Ghosties

Friday, November 9, 2007

Puck was busy with important things that morning. Mom had carted out his colored rings, on which he chomped with gusto. He had a role model – Trooper, the golden retriever who found himself in a never-ending stream of dog in the doghouse trouble. Trooper usually had a hankering for his enormous dog bone (which Rose occasionally purchased for him) and pulled it out of his dog paraphernalia keg about once a day. The grating and shaving would begin as soon as he dropped his treat on the rug and began to sharpen his teeth. Puck sometimes found inspiration from Trooper’s ambitious attacks of the dog bone. He stared in baby wonder at the jumbo fluff ball and watched the action. After Trooper had forgotten his bone and moved on to other boring pasttimes, Puck gnawed on his rings with renewed relish.

His Aunt Rose had also been recently inspired. She was currently in the process of reading through every interesting topic housed on the library shelves and in her personal library. This would include missionaries to the south seas cannibals, vagabonding, and other things of a random nature.

“Oooooooooooh!” Joe wandered up the stairs enrobed in a lengthy strip of white tulle. “I’m a ghost.”

Frances giggled and turned back to his math sheet.

But the math didn’t last long. He, Mom, and Linnea were leaving shortly for the park where they would meet the Englishs, Hobcoggins, Denae, and Izzy for several hours. They did finally leave after Frances had donned his entire army fatigues and packed all of his necessary airsofting equipment. It took him a good twenty minutes. But they were finally on the road.

And Collette and Puck returned home after Carrie’s South American travel journal had been transfered to a Word document.

Puck went down for the night like a snap. Collette curled up on the couch and watched a documentary on the most haunted places in Scotland until Dad, Mom, Joe, and Frances (who had just come from Cracker Barrel) dropped off Linnea to spend the night.

“Did you see these characters Holly met on her trip?” Dad asked Collette while the others soon became enthralled with the haunted tombs of the Covenanters.

“Yes, they seemed nice enough,” Collette grinned.

Whenever Dad referred to anyone as a “character”, it wasn’t a mention in their favor.

And, unfortunately, Elizabeth, who was driving back home later that night, had hit a deer. Smashed hood. The headlight was torn clean off. Nice welcome-home present.