Pink Flamingoed (22 page)

Cora looked up and noticed the UPS man taking a
package to Amy. As the driver was leaving, Cora hollered at her next-door
neighbor. “We got something, too, Amy. If you don’t mind, bring yours over here
and we’ll open them together.”

“Looks like Brad got something, too,” Amy said, seeing
the UPS man headed to Brad’s house.

Once the driver had left, Amy got Brad’s attention and
motioned for him to bring his package over to Frank and Cora’s.

Frank returned with the knife and saw that the package
seemed to have multiplied.

“Wow! This seems like Christmas,” Frank exclaimed.

“I was thinking more along the line of each package
containing a bomb,” Brad said.

“You would,” Amy countered.

Since none of the packages were shaped exactly the
same, it did not appear that each box contained the same thing. To put an end
to the suspense, Frank took the knife and opened the box Cora was holding.

“What in the world?” Cora exclaimed, after removing
the object.

“I know what it is,” Brad surmised. “It’s the beak
from our flamingo.”

“You know, I think you’re right,” Amy agreed.

“Of course, I’m right,” Brad said. “I’m the mystery
writer.”

“I thought they’re whodunits,” Amy reminded him.

“Go ahead, Amy. You’re next,” Cora prodded.

Amy opened her package and found another part of the
flamingo, and Brad followed suit, finding yet another piece.

“Hey,” Amy said. “Maybe if she sends us all of the
pieces, we’ll be able to glue it back together and continue with our fund
raiser.”

“Remember, Amy. I have a back-up plan,” Cora reminded.

+++

The quartet was too busy seeing what they had received
to notice that most of the street’s other residents received a package, too. After
everyone had opened their packages, several of them got together in the street
to compare their gifts. It seemed that everyone who received something was
there, except for Harry.

Everyone surmised that the old lady did not dole out
the pieces  haphazardly.  She thought carefully before deciding who got which
part of the plastic bird. It was only fitting that Cora received the beak,
while Harry was the only person to receive two pieces; a piece of the neck, one
side of which was painted red, and a piece of the tail. Barney was the only
other person to receive a piece painted red, which pleased him tremendously.

Even though Harry was the only one to receive a piece
of the flamingo who did not take part in the street’s show-and-tell time, he
sat in his house smiling, assured that his problems were over.

+++

The next morning, Harry woke, more chipper than he had
been in a few days. He looked out the window, saw that the sun was shining, and
decided to go out on the front porch to enjoy the morning breeze.

“Aiiiiiiiiiii! Aiiiiiiiiiii! Aiiiiiiiiiii!”

Once again Ethel came to the rescue to see what was
wrong. Harry stood just inside the front door, looking at a pink flamingo,
which hung from the door casing with a rope around its neck.

“But, but, how did she do that?” Harry asked. “I can’t
even tell where she glued it together, and how did she do it anyway. I still
have my two pieces.”

“Harry, I’d say that Cora purchased a backup flamingo.
Either that, or someone cloned the other one.”

Harry just stood there and wondered if he would ever
be able to walk out of the house again.

+++

Just as before, news traveled fast, and the news of
Harry’s demise was greatly exaggerated. Because Harry was in such a state of
shock, Ethel had to place the flamingo that evening. She had no trouble
deciding who would receive a yard ornament. She thought the Armbruster children
had done without a flamingo long enough.   Mallory was the first to spot the
flamingo the next morning, and she hurried to share her good news with the rest
of the family. Everyone gathered to discuss who would be the recipient of their
windfall. Each Armbruster voted. There was a five-way tie.  Scott, being the
father and the head of the family, decided to sequester the jury until a
verdict had been reached. When all was said and done, Doc was awarded the grand
prize. A creative bunch, the Armbruster family decorated the bird for Doc, thus
making it more special.

“How about if we hang a John 3:16 sign around its neck,” Kenny suggested.

“Oh, that’s so overused,” Mallory said.

Scott was surprised that she did not use the word
trite, but then he figured that either Mallory did not think her brother knew
the meaning of the word, or had decided not to use it because they were talking
about the Bible.

“I think a Bible verse would be great,” their dad
said. “Since we’re taking it to Doc, how about either Luke 4:23 or Jeremiah 30:17?”

None of the Armbruster children had memorized either
verse, so Jill ran to get her Bible so she could look them up. Everyone liked
both verses so much that they decided to use both of them. Also, because they
were taking the flamingo to Doc, they purchased a stethoscope and hung it
around the flamingo’s neck. Mallory was the one who discovered the flamingo, so
everyone agreed to let her be the one to place it in the ground. She thought of
it as one giant step for womankind.

+++

The flamingo traveled from house to house for a month,
until six hundred dollars was raised. Doc noticed the flamingo in his yard when
he got home one day and thought about who he would give it to. Before he went
to the office the next morning, Doc went shopping for a pair of red socks.
Barney received the flamingo with  delight  and  was  especially pleased to
receive a new pair of socks. That night, Barney took the flamingo and placed it
in Bertha’s yard, along with one dozen red roses, a love poem, and a
twenty-dollar bill. Bertha passed it on to Lady Catherine. Barney’s idea of the
poem prompted her to include a love sonnet and a page from the script of
Romeo
and Juliet.
She knew they would appeal to Lady Catherine. The next evening,
Lady Catherine traipsed across the street to Frank and Cora’s and placed the
flamingo in their yard, along with an autographed picture of herself. The
following night, Cora moved it to Amy’s, and placed a ring from her shower
curtain over the flamingo’s beak. Amy, in turn, trotted it over to Brad’s,
along with a note that said, “Would you like to go on a picnic with me on
Friday?” The next night, Amy found a flamingo in her yard, again, with a sign
around its neck that said, “Yes.” Amy had to find another home for the plastic
pink fellow, so she opted to take it to Melanie, who had not yet received it.
This time Amy tied a “For Sale” sign around its neck. Melanie, laughed when she
saw it, tied a dust jacket from a book and a small plastic suitcase around its
neck, and left it at Jim and Kathy Mitchell’s. She hoped that they would find
it sometime that day. Kathy saw it on her way out to a yard sale with her
daughter.

The bird continued to move each day. At the end of the
month, when all the money had been raised, everyone but Harry agreed that it
was the best fund raiser they had ever had. The flamingo was retired to Frank
and Cora’s attic, where it would be available to be retrieved the next time
Cora deemed it necessary.

+++

While the group’s nocturnal activities were going on,
daytime business proceeded as usual. There were gardens to be tended, lawns to
be mowed, photographs to be taken, books to be finished, and an unborn baby to
nurture. All of the ladies of the church were eager to know whether the baby Nancy was carrying was a boy or a girl, but they would have to wait. Scott and Nancy had
decided that they did not want to know the sex of their baby until he or she
was born.

Nancy had come to the conclusion that she was either
going to have to dig out some of the maternity clothes she wore more than five
years before or go shopping for some new ones. Whatever her decision, her
current clothes were at the point where they had stretched all they were
willing to stretch. So, the Sunday after Mother’s Day, Nancy showed up in a
maternity dress. Each of the ladies of the church made sure that they told Nancy how nice she looked in it.

The expectant parents said their only concern was for
the health of their baby, but Kenny openly admitted that he was praying for a
brother. Jill and Mallory thought a baby brother might be okay, but each of
them preferred to have another sister.

+++

While Nancy looked forward to giving birth to her
fourth child, Brad anticipated giving birth to his sixth book. Five months
after he began to write, Brad finished his latest whodunit. This allowed him to
spend more time with Amy. He thanked God for giving him a talent for writing
and a neighbor to spend time with when he was not writing.

Always eager to celebrate, Brad decided that each book
should be celebrated twice, once when it was finished and again when it was
published. All celebrations must take place with his next-door neighbor. So,
minus the white horse and carriage, and their neighborhood friends, Brad and
Amy headed once again to Martinelli’s to celebrate. Amy looked across the table
at Brad. Unlike her previous visit to Martinelli’s, this time there were no
neighbors to distract her. She could focus all of her attention on the man she
loved, the man who sat across the table from her.

“You don’t know how good it is just to be able to sit
and look at you and to have you all to myself,” Amy said, meaning every word.

“Yes, I do,” Brad replied, “if it’s anything like what
I feel to be able to sit across from you and just stare at you and not wonder
who’s looking at us.”

“Brad, since your book is finished, will it really be
like the old days, when we seemed to be together all the time?”

“The old days? Do you mean those three weeks in
December?”

“Was that all it was? All I’ve had of you recently
were those memories, so I guess maybe I magnified them so that it seemed
longer. I just know that the time without you has seemed oh so long.”

The young couple drank in the moment of being
together.  They took advantage of the better weather and walked home, holding
hands all the way.

+++

The sun shone down on Aylesford Place. Brad and Amy
sat on Brad’s porch sipping a glass of lemonade when they noticed Allison and
Chuck coming out of Allison’s house. Chuck scheduled some form of exercise
every day. During the summer when there was no school, he rode his bike to
Allison’s several times each week. Allison was big into physical fitness before
her accident and Chuck encouraged her to exercise with him.

“Wonder what the athletes are up to today?” Brad asked
Amy.

“There’s no telling, but Chuck has been good for
Allison.”

“Yeah, most of the time.”

“What do you mean, ‘most of the time?’”

“Remember a couple of weeks ago when he tried to hoist
her onto his bike and they tumbled onto the grass?”

“Yeah, that was funny.”

Because there was little traffic on Aylesford Place, Chuck and Allison navigated the street with little difficulty. All the
residents parked their cars in their driveways. Aylesford Place was a wide
street, so it gave Chuck and Allison a lot of room to maneuver. Recently,
Allison bought her third wheelchair, a racing model, and sometimes she raced
Chuck to see if her wheelchair could beat his bike to the park entrance.

Brad and Amy looked at Chuck and Allison. “Wonder what
they’re up to now?” Brad asked, as he and Amy watched Chuck set up orange cones
at different intervals down the street.”

“I don’t know. Look at Allison. She’s in a different
chair, and she has on knee pads, elbow pads, and a bike helmet. I’m not sure I
like the looks of this,” Amy replied.

Brad and Amy continued to watch as Chuck finished
placing the cones and came back to Allison. They talked for a moment. Then,
Chuck got on his bike, and he and Allison headed toward the street. Chuck tied
a rope around his bike and threw it back to Allison.

“Oh, no,” Brad exclaimed.

“What?” Amy asked.

Before Brad could answer, Chuck and Allison took off
down the street. Much like a motor boat pulling a water skier, Chuck maneuvered
around the orange cones and pulled Allison through the slalom course until they
passed the last cone.

“That was fun. Let’s try it again,” Allison said.

“Are you sure?” Chuck asked.

“Of course. Let’s just start from here and go back.”

Chuck and Allison slalomed back up the street and all
was well until Allison noticed Brad and Amy and took her eyes off the orange
cone ahead of her. At the last minute, she tried to swerve to avoid a head-on
collision with a cone. In doing so, Allison let go of the rope, but not before
she hit the curb and tumbled partly onto the sidewalk and partly onto the grass
in front of Brad’s house. Chuck hit the brakes, stopped, turned around, and
raced toward Allison. He got to her at the same time Brad and Amy did.