12

There was a moderate bulge under Puck’s ski cap before he walked out the door to church this morning.

“What’s in there, bud?”

“It’s my mud face. It’s under my hat. And it’s wrapped up in a cloth and tin foil. It won’t make a sound.”

I guess he thought I’d let him wear it during the service or something. With Puck, he tends to anticipate my no’s.

Because our fridge was bare from being gone a week, El Oso took us by St. Louis Bread Co. for breakfast and brought out goods, including a four-cheese souffle and apple juice for me. It had been a few years.

Then Irish filled me in at church on the swing dance (where she hid in the corner in the shadows with her iPhone so she didn’t have to dance with anyone) and Francis’ escapades at Hidden Valley.

“So, you know how you’re supposed to ski weaving back and forth down the hill? Well, Francis just went flying straight down, and he … ran over a bunch of people like bowling pins.”

Then his friend thought his hands had turned purple from the cold, so they visited the nurse and discovered that they had turned purple from the dye in his gloves.

She also explained that Joe was probably going to die from asbestos poisoning in his friend’s kitchen.

Such adventures.

“Puck, you want to bring Snuggles back with you? She can hang out with Crackers. Maybe there’ll be a little romance.” Carrie-Bri tries to pawn off Snuggles wherever she can.

Puck raised his eyebrows at her. “Well, Sun, if you’re thinking they would be married, Crackers already had a shot so she can’t have kittens.”

All the windows were open. Wind chimes and 50’s and snow. Francis was wrapped up in a blanket in the basement, sleeping, with his busted knee till two in the afternoon. Mom, Dad, Joe, and Jaya were taking dance classes at the community college in preparation for the wedding. Rose tried to convince Carrie that Starbursts were an acceptable breakfast food. I saw Puck run up and down the street throughout the afternoon with neighborhood gangs, plastered in mud. His brand new just-arrived-in-the-mail-yesterday-afternoon black side-velcro-ed Chucks, too.

When the dance class students returned, Mom asked for suggestions on what to do that afternoon. Linnea suggested a cave. Carrie recommended the original gooey butter cake store. In the end, it took so long to decide, the whole Eleven ended up in the basement with local donuts, local pizza, and Cary Grant and a dancing caterpillar in “Once Upon a Time”.