Rocks

Mom had set a basket of purple hyacinth in full bloom on the kitchen counter that morning. It made the whole house smell like a garden.
Puck had found a tiny plastic pinball machine in the toy drawer. He now had a new vacuum. A “Doctor Who” vacuum, as he called it.
This, he forgot, however, in his eagerness to escape to the outdoors where a new load of red lava rock had been dumped on the driveway next to the white rock, which was to be spread over the landscaping. Francis was busy shoveling the rock into an empty trash can and heaving it over the old rock where Collette then swept it around the plants and bushes. Puck was also willing to help. So while Linnea jumped over both rock piles with her bike, Puck scooped up white rock dust with a small plastic scoop and hurried over to the sidewalk, fat jowls bouncing, and dumped it there, very proud of his efforts.
Meanwhile, Mom and Carrie were on a hike before it might begin to rain. They returned with bags of Dairy Queen for those who were interested, which was everyone. And Francis cracked out a bottle of caffeine-free Pepsi while they gathered around another episode of Doctor Who.
As the skies began to darken over, Francis shoveled out the rock at a furious rate, briefly interrupted by the arrival of the UPS truck. It was a package for Carrie. Rose, in exchange for a number of no longer wanted valuable items of Carrie’s, had purchased for Carrie a white leather Ferrari bag with red accents and fancy zipper pulls.
As the rain came in, Collette paused in her unofficial editing of personality profile documents for Dr. Gottschalk and helped Francis finish up with the last of the rock.
Puck ran around and munched on pretzel sticks. Carrie continued her endless studies and videotapes of Spanish, the sciences, mathematics, and everything else. Linnea washed her hair in preparation to join Eleda at AWANA that night. Joe went to pick up a BMX bike. And Mom drove Francis to the Nickles house to fix their go-kart.
And it was comedy night again, for the first time in several weeks. So they gathered in the basement on the old couches
(minus Carrie) and laughed for a couple of hours over silly things, just for the fun of it, with chocolate chip muffins and Hostess cupcakes.