MIA
Thursday, April 28, 2011
In which objects of rather significant value are missing and Puck is given a gift…
Collette got breakfast started that morning. The frying pan was overheated and the kitchen slowly filled with haze. Puck watched the cloud of it grow larger, which he believed to be dust…
“Is dust tasty, Mama?”
“I doubt it.”
Puck marched over to the stove where the smoke had collected, in his oversized black praying mantis t-shirt.
“Do you want me to come out of the dust?” he asked with a grin.
The house smelled of fried eggs, tea tree oil, and cinnamon incense. Collette opened the windows for more cool, fresh air.
“You want me to put on my wake-up clothes?” Puck asked after breakfast. “’Cause that could be embarrassing. You never know.”
The rest of the morning was for Mitford on audiobook, cleaning the library, hunting for OLeif’s still-missing wallet, and researching contracts for Dad…
“I’m setting out to the hills,” said Puck.
Collette looked down at the little character in a Nike sweatshirt, gray track pants, dirty yellow wellies, and a bacon and eggs smiley face/red and white plaid book bag slung over his shoulder, which looked quite full.
“And my daddy will miss me so much,” he continued seriously.
Collette easily dissuaded the young chap from venturing bravely into the great outdoors, by reading the first sections of the 1,296-paged Chronicle of the World and his picture Bible (Puck’s selections), interrupted occasionally by Puck sticking his head out the front door to check on random noises from the neighborhood.
“I locked the door so you wouldn’t get stolen from me,” he said.
Then he saw a photograph of an ancient skeleton in the Chronicle…
“That looks like my daddy,” he said.
It was not long later that the highlight of Puck’s morning had arrived. Their next door neighbor, who came to return the borrowed pizza cutter, had brought Puck her grandson’s old Tonka dump truck and digger. Shiny yellow metal, just like Joe’s when he had been a kid.
Puck proceeded to sit in the dump truck and push himself around the house for the remainder of the day, and administering punishment to them on occasion when they would not cooperate.
“They’re being disobedient to me!” he declared.
After lunch, Collette and Carrie-Bri caught up briefly over the phone regarding business procedures. The call was occasionally interrupted by Carrie’s young charge…
“Earnest, stop chewing on my zipper!”
“Earnest! He’s chewing on my ponytail!”
The afternoon was a perfect blend of wind rolling through the fresh greenery, sun, coolness, and wispy puffs of gray and white clouds, heralding the silverish covering to follow.
With the mail arrived a graduation announcement for Pablo Honey. Puck recognized his photograph immediately and decided to call him ‘Big Pablo’. He believed the announcement to be a personal letter to himself and requested at dinner that he might have ‘Big Pablo’s letter’.
Meanwhile…
Joe came over to photograph Puck with his slinky for a class project. He was not having a very good day because he couldn’t find the expensive camera that Mom’s cousin had given to Rose. He suspected theft…
At dinner, the rain crashed through sunlight for a few brief minutes.
OLeif returned from work with a new pair of motorcycle pants and a helmet, which Puck put on immediately and thought that he was pretty cool stuff.
The evening ended with some comedy laughs.
Speaking to rogue plastic bag caught in tree:
“I will fill you with other bags! YOU WILL EAT YOUR FAMILY!”
– Liz Lemon