Kelly Brackett was not a happy man.
Dixie was supposed to have been home. Free weekends were relatively scarce and they’d had plans. But, no --- there just had to be a flu epidemic ravaging its way through the nursing staff at Rampart. Feeling compelled to do her part, Dixie just had to work a full shift on this, her scheduled day off. Which left just him . . . . . . . . and Kevin . . . . . . . . and Kelsie . . . . . . . . and Stacey.
Not that he minded spending his Saturday taking care of the children, even if it wasn’t what they’d planned for their day, and even if he was just a bit disappointed with the sudden change. After all, he was a reasonably proficient parent who made up in love what he might have lacked in skill, and he could do the playground stuff with them just about as well as their mother. He’d long ago given up any pretense of believing that he might actually be anywhere nearly as capable in the parenting game as she was, but he had enough common sense --- and medical training --- to get them through almost anything. All in all, the children seemed to have survived the day more or less intact; he was competent enough in the kitchen to keep them all from starving in Dixie’s absence, and he’d even managed his way through dishes, baths, and pajamas.
And still no Dixie.
Now he was reading --- the same dreadful story for the third time. Kevin had succumbed to dreamland midway through the second telling; the girls’ plans obviously did not include anything even remotely resembling sleep any time in the near future.
And it wasn’t that he minded reading bedtime stories, either; in fact, that had always been a special time he’d relished sharing with his children. But he absolutely despised this particular book and, if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was Kelsie’s very most favorite book in the entire printed universe [and, brother, did she have a lot of favorite books], he’d have found it a new home [like in a trash can] long ago. He silently resolved to remember to thank the children’s godparents for this little gem --- somehow or other, he had completely failed to recognize the fact that Julie and Joe could possess such a maniacally evil streak . . . . . . . . It was all simply more than he could bear.
The girls, however, were caught in a fit of laughter as he dutifully, albeit reluctantly, once again recounted Stanley’s antics for them while the three of them sat on the floor in the living room. He shook his head, sighed, and continued reading; Stanley slid himself into a picture frame as Stacey scooted across the room.
The book, to his way of thinking, was irredeemably stupid, but, as he read, he quietly appreciated Kelsie’s laughter. That was, in and of itself, a good enough reason, he supposed, for him to be reading this inane . . . . . . . .
“What in the world?” exclaimed Dixie as she walked in the door. She’d stopped in her tracks to watch Stacey, who was resolutely trying to put herself inside a paper grocery bag. Stooping down beside the two-year-old, she threw her husband a puzzled look.
Kell shrugged, offering, “Flat Stanley,” with a discouraged sigh.
Dixie laughed as Kell rolled his eyes and shook his head, petulantly grumbling, “I don’t see anything funny about it.”
“Where’s your sense of humor?” Dixie chuckled as she glommed onto the opportunity to tease him. “It’s a really funny book.”
Great. Now there were three of them laughing. It was beyond him how anyone could find anything even remotely humorous in the story of a boy flattened one night by a falling bulletin board --- and eventually “fixed” with the assistance of a bicycle pump. Sheesh! Who dreamed up this stuff, anyway?
Happy to finally be home with her family, Dixie, still laughing, plopped her purse and car keys in the chair and left Stacey to her grocery bag. “Wouldn’t you just love to slide into an envelope and mail yourself across the country to visit your friends?” She batted her eyes at him as she slipped out of her coat. Greeting him with a rather perfunctory kiss, she snickered, “It is a cheap way to travel . . . . . . . . even with insurance.” Never one to miss an opportunity, she offered, “I’m sure I can find some thin sliced bread to make you a sandwich for the trip . . . . . . . .
“No, thank you,” he indignantly retorted.
She was definitely in high gear, and his consternation over the story was all that she needed. She knew exactly how much he detested the book . . . . . . . . and she knew every button to push. Her eyes twinkled. “Well, then,” she giggled, “how about going by flatbed truck . . . . . . . . or by railroad flatcar . . . . . . . by flatboat perhaps . . . . . . . . we could troll for flatfish . . . . . . . .” She dissolved in laughter at the glare her wordplay evoked.
Kell was totally outclassed in this little game of wits --- and he knew it. He shoved the book at her. “You finish it!” he growled.
Dixie, still giggling over both Kell’s grousing and the silliness of the story, settled herself on the floor, leaned against the sofa, and began reading as Kelsie cuddled up at her side.
“C’mon, Bumblebee,” Kell wheedled as he scooped Stacey up out of the grocery bag and carried her over to the sofa. Quietly settling her on his lap, he resigned himself to another twenty-seven pages of Flat Stanley.
***********Dixie was brushing her hair. The girls had finally given it up and all three children were now sleeping. He’d looked in on them as he checked the locks, turned out the lights, and generally ensured everything around the house was copasetic. Tossing Flat Stanley onto the dresser, Kell came up behind her and began to massage her shoulders. “Tired?” he queried softly.
“Mmmmmmm,” she replied with a sigh. “We were short-handed the whole shift,” she told him, “and I think we treated everyone in the entire county.”
He took the brush from her hand, laid it on the dressing table, and gently pulled her to her feet. “Sounds like it’s time for bed.”
***********“I don’t like t’ go there when Curtis is there. I don’t like him,” Kevin declared as he scooped up another forkful of eggs.
Sipping at his coffee, Kell asked, “Why don’t you like him?”
“He’s always mean t’ Kelsie.”
“Stanley says that maybe it’s impossible for everybody to like everybody,” Kelsie offered pensively.
“Stanley?” queried Kell.
“Stanley Lambchop,” she replied, “. . . . . . . . you know . . . . . . . .”
p>Dixie laughed softly as recognition dawned and he rolled his eyes in frustration. “Stanley Lambchop isn’t real, Cupcake,” he offered in annoyance. “He’s just a pretend little boy in a book. Somebody made him up.” Someone who must’ve been having a really bad day, he irritatedly mused to himself.
“If everybody can like everybody then, how come Curtis is so mean t’ Kelsie?” asked Kevin as he bit into his toast.
“You should try to like everyone,” Kell sighed, “and I don’t know why Curtis is mean to Kelsie.” How in the world had he managed to get trapped this discussion anyway? Desperation spilling from his dark eyes, he threw Dixie a plaintive “please rescue me” look.
“Stanley said people didn’t like him ’cause he was different,” Kelsie offered, oblivious to her father’s comments regarding the state of Stanley’s being. She studied her plate, then suddenly shoveled the rest of her breakfast into her mouth and slipped out of her chair. “’Scuse me,” she mumbled, her mouth still full of scrambled eggs.
By now, both Dixie and Kell were quite well attuned to their daughter’s whims and they exchanged knowing glances. Kelsie was off on another of her “gotta find out something” missions. Who ever knew what piqued her curiosity or triggered her impulse to research things? One thing was certain . . . . . . . . life was never dull with the twins around.
Two seconds later, Kevin took off after her; Kell lifted Stacey out of her chair and, having reclaimed her favorite blanket, she curled up on the floor in the living room, content; her blanket in her hand and her thumb in her mouth. Sleep was not far away.
Dixie watched with amusement as the twins clambered up the stairs intent on whatever it was that had captured their fancy for the moment. “More coffee?” she asked as she turned her attention back to the remnants of breakfast.
“Please,” Kell nodded and she poured for both of them.
He sighed. “Stanley Lambchop!” The epithet surprised Dixie.
“I know you think it’s a silly story,” she soothed, “but there are some truthful little bits of real life rather artfully thrown in.”
“Like ‘everybody should try to like everybody’?” he grumbled.
She nodded. “That’s not such a bad attitude, is it?”
“I s’pose not,” he conceded. “But don’t you find it just a little aggravating that our daughter is developing her attitudes based on some stupid story about a squashed little boy?”
“Not as long as it’s the right kind of attitude,” she shot back.
“Stanley Lambchop . . . . . . . . it’s downright deplorable!”
Dixie laughed lightly as she began gathering dishes together. Working at appeasement, she smiled as she advised, “Relax, Darling.” To his credit, Kell was far more involved in the lives of his children than many fathers, and that was most definitely the way Dixie wanted it to be. She couldn’t understand why the book was such an irritant to him, and, despite the teasing she’d indulged in last night, she had no intention of scoffing at his feelings. “She’ll be off on some new interest before you know it.”
“Can’t happen soon enough!” he grumbled under his breath.
Dixie shifted in her chair, put down her coffee cup, and looked at him. “Kell?” she queried softly, “What is it about that book that bothers you so much?”
He returned the look, mildly annoyed. “I dunno,” he said, preferring to forget the whole thing. Suddenly he changed his mind and offered, “It’s too . . . . . . . . too . . . . . . . .” he stuttered, searching for the right word. He finally settled for, “Suppose a kid tried to copy some of that crazy stuff? Do you know what could happen?” He sighed again. “Besides, nobody could get flattened like that; it’s too . . . . . . . . too unrealistically stupid.”
“Oh, and Hansel and Gretel isn’t?”
“That’s a fairy tale,” he protested.
“So think of Stanley as a modern day fairy tale. And the kids know it isn’t real.” After a moment, she leaned across the table to give him a quick kiss. “Don’t worry; the twins aren’t going to go off and hang themselves on the wall of the art museum to try and catch sneak thieves!”
“I certainly hope not!” he chuckled as he stood and helped her carry the dishes out into the kitchen.
***********“Now, see, if you were flat as a pancake, like Stanley, you’d slip right through there,” Kevin offered conspiratorially.
Kelsie threw him a troubled look. “Does that mean squashedness is a good thing?”
“Nah,” he said. “You can’t really get squashed like that. It’s jus’ pretend stuff.”
“I know that!” she retorted. “But squashedness could be a good thing . . . . . . . .”
“How?”
“Stanley slid under the door. You’d never be locked out.”
Kevin considered that for a minute. “I s’pose so, but people can’t really squash like that. Can they?”
She absently shook her head, absorbed for the moment in her contemplation. She said nothing further and Kevin, suddenly sensing something in her attitude, reached over and took hold of her hand. He whispered to her in their singsong, but she was too absorbed in her thoughts to even notice. After a few minutes, he decided to go finish his super highway. Once she figured it out, she’d come find him.
***********“Are you on your way back out to the brush fire?” Joe Early asked the two paramedics.
“Yep,” Roy nodded, “but it’s pretty much just mop-up stuff now. They’ll officially declare it out most any time now.”
“Are you going out Sepulveda?
Roy nodded.
“Any chance you could drop this off at Kell’s house?” he asked, holding up a small package. “He’s been waiting for it and I was going to take it myself, but I have emergency surgery . . . . . . . .”
“No problem,” Roy answered, taking the package from his hand. “We’re going right past there; it’s no trouble at all.”
“Thanks! Hate to run, but I’ve got to get upstairs. . . . . . . .”
“Right, Doc; see you later!” The two paramedics headed for the squad as Joe headed for the operating room.
2";letter-spacing:.6pt'>é ***********“Dix?” Suddenly realizing that it was much too quiet for the middle of the day in a house where three small children lived, Kelly Brackett tossed the medical journal onto the coffee table and looked around. Stacey was still napping on the floor. Neither of the twins was in sight.
Dixie came into the room, towels from the laundry draped over her arm. “You called?”
“Just wondering where you were.” He looked around the room, uncertain as to what had roused him from his reading. He worked at brushing aside his feeling of dread, but it was insistent and would not be ignored. “Be right back,” he declared, suddenly deciding to check on the twins.
Dixie shrugged and watched him take the stairs two at a time. Concerned, she dropped the towels. “What’s wrong, Kell?” she called out as she decided to follow him. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Kell?” She chose to wait a minute before venturing up. Kell and Tom Deason had worked out the special design for the stairs --- four regular steps, then a landing, four more steps, another landing, and so on all the way up, with a banister as well as a handrail along the inside wall --- and, although it still took her time to navigate the stairs, she could manage them without too much difficulty.
“Kell?” she called once again. “Should I come up?” Fear had begun to nag; “Is everything all right?”
Kell suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, his face ashen. “The twins are out on the roof.”
Her babies! Suddenly her heart was somewhere down in her shoes and her soul was gripped with panic. Her knees gave out and she sank to the floor at the foot of the staircase.
***********Kell leaned a little further out the window, still quietly talking to the children. “If you just stay still,” he said gently, “everything will be OK.” He heart was in his throat as he watched Kevin, tightly holding onto Kelsie’s hand. He was murmuring to her in their private singsong, and Kell had no idea if either of the children had heard him. He tried to keep his voice calm and quiet as he continued to talk to them, hoping against hope that they would stay calm and quiet. As long as they didn’t move . . . . . . . .
As they drove up to the house, Johnny pointed. “Hey, Roy, look!” The two men could see the twins out on the roof. Roy pulled the squad into the driveway; Johnny was out before he’d even come to a stop. He killed the engine and jumped out, stopping only long enough to grab a line and the safety belts. Hurrying after Johnny, they both raced toward the front door.
Dixie opened the door before they had even reached it. “They must have gone out the window in the reading nook,” she told them. Despair and fear echoed in her voice as she lamented, “I didn’t think there was any way they could get out the window --- it’s got a safety guard on it . . . . . . . .”
“Now, don’t worry,” reassured Roy gently. “We’ll go get them.”
After evaluating the situation, the two paramedics worked out a plan and set about the relatively easy task of getting the children down. A ladder from the garage made short work of the rescue and in just a couple of minutes, both children were safely in the arms of the two firefighters and, then, moments later, on the ground.
Kell watched in silence as Dixie sagged against him, no longer able to keep her fears from overwhelming her.
It was over as suddenly as it had begun. They all headed inside; Kell sat Dixie down in the living room, then turned to the twins.
“Thanks, guys,” he said softly to the two paramedics who had long since ceased to be merely colleagues and were instead treasured friends, still working at controlling the terror within him. “Sit down?”
They sat. “Why were you out on the roof?” Johnny asked Kevin.
“Kelsie got stuck and she was scared,” he said. “I only wanted t’ help. I held her hand.”
“How’d you get out there?”
“It’s easy,” Kevin offered nonchalantly. “You just make yourself a pancake and you can slip through on the side of the window.”
Kell stooped down next to his daughter. She was quiet, sitting on Roy’s lap. “What were you doing, Cupcake?” he queried softly.
She looked at him, eyes wide. Kevin reached over to grab hold of her hand; feeling braver with his support, her voice trembled a bit as she said, “Being a kite.”
Kell sighed as he shook his head. That explained the rope she’d had tied around her. “Kelsie, you can’t be a kite. That’s only a pretend thing. They just made that up for the Flat Stanley book.”
“I know that,” she sputtered. “But the flying has to be different for round people than it is for flat people. I had a paper for Stanley,” she added, “and I was the round one.” She looked at him, confident in the logic of her experiment.
“But you can not be a kite, Kelsie,” Kell replied in annoyance. “No one can be a kite.”
“But flat kites fly, and rounder box kites fly,” she persisted.
“People . . . . . . . . are . . . . . . . . not . . . . . . . . kites. Never.”
Kelsie was silent, pensive.
Kell was flabbergasted and speechless . . . . . . . . and annoyed. This would be because of that insufferably stupid book . . . . . . . .
“Kelsie,” Dixie said. She spoke quietly, but none of them missed the tone in her voice. “You may not go out on the roof.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she offered, not too sure why her mother was so angry, but recognizing the anger nonetheless.
“No experiments, Kelsie,” she continued, “until you first tell your father or me or Julie about them. Is that clear?”
Kelsie nodded as Kevin squeezed her hand. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Kell reached out to hug her. “Do you know why, Cupcake?” he asked softly. She was silent. “If you had fallen, you would have been badly hurt.” As an afterthought, he added, “And you scared Mommie.” He lifted her up into his arms and hugged her tightly. “Me, too.” He kissed her cheek. “OK?”
She nodded.
“Well, we’d better be going now that everything’s OK,” said Roy as they headed toward the door.
“Thank you,” Dixie quietly offered. “Thank you so much.”
“No problem,” Roy said. As they reached the door, he realized the package was still in the squad. “Oh, Doc? You maybe want to walk out with us? We have a package for you in the squad.”
“Sure,” he answered. “A package?”
“Yeah,” Johnny put in. “Doc Early asked us if we could drop it off . . . . . . . . we were going right past here anyway.”
Kell looked over at Dixie. “You didn’t call them?”
“I started to,” she replied, “but they were here before I could.”
Kell shook his head. “Well,” he chuckled, “you certainly picked a good time to come by!”
Still carrying Kelsie, he walked out with the two paramedics.
***********Dixie rolled over on her side to face him. “What’s wrong?”
Kell sighed in exasperation. “I should have seen it coming. I should have been smarter.” His eyes were pools of pain. “They could have fallen . . . . . . . .”
“Kell?”
He ignored her. “I know how much she likes that book . . . . . . . . we’ve read it more times than I’d even care to think about. But I never thought she’d actually try any of that stuff. And I encouraged her by reading it so much!”
Dixie put her arm over his shoulder, gently running her fingers through his hair. “She can read it all by herself, remember?” she admonished softly.
He was not yet ready to let himself off the hook. “I should have made sure she didn’t think it was all some sort of game.”
“Kell, it’s not your fault.”
“You know what it was, Dix? I was too busy listening to her laugh. I detest that damned book, but I’d read it whenever she asked me to --- just so I could hear her laugh . . . . . . . .”
“So grand at the game,” she whispered softly.
“Huh?”
“You’re doing quite well at the ‘beat yourself over the head and take all the blame, deserved or not’ game, Kell.”
“This isn’t a game, Dix!”
“For her, it is.” She smiled softly. “It’s a learning game, a finding out where her place is in the world game, a life game. It won’t ever change. And if the book hadn’t given her the idea, some other book might have given her some other notion. Or she’d have dreamed something up all on her own.” Dixie sighed. “You need a little perspective, Darling.”
“You were scared, too,” he reminded her.
“Sure I was. But that’s different than blaming myself for it.” She laughed as she sat up. “Besides, it’s still a funny book!”
“How can you laugh?” he demanded.
She turned and put her arms around him. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” she offered as tears brimmed in her deep blue eyes. “Sometimes you reason things out just to keep from fretting about them. Sometimes you make light of things because if you didn’t it would tear you apart inside.” She paused. “And sometimes,” she whispered, “you laugh just so you won’t cry.”
They held onto each other because, in the end, that was all they had. After a time, Kell chuckled softly.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ll show you.”
He was back in a minute, the small package in his hands. “Go ahead, open it,” he told her as he handed her the box.
She opened the box. Inside she discovered a small doll --- a flat doll. Flat Stanley. She looked at him in amazement.
“I had it made for her,” he shrugged. “I really do detest that book,” he offered, “but she loves it so much . . . . . . . .”
Dixie looked at the doll in her hands, then up at him. She shook her head gently. “Doctor,” she postulated quietly, “I do think that maybe you’ve got it all figured out after all.”
“Oh, yeah? You mean I’m not hopeless?”
“Not at all!” she laughed as he pulled her into a hug and laughed with her. They laughed until tears coursed down their cheeks, discovering in the process that laugher does indeed heal the soul.
**********************
Flat Stanley, written by Jeff Brown, illustrated by Tomi Ungerer, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1964
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