. He trudged down the hall toward me, looking sullenly at Laci as she went in to quiet Lily down. I looked down at him and raised an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t do anything!” he said again. “All I did was breathe!”

  Lily was completely deaf so I doubted if him just breathing would have done it. More than likely he’d been pushing stuffed animals into her crib “for her to play with”.

  “Why were you breathing in her room?” I asked. “You need to stay out of there when she’s sleeping.”

  “I just wanted to look at her,” he mumbled.

  “I know you love her and I know you’re really glad to have a little sister, but you’ve got to do what Mommy and Daddy tell you . . . okay?”

  He nodded at me.

  “You wanna help me pack?”

  He nodded again.

  “Okay,” I said. “Put out your fingers.”

  He spread his little hands and held them up. I tore ten pieces of tape off of the dispenser and put one on each of his fingers.

  That should keep him busy for a while.

  “No, no, no,” I said, immediately having to unstick two pieces of tape. “You’ve got to leave your hands just like this and don’t let the tape touch itself. You’ve got a very important job here. Every time I need a piece of tape you have to give it to me. Think you can do that?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, good boy.”

  I sat down on the floor and picked Greg’s picture up again. I laid it on a sheet of bubble wrap and covered it up. Then I took three pieces of tape off of Dorito’s fingers and sealed the bubble wrap.

  “Okay,” I said. “How many did you have before I started?”

  “Ten.”

  “How many did I take away?”

  “Three.”

  “How many are left?”

  He started counting what was left.

  “Eight.”

  “Try again.”

  More counting.

  “Seven.”

  “Good.”

  Next I grabbed a picture of Tanner and Mike and me on a snowmobile. I wrapped it up and took three more pieces of tape off of his fingers.

  “Okay,” I said. “You had seven and I just took away three more. Now how many do you have?”

  “Four.”

  “Right.”

  One more picture (of me and Greg and Greg’s little sister, Charlotte, on the beach in Florida) and three more pieces of tape.

  “Okay. Now, you started out with ten and we used three and then three and then three. How many do we have left now?”

  “One!”

  “Right. See, three’s not a factor of ten . . . that’s why we have one left over. If we’d used five and five we wouldn’t have had any left over because five is a factor of ten. Or if we’d used two and two and two and two and two we wouldn’t have any left over either because two’s also a factor of ten. Now, if we’d started out with only nine we wouldn’t have had any left over because three’s a factor of nine, but we didn’t, we started with ten. Got it?”

  He nodded at me.

  “You want a piece of bubble wrap, don’t you?”

  He added a grin to his nod.

  “Here,” I said, handing him some and closing the door to my office. “But you have to stay in here and do it. It sounds like Mommy got your sister back to sleep.”

  Charlotte called me while we were on our way to the airport.

  Charlotte was Greg’s little sister and I’d known her almost all of her life. I’d been twelve when the White’s had moved to town and she’d been just a toddler. Now she was sixteen years old.

  “Hey, Charlotte.”

  “Mom says we can’t come and meet you at the airport.”

  “Why not?”

  “She says everything’s going to be too ‘overwhelming’ for Dorito and that we need to let you guys get settled in first.”

  “You tell your mom that Dorito’s the most easy going kid she’s ever met and that if you two aren’t at the airport I’m going to be mad.”

  “Okay,” she said and I could tell she was smiling that smile of hers that always reminded me of Greg.

  “See you tonight.”

  “See you tonight!”

  A few hours later the pilot announced that we were officially in United States airspace. Dorito was sitting next to the window and I leaned over him to see the ground below, then
I looked back at Laci and smiled. She was singing quietly to Lily in the seat behind me.

  Very quietly. The important thing was that Lily could see Laci’s lips moving as she sang. The song she was singing now was Pon, Pon, a Spanish song:

  Pon, pon, pon,

  el dedito en el pilón.

  This translated into: Put, put, put . . . your little finger in the cup.

  That’s it. The whole song. Perhaps not the most exciting lyrics in the world, but it was my favorite because of the hand signal that went with it (not the sign language signals we were studying – just the regular ones that all Spanish kids learned with that song). When you sang “Pon, pon, pon,” you were supposed to tap the index finger of one hand into the cupped palm of the other.

  And that reminded me of Greg.

  Ever since I’d known him he’d made up hand signals to remind his friends of things. Things that were funny or things that were important or things that he wanted us to think about. One day Laci had helped him make up one that the three of us could share. The index finger represented a nail and he would twist it into the palm of his other hand. It reminded us that Christ had loved us so much that He’d died for us. It also reminded us that we loved each other that much too.

  So, Pon, Pon may not have been real riveting, but the hand signal that went with it reminded me of Greg, so I liked it a lot.

  “We’re finally in the United States,” I told Dorito.

  “I’m going to see my cousins!” he cried, clapping his hands. Dorito had been officially “ours” for only about six months and we hadn’t been home in almost a year. My parents and Laci’s parents had visited us in Mexico and met Dorito and Lily, but my sister and her family hadn’t. Jessica and her husband, Christopher, had two children: Cassidy was about three years older than Dorito, and my nephew CJ was just a little bit younger than him. They’d video chatted and stuff, but they’d never actually met. Dorito could hardly wait.

  “Relax,” I said. “It’s going to be a little while.”

  It would still be several hours before we’d land in Cavendish.

  Cavendish.

  Home.

  I leaned my head back against the headrest. I wondered again, just briefly, why God was sending us home.

  Maybe something terrible was going to happen to somebody that we loved and we were really going to need to be there. Or maybe something terrible was going to happen to one of us and we were going to need the support of all of our family and friends.

  The scenario I was actually hoping for was that maybe God just felt sorry for us because of everything we’d already been through and He’d decided to give us a break. I closed my eyes and decided not to worry about it right now. We were over American soil and we were almost home. Everybody was happy and healthy and things were exactly the way I wanted them to be.

  I was going to enjoy it while I could.

  ~ ~ ~

  CHARLOTTE FLEW INTO my arms when we got to the terminal. After that, while her mom and my parents and Laci’s parents greeted us, she was very careful to make a big deal out of meeting Dorito before Lily even though I could tell she was dying to hold Lily. First she knelt down next to Dorito and smiled at him.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Charlotte.”

  “I know,” he said, sticking out his hand like a little man. “My daddy showed me pictures of you. I’m Dorito.”

  “I know you are,” she said, shaking his hand.

  “How do you know who I am?” he asked, astonished.

  “Because he showed me pictures of you, too.”

  “He did?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When?”

  “On the computer,” she replied.

  “Ohhhh,” he nodded as if it suddenly all made sense.

  “Can I have a hug?” she asked him.

  He smiled at her and nodded.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said as she hugged him and he smiled even more.

  She stood up and hugged Laci who was holding Lily.

  “Can I hold her?” Charlotte asked, already reaching her arms out to Lily.

  “Sure you can,” Laci said, handing her over.

  Charlotte wrapped her arms around Lily and pressed her lips to the top of her head. She looked at her face and stroked her cheek and then held her tight.

  “Oh! I love her!” Charlotte said breathlessly, kissing the top of her head again. She looked at us and smiled. “I love her! I love her! I love her!”

  “What about me?” Dorito asked, tugging on her shirt.

  Still holding Lily, Charlotte dropped to her knees again and wrapped one arm around Dorito.

  “I love you, too,” she said.

  ~ ~ ~

  IT WAS THE end of July when we got back. My sister lived a few miles from our old neighborhood and let us stay in her basement . . . again.

  “It’s just until we can buy a place,” I assured her. “Really. We won’t be here long.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said doubtfully, but I think she was just kidding. I was pretty sure that she loved having us stay with her.

  When people started talking about throwing us a “Welcome Home” party, Laci and I decided instead to have a Second Annual Lasagna Bake-Off. Laci and I always loved a good bet and the previous August we’d had a contest to see who could make the best lasagna. I knew it wasn’t going to be much of a contest this year either, but it was a good excuse to get everyone together again.

  “Natalie’s coming,” Laci smiled two days beforehand. Natalie had finished seminary and was the youth pastor at a church in Denver.

  “Tanner is too,” I said. “He’s bringing someone with him.”

  “Oh,” she said, the smile slipping off of her face. “Are they serious?”

  “I have no idea. He just asked if he could bring someone and I said yes.”

  “You should have told him no,” she said. “There’s no reason for him to ‘bring someone’ when Natalie’s going to be here.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. She’d been trying to fix Tanner and Natalie up for years.

  “I can call him back,” I offered and this time she rolled her eyes at me.

  The “someone” that Tanner brought was named Megan. I had a feeling they were pretty serious just because of how comfortable they acted around each other. Even though I knew it just about killed her, Laci dragged Megan off to introduce her to everybody (including Natalie). Tanner of course never moved far from the food table. He’d been a football player all through high school and college and it showed. He wasn’t fat, he was just . . . BIG. He was about six foot seven and built like a brick wall.

  “Your lasagna’s disgusting,” he said.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “Why don’t you use a recipe or something?”

  “I did use a recipe,” I said.

  “Maybe you should use a different recipe.”

  “So, you don’t think I’m going to win this year either?” I asked, looking at the table. Laci’s lasagna was gone . . . mine had been picked at.

  “Are you serious?” he asked. “Laci’s lasagna’s great.”

  “I know,” I sighed.

  “So how long are you going to sponge off of Jessica?”

  “Not too long,” I said. “Why do you care?”

  “Remember the Parkers?”

  “Across the street from your old house?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What about ’em?”

  “Mr. Parker died last year . . .”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  The Parker’s had always been really nice . . . letting us sled on the great hill in their front yard (even though their kids were grown) and giving us full-sized candy bars at Halloween instead of the miniature ones they gave everyone else (just because they knew us).

  “My mom says Mrs. Parker’s getting ready to put her house on the market . . .” (I wasn’t sorry to hear that . . . ), “and I don’t know if you’re looking for new construction
or what, but . . .”

  “No,” I said. “I’d love to live in our old neighborhood.”

  “That’s what I figured. I also figured Jordan could wander across the street every now and then and get you to help him with his math.” Jordan was Tanner’s youngest brother.

  “Well, you know I’ll help him with his math no matter where we live. How’d he do last year, anyway?”

  We’d been home for the second half of Jordan’s freshman year and I’d been able to tutor him a lot, but we’d been in Mexico for all of his sophomore year.

  “He passed, but he did so bad on the state exam that they made him go to summer school.”

  “How’s Chase doing?” I asked. Chase was their middle brother.

  “Pretty good,” Tanner said, nodding and chewing.

  Just then Greg’s mom came by holding Lily. She handed her to me and gave Tanner a hug.

  “Ready to go back to school?” she asked him. Tanner was a coach at our old high school and classes would be starting in about a month.

  “Did I ever leave?” he asked her. He was busy most of the summer with football training.

  Lily was clutching at a hairclip and trying to gnaw on it. I took it from her, wiped it off on my jeans and then put it back in her hair. We didn’t know how old she was for sure because she’d been abandoned (probably because her parents had figured out she was deaf), but we were thinking she was right about at a year.

  “You wanna show Tanner and Mrs. White what you can do?” I asked her. Greg’s mom was always going to be Mrs. White to me, no matter how many times she told me to call her Dana. I looked up at both of them.

  “Watch,” I said. I started singing to Lily and she watched my lips.

  Pon, pon, pon,

  el dedito en el pilón.

  When I started singing it through the second time she pushed her index finger into her palm when I sang ‘Pon, pon, pon’.