October 22nd 2022
Chapter 295
Our Spookies in October
About as early as he'd figured himself able to do so, Lucas had been taking Marianne riding. This went several ways, whether it was on a small horse or along with him, going as far back as when she'd been about two and a half. He would never forget what it had felt like, putting her up there for the first time, or seeing how happy it made her… In no time, she'd become very comfortable on horseback, as he'd imagined she would be. He'd been seeing to her lessons himself, getting her only so far as being able to get by. She'd shown no personal interest in becoming a competing rider like her aunt Nellie, only somewhere along the lines of her big sister, or her father himself. And all things considered, being a couple weeks shy of seven, she was doing very well for herself. Still, she remained at an age where she loved to ride with her father there behind her, holding her secured, and as long as they were still able to do it, Lucas would never deny her.
Oh, she was still growing, it felt, so much so that people had been known to assume she was older, maybe eight or nine years old. She had a good four to five inches on the majority of the other girls in her class… and the boys, too, which had gotten some of those – like Adam Gray – to pick on her. She'd been very good at not letting it get to her, all things considered. Maya had been particularly amused, if slightly astounded, as their firstborn girl rose above the four-foot mark and was suddenly about as short next to her as she was next to Lucas. When her doctor had told her parents that she could grow to be six feet tall one day, they'd been stunned. Their tiny pumpkin? Six feet? Then again, it wasn't as though she lacked tall people in her family. They only had to look to her Granny Mel, or Tanner Clutterbucket and all his siblings, right down to little sister Georgie…
That wasn't on their mind, not today. No, today, all that mattered was that it was a nice, October morning, and Lucas and Marianne were riding together. It was impossible to pretend as though they got many opportunities to be spontaneous in their activities nowadays, what with a family that counted two adults, six small children, and five dogs. There was work, and school, and there were sports and the likes for some of the kids, standing gatherings with family and friends, errands, appointments… One thing both Lucas and Maya were very conscious of was making time for their girls, one-on-one if they could, and this right here was something Lucas could do with his firstborn and know she would be happy. If they had time, usually, they would stop at the comic book store on the way home after. She'd gotten into the medium more and more since her first gift.
And right now, with the ranch in all its Halloween best, and their most excellent day of Hallowannie coming up so very soon, being out here at Sullivan Stables, on a horse, just the two of them going peacefully along… This was just what they needed. If she was feeling particularly chipper, she would start humming whatever song she could think of or sing it outright. Lately, she'd taken up trying to come up with lyrics of her own, but it had less to do with her mother and what she did and more with one or another of her uncles, they couldn't say which one exactly, who had shown her how funny it could be. Just now – if she could manage not to make herself laugh so much that she couldn't get the words out – she was treating her father to a lively little tune about a bunch of broccoli people and a curious mouse. Lucas only hoped either one of them would remember the lyrics later on, because he was hardly in the position to grab his phone and he knew Maya would wish she had gotten to hear this.
"I mean, that's just inspired, good job," Lucas smirked, bending to kiss the top of her head when her song finally came to a glorious end that made the horse draw to a stop like it was simply in awe. Marianne tipped her head back to smile at him, lifting her hand to bring shade over her eyes. "Are you going to sing it again for the little sisters?" he asked, and she nodded. "What about me? Are you going to sing it to me again?"
"Sure!" she promised, tipping her head forward again to the terrain ahead of them. It was so familiar to her now, to both of them, but it never got old. "Dad?" she asked, the trail of the very short word suggesting another question, very likely a request, was to follow.
"Yes, pumpkin?" he asked back as he led the horse along.
"Can we have a Sleepster before my birthday?" Marianne asked. "Doesn't have to be a big one, it can be just the people in the city… and Houston, too," she added after a beat.
"A Sleepster, huh?" he slowly asked, as though it demanded a lot of consideration. She only nodded, still waiting to know if he planned to say yes. "Who would you want to be there?" Clearly, she had been thinking about this for a while already; she had her answer right there when he asked.
"You and Mommy," she started.
"Oh, good, thank you," he smiled. She kept going.
"Me and all my sisters, and Tori. Nellie, and Gracie, and MJ and Haley," she recited, little pauses seeded in like she'd broken it down in order to remember. "Winnie, and Harper and June, and Lily, and… Can Mosi come?"
"We'd have to ask his parents, but if they say yes, sure. Anybody else?"
"Turtles," she told him, and she didn't need to go any further for him to know who was included there. "And cousins," she went on. Francesca and Felix. Their parents went without saying. That was about all she could think of, so the list stopped there. It made for a very sizable group already, so it was probably a good thing she hadn't wanted it to be 'a big one' or they would have been overrun like last time.
"I'll see what we can do about that, okay?" he asked her, and she was satisfied. "Want to go a little faster before we head back?" he asked. He got a big nod, and he chuckled. As she wished, so she'd receive.
Once they'd gotten the horse back to the stables and gotten through 'the goodbye routine,' which was to say that between the stable and the parking lot they were stopped more than a few times by one person or another who wanted to talk, they got in the car and made their way to the comic book store. They had gone a long way to help her as she was learning to read. Suddenly, there was much more to them than the colorful images and the stories she could imagine for herself out of them. Now, she was starting to discover the stories that were actually there, in word-filled bubbles. Sometimes, she'd get just a bit disappointed, like she'd been so attached to the story she'd already come up with and the 'real' one was not at all what she expected. All in all, though, they were still stories that she was happy to follow, especially when she'd be able to read them on her own. It was a work in progress.
"I want to give him one of our pumpkins," Marianne told Lucas after they left the store. She carried the bag of their purchases secure in one of her arms, pressed to her chest, while she held her father's hand.
"Who, Peter?" Lucas asked, looking at her to find a look that read like 'obviously, Daddy.' "I'm sure he'd love that. Just the pumpkin like that, or should we carve it first?" he wondered. Marianne's eyes sparked with a new idea.
"Can we make it with characters?" she asked, and he knew just what she had in mind.
"We might have to ask your mother to help for that one… Or your Aunt Dora," he reflected. "Wood, pumpkins, I'm sure she'll do great."
"Uncle Sam, too," Marianne added, and he laughed. To this day, she continued to see him as one of her favorite people, and the feeling was as ever mutual. It felt like just a moment ago that Maya's brother would sit there talking to his newborn niece with such fascination to him.
"Tell you what, when I call them about the Sleepster, we can discuss pumpkin designs."
He would have kept his promise either way, but then it was made infinitely easier for the fact that, when they arrived back at the house, Sam, Dora, and Francesca were already there, visiting. Marianne sprinted over to her uncle and aunt, sharing her plan for Peter's pumpkin. Even as she'd speak to them both, she wouldn't be able to keep herself from gravitating toward her aunt. Dora was seven months along in this second pregnancy, and according to her, she was massive. She had definitely been smaller, at this point in time with Francesca, but they wouldn't go so far as to call her that.
Sam and Dora already knew that they were having a boy. They had told some people, though they were doing their best to keep it a secret from the children. Lately, they were working as covertly but purposefully as they could to win over their daughter. When she'd first found out she would be a big sister, the five-year-old had been adamant that she did not want a brother, but now they knew that was what she was getting, and they just wanted her to come to be happy about it on her own, before Baby Boy Calahart came into the world. Sam suspected maybe that Francesca had it in mind to be like her cousins, the Friars, all of them sisters together. The easiest way they had known how to suggest that, hey, baby brothers could be pretty cool, too, had been to either enable as much play time with Cousin Felix as possible, or for her to see her own father hanging out with his big sister Maya, to see how they loved being brother and sister together, the same with her mother and her brothers. It wasn't a stretch for any of them so, with any luck, it would all turn out well.
Between her aunt, uncle, and mother, Marianne could not have asked for a better team to bring the Peter Pumpkin to life. They spent what could be called an inordinate amount of time figuring out the design, which, after several years and as many pumpkin harvests, was getting to be fairly easy for them to plot out. The hardest part was actually agreeing on the featured elements and their details. Sam, their resident comic artist, saw to the actual final sketch, and early after dinner, the carving began.
The next morning, never more eager to go, Marianne joined her father for a second trip to the store in as many days, the better for them to surprise their good friend Peter. His surprise was as genuine as could be, to the point of shedding happy tears. He thanked the architect of this plan and hugged her, and they posed together next to the pumpkin, to remember it long after this day. The other customers in the store were just as amazed when they came to have a closer look.
"That was fun, wasn't it?" Lucas asked Marianne when they left again.
"It was so fun," she agreed, making him laugh. "Can we do more, Daddy?"
"I don't see why not. Who else do you have in mind?"
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
