Adam & Eve

Saturday, April 23, 2005

The time had escaped her again, and Collette found herself staring at another Saturday.

Meanwhile, that very afternoon, as Carrie and Collette took Francis to choir, there was a good debate going on in the backseat, which eventually turned into a giggling match. Francis and Linnea were deciding on a very important age-old issue.

“It was Eve’s fault, Linnea,” Francis began solemnly. “She tempted Adam.”

“But the snake tempted Eve,” Linnea answered, “which means girls are better than boys.”

“Girls are not better than boys, Linnea,” this comment fired Francis up a bit. “Because boys are stronger than girls.”

“Not all boys are stronger than girls.”

“I’m stronger than you, Joe’s stronger than you, Dad’s stronger than you.”

“Not when I grow up.”

“But Adam was stronger than Eve, which means all boys are stronger than girls.”

“It was Satan’s fault!”

“Stupid snake!”

And then they began to giggle, which soon drowned out the radio, until Carrie told them to cut it out. And Collette wondered why Linnea wanted to have an arm-wrestling match with her later that afternoon as the storms came in.

In other things, there was shaky news about Mrs. Pretzel. Collette feared they would all be holding their breath again shortly. There was talk of them making a trip to Maine soon, in case… but Collette did not like to think about it. And Carrie refused to even say such things, as though hope was lost.

But outside the green leaves spun, doing cartwheels over themselves in the early morning winds. Gray skies still hung low, and Collette couldn’t believe the good fortune of possibly four days of such skies.

And Suzanne was back from Africa, although on the way to the airport, her van tumbled over and she smashed her nose. A nice welcome-home present. All the exciting things seemed to happen to Suzanne, Collette concluded, although she was glad she never quite experienced such things herself. And there would have been barbecue and talk of Africa, but in the end, Collette and OLeif could not attend her welcome-home party. Collette decided to send her a card and ask her of her adventures at a later date.