Meet Mr. Pence

Puck stared into his new classroom. Culture shock. A desk with his name on it, a cubby with his name on, a coat hook with his number on it. While we sorted and organized his school supplies, he took it all in, and shook hands with his teacher, Mr. Pence, who might as well have been a linebacker. Before we left, he checked out the also-new school pet, a black hamster/gerbil (not sure which) named Oreo.

“He’s pretty fluffy,” Puck chuckled a little.

Once everything was stocked, El Oso split to Jimmy Johns and work, and Puck and I drove back across the river to the Big House.

Earlier I had asked Puck, “What do you think your favorite subject will be?”

No pause, he replied, “Saturday.”

Francis was waiting to drive us back home, given vehicle situations for tomorrow. He was busy with his first day back at the community college. So was Irish: same math class, different teachers.

Francis demonstrated his manual-driving abilities in “Quick Silver” on the way home, his beloved used pick-up.

“Don’t worry. I sanitized everything,” he informed me as I took shot-gun.

When Anna and Eddie got back from school, about an hour later, Anna waltzed in wearing a dark pink sun dress and carrying a small coin purse. Her bi-daily Puck tattling was coming. I try not to smile and take it seriously.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Anna.”

“Excuse me, but I think you might want to have Calvin come inside now. He, um, told my friend that she was a show-off.”

I assured Anna that Puck was probably being silly, but that I would look into it later. Eddie saved me the trouble.

He knocked on the door. “Did Anna come in here tattling on Calvin?”

“She came to talk to me. What’s up?”

“Well, if she told you that Calvin was saying ‘show-off,’ Anna was actually telling me that I was a show-off. And Calvin wasn’t.”

Sometimes, sometimes, problems solve themselves.

Puck fell asleep only about 40 minutes past his bedtime. I’ll blame that on the unconscious excitement for school tomorrow. I haven’t read “Calvin & Hobbes” to him in awhile. Trying to help the cause here…