CHAPTER VII - BEAU & POKE

CHAPTER SEVEN

BEAU & POKE

The girls were in the kitchen preparing for dinner. Naomi had returned and was helping too. It needed to be done of course, but it was also as much a distraction from what they had learned earlier as anything else. None of them had a clue what had happened or what to make of this weird turn of events. After the discovery of LiliBeth’s bed/bedroom being empty they had scoured the house looking for any sign as to what might have happened. 

They found nothing. Plain and simply put, it was as if LiliBeth had just vanished. Poof. Gone.

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Beau and Poke had gone upstairs to Beau’s bedroom where they now sat on the bed. Beau looked as forlorn as he felt, and Poke was almost beside his young self with worry and concern for his friend.

There was NO doubt that Beau was deeply upset by the discovery and there was also no doubt that Poke felt that almost as much as Beau.

"It's gonna be ok, Beau. I jest knows it is. Yo' mama jest had somethin' she had to go do, no sense worryin'."

Beau turned and looked at Poke, acutely aware of what he was trying to do, and grateful for the gesture. But as he looked at the face which reflected what Beau knew Poke really felt, and that belied what he had just said, he knew. They BOTH knew...this was something else.

Something more, but neither had any idea as to what.

"Shore Poke. Shore. Hey. No sense getting all worked up, raht? Mama gonna be home jest any tahme now, come back in heah jest laughin' like she always does. She'd think we bein' awful silly. Raht, Poke?"

A look of mutual-understanding passed between these two best friends. 

The kind that says far more than their words ever could. 

Then, quite unexpectedly, Beau laid his head against Poke's, and Poke felt a tear begin to slide down his cheek. Beau's tear. He then began to feel one of his own too. 

They sat, these two best friends...in deadly silence, hurting. Then Poke tightened his hold on Beau and Beau let him...and they just sat, hanging on to each other and to life. The life that had just handed them a bitter pill to swallow and far more questions than answers.

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          CONTINUE TO CHAPTER VIII