Ch. 148; Vol. 10

“MOM! COULD WE HAVE OFF SCHOOL BECAUSE IT’S THUNDER DAY!”

Seriously.

He was right about the thunder though. Just as I walked out of my room at 7:13 – it had been a full weekend – you could hear the crack somewhere in the west, and coming…

“IT’S RAINING NOW!”

Puck had forgotten about asking off school. I opened windows while Puck watched the action with Crackers.

I choked down some hot peach tea for breakfast. Puck scooped the rest of a tub of blueberries from Grandma Combs down his throat and then asked…

“Could I dump the blueberry juice outside?”

Why not. We continued our breakfast, thunder tearing through the rain.

“MOM! I’M ALMOST OUT OF BUBBLE FUEL! WE HAVE TO MAKE SOME MORE!”

– He was sitting right next to me on the couch just after his daily lesson on electricity. –

“Sure, man. Sure.”

“SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE! SHAKESPEARE!”

Someone was a little excited about attending his first-ever performance in Shakespeare Glen that Friday night. I figured he’d fall asleep by around the third act.

“Mom? Will you LOOK UP THE INGREDIENTS TO MAKE BUBBLES while I blow some on the porch?”

Why not.

A little quiet.

I turned around. He was standing in his black socks in the clear river flowing down the street against the curb. Just watching the water curl around the socks. He was recalled.

Thunder still rumbled during lunch. The honeysuckle had been rolling in the wind and the rain and was a full bush of gold and white blooms.

We had plans to take a walk now that the rain had stopped. Puck determined which footwear would be most appropriate for the occasion…

“I’ll just wear my bare feet.”

“Can’t do that. There’s glass on the road sometimes.”

“But I’ve saw other people walk with bare feet on the…”

“I know. But you can’t.”

“Why did they?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t thinking.”

“But why?”

“May they didn’t care.”

“Maybe they were robots.”

“Maybe.”

“Were they?”

“May.. be…”

So we took that walk. To stomp puddles. And save worms. Before the next green mass arrived on the radar.

Puck and I played kickball after dinner – with The Bear just home, and early at six o’clock – pasta in alfredo sauce and green peas. A little Andy Griffith. The kickball was only that pink rubber ball that probably weighed eleven ounces, but it was fun to kick around.

Then The Bear read another chapter in The Silver Chair to him, wrapped up in warm blankets, dried mud still on his legs.