Cats Pajammas

Drake Mallard fit almost perfectly into the school desk, while Herb Muddlefoot barely could squeeze into the tiny thing.

"Haven’t been in one of these things since I was a little ling let me tell you."

"Oh Herb you are my little tubby lumpkins."

Launchpad’s eyes darted around "OOOOooh We’re gonna get in trouble."

"Launchpad what are you so worried about?"

"I can’t help it DW. Whenever I see a teacher I cave in like a house of cards."

"Would you relax? This is about Gosalyn."

Mrs. Danvers came into the school room. She was a pleasant looking duck with curly mud brown hair

"I’m glad you could all make it here."

Launchpad held up his hands "Honest Mrs. Quackerly I didn’t do it."

"Excuse me?" Mrs. Danvers said confused.

"Oh sorry."

"You have to excuse LP he’s…" Drake stared at him "He’s LP."

"It’s good to see you again Mr. and Mrs. Muddlefoot."

"Oh it’s so nice to see you again." Binkie cooed, proving that a teacher’s pet never aged.

"How do ya fit into one of these things?" Herb said completely beffuddled.

Binkie laughed "Now why don’t you tell us what Gosalyn did and then we’ll all have a nice chat about it hmm."

Drake stood up.

"Hold the phone Binkie. What makes you think that it’s Gosalyn’s fault?"

"Oh Drake I just want to save time by stripping away all this nonsense, of course it’s Gosalyn’s fault we’re here."

"Are you implying my daughter is a trouble maker?"

"Oh I wouldn’t say that."

"To my face you mean

"Well I wanted to be polite Drake but Gosalyn is a tad rambunctious. You know unruly."

"Who uses these words in the twentieth century?" Drake said.

"Well if it’s any wonder where she gets it."

"Well at least my kid has some personality."

"I would agree. A personality that should clipped in the bud before she ends up in juvenile hall"

Drake was livid. He growled.

"Are you saying that I don’t know how to raise my kid?"

"No."

"Oh right saying and implying are entirely different things entirely." Drake snorted.

"Well I don’t need to say anything. We are here because your daughter obviously did something to my Honker."

"Mr. Mallard, Mrs. Muddlefoot are you quite done."

Binkie crossed her legs.

"Well I see no need to continue arguing."

"She started it."

"So what did Gosalyn do?" Binkie asked.

Mrs. Danvers cut Drake off.

"It’s not so much what Gosalyn did or did not do. It’s deeper than that."

Drake sighed "Oh great this is going to be expensive. She’s going have to do chores until she pays it off, no allowance…"

"No I’m talking about Honker and Gosalyn’s friendship."

"I knew that Gosalyn would get our boy in trouble. Well we’ll just keep them apart."

"I’m not-"

Launchpad held Drake down

"Listen to Mrs Danver’s DW."

"Launchpad’s right Binkers now just listen."

"Gosalyn and Honker have always been best friends. I take it that Gosalyn hasn’t had many stable relationships with children her own age. And Honker well he’s quite reserved and has a low self-esteem. They are the best things for each other, I’m not suggesting that you separate them. Gosalyn brings up Honker’s self confidence, Honker tempers Gosalyn’s wild side. They get along beautifully. But there is a disturbing trend in their behavior. That I wanted to alert both of you too."

Mrs Danvers handed them a paper.

"I assigned the class a community service project. Each student was supposed to go out to a charitable organization and write a two page paper about what they learned. Corey Jackswan went to the Homeless shelter. Rita Perro went to the recycling plant."

"Right and we took Honker to the Animal shelter ourselves."

"Oh yeah. I took Gosalyn to the animal shelter too." Launchpad said.

"Well that wasn’t her assignment. Her assignment was to go the The Happy Dales Retirement Center."

"Aha! I knew that she did something wrong. She copied Honker’s work."

"Look Gosalyn did a satisfactory job on the paper. She is a very bright and perceptive little girl. The point is she didn’t do the assignment. Now I gave Gosalyn C. It was an acceptable paper. But I think she did the wrong paper because of Honker."

"See. I guess your son isn’t so perfect after all." Drake stuck out his tongue.

"Gosalyn rather than trusting her own ability she’s relying on Honker’s intelligence to help her out. Has Honker ever done Gosalyn’s homework or helped her with her projects unnecessarily?"

"They do everything together."

"I’m afraid that if this keeps up Gosalyn is going to completely devalue her own intellect. And Honker will be forced by guilt and habit to get her out of it. Gosalyn has to start doing her own work, or she’s going to get in a lot of trouble."

"What kind of school is this? She copies Honker’s homework and my Honker gets blame."

"It’s not about blame. It’s helping the children."

Drake sighed.

"Do you know if Gosalyn has any problems with elderly people Mr. Mallard? Perhaps she recently lost someone to an illness, a grandparent?"

"Before I adopted her, she was raised by her Grandfather. And she loved him. I don’t see why she would do something like this. I really have to apologize."

"I think the best thing is to get Gosalyn to do her assignment. They’ll be expecting her this Tuesday afternoon. She’ll have to go at least twice to complete the assignment. She must write a two page report. And tell Gosalyn both sides of the paper."

"Thank you for being so considerate Mrs. Danvers." Drake shook her hand.

"We only want to do what’s best for Gosalyn."

That Tuesday Drake drove his daughter to the Nursing Home

Gosalyn Mallard was grumbling in the car.

"Of all the lousy no good…"

"Gosalyn this is a class project. I’m not letting you skip out again."

"What is the point? I already wrote my paper. How am I going to fill both sides of two pages? It’s just a bunch of Stinky old people."

"You know Gosalyn you are going to be old one day too."

Gosalyn stared out the window petulantly as they drove into the nursing home’s parking lot.

The nurse greeted them at the door. This place smelled bad. Gosalyn scrunched up her nose.

"You must be Gosalyn. We were expecting you last week. It’s so nice when you students come to cheer everyone up."

Gosalyn frowned and crossed her arms

"I have to be here. I don’t have to do anything else."

The nurse laughed "She’s so cute. Don’t you worry Mr. Mallard, we’ll keep her out of trouble."

"Now you behave yourself Gosalyn." Drake rubbed her head. "And do what the nurses say."

"Okay Dad."

Gosalyn padded hestitantly through the hall. It smelled like cigars and cheese and amonnia old people, and their foly catheters, and fancy machines whose function was mysterious. It was so white, so much like a hospital. She passed an open door

"Say Honey will you help me find my teeth."

Gosalyn ran down the hallway, even she knew her thoughts were whiny.

She wandered into the common room.

"You call that a pitch."

Gosalyn heard a strange voice rise up in a room.

"Please Mr. Jose Henseco. I could outpitch y’all any day of the week. What’s all this ruckuss about .312 average. Please Jenny De Fume was hittin .450 and she got kicked off that team, course she was a floozy but still that is just lame."

The voice sounded windy and southern. She wondered was curious about who this guy was and why his voice sounded so funny. She entered the room and the men in there, looking for the voice.

"Lord Molly. Will youse be quiet? We are tryin to watch da game." an old duck scolded.

Gosalyn saw a woman stand up.

She was a very old bear. Withered a little but with the brightest old eyes she ever seen.

"Well old fogies. I am tired of sitting around here making pot holders. I want to play again. Why should a watch a crew of no-talent over paid everybodies when there is a whole world out there?"

She grabbed a fancy cane, carved in the shape of a white rose.

"I am leaving you old men to watch your game. While I proceed to play one."

They all ignored her and continued to watch the tv.

"And apparently by myself." She started heading towards the door muttering to herself "Lordy Lord."

Gosalyn watched her, hobble out the door. Gosalyn ran after her. She didn’t know old ladies could like baseball. That was almost normal.

"You need somebody else to play." Gosalyn ran up next to her.

"Well sure nuff, honey. How is body supposed to pitch without nobody to bat to? Come on. Let’s go play some ball."

"I am Molly Bruin." She stuck out her hand

"Gosalyn Mallard." She shook it.

"Well me and Gosalyn are going to play some ball. So if you will excuse us."

Molly grabbed a big softball which Gosalyn had found.

"Hmm. In my day we didn’t even have these. What is the point of even throwing them?"

"It’s for girls." Gosalyn snorted

"For girls!" Molly snorted equally, "Please. I’ve seen girls take balls at seventy miles an hour. Lordy Lord. Please these men thinking they can play just because they’re the size a gorillas…"

Molly started muttering again.

"Like a girl can’t handle four more ounces of ball in her hand." She lined up a pitch.

Molly threw the pitch straight at the wall.

"That was pretty good." Gosalyn commented. It was good for an old lady.

"Good for an old lady, is your meaning Honey and you know it. I got to get my arm up and warm again"

She closed her eyes and lined up another pitch.

It coasted past them at 70 mph hour.

This old lady could out throw Launchpad.

"That’s better."

She closed her eyes again.

And while they were closed lined up her pitch.

The softball spun from her hand at 90 maybe even 100 mph. Skittering almost screaming through the air.

Gosalyn gasped. That was the fastest pitch she had ever seen.

"Hoo ha. There we go. The old Screaming Cunningham. That’s the old pepper."

"Wow. That was incredible."

"Yep. In those days there wasn’t a batter in the NGL that wasn’t afraid of Molly Cunningham’s Fire ball."

"NGL?"

"National Girl’s League."

"You only played for a girl’s team?"

"Missy I’ll have you know I struck out the Great Ted Williams. We weren’t just an anything."

She turned around. "Girl’s team indeed. I thought they taught young’uns more than they used to. Ya can operate your fancy computers and your TV’s but they don’t tell ya the important things like, what it was like in the old days, before all this junk."

Gosalyn sat in rapt attention.

"Whoa what war are you talking about?"

"Why World War II honey. I was only 16."

"Wow you were a grown up? You must be really old."

Molly laughed.

"Well I suppose 16 sounds old to a little young’un like you."

"Now you just sit yourself down and I’ll tell you all about what a girls team can do."

Gosalyn sat looking at a photo album.

"Man this is old junk."

Molly showed her the photos.

"Boy you never know how good you looked…"

Molly flipped the pages. There was a picture of a gorgeous young blond bearess that resembled the wrinkled old lady who sat next to her.

"There’s me in my Daisies Uniform. Boy I always want to remember myself at that age."

The figure held her arms and a gigantic mit behind her back, jutting her chin towards the camera defiantly smiling sweetly.

"You had to wear a skirt?" Gosalyn laughed.

"Shore nuff. Everybody wore skirts in those days, in public anyway. Mom was the only bird I know who wore pants all the time. Even Drusilla wore dresses when she wasn’t flying."

Gosalyn laughed at the idea of baseball players wearing skirts.

"During the war most of the men baseball players were enlisted in the service. Going to war that is. So they got a group of us young women together. We got to play in all the stadiums that would’ve sat empty."

"Wow, so girls played real live baseball?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn’t they keep playing."

"Those were dumb times. They thought we’d rather get married and have kids and sew and junk like that."

Gosalyn was kind of surprised at that. "That’s really whack."

"Boy I tell you what. There wasn’t girl on the Cape Suzzette Daisies that could have made it with a .205 average."

Gosalyn scanned the page. She saw Molly with an older pretty brown bearess.

"Whose that?"

"That’s Mom. She was a real firecracker. She was clumsy. She moved us down from Hyde Park to Cape Suzzette when I was little. On account of my father leaving us. She was one tough old bird."

"She looks nice. I wish I had a picture of my mom and me together." Gosalyn said snuggling into the couch.

"Why’s that honey?"

"I’m an orphan. My mom and dad died."

Molly looked sadly.

Poor little girl, she was a spirited one sure. She had remembered how hard it was for poor Kit, with no parents. The two young men who cared for her seemed nice, but she probably didn’t feel good.

Her eyes fell on a picture of her and Kit when they were kids. Kit only 12, in that ratty blue hat and green sweater, and her plastered into those overalls in her Danger Woman outfit.

"You know even though Kit’s parents died, he was my brother."

"Why do you got a noodle strainer on your head?"

"That was no noodle strainer. I was Danger Woman. And Kit was the Captain of the Flying Aces."

"They had superheroes in your day?"

"Well none like Darkwing Duck or anything. She was on the radio."

"The radio?"

"Before TV, everyone used to listen to the radio for everything. The first time I saw a tv I was disappointed. It took all the fun out of everything. You couldn’t imagine."

Drake came into the Retirement center.

"Hi I’m here to pick up my daughter."

"Hi Dad! Gosalyn came running up to him.

"This is Molly, she’s a baseball player. She’s so cool."

"I’ll bet."

Drake shook her hand.

"Hi I’m Drake Mallard."

"Hello there Mr. Mallard."

Drake smiled as he drove out of the parking lot as Gosalyn chattered about her friend Molly. Not even her old lady friend, just a friend. This trip had been good for her.

"Say dad did you know that in the old days they didn’t have tv? Yeah like people would listen to the radio and not just for music either. Like they’d listen to it for news and shows and all kinds of cool stuff."

"Yeah my grandpa used to talk about that."

"I had a pretty cool time. I can’t wait for next week."

Gosalyn came next week to the retirement center with a tape from the library.

"Hey Molly, look what I found."

"Well look it that. Duck Dodger’s of the 24 and ½ century. Where did you get this?"

"The Library."

She sat down "My oh my could that Daffyd Duct take your breath away. There wasn’t a girl in Cape Suzzette who didn’t have a picture of him in her bedroom."

"He’s old and funny looking." Gosalyn said when she saw the strange black duck on the cover.

"Well in our day he was the Cats Pajamas." Molly smiled.

Gosalyn was caught by the strangeness of that phrase.

"The what?"

"The in thing, the coolest hepcat. Ah. The Bomb I think you’d say."

"Cats Pajamas? That is cool." Gosalyn said. "Cats Pajamas."

"Oh my. I haven’t even heard this in years these in years. Duck Dodgers VS the Dark King of Saturn Slug People."

Molly laughed. And said in a creepy voice.

"I am the Darkness in the night, who knows what terror lurks in the hearts of all. It is I the Dark King."

"Wow that sounds like Darkwing Duck."

"Well I guess. Maybe he heard it somewhere."

Molly placed the cassette in the tape.

"I couldn’t find any Danger Woman. The guy said he didn’t know what that was even."

A cool theme song played. Gosalyn bobbed her head.

"Whaddya listening to now you old bear?" the same elderly duck rolled up his wheelchair.

"Oh you hesh up Hober. We are listening to Duck Dodgers."

"Duck Dodgers? Boy I remember that when I was a little kinderling. It’s how my parents learned English. We’d all listen to The radio show wit der president."

An older pig gentleman said. "Yeah I remember that. Me and my sister would make popcorn and eat it listening to Duck Dodgers. Say I think they got some microwavable stuff in the kitchen."

"That’s the ticket, Hamson" Molly said enthusiati

"You know they said I looked like a grey Daffyd Duct." The duck in the wheelchair preened

The weasel lady laughed. "You? Your face could stop a truck."

"Oh no." He pulled a photo out from a bible. "Take a look at that."

"Wow this was you. You were one stud." Molly said.

Gosalyn looked at the picture. It was of a handsome grey duck in a uniform.

"You were in the army?" Gosalyn asked.

"Army? I was only sixteen. We had to stay behind. That was my ROTC uniform. Sometimes hmm."

"Remember the tire scare in December of 43."

"I was in Cape Suzzette."

"What happened?"

"Well it’s a long story…"

Drake Mallard entered the nursing home.

"So Duck we meet again. Prepare to meet your Doom."

He ducked and spun instinctively. He had been found out as-

"Unhand that girl you rogue you."

"Attack my army of sluggy minions."

"DUCK DODGERS watch out."

Drake realized it was only someone reciting dialogue off of a tape.

"AHAHAHAHAHA."

He entered the room.

"Will Duck Dodgers save Desdemona from the Dark King? And how will he defeat the army of deadly Saturnine slugs. Tune in next time, To-

Gosalyn wailed "What? It’s over."

"That’s the best part. Waiting until next week to see what happen."

"What a gyp."

She looked at all the great photo graphs and newspaper clippings that her friends had brought out to show her.

"This stuff is so cool." She looked at the Cape Suzzette Picaynue headline "Mysterious Don Karnage attacks Thembrian Transport vessel."

"I remember that."

"That fox went from Public Enemy number one to an international hero after that. People went stir crazy for him." Molly grumbled.

"Don Karnage was a great hero doing that."

"He was still an air pirate."

"Gosalyn. Come on it’s time to come home. You have a paper to write for tommorrow. Remember."

"Oh I almost forgot. Say you guys can I bring some of this stuff to my class to show them.

" ‘What life was like during the Great War’ by Gosalyn Mallard." She bowed. "Oh and helped by my friends at the St. Canard Happy Dales retirement center too.

The Second World War happened when the Thembrians attacked the Atlantic."

"On December 7^th, 1941 Usland joined the war to stop the Thembrians from conquering the world. Scary huh?"

Mrs. Danvers smiled.

"But I decided to do my project on what it was like for regular people in America and St. Canard during the war while everyone was fighting in the Pacific. Because probably nobody ever thought about people like that. If it were that time, and we were those kids what would our lives be like. How would everything be different?"

"Almost all the guys over 18 had to go to fight in a whole other country. Except for people who had flat feet or foot problem or were too short and stuff. This was called 4f. Lots of guys were kicked out of the army and were really embarassed. If you were in college or high school you had to stay too. It was embarassing and people thought you were a cheat."

"Even if you didn’t fight you had to help out the war. You would help out by rationing . Rationing is when you only eat small amounts of food or don’t eat any food at all, so you can save it. All the rationed food went to the soldiers who were fighting overseas."

Gosalyn pulled out a bag lunch.

"There were rations on meat." She threw aside the bologna into the trash can. "Milk." She chugged the cartons into the trash and sugar. So that means no chocolate, or cookies or anything like that."

The kids griped "That sucks."

"Instead people ate fruits and vegetables they grew in their own gardens. They called these Victory Gardens because there sacrifice was helping our side win."

"Whoa. No candy bars or anything?" the students asked.

"But it was important. The soldiers gave out candy to all the people they saved and stuff."

She showed more videos of rationing and Victory Gardens, and handsome GI’s handing out candy bars.

The teacher smiled.

Gosalyn continued.

"The people who stayed home or the Homefront had a hard time. But everyone pitched in to do what was right."

"For example."

She showed a picture of a little girl sitting on a pile of bottles. "This is a picture of my new friend Wanda when she was a little girl. In those days they had recycling drives. To conserve energy and save materials. Wanda collected 4400 bottles. Even though she was a little kid she was helping out. She got an award for her work, and this picture in the paper."

"She did all that."

"She and her friends got together and collected all these bottles."

"Wow."

Gosalyn passed around pictures

"And the war helped the Woman’s movement. Because all of the men were gone. Women had to do all the jobs that men had to do. Like pilots, factory workers, even Baseball players. Be careful with these they are from Molly and they are really old."
The other children crowded around "These are pictures of Molly’s mom. Rebecca Cunningham. She owned an airplane business and won a special Women of Honor award from the president. This is Dru DePolar. She was the best pilot in Cape Suzzette. But she couldn’t get any jobs because she was a girl. But during the war she took over as head pilot for Higher for Hire."

"Wow they look cool."

"This is a picture of my friend Molly, she was a baseball player, a pitcher during the war. She had a .363 batting average too."

A boy gasped.

"She can throw a ninety-five miles per hour fastball, and she struck out Ted Williams."

"He’s famous." The base ball players in the class marvelled

The teacher smiled. "Excellent multi-media presentation Gosalyn. Even I learned some thing."

"Multi-whazzit?"

"You didn’t just read a report you helped us understand by showing us things too." Honker said.

"Well it’s a lot better than just reading a speech. This stuff is cool. I wanted to show everybody."

"Where’d you get this stuff at?"

"I got the video’s from the library. It had all kinds of stuff. See because they put the news in the beginning of movies. What’s it called?"

"A newsreel?"

"Yeah. They also used to have cartoons and commercials too."

Mrs. Danvers was quite surprised. Not only had Gosalyn accomplished this whole presentation by herself but had researched beyond the usual 2 pages and ending with "And that’s all I have to write"

"Excellent job Gosalyn."

"And there’s like way more."

"This stuff sounds cool."

"I can’t imagine a world without candy bars." Corey lamented.

"Yeah and girls playing baseball. That sounds cool."

The teacher had found her yearly project.

"Well if you all are interested in this perhaps we can do something in class. There is a multi-media presentation contest. If we could sign up and choose a topic then we could take it to competition."

"Yeah I want to do one on this war stuff."

"And we have a World War II expert." Honker said tapping his friend on the shoulder

"Well I don’t know." Gosalyn said sheepishly "But I could get my friends to help at the retirement center."

"I think we found our big class project."

Gosalyn came back to Happy Dales Retirement Center

"Hi ya Gozzie."

"Hello Mr. Hamson."

"Hi Gosalyn."

"Hi Mrs. Phollops."

Molly was reading in the common room.

"Hi Molly." Gosalyn said happily "Guess what. I got an A all by myself."

"An A, well hot dog."

"All by myself. I didn’t have to get help from Honker and Dad or anyone else."

"An A. What for?" Molly smiled

"Well I showed everyone in class all the photos and stories you guys told me about the war and everybody thought it was cool."

"You’re kidding. Why that ain’t nothing special?" Mrs. Phollops said

"Yeah, we were just remember the old days." Mr. Hober said

Gosalyn quieted them down.

"And now everybody in the class is interesting in this stuff. And we’re gonna have a big project, where we learn about the war."

"Well that’s wonderful." Molly laughed

"And I was wondering could I get you guys to help me out. We are going to need photos and interviews and all kinds of stuff."

"Sure Gozzie, anything for you you little sweetie."

"You little peach."

Molly took Gosalyn aside and they headed outside to practice some baseball.

Molly smiled "It feels real good doing things for yourself."

"Yeah. I think I’m going to stop borrowing from Honker all the time. His stuff is kind of boring. At least I can make my stuff cool."

"So when am I going to meet this Honker girl?"

"Oh no. Honker’s a guy."

"Oh."

"He’s not my boyfriend, boys are yucky."

"Oh right. Like Kit. All of my friends used to say we would get married and the silliest things."

"Yeah just silly."

"They didn’t understand what real friendship was."

"Exactly."

"You can be friends with a guy or a girl or someone older or younger, or a different species, or smarter or whatever. Friendship doesn’t see that."

"Just as long as they’re cool." Gosalyn aggreed.

"Just as long as they are cool."

"It’s finally cool to meet someone who understands that."

"Kit was my best friend too." She said "I miss him."

Drake was driving Gosalyn home in the car.

"Yeah and Molly told me about her best friend when she was a kid. His name was Kit. He was an orphan too."

"Really." Drake said.

"Yeah, and he was a pilot too."

"A bear pilot named Kit. Like Kit Cloudkicker." Launchpad asked.

"Yeah or something."

"He was my favorite comic book hero. Most people like Don Karnage but Kit was the best." Lauchpad said.

"No way. Don Karnage was much cooler than Kit." Drake offended. "The only reason I used to read ST at all was for Don Karnage. I wished that Super Pig could have fought him."

"Super Pig?- SuperPig is not as cool as Kit Cloudkicker…"

Gosalyn scratched her head.

"I thought Don Karnage was real."

"Really."

"Yeah he was this pirate guy who stole this hoovercraft , but later killed a lot of Thembrians during the war. So they gave him amnesty and he vanished forever."

"Yeah I read a book on that. Then Victoria Rivera made a comic book based on that story." Launchpad said. "Man she was a genius."

"They were okay."

"Okay? I loved Sensational tales of the Air Pirates."

When Launchpad and Drake would start a conversation about comic books, it would become fanatical. Launchpad as a fan of the funny cartoony comics like Sensational Tales of the Air Pirates and Frankie Ferret, Wally Weasels Wacky tales, Marchie and Bearonica versus Drake’s love of superheros Super Pig, The Dark Avenger, The X-Monkeys, Manbat.

Gosalyn sighed and stared out the window.

Finally a week came when Honker could come.

Honker came along.

"I can’t believe that you’re doing this by yourself, Gos."

"Well Molly is cool."

"I can’t wait to meet her."

"She’s the Cats Pajammas."

"Oh." Launchpad nodded "Is that a good thing?"

"Where does she come up with these words?"

"You guys it means you know like keen gear, and cool beans and stuff."

"Oh like groovy?"

"Out of sight."

"Yeah don’t be so L7 dad."

"L7?"

Gosalyn held up her fingers in a square.

"Molly taught that to me."

"Honker this is Molly. Molly this is Honker"

"Hi."

"Hi there Honker."

"Honker is trying to get on the baseball team."

"Great. You like baseball?"

Honker shrugged "I guess."

"Hmmm."

Gosalyn yanked him by the arm.

"Come on Honker. Molly is the best pitcher I’ve ever seen. She can cream any one."

"Well I can show him a few pointers." Molly said.

"Great. Isn’t that great Honker."

"Um yeah."

"Molly and me will have you ready to try out in no time

"I don’t think it’ll do any good." Honker said flatly.

"Now you are just being negative. If anyone can teach you how to pitch it’s Molly."

"Okay." He shrugged.

They went out into the yard.

Honker picked up the soft ball.

"Now let’s see what you got buster."

"Yeah try to get it past me." Gos said picking up the bat.

Gosalyn had been trying to get him to practice for years

Honker threw the ball at the fence.

Unfortunately the arch on it was so high it coasted over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.

Molly sighed and walked over the fence with her nifty looking cane.

"Say Mister, may we have our ball back."

"Lousy kids. Get your own ball" The grumbly guy said. He looked up to see a 70 year old bearess with her own cane.

"I asked you nicely. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to get it."

"Wait you’re in a retirement center. You can’t be playing baseball. You’re too old."

"Well my good sir when you have lived through three wars, and two children you can act however you want. But I am content to have a little fun."

"You are weird."

Molly shook her head.

Gosalyn laughed

"You tell’em Molly."

Molly walked back over to them clutching the softball.

"Sorry Mrs. Bruin. I’m just a clutz."

"Now don’t you think none of that. This is warm up. All pitchers gotta warmup. If you throw with all your might every time you are going to throw out your arm."

Molly rubbed the boys shoulders.

"Now ya see Honker. It’s not in how hard you throw it. I think we gotta work on your spin first. It’s all physics. You heard of physics?"

"Course he has, Honker is a brain." Gosalyn says.

"Yeah I’ve studied Physics Mrs. Bruin.

"Well you see Honker. The way I learned it is that a curve ball is really only a optical allusion."

"Wait, you’re not considering the Magnus effect. Stating that the Coriolis effect…. Well we are gonna use…"

Gosalyn sat around lying on her bat as the two talked.

"Proving that due to the Magnus Effect, Curveballs really do curve."

"Well I’ll be. You are a smart young fellow. Remind me of my first husband Teddy. Lordy Lord, that man was smart. He was a theoretical mathemetician."

"Come on Brainiacs. Stop talking science talk and pitch the ball."

Honker sighed.

"All right. All right. Gos."

Molly placed his hands on the ball.

"Here you hold it like this."

"You just gotta remember. Don’t work on speed yet. When you get better, then you can work on ya fastball. See."

Honker nodded. He put his arm back.

"You also have to line it up." She took the ball. And showed him how to line up.

"If you don’t line up see, you can’t put your weight into it. It gives ya more control."

Honker lined up the pitch.

"Is that any good."

"That’s real good. Now."

Honker took a deep breath.

Gosalyn pawed her feet into the dirt.

Honker pitched the ball and closed his eyes.

The bat whiffed in Gosalyn’s hands.

Gosalyn stared.

"STTTTTEEEEEEERYKKKKKKE." Molly cried

Honker smiled "Wow I did it. I’d never thought I’d be able to do it."

Molly stared at his lack or reaction."Don’t get all worked up over it now."

"Lucky try. Come on." Gosalyn tapped her bat on the dirt.

By the time it go too dark to play outside, Honker had struck Gosalyn out four times. Gosalyn suprisingly was a good sport. She was overjoyed. If Honker could strike her out now, and he kept practicing he probably could be the pitcher. Her mind reeled with the possibilities. They returned to the Retirement center and they listened to the next installment of Duck Dodgers.

The theme song ended.

"Wait what’s gonna happen next?" Honker said kind of cheated.

"You have to wait till next week."

"But I have saxophone lessons next week. How are Duck Dodgers and Desdemona going to escape."

"Saxophone lessons? Oooh tough break. Dad made me take piano lessons once."

"It’s cool. I can play ‘When the Saints go Marching in’, and ‘Daisy,Daisy’ I’ve only been taking them for four weeks."

"Say Gozzie. Is this your boyfriend?" Wanda asked.

"No this is Honker Muddlefoot." Molly introduced "An expert in the field of baseball and physics. And now a saxophone player too. Lordy Lord. I only wish I was 65 years younger."

Honker blushed.

"Wanda, Did you hear that a curve ball really does curve when you throw it?" Molly informed her friends.

"I always thought it was a trick of the light." Mr Hamson said.

"All these years I knew I was right. That Teddy Bruin would be livid. I remember how he used to stare me blue in the face, insisting that it was an optical illusion."

"So Teddy was a mathemetician?"

"We met when I was taking off my junior year to go with the NGL. The team hired us many tutors. It wasn’t so bad you know. Except for science. I hated that topic. It was a fortunate thing that all of the science tutors were men. So I would curl my little hair and chew my gum and pretend like I didn’t have a thought in my head. It worked too. The tutor would just stare at me and I’d smile real sweet. And he would never give me a bad grade."

"You flirted with your Science tutor. Oh you little floozie."

Gosalyn whispered to Honker "What’s a floozie?"

Honker shrugged.

Molly laughed. "Well that all changed when Teddy Bruin came along. He was young you know, he was trying to earn money for his tuition at Boorehouse. The only man I ever met who had been to college. He was also much cheaper than a real teacher too. He was the strangest looking man, I ever saw. This smokey fur, and tiny little red nose and the brightest eyes, they were pale behind his big thick glasses. Now most young men would have loved to be surrounded by pretty girls all day. Too much. But Teddy possessed a character that few men his age had. Besides everyone on the team knew he was L7."

"Square huh?" Wanda said

"Well he had more on the ball than most of those teachers. Saw right through me, on the first day." Molly laughed "I cozied up to him and told him," she mimicked her spritely southern belle accent "how I just didn’t have a head for numbers but that he was so nice and handsome I was dreadfully sorry. He showed me the homework assignment again and asked me to show me the notes I had taken. I had not written any, so he had me sit their and copy his for twenty minutes after study time was over or he would tell Mrs. Johnswan everything, I had been doing."

"So did you date him then? Ooh I never knew you were like that"

"No No. I couldn’t stand him. He made me show my notes before I left, and made me stay in when I hadn’t bothered taken them. He gave me extra questions on the test. I was very vocal in my disapproval of this. But he didn’t budge and I wouldn’t either. So we were resigned to a fate of long afternoons of trying to stare each other down. Eventually I got a 99 out of 100 in the Physics honor society and Mr. Bruin learned all there is to know about the dynamics of infield lineup."

"But if you guys hated each other so much. How did you end up married?" Gosalyn asked.

"Gozzie honey I fell in love. An experience I highly recommend for you to try someday. Oh lord. I thought I would be very content to have him out of my life forever after he left. But I missed him."

She picked up a picture of a bear.

"Love will turn your brain into cream corn. I mean sure I could study and play ball, but everything else was all screwy. Love will make you hear music like on the telephone or when your talking to him. But when you hear music all you can hear is his name. It wasn’t any fair. Love bushwhacked me into liking the biggest square on the planet."

"So what happened?"

"It turned out Kit had gone to High school with Teddy. They had been in Accelerated Physics together. And as I was sure I would never see Teddy again, Kit invited him over to Louie’s to celebrate his graduation from college and a big welcome back party in Cape Suzzette. Everyone was there. We hadn’t had a party like this since we were all in highschool, before the war. That sneaky Ted told me he was going to New Yuck City. So there I was trying to enjoy myself at the first big party trying to dance with all these nice boys, when he appears out of nowhere. Boy I can’t tell you how I felt."

"You were really happy, I bet." Honker said.

"Yuck." Gosalyn said.

"Let’s just say I was surprised. Too bad we didn’t have that happiness for long" She sighed. She tried to change gears "Do you know how that sneaky Ted first asked me out?"

"How?"

"Okay, here’s how it was. I was practicing at Ebertz field with the Daisies. Kit brought him along. And I knew Kit was in on it too, I know that for sure. All the girls remembered him and they all greeted him like they did. Like they hadn’t ever seen a man before. But he was always so square. He comes up to me out of all the girls. Lordy Lord. And I told him plainly that it would take a miracle to ever convince me to go out with him."

Molly smiled "And so Teddy Bruin walked up on the plate. Talking about some dead Greek dame Atlanta. He made me a deal. If I could strike him out, then he would leave me alone. But if he could get one hit. Then I had to go out on a date with him. To this day I don’t know why I agreed to this. I could have gotten the security guard to get him off that field and I could have called the police and sent him to jail for even proposing such a thing. But I looked in his eyes, grabbed my glove and agreed."

"Now Teddy was the worst athelete I ever met. He couldn’t tackle in football, he didn’t even play tennis. Jenny DeFume had to teach him how to hold a bat right there. He ‘thanked’ Jenny and without a good lineup pitched that ball right towards his big fat head. It was a ball. I sighed as Teddy got over the shock of almost being hit and stood again."

"I pitched that ball so hard and fast. They swore that fire was coming of that thing. They looked at that ball later and all the letters had burnt off. It was screaming towards him like a banshee out of hell. The miracle happened.

He closed his eyes and hit it."

"I don’t know if it was my pitch or him. But that ball flew past the field into the stands, past the seats and into a jar of pretzel mustard in the concession booth."

"Keen Gear." Gosalyn said surprised.

"I’ll never forget that look on his face. As he looked at the mustard on the seats and he looked at me. And as everyone patted him on the back and told him he should join the team, he looked at me with the smallest smirk on his face as if, for some strange reason, I would never have been able to strike him out. And he would have never been able not to hit it. That it was the most inevitable thing in the world. And I wasn’t even that surprised. I think that is the exact moment I fell in love with Teddy Bruin."

"That’s a neat story." Honker said.

Drake peeped his head into the room.

"Come on Honker, I promised I’d get you home by nine."

"Hey Dad guess what? We were playing baseball right and Honker struck me out."

"Yeah Honker is going to be the next Molan Ryan." Molly said.

"Good job Honker." Drake said.

Honker shrugged non-commitally.

"Yeah, he is going to cream the competition at the tryouts next Friday." Gosalyn grabbed his arm.

Molly looked at the two young kids and sighed.

"I’m sure Honker could do that if he practiced enough."

"Yeah as long as I don’t miss my saxophone practice." Honker said.

"Don’t be so lame. If you tell your mom you’d rather play baseball than practice and you lay down the line, then you won’t have to. Then we’ll have a lot of time to practice."

"Okay."

"Well thanks for your help Molly. I’ll see you next Tuesday."

"Bye Gosalyn. Nice to meet you Honker."

"Bye Mrs. Bruin."

Tuesday rolled around again. And Gosalyn came to visit Molly, talking about all the extensive practice her and Honker had been doing.

"It’s not fair. Honker’s Mom makes him practice everyday. I tried to get Honker to tell her that he doesn’t want to play, but he has to practice everyday."

"Gozzie honey. I want to ask you something important."

"What’s that Molly?"

"Did you ask Honker if he wanted to play on the baseball team?"

"What do you mean?"

"I was just wondering if you asked him to play and he liked the idea or maybe just maybe, you kind of pushed him into it?"

"Pushed him into it. Honker loves baseball. He’s gonna be great."

"Yeah, but does he really want to do it hon?
"I don’t know why he wouldn’t. Baseball is cool. We’re gonna have a great summer."

"I don’t think your friend wants to be on the baseball team."

"Of course he does. We go out for baseball every summer, soccer in fall and hockey every winter. Just like last year." Gosalyn said slightly perterbed. "We’re best friends."

"Honey I didn’t mean anything like that? But you know that you and Honker are really different people. "

Gosalyn still didn’t understand.

"It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between being a friend and being bossy sometimes. Even when you’re as old as me."

"Well I never thought about it. Me and Honker do everything together. Ever since we first met. It’s always been like this."

"Well it’s probably gonna change sooner or later."

Gosalyn looked sobered by this new realization.

"God Honker must hate my guts. I’m always telling him what to do and stuff."

Molly sighed, maybe she was being a little too blunt. She got an idea.

"I want to show you something Honey."

Molly took out her photo album. She pulled out a snap shot of two kids looking into a camera. The little girl bear was making a face at the camera. It was a really poorly shot picture.

"Who is that?"

"That is me and Kit at the age of 10 and 15."

The dignified older cub stood in the background in a fighter jacket and flight goggles, looked almost disdainfully at his wacky companion.

"Why is he dressed like a pilot?"

"Kit was plane crazy since before I met him. He probably wanted to fly before he could walk. And that’s me."

"When you were my age?"

"Maybe a little older. I always loved this picture. This is me and Kit as I always want to remember us."

"He looks mad."

"Kit was always worrying about everything. When he was a kid he was very uptight. It took him a long time to feel comfortable with himself. He had such a hard life. I don’t think he ever stopped worrying about me or Baloo or the business. He never could relax, and when he did, it was like something always came and nipped him in the bud." Molly mused.

"Where’s Kit now?"

"In a better place, hon."

"Oh I’m sorry."

"He passed on about 13 years ago. Heart attack really. He should have stopped smoking or worrying. He couldn’t do that much of both and live."

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be Gosalyn it’s not your fault. These things happen."

Gosalyn held onto the photo.

"The point is no matter what we were friends. Now Honker might not want to do Baseball this year, and you might not want to learn about the coriolis effect and the Magnus theory, he’d like you to do. But friendship is more than that. You remember that Honey. How else can you explain why we are friends?"

"Well you’re cool."

Gosalyn said

"Yeah, you’ve helped me a lot Molly, and you showed me all kinds of cool stuff. "

"Gosalyn, will you keep this photo for me. My stupid kids will probably think it’s junk. Here I’ve showed you all my pictures and you don’t even have one to remember me by. Now you keep this one. I know it’s in good hands."

"Really Molly."

"I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it."

"You are the Cats Pajamas."

Molly laughed. "And you are very cool. Gos."

Honker ran to the baseball field, carrying his glove and his bat.

"Sorry I’m late Gos. But Mr. Barker was showing me how to correct my fingering. But tomorrow I promise I’ll be on time."

"It’s okay Honker. It’s just practice."

"I just feel bad that I’m late." Honker said. "I mean you’re depending on me to be here."

Gosalyn looked at him.

Molly was right. He really didn’t want to be here. If he had to use saxophone practice for an excuse he must be in trouble. She put down her glove

"Honker, I want to ask you something. um, It’s okay if you do or don’t but Do you even like baseball?"

"What?"

"I mean I know your good at it now and like you want to spend time with me. But I just gotta know."

"Actually…"

""Yeah"

"No. I didn’t want to make you mad."

"Make me mad?" Gosalyn said "Why’d you think that? Ooh you are such a dork sometimes Honker."

"See."

"I guess I should have asked you. But I don’t want to force you to do anything you hate."

"That’s cool." Honker said.

"I’m sorry."

"Hey I should have told you earlier."

"My mom is sending me to music up in Fern Dunaway. I’m going to play the saxophone. They got horseback riding and a pool, and they got all kinds of interesting foiliage and flora. Like there is this one kind of lichen called astrolipholia that only grows once every twenty years. It’s one of the rarest of the profera lifeform still alive. It was crowded out of extinction by the fern and other gymnospermic plants but because of it’s moist climate it’s been saved from extinction. They also have a sacred shrine dedicated to Music, it’s called Apollo after the greek god of Music oh and"

"Why that’s cool…" Gosalyn shrugged as Honker piped excitedly about his summer camp.

"Yeah, Mr. Barker says that with practice I can go to the state competition this year. Yeah maybe we can join band. Yeah that’ll be great…"

"Whoa no way. I had my share of rock and roll stardom. What if you’re saxophone comes to life?"

"I mean the marching band."

"Oh, you mean like that kind of music…"

Honker shook his head "I’m sorry Gosalyn. I’m boring you I guess."

"Hey I’ve dragged you out here for no reason for the past week, and you can’t even try out. If you don’t like it and what to go to summer camp I’ll just have to deal with it."

"Gosalyn, I’m going to write you every day at summer camp."

"And I’ll write to you every week and tell you how the team is doing."

Honker sighed "Telling you all this is a lot easier than I thought it would be."

"Well you’re my best friend Honker. If I can’t talk to you who else can I talk to."

Since they didn’t have to practice for baseball try outs that day, they played on the swings talked to each other and laughed. Molly was right about that too.

A week later everything had sorted itself out. Gosalyn was quite eager to tell Molly how the project was going, and how everything had turned out with Honker.

Gosalyn ran into the kitchen, rifling through the fridge for a quick snack.

"Hey Dad, it’s Tuesday. Remember. Did you forget? I thought you were going to pick me up at school to go to Molly’s." she pulled a cookie out the jar.

Drake sighed.

"Gosalyn honey. Something happened."

"What’s wrong? Will it make us late? I wanted to thank Molly for helping me with Honker. Honker’s in marching band and I made the team."

Drake hugged his daughter.

"Honey, Molly can’t see you tonight. She’s not feeling good."

"What? She got a cold or something."

"Her daughter called me. She’s not going to be able to visit you for some time."

"What are you saying?"

"Molly is going to die."

Gosalyn dropped the cookie.

"No." she cried.

Drake nodded his head.

"She was fine last week. She was good last week."

"It came out of no where. She’s old."

"She’s not that old. It’s not fair. She’s too cool."

Gosalyn wiped away her tears.

"I never had a friend like Molly. She can’t die."

Elizabeth Bruin-Johnstone sat in the hall holding hands with her husband and crying.

Gosalyn and Drake approached them.

"You must be Gosalyn. She wanted to talk to you."

"Yes. Are you Molly’s daughter?"

"Yes. All of us are coming down soon. She said that she wanted to talk to you though." Elizabeth said.

"Do you want me to come in with you Gosalyn?"

"No Dad. I’ll go in myself.’

Molly had a tube in her nose. Gosalyn braced herself. All she could think about was the last time she saw her grandfather.

Molly stirred a little.

"Hey there Honey. How are y’all doing?"

"Hi Molly." Gosalyn’s natural exuberance was toned done by the hushed doom of the room. Gosalyn didn’t know how she was not going to break down and cry right there, but she couldn’t

"So did you make the team like you wanted."

"Yeah and um Honker’s gonna be in um band."

"Well that’s great." She said quietly, ready to sleep.

"Molly? Are you okay"

"Oh Daffy I’m fine, sure honey. I’d do anything for you Daffy."

Gosalyn let go of her hand.

"I’m Gosalyn." She said quietly.

"Gosalyn? Hmm, that does sound familiar. You aren’t her. Are you? Oh no, Look at me this poor old lady, forgetting. You look just like her -"

Molly fell asleep.

Gosalyn walked out of the room to let her rest.

Drake drove Gosalyn home.

"She was the coolest person. I never knew my grandma."

Drake sighed.

"Why does this have to happen? Why do people have to get old and die? It’s not fair. She is a cool person and now just because-"

"I don’t know honey. I just don’t know.

"I was so scared when I first came here all I could think about was Grandpa in the hospital and Mom and Dad. And now, Molly’s gone."

"The important thing is you met her. You loved her and she loved you."

"She couldn’t even remember my name." Gosalyn broke down in tears. "She called me Daffy."

"Sometimes the mind plays tricks on you when you are old. She probably just got a little confused."

Gosalyn kept crying.

"It’s okay honey, it’s okay."

When they got home Launchpad was there.

"Gosalyn are you gonna be okay?"

"I don’t know."

"Well look at it this way. At least she got to live a long happy life."

"Yeah and without her I never would have found out all this cool stuff."

"Yeah. That’s the way life is, I guess. As bad as something is it always has something good too."

A week later they were at the Fourth Grade Learning exposition. A million kids and parents and teachers all looked at there exhibit. Kids from all over the city came and looked at their exhibit. They even dressed in 40’s style clothes. Each group in the class was responsible for a different booth. The presentation had special listening booths that played Duck Dodgers, plastered with pictures of Daffyd Duct, Pepe LePue and other famous thirties movie and radio stars. Cory Jackswan had taken over the booth about rationing and recycling, and had started up a program to collect soda tabs for charity.

Honker being of a more scholastic bent and his group had made a fancy computer handout to show the Thembrian army.

Gosalyn and her group used the photo’s that she had borrowed from Molly. She never did get a chance to give them back it stung her heart.

Mrs. Johnstone came along.

"Look it’s Mom and Grandma." She pointed.

"Hey Mrs. Johnstone."

"Gosalyn, I want to thank you for doing this. Mom would have loved it."

"Thank you."

"They look so strange, so young. I can’t believe how much you look like your Grandma."

The kids from PS 65 looked at the blow up statue.

"Miss Cunningham was a cool lady. She started her own shipping business, she was the first woman elected the Chamber of Commerce, and after she retired she opened a scholarship fund for young women. She was really tough"

Mr Johnstone laughed " I’ll say. The first time I met your grandma, I swore she was going to eat me."

Elizabeth and her husband watched this little girl who was a complete stranger to them a few weeks ago

"You know Gosalyn, When my baby is born we were going to name her Rebecca."

"It’s a cool name."

"Little Rebecca D. Johnstone."

"D for Drusilla." Pointing at the photo of Drusilla DePolar

"Nonny Dru? No Dafodill. Momma would have liked that."

"Daffodil?"

"Yeah. Daffodil Duck, A friend. She always admired her. Real spitfire, too. Taught Quack Fu fighting to all the girls down at the Armory instead of their usual cross stitching society, as I recall. All I know is she was Kit’s navigator for a time. While flying on a trip to St. Canard or something she got knocked unconscious and died. Uncle Kit went a little crazy after that.

Gosalyn looked up at the blown up pictures of her friend.

"We never did get a picture of her. It’s almost like she was a myth in our house. It’s a shame she’s not up there too. Mom used to call them the Homefront Squad."

"Your Mom, um she called me Dafodil the last… the last time we talked."

Elizabeth smiled.

"I really sorry Mrs. Johnstone. I don’t feel so good right now. I’ll be right back."

Gosalyn ran outside and started crying.

Mrs. Danvers came up to Drake Mallard.

"Hi Drake. How you doing? Binkie "

"Fine.

Binkie said strong arming the teacher away from Drake.

"This presentation is so amazing. Oh you have really outdone yourself Mrs. Danvers. Oh I just can’t believe it. It looks so wonderful. The photographs and the pamphlets. It looks so professional."

"Well I shouldn’t take any of the credit. The only thing I did was get the photographs developed. The kids did this by themselves." She took Binkie’s arm off her shoulder, and started talking to Drake again.

"Drake I just got to tell you Gosalyn has been a joy to work with the semester. She’s getting her work done. And she practically ran this project. She was always ready to help everyone, put in the extra effort. She’s finally working up to her potential. And I don’t know where it came from. It’s my favorite thing about being a teacher."

"Well I guess even problem children can change their ways." Binkie said grudgingly.

Drake had the fortitude to ignore Binkie’s gibe.

"You were right. Going to that Retirement Center was the best thing that could have happened to Gosalyn. She met so many wonderful people. It’s too bad that Mrs. Bruin couldn’t be around to see it."

A group of the resident of Happy Dales saw the presentation.

"Hey that’s a picture of me." Mr. Duke said. "And larger than Life."

"Oh great this’ll be good for his ego." Mr. Hamson said.

Wanda went over to the Rationing booth to look at her picture.

"Wow. I remember that. I had so much fun climbing up that thing."

"That is you?" Corey asked.

"Yeah. What are you collecting here?"

"Soda cans."

"Look take some advice from a pro. The best place to get soda tops is in the stores.

Gosalyn saw her friends from the retirement center.

She hadn’t seen them since Molly died. They approached her.

"You little kids look so cute. I remember when I had a dress just like that."

"Hi guys."

"Gozzie, the place looks great. I can’t you believe you found something to do with all that junk we gave you."

"It wasn’t junk Mr. Hamson. It’s really cool. I think everybody should know about this stuff."

"Say Gozzie, we just wanted to let you know. We want to thank you." Wanda smiled

"Thank me? What did I do?"

"We don’t get many people who visit us that often. Our grandkids live in other cities, and it’s nice that you came to visit us. So we pitched in and bought you this."

"Thank you." It was a really nice wooden tape deck. It looked like a radio. "Wow."

"It was a steal. My little brother works in wholesale. That way when you listen to Daffyd Duct, you can remember us."

"I don’t think I can. But thank you. I’ll never forget you guys."

"We’ll see ya next Tuesday then?"

Gosalyn looked around. Molly isn’t gonna be there.

"I’ll think about it. Excuse me."

Gosalyn ran outside to the parking lot.

Honker saw her, he also saw that she was crying. He also knew that she didn’t like people to know that she was crying. He pretended not to notice.

"Hey Gosalyn. You’re going to miss the Award ceremony."

Gosalyn tried to compose herself and hide her tears from Honker but she started crying again.

"It’s okay Gosalyn."

"I feel so stupid. I only knew her for a little while and I’m crying more than her real daughter."

Honker hugged her. "It’s okay, Gos."

"It still hurts."

"I guess it doesn’t matter how long you know someone, they can make a difference."

"Molly said that friendship didn’t mean you have to spend all the time in the world together. Just as long as you could like and respect a person. I guess this means she’s still my friend."

"Come on Gosalyn. They’re going to give out the award."

The auditorium was crowded with parents, teachers, other classes of kids and of course the residents of Happy Dales retirement home.

"And the best Multimedia presentation 4^th grade goes to St Canard Elementary. PS 37, Mrs Danvers 4^th grade class."

The class cheered. The students pushed Gosalyn to take the award and started jumping up and down as Mrs. Danvers and Gosalyn approached the stand.

Gosalyn nodded at Mrs. Danvers, and took the mike.

Launchpad winced. He remembered what Gosalyn said last time she was given center stage.

"I’m Gosalyn Mallard, and I guess it was kind of my idea to do our project on the Homefront during World War Two. But I want to thank the residents of Happy Dales for all of their help, they provided most of the photos and information that you saw and heard here today"

The class applauded and the audience followed.

"I didn’t know anything about World War Two until they told me. I guess this proves that Old people are important because they can tell us about all the cool stuff we didn’t even imagine happening, and they know about life. So we should start listening to old people more instead of locking them away. My friend Molly Bruin taught me a lot of things, one of them being that it doesn’t matter if you are a different species or if you’re a girl or boy, or if you are different ages. You can always make a friend and you can always learn something. Molly Bruin died last week. I would like to dedicate this award to her."

The class applauded heartily and so did the audience.

The class prepared to sing the song they had prepared.

Mrs. Danver’s took the mike.

"And now the students would like to sing a song for you in the audience. It is a very famous song that swept the nation during the war time era. "Won’t you come Home Baloo Bear?"

The little girls began straightening their dresses as the tape cued up.

"Say I remember this song"

The residents began singing along

The auditorium rung with the sounds of applause as the Retirees and the students took a bow.

Gosalyn looked up into the stage lights.

Somehow she knew her good friend Molly was watching and was quite proud of her.