jumpingfish

1.

The theme was monsters. After all, it was just before Halloween.

The kids filed into the library and sat on a carpet at the far end of the room.

Some of the kids were better at this that than others. The girls, of course, were consistently the best. But to be honest, the boys weren’t so wild — just a few who were slow to get settled. 

I read them a story, stopping to talk about the pictures, asking sometimes if they knew what a word meant. And then we came to the part where they got to go pick out a book of their very own — one they could put their names in and take home. They wiggled in excitement.

2.

Afterwards we all sat on the carpet together.

“Which book did you get?” “Wow, look at that!” “Can you read that to me?” “What’s that one about?”

At the end of one of these groups, I sat on the carpet in the middle of a bunch of girls and a few boys. We were looking at their books and reading snippets. The girls in particular were thrilled that I was sitting there with them and paying them as much attention as the boys.

3.

And now, their time was up. They were about to go back to their classroom.

“Who will get to line up first?” their teacher asked. 

“Who… will… it… be?” She was dragging it out, a trick that worked well, because they were all silent and sitting up straight with their arms folded around their books.

“Ok boys. You may line up.” 

4.

“Boys?” I whispered to the girls. “Boys!? It should have been the girls. You guys rocked!”

And then…

“Girls, now you may go.”

They all stood up and went to get in line.

And then one of them came back. Without saying anything, she leaned against me and gave me a hug. And then she ran quickly and got back in line.

Day 1

“It’s November first!” she exclaimed as she pulled a shirt over her head and raced out of the bedroom.

I rolled over and closed my eyes. But it was for naught. Morning had come.

I got out of bed and walked into the closet. 

But before I got there, I looked out the bedroom door and saw her standing in the kitchen in front of the refrigerator. She was there, bent over slightly with a pen in her hand. Her head was close to the refrigerator door. She was writing on a whiteboard calendar that she keeps there so that we can be on the same page about what’s coming and where we have to be when.

“Whatcha doin’, Trudy?” I asked sarcastically.

Without turning, she held up her hands and waved them over her head. In an excited voice she said, “It’s November! I’m writing out the new month!”

Day 2

It was November second. I was sitting in the study reading news and listening to iTunes. Trudy was somewhere on the other side of the house. Marvin Gaye began playing Got to Give It Up. I stood up and started dancing.

I clapped and turned circles in what little clear area there was. And then I danced out the door into the hallway, across the living room, thru the dining room, into the kitchen and thru the door to the laundry room where I found her.

I took her hand, still dancing, even though we couldn’t hear the music from there over the radio on top of the refrigerator.

We danced thru the kitchen and dining room, across the living room, down the hallway and back into the study, where the funk was still playing and the crowd was clapping and Marvin was singing. We held our hands over our heads and turned circles in that little clear space in the room. The dogs barked. We picked them up and danced more. We set them down and turned more circles and clapped our hands. A saxophone played and a bell rang and the chorus sang as we bopped.

I turned another circle or two, and when I was facing the door again, the fair and industrious Trudy was gone. 

I looked out the door, and she was bopping back down the hallway and beginning to cross the living room.

“Hey…”

She turned and smiled and kept up her funky bopping into the dining room, back into the kitchen and finally into the laundry room where with a satisfied smile on her face, she finished putting the laundry into the washing machine.

…and now I’ve got to go to bed. So sayeth the Fair and Industrious Trudy.

You saw him, didn’t you? Governor Poindexter up there on the stage looking serious, speaking to the cameras, taking charge of the epidemic that’s gripped the nation, posing in front of that Texas hospital that was in the vanguard. 

Except that the hospital didn’t manage things quite like they would have liked. Not quite as the governor would have liked, perhaps. And stop for a moment. Think about it. When is the last time you saw Governor Poindexter saying serious things and gazing thru his serious glasses from the hospital podium with the staff and administrators gathered around? When was the last time?

Funny that. He seems to be taking a trip to Europe now. Being in the vanguard seems to have seriously lost its luster.