Chapter Twenty-Nine
5:30AM.
Click, pat, pat, pat.
“Ok, he’s up.”
This time, though, it’s Cracker’s fault. Hunting for food in Puck’s room, of course. Fortunately for myself and The Bear [who’s back is ailing him again], we had hit the hay at nine Monday night. So it isn’t too difficult to get going. But Puck is still advised to lay low for awhile. He tries, I guess. But then…
Ruuuumble…
“Mom! Mom! Thunder!” the grinning chubby runs up beside the bed to me.
“I know, buddy. That’s exciting.”
He goes back out. I hear Scotch tape ripping. Later I find the remains of Chick-fil-A nugget crumbs on the couch beside a bottle of window cleaner. Something about washing Crackers’ food bowl… But then there’s a flying leap as Puck comes soaring through the air onto the bed between us. That only cues the wrestling match, Puck’s tap-out words being…
“Please magic! Please magic!”
Uncle Joe taught him that. Laughing to beat the thunder, if it had rumbled again. But it hasn’t. I know I’m not going to get much more sleep. The sky is gray and cream, dark gray in the east, the pavement still rain-wet, and the windows are all opened in the front of the house. My dreams of high school reunion concert and neighborhood fires/all houses condemned sort of fits the occasion. The Bear has lunch plans with Ben-Hur’s dad [church youth matters], so he has to hustle to start the day. On our end, before the yogurt mustache and oatmeal bowl are fully established, Puck has a fashion show starting. He doesn’t want pants today; he wants shorts. All the shorts that are too small. He begins to compare freckles on his finger and knee.
“Mom! Look outside! Quick!”
Crocus. We had crocus. In January. Maybe that happened last year too and I don’t remember it. But the weather is always whack around here anyway. It’s beautiful, really. The wind. The digital KSDK display reads 71 for possible high. We do some Madlibs together, Puck giggling. Chick-fil-A knows how to offer good kid gadgets.
“Mom! I want to take some pictures of the sky, ok?”
His reading lesson is already done for the day, so I send him out with the camera into the tree and the wind and the white-gray clouds. No blue today. Joe IM-s a conversation about work-out routines for The Bear. Can’t forget about the body even in the middle of a crazy work and seminary life. Chia seeds are involved. Puck has transferred from photos to the backyard where…
“Mom! The bunny’s under the shed!”
I suggest picking leaves and grass for his lunch, which Puck eagerly does, that missing tooth conversation running a mile a minute telling me about plans to leave Donkey and Buck on the back step so they can watch the rain come in, etc. Then he begins harvesting honeysuckle leaves from the fence into the charcoal holder from the barbecue and filling our archaeology hole for the rabbit. He lets the patio door open just a little so Crackers can bat her paw through it at her boy. And, yes, my linoleum suffers from the mud. I look out the window from preparing quesadillas and listening to John Piper’s last sermon at Bethlehem to see him balancing his space ranger umbrella on the top of his head while he works. The Bear’s son, all the way. He is courteous enough to leave his shoes on the patio though, before returning the second time to join me in immersing ourselves in late 19th century Minnesota while I sort a moderate mail pile-up, noting the once-again increased escrow on the mortgage. Nothing new under the sun. Puck comes out from Quiet Hour with a wet envelope. A soaking envelope…
“Can you open this for me, Mom? Very carefully. Very carefully…”
Again, sometimes questions aren’t always necessary.
“Let’s take a walk, Puck,” I tell him half an hour later.
The three loads of laundry have almost been folded, and there are writing and math lessons, but I can also see the radar. We have just enough time to make a half-circuit.
“Ok! Quick, Mom! We have to do it in a snap!” Puck declares, rushing for the bathroom before departure.
The Providence in simple timings. Our fast gray hand-holding walk concludes with the rain pelting us right up the driveway. Perfect. And the tornado sirens a few minutes later add to the drama. Puck writes his words by battery light in the basement near a mildly spastic Crackers. The electricity flicks on and off about five times as the sirens groan on again. Carrie calls to update on the radar situation. Joe is out chasing the storm up 79. Mom had been snacking at the Bread Co. with Mrs. O while Francis and Linnea were in choir, although Francis is now likely taking refuge at the Y…
“Yeah, an excuse to cuddle up with Zuñi,” Carrie snorts. “I gotta call Rose now.”
…who is also watching the storm. It’s primarily uneventful though. Some heavy rain. Some rumbles and flashes. All that continues into the night anyway. So our couch cushions , pillows, and batting helmets, are unnecessary. Canned steak and veg stew for dinner with brown bread. Someday I’ll be more homemade. Maybe. Puck’s shower has to be skipped because of the lightening, though. I remember most PBS documentaries from grade school.
“Sit down, Crackers. It’s time for grooming time,” Puck challenges the squirming, meowing feline, commandeering the small black comb over her head and back. “Be appropriate.”
She stops meowing. Blue rain streaks the windows, a few night songbirds singing out the day. Then Puck sorts trinkets in a basket, listing his items in antique-dealer fashion…
“And a shower head. Very popleear [popular].”
The Bear drives up just in time for Puck’s seven o’clock cash-in. He waves him up the driveway into the garage that I have just opened, trying to catch some rain drops from the eaves in his little brass trumpet. The Bear sits in the lemon drop glider in Puck’s room to read more Happy Hollisters, as he tries to do every night. And thunder still grumbles. Francis rolls in a little after seven, too, for me to critique his final digital Eagle project, which includes all kinds of amazing spelling errors…
Eagle bored of review
Bench plague
Lunch brake
…while he chats with us about Home Depot self-crafted airplanes, the senior year of choir, and Old Towne donuts. And a cold rain; pale violet lights in the sky.