My Busy Day

The office was buzzing that morning: Tylenol, ice packs, phone calls, visitors … Mr. V brought Puck in for a bug bite on his face; not sure how that came about. One of the boys in the class had advised Puck on what had probably happened.

“He said it was maybe a bug that had some poison in it but it’s not the kind of poison that would kill you probably,” Puck told me solemnly as he departed the office.

When I caught up with Puck in the cafeteria an hour later, the bug bite had receded and his face was stuffed with peanut butter sandwich. He was warned of my approach by a passel of his rowdy friends sitting around him with the gusto of a group of boys hoping to avoid getting in trouble.

“It’s your mom!”

“It’s your mom!”

“Look! Look!”

Violet popped up from her seat down the table to see me. “Hello!” she waved, big grin on her face above cat-wearing-giant-pink-sequin-sunglasses t-shirt.

I’m pretty sure Puck pretended not to notice and ran to the trash can to spit out the overstuffed mouthful of sandwich.

Ditto was quiet again for once. I ended up in the sorting room, organizing collared shirts from Ireland, Ralph Lauren for ten year-old girls, even a silk Japanese jacket apparently made in 1954.

Dropped by the dollar store for fun-sized candy bars on the way out. Rose was coming over for dinner. It was warm enough now for them to melt if I left them in the car.

Puck and I discussed the upcoming retirement of the Head of School that evening. He rolled around on the kitchen linoleum, thinking about some nice things to say about her for her memory book.

“Why do I have to say something, Mom? She’s probably still going to work at the school.”

“I don’t think so. I think she’s retiring.”

Puck stopped the busyness to let that sink in. “You mean she’s just going to have wealth? At a retiring home?”

Rose walked in later that evening for a couple of servings of family recipe: “At-Ease Macaroni and Cheese” and fresh strawberries, catching up on the week (for some reason it seemed like it should be Thursday already) while I braided her hair.