The "Gang" - Part 1

Good Morning FFFs,
How was your week? Mine was good, busy, fun, difficult, enjoyable, tiring and noisy. :)
We babysat all 5 of my niece and nephews from Wed. morning until last night. We were glad the weather was so nice because that meant we could let them play outside. They roller skated in the parking lot across the alley from us (were we used to skate, ride bikes, play soccer and other things), play on the tree house, swing, kick balls around the yard and use up some energy. It was fun to have them over, but I didn't get any writing done while they were here.

I've been trying to get TCR-4 finished. But I got stuck. First it was on the name of a puppy. But that's figured out now. Then one thing wasn't working and I was trying something else and that wasn't right either. What I was writing was dull and boring and I needed something different. I came up with the idea Wednesday morning, but haven't had a chance to write it. I'm looking forward to later today when I can actually sit down and start putting the action on NEO. :) Prayers would be appreciated. :)
 
Last night about 9:00, panic began to set in. My breathing became rapid, my tired brain refused to focus and I turned to my sister in distress. "What am I going to post tomorrow?!" Yep, I had forgotten that today was Friday and I had to post something. But what? I don't have any more parts of Dr. Morgan written. The short stories I was going to have written so I could post them have not been written because I've been focused on TCR-4. I was even too tired to write a poem last night. But then I remembered. I do have a story or two that I had written for "Ria and the Gang" which you haven't read. I'll give you one of them. Or, at least I'll give you a part of one of the stories. I hope you enjoy it!

The Gang

Part-1

Summer - 1933
    Emma Mitchell hummed a happy tune as she swept the floor of the living room. The noise of many children’s voices came through the open windows and now and then the sweeper would pause to listen. “I wonder what Ria is doing with all the boys here?” Emma mused. “It isn’t often I have them all over at once.” She gave a little laugh as she thought about the expression on her twin brother’s face when he brought his own sons over and discovered the rest of the boys.
    “You’re asking for trouble, Sis,” he grinned, though he shook his head. “That is quite a gang when they’re all together.”
    “I know,” Emma had told him, “but I like it. And it keeps my own lads occupied and there are plenty of people to keep an eye on Ria for me.”

    Putting the broom away in the closet, Mrs. Mitchell decided to go check on the children, not that she was worried, for Eddy was twelve now and Phil was thirteen and they were the undisputed leaders of “the gang” as Edmund had called them.
    “As long as they are a good gang,” Emma murmured, pausing beside the sink to get a drink before heading to the back door.
    The back yard, though large when compared with most other yards in Codell, didn’t seem large enough for the swarm of boys racing about it, intent upon a very lively and noisy game of tag. They seemed to be everywhere at once and Emma stood on the back step trying to count them. It was difficult and at last she gave up, deciding that looking for her little daughter would be easier. Quickly she scanned the yard, eyes searching for a small child in a yellow playsuit with two dark ponytails. Not finding her, she looked about a little more closely. Once she thought she spied her, but discovered after a second glance that it was little Walt hiding in the bush. Where was Ria? She had never disappeared before.
    “She is probably here, but I’d feel better if I knew for sure,” she told herself. Then, catching the arm of the tallest lad, she leaned down and spoke to him. “Phil, can you get everyone’s attention, please?”
    Hardly pausing to catch his breath, Philip Vincent Bartholomew Wallace IV put his fingers to his lips and gave a whistle. There was almost instant silence and Phil’s shouted, “Freeze!” was hardly needed. “Wow!” he exclaimed, “Why didn’t I think of doing that when I was ‘it’? I could have tagged them all that way.”
    A chorus of protests came from across the yard.
    Mrs. Mitchell laughed. “Thanks, Phil,” she told her young cousin. “I just want to count heads,” Aunt Emma told the upturned faces before her, “but you all move so quickly that at one count there are twenty of you and in another thirty. “I was afraid if I counted for a third time you would have multiplied to forty or even fifty!”
    “We’re not rabbits, Mom,” Ed, as he was starting to be called by his cousins, called out from the farthest corner of the yard.
    His mother merely smiled as her eyes moved from one head to another. At last she spoke. “Well, you boys are all here, but where is Ria?”
    A hush fell as the boys looked at one another. It only lasted a moment before they began to talk.
    “I thought I just saw her.”
    “I know I tagged her when I was ‘it,’” insisted one of them.
    “What was she wearing, Aunt Emma?”
    “She was in red.”
    “No, it was green.”
    The boys started to mingle, arguing about what color Ria was wearing and had they tagged her or not. Only Ed and Phil were quiet. Ed jogged over to the porch steps and stood beside Phil. “Is she inside?” he asked?”
    Mrs. Mitchell shrugged. “I was cleaning, but I didn’t see her,” she replied, not too worried, for what five-year-old girl could hide long from fifteen lads if they started looking for her?
    “Divide and conquer,” Phil suggested.
    “Yeah, lets get a detail to search the house and one to search the yard,” Ed agreed. “I’ll take the house.”
    Again Phil’s whistle brought quiet to the yard. “We are going to split into two details. Everyone in your usual group. Hurry now.”
    So accustomed were the boys to being split up into two groups, whether it was to play ball or to do any number of things, that in no time at all the house and yard were undergoing thorough searches while Emma sat down on the steps and waited.
    A quarter of an hour passed before Phil and Ed came back with the rest of the “gang” and told her they had found no sign of Ria.
    Emma frowned thoughtfully. This was the first time her daughter had ever disappeared. “Where could she be?” she wondered half aloud. Then she turned to her eldest, “Are you sure you searched everywhere in the house, Eddy?”
    Ed nodded solemnly. “We checked every room, every closet and even under beds and behind the couch.”
    “And we looked all over the yard, Mama,” Johnny added. “Even under the porch.”
    “I suppose she could have gone for a walk,” Mrs. Mitchell mused, not quite believing such a thing was possible but anxious to leave nothing to chance. Looking about her at the sober faces of the boys, she knew she had to think of something. “I’m going to have you boys go around the neighborhood and look for her. Phil, keep Dave with you. Ed, you take Chris and Tom, Walt is your charge. If any of you find Ria, let Phil or Ed know so they can whistle and alert the rest.”
    “Then we all come back here?” Pete wanted to know.
    His aunt nodded and then let them go.
    Knowing she had to remain behind, in case Ria had been hiding someplace and been overlooked, or came home by herself, Emma rose and moved to the front porch where her eyes followed the boyish figures down the street. She stood there, leaning on the railing and waited. The grandfather clock in the living room ticked away ten minutes. Then fifteen, . . . twenty . . . Would they ever find her? They were making a thorough search of it for she could still hear their voices.

What do you think of this part?

Do you think you know where Ria is?

Will you be back next week to find out what happens?