When all the things he loves are far away.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Collette thought about people, people from the past and people moving on to new things, new times of life… The Christmas’ in Croatia, the Lincolns and the entire staff in Budapest, Catalina perhaps in Africa two years later, Mercy and Stephane, Shepherd and Malaya, Peter and Julia, Diana leaving for Chicago… When would they all gather together again?

Meanwhile, Mercy’s and Peter’s little black kitten, Curious, had been lounging all over the floor the night before during the movie. She looked and acted exactly like Pumpkin had behaved before she became fat. Such was the fate of a jealous cat.

Back on the ranch, Rose snacked on a bowl of powdered sugar while Snuggs sneezed on her desk and the Charlie Chaplin soundtrack played in the background. After lunch, a bit of a rainstorm blew through and Frances and Linnea excitedly ran out once the drops had all fallen to watch two helium balloons float into the clouds.

Linnea came back inside excitedly, “Collette! Collette! You should have seen the balloon. It was going all the way up in the sky until we could hardly see it. And then you should have seen this big updraft. It just came and like blew it up and it went tswoooosh! And it went into the cloud!”

Shortly later, Collette found herself drilling Rose on mathematics.

“Quit drawing on your foot, Rose,” Collette told her, watching her doodle a haphazard-looking window in ink pen.

“It’s a window of escape from school!” Rose declared, finishing the masterpiece.

Later, Collette taught her Italian, and soon the ludicrous insults were flying across the room:

“Your ears are as big as a chiave!” (key)

“Your face is as big as a libro!” (book)

“You’re as big as a scatola!” (box)

Collette glowered at Rose during the middle for being nonsensical.

“See?” Rose laughed, “I even make you angry in Italian!”

There was much laughter.