Preparations
My morning was spent up at school again, helping Lucy and Ethyl dish out hot toasted ravs and Italian salads for over a hundred students and teachers. One hour and forty-five spins by fast when the troves keep shuffling through, hungry and hustling.
By 12:30, I had also hit the post office in Chesterfield. FBI clearance letter, fingerprints, and money order sloughed off to West Virginia. I’m guessing at this point they’re just hunting for proof that we’re still alive and living where we say we are. I see no other reason to request that many fingerprints in the space of six years.
Puck joined me in the brick hallway after school, drop-kicking his padded Ironman lunchbox a few times on the way to the car. There’s always something flying through the air towards me when he exits the gym, no matter how many times I remind him not to do it.
Evening devotions were taken from the book of Romans that evening. I asked Puck a few questions about the passage after we read it together. But he was settled back in a pile of couch pillows, thinking.
“Uh … I don’t know, Mom. Sorry, Mom. I think that I was just thinking about the priest, the priest who was pulled out of the temple by a rope if he died. Sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention. But as long as you’re thinking about the Bible, it’s okay.”
I’m not sure if that was a question or a statement, but he seemed pretty comfortable with himself, either way.
Bedtime is eight o’clock for eight year-olds; a Snicketts family tradition we have now carried down to the second generation. Puck was wrapped up in a blanket and lugged back to the bunk by Oxbear, who was clearly tired from an already long week of work.
“Dad! Dad! Can’t you read to me?”
“It’s already eight o’clock, son.”
“Please! Could you just read one word! Please!”
“Okay, one word.” Oxbear browsed to the bookmark in Watership Down and cleared his throat. “Do.” And shut the book.
“AH HA HA HA HA HA!”
With that ridiculous note to end Puck’s day, I migrated to the cold basement with a glass of cold Simply Apple apple juice, Hershey’s bars, six pages of to-do lists for Colombia, and the ball game, while Oxbear fell asleep on the couch wrapped up in an old blanket, mummy-style. Snoring within thirty seconds.