More Gifts

Puck was busy with pen caps. His latest interest involved removing the caps from the pen, and then carefully replacing them on the pens. It was a pastime capable of occupying him for long periods of the day.
It was a slow morning. Sunshine spilled over still-green grass and trees hardly shaded yet by autumn yellow. Indian Summer was still on the prowl, bringing with it, the promise of temperatures near 80 over the weekend.
World news continued to break headlines of financial emergencies across the globe. It had happened before, and it would most surely happen again. But Collette’s little family had seen very few repercussions from world-wide events. In fact, if Collette didn’t watch the news, she would never have known there was trouble in the world, not since she was born (except for gas being a dollar, fifty higher since she married). Life had been easy in so many ways.
There were two new additions to the family that week.
Mom was excited to present her new red bike – brushed chrome. And Linnea, her new white mountain bike, similar to the version Collette had received when she was younger, although she remembered that her bike color had been specifically called “black cherry”.
And Joe’s birthday gift for Linnea had arrived in the mail – called a “Blinkybug Kit” – a robot which responded to the sound of a voice with lights and movement.