Sugar Creek Gang

   The first thing I did when I got home was to slip into our bathroom and lock the door and take a good look at myself in the mirror.  Or perhaps I should say, a bad look.  I certainly was a sight, and I think that I actually looked meaner than the little red-haired, mean-faced Till boy.
   I didn't like to have my parents see me like that, but of course they did.  I washed my hands and face carefully and combed my hair.  When I came out of the bathroom, Mom, who was getting upper, gasped and said, "What on earth!"
   I hated to mention the fight, so I said, trying to be indifferent, "Oh, I just got too close to a bumblebee who didn't like me very well." I knew that before long I'd have to tell her about the fight though.
   Mom stood there with a teakettle in one hand and a potato peeler in the other, and with astonishment all over her face.  She said, "It certainly looks like you got too close to two bumblebees!" There was  a twinkle in her eyes though.  She knew boys pretty well and was used to having me come home with a sore toe or a worn shirt or with a new bump on my head were I'd fallen down somewhere.
   Mom turned around and poured water out of the teakettle into something she was cooking, then she said, using the same tone of voice I'd been using, "What were you trying to do? Use the bumblebees for binoculars?"
   She didn't scold me for getting stung 'cause she figured maybe I couldn't help it. Besides, getting stung and having your eye swell almost shut, is enough punishment. I certainly would know enough to be careful next time without being told.
   I went in to see Charlotte Ann who was getting cuter every day and who had the sweetest smile.  We'd do most anything to get her to smile, such as tickling her under the chin or touching her pink toes or making funny faces, and sometimes she wouldn't, but would just lie there with her big blue eyes open wide and look innocent.  Then her little arms and legs would start going like four windmills, and she would coo and act awful smart.
   Well, when I came in with my swollen eyes, she started smiling right away.  "How do you like your big ugly-faced brother?" I asked her, and those four windmills started going and she looked like she was so happy she could talk, only she couldn't.
   I picked her up carefully like Mom had taught me to and held her a while, being especially careful to hold her so her little head wouldn't bob around too much.  Then we went and stood in front of our big mirror in Mom's bedroom.
   I tell you she was a grand little sister.  Something in me just bubbled up kind of like the water does down in the spring, and I kissed her on top of her curly, black head and called her Charlie and said, "We're going to be pals when you grow up, aren't we?"
   That bubbling up kept going right on inside of me.  Oh, I tell you she was wonderful! Grand! Great! Astonishing! Perfectly swell!
   I put Charlie down in her bassinet and went out into the kitchen, gave Mom a hug and went galloping out of doors yelling "Whoopie" forgetting all about my swollen eyes, except that I couldn't see very well. I started helping dad with the chores.

The Killer Bear by Paul Hutchens pg. 97-99