Read Online The Big Shuffle by Laura Pedersen - Free Book Online

sight, so I hurry downstairs to the kitchen. A disheveled Aunt Lala comes around the corner buttoning up her coat, the belt dragging along the floor behind her. “That must be the taxi company calling.”
    A taxi in this weather? I wonder about that. As I grab the telephone the doorbell rings. Perhaps there is a cab out front. Only the dispatcher is telling me he can't get a driver out to us until later this afternoon. And that's when I hear the scream in the front hall followed by the door banging shut.

FOURTEEN
    R ACING INTO THE LIVING ROOM, I FIND AUNT LALA SHRIEKING , one hand covering her face, the other pointed at the closed front door. The bell rings again. Assuming that her histrionics are the result of general anxiety, I open the door. I, too, start screaming bloody murder. It's Dad! Only he's a lot older and has a huge mustache and beard covered with icicles like the Abominable Snowman! Chunks of white hair stick out below a stiff white hat with a black visor and a big gold anchor on the front. After slamming the door closed I quickly lock it. Dad's a ghost and has come back to haunt the house!
    Bernard arrives on the scene trailed by a bunch of curious kids while Aunt Lala and I babble from hysteria. He intuitively understands that the cause of our consternation lies on the other side of the door. Glancing out a side window, Bernard announces, “Heavens to Häagen-Dazs! It's the Ancient Mariner! He must be lost in the storm.”
    Bernard opens the door and speaks the way he does to strangers who enter his antiques shop. “Hello there, and how may I help you this afternoon?”
    “Lenny Palmer—Robert's uncle,” says the Abominable Snowman. “There weren't any cabs at the station.” He reports this newsas if he didn't mind the challenge of walking a mile in a blizzard and the two icicles that are his eyebrows rise slightly.
    “Oh my goodness, come in!” says Bernard. “You must be frozen half to death.”
    The great big bear of a man with a chest like an oil drum makes the room seem to shrink down to the size of a doll's house.
    “If I were a case of herring I guess I'd still be pretty fresh,” he says in a gruff voice seasoned by wind and water. Great-Uncle Lenny removes a pair of old-fashioned black wool gloves that look as if they were abandoned by a street musician and takes off his skipper's cap to reveal a wild mane of white hair.
    Aunt Lala is the first to recover from the fright. Extending her hand, she introduces herself. “I'm Lorraine, Robert's sister-in-law. I met you and a twin brother at the wedding.”
    “Yep, that was us. Only Barnacle Bill departed for Davy Jones's locker shortly after the nuptials—had a heart attack while reeling in a sailfish,” says Lenny. “Apparently it runs in the family. I'm sorry to hear about my nephew. I took a flight from the Virgin Islands and the train from Cleveland. Alan left a message at the bar.”
    His address is a bar? My eyes are fixed on this man who looks like an older, shaggy, ice-covered version of my father. So this is Great-Uncle Lenny. I'd come to think of him as a character out of a novel—chasing pirates through the Caribbean and catching fish of mythical proportions. When I was little, my dad brought home a magazine containing a story on his two identical-twin seafaring uncles.
    Lenny extends his hand. It's strong, ugly, rough, callused, and scarred. The skin is like leather that's been left outside for a decade, and no longer has the steer attached to keep it hydrated and smooth. He's a man from another world. The world of theocean, I have to assume. Living my entire life in Ohio, I've never seen the ocean.
    Eric comes up from the basement rubbing his eyes after a short nap. He also does a double take upon seeing Uncle Lenny but doesn't start screaming like a girl.
    “This is our great-uncle Lenny,” I fill him in.
“Remember
Dad's father had two younger brothers who were identical twins.”
    “Sure,” Eric says and extends his