May 2

OLeif dropped off Collette and Puck at the house that morning. Collette and Rose were going to the enormous book fair in West County while Mom kept an eye on the Puck.
Carrie was already dressed comfortably for the trip. An armada of snacks was sentineled on the counter. Collette didn’t even have to ask which snack was for which person: seven glass bottles of FUZE green and white teas for Carrie, an energy drink for Joe, red Gatorade for Dad and Frances, pretzels for Frances, beef jerky for Dad and Joe, and red Twizzlers for Dad.
“I’ve got to tell you something funny about Linnea,” Carrie said to Mom and Colette. “She asked me yesterday, ‘Carrie, when is Oyck coming?’ And I said, ‘In about two weeks.’ And she said, ‘Drat! I’m not nearly ready!’ So I said, ‘What do you need to do?’ And she says, ‘Well, does he speak English?’ And I said, (just to see what she would say), ‘Well, I don’t really know. Why, were you going to learn Croatian?’ And she says, ‘Well, just enough so that at least I could ask him if he’s hungry.’”
Yes, if all things worked out, Oyck would be with the Snicketts in less than three weeks. He was Bosnian, but he would be coming from Pennsylvania where he was looking into Gordon Seminary before checking out Covenant Seminary, where he preferred to go.
It was about time for the crew to leave. But first, Dad had found a dark chocolate mint cookie wrapped up on the counter.
“Whose cookie is this?” he asked.
No one seemed to know.
He had been asking people off and on for the past hour, until finally he asked Frances.
“It’s mine!” he cried, grabbing it off the counter.
“No, it’s not,” said Dad.
“It is! Rose gave it to me!”
“Give it to me, Frances.”
Dad was Chief Cookie Confiscator.
“Well, okay…” Frances grinned. “I guess you can have it.”
Dad split it with him.
“Well, Carrie,” Collette was saying. “You’re going to have a long, smelly ride.”
“I don’t envy you,” said Mom, hugging her goodbye.
“Dad!” Carrie exclaimed. “You have to give me permission to slap both of these boys, hard, if they make any kind of bad smell.”
Dad grabbed Frances by the shoulders.
“No vulgarities,” he commanded.
Frances. rosy cheeked as usual, tried not to smile, and nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
Collette and Puck waited on the front porch as one by one, the team headed out to the mini van.
“Have fun,” Collette told Frances, as he walked out the door. “Be good. Build a good plane.”
“Oh, my plane will be burning by the end,” Frances joked, as he waved goodbye.
Joe crashed out the front door with his luggage singing something about Jude and Jews and being Jewish.
Once they had finally departed, Rose returned from class talking about how Buddha was her most photogenic toad. She was putting together a display of her photographs and ceramics for the senior banquet that night. A picture of Buddha had made the cut.
Then she and Collette drove over to the mammoth book fair in the parking garage of the West County mall.
Rose was soon loaded to the gills with books. Seeing as Collette already had four bulging bookshelves at home, with more boxed in the basement, she bought only four: one on Portuguese, another on Masada, a dictionary of world history, and the play “Arsenic and Old Lace”.
By the time OLeif had returned from work to feed the Puck dinner, Mom, Collette, and Rose left for The Columns to set up Rose’s art display.