The Beginnings of Summer
Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Tennis was played for about an hour and a half at Ben-Hur’s school while a troop of yellow-heads practiced football in the field behind the courts. Those present inside the courts were: OLeif, Collette, Carrie-Bri (who was feeling rather sick and had brought a bottle of green tea), Magnus, Ben-Hur, Wallace, Susie, Rose, and Molly. The light was low and the air was warm, unlike the blistering Sunday they attempted a match between eight people in one undersized court. Dinner followed for all, minus Ben-Hur and Susie, at Jack-in-the-Box until word came that Joe had not passed his first board of review. It was a sure disappointment, but there was time left yet. Some things, no matter how seemingly small compared to world disasters and crisis, still needed to be prayed for, and the matter of Joe’s Eagle Scout project, was one of them.
Meanwhile, Carrie was sick, likely because she had taken a drink of water out of a rock star’s water bottle at her last concert with Elizabeth. She barely had a voice on Monday, and Collette was hardly surprised. Who knew what sort of awful things had been in living in the water bottle; alas, one lives and learns.
While Collette jogged downstairs that morning, waiting for Rose to bring herself and her history book to the basement, Joe began jogging in place beside her.
“Look, I’m a Wal-Mart shopper,” he declared. “I’m gonna beat you to the mascara aisle!”
He ran ahead of her, and then started running backwards, to make the illusion of Collette running faster than himself.
“Hey!” He cried out, and he slow-motion stumbled over himself. “Aaaaaaa!”
“Look!” Frances shouted from the bicycle machine, which he rode up and down with both feet on one pedal. “I’m a hopping bunny!”
Collette left the room and the noise after her run, to retrieve Rose from the couch.
“Rose!” She said severely.
“Hello!” Came Rose’s typical response.
“Rose, come now!”
“Who is this Rose of whom you speak?” Rose said comically poetical, “She must be beautiful to have deserved such a name.”
Later, Joe did go to Wal-Mart and Shop ‘n Save, with Wallace and Culry to apply for jobs, lifting things. But they were told at both places to apply online. Meanwhile, later towards the evening, Rose read more of The Count of Monte Cristo over a glass of milk with Snuggles to prepare her book report, before leaving with the boys for the tennis courts. Mom brought Frances and Linnea to their orthodontist appointments, regarding missing teeth. And Carrie-Bri sunned herself in the backyard with Pumpkin before leaving for Bass Pro Shop and Uncle Sam’s with Paige Popp to find her a new pocket knife and to the movies with Elizabeth while discussing plans to find cheap plane tickets to Australia for July.