Rylie got to talk to Mommy on Daddy's cell phone to tell her they were all done driving for today. She could hear Madi cooing to Abbie and Sam in the background.

Abbie and Sam did not get to talk to Rylie, and they missed her something awful. But did Rylie miss Abbie and Sam? She did not. She was way too busy checking out everything at Terra Nova.

That evening in the sun porch, everyone else had brats for dinner while Rylie ate black olives, corn chips and veggie gummies. Daddy gave her the gummies to make sure she got her vegetables, because she did not want to eat any peas or raw carrots.

After dishes were done, Daddy, Dama Dare and Rylie took the kitchen scraps and a little bucket of the oily water the brats were boiled in out to the chicken pen. "I want to feed the chickens." So Rylie gave them the peas she hadn't wanted to eat. "Eat your peas!" she told them. They gobbled up all her peas.

Dama Dare poured the "brat soup" in a black rubber pan. A hen stuck her head through the fence, dipped up soup in her beak and tipped her head back to let it run down her throat. "Funny chickens," Dama Dare said. "They can't suck up their soup and they can't swallow; they have to let it run downhill to their tummies." "I want to feed them some more." Rylie picked tender grass and swished it around in the oily bucket to make 'greasy grass' for chicken salad. The hens and pullets talked to her in their friendly little table-talk voices. "We like greasy grass!" they seemed to be saying, because when one grabbed a long blade of grass, she would run down the narrow chicken tunnel so she could gulp it down before another chicken could grab it and pull it right out of her throat.

Then Rylie, Daddy, and Dama Dare walked all around Terra Nova's little woods and picked dandelion leaves as big as a lion's teeth and poke leaves as big as a bear's yawn. When they got back to the chicken pen and threw the greens inside, the nine pullets played 'snatch and run' with the yummy leaves because the three hens didn't want to share and tried to peck them.

Back in the house, Rylie and Daddy looked at all the pictures of Rylie, Daddy, Mommy, and Madi on the bulletin boards in Dama Dare's room. Then Rylie took Dama Dare's stack of green cushions and plopped them on the floor to play hop scotch. Hop, hop, hop from one cushion to the next. "I did it!"

In the room across the hall where Rylie and Daddy would sleep, she pushed a cushion next to the tall bed so she could climb up all by herself. "I did it!"

It had been a long, long day in the car and Rylie was tired. "Where's purple ni-ni? Where's bear?" Soon she was asleep with ni-ni and bear cuddled close.

Very early the next morning Rylie, Daddy, Dama Dare and Evan all got into Oleson's big black car to go to Chicago. When they stopped at a rest stop, Dama Dare took Rylie into the women's room.

Rylie got on the big potty all by herself. But suddenly it exploded with cold water splashing her bottom. She got off fast! No way was she going to get on that automatic toilet again! Ever! Daddy could not get her to use the one in the men's room, even when he held his hand over the light beam and promised her it would not flush while she was on it.

The drive to Chicago was not as long as the drive to Columbia. Rylie did not even have to wet her pull-ups before they got to the house in Crystal Lake where Uncle Kevan and Aunt Merilee live with their three children, Katie, Tom, and Johnny. Rylie and Madi have six cousins in Crystal Lake near Chicago, and two more near Dallas. Aunt Merilee gave everyone a bright-colored plastic cup and a marking pen to write their name on it. Rylie wrote her own name on her yellow cup, and everyone could tell it said R-Y-L-I-E.

Rylie played 'Hide and here I am' with cousin Johnny. Johnny would count to twenty and Rylie would hide under the table or in the corner or behind the couch. When Johnny walked by saying "I wonder where Rylie is," she would call out, "Here I am!"

Friday night Daddy and Rylie slept on an air mattress on the floor in Johnny's room. Johnny slept on the floor of his parents' room upstairs, and Dama Dare and Evan slept in a bed in the family room at the foot of the stairs.

Saturday was a big day. In the morning, Johnny, Tom and Dama Dare put up Oleson's big tent in the back yard. Rylie peeked inside. The sun was shining, and already it was getting hot in there. Almost as hot as Dallas!

"When can we go in the tent?" Rylie wanted to know.

"When it's dark and the moon is shining and it's cool outside," Dama Dare said.

"I see the moon," Johnny said, pointing to a dim half circle almost hiding behind tree branches.

"Oh. Maybe the moon will set before dark, then. But at least it will be cooler in the tent than it is now." Dama Dare got that right. It was going to be too cold to sleep well that night in the tent. But no one knew that yet.

Then the Olesons had to go get ready for Katie and Catherine's big graduation party at Oleson's church. Except Johnny, who went in the car with Daddy, Rylie, Dama Dare and Evan.

First they went to the Waltz'es house where Aunt June, Uncle Scott, Catherine and Maria live, but the driveway was full of cars because everyone had walked to the high school stadium for Catherine's graduation ceremony.

"There's Uncle Scott walking," Johnny sang out. Uncle Scott saw them, too.

"Do you have room for me?" Uncle Scott asked Daddy.

"No, sorry."

"Wait. I'll get out and walk with Scott," Evan said, and did.

"Now we have room," Daddy told Scott, laughing.

Daddy could not find a space in the high school parking lots. So he let Johnny, Rylie and Dama Dare out and went to park somewhere on the street.

The three of them began walking toward the stadium. Dozens of people were walking with them and hundreds of people were already sitting on the stadium bleachers. Johnny called Aunt June on his cell phone to find out where the rest of the family was. Soon they found the others high up on the bleachers, right where Johnny told them they would be.

Except for the Olesons, who were getting ready for the graduation party, and Catherine, who was getting her cap and gown on, Daddy's whole family was there: Grandpa Merle and OraLee, oldest Waltz cousin Rebecca and her fiance Noah, Aunt June and the youngest Waltz cousin Maria. Plus the Waltz girls' Grandma Kay and other cousins Jardian and Drake. Daddy parked several blocks away and he, Uncle Scott and Evan soon joined them.

It was as hot as Dallas in the bleachers, too, but Rylie and Daddy were lucky. They left early and walked back to their car, then drove to the Waltzes. Everyone else waited until the graduates threw their caps in the air, and then walked the four blocks to Waltzes.

Soon everyone left for the big party to celebrate both Catherine and Katie's graduation. There were lots of good things to eat and drink, especially the chocolate mint-chip cookies Aunt June made.
All the kids played in the game room. So did the grownups.

Olesons had hung pretty party decorations and had two posters and two albums of pictures to celebrate Katie's and Catherine's lives up to their graduation.

After the party, the families went back to the Waltzes for pizza. Later in the evening, Uncle Scott made a fire in their fire pit on the patio. Everyone sat around watching the flames and talking. The kids played badminton and roasted marshmallows. Rylie liked the nicely browned ones Catherine roasted for her.

A funny cat sat on the neighbor's fence, watching the people around the fire. It watched people the way Rylie had watched cats in the movie "Aristocats." Maybe the movie it was watching was called "Party People."

At bedtime, back at Oleson's, Rylie and all her Chicago cousins, plus Noah, Drake, Jardian, and Catherine's friend Kevin went with Dama Dare and Evan out to the tent. Tom had a flashlight and a scary story to read.

The story did not make any sense to Rylie, so she was not one bit scared. Soon Daddy came to get her so she could sleep inside on this cold, early June night. Now it was not anything like Dallas.

On Sunday Rylie went with Waltzes to their church, and then there was more feasting at Olesons and more "Hide and here I am" with Johnny.

Monday morning very early, Catherine rode with Rylie, Daddy, Dama Dare and Evan back to Columbia. Rylie got to talk to Mommy on the phone several times, as she had every day since they'd left home. In the back seat, Rylie and Catherine watched movies and played games. In the early afternoon, before Rylie even had time to take a nap, they were at Terra Nova.

Rylie played the keyboard in Evan's room and sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "ABC" and "You are My Sunshine."

Hoyt cooked dinner and Rylie made some more 'greasy grass' for the chickens afterward. "Boc boc boc; we like your greasy grass," they seemed to be saying in their funny little voices. They played snatch and run with all the food Rylie threw to them. They had as much fun as Johnny and Rylie did playing "hide and here I am."

After the sun went down, Rylie, Catherine, Daddy, and Dama Dare walked over to look at the fountains by Shelter Garden.

Rylie tripped on the grass at the edge of the sidewalk and fell, but it was only a little scrape. Beside the fountain, Rylie climbed up on and then jumped off a concrete bench and fell again, scraping the same knee some more, so they all started back.

"Shall I carry you?" Daddy asked.

"No!" But as they were crossing the parking lot, Daddy holding her hand, Rylie cried so hard, her nose began to run.

Ptuh! Ptuh! Rylie spat out what was running into her open mouth.

"What are you doing?" Daddy asked, peering down at her as they walked.

"I do <ptuh! ptuh>" Rylie told him. Catherine and Dama Dare hurried on ahead, their hands clamped over their mouths.

Very early Tuesday morning, Rylie, Daddy and Catherine left before breakfast to drive home to Dallas. Riding with Catherine in back was fun, but boy! was it good to get home and see Mommy and Madi. Abbie and Sam ran around barking, trying to tell her how much they had missed her.

But would they eat 'greasy grass' just to make her happy? They would not. They wouldn't play 'snatch and run', either, when she tossed them her peas. They would play 'hide and here I am,' though. They always went straight to her hiding place, so she didn't have to stay hidden even one minute. So that was fun.

The Terra Nova chickens sure did miss Rylie. "Boc, boc, boc. Where's that chick with the 'greasy grass'?"

If she heard that, she'd tell them, "My name is Rylie. R-Y-L-I-E."