Wednesdays Need a Positive Beginning

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

On the way out that cold gray morning, Puck thought he saw a volcano in the wildlife reserve.

There was lively conversation at the Snicketts house. Sundays and Wednesdays were almost entirely new information spills.
“I visited Bon and Hamish yesterday,” said Carrie. “I took Dad with me. And I made him pet one of the bunnies. His little nose was wiggling through the cage bars. And I told everyone that Dad was the one who wouldn’t let me keep Bon and Ham. Then he tried to defend himself by telling one of the volunteers that I already had two. ‘Two!’ she said. ‘Well, I’ve got fifteen! You’re just getting started!’”
Mom’s plans for the arrival of Mrs. Lord-Welches and her youngest daughter, Pearl – Miss Teen Iowa – that weekend to dress shop, were already completed.
“Carrie, I need food,” said Francis, coming into the room.
“We’re going to the grocery store today, Francis,” Mom informed him.
“Well, I need something now,” he replied, patting his stomach.
“Francis, don’t slap your gut,” Carrie chastised him. “You look like a pregnant woman when you do that. There’s chicken from last night in the fridge. In the tupperware. It’ll look orange from the marinade.”
“I didn’t finish the chicken,” Francis said later, entering the living room. “I threw out the rest to the birds.”
“Francis!”
“Francis, birds aren’t cannibals.”
A brief conference for Collette and Carrie in Bunny Utopia. Francis poked his head in twice, always snooping around.
“Francis, get out of here! The bunnies don’t like your smell.”
Red-cheeked grin. He departed to bench-press Puck in the living room before Puck, busy opening a blue harmonica, left for groceries with Mom and Carrie, while Collette commenced algebra with the kids.
Dad left for a run in the cold 33 degree rain. Never try to talk Dad out of running, no matter the weather.
Joe had saved a pile of brassy chocolate coins for Puck, some of which were being swiped by his aunts and uncles… and mama.
“Have you eaten your pennies lately?” Puck had asked, momentarily joining the algebra crowd in the dining room.
Meanwhile, Francis had hid Linnea’s pencil in the apple bowl.
“Could you give him a strike?” Linnea asked Collette, annoyed.
Linnea had sneaked the ukulele into the room, holding it tucked under her chin while she attempted to sketch Venn diagrams.
“Linnea, you don’t need to cradle it,” Collette advised. “It’s not a baby.”
“Well… it needs me.”
Collette looked next door a few minutes later to find Linnea piecing together the gold foil fragments of a coin wrapper.
“Linnea, you’re not an archaeologist today.”
Dad returned from what he deemed to be a “refreshing” run, while the kids progressed to lesson two of the day and practiced whistling with cupped hands.

In the early part of the afternoon, Francis, following some bet or deal with Linnea, drove her to Dairy Queen for a personalized lunch, while Collette prepared two egg sandwiches for Francis.
“Don’t you guys wish you were in Africa so you wouldn’t have to do school?” Puck asked, munching at his corn chips.
Carrie left to meet Lucia for business, just as Joe pulled back into the driveway…
“Hey, Puck,” he said. “What’s 1+1?”
“3+2 is 3+2,” Puck replied importantly.
“And what’s 3+B?” Joe asked, emerging from the kitchen with a plate of burritos and a thermos of java.
“3+B is from… spells 3! Doesn’t it?”
“Yup. You’re gonna be a genius when you grow up.”
Puck commenced studies with Collette. After awhile he sighed…
“All life…”
“What do you mean?” Collette asked.
“Because life happens. And life is life.”
Puck could be heard discussing this life later in the dining room with Francis, who was completing an ACT practice Reading test.
“But guess what, Uncle Francis? When we go up to Heaven, we will stay there until the world is completing, is completed, with all the sin gone. And then we will come down again. Everything will be new on the Earth again. See, Francis? So you were wrong.”
“But what if school is evil?” Francis asked. “Will it get burned up?”
“No! God will make new school and new papers and new glasses and new glass. He will make the old school burned up to make new school. He’ll use the old school to make new school. So that’s the way it goes. Anyway, I have something to show you.”
He pulled the glass gourmet Greek olive jar filled with water and a white grow-your-own angel, looking very much like the Doctor Who version of angel. An earlier project from his “Puck and Grandma Time”.
Meanwhile, Mom was getting frustrated with Linnea who was trying to clip the cat’s claws during Logic, so Dad danced with her to distract from the trouble. And Puck joined Joe in watching films about space and aliens and tornadoes in the bedroom cave.
Francis departed at 3:30 for work. A water main had burst the previous evening during his shift. The whole YMCA was shut down, and Francis came home to burn popcorn.

With the arrival of dinner, Puck spoke with Carrie, who had just returned from her meeting, about his future…
“Can I go to Texas, Sun?”
“Can I go to Texas?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Sun, I said you can go to Texas.”
“I can’t. I’m allergic.”
“But Sun, I will live in Texas one day. And I will visit you every month.”
“Do you know how much it costs to go to Texas?”
“No.”
“Ten billion pennies.”
“But I don’t have that much.”
“Well, how will you get there then?”
Puck held up a handful of pasta.
“You can’t buy a ticket to Texas with pasta.”
Then Joe, who had convinced Puck that he had been turned into a dinosaur the previous night, came upstairs to spin Puck around for awhile to imitate volcanoes, avalanches, earthquakes, hurricanes, bear-sniping…
“What else?”
“Do a tornado,” said Linnea.
“Ok. You’re a cold air mass, floating into Antarctica…”
In other news, someone in Rose’s apartment building had kept her up late into the night practicing the tuba.

Wednesday night was preposterous.
OLeif picked them up in the freezing rain of a seven o’clock.