The Old Haunt

Thursday, August 2, 2007

For the first time in four months, Collette was returning to the church office. But only for four hours. Sadly, Forget-me-Not’s grandmother had passed away and she was out of town. So Collette was filling in for her with the creating of the bulletin.

It was uncannily quiet.

Ivy had brought donuts. Judah and Sinai were in their offices. Sometime later, Scott breezed through. He and Judah were both preparing for final exams in seminary. Apparently they had both told Ivy that if they didn’t receive at least an 81% on the current exam for which they were studying, they would both be on the “losers track”.

Judah was soon gone for the day. He didn’t even look at the donuts. Apparently he still believed that trans fats were evil.

Meanwhile, Scott was telling stories about Boy Scout camp when he was a boy:

“So there were like five cool jock kids there. And the rest of us were just nerds. And while we were at camp, the one cool jock kid picks this long reed to smoke. And after he lights it, he sticks it in his mouth. And his whole face just glows. He opens his mouth, and hundreds of ants just come spilling out…”

He returned to his desk. Later, he came back to pick up a donut.

“Cherry’s cutting off all of her hair, and guess what she’s doing with it?” He asked Collette.

“Locks of Love?”

“Exactly. Amelia’s thinking about doing it too.”

He took a walk to the mailbox down the hall.

“I’m happy my kids have some sense of social awareness…”

Sometimes with Scott Hamilton it was difficult to tell whether or not he was joking or just semi-joking. Collette decided that it was best to assume in this particular situation, that he was semi-joking.

Apparently the dynamics of the office had changed since his arrival. There were suddenly two rulers of the roost – at least in the department of conversation.

Puck had been good for his grandma that morning. They had taken a walk while Carrie left for Springfield with Grandma to attend an Asperger’s conference the following day, and Joe had been off to another afternoon of college orientation.

Puck enjoyed spending the rest of his evening at home, grunting and sticking out his tongue at his mom. His big gray eyes grew wider and wider as he watched her expectantly, waiting for her to respond to his terribly interesting conversation. His eyes laughed with every grunt.

After OLeif returned from work, Puck sucked his wow and took a nap on his dad’s stomach.