Special Delivery! by Sue Stauffacher Page A

backs and directing them to the steps. “There will come a day when you realize the important wisdom that your elders carry with them. Until then, get inside and grab the funnels. We’ll bottle this stuff up, and when we’re finished, we’ll make some indoor s’mores.”

Chapter 9
    By the time Grandma’s skunk stink remover was bottled, the Z-Team had been called home to help Mrs. Sanders pot up seedlings, and Wen and Aaliyah had to go to the library for TAT (Tuesday-afternoon tutors), where they read with the little kids and helped them pronounce the big words. Grandma promised the Z-Team they could roast marshmallows over the fire pit that night, which was much better than indoor s’mores anyway.
    To help Razi’s grumblies, Mama whipped up a batch of her ginger cake and threw in some bananas to roast while it baked. Daddy came home with the chicken wire and Razi ran outside to be with him. Keisha could hear them through the window as they worked to make the sides of the duckling enclosure higher.
    “Can I help, Daddy?” Razi asked. “Please?”
    Thwack
went the staple gun.
    “Quack-quack,” the ducklings replied.
    “Quack-quack-quack.” Razi imitated the ducks. “I did it just like Jorge!”
    Mama, Keisha, Grandma and a still-sleepy Paulo satin the kitchen waiting for Mama’s ginger cake and roasted bananas to be done. Grandma was leaning back in her chair, a slice of cucumber on each eye. Grandma had been out late the night before with Big Bob. The cucumber slices were to make her eyes less puffy. Everyone knew puffy eyes were OL.

    It felt warm and dozy. A stranger walking down the street would never know that the Carters and their friends had just had a close call with a skunk and freed a kite from a tree, unless they heard Razi reliving it for Daddy.
    “… and then Mama said the cure was worsethan the illness and then Grandma said it was the flaparatus—”
    “The what? Wait a minute. That’s my cell phone.”
    Keisha perked up. Daddy hardly ever gave out his cell phone number.
    As she tried to listen, Keisha noticed Grandma Alice nodding off. Keisha moved Grandma’s juice to the center of the table. Sometimes, when Grandma dozed off, she woke up with a start, caught the parasol sitting in her pomegranate juice and knocked the whole thing over.
    Mama handed Paulo to Keisha and checked the oven. A whoosh of even warmer air swirled into the room. “I think it’s just about done.”
    “Is Grandma sleeping?” Keisha whispered to Mama as she shifted the sweaty baby to her other knee.
    “Your grandma was up late last night,” Mama said, removing the cake from the oven. “She had a date.”
    “Huh?” Grandma sat up and the cucumbers fell on the table.
    Even though Mama whispered, too, Grandma must have had the amplifiers in.
    “It was all business,” Grandma said.
    Mama tsk-tsked. “It was still late. Keisha, put the baby in his high chair.”
    “I’m afraid I have bad news,” Daddy said as hewalked into the kitchen. Razi was behind him, his fingers in Daddy’s belt loops.
    “I gave Mrs. Sampson my cell phone number,” he said. “That was her. I think the gray just got grayer.”
    Baby Paulo squeaked and slapped his hands flat on his high chair tray, much like a baby bird. He must have smelled the roasted banana. If you waited for a roasted banana to cool, you could scoop it right from the skin.
    “Don’t tell me she released the bird before you checked him.” Mama tapped the top of the cake to make sure it was done in the center.
    “She didn’t let it go. In fact, she doesn’t plan to let it go.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “She wants to keep it for a pet.”
    “Be serious,” Grandma said. “A crow?” She put two new cucumber slices on her eyes and tried to relax back in her chair again.
    “A crow doesn’t make a cuddly pet,” Keisha said. “What she really needs is a puppy. A soft curly furry one that sits on her lap and licks her hand.”
    “Or a kitty,” Razi said.