"Plank" & the Swamp Monster
Thursday, January 20, 2005
The chicken cooked in the oven for their lunch while Collette busied herself with the checkbook and preparations for yet another day. There was at least a ten percent chance of rain that morning and a dreary two weeks lay ahead. Collette was determined to use wisely the time she had, handle things deliberately and practically and coolly as possible. In the meantime, she had heard from Diana in Chicago.
“I do still miss being able to come home and completely relax. A dorm is just not home! Saturday night I ate dinner at Saga (our dining hall) with two really nice guys from student government and then we went to the basketball game. I’ve met so many new people in these last two weeks that my head is spinning.”
There would be no tutoring of math that day. That was taken care of Monday through Wednesday. Rose had ended it with a bang by doodling over her entire geometry page, including sketchings of “loveables” such as “Plank” (a board with two different shaped eyeballs, indicating he might have just been through a good flattening), a swamp monster foot, and a paper bag foot-print. Odd figures they were.
Earlier that afternoon, while touring the skeleton of the new church office, it was duly noted by Collette, that the walls of the future copy room looked like Neapolitan. It was the most unusual floor plan, very original and creative, a perfect setting for a creaking chalet or ancient villa.
And that evening, poor Francis had been sick. Before, Collette had read him Dr. Dan the Bandage Man, as he was frightened of going to sleep, fearful of becoming deaf or blind.
“I can deal with losing a limb,” he thought carefully out loud, “but not… I just don’t know how I could handle going deaf or being blind.”
Ah, the fears of a nine-year old, Collette thought to herself. Very real and all too unlikely, often enough.
Meanwhile, that very morning, Rose had written on IM, (her screen name being pkleprty – “pickle party”), telling of her dream the night before, rather graphically:
“Yeah, I had a dream that I was in a cave that had stuff that a house had in it, and trayonasoris rexes (Tyrannosaurus Rexes) were in the closets and I made them angry so they tried to eat me. But someone killed it and they put the other one in the basement, I smashed the baby one with a spoon then we popped popcorn.”
The imaginings of a fourteen year old… odd as anyone else’s.
Work had been a bit of a busy spell with Ivy getting ready to pack up for Florida for the next two weeks. And yet, despite the busyness and running behind, there was always time for humor. Ivy and Judah had been discussing different ways of serving the church and the community in regard to Pastor Hatch’s focus for the church earlier. Ivy had commented, jokingly, how she would have to be pulled, dragging her heels, into helping with the nursery staff at Kirk of the Hills, should they ask for extra help during a special service or such – thus being an example of service within the church.
Judah commented on this, laughing, “So you have two options in ways to serve.. You can either be a missionary in the deepest jungles of Peru… or serve in the church nursery at Kirk of the Hills.”
“No, no, no… I didn’t mean that,” Ivy waved her hands in front of him and chuckled.