I didn’t know what to think when Mum called and said Sunny had crawled into my bed. I was helping an old wholesaler from Ten Acres Farm when Abilene shouted, “Charlie, telephone!” I rolled the handcart to the man’s wagon, loaded three crates of corn and a cardboard box of sugarplums on back. He paid, and said, “See you next week, God willing.” Then I hear that Sunny rings the doorbell, goes upstairs. Not feeling well, supposedly, but declines a glass of ginger ale. Mum says she can stay for supper, shuts the light.
Abilene was waiting on a crone who kept complaining about a recent sugarplum purchase. So, to skirt a scene, I made a sharp left up the cement ramp to the packinghouse, stepping past the peach machine and the loading dock. Inside the office sanctuary – a great escape – the a/c hummed as I claimed Grampa’s green, then tread the dirt road, like I’ve been doing all week. I’d leave the Pontiac parked under the elm tree and its glorious shade, all the while kicking stones on my way to the folks’. Maybe I’d see the great blue heron at the pond’s edge, and watch it glide. Whenever that bird flaps its wings, I am breathless. The sight reminds me of a dinosaur bird… a pterodactyl.
