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Show Twisters . . . 13 "Stir the beans, Danny," Mom said. "Hello, Karen, what's up7 Yes, I asked him . . . more or less." She grinned. "You know how it goes, wherever they light first. Yes, I'm sure. John's going to be leaving, anyway. He's helping his father on the farm tonight." She listened awhile. "Yes, we were out on the place last week, too, taking down storm windows. Mother Hatch has a fit if she doesn't get her fresh air." "Ask if Arthur can stay and watch TV after," I whispered, feeling Mom's biceps in the arm that held up the phone. Not bad, I thought about the biceps. She had said lugging the baby around was getting her in shape. "Hey, feel her muscles," I invited Arthur, still whispering, but he wouldn't. Mom hung up. "Why didn't you ask--" I began, "Danny-" she cut me off "--will you not be so rude when I'm on the phone?" Then Ryan started crying and Mom's face looked the way I felt, having just been scolded, "Throw two extra weiners in the pan," she said as she headed for Ryan's room, which had once been my room, before the bunny wallpaper got and the rocking chair, I^moved into the "den," as Mom still calls the extra bedroom when she forgets. I took the package out of the fridge and added three weiners, to be on the safe side. At a baseball game Arthur can eat four hot dogs and still have room for an order of Nachos. We'd hardly got the TV going when my dad walked in the back door, I heard him sling his John Deere hat on the wall peg, heard his booming |