Strays Welcome: Strays Welcome

Strays Welcome

Publisher’s Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

Second Edition

Copyright © E.L. Phoenix, Chance Stevens, 2015, 2016

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Front Royal, Virginia

Cover Design by Brent Meske

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ISBN: 978-0-9897483-9-1

Printed in the United States of America

Scorecard

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One Cub Scout troop leader rolls in dog poop.

Fifteen Cub Scouts learn valuable lesson: Stop, Look . . . drop and roll.

Three Frosties: Two vanilla; one chocolate.

Zero calls home from school.

Lizzie, did you learn something from math homework tonight? About how you can’t compare unlike things? Like apples and oranges?

I love oranges, cries Lizzie.

I have an ice cream headache, groans her father. And no ice cream.

Three homework assignments; one still not completed.

Two hundred eleven subscribers to email newsletter.

Impending release date despair.

Three hysterical phone calls, several cross replies, and many, many I love yous.

Chapter 1

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I met Bad Doggy one dark and stormy winter’s eve, a few nights after Christmas. Cold rain fell from a purplish-grey Northern Virginia sky, and nary a star shone from above. My hard-working husband William and our three kids were milling around the driveway, messing with my eldest daughter’s new telescope and re-stringing broken lights, and I was picking up shreds of soggy material from the white paper bags that had held our votives. To make these votives, you folded a white paper bag over, set it on the street beside the curb, poured a handful of sand into a white bag, rooted a tiny candle in the sand, and then lit the wick. Then you poured more sand in an identical white bag, shoved in another candle, and you kept repeating the process until your entire curb burst forth into a splendid light show.

Everyone in the community was expected to light these votives, so late at night, after dinner, you could walk around and gaze at your candle-lined street. The candles are supposed to light the way so that Santa Claus can avoid a crash-landing into each kid’s yard. It’s one of those community things that everyone does together, and it’s supposed to make you feel good about living in the suburbs—until you get soaking wet.

My name’s Sally Lane Brookman, but my kids know me just as Mom, and I’m generally okay with that. When you’re a mom, you’re somebody to someone, and that’s all most of us really want to be. I’m not perfect. For example, I hate votives, especially when a cold rain has turned the bags into freezing, messy sand piles, and of course I was the one picking it all up. I was also picking up my neighbor Sandy’s piles, because she’s getting older and I don’t want her arthritic hands to seize up on her. My hands will be all twisted and knotted up too when I’m 60, but until then, I can handle helping my neighbors as long as I can complain a bit.

Brett was trying to throw a Frisbee into the bushes because it seemed like a good idea at the time, which is pretty much a phrase he uses several times a day. In fact, William must have taught him that phrase, because he also uses it a lot, and right now, he was trying to explain why he bought a slingshot for Junior. It has something to do with squirrel population control in the suburbs, which certainly does not appear like something that could ever seem like a good idea at the time.

Todd, the shade tree mechanic from across the street, gunned the engine of his 80’s vintage Camaro and he exchanged manly waves with my supposedly saner half.

Hey! Will!

Junior, who’s named after his father William, looked up from his slingshot.

You should add paintballs to it! One time, we took out some possums—

Todd! Sherry, his girlfriend from Tennessee slapped him on the arm from her vantage point in their oil-spattered driveway. That’s cruel.

Aw no baby, the possum didn’t mind a bit. Just kept on about its business. And scared the bejeesus out of my ex-wife. She was raking the yard when suddenly this neon-orange possum came scuttling past her. Thought she’d been accidentally prescribed the red pills instead of the white ones.

I’d been staring so intently at Todd as he ‘splained all this I’d lost track of Brett, who’d gotten several steps up the 15-foot ladder William had left leaning against the garage to use for restringing the lights that Brett had knocked down with a racquetball.

William! I stood up and grabbed a trash can lid.

Uh, yeah, William, drawled Todd, Reckon you better grab the little man before he says, ‘Hey Mom, watch this.’

I love Todd, but I was kind of relieved when he rumbled off in his muscle car, probably to buy another Smith and Wesson or some deer urine. It seems like whenever Brett and Junior and even William spend even a few minutes around him, one of them promptly suffers one of those temporary lapses in judgment as William likes to call it. William pointed to a spot next to the moon, which was waxing fingernail, or whatever the more scientific terminology is, and I shivered as a gust of wind hit me. I had wanted to go for a short run before it got pitch black outside, but the wind was making me think otherwise.

I stood up, grabbing the grey, thick plastic trashcan lid I’d been using to stash the piles of sopping paper in, and lurched a little as I hefted it toward the driveway. Once I got the heavy lid stacked and slammed shut on the stinky trashcan, I leaned back and stretched, and for a moment, I felt peaceful.

That’s when Aaron from next door came out of his garage carrying this ball of black fur, and if only I could have told Sally what I know now. If only I could have whispered, Run Sally, run! This is the last moment of peace you’re gonna have. Just run!

Chapter 2

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I should have run away then and there, but I didn’t. Bad Doggy dashed over and tramped right through my pile of cold sludge. His pointed, muddy toes spread my sludge from curb to mailbox and then across some broken pieces of driveway, and some of the sludge must have made it underneath the leg of my pants, because I was feeling something cold and wet near my ankle. But before I could check, Bad Doggy jumped up in the air and rolled like a soldier evading zipping bullets. His little feet were still moving while he was airborne, and when he landed, he fell in a tangled heap on William’s feet. Before he got himself sorted, Bad Doggy lifted a leg and peed on William’s boot.

I wasn’t sure what William was going to do. In life, there’s the things you plan for, or if you’re a wreck like me, do anything to avoid planning for, and then there’s the ones you could only imagine if you weren’t right in the head. And the real test for what sort of man you are is how you react to the former. What did William do?

He leaned down and scratched Bad Doggy’s ears. Gosh, he’s got a lot in common with Junior and Brett, he drawled, one side of his mouth lifted in a smirk. Both christened the doctor before they even made it to their mother’s boob. This one, and he gave Aaron’s daughter Petunia a nod, This one’s gonna fit right in round here.

Petunia, with the pinched up face of a wanna-be Southern belle, put one hand on her hip and made a pirouette in front of Brett to show off her new outfit. Brett ignored her. Then Petunia issued a massive sigh-shrug and murmured, Figures. Oh my God. And with a flounce, she gave Lizzie, who was dressed in her usual eccentric mix of post-apocalyptic girl warrior meets punk rocker, an eye flutter and a hair flip.

Lizzie jumped up from the chalk drawing of a Zombie-Alien-Barbie Doll she was making in the wet asphalt just in time to avoid another squirt from Bad Doggy. Hey, Petunia, she said with an easy grin.

Oh, my God! Bad Doggy! Petunia was squealing and I wanted to take a shovel to her head, but I knew that was a bad thought. Petunia turned toward Lizzie and performed another flounce-hair flip-pirouette. My BFFs are calling me ‘Tune, but maybe you can call me—

Brett tripped on a piece of chalk and it sent him flying sideways. He landed on one foot in front of Lizzie and Petunia and howled, Tunie-Petunie!

Petunia opened and closed her mouth, once, then twice, and then flounced away huffing, Like, Oh my God, really? Really Brett? Oh my God. Over her shoulder she added, If you were one of my BFFs, you could call me Tune.

Lizzie smirked at Brett and made eye contact with me. After I nodded, she replied, I think I’ll just stick with Tunie-Petunie.

Meanwhile, Aaron kept checking his pocket for his cell phone. After he finished scrolling through it, he gave an absent-minded nod toward Bad Doggy. Ain’t he just the cutest little thing ever?

Adorable. I agreed, and glared at William when he issued another ear scratch.

I was determined to dislike Petunia’s dog. I resolved then and there to write it into my next novel. Yeah, I know, I’m mean. But I promised Lizzie, who somehow got wind of what I was planning, that I wouldn’t kill off the dog. I never liked movies where dogs got killed. The big secret here is I’m a softie. Just don’t tell Petunia.

Scorecard

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2 bowls Cap’n Crunch

1 bowl Kashi Crunch

75 balls thrown,

32 caught

One prayer offered,

Several more answered.

4 hamburgers cooked, only two enjoyed

We can’t eat burgers without ketchup!

One password lost

Three new passwords generated

Three laps, 15 arguments, 20 unlawful touches, one Ninja takedown

One website fixed, six passwords changed

13 hugs, 18 I love yous.

Chapter 3

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That’s what I do in real life. I write books about, as my kids would tell you, stuff. In reality, I write about us. And about our past lives, and about characters I create from nothing other than the people I see and hear about, and sometimes I just create a character who makes me smile. I like to smile a lot. I’m one of those people who laughs at my own jokes and smiles at the things my characters say.

My life, in other words, is about a little more than merely the pitter-patter of little feet, and the scrubbing of windows smeared with grimy fingerprints. I’m also a minister of sorts, but even that’s a little confusing, because I don’t quite have a church. It’s more like I help people, but I do it quietly. I got a big settlement from when a bus hit me, and I use that money to pay people’s electricity, to buy food for hungry single mothers, and whatever else comes my way, I pay it if I can. And I talk to people.

I listen to their problems and sometimes, I just listen. It’s what we all do, really. At this church I went to the other day, the lady who was talking said that in the early Christian church, everyone acted like a priest, and there were no actual priests. Just everyone helping out the best they could with what they have, and because I have a little more, I help a little more. And I write. I write stories that make me smile.

So it was wintertime in Northern Virginia. It was that time when the snow is turning grey and the skies match the grey snow. And I was between book projects, staring at those skies, gazing somewhat disconsolately at a yellow notepad. Trying to think about a good story I could tell.

In wintertime here in Northern Virginia, the suburbs run on lower-grade fuel. We live a good bit south of the Mason-Dixon line and folks around here complain about the temperature once it dips below 40 degrees. I didn’t see too much of Bad Doggy in January, February and March. Every once in awhile, we’d run into Aaron scrolling through the phone numbers on his cell phone, or Petunia, who now went by Tunes, pacing along beside Bad Doggy. Petunia was always as deeply into conversation as Aaron was into the important thing he was reading on his cell phone, but they’d always stop so that Junior and Brett and Lizzie could pet Bad Doggy. Sometimes, we’d see Bad Doggy zigzagging behind Petunia’s big sister, who’d long since adopted the nickname Rhodie. I suspected her actual name was Rhododendron, but no matter how bad I tried, I could never make the issue come up in conversation.

One late March morning, someone knocked on my front door, and I knew it wasn’t the UPS guy, because he always taps the doorbell, and I can hear his diesel engine firing up before I even reach the landing at the bottom of the steps. I opened the door and Aaron, who was wearing a business suit, stood there with a smile as goofy looking as his red bowtie.

I was on a ministry call, and he made the motions as if to say he’d come by later. I scanned the doc he was holding in his hand, and recognized the letterhead. It was from our Homeowners’ Association, which I adore. It’s sad to say for a freethinker like me, but I kind of dislike neon-colored houses.

Whatcha building?

A fence, and if it’s not a good time—

I reached my hand out. Nope, it’s a great time. You just need me to sign, right? Without waiting for him to answer me, I clicked my ballpoint pen, fine, blue ink, and scrawled my name all over at least two of the wrong boxes before I found the right place. It was like signing a contract, or a treaty, without any need to promise anything.

Aaron made some nice social noises, and I slammed the door shut, thinking I’d have peace now that he was gone. And I did. At least, that afternoon I had peace.

A couple weeks dripped past. The leaves got greener. The lawbirds and the robins and the sparrows showed up, and so did the poor bird, who we nicknamed Narcissus, who visits our back deck each year. I know he’s here because of the tapping sound I keep hearing on the glass beneath the window in my study. He always falls in love with his own reflection in the family room window, and knocks himself silly trying to give himself a kiss. Each year, I tape a photograph of a hawk to the window to save Narcissus from himself.

One day, Narcissus flew away, leaving a trail of droppings and a nest on top the grill cover, and I thought I’d finally have some peace and quiet. I even popped a can of root beer to celebrate.

And then, right after the children got on their school bus, and as I was sipping my morning coffee, I heard a brand new sound: Ka-CHINK. I set my steaming mug beside my laptop, praying as I always did that it wouldn’t spill all over my keyboard in some horrific karma-induced tragedy, and approached the line of windows on the back of our five four and a door to investigate.

I heard it again: Ka-CHINK! It sounded like an industrial-sized stapler, and the emphasis was on the second syllable.  I sort of liked the sound. It sounded like I was standing on a factory floor somewhere in the Midwest, or so I imagined. I closed my eyes and pretended I was having an adventure. I was on the line, and we were building cars and this massive monster of a machine was swinging around, grabbing wheels with the hulking arms and—

Ka-CHINK!

I loved the sound. Just adored it. For about the first fifteen times I heard it.

The sixteenth time, I started to pace and get a little frantic. What the heck was it? Then I caught a glimpse of a stack of wooden boards through the slats in our two-inch plantation blinds and realized that Bad Doggy was finally getting his fence. I loved the look of the fence. I still do, actually. It’s made out of a lightly-stained wood, three long boards held together by vertical planks set about seven feet apart, with chicken wire bound between the boards. It looks rustic and rugged. I could handle—Ka-CHINK for another day or Ka-CHINK so. Maybe.

Chapter 4

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Within a few days, I realized I’d signed a treaty about as equitable as any of the ones the Indians signed with the white man. In effect, by signing Aaron’s HOA form, I bargained away a lifetime of peace and quiet in return for a little neighborly goodwill and about five minutes of peace. Being the ridiculous woman I am, I hadn’t even earned much goodwill when Aaron coerced me into signing his doggone HOA form.

The first morning, I thought Bad Doggy was having a bad day. Like the whole thing was a strange anomaly. I mean, shoot, every dog loses his or her mind on occasion right? Even Sandy’s dog Louise loses her mind on occasion, but only when Louise gets consigned to the patio. She has a workman problem, or to be precise, a bad habit of biting anyone who comes near Sandy wearing a badge or a clipboard.

So when Bad Doggy barked for two straight hours, I tried to ignore him. Then I started pacing and mumbling under my breath. Finally, I threw my mouse down and called William to whine about bad working conditions. Then I drove to Starbucks and told everyone in earshot I was a writer, which is one of my more dreadful habits, because then everyone asks, Whatcha writing? Usually, I murmur, Stuff, and imagine the dollars that aren’t adding up in the cash register. Like you know the sound of money going, Ka-Ching? I hear it not ringing, if that’s possible. It’s why I need a manager.

Oh, and I made the mistake of complaining to one of the mafia moms about my very loud neighbor’s dog. This mom, call her Leanne Little, is good friends with Aaron’s wife, Esmerelda. Somehow I forgot about this in the middle of my monologue, which Leanne accidentally taped on her cell phone. I know it sounds like a stretch, but it’s true. And then, even worse, she played it to a bunch of her friends at book club, and they were drinking wine and . . . well. Facebook. YouTube. There you go.

And so this virtuoso performance of mine, by far not my worst in a historical sense, but certainly my most widely watched, explains in part my unfortunate place in the local social hierarchy. I belong somewhere at the bottom, right there with the pot dealers. 

At least they will hang out with me.

•••

Junior and Brett had taken over the entire family room coffee table with a model ark they were assembling. We’d ordered the ark for Christmas, and it had taken them a few months to get started on the project. Almost each week now, I had been driving them out to the arts and crafts store, the hardware store, and even the music store (best reeds around, and reeds are good for masts) to acquire more supplies. The funnest trip we had made though was to a specialty toy store. We had seen a flyer for after-Christmas sales of farms, and sure enough, we had snagged an entire farm, complete with sixteen different types of farm animals, for only $19.99. And we had discovered a display that had free-standing zoo animals, so for another $32.97, we had bought two each of zebras, lions, tigers, monkeys, hippos, bears, and rhinos.

Now, the coffee table had become a veritable animal farm. One of the kids had spilled a half bottle of cement glue on the antique surface, and to hide the evidence from William (and perhaps in a fit of naughtiness), Lizzie and I had affixed the animals atop the still sticky glue. Right beside the glop of glue stood a box of recycled Popsicle sticks, which we were using for the planks on the decks. And now the ark had reached its fourth and final deck, and Junior was using an Exacto knife to carve a door into the bottom deck, which was by far the largest of the decks.

On the other side of the table, Brett was kneeling, a paintbrush in his hand. He had several popsicle sticks glued together, and was applying coats of varnish to seal in the light brown paint we had used for the side boards that led up to the space for the massive door, which was where the animals would enter the ark once the flood waves hit the sides of the tub. William, thank goodness, was not home to see just how much paint we were getting on the table, which was looking like something out of a Halloween nightmare—garish, but oddly appealing to the eye.

Now, Lizzie was asking me questions about the ark, and I was frowning over a mast I was gluing to the rigging that was yet to be affixed to the top deck.

Mom, did it rain for just forty days and forty nights? Or was that just the story they told in Genesis?

Well, I think it rained a lot longer actually, like most of the time for a couple of years, but once the story got filtered down to Gaddarison—

—That’s who wrote Genesis?

Yeah, he was Moses’ main scribe.

What’s a scribe? A writer?

Yeah, I said. So I think what happened based on the meteorological record—

—What’s meteoro . . . Junior scrunched up his face trying to pronounce the word.

Weather-related, Lizzie said.

Junior made a face at her.

It stands for weather, yes, I said. I paused and gave them both a long look, and they both got the message and stopped making faces at one another. So the meteorological record shows that the poles probably shifted around 9500 BC. Basically, imagine that the South Pole was to the right of Antarctica, and the North Pole was over top Canada. So if the poles shifted like this, I showed my hands shifting to the left on the bottom and to the right on the top. If the poles shifted, the ice would be melting in those spots, and that means water would be moving all around and flooding all the surrounding sea sides, which is usually where cities are situated, so all the major populations are getting flooded, and people are having to move to the mountains, or they’re fleeing their homes in boats and ships—

—Wow, sounds like a massive cataclysm, Brett gasped.

Much worse than the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania, Junior agreed.

Yes, I said. It was a world-wide event, and it affected every city on earth, even the ones on higher land because they had to deal with waves or survivors or immigrants.

Oh, Lizzie said. Lots of refugees to help, I bet they had to feed them and give them shelter. Lizzie glowed a little at the thought of it.

I smiled. And the neat thing is this flood is spoken of in indigenous tribes all over the world, in their oral traditions, so it must have affected the whole world.

Lizzie grasped a mast and then fumbled around with it until it tumbled sideways into the opening of the blue paint bottle. Brett was using blue for the flags, which he was fashioning in the style of Israel’s Star of David. Lizzie made a rueful face and shook her head. I think this one is hopelessly blue where it’s sposed to be white, she giggled.

You could make it into an interior furnishing, Brett said.

Oh no, I groaned.

Oh no, what? Junior said.

I forgot we were going to decorate the interior, so I need to raid a doll’s house for sofas and chairs, but I threw out Lizzie’s dollhouse in a cleaning fit.

Oh Mom, your cleaning fits are so inconsistent, Lizzie said.

Yeah, I said, "But you were on an I hate Barbies kick, and your entire closet was taken up by the doll house, I never thought to turn the furniture into ark salvage."

Mom? Junior started to say.

I held up a hand. Just a sec. I know, I said. We can try to get a used dollhouse from the Goodwill store in town, and we can also give them some old clothing.

Great, so long as we don’t get any Barbies, Lizzie said.

Don’t be too particular, I chuckled. Then I turned to Junior and said, What were you going to ask?

I understand if the poles shifting caused flooding, but what about all that rain? What’s that got to do with? Why would it have rained for so long? Did the pole shift also affect the jet stream or something? Or cause more weather fronts to develop?

I thought about it for a moment, and the answer came to me with a dead certainty of it being true. I shook my head, because it almost felt like someone was speaking to me, but it was a thought rather than the sound of someone’s voice. I think that in order to facilitate the pole shift, you have to oil the ground so to speak.

Oil? Lizzie made a disgusted face.

Oh, no honey, that’s not what I mean, I mean, like, you know when the door squeaks and you put some WD-40 in it? To oil the hinges so to speak?

Lizzie nodded.

Mom, you need to oil my closet door, Junior said. But is that what you’re saying the rain did? If it rained for months or years or the like, the rain oiled the ground and the liquid maybe filtered down to the tectonic plates . . . Junior’s forehead wrinkled in concentration as he tried to visualize what the ground would have looked like after a year or so of continuous or near-continuous rain.

I listened and thought about it and what he was suggested sounded accurate. Yeah, that sounds right, I said.

Brett set his brush down and jumped to his feet. I’m gonna go test the bathtub, make sure the waves get high enough.

Oh gosh, Brett, remember to turn off the spigot this time.

At least before Dad gets home, Junior said.

Yeah, he’ll make you bathe in the laundry tub if you flood the bathroom again, Lizzie said.

Oh, he said that? I shook my head and put the cap on the blue paint.

Yes, Lizzie said.

I thought about cooking dinner, but wasn’t really feeling like it. And I thought about the calls I needed to make for the ministry, but those calls really could wait. Last, I thought how badly I needed to take a walk and get a moment alone. But that could also wait.

Maybe I should supervise, I finally said.

Brett burst into a big smile. You will?

Chapter 5

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I was between book projects. From a practical standpoint, this meant it was time to clean the house. I used to keep a clean house, before I worked. And there are still times I keep a clean house. Usually I will finish a book and it’s kind of like I’m once again aware of the environment around me. It’s about then I’ll go and tell the kids to clean their rooms and I’ll run around for a couple days dusting and vacuuming and painting rooms and rearranging furniture and for at least those few days, I’ll act kind of righteous about the whole clean house thing. Or at least the idea of the whole clean house thing.

It didn’t take me long to realize I’d met my match. In fact, after I finished the last book, which I almost but did not name Bad Doggy (see, he inspires me), I went into Lizzie’s room and started in on how nice it would be if she got her things set in order. Lizzie was busy penning one of her stories. She was writing about rescuing kittens and giving them new homes in loving families. So it took me several tries to get her attention, but I was rolling. I was really leaning into this lecture, actually. I was saying, Now, whaddya say Lizzie, don’t you think you could get your homework done more easily if you could find your pencils, your pens, and weren’t always misplacing your blue binder?

Lizzie had given me a thoughtful look and then glanced longingly back at the Harry Potter book she was reading between the paragraphs she was composing. No, I don’t think so, not really Mom, she said.

Really? Huh. I leaned against her doorframe and let my eyes linger over a pile of laundry that was impinging on her desk area. I don’t know how you can possibly manage to answer the harder of the math questions when your desk is in such a state of  . . . I gestured at her desk, Look at the six shirts, five socks, ten rubber bands . . . and a partridge in a pear tree sort of . . . I waved my hand at the mess in front of me, and finished with, It’s a disastrous sort of disorder.

Well, she said, Here’s the thing. Have you looked at your office lately? How many pens, markers, empty coffee mugs, bottles of fancy oil from Doe, telephones, wires, cords . . . and yes, what did you say, partridge in a pear tree disastrous disorder surrounding all your papers and writings oh and don’t forget newspaper clippings. Lizzie was smiling.

So was I.

I had no response for this. So I turned and while I was on my heels, I heard Lizzie mutter, Chalk that one up for Lizzie.

•••

I don’t want to give the wrong impression about Lizzie. I adore her. She’s a wise soul and she is a joy to parent—in most cases. Or so I was reminding myself one Sunday afternoon, as I was going over some proofs of one of the books I’d written. I was sitting out on the deck, kind of supervising the children. They were supposed to be picking up sticks in the backyard but every few minutes, Lizzie was coming up and showing me just how badly she didn’t want to pick up sticks. Of course, she wasn’t saying that. Not in every so many words.

Hey Mom, how big should the sticks be?

I don’t know, sticks.

Well, but how big? Dad says we don’t usually have to pick up twigs.

Okay.

Because the twigs don’t hurt the lawnmower. But bigger than twigs hurts the new lawnmower. We’d gotten an environmentally friendly lawnmower that was as ineffective as it was friendly. But it was green and we liked it.

Okay.

A few minutes later, she was back. Hey Mom?

Yes.

What if the twigs are near a bee’s nest?

I don’t know, are there any bee’s nests out there? I looked over the post at one of the azaleas in the backyard. Next to it was a recycled milk jug that contained some sort of bee killing potion in it, or so William had explained to me one night when I wasn’t really paying attention.

Brett saw a bee, so there might be a nest near the bench.

One bee doesn’t make a nest, I said.

Two bees?

I don’t know, no. Not two bees.

Well, what if I see three bees?

I sighed and returned Lizzie’s stare. Finally, I said, Please go pick up sticks and let me know if you see more than three bees within the same zip code.

Zip code? How wide an area is that?

Please. Lizzie. Sticks.

Okay, she said.

Five minutes later she was back. Hey Mom.

Yes.

How many sticks? Dad usually gives us a set amount or divides the yard into thirds and then gives us ice cream when we finish or says whoever picks up the most sticks gets ice cream and the other two kids don’t get ice cream. He says he’s teaching us about incentives. I think it’s mean. Don’t you?

Um, I said, I don’t know.

Junior usually wins and then he gets ice cream and Brett and I don’t. Lizzie frowned. So how many sticks?

As many as you can pick up, okay Lizzie?

In how much time?

In how much time what? I sighed and turned the page of my book.

Mom, you’re not giving me enough guidelines. How can I get this job done and supervise the boys getting their part of it done if you don’t give me clear guidelines? Lizzie did one of her hair flips-nose pinch-smiles and then said, So perhaps you’d like me to help you with the editing instead?

That’s when I remembered one of the stories Archangel Raziel used to tell me in heaven. It was the Reluctant Cow Sacrifice Story, and she told it to me lots when I was a baby soul. I always loved this story, and now it was my turn to regale a miscreant child with