Chapter One Hundred Eleven
I guess kids just bounce really. After some big kid accidentally stepped on Puck’s head in the ball pit at the City Museum on Saturday without negative effective, he continued his demonstrations of resilience after the worship service. He swiped an iced oatmeal cookie – those things are disgusting – off the table and went to his usual hang-out corner to eat it…
“OWWWWWW!!!! OW!! OW!! OWWWWWW!!!!”
My first thought was that his loose tooth had come out in his cookie. But when I looked around the corner I realized that his fingers had been closed below the hinge in the heavy door to the usher’s closet. Well. That’s the life of a boy, I guess. With the whole foyer watching, I removed him to the bathroom for cold water. His fingers looked just like new when I picked him up from Sunday School…
“It has to happen to every boy at least once,” Mr. Knotts chuckled.
Mom and Dad ended up in Illinois that morning for Linnea’s volleyball tournament instead. Carrie worked on homemade tortillas, chicken salad, and banana cream pie. We talked about books at lunch and how much Francis disliked philosophy…
“Francis, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with a book in your hand, with your eyes open,” Carrie scoffed.
“No, I liked Screwtape Letters,” Francis protested. “And oh, I also liked Chuck Colson’s ‘Born Again’.”
“Do you also like long walks on the beach?” Carrie teased, walking back into the kitchen.
She surveyed the kitchen disaster of the Mt. Kilimanjaro of dirty dishes…
“Oh, lord. Did I do this?… How did this happen?”
Linnea walked in later with a big grin on her face…
“How’d it go?”
“We lost every match.”
“But you’re… smiling…”
“It’s just too much for her to handle. The futility of it all.”
“She starts laughing insanely. ‘We lost every match! Ha ha ha ha ha!’”
The three girls relaxed on the couch while Rose cleaned a caravan of laptops with her signature Windex and paper towels, which, crumpled in a large pile on the floor Dad misinterpreted as her used Kleenex. Rose did not try to correct him. He sat down to argue with Carrie about blood tests for Snuggles and organic fertilizer for the lawn…
“I don’t care, Dad. Christian chemicals are the same as pagan chemicals.”
Dad picked a folded card up from the floor with Francis’ student ID number for the community college printed on it…
“How come it’s on the floor as trash?”
It’s Francis. That’s why.
“I signed him up for a class this week,” said Carrie.
Flying lessons. Now it was Francis’ turn.
“He’ll probably mis-hear his instructions and do a barrel roll or something. ‘Now hold on, hold on. I thought that’s what you told me to do. That’s what they do in Vietnam.’”
This sort of went on until we got to Linnea’s teeth pulling in May…
“What about getting you to the dentist?” Dad asked Carrie…
“What? These bad boys?” Carrie grinned. “I haven’t been to the dentist since they stopped giving out glow-in-the-dark snakes.”
Puck had long-ago escaped through the window – yes, through the window – in his cowboy boots to sit on the front of the mower while Francis cut the lawn. Yes, they have an actual lawn. Ear covers, bullet-proof glasses. And also, yes, Dad amazingly allowed Francis to mow, on a Sunday. Strange happenings.
Dad set four boxes of Little Caesar’s on the counter and two bags of breadsticks. Francis’ bane. And lectures…
“Francis, don’t take that many breadsticks!”
Carrie waited on dinner. She was brushing the buns on the patio. Mom wasn’t happy with the piles of fluff swirling around, which Carrie insisted were providing nests for the birds. A casual tornado of fluff on the patio. Linnea was anxious to get to youth group…
“Francis! I have to be there in ten minutes!”
“I’ll bet you do!”
“Francis, you can’t just…”
“I can do whatever I gosh dang want!”
