NBF's DJ

I'm back home by the lakeside after the department-store incident. I'd backed down with the police. I have a car. I have to go to a scene study group tonight. I'm finishing watching an old episode of Little House on the Prairie (playing on my TV as I'm sleeping in real life) and hoping to finish a due report as my parents come home. I'd really been hoping to leave before their arrival in order to avoid any trouble, and I know they're going to want to "discuss" this out (yell at me, put me down and hit me) instead of letting me go out. Then I hear my parents down at the lake trying get the boat into the water in high waves. My sister Bren and her friends, and Joanne and her friends, are there playing and there are a bunch of children flying kites. Dad comes in the front of the house and collapses exhaustedly on a chair. He's present-day Dad, and he's had two full-leg amputations. I ask him if he needs anything, and he says just get that damn Little House on the Prairie the hell off the TV so he can watch the news. I can't turn the show off (it's playing in real life), so I just toss him the controls and rush out to help Mom, who I can see is face down in the water with the boat out behind her. I almost trip over Dad's prosthetic legs on the way down to the beach. They've been discarded right before the steps to the house. I get to the beach and Mom is standing up by this time and the boys are in the boat having a good time. I brave Mom's thunderous look and ask her if she needs anything. She doesn't respond. I ask her if she needs a towel or a blanket and she says yes please. Some of her friends are on the dock judging me for being an unhelpful daughter. I run to the beach house to get the towel and shake the sand and spiders out of it before I bring it to her. Then I leave her there and run back up the hill, tripping over one of the kite strings - which takes me up, flying. It's a good feeling and it shows that I'm being included in the family games. I consider not going to the scene study because being included in the family fun is huge. As I'm trying to make thiis decision, I wake up.