New Stomping Grounds
The cats were afraid of Puck. But they were amazingly patient with him. Every time Collette and Puck arrived at the house, the cats would usually scatter when they saw the familiar chubby face come through the door. However, they would usually stand their ground once they had been cornered, and rough it out to the end.
That particular morning, the Puck had found Pumpkin in the kitchen. First of all, however, he had found a new toy stashed under the ledge of the kitchen cabinet.
“What treasure did you find, Puck?” Collette asked him.
Puck held it up, standing for several seconds by himself next to her. It was a small magnifying glass. And Puck was eager to show it to his little friend. He landed himself on his stomach next to Pumpkin, who was curled up in a corner. He threw his arm around her fat black fur and let her see his special find. He tried to give it to her by setting the little disc on her back, but it slipped off her shiny fur.
He was also browsing the usual buffet line, always hungry. Raisins, Captain Crunch, steak, the usual…
It was a beautiful day. Earlier, Puck had been crawling around in the front lawn with his Aunt Linnea, plodding through the leaves and crunching piles of them in his fingers, and calling to the trees and Frances, who was using his half-hour break to design new and improved paper airplanes, launching several of them from the roof. Some of these he lit on the tail with a lighter. They went crashing through the air in smoky destruction toward the ground.
Back in the house, Linnea tucked a brightly colored tie-dyed piece of felt in Puck’s back collar.
“Super baby,” she told him.
In the kitchen, Rose was discussing her sponsor child.
“I decided to sponsor him instead of our church,” she said. “He’s probably Muslim.”
“You’re supporting a Muslim church?” Frances asked.
“Yeah,” she replied. “I’m supporting a Muslim church in Afghanistan.”
Somehow it came about that evening, that Collette was referencing a fictitious couple to OLeif.
“That’s kind of weird,” she was saying. “He must be about fourteen years younger than her.”
“Just like my mom and dad.”
“Your dad is five years older than your mom.”
“I mean, I thought he was, like, fifteen years older than her.”
“You didn’t know how much older your dad was than your mom?”
“I’m bad with numbers.”
Collette had to laugh.