vostre amor, vostre confort,

Saturday, November 4, 2006

A gray day in St. Louis.

The previous day, Grandma had sent Collette a pair of earrings displaying little Cardinals on baseball bats. Collette had already worn them both days.

Rose invited them over for pizza that Saturday night, and to watch Monster House which OLeif and Collette had picked up.

When there, Mom, Rose, and Linnea were still out clothes shopping and at the library, but returned shortly later with several bags.

“Notice something familiar?” Linnea wiggled her be-shoed foot in front of Collette. “They’re just like Carrie’s.”

After she deposited the new flat black shoes in her room, Frances found them and brought them out, thinking they were Collette’s, as she also contained a brown pair.

“Collette!” He exclaimed, wide-eyed, “Did your feet shrink?!”

“Those are mine,” Linnea said grumpily. “Put them back.”

“My hand is bigger than they are,” Frances said, astounded, on the way back to return them.

Meanwhile, Dad had ordered five huge Little Caesar’s pizzas. Collette recalled the last time she actually remembered eating Little Caesar’s – one warm summer day long ago. She might have been ten. Mom had just returned with a station wagon-load of pizzas, bread sticks, and several gallons of punch. Suddenly, Collette heard her shouting from the garage.

“Come here, guys, quick!”

Collette dropped her pen and hurried outside with the others, thinking there had been some terrible emergency. She ran out past the pizzas in the back of the station wagon, figuring that if there was a fire or something, it wouldn’t do much good to grab the pizzas on the way out.

Her fears were quickly canceled, however, as they joined Mom on the driveway.

“Look!” Mom pointed up.

“Oh!” They all exclaimed, understanding.

Exactly above them floated a great hot air balloon, soaring not very far above the house, and moving quickly in the late afternoon. The flame whisked on and off as it sailed by, and they watched it pass beyond the trees.

Before that, Collette hadn’t remembered eating Little Caesar’s since she had been to visit her cousins in St. Joseph, Missouri, and had visited their charismatic worship service where Uncle Hilario was pastor. They had eaten pizza for lunch afterwards, and Collette had remembered being brave enough to go up to the buffet by herself and take a slice of cheese pizza without anyone helping her.