Easter Monday

Monday morning was full of frost and sun, still very cold.
At the house, Joe was back to college, and Puck was eating stray Cheerios on the floor.
“Manna,” said Carrie.
“Manna from Heaven,” said Collette.
“Oh, look at the pretty flowers,” Carrie said, hoisting Puck above the table-line.
Rose had knocked them over before company had arrived for Easter. Their pristine yellow petals were no longer in shipshape condition.
Puck was not very interested in the flowers and crawled to the middle of the kitchen where he found a:
“Cheerio jackpot!” said Carrie…
…and he laughed at his reflection in the oven glass.
Then he had a jumping session with Rose. Between jumps, he bounced himself, his way of communicating to Aunt Rose that he wanted more jumping. All of this was occasionally broken by raiding the pantry. Ballroom dancing with Joe was next, set to Carrie’s new The Bravery CD. The rest of the morning Puck feasted on oranges, raisins, and strawberries. Collette rescued a googly eye from his mouth while Mom put away Easter decorations. He composed his own symphony with a Playmobile red park slide and the kitchen table bench.
Puck always had full days.
Frances had already started shooting Easter eggs from his canon across the yard. He and Linnea were also busy burning things in the fire pit.
Carrie was in the living room watching a documentary on UFO’s, which she had just brought back from the library.
“I want to be buried in all 52 states,” said Joe.
“What? You can’t do that, unless you’re cremated,” Collette told him.
“No, just take little pieces of my body…”
“That’s enough, Joe,” said Mom, rolling her eyes.
At lunch, Mom brought in the vegetable and fruit trays from the garage where they had been kept sealed on the old couch overnight.
“Oh, hello, my beauties,” said Carrie to the vegetables. “It is no longer the worst day of my life.”
Joe was having fun playing with his food.
“Gibber gabber mein hoof!” he cried, his arm extended in the air with a green leaf Hitler mustache under his nose.
It flew through the air and landed on the honey dew melon. Then he stuck a leek-like onion up his nose.
“Did you call Pastor Hatch about the Eagle Scout ceremony?” Mom asked him.
“Yup.”
“Joe, you’re almost twenty years old and you have an onion sticking out of your nose.”
Joe just laughed.
There was chocolate mint cake for dessert, also left over from Easter.
Carrie walked through the house singing Prokofiev.
Collette returned to the house (to shop with Mom and Carrie) that evening after OLeif came back from work with a large television for the basement. Carrie and Frances were in the kitchen.
“I guess we can take a side-trip and see if Hot Topic guys is there,” said Carrie.
“Hey, I’ve got a pick-up line for you, Carrie,” Frances said, snorting out a laugh. “Hey, isn’t a guy marrying a girl, normal?”
“Frances!” Carrie laughed out loud.
“That’s totally random,” said Collette.
Frances’ pink cheeks grew more pink as he laughed at his own joke. He left the room to tell Mom about it.
“I want Puck to have my gas mask,” said Linnea. “That way, when the poles change in a few years, and the compass points the other way, and we have disasters, he’ll be okay.”
It was a generous offer, but Collette tried to explain to Linnea that it wasn’t absolutely for certain that the world would die if the poles changed.
“But that’s what happened to Mars!” Linnea said.
Her eyes were wide. Collette could see that nothing she told her would change her mind.
“We’ll see what happens,” Collette said.
The mall was pretty quiet, except for the music varying from store to store.
“Are they serious with these songs?” Carrie asked herself aloud in Wet Seal.
Collette could see that she was about to pull out her hair because of them, and they left after Collette bought two tops. Then Mom and Collette split a chicken Florentine at Subway.
“No food for me,” said Carrie. “I’m riding my bike till I fall off tomorrow. Gotta get in shape.”
They walked by the carousel on the way out of the mall.
“Remember the carousel in Michigan?” said Mom.
“Yeah, I remember filming Rose on it after she whined to get a ride on it,” said Carrie. “I said, ‘Smile, Rose, you got your way.’”
That was back in the days of twig-dom for Rose.