Final Game

Saturday, March 8, 2008

It was not the girls’ best basketball game for the last one of the season. Collette, admittedly, went overboard on the yelling, mostly toward the end of the game. She was ticked particularly afterward when they returned to the house.

“Look what that girl did to me,” Linnea said, holding out her arm.

One of the girls from the other team had grabbed her arm, leaving a bloody scratch. It wasn’t big, but Collette was irritated.

“She shouldn’t have been holding you,” she told Linnea. “Go put rubbing alcohol on it.”

One of the refs should have caught that foul, but it was too late. Despite the eight straight losses, the girls had made good improvement. It had been a fun season. Collette had discovered the more aggressive side of herself, which had previously been limited only to the occasional sporting event during the airing of the summer Olympic games. And Linnea was learning the game, and able to spend extra time with her best friend.

Puck had been happy to watch his Aunt Linnea play. He waved to her from the bleachers and watched the action for awhile until he became distracted by his cherry puffies, which Grandma Combs fed him, and then later, by drowsiness.

After the game had ended, Grandma suggested Dairy Queen for the sparse crew. Dad and Frances were on a twelve-mile hike with the Boy Scouts in preparation for New Mexico later that summer. Joe and Rose were both pulling all-dayers at work. And OLeif was at a meeting.

Collette did, however, find herself much more passive later that afternoon when Carrie-Bri brought out the new Risk set to teach Linnea. When OLeif returned from his meeting, Collette left the game having conquered South America, Europe, and most of North America. But Risk was always dominated by Carrie. She was quickly taking over Asia. Poor Linnea was rapidly losing troops in Africa, in her final retreat.

“Look at my graveyard,” Linnea said, pointing to her pile of little plastic soldiers.

“I always win,” Carrie said with a laugh. “Back in the day, Diana and I would battle it out over at the English’s house.”

“Yes,” Collette recalled. “Everyone else quit after several hours, but you two kept going for forever.”

They would see it out to the bloody end.

The day ended less vigorously with a number of book readings for Collette and pigs-in-a-blanket. One book covered the autobiography of a man who had died, entered Heaven, and returned to earth.

“He says that there were no sad hymns in Heaven,” Collette was telling OLeif. “Nothing about Christ’s death, only His glory.”

“Aw, but some of my favorite hymns are sad hymns. They’re so good.”

“Well, think about it. What place will the Bible have in Heaven either?”

OLeif made a sad face.

“But I like it so much. Maybe we can put it in the history museum there.”

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Jamie Larson
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