“That was fun,” said Bluebell, tossing flower petals to the left and to the right, and then over her head.
Primrose, who was standing on her head to scratch an ankle with one hand, pointed an accusatory finger with the other. “You said they were boring.”
Blubell nodded. “That’s what it was fun to push them I the mud.”
“And we had puppies to play with.” Sweet Pea was wiping fragments of grass from a faucet on the side of the field house, using other fragments of grass.
Meadow Saffron sighed. “I hated breaking the leash that way.”
“Oh, yes.” Sweet Pea looked up. “I was afraid the puppies would get hurt, too.”
Meadow Saffron sat on the handle of the faucet. “Plus it tasted terrible.”
Sweet Pea flew to Unfirom, who was watching the couple depart. “Would the puppies have gotten hurt?”
“Perhaps.” The angel’s eyes remained on the couple. “None of us could have gone beyond the park to save them.”
“I grabbed the leash,” she pointed out. “But it just dragged me along.”
“Could have sworn you were fat enough to anchor it,” said Bluebell.
“So what’s going to happen?” asked Primrose, flying to the angel’s nearer ear as Sweet Pea shot off in pursuit of Bluebell, thumb and forefinger extended for a devastating pinch.
The angel’s head did not move. “I believe it will clear up.”
“No!” She kicked at his earlobe and missed. “To them!”
Now he looked down. “I meant them. They will Do It on exactly the same day as before, but eleven minutes later.”
Meadow Saffron tipped her head to one side and put a forefinger on her chin. “Does that make a difference?”
“It will.” The angel raised his eyes to Sweet Pea and Bluebell as they shot overhead, the phron in the lead shrieking “Yowp yowp yowp yowp yowp!”
“Come on, kid!” Primrose was above the angel’s head, shouting to her speeding sisters. “I could’ve pinched her pink and purple by this time!”
“As fat as you are?” demanded Meadow Saffron, flying up to pick out a patch to pinch. In moments, four phronik were shrieking back and forth through the sky.
Unfirom watched for a moment, but this was something he had seen before. And he knew that no matter how much they chased each other, they could not be worn down to a point at which they’d all be quiet. Hope was reserved for mortals.
Someone was hanging a sheet along the backstop of the softball diamond. Sytriding over, the angel found that hope had not yet forsaken the neighborhood activist, who was struggling to hang on to the middle of the big banner and adjust both corners at once.
Unfirom took a few steps back to study this new text, now obscured by a fold of fabric, and then by a gust of wind. He nodded.
FRIENDS OF GRIESE PARK NEED TO UNITE AGAINST MERCENARY BUREAUCRATS WHO WOULD RESTTRICT THE PARK TO ELITE PATRONS OF AN ART MUSEUM!!!!!
The protestor stepped back herself, frowning either at the expressed sentiment or the draping of the banner. A corner slid toward the dirt and she lunged for it, which kept her from observing a flying oblong coming that direction.
Unfirom scanned the air for phronik. They were not to be found. He was supposed to be unsurprisable, but somehow it always startled him to find disaster striking without their assistance.
The developer, still reluctant to return to the office, passed the softball diamond which had had decided would be the easiest thing to tear down first. A woman all wrapped in canvas wobbled against the backstop while a greasy kid who should have been in school at this hour asked her if she’d seen his skateboard. He lingered, supposing this was just an excuse to mug the mummy. He disliked skateboards, which would be banned from the park, lest damage occur to the flowerbeds.
The boy was content to find his undamaged skateboard upright against the fence, and moved on. So did the developer, frowning at the horse-drawn carriages carrying a party of sightseers. Yjeu’d have to be prohibited in this neighborhood, too: they really played hob with the traffic.
Unfirom watched the protestor drop to the ground and start to roll herself free, smudging the banner in the mud at home base. She was one of those people positively destined to be bruised by everything she attempted. There was nothing he could do about that.
Something he could do was not far away: his eyes widened. The phronik, now that he needed them, were of course neither to be heard nor seen. Since they could not possibly stay quiet for long, he stayed where he was, head tipped to the side to listen.
The song grew louder as he marched toward the fieldhouse.
“Lola found a chemical I oxtail stew
That made a scratchy record sound like it was new;
It worked on shellac, doughnut discs, and thirty-threes
But didn’t do a thing for nasty old CDs.
Percolator, coffeemaker,
Subaru and Studebaker:
All ya got is all yer gonna get;
Waddya bet?”
Primrose was at it again in the kitchen, but this time she sat cross-legged on top of the stove. She wore a bay leaf behind one ear, and waved a wooden spoon to direct her forces.
“Do you have that cup of light brown sugar yet?” she demanded, directing the spoon at Meadow Saffron.
“Well….” Meadow Saffron stood back from the heaping cup of sugar. “It’s nice and light in the middle, but it’s white on top and way too dark on the bottom.” She flew back to the open bottle of Worcestershire Sauce, and tipped this forward. “It needs more work.”
Primrose twirled the spoon above her head. “Put that at the top, but if it’s still too dark at the bottom, add flour. That’s light.” She swiveled on her buttocks to swing the spoon toward Sweet Pea. “What about the six tablespoons of butter?”
Two of the siz tablespoons fanned out on the countertop had butter in them and three were empty. Sweet Pea was stomping butter into the remaining tablespoon, raising each knee nearly to her chin as she worked. “Oh, my feet go squishy squishy!” she squealed, paying no attention to Primrose at all.
The chef shrugged, and wriggled around toward the refrigerator. “We still need that egg!”
“I’ll get one over there yet!” Bluebell shot out of the fridge, an egg nearly as big as she was held above her head. She did, indeed, get halfway to the counter before this slipped and joined the five other piles of egg and shell on the floor.
She kicked herself in the right ear. “Why, oh why, can’t chickens make eggs with handles?”
“Just out of curiosity,” said Unfirom, stepping into the room. “Why are you just sitting there instead of helping to carry the eggs?”
Primrose stared at him, exasperation all across her expression. “The recipe says to preheat the oven,” she declared, swinging her spoon toward the battered blue cookbook, “So I’m sitting on it to warm it up!”
The angel accepted this without comment. “Do you suppose you could come out here and cook up something else?”
“Oh, I suppose.” Primrose tossed the spoon toward the book. “That would give me time to figure out where to find a vanilla to squeeze.”
Unfirom accepted this as well. None of the phronik objected to leaving the laboratory, though Bluebell flew backward, her eyes on the refrigerator as if longing for another try.
“There.” The angel indicated a park bench.
There was no sound—except for that of Sweet Pea sucking butter from her toes—for a moment as the phronik looked from the gray-haired woman on the bench to the black-haired man lurching along the sidewalk.
Then Meadow Saffron flew upside-down to a spot in front of the angel’s eyes. “You’re joking.”
“Them?” Primrose demanded. “When are THEY going to Do It?”
“She,” said Unfirom, “Is not going to Do It at all. He is going to Do It TO her. Then, because she won’t stop screaming, he will strike her repeatedly with a can of pork and beans from that bag. He will be caught two hours after he kills her, still carrying the pork and beans. He will manage things so they do not take him alive.”
“Oog,” said Primrose, her nose wrinkling so much it nearly disappeared. “Is he worth bothering about?”
“She may be,” the angel said.
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