22

A new day. A new life continues.

I was walking the last couple hundred yards, cooling down after my morning run.  The fishermen were up around the park, a few families around campfires, a bark here and there.  Pretty quiet.  Until I saw Xena cooking at our little coleman stove that she'd found at yet another yard sale.  Now we cooked with the little coleman most mornings and saved the charcoal for later in the day.  Xena was standing, drinking something hot, maybe coffee, since she'd informed me that it was the drink of the gods and now was trying to acquire a taste for coffee.  I already liked it, having drunk endless cups while working on the farm and in the mine back home.

I knew something was up when I saw her standing impatiently at the stove.  She was usually as calm as a still morning.  Now something was up.

"Harry Potter," she announced when I came up.

I didn't answer, not knowing anything about the book. 

"We only have till seven, that's when everyone's going."

I didn't ask who everyone was, or where everyone was going. 

"How could I forget?  We haven't even started.  Angie and Maria are almost finished with their costumes and you haven't even started and what am I going to do, I do even know how to sew, I don't have any material, everyone's leaving at seven."  She finally took a breath.  I was sure it, whatever it was, was my fault.

"Started?" I began but she then she caught her breath and continued.

"Mrs. Herrera told Sam (her husband) to make sure and get back from fishing early enough to get ready for the show tonight and he said that how could he forget?"

I was starting to get an idea.

"Then Mrs. Herrera asked if we'd like to park next to them at the drive-in tonight.  I told her we'd already planned on asking them if they wanted to park next us.  What else could I say?  It's your fault.  You're the one who keeps those blasted books around and made me read them."

I knew better than to set the record straight and say that she was the one who's read them over and over since last winter when we got the van and she'd read until dark and then half the next day.

"So... they're having an opening for the last movie at the drive-in?"  We'd seen the drive'in on the other side of town, kind of half way between the two small towns in this southern part of Missouri.  We'd zigg-zagged up and down the state looking for state parks to stop and investigate the various small towns.  We've been here all week and Xena had befriended the Mexican family across the way.  The Herrera's and their two girls, one a year younger and one a year older than Xena's 13.  All three girls adopted each other.  The Herrera's were second generation Americans and were enjoying a couple weeks fishing and camping until they had to go back to the city and continue their jobs and life.  Both adults worked for the county and had good jobs which let them take two weeks off each year.  Past years they'd visited family down south but it was too dangerous to cross the border and try to come back so they were planning on the family coming to them in the winter.

"Even Sam and Mrs. Herrera are dressing up.  I'm so embarrassed we haven't prepared," she said.

"Well," I said.   "I bet you're going to do super.  You'll be the best witch there tonight."

"We got to get started," she opened the door to the panel truck and got in the passenger seat.  I knew what to do.

"Where?"

"Town, we need to get some clothes.  Goodwill or someplace.  I'll know when we get there."

It was a whirlwind experience.  We found a second hand clothing store, hit two yard sales and finished off at a hardware store where Xena bought some glue, paint, tape and a half inch dowel that I was told to make into wands when we got back to the lake.

"I'll wear half muggle clothes and half witch clothes since we don't know how to dress like non-magical people."  We were back and unpacking the shirts, pants and various jewelry she got for a few dollars at the sales.  I stood by in need when she was ready for me.  I didn't know much about dressing up.

"You'll be Count who lives in a mansion over the hills from the main characters.  You've been home-schooled and missed the first three or four years at school. But you'll come in the new school year.  You're only half wizard try to stay in background during the action since you're not a main character anyway."

"Half wizard?"

"Yeah, you're half wizard and half unknown.  No body knows but you and you're not telling, not even me."

"Half?"

"Don't be dense Kahuna, you're half human, like Hagrid, but not half giant.  You're just half.  Count Half, that's you."

"Half is my name?"

"No," she was trying on a long granny skirt.  "You're half something that no one knows.  Except Luna's cousin, that's me."

She put on a paisley cowboy shirt and tucked it into the skirt and then put on a vest with a purple man's tie.

"I wonder where I can tattoo a nargle?  I need one somewhere."  She picked up a mirror and started studying herself.  She pulled out a bottle henna and started looking at it in the sunlight.

It was after lunch and I decided to get a sandwich and let her get ready.  She didn't notice that I wasn't dressing up and sat down to eat a PBJ.

"Nargle?" I said to myself.  OK, this was getting more and more interesting.  I was wondering what Half I was, certainly not a giant since I wasn't huge except by comparison to Xena, who was barely over 5 feet tall.

I wandered over to the Herrara's to see how they were doing but they shooed me away.  The girls and the mom were also going through clothes and trying on makeup.  Angie - Angelina- had a bright blue streak on the left side of her head and Maria was in the process of changing her head to streaked red and white.  Mrs. Herrera was teasing her own hair in a wild mess.  I should of gone fishing with Sam, Mr. Herrera, he asked me every time I saw him.  Off and on when he came back to get whatever he kept forgetting.

Finally I just went for a swim and stayed away from the campsite until five when I saw Sam coming along the bank with a string of some kind of white fish.

"Is it safe to come back yet or are they all still dressing?"

"Who knows, I've stayed away most of the afternoon>"

"Smart boy," he said. "You'll get the hang of it when you get to my age and then you'll learn that you're doing it all wrong anyway.  Best to just stay away as long as possible."