Read Online The Bog by Michael Talbot - Free Book Online Page A

“What’s wrong with the name Katharine?”
    “It’s just that it’s such an old-fashioned name,” she said. She fidgeted nervously, and he realized there was still something she wasn’t telling him.
    “Come on,” he prodded, “this is me you’re talking to. What’s caused you to suddenly become so unhappy about your name?”
    Again she looked at him agitatedly, still reluctant to confide the truth, and then finally she came out with it. “I don’t like the name Katharine because it’s the same name Catherine the Great had and Rupert Riesdale in my fourth-hour history class told me that Catherine the Great died while she was having sex with a horse.” David just sat blinking silently for several moments. Again, this was not what he had expected. His initial reaction was to be appalled at what his thirteen-year-old daughter had just come out with, but he decided the best tack was to take it in stride and deal with it calmly.
    “Well, I’ve heard that story also, but as far as I know it’s apocryphal.”
    “What’s apocryphal.
    “Greatly in doubt. Most sources I’ve read say she died when an artery ruptured in her brain, and she was alone in her bed at the time.”
    Katy seemed only slightly appeased.
    “And besides, we didn’t name you after Catherine the Great. We named you after Katharine Hepburn. Just before you were born your mom and I saw her in Pat and
    Mike and we liked the movie so much we started thinking about the name. Does that make you feel any better?”
    Apparently it did not, for Katy looked at him sulkily. “I was named after an actress?” she asked disparagingly.
    “Well, sort of. But there have been lots of amazing women throughout history named Katharine. You were named after them too.”
    “Like who?”
    “Like Catherine of Aragon, Queen Isabella’s daughter, or Catherine de Medicis, widely respected for the shrewdness she displayed in her influence on the governing of France.” He judiciously neglected to tell her that Catherine of Aragon was the first of Henry VIII’s ill-fated wives, or that Catherine de Medicis was also widely touted for the powers of deceit and treachery that she had inherited in her Medici blood.
    Katy began to soften.
    Trying a new approach, David said, “Well, if you had been there to be consulted, what would you have rather been named?”
    “Natasha,” Katy replied without blinking.
    He scoured his memory for famous Natashas in history, but drew a blank. “Where did you get that name from?” he asked.
    Her face grew slightly red. “From the Natasha on that cartoon show with Rocky and Bullwinkle,” she said sheepishly. “I just like the sound of the name better.”
    David’s heart sank, but slowed in its descent when he realized that at least she had blushed. He consoled himself with the affectionate realization that she was still in a curious transition between a child and a young woman, the child unabashedly announcing Natasha as her preferred name, but the woman slightly embarrassed at the ludicrousness of the source.
    “So call yourself Natasha,” he announced.
    “Oh, Dad, could I?”
    “Sure,” he returned, but then added some small print to the concession. “ If it’s okay with your mother.”
    Katy’s face fell, but then broke into a humbled smile when she realized she had been duped.
    He kissed her good night and then went into Tuck’s room. Saying good night to Tuck was somewhat less complicated. He found Tuck lying straight as a board on top of his sheet and carefully lining all of his toy cars and trucks up and down along the sides of his legs.
    “Tuck, do you really want to sleep with those things?”
    “Why not?” Tuck asked earnestly.
    “Because if you roll over on them during the night they’re going to hurt.”
    Tuck looked up and down at the metal cars, reassessing the matter. “Ohhh,” he said, frowning gravely. Carefully and methodically he took them one by one and parked them in rows on the table beside