Page 82 of Just One More Thing
One second, he’s a snoring potato.
The next, he is airborne.
People scramble. Popcorn and buckets go flying. Someone squeals. A child applauds.
Jake is on his feet, yelling, “Hank!” with the same intensity he probably used in a stadium.
French Fry pulls up at the last second.
Hank can’t stop. He plows into the movie screen at full bulldog velocity.
The entire structure collapses in dramatic, canvas-flapping chaos.
Behind it?—
Mayor Marybeth Wilkinson and an unidentified man.
His head is under her dress in a configuration requiring absolutely no clarification.
Against the fountain.
A flash goes off. Mrs. Kravitz got a photo.
Silence.
Then pandemonium.
“OH MY GOD.”
“IS HE?—“
“MARYBETH!”
Within seconds, phone screens light up across The Green. The town group chat just hit DEFCON 1 while Miss Hattie is shouting, “This is better than cable!”
Jake returns with Hank tucked against his chest, still arfing at the sky like justice has not been served. “Buddy,” Jake says. “Let it go.”
Hank refuses.
“For the record, French Fry pecked him on the butt,” I inform Jake.
I pull Hank’s wrinkled face toward me and kiss his forehead repeatedly. “I think you should kick his ass.”
“Don’t encourage him.”
“I will absolutely encourage him. That mother flocker assaulted him.”
Jake looks at me. Then at Hank. Then back at me, shaking his head, smiling.
He still has a full armload of offended bulldog, so I gather our things. As we reach the shell path?—
Beep! Beep! A scooter goes whizzing by.
Granny.
Miss Hattie’s on the handlebars with both arms waving like the wacky inflatable tube men you see on corners. “Woohoo! Faster, Maddy, FASTER!”
Jake and I stop dead. “Are they drunk?” he asks.
