The Gasoline

Puck began his day by piling all of his known shoes onto the red couch, trying to decide what to wear for the day. Then he giggled to his Daduu, thinking he was being very silly for starting to decorate the flat surfaces of the living room with his foot apparel.
“Bootsh,” he said to himself.
He did seem to enjoy wearing his snow boots more than any other shoe.
Meanwhile, there was snow on the ground. Like white sugar on brown sugar, snow on winter grass.
And Mom and Dad had left for Atlanta by four o’clock that morning, about half an hour before OLeif returned from a late night at work.
Over at the house, Puck spend about an hour playing “catch the balloon” with Lila.
Around the time that Carrie carted out the spools of deep purple, turquoise, and metallic gold thread, tiny sewing scissors, box of miniature hair clips, clear nail polish, and hair wax for Collette to repair her dreads, Grandma Combs arrived.
As always, there was much to go around — four packages of monster Reeses peanut butter eggs, a box of biscotti, a bottle each of pure natural juices (one of which included 25 strawberries and 2 ½ bananas), and the other of white tea and coconut, a boxed tray of vegetables, another of sliced cantaloupe, a box of strawberries and another of Chilean blueberries, enormous Peruvian purple grapes, and a bunch of bananas.
They had about an hour to sit together in the living room talking before Linnea’s basketball game.
“What is that on your head?” Grandma asked Rose, after discussing her run-in with a nasty IRS agent on the phone. “Is that a red hat?”
“Yup,” Rose nodded with a grin.
She was known to wear knit caps around the house when not going out; that included a notorious red one.
“You look like you just came out of the French Revolution!” said Grandma. “They’ll be wanting you at the guillotine.”
Linnea’s game was a smash hit. 20 to 16. Their very first win! It was a great victory, and Linnea scored another basket, her French braid flying behind her as she trotted from one end of the court to the other. Both she and Eleda aggressively tore for the ball, and helped pull their team to glory. Linnea happily returned home with flushed cheeks for another half hour before Francis’ game.
They watched clips of Carrie’s British Isles visit while Puck danced to the music she had added to the film.
And then a two-minute drive back up to the school. Another win for the home team! Francis, who had become a whiz at catching back the ball on rebounds (which his coach commended in front of the whole team after the game), aided in bringing around a final 28 to 18 to the cheers of an enthusiastic crowd.
Then it was a stop for two boxes of Dilly bars before Grandma headed home for the evening.
Back at the house, OLeif and Joe were busy with a photo shoot, with Joe modeling a crown of thorns in his hands, for an upcoming sermon series.
Then… trouble. What OLeif had thought was a bucket of dirty water, and Collette had thought was apple juice, turned over in the garage as the boys rearranged bikes for the shoot. The horrific smell of gasoline began to permeate the garage and quickly fluttered through the house.
While the boys scrubbed up, Collette and Carrie went around the house with scarves over their faces after Collette had sent Linnea and Puck (who ran around plumply in his bright red footy pajamas) to play in the basement. And Rose and Francis escaped to pick up Little Caesar’s.
The smell continued as the girls aired out the house with opened doors to the 29 degree evening and turned on the powerful attic fan.
Fortunately, by the time dinner arrived, things seemed to be back under control, despite the reek of the garage.
After the pizzas and amazingly delicious crazy bread arrived, everyone sat around the living room watching “Little House on the Prairie”.
As a stagecoach rumbled into town, they considered the philosophic connotations of living at such a time in history.
“I’ve decided that if I lived back then,” said Carrie, “I’d be a train robber.”
“I’d be a pirate,” said Joe.
“I’d be a lady,” said Rose, primly.
“I’d be a bomb!” Francis exclaimed.
“Yeah, Francis would be an inanimate explosion,” OLeif said, laughing.