The Collector

Jodi needed more badges. She already had her Knots, her Woodcraft, her Homemaker and her Sewing badges. But that wasn’t enough. The other girls in her troop had so many badges that their sleeves were overflowing. She just had to catch up! But how?

Looking out her window at the snow-covered back yard on McLynn Avenue in Montreal, she suddenly realized that she could do a 2-fer. She could get her Winter Survival Crafts badge and her Hiking badge all in one, simply by tramping through the woods on Mount Royal and having a cookout in the snow. Come to think of it, she could earn her Orienteering badge at the same time. And, if she could convince her kid sister to come along, she might even wangle her Baby Sitting badge. A 4-fer! Not bad for a single Saturday outing.

Fortunately, eight-year old Babs was so stunned to be invited to share an adventure with her 'big sister' that she didn’t think of objecting to being dragged through the woods on a cold winter day. Jodi proposed her plan to her troop leader, Captain Maude, who agreed to the ambitious agenda, and arranged to meet the girls at the scenic overlook at 3:00 the following Saturday, to formally attest to Jodi's accomplishments.

Saturday morning, Mom filled a large thermos with hot cocoa, which Jodi fitted into her knapsack beside the packages of hot dogs, buns, chips, condiments, matches and aluminum foil. Jodi's Dad dropped the girls off at their starting point, and the adventure began. The hiking route ran along a well-marked winding path from Beaver Lake, which was halfway up the mountain, through an open field and into the woods. It took only a half hour before the whining started. “Jodi, I’m cold,” she heard from Babs, who was dragging along behind her. “And I gotta pee.”

It was a short detour to the public restrooms, where Babs took a minute to undo her snowsuit, two minutes to take care of business, and ten minutes to suit back up. “C’mon, Sis,” Jodi urged. “We’re behind schedule. We need to be at the top of the hill in an hour so that we can have our picnic before Captain Maude gets there.”

“I’m going as fast as I can. This snow is so deep, an' it’s getting inside my boots.” Jodi could hear her sister’s tears close to the surface. “Just try to walk where I’ve walked,” she suggested, not unkindly, as she turned around to see poor Babs struggling through thigh-deep snow. “If you put your feet where mine were, you won’t sink in so far.”

“But I’m COLD!”

“You’ll get warm as soon as we start walking up that hill.” Jodi pointed ahead at the path, that was starting to climb into the woods.

“I’ll never make it. I want to go home NOW! I WANT MOMMY!” Babs cried, her streaming tears freezing into miniature stalactites as they drooled down her red cheeks.

“Mom and Dad are meeting us at the top of the hill - at the scenic overlook - along with Captain Maude,” Jodi assured her, asking herself whether this 4-fer had been such a good idea after all. “Let’s stop a couple of minutes and have some cocoa - it’ll warm you up.”

Mollified by the cocoa and the few minutes rest, Babs fell back into line behind Jodi. After what seemed like hours to the eight-year old, they reached the hilltop. “Now for our campfire,” Jodi said, as opened her knapsack and reached inside.

“But, there’s snow all over the place. How’re you gonna make a fire in the snow? I’m hungry an' I’m cold an' you can’t make a fire in the snow. You were fooling me about the fire. I’m gonna tell Mommy on you. You made me come all this way and there’s no fire to cook the hot dogs and I WANNA GO HOME NOW!”

“Oh, shush,” Jodi exclaimed, more than a little exasperated, a piece of aluminum foil and box of matches in her hands. "Let's gather some sticks. I’ll make a fire. You’ll see!”

Still grumbling, Babs helped Jodi gather wood. Carefully, Jodi unfolded a piece of aluminum foil and placed it on top of the snow. Then she removed a sheet of newspaper from her knapsack, crumbled it and placed it on the foil. She used some of the small twigs to build a tepee around the ball of newspaper, and built up small log walls around the tepee.

“What are you doing?” Babs asked, intrigued in spite of herself. “You said you were making a fire, but that looks like doll houses made out of sticks.”

“Just watch and learn,” Jodi proclaimed in her smuggest ‘big sister’ tone, as she struck a match and held the flame to the paper.

The crumbled newspaper caught and sent its flames through the tepee, setting fire to the small sticks. As the tepee began to burn, Jodi carefully pushed the log walls closer to the flames, feeding the fire with larger and larger pieces of wood. Soon, the fire was hot enough to dry Babs’ tears and to burn the hot dogs to a crisp - the best way to eat hot dogs on a cold winter day.

“Did you girls have a good time?”

Jodi and Babs turned to see Mom and Dad, with Captain Maude standing beside them. “Oh, yes,” Babs replied breathlessly. “This was fun. Can we do it again tomorrow?”

2013© Phyllis Entis. All rights reserved.

A Note of Explanation: The prompt for this story was a winter experience.

The Quest

It was a typical January day - minus 20ºF. A good day for indoor chores like dusting furniture, washing floors or scrubbing the shower.

Marcia had stripped to her underwear and was kneeling inside the white-tiled shower stall. She was attacking the grey-brown grout with a plastic ‘Scrubby’ sponge and some cleanser, trying to restore the original pristine white color of the grout lines. It was a painstaking process, but what else was there to do on a January day in Winnipeg?

Marcia had been at her task for about an hour when she paused to admire her progress. One wall done - just two more walls and the shower floor to go. She’d be finished in time to prepare dinner. She moistened her Scrubby, shook the can of cleanser, and was about to start on the second wall when she realized that the can was empty. Oh well, better get the spare can, she thought. Fortunately, no one could see into her apartment, which was on the 14th floor of the tallest building in the neighborhood.

Paddling barefoot to the kitchen cupboard where her cleaning supplies resided between their occasional outings, Marcia reached for a virgin can of cleanser. But the spare can that she knew (or thought she knew) to be in the cupboard could not be found. Then she remembered. Only the week before, a neighbor asked to 'borrow' some cleanser and Bob, her accommodating husband, handed over their last unopened can. Unfortunately, she didn’t know which neighbor had kidnapped her cleanser.

Sighing, Marcia dressed and prepared to track down the errant cleanser. Most likely, it had come to rest at one of the other units on her floor. She knocked at apartment 1401. No answer. Apartments 1403 and 1404, likewise. Finally, her knock at 1405 brought results. “Oh yes, dearie,” silver-haired Mrs. Stickley replied with a gentle smile as she rested her hand on Marcia’s forearm. “That was so nice of your Bob to give me the cleanser. I used some and then that sweet Mr. Selby in apartment 1208 asked if he could borrow it. You know - that nice old man who is hard of hearing. No, I don’t know his phone number. But he’s almost always home. Why, he told me only last week...”

Marcia escaped from Mrs. Stickley’s tender but insistent grasp, and rode the elevator down to the 12th floor. After five minutes of progressively louder knocks, Mr. Selby finally opened his door a crack and peered out. “What's that you said? The cloister? Oh, the cleanser? Yes, I remember now. Mrs. Stickley said that she didn’t need it back, so I gave the rest to Mrs. Pewarchuk in 705.”

One hour later, after following a trail that led from Mrs. Pewarchuk in 705, to Mr. Soames in 1002, and thence to Mlle. Lefebvre in 306, Marcia arrived, tired but victorious, back at her own door. As she reached into her pocket for the key, her air of triumph transformed into frustration. She turned abruptly, rode the elevator down to the lobby and rang for the superintendent. “I’ve locked myself out of my apartment,” Marcia growled into the intercom speaker. “Could you please come up to 1402 and open the door?”

“Ya, OK,” a tinny voice crackled back at her. “I be there soon soon.”

In no time at all - only a half hour or so - Marcia reentered her apartment, clutching her cleanser. She undressed, walked back into the shower stall, wet her Scrubby, shook the can and stared in disbelief. Not even a single white grain on the sponge! Just then, the phone rang. She raced to answer, almost slipping on the bathroom floor in her haste.

“Hello, honey,” she heard Bob say. “How’s your day going?”

“Dear,” she replied, “you don’t want to hear about it!”

©2013 Phyllis Entis. All rights reserved.

A Note of Explanation: The prompt for this piece of fiction was "You don't want to hear about it."