December 28

It was back to the normal that cold, sunny Monday morning.
Mom was leaving to spend the night at Grandma Combs’ place that evening. And something was mentioned about Fast Eddie’s for dinner.
Carrie set out for an early morning hike with Grewe, and returned home to mix up some fresh-squeezed orange-apple juice before setting out on a second hike to the train tracks and bluffs with Kitts, where they discussed possible vacation plans to Croatia the following summer. (Carrie was also busy beginning to write her book, having been accepted into the Astronomy program at Swinburne, Australia, which would begin as correspondence courses.)
Joe woke up near noon, after returning at five o’clock in the morning from a night out with Wally and Curly.
After Collette helped Francis set up his merit badge schedule for the winter break, Mom took him to Creole’s house for further recreational activities.
And Puck was busy playing with the bunny rock, which Grandma Snicketts had painted in 1999. The previous evening he had made a small house for it out of blankets and pillows, stuffing the bunny snugly in the middle of it. He also became somewhat concerned when he thought Trooper was going to try to ‘eat him’, but Collette assured him that his fears would not be realized. Instead, Trooper began to chomp down on a stray ice cube.

Puck had recently taken to altering the form of address to Collette. Instead of the usual ‘Mama’, he had transformed it into a somewhat distinguished English-boy, ‘Mah-meh’, ending with a sort of unusual nasal syllable.

Sometime in the afternoon, Linnea had a double-hour conversation on the phone with Cherry Pie.
“Shhhh!” said Puck. “We have to be qui-let. Lila’s on deh phone!”

On the way home that night, under cover of a sheaf of brushed gray-gold cloud over russet, Puck saw a flock of deer run across the field into the woods.
“Baby reindeer!” he cried happily. “Where’s deh mama reindeer?”
Then he requested his next song from the CD Carrie had made him months ago. He had labeled the songs of his own accord — tunes such as ‘Woody’ (Toy Story theme song), ‘Sprinkles’ (a march), ‘Guitar’ (Spanish song), ‘Loves (Wuvs) Me’ (Toy Story 2 song), and ‘Tilda’ (Waltzing Matilda).