Chapter Eighteen
I was starting to get tired of dreams. Too many, too vivid, too… excessive. Hiding baby bees – cartoon fashion – in baskets in the rafters of my parents’ basement from a gaggle of greedy gals gluttonous for… honey? I think?… Streets at night, tall, thin women from Taipei or somewhere, very fashionable, walking with their families, or alone, to stores and restaurants under orange and blue lights?… I mean, really, is that necessary?
Linnea and I talked archaeology for a little bit yesterday. She had spent so long cleaning up those 19th century cabins behind the school, sweeping them out, digging out clutter. Once, part of the barn had collapsed in, and she found a blue wood chest buried in the rubble. She hauled it out and cleaned it up, brought it over to the cabin, hoping to inspect it better. When she came back again, it was gone. These are the kinds of happenstance that make us wince, just a little.
I proofed an application letter to Covenant over breakfast for one of The Bear’s friends. I wasn’t getting much done. Somehow between the letter and cranking Puck tediously through another reading lesson – due mostly to the fact that his brain was on wrapping more bubble gum pink string around the upstairs and downstairs [I was feeling like something out of “Cat in the Hat”] – it was eleven o’clock. Puck was careful in his craft. When Crackers gnawed through a particular section, snapping it in half, Puck inspected the situation. Gently, he mended the problem…
“It’s ok, Crackers. It wasn’t one of my best strings.”
Temper solutions. The sky was too blue, the sun was too bright; not for January. My house was upside-down again. Less than 24 hours, and Puck’s gadgets and experiments were everywhere. Something was attached to everything. But I’m getting used to that. I brought out the leftover taco salad for lunch. Fifteen minutes down the road, Linus’ friend – an aspiring chef – was apparently hauling away the old piano. We had seen it for the last time on Thursday, Puck and I had. I watched Puck work slowly through the glass bowl of colors, textures, and flavors, hiking himself up on his knees every twenty seconds on the wine-colored florals of the chair seat. He never remembers…
“Sit down with your feet in front, Puck.”
“Sit down, Puck.”
“Puck. Put your feet in front.”
“Sit. Down. Now.”
It’s like the biggest mind block I’ve ever seen. Then my legs went numb again trying to pound through one more hour of this stupid genealogy. I should be grateful for this database of almost seven hundred million names. And I am. But, jumping genealogies, isn’t this thing about finished yet? Sometimes I wish England had been a little more focused on biography and less infatuated with vague birth/death dates six hundred years ago. It would have at least made the process more interesting. But a promise is a promise is a promise… I opened the windows just for a little while. It was already enough just handling a bad cat and a teary son who bawled angrily in his room for having lost privileges in the afternoon. When it rains, it pours – angry tears. And what mom/mother/mama in the world hasn’t hear them. I tried reminding myself that I would sort of almost miss it one of these days when I’m extra wrinkled and out of salt, and vinegar, or whatever. But for now, one day at a time is plenty. After all, when tears are dried and you get to send him off into the sunshiny afternoon world with a black rope and hooks to swing in the trees and a kiss on his scruffy little tomato-juice stained nose… all is forgiven. A bucket and pulley system soon followed. Two hours later, and we were sitting on the couch, lap-looming a poor hand version replica of the Peruvian flag, but with pink instead of red. Puck had even switched on some Renaissance music to provide the correct ambience, as we imagined future large works – tapestries of flying saucers. He watched eagerly and tried a little himself before I tied off the ends, and the experiment was complete. Dinner followed – I slapped together a large supper for him of hot turkey and cheddar sandwich, leftover macaroni, a bowl of fresh tomato slices and dark red pepper wedges, and a new “Adventures in Odyssey” – a clock mystery. Puck added his own thoughts from time to time…
“Get serious, girl!”
The sky was yellow now, bracing against the spindles of black trees. Blinking headlights from the highway moving slow in Friday evening traffic. Sometimes I forget how close we are to the interstate. The Bear had worked through lunch so he could join us for our family movie night, even if it was the anniversary edition of “Alice in Wonderland”. I don’t like “Alice in Wonderland”. While scolding Puck for belching several times at the table, throwing some air punches towards Crackers…
“Wanna fight?”
Boys… Magnus was back, too. I guess we hadn’t seen him around here since the summer, what with work, school, and a girlfriend. How do you have time for anything else? [As we have quickly learned in the case of Francis Snicketts.] Crackers warily growled at – presumably – the lingering scent of Stinkerbelle on his jacket, who had apparently clawed him the previous evening. Carrie-Bri and Rose brought ruffly potato chips with onion dip, wild blueberry scones, and cans of cinnamon rolls – Rose’s choice. The Bear’s choice was “George of the Jungle”, a symphony of groans. Everything from…
“Ug! That lipstick!”
And…
“Is that a scrunchie?”
To…
“That is the worst possible position he could be sitting in right now.”
Not like we didn’t expect it… or anything…