“That’s Lucy, the barn cat. If you have a barn, you have mice. Lucy has important duties,” Candace said.

Lucy was purring up a storm, her green eyes narrowed to slits.

“Hi, Miss Candace,” I heard a young voice say.

I looked up to see a dark-haired boy wearing Spider-Man pajamas. I guessed his age at about eight or nine.

“And who’ve you brought with you today?” he added.

Candace climbed the two porch steps and gave him a hug before saying, “This here is my friend Miss Jillian Hart.”

“Not ‘this here,’ Miss Candace. Just ‘this’ is all you need to say,” Jack said. He smiled at me. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Jillian.”

“Back at ya. And that’s a colloquialism, by the way,” I said with a grin.

“I know. And ‘this here’ is a regionalism. But people often look down on Southerners because of their grammar, and we can-”

“Jack, what do you think you’re doing?” The woman who spoke sounded irritated. She must have come around from the barn. Her dark brown hair was the exact same shade as Jack’s, and she wore pressed, immaculate blue jeans that contrasted sharply with her muddy but brightly flowered Wellington-style boots.

“Greeting our visitors, Mom. And before you get started, I know I’m wearing my pajamas outdoors. I happen to like them.”

Robin West sighed heavily. “Your teacher will not applaud your choice of clothing if you go to school like that, Son. Please go get dressed.”

Jack hung his head. “I’d prefer to stay home today, but if you insist.” He turned and went into the house.

“He wants to stay home because I’m freaked-out about the cow. He thinks he has to take care of me,” Robin said.

From what I’d overheard on the phone earlier, she was indeed freaked-out about the cow, the one Candace had told me was missing. That left her poor kid with a job-taking care of Mom. But though I only thought these things, Candace had no trouble saying them out loud.