Family Creature Day
Cool and damp, the grass tickled my toes; it was bright, spring green with a few fluffy yellow dandelion blossoms. The "grown-ups" looked funny, all wobbling and hunched over with that big-bed-futon-thing that sits up like a couch but sleeps down like a bed. They slip and slide on the grass, out past the play-pin, a giant wooden fence, well, "giant" when I was that size; past the climbing tree, a tree so big you could touch the sky if you could ever reach the top, but that's not even so huge now that I am tall. Out in the middle, with seas of grass on either side, they put down that giant futon like a great big boat; like an elephant on an open safari; like a single drop of water in a bucket of oil; like Mav Martagin all alone in the midst of Kail's army; yes, alone and unoccupied sat the big couch-bed-thing.
They opened the playpen, like breeders open the gate to let their dogs out, that's what we were in there, dogs. Short, stout, on all fours, knees and hands dirty with grass satins and mud. Yep, we were dogs back then, minus that tail; I still am sometimes. They picked us up like you pick up puppies, and stuffed us in our best sunday dresses and I into my ducky-shoes with the velcro on top; and we all piled on the futon like an ant hill is covered with ants.
Mama ran to get the camera, a little black box the size of both my hands. We all sat there, with warm, fuzzy blankets to cover our legs & keep them warm; spring was not so hot as summer would be, and it just wasn't a warm spring morning yet, but a cold one. The babies were fussy & wanted to sleep, but their mama's held them tight to keep them warm as our mama took the pictures with her little black box. They squirmed and fussed, but I didn't, no body needed to hold me 'cause I’m a big girl. They scowled and whined and my sisters gave them away to each other, but not to me, I’m not THAT big a girl yet. When the red, runny noses on the cold fussy babies got too red and too fussy, mama just took more pictures and they traded more babies and I just sat there in a swarm of little legs and cold feet and runny noses and big sisters who held their babies with such pride, even as mama took the pictures an secretly thought they were bad children.
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