|
Troy and Yolanda were in the kitchen, waiting for Jeff Kealy to come and
pick them up for rehearsal. Troy could hardly believe their luck at being allowed to
ride with him. He thought the whole idea was going to be shot down when his parents
pulled the "we'll think about it" trick. That was a huge relief for him, Kathey
Templeman had been bugging him to death about carpooling. He couldn't even use David
as an excuse because David started getting rides home with his sister Lisa and the
Sumners had some stupid rule about Lisa not driving more than one person around. So
when Jeff told him that he and Yolanda could "catch a ride" with him sometimes it
was the perfect answer. Plus, Jeff didn't even seem annoyed by the stupid mother
rules Heather had tacked on: Troy and Yolanda had to be together, and they could
only go to and from practice.
"Don't worry," Jeff said, "I'll come in the house tomorrow and do my best brownnoser imitation." "Oh she'll love that," said Troy. "Hello Mrs. Coppenhagen, you're looking very lovely today," Jeff said in a polite voice, "or no! I got it! I'll go, "Hello, are your brother and sister home? Oh, Mrs. Coppenhagen? Gosh, you look so young I thought you were one of the kids!" He looked at Troy. "What do you think, too much?" Troy laughed. "Don't overdo it. The only person who can pull off that crap with her is Brian." That was last week, Troy hoped Jeff hadn't forgotten. But today on the answering machine was a message for him and Yolanda from Jeff, saying what time he was going to pick them up. In the message he called them "Andee" and "T-roy" their new nicknames. Jeff had called him "T-roy" so often that everyone else started to, and Rita, claiming that Yolanda took too long to say, got everybody started with Andee. At first Yolanda didn't like it, because it looked like she was trying to copy Andie Aaron. But then Rita said that all Yolanda had to do was point out to people that she, Rita, who had never met their cousin, was the one that gave Yolanda the nickname, Yolanda got into it, making sure people spelled it with 2 e's. When he got there, Yolanda and Troy tried to get out of the door quickly, but he held them back. "Whoa, hold up, I gotta do the meet the parents thing, you guys," he said. "Why?" asked Troy. "Because, parents like to meet older people that deal with their kids. They wanna know I'm not a pedofile or something." "What?" Yolanda laughed. The Coppenhagens came into the foyer. "Mom, Dad, this is Jeff and he's not a child molester, can we go?" said Troy. "Uh geez..." Jeff smacked Troy in the head. Heather smiled and held out her hand. "That's good to know. Hi, Heather Coppenhangen," she said to Jeff. Jeff shook her hand with another grimace at Troy. "I can explain about that." "Hi, I'm George. Actually, we heard. Soon, you'll learn to ignore Troy like we all do." Their father said, grasping Troy's head in one hand. "What are you talking about? Everybody loves me!" said Troy. "Except Brian," said Yolanda. "The feeling's mutual," grumbled Troy. |
|
|
|