Sunny: The Hippie Chick

By Dawn Natelle

Reviewed and Edited by Eric

Chapter 7 – She was playin’ soft while Sunny sang the blues

We got back to the motel at about 11 and were soon in our beds. Or at least Sunny and I, Ben was in his cot, hanging out on all four sides. Sleep came easy, but at about 5 a.m. Sunny woke, nearly as excited as the kids in the house would be when they woke up. I gave my girl a Christmas kiss, and wanted to do oh so much more, but with Ben in the same room we refrained. Ben woke groggily from the noise of Sunny showering but was happy to dart in when she came out wrapped in a bath towel. I could hear him showering as I brushed Sunny’s long, blonde hair. I was getting quite good at it, and when Ben came out, completely nude, showing off his magnificent body, I darted into the bathroom and had my own shower, thankfully with hot water since we were probably the first in the motel to use the water.

Soon Sunny was ready and we went out into the cold, heading to the house. It was still before seven when we got there, and the place was quiet. Mom had told us she would leave the back door open for us, so we crept in and sat quietly in the kitchen until the rest of the house roused. Sunny started making coffee. With over a dozen adults in the house more than one pot would be needed.

Before she was finished, she heard the first pair of footsie-clad feet enter the living room, quickly followed by a shrill shriek of “Santa came, Santa came.” I took over the coffee-making so Sunny could go and watch the little ones come in, in groups of two to four, but always with excited smiles on their faces as they made their way to where they had put their stockings the night before, and where ‘Santa’ had piled their gifts. The last shriek was from Melanie, who recognized her gift as soon as she saw it and hurried over to rip the paper away from the guitar case even faster than the little kids had with their presents. She opened the case to pull out the guitar, and quickly strummed a few chords to show that it was in perfect tune. She carefully set in back in the case to protect it from the mayhem that surrounded it and walked over to a smiling Sunny.

“You did this, didn’t you?” she accused.

“Nope,” Sunny said. “It was all from a Santa that loves you. He might have given me some tips on how to use it, but it was all. I’ll point out some of the features he showed me to you later.”

Mel was not fooled. The moment her parents appeared she leapt on them before I could even give them their coffees. “Thank you Mummy,” she said. “This is the best Christmas ever.” Then she turned to hug her father, who she knew must have approved such an expensive Christmas present.

Coffees in hand, the adults largely congregated in the kitchen, except for Sunny who doesn’t drink the brew. She just stood at the door to the living room, eating up the joy that she saw on the little faces within. Apparently Santa had gotten everyone the things they wanted. Melanie’s sister Kathy got a small record player, and Sunny soon realized that this was the gift that would have been her older sister’s until the guitar entered the picture. She edged over to Melanie and mentioned that she should buy records from her baby-sitting money and give them to Kathy in return for the right to play them on the player. Sunny knew that most people who didn’t have her eidetic memory for music often had to play songs over and over in order to memorize the words and the chords.

The mayhem went on for an hour, while the Moms worked on a breakfast. There were sausages, scrambled eggs, toast and my aunt’s hashed brown potatoes. The adults ate first, and then the kids were ordered away from their toys while the Dads gathered up the reams of wrapping paper into a huge sack for disposal.

When the little ones returned to the slightly less messy room, they gathered up their toys and generally handed the ones they didn’t want to play with right away to their Moms, and each took one toy or another down to the den to move the mayhem out there. Someone had come down and rolled up the sleeping bags.

Ben and I moved down as well, noticing Sunny and a still-glowing Melanie sitting in the office with her new guitar. When we sat down, planning to watch a little Christmas TV, it didn’t take long for some of the little ones to come over. Ben had spent most of the prior day outside working on cars or doing some lawn work for Dad, so the youngsters hadn’t seen him before supper, which he had eaten at the other table from them.

“Why you so dirty?” a little voice asked, as she rubbed on Ben’s wrist, to see if she could get the black off. Others watched as my roommate explained that that was his natural coloring, and that he had little brothers and sisters their age that looked the same. He turned over his hands to show the lighter part of his skin. The kids aahed.

“Kin you read to us?” was the next question, and when Ben nodded a little one flew off to the stack of books and brought back a half dozen.

Toys were largely ignored for the next hour and a half, as Ben and I sat reading to the smaller children. Ben had a little blonde girl on his lap, and I had a boy, a cousin of hers, on mine. I knew the names of all the children, but Ben had trouble with so many new little faces.

Melanie came in with her guitar then, and the attention left us as she played a short concert. The first song was Puff the Magic Dragon, and the second was Blowin’ in the Wind. She played both well but that was the end of her repertoire. The little ones wandered back to their toys and Melanie packed up her guitar and headed to the kitchen, where Sunny had gone when she left the girl after teaching her the new song.

In the kitchen all the adult women were working. Sunny and Melanie, the new girls, were working on the mashed potatoes for the army that was eating. The ham was already cooked and cool, and Dad was slicing it off to the side. Carving was the only job that a man was allowed to do in this kitchen. When he finished the pig, the huge turkey that had roasted most of the night would be out of the oven and ready to carve. The meat would go onto two large platters, for the adult table, and two smaller ones for the children’s table. Sides were corn, potato salad, peas, carrots, and dressing. There were countless variations on salads and jellos in various bowls from Mom’s collection, some of which were only used at Christmas. Her fancy china set adorned the big table, and the less valuable day-to-day china was on the kids table. It was two o’clock when the meal was to be served, but hungry bodies were led to the kitchen two hours before by their noses and Mom moved the mealtime ahead.

When the meal finally started, Sunny and Melanie sat at the kids table and plated meals and cut the meat up for the littlest ones, while the older kids helped themselves, occasionally with ‘eyes-bigger-than-stomachs’ which led to food being left on the plate. Dad’s dogs would eat well tonight. But even the fullest stomachs seemed to have room for pie when it was offered, at least by the kids. Many of the adults suggested that they would have their pie later, after the main meal had settled a bit.

At the end of the meal I stood up and started to clear the table, announcing that the cooks should be allowed to relax while the men cleaned up. Only one uncle and two brothers-in-law seemed to agree with me, while the other men disappeared into the den or living rooms. Some of them seemed to feel that they could only digest the big meal by lying down, or at least back.

Mom jumped up as well. She didn’t trust the men to handle the leftovers, which she packed away in her wide selection of Tupperware filling the fridge even more than it had been before the meal. But my sisters and aunts stayed in their seats, relishing not having to clear the table they had set so abundantly. Only Melanie and Sunny cleared, doing the kids table.

“I’ll wash,” I announced when the food was put away for leftovers.

“Not my fine China, you won’t,” Mom said. “Thanks for the help clearing, Mitch, but clearing is enough. Sunny may help though. I don’t think that the little ones need to be entertained today, when they all have new toys.”

“I’ll head out and look after them,” Melanie said, efficiently getting out of washing dishes. She had enjoyed being treated as an adult by the other women when she was helping prepare the meal, but now her teenaged laziness caught up with her. Plus, she could play on her guitar if she sang to the kids.

With so many hands washing and drying, the cleanup only took an hour. I was amused by the sound of a plate smashing to the floor. Apparently it was not only men who were clumsy.

At about 3:30 the kids were called back into the living room to clear the presents from under the tree. The morning mayhem was just things from Santa. Now it was the time for other gifts. The adults had their ‘secret Santa’ gifts, one each. But the kids scored big time with every child getting a gift from Mom and Dad, the aunts, and the grand-aunts. As well, every child bought something for every other child (or their parents did.

Dad sat on the stool as ‘Santa’ near the tree and called out the names on each package. Because there were so many, it was not one-at-a-time like some other families, but Dad grabbed one, reading the name, then handed it to Melanie or Sunny (the elves) to deliver to the recipient as fast as possible. Eventually the huge pile of presents was down to the last few, including some cards that had been placed on the tree, usually containing cash for the recipient.

My present from Uncle Noah was a briefcase, since I was in college now. It must have been well over the $10 limit the adults were supposed to spend on each other. Sunny got a pretty shawl from my sister Audrey. Even Ben scored. He hadn’t been put into the ‘secret Santa,’ but my Dad had put together a small tool kit using some of his best hand tools along with a few he had picked up at the auto parts store.

Pie and coffee for the adults followed, and small voices claimed that they could eat another slice. There was enough for half slices for each, to their contentment.

After six some of the families started to leave to allow them to get home in decent time. All the nephews and cousins waved goodbye to me, but Sunny got a big hug from each. At least eight children came over to me and warned me that Sunny had to come next Christmas or I would be in big trouble.

Eventually it was just three of my sisters left, who would be spending the night in the house. Sunny, Ben and I said our goodbyes, and then Dad drove us to the motel, saving us another walk. Mom gave me one of her famous Mom-hugs and whispered in my ear that Sunny “was a keeper.”

At the motel we all crashed as soon as possible after a busy day following a short night. We woke at about 10 the next morning and went across the street to a restaurant, back in business after Christmas.

While we were there, Sunny found us a booth adjacent to a young family of five and befriended the kids by asking what Santa had brought them. Sunny chatted with the elder two kids while waiting for our breakfast, and then again after. Then she noticed that the mother was having trouble with the youngest tot, and her breakfast plate was sitting uneaten next to her,

“Do you want me to take the baby while you eat?” Sunny asked.

“I wish,” the mother said. “But the minute she is out of my arms she cries and cries.” Sunny then leaned over, so her hair draped down around her face. This entranced the child, who reached out one hand to grab hair. Sunny just pulled back a bit, making funny faces that soon had the little girl giggling. Soon she reached out with both hands, and Sunny scooped her up from her mother’s lap.

The woman looked amazed as her formerly cranky daughter was giggling on the lap of the thin blonde girl. She took a few seconds, and then turned to her food, which was cool, but not so cold as to be inedible, as long as she ate quickly and didn’t try to savor the food. Soon she was fed and offered to take her child back. The little girl refused, hurting the mother’s pride, but not so much. She really needed a break from Momness.

When the parents found out that we were hitching to the city, they invited us to join them. The kids cheered in agreement, and we all went out to the family station wagon. Sunny and the three kids crawled in the back compartment, while Ben and I sat in the rear seats, and the parents sat in the front. I had our bags and Sunny’s guitar in the middle of us. It was nearly noon when we pulled out, and we expected to be in sight of the Golden Gate Bridge by five. The family lived just before the bridge, but Ben noted it was easier to hitch into the city than out of it.

About two hours later Ben spoke with some urgency in his voice: “Pull over into the rest area coming up.” Stan, the father, did that without knowing exactly why. But by the time we got onto the exit ramp, the cause was apparent. Steam was flooding out from under the hood, and Ben had the man pull to the first parking spot, and then kill the engine. He had smelled the steam before any of the rest of us, and luckily, we were near the rest area.

The baby was asleep, and Sunny handed her to Fran, her mother. Then they, and the kids walked over to a near picnic table, where they sat down. Sunny decided the kids needed to get some exercise after the hours in the car, so she told them to race to various places in the park. The girl was over a year older than her brother, about six, so she usually won, until the last race when she decided to let up, letting the boy win one of the three races. Finally the exhausted kids flopped on the bench and declared themselves exhausted. This was followed by a cry for something to drink. Sunny just pointed to the water fountain outside of the washrooms and they headed in that direction. Sunny came back to the car, which had three heads under the hood. Luckily one of them knew what they were doing. Ben had the little tool kit out that Dad had got him for Christmas and was tinkering.

He said they needed water for the rad, and I got Sunny’s and my canteens out, pouring one into the other and then taking the empty one to the washrooms as I watched Sunny heading back to the picnic table carrying her guitar.

When I got back to the car the radiator cap was off and Ben was pouring water from the canteen into the rad, immediately stopping the steam. It took four more canteens full to fill the rad, and then Ben took out a wad of gum from his mouth and plugged it into a spot where steam had been squirting out minutes before. I filled the canteens again and took them over to where the rest of the family was listening to Sunny’s impromptu performance. The kids gladly had more water, as did Fran.

I went back to the car. Ben wanted to listen to it run and to make sure the gum was stopping the leak. The car probably could get to the Bridge before overheating again, even if the gum didn’t hold. After 15 minutes Ben declared himself satisfied and I went to get the family. Mom told the older kids to hit the bathrooms, and both claimed not to need to. But then Sunny said she needed to go and all five of them walked over.

The boy was out first, then Sunny, who took the baby while Fran did her business. The counter was barely clean enough, but Sunny washed it down and then laid out the baby and took off her sopping diaper. Fran came out with her diaper bag, and finished the job, wrapping the soaked cloth diaper in a different, evil smelling bag. Soon they were all off to the car, where Ben was holding the boy up so he could see the engine as he pointed out various parts and what they did. Ben dropped the boy and then he, I and Stan made a quick run for the washrooms as Sunny and Fran loaded the kids into the car. There was a three to two vote for Sunny to sit with the kids in the back (assuming the baby was voting for). Ben wanted to ride shotgun to keep an eye on the gauges and to make sure the car sounded right, so Fran and I were in the middle, although she spent most of the time turned around watching the kids and listening to Sunny’s songs and fairy tales.

Due to the stop at the rest stop it was getting very late when we got to Sausalito where Fran and Stan insisted that we stop for supper. Stan clinched it when he promised to drive us into the City. Sunny was in heaven: Fran was making a quick pasta supper, so she got to bathe the older kids, one at a time. Both behaved impeccably for her, and she was able to comb some baby gunk out of her hair. All three went down for supper, a filling spaghetti.

After eating, the kids insisted that Sunny read to them for an hour. That gave Fran a chance to feed the baby, but soon the little one was sitting in her sister’s lap as Sunny read several of their books. There was an argument when Fran declared bedtime, but Sunny defused that by offering to tuck the kids in. They wanted a bedtime story and she couldn’t read to both at the same time, so they got one more book downstairs, and then Sunny led them upstairs with one in each hand and put them to bed. It was 15 minutes before she was back down, and Fran announced she would hold the fort while the other three headed into the City.

Traffic was light. Not only over the bridge but inside the City as they drove towards Haight. Ben and I pointed out several bus stops that could have taken us home on a night bus, but Stan just kept going, finally stopping at Haight and Ashbury.

“Now remember to take the wagon into your mechanic tomorrow and get a new radiator,” Ben reminded Stan. “That is a patch up job, and it will fail when you least expect it. You got lucky this time.”

“No doubt,” he replied. “Imagine if we hadn’t met you. I would have driven a few more miles past that rest stop and the engine would have seized up if I didn’t get it turned off in time.”

Sunny had fallen asleep on my shoulder minutes after we left Sausalito, and I nudged her back into the land of the living. I was amazed again at how beautiful she was, with her long blonde hair arrayed about her. She had just woken up, and when she smiled at me, I fell in love all over again.

We stumbled out of the wagon, and as Stan drove away we started to make the half block walk home. We all crawled into our beds, and fell hard asleep, thinking that it would be another entire year before we had to do this again.

The next morning we awoke one at a time. Ben was first. He had to work somewhere. I think I woke up when I heard his toast popping. There was only a bit of Sunny’s last batch of bread left in the fridge when we were gone, and he got it, slightly stale, but still tasty with peanut butter. I was in no rush today. School wouldn’t start until after New Year’s Day. And Sunny could make her own hours. There probably wouldn’t be many on the street so soon after Christmas. I decided to wake her gently and bent down to lightly run my tongue across her nipples. I was surprised when they went erect, and larger than ever before.

“Ooh, wow,” Sunny said, waking up. “That feels different, and really good.”

“I think your hormones are kicking in,” I said. “It’s been a month now. We will have to film you today.”

“What? Really?” Sunny was up like a bullet and ran to the washroom to look in the mirror.

“No boob yet,” she said sadly when she came out, wearing only her briefs. And the nipples were only big because you were licking them. More please.”

She crawled back into bed and we pleasured ourselves for over an hour before getting up and dressing. We had a breakfast: eggs and no toast, and then Sunny got undressed again other than her panties.

The professor wanted to have a record of her development and had gotten a 16-mm movie camera from the university. Now I had it and was to take a series of photos of Sunny standing naked face-on, in profile, and from the rear, with her head not visible. But Sunny wouldn’t leave it at that. She pointed out that her long blonde hair made her recognizable anyway, so she developed a little dance that she did identically with each filming. The entire film only took under two minutes, out of the four minutes the camera could do, but the professor wanted to have them processed right away, so he could view them as soon as possible. So I dropped the used film at his office later that week and got a new blank reel for the following month.

When the filming was done, Sunny dressed and started a new batch of bread, while making a list of things we needed for the apartment after being away for a half week. We went shopping while the bread rose and were back in time to knead it and put it into pans.