Category: About Writing

Lego: Bosley’s Builders 9

Jackie’s Grief

Jed, Dan and Tim loaded cover-plates onto the trailer, from wherever they were stored.

Wendy drove the tractor and trailer to and fro the places where the plates were to be installed.

Dan pushed the plates across the trailer to clatter to the ground. From where Tim and Jed dragged them into place and then tamped the plates to fix them to the foundations.

When she was done with the fetching, Wendy went to hide in her hut, to try not to hear the clattering and Jed’s constant commands. Who said we need him to order us around? Before we had him, we’ve always worked well together. Bosley had no complaints.
 
This was her last day before needing to go off-site to her paying job, and she had to listen to Jed harrying them all so he could make a good impression? What is it with the guy? I really don’t enjoy being here when Bosley isn’t here too. Wonder if Bos even knows how I feel?
 
Oh no. She heard Jed decide they might as well start building the store’s rear wall. She heard Dan and Tim drag a white beam over the studs. Rattle-rattle. Are they fools, she thought. Bos as good as said the foundations had to settle before the walls were begun.
 
Even Dan was taken in, and that after his upset over Jed’s selfish attitude. I can’t stand it. I’m going to have word with Dan. Find out what he really thinks. I’ll be very disappointed if … she opened her door and beckoned Dan.
 
Trish drew Jackie away with her. “What say we build a bridge from the roof of your cabin to my garden?”

Jackie smiled tremulously. “Will we be able to fence my roof too?”
 
“I don’t know,” Trish said. “We’ll have a look at the materials situation.”
 
After they did that, and found not enough panels to fence Jackie’s roof, Jackie seemed to fade and Trish couldn’t think of anything more to say. She did a lot of thinking, however, while they moved planks from the ground floor to the upper walkway, and from there to the roof, and then lay the planks across.

She reflected on Jackie’s moods as they showed in Jackie’s demeanor since Jed and Jackie arrived. Jackie happy and smiling while building and installing the cabin. Like she had an expectation. Jackie glum and sad since the night that had Jed marauding around for half of it getting his crane safe.
 
OK, so maybe they quarreled. It’s not my job to convince them to kiss and make up. Wonder what Nin Wiz heard? He’s totally taken against Jed. Enough to make anyone suspicious. Is there time for a coffee break with Tim, and possibly Nin before I ask Jackie? Should I?
 
“You know,” Trish said at the end of the job. “I haven’t even seen how you’ve fixed the inside of your cabin.”
 
Jackie burst into tears.
 
 As if you didn’t know that was on the cards, Trish roused at herself. “Changed my mind. Come into my cabin for a break? Tim fixed our coffee machine.”
 
When she saw Wendy crossing from where she’d had a word with Dan, Trish beckoned her over too.
 
“Smells like you fixed the coffee machine?” Wendy said as she followed Trish into Trish’s cabin.
 
“I thought Jackie might like to tell us her problem over a coffee,” Trish said, passing them a steaming mug each. “Maybe we can help?”
 
Jackie suddenly sobbed. “I miss our baby so much!”
 
Trish and Wendy exchanged glances and Wendy squashed in on Jackie’s other side on the bed. She hugged her arm over Jackie’s shoulder. “You and Jed have a baby? Boy or girl? How old?”
 
“B-b-boy,” Jackie said. “Joey. He’s six months old and Jed said to leave him at Jed’s mother’s, and she said a building site is never going to be place for a kiddie. And Jed said that you-all just wanted workers. That you wouldn’t want us if you knew we had a baby!” She cried aloud now. “Hu-hu-hu!”
 
“What’s up?” Tim said from the door. “I came because I smelled the coffee?” He sidled in and shut the door.
 
Trish and Wendy filled him in. Wendy fierce. “I knew there’s something off about that man!”
 
“Jed is half-right,” Tim said reasonably. “Bosley’s does want workers. Don’t we?”
 
“Nobody has ever said anything about us not liking babies,” Trish said. “Or wanting to have kids around,” she said with a dark look that had Tim blushing.
 
“It’s never come up yet. Or has it?” he said, asking Wendy.
 
“Has not come up,” she said grudgingly. “Although mothers and babies are my bread and butter, the subject has not come up. In fact, I think sometimes people here ignore what life is really about …”
 
Tim interrupted. “Dan told me just now that tomorrow he’ll be driving you to your paying job?”
 
“Yes. He is,” Wendy said. “Don’t mind me getting onto my hobby horse,” she said tartly. “I’ll be doing a three-months mid-wife locum stint at the Town Clinic. Why don’t you come with me, Jackie? You and Joey can bunk with me in my accommodation. I have a large room.”
 
“That’s a great idea,” Trish said. “By the time you come back we’re bound to have progressed quite a lot. I’ll make sure that you have a fenced yard. Tim, can you bunk with Nin tonight?”
 
“Hardly,” Tim said. “Not enough room at Nin’s to swing a cat.”
 
“Nope,” Wendy said. “I’ll bunk with Jackie. Jed can sleep in his beloved truck. You want to let Jed know or will I?”
 
“You should, Wendy,” Trish said. “Time Jed discovered who is in charge when Bos or Drew aren’t here. You and me,” she said at Tim. She pointed at the ceiling. “Upstairs. Bring our coffees?”

Cat tales 19

My proper, Hand-of-God life, as backyard guardian, started when these frog eggs hatched. The next day, my human carefully emptied all three buckets into the bath in the backyard. A few hours later hundreds of tiny tadpoles wriggled up to get a breath of air, and down to the floor of the pond to get food. And repeated that all day. I studied them for hours.

Their first danger was the egret that came every day. It seemed to know when it was safe. If it came at dawn, I’d be stuck in the house because the pernickety old woman still lay in bed. In the daytime, I might be inside because the pernickety old woman had gone down the street for some shopping.

I stalked from left to right and left sweeping my tail angrily behind the glass doors, hoping Mr Egret would see me and feel threatened by my scary puffed-up black and white shape. But he didn’t appear to be able to see through glass. My human and I had learned from the TV that only intelligent—whatever that means—animals could see through glass or see themselves in mirrors. I have no trouble whatever with either of those types of glass though I confess that the TV sometimes tricks me.

When Mr Egret first arrived, he’d perch on the corner of the garden bed, and would stare for many minutes in every direction. If no movement anywhere—despite me at my performance— he’d half-open his wings and use a slight downward thrust to hop onto the corner of the pond-bath that was mine! He’d start with his scooping action, scooping up a few of the tadpoles at the time, many many times. Every time he’d been for a meal, I expected the crowd in the pond to have been quartered or even halved.

But it didn’t turn out too bad. The babies grew very fast and filled the empty spaces. And they ate everything suitable for them in a matter of three days. When my human and I started to see skinny tadpoles, we knew we had to do something. She researched food for tadpoles and took off down the street. That first day she brought back an oak-leaf lettuce, a tadpole delicacy, she said. I couldn’t see why, surely they’d need something more heartening? She floated the lettuce in the bath to see what would happen.

They loved it. Ate and ate until the remnants sank. My human had already fetched in another lettuce, a different look about the thing, which the little animals barely touched. Oh no! We were back at the beginning plus one. The plus one referring to their growth so far, of course.

“I couldn’t get an oak-leaf,” my human said. “How would they even know the difference?” There were a few things I could’ve said, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. “Maybe they’ll eat fish food,” she said. “If I leave you in the backyard will you still be here when I get back? The Pet Shop is just around the corner.

Humans have a saying for how I decided I would communicate my intention. I tried to remember how it went. Ah. I remember. I arranged my face, and even my body to say Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. Though I might be making a mistake about that saying. I’m not human, after all. It doesn’t sound all that applicable. What I meant to say, Yes I’ll be here. Yes, I’ll be good.

And so I was when my human returned with fish food flakes. They smelled so good I was tempted to jump into the water after them. But in fact, upon getting a good sniff of them herself, she realized their attraction for me and poured a little pile of them for me to lick from the corner of the pond.

Cat Tales 18

When it rained lots and lots, and it was close to summer, the pernickety old woman ran around putting buckets in the backyard to catch rainwater. Even when it stopped raining, she left them standing where they were.

Even as the Hand-of-God, I was mystified as I went round smelling at them. Just rainwater, half a bucket full, that I couldn’t reach to drink. What were they for? Couldn’t be for animals to drink from. I just proved that.

When the buckets were about half-full of rainwater, the pernickety old woman dipped her hand in the frog pond, scooped up a handful of azolla water weed and carried it dripping to the buckets and dripped a bit of the weed in each.

I think there were five buckets. The stuff grew like—well, a weed—and soon all the buckets had an island of green floating in them.

That evening, a clap of thunder! I raced for my favorite hiding place in the bottom of the bookshelves. Another thunderstorm. More rain.


The pernickety old woman loved a good thunderstorm. She stood laughing in the open laundry door, only slightly sheltered. “Smell the petrichor?” she said.

When the storm faded away, and the rain fell only mistily, the down-pipes from the roof started to boom. Or maybe call it a belling. A loud insistent kind of ringing echoed from ours, and all the ones in the neighboring yards on both sides. A racket!

“That’s them,” the pernickety old woman said. “The green tree frogs. The rain woke them, flushed the leaves from their hidey holes, and they’re sitting there—each under his own pipe—calling loud enough to bring any green tree frog female happening to be about.” She laughed.

Ah, I thought. They sit under the down-pipes to have their calling amplified. Smart. I miaowed and joined my human at the laundry door.

“Tomorrow we shall see what we’ll see,” she said. “The buckets will be in all night demand, I’m thinking.”

It was a dark night. I didn’t see a thing peering through the glass doors in the sun-room. I was so curious by the first morning light, I scratched at the pernickety old woman’s bedroom door. She didn’t let me sleep with her for this very reason. She being a night owl and I preferring to be up at the crack of dawn. All I heard was a groan. I think she meant for me to go away.

I did. For about five minutes. Scratched at the bedroom door again. “Fine!” I heard from the bed. Then it creaking.

The pernickety old woman grumbled from near the wardrobe. I understood her to be clothing herself. Humans are so bereft without fur. I skipped back to my position at the glass doors.

My human came bleary-eyed from the bedroom. Dressed in her usual long pants, cotton shirt and kimono loose over the top. She yawned. “Let me put on a pot of tea first.”

“Miaaoow!” Let’s go see outside first, that meant.

“Might as well, I suppose. Water won’t boil for a bit. Beautiful sunrise, all said and done. Wait till I grab my camera.”

She walked. I pranced to the first bucket. We peered into it. “Ah ha,” my human said. “I think we have a jackpot. Look at that! I think a whole clutch. Green tree frog spawn for sure.”