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I smiled and sat back in satisfaction. I lifted the cup of tea to my lips and savored the combined aromas of Earl Grey and slightly burnt toast wafting gently through the kitchen. In fact, wasn’t that smoke I could see rising from the toaster? The morning sunshine did cast a homey cheer upon our morning routine.
“Boy, I’m still relishing being nice and warm,” I looked at Alex across the breakfast table. This may have been a slightly mean comment; he still felt awfully guilty about my being stranded in Antarctica, however briefly.
“I’m glad you’re here, too, Janie. What do you want to do today?” Alex refused to be perturbed. “Fancy a hike somewhere?”
“As long as we don’t have to travel past Antarctica to get there.”
“Well, yeah. But you know what I’ve been thinking? I’m feeling a little homesick. In fact, through all my travels, homesickness has been one of the abiding emotions I’ve dealt with. Travel is great, but sometimes you just want to visit your old haunts. Your old friends. Your parents for gosh sakes.”
“I was just enjoying the comforts of home,” I replied. “YOUR home. But I know our parents certainly miss you. We could make them really happy if we stopped by for a visit. I just hope they won’t launch into some ‘friendly reminders’ that you’ve been missing for a long time or that I need to attend to my studies.”
“True. Is it possible we could just take a look?”
“Maybe. You want to leave this morning? Let’s take some extra food, you know, just in case.”
An hour later we were clutching the two colorful feathers and suddenly found ourselves in the leafy backyard of our family home in Southern California. While winter was creeping in on tiger feet back in Oz, in California it was a beautiful, delicate spring day.
We went up to the back door to the house and tried the door knob. Locked. “That’s weird,” commented Alex. “When did they ever lock the back door before? Let’s look in the window.”
We cupped our hands around our eyes as we peered into the dark recesses inside. Nothing happening.
“I wonder what time it is. Here, I mean,” I pondered.
“Drat, I kinda wanted to go inside.” Alex was bummed. We sat there silently for a few minutes just gazing at the yard.
Alex started to say something. He was pointing at the geraniums growing in profusion over in the corner behind the sycamore tree.
“Wait!” I hissed. “I thought I heard a noise from the house.”
We both turned to look. There was Dad at the window staring at us. Then Mom appeared behind his shoulder. She didn’t look so great. Both had very concerned looks on their faces. Dad bent over and began scribbling a note. He then held it so we could see it. We walked up close to the window to read.
“There’s a shooter loose in the neighborhood. Armed and dangerous. We are sick. Don’t come in. Covid-19. Go hide. Love you lots.”
“Gosh.” I breathed. We looked at each other in alarm. “We better get out of here,” I said, “but first we’ve got to give them a greeting through the glass.”
We pressed our palms up to the window and then mouthed the words, “I love you.” Then Dad started shooing us away.
“Hurry!” he mouthed. “Be silent!”
Alex grabbed my arm and we started darting from bush to bush to stay undercover.
We heard a helicopter circling overhead several blocks from our house. It seemed to be coming closer!
“I know the perfect place to hide,” hissed Alex. “You know the creek?”
“Brilliant,” whispered as enthusiastically as possible without raising my voice. I also gave him a thumbs up, though he was still pulling me through the shrubbery so I doubt he saw it.
Whack! “Ow!” I yelped. That branch just nailed me in the face!”
“Sorry,” muttered Alex. “Put your arm in front of your face to protect yourself.”
And so we went. We stayed off the paved trail because that was too visible from the air. We stayed off the beaten track as well, because, yes, that was also too obvious. So, it was through the wild thickets we went, brambles or no. We were both accumulating scratches from branches and getting leaves down our shirts. “Now I know how a racoon feels,” I grumbled, “though I doubt they’re ever in this kind of hurry.”
Eventually we came to the steep slope that led down to the creek. We could have taken the utility road down, a much more easily traversed route, but we didn’t dare—too exposed. Instead, we plunked ourselves down on our bottoms and tried to make a quick, but cautious, descent down the dry, grassy slope without stirring up a dust storm as we slid. Two hundred feet below, shielded by a lush canopy of oaks and sycamores, we knew our riparian hiding place awaited. "I hope we don't surprise any rattlesnakes," I commented as we slithered down through the tall brown grass.
Hundreds of foxtails in the socks later, we picked ourselves up to clamber through the trees to the water. I brushed off the seat of my pants. “Good thing we wore jeans today,” I commented. “But I’ll be needing new ones after this.” I ruefully noted that there was a large rip that would only be hidden if I were sitting down.
“I think these trees will hide us for now,” Alex commented. “Look, there’s a path through the canes.” We picked our way through the bamboo-like thickets that crowded the water’s edge. We ducked and crawled straight into the dark lairs underneath their canopy.
“I usually imagine that this is where the mountain lions hide,” I muttered.
“I’m sure you’re right,” answered Alex. “This Arundo is normally a pest but useful for us now. Let’s just hope the kitties are somewhere else today.”
Suddenly sunlight sparkled in front of us, glinting off the sparkling, burbling water of the creek. Success! We grinned as we stood up straight to stretch our hunched backs. We stepped right into the coursing water and it swirled magnificently around our ankles.
“Aahhh,” we sighed with relief.
“It’s not even cold!” Alex exclaimed with delight.
“And it’s bubbling loud enough we can talk again!” I remarked. What a relief to walk without ducking and talk without being afraid of discovery.
“Well, I think we should still try to be quiet. Who knows who else is down here? Try not to plunk your feet too loudly,” cautioned Alex.
“Let’s keep moving upstream,” I urged. “Let’s put some distance between us and that bad guy.” I had a theory that bad guys were universally lazy. Don’t know if it’s true, but…couldn’t hurt to move further away.
Soon our adventure morphed from being the great escape from danger to the great escape from city life. The sunlight was dappled and the shade was comforting. The creek serenaded us every step of the way. The cool water soothed our hot feet.
“C’mon, Janie, what are you waiting for?” Alex urged me to take another step into the water. “Are you afraid you’re going to fall?”
“I don’t want to step on any polliwogs!” I called out. Indeed, they were so thick that I had to take a giant step to get past them all. “I wish I had a jar so I could collect some! Look! I can scoop up handfuls of them.”
We continued upstream. The best place to walk was often right through the middle of the creek. There would be a basketball-sized boulder and lots of fine gravel would be deposited just downstream from it, providing a more stable footfall that the smaller boulders in the water.
Again and again we’d come to a wide, slow place in the river and Alex would wax nostalgic about building dams back in his youth. “If we could stay a bit, I would definitely build another one.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed with him. “I keep picturing having a picnic on one of these banks. I would bring chocolate bars and crispy apples.”
As we put distance behind us, we relaxed mentally. We were actually thoroughly enjoying ourselves. As the day grew later, we sat on a solid sycamore trunk that formed a bridge across the water.
“Well, Alex, I’m sorry you didn’t get to visit home today.” I put my hand on his back to show sympathy.
“You know, Janie, going back home is not always about actually going back home. I’ve had a wonderful visit back to my youth today.”
“Me too!” I agreed. “This has been totally awesome.” I hesitated a moment. “Too bad about Mom and Dad being sick and that awful shooter. But coming here has been a great way to put that out of our minds.”
“You said it,” Alex agreed. “Do you suppose we could come back here another time, under happier circumstances?”
“Oh, I hope so,” I concurred. “And next time, let’s bring Mom and Dad. I think they’d like it too.”
Alex chimed in, “And have a picnic!”
“With chocolate bars…” I added.
“And apples!” agreed Alex.
“OK, ‘til next time. Ready to go?” Alex pulled out his feather and I pulled out mine. “Feather,” he said, “Next time I say ‘The river,’ this is where I mean. Got it?”
Alex and I put our arms around each other and said the magic words: ”Alex’s house.”
And just like that, we were back where we started.
Though I did note that my jeans were still ripped and I had a very soggy foxtail or two stuck in my socks. I decided I needed a chocolate bar both to celebrate our successful excursion and to raise a toast to Mom and Dad's speedy recovery.
Previous Episodes:
Episode 1 Janie begins the serch for Alex..........................https://furzicle.livejournal.com/458629.html
Episode 2 Alex gets the enchanted feather in Guinea........https://furzicle.livejournal.com/459027.html
Episode 3 The Mysterious Russian.................................
Episode 4 Wild Goose Chase...................................
Episode 5 The creek may rise....................................
Episode 6 The Way Back from Antarctica...................... https://furzicle.livejournal.com/463756.html
The Author:
Note, all the risks mentioned in this piece are very real except, thankfully, for the shooter.
“Boy, I’m still relishing being nice and warm,” I looked at Alex across the breakfast table. This may have been a slightly mean comment; he still felt awfully guilty about my being stranded in Antarctica, however briefly.
“I’m glad you’re here, too, Janie. What do you want to do today?” Alex refused to be perturbed. “Fancy a hike somewhere?”
“As long as we don’t have to travel past Antarctica to get there.”
“Well, yeah. But you know what I’ve been thinking? I’m feeling a little homesick. In fact, through all my travels, homesickness has been one of the abiding emotions I’ve dealt with. Travel is great, but sometimes you just want to visit your old haunts. Your old friends. Your parents for gosh sakes.”
“I was just enjoying the comforts of home,” I replied. “YOUR home. But I know our parents certainly miss you. We could make them really happy if we stopped by for a visit. I just hope they won’t launch into some ‘friendly reminders’ that you’ve been missing for a long time or that I need to attend to my studies.”
“True. Is it possible we could just take a look?”
“Maybe. You want to leave this morning? Let’s take some extra food, you know, just in case.”
An hour later we were clutching the two colorful feathers and suddenly found ourselves in the leafy backyard of our family home in Southern California. While winter was creeping in on tiger feet back in Oz, in California it was a beautiful, delicate spring day.
We went up to the back door to the house and tried the door knob. Locked. “That’s weird,” commented Alex. “When did they ever lock the back door before? Let’s look in the window.”
We cupped our hands around our eyes as we peered into the dark recesses inside. Nothing happening.
“I wonder what time it is. Here, I mean,” I pondered.
“Drat, I kinda wanted to go inside.” Alex was bummed. We sat there silently for a few minutes just gazing at the yard.
Alex started to say something. He was pointing at the geraniums growing in profusion over in the corner behind the sycamore tree.
“Wait!” I hissed. “I thought I heard a noise from the house.”
We both turned to look. There was Dad at the window staring at us. Then Mom appeared behind his shoulder. She didn’t look so great. Both had very concerned looks on their faces. Dad bent over and began scribbling a note. He then held it so we could see it. We walked up close to the window to read.
“There’s a shooter loose in the neighborhood. Armed and dangerous. We are sick. Don’t come in. Covid-19. Go hide. Love you lots.”
“Gosh.” I breathed. We looked at each other in alarm. “We better get out of here,” I said, “but first we’ve got to give them a greeting through the glass.”
We pressed our palms up to the window and then mouthed the words, “I love you.” Then Dad started shooing us away.
“Hurry!” he mouthed. “Be silent!”
Alex grabbed my arm and we started darting from bush to bush to stay undercover.
We heard a helicopter circling overhead several blocks from our house. It seemed to be coming closer!
“I know the perfect place to hide,” hissed Alex. “You know the creek?”
“Brilliant,” whispered as enthusiastically as possible without raising my voice. I also gave him a thumbs up, though he was still pulling me through the shrubbery so I doubt he saw it.
Whack! “Ow!” I yelped. That branch just nailed me in the face!”
“Sorry,” muttered Alex. “Put your arm in front of your face to protect yourself.”
And so we went. We stayed off the paved trail because that was too visible from the air. We stayed off the beaten track as well, because, yes, that was also too obvious. So, it was through the wild thickets we went, brambles or no. We were both accumulating scratches from branches and getting leaves down our shirts. “Now I know how a racoon feels,” I grumbled, “though I doubt they’re ever in this kind of hurry.”
Eventually we came to the steep slope that led down to the creek. We could have taken the utility road down, a much more easily traversed route, but we didn’t dare—too exposed. Instead, we plunked ourselves down on our bottoms and tried to make a quick, but cautious, descent down the dry, grassy slope without stirring up a dust storm as we slid. Two hundred feet below, shielded by a lush canopy of oaks and sycamores, we knew our riparian hiding place awaited. "I hope we don't surprise any rattlesnakes," I commented as we slithered down through the tall brown grass.
Hundreds of foxtails in the socks later, we picked ourselves up to clamber through the trees to the water. I brushed off the seat of my pants. “Good thing we wore jeans today,” I commented. “But I’ll be needing new ones after this.” I ruefully noted that there was a large rip that would only be hidden if I were sitting down.
“I think these trees will hide us for now,” Alex commented. “Look, there’s a path through the canes.” We picked our way through the bamboo-like thickets that crowded the water’s edge. We ducked and crawled straight into the dark lairs underneath their canopy.
“I usually imagine that this is where the mountain lions hide,” I muttered.
“I’m sure you’re right,” answered Alex. “This Arundo is normally a pest but useful for us now. Let’s just hope the kitties are somewhere else today.”
Suddenly sunlight sparkled in front of us, glinting off the sparkling, burbling water of the creek. Success! We grinned as we stood up straight to stretch our hunched backs. We stepped right into the coursing water and it swirled magnificently around our ankles.
“Aahhh,” we sighed with relief.
“It’s not even cold!” Alex exclaimed with delight.
“And it’s bubbling loud enough we can talk again!” I remarked. What a relief to walk without ducking and talk without being afraid of discovery.
“Well, I think we should still try to be quiet. Who knows who else is down here? Try not to plunk your feet too loudly,” cautioned Alex.
“Let’s keep moving upstream,” I urged. “Let’s put some distance between us and that bad guy.” I had a theory that bad guys were universally lazy. Don’t know if it’s true, but…couldn’t hurt to move further away.
Soon our adventure morphed from being the great escape from danger to the great escape from city life. The sunlight was dappled and the shade was comforting. The creek serenaded us every step of the way. The cool water soothed our hot feet.
“C’mon, Janie, what are you waiting for?” Alex urged me to take another step into the water. “Are you afraid you’re going to fall?”
“I don’t want to step on any polliwogs!” I called out. Indeed, they were so thick that I had to take a giant step to get past them all. “I wish I had a jar so I could collect some! Look! I can scoop up handfuls of them.”
We continued upstream. The best place to walk was often right through the middle of the creek. There would be a basketball-sized boulder and lots of fine gravel would be deposited just downstream from it, providing a more stable footfall that the smaller boulders in the water.
Again and again we’d come to a wide, slow place in the river and Alex would wax nostalgic about building dams back in his youth. “If we could stay a bit, I would definitely build another one.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed with him. “I keep picturing having a picnic on one of these banks. I would bring chocolate bars and crispy apples.”
As we put distance behind us, we relaxed mentally. We were actually thoroughly enjoying ourselves. As the day grew later, we sat on a solid sycamore trunk that formed a bridge across the water.
“Well, Alex, I’m sorry you didn’t get to visit home today.” I put my hand on his back to show sympathy.
“You know, Janie, going back home is not always about actually going back home. I’ve had a wonderful visit back to my youth today.”
“Me too!” I agreed. “This has been totally awesome.” I hesitated a moment. “Too bad about Mom and Dad being sick and that awful shooter. But coming here has been a great way to put that out of our minds.”
“You said it,” Alex agreed. “Do you suppose we could come back here another time, under happier circumstances?”
“Oh, I hope so,” I concurred. “And next time, let’s bring Mom and Dad. I think they’d like it too.”
Alex chimed in, “And have a picnic!”
“With chocolate bars…” I added.
“And apples!” agreed Alex.
“OK, ‘til next time. Ready to go?” Alex pulled out his feather and I pulled out mine. “Feather,” he said, “Next time I say ‘The river,’ this is where I mean. Got it?”
Alex and I put our arms around each other and said the magic words: ”Alex’s house.”
And just like that, we were back where we started.
Though I did note that my jeans were still ripped and I had a very soggy foxtail or two stuck in my socks. I decided I needed a chocolate bar both to celebrate our successful excursion and to raise a toast to Mom and Dad's speedy recovery.
Previous Episodes:
Episode 1 Janie begins the serch for Alex..........................https://furzicle.livejournal.com/458629.html
Episode 2 Alex gets the enchanted feather in Guinea........https://furzicle.livejournal.com/459027.html
Episode 3 The Mysterious Russian.................................
Episode 4 Wild Goose Chase...................................
Episode 5 The creek may rise....................................
Episode 6 The Way Back from Antarctica...................... https://furzicle.livejournal.com/463756.html
The Author:
Note, all the risks mentioned in this piece are very real except, thankfully, for the shooter.
