Goin' to the Zoo

By the time Collette and Puck had arrived at the house that morning, Francis was still not quite prepared to roll out the math books and merit badge booklets.
“Breakfast,” he said.
Mom soon had a hot plate of eggs and toast sitting on the counter for him. And Joe. Between the two of those boys, they could stuff themselves ten times over and still be hungry.
Collette waited for Francis to finish forking it all down. Then he wanted more toast.
“Haven’t you had enough yet?” Collette asked him.
Francis only grinned.
“That’s ok,” said Mom cheerfully. “I want my little monsters to eat.”

Shortly later, Mom and Carrie-Bri escorted Puck to the Zoo in the cool of the July morning to view the penguins “pingos”, elephants, and rhinos.
Puck was very excited.
“Goin’ to the zoo!” he cried over and over again.
He had a very good time and returned sleepy, warm from the sun, and very hungry for lunch.

Later in the afternoon, after a trip out for groceries, Carrie-Bri placed a call out to Rose for permission to convert her black and silver flowered skirt into a tribal fusion costume.
“You have to call me before you cut my clothes up,” Rose told her over the phone.
Carrie-Bri could hear giggling from her co-workers in the background after this statement.

Meanwhile, Joe, just back from work, handed over a Texas cinnamon roll to Collette, Carrie, and Franics to split amongst themselves.
“Isn’t it to die for?” he asked.
Just then, there was a crash from the other room.
“Uh oh!” Puck declared loudly.
Collette entered the living room to survey the damage. It was minimal. A plant stand had been toppled, and a pile of peat soil had spilled onto the floor. Yet another mishap at the hands of Gordita Puck.

Back home, Collette made omelottes with sour cream for the crew, including Rose. After dinner, Rose and OLeif went back to attacking the old tiles in the basement while Collette took her walk under skies with clouds that reminded her of Israel, shielding the sun in a different sort of way.

When she returned, Rose was ready for math.
“Guess what this is?” she asked, holding out a tiny clay figure she had molded in her hand.
“A leaf…” Collette guessed, a little distracted setting up Rose’s word problems.
“No,” said Rose indignantly. “It’s a stingray! Thhhhpp!” she said, sticking out the stingray’s imaginary tongue at Collette.
Rose then took out her mechanical pencil and carved out teeth and eyeballs for the stingray.
“It looks like he’s in terrible pain,” she said.
She planted him on the corner of Collette’s laptop.
“He’s gonna eat you,” she said.
Then she made, what she called, ‘a tiny blob monster’, and placed him next to the stingray.