What Animal

Before church, Puck gorged himself on a full tray of sliced cantaloupe, honey dew melon, and purple grapes from the fuel station. Then he threw a fit when it had to be taken away before entering the building. It wasn’t his best of displays.
At the lunch table, Puck had restored himself to pleasantness, and the usual conversation commenced.
“Well, no more Spongebob for Puck,” OLeif was saying.
“He went a little crazy after he watched that,” Collette agreed.
“What, did he start running around going, ‘Ooga-ooga-ooga!’” Dad asked, imitating Spongebob rather perfectly.
The table laughed.
“Nice impression, Dad!”
“Who wants to go to ‘Beauty and the Beast’ on Friday night?” Mom asked.
There were a few groans.
“I’m going,” said Joe.
“Well, I have five tickets. Doesn’t anyone else want to come?”
“I’ll go,” said Linnea.
“Anyone else?”
“You should give the tickets to Francis, Creole, and Puff ‘o Lump,” Collette suggested. “They could be your peanut gallery.”
“Did you see that bomb he’s working on?” Dad asked.
“Yeah, he was going to put that thing in the car when Collette and I were going to the airport,” said Carrie.
“What’s it made out of?” OLeif asked.
“PVC pipe,” Dad explained. “With igniters at both ends. He’s going to fill it with fuel.”
Not that these things were unusual to OLeif, who had made his own share of bombs and blow-guns during his day.
“Want to see the turtle Wally and I found?” Joe asked, pulling out his cellphone. “Check it out. We thought it was worth over a thousand dollars, but it wasn’t the right kind. So we went down to the river to throw it back in.”
“You couldn’t have just let it crawl in?” Collette asked.
“Well, we just tossed it. And you know those silt pits down there?”
“Yeah, you sank up to your knees in one,” Carrie scoffed.
“Well, I told Wally not to walk in them. But, of course he did, so he’s just sinking in there and kind of dancing around holding this big turtle…”
Dad was laughing pretty hard at this story.
While Mom and Dad finished up their nap, Linnea sat Puck at the top of the basement stairs so that he could watch her red plastic slinky walk down the steps.
Then everyone gathered in the great green van for a ride over to Creve Coeur Lake.
Some sultry lounge music was playing on the radio.
“This is Joe’s saucy music,” said OLeif.
“Yes, it is,” Joe agreed.
“It’s Joe in a film noir movie walking down the street with a fedora,” said OLeif.
About this time, they passed a group of Indians playing cricket. Everyone stared out the window.
“Look! It’s a native demonstration,” someone said from the back.
About the time they had returned to their neck of the woods, Francis was falling asleep.
“Watch this,” said Joe.
He scooched his shoulder next to Joe’s head until Francis’ head was resting on Joe’s shoulder.
“Ha ha ha!” everyone laughed.
“Wha? Aaack,” Francis groaned, waking up.
“Look, he’s turning red,” Rose giggled.
On the way back, while everyone was waiting in the van for Dad and Francis to pick up Little Caesar’s, Mom posed a question.
“What animal would you all be, if you could choose?”
“I’d be a pegasus,” said Carrie sarcastically. “Actually. No. Grewe and I have talked about this. And we both agreed on the same thing. We’d be homo sapiens. Why would you ever want to be another animal?”
“Well, that wasn’t the question though,” Mom laughed at her.
“I would be an elephant,” said Rose.
“Rose would be a sloth,” said Joe.
“I would take off my tusks so no one would kill me,” Rose continued.
“I would hope you would be a flea so I could squash you,” said Carrie. “Actually, you would be a stink bug.”
“No. Francis would be.”
“Linnea would be a rabid bunny,” said Rose.
“Puck would be Bonkers from that cartoon Mom never let us watch when we were kids. That crazy bobcat,” said Carrie.
“I would be a lovebird,” said Joe.
“No. Joe would be a cow in India,” said Carrie. “And Dad would be a Bald Eagle.”
“OLeif would be a billy goat.”
“Collette would be a parrot,” said Rose. “Because they’re smart and they live for a long time.”
“Collette would be an owl,” said Francis.
“Francis would be a clownfish,” Mom said.
“Rose, you would be a nice plump kiwi,” Linnea said, finishing the conversation for everyone.