Short Trip Northside
“I’m considering to feed on you, Puck.”
Snicky hungrily eyed the orange and gray sleeve of Puck’s winter coat that Snicky had twisted around about ten times, Puck having earlier removed his arm. I could almost hear his stomach gurgling.
Then he turned to me. “I’m thirsty, too.”
There wasn’t anything I could do about that though. As one of a handful of official adult drivers/chaperones for that afternoon’s field trip viewing of “Lilly and the Purple Plastic Purse”, my magic powers were still limited. I told him to wait it out until the play was over.
Fortunately, despite these slight undertones of intended cannibalism, once the play started, Snicky forgot all about any potential pangs of hunger or thirst, and would only occasionally whisper to me for definitions, like, “What’s a semi-circle?”
It was another snappy sunny day in January. The Florissant Valley Civic Center Theater was packed out with school kids, mostly Lutheran. Clearly, cleaning out the Fit for the caravan – a Qdoba paper cup (Linnea’s), capless purple magic marker, a variety of hair clips (also Linnea’s), and two discarded price tags from World Market – had been a mostly fruitless chore. Snicky and Puck could care less about what the back seat looked like, as long as they could hunker down in a coat-tent with Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield.
It was an amazingly quiet ride, except for passing a few semis which Snicky pleasantly greeted with a tremendous, “MAAAA-MAAAA!!!!!!”
When they were all safely re-deposited in the classroom: second-graders swarmed the whiteboard, markers raised, with one clear and unanimous object in mind: armies of smiley faces. Mr. V chuckled when he entered the room.
Earlier in the morning, before departure, I had received an unwanted phone call from the community college. Linnea’s and my Spanish 101 class had been canceled, due to low registration. Come on, why weren’t there 23 freshmen out there willing to join us for three and a half hours of foreign language every Friday morning?
Also, my laptop hit Apple Hospital. Diagnosis: Unknown. Hospital Stay: 3-5 days. Bill: Potentially Pricey. Ug.
To make up for these misfortunes, I allowed myself a bag of mini powdered sugar donuts on our ride home from school. I had to stop for pen cartridges anyway. When I offered one of these donuts to Puck, he turned up his nose.
“I don’t like donuts. I don’t like sweets.”
What have I raised?
“You owe me a marble, a sandwich, the Taj Mahal, the Great Lakes, and a skeleton!” – Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse