Tom and Becky sat alone on the stone cold cave floor, waiting for a sound besides the
steady drip, drip, drip of water from the stalactites.
“Tom,” said Becky, in a pathetic little voice, “I’m so hungry.”
Tom studied a moment, a little line between his eyes. Finally he reached into his pocket.
“I’m sorry, Becky,” he whispered, “it’s all I got.” In his hand sat a cooked chicken, its
ten pounds pathetically small to the hungry eyes of his companion.
“Oh, Tom,” she wailed despondently, “there aren’t even any mashed potatoes?”
At that he smiled slyly and extracted a small bowl from that very same pocket. It was
barely a gallon, but Becky tried to look cheerful.
“Oh, Tom, you’re wonderful,” she whispered, taking the gallon with a little sob. “But, oh,
how I wish there was just a little gravy!”
He burst into fierce boyish tears, his curly head bent low on his knees. “I’m so sorry,
Becky! Oh Becky, I’m sorry!”
Becky was shocked and tried to comfort him. “Oh, we’ll manage, Tom. Tom, do stop. Oh, Tom,
it will be all right!”
Tom struggled with his emotion for just another moment. He knew that he had to be strong.
He divided the chicken with barely a sob, carefully concealing from her the fact that he
only took a measly three pounds for himself, and none at all of the mashed potatoes—he
knew Becky had to keep her strength up.
After swallowing their small portion, Becky said, “I’m thirsty.”
Tom silently took a half full water bottle from his pocket and handed it to her. She
glanced in grateful admiration at his heroism.
“It’s powerful cold, ain’t it, Becky?” he said, shivering. He explored the pocket. Sure
enough, out came a king sized quilt, sewn especially for him by his dear Aunt Polly and
put thoughtlessly in his pocket.
“Auntie,” he thought. He gazed at the 8x10 portrait so carefully kept in his trouser
pocket. “I’ll come back to you, Auntie.”
Becky sobbed, disconsolate. She wrapped herself in the quilt with a grateful look, forcing
Tom to extract his inflatable electric blanket in order to keep warm. As luck would have
it, he had that very morning—or was it yesterday?—snitched an electrical outlet from his
Aunt’s parlor, and with some odd wires found in his pocket he managed to fix it up so that
the blanket would work even in this cave, albeit poorly.
“Oh, I do wish the light was better,” moaned poor Becky.
Tom fished in his other pocket, where he kept some odds and ends. “Aha!” he exclaimed. He
found, way in the depths, a set of matches, a candle or two, and an electric torch. They
decided to use the candles until they gave out, and then use the torch. The extreme
brightness produced from a candle gave Becky a sudden headache, which Tom remedied with a
spare aspirin he hadn’t wanted to take earlier, and had hidden in his pocket. Because
Becky had almost exhausted the water bottle, he found a cup in his pocket which he hadn’t
known was there and filled it with the mineral-rich spring water he found next to the cup
in his pocket.
“If only your pocket could show us the way out!” Becky whispered as she began to nod off.
She was terribly uncomfortable, especially since the inflatable mattress Tom had found in
his pocket wasn’t anything like the futon she usually used at home, and her pillow was
slightly dusty from being in Tom’s pocket so long, but she decided to be grateful for
small favours and wouldn’t complain for a moment to her dear Tom.
Tom wept silently after Becky had gone to sleep. He knew that all he had in his pocket was
a merely 98% accurate map of the caverns, a GPS, a cell phone, and his Apple laptop. There
was no way he could help her out of these caves with only these bare necessities!
Wait a moment! He snapped his fingers, waking Becky up from a pleasant dream.
“What is it, Tom?” she wanted to know.
“My kite string!” he exclaimed, pulling it out of his pocket. It was a mere 500 yards
long, (the boys were not allowed to have their kites any higher in the air) but it would
have to do. “Becky, I’ll tie this on to a stake—”
“Steak? What steak? I am so hungry!”
He handed her his penultimate sheet cake out of his pocket and corrected quickly, “No, no,
no, not that, Becky. I mean a stake like this” (pulling a long thick nail from his pocket
and a small hammer) “I tie it to this and keep the string with me—see? And maybe I can
find the way out, though—” he glanced at the balled up kite string “though it is only 500
yards.”
“Oh, Tom, you really do think of everything!”
“Even if the mashed potatoes didn’t have gravy?”
Becky burst into tears. “Yes, Tom, even if the mashed potatoes didn’t have gravy.”
Tom bent and kissed her. “I’ll come back to see you, Becky. Do you want something to read
while I’m gone?”—producing a weather beaten old novel from his odds and ends pocket.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Tom! You’re—” choke “wonderful.”
He kissed her again, pulled a pair of work boots from his pocket, and began the long,
weary trudge off with the kite string.
Gender:
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