good as a tent and we’ve always wanted to go camping.”
It was a really excellent idea and they all agreed, even Otto.
“Good, that’s settled,” Lucia said. “Now I think we should all brush our teeth because our breaths stink like an open sewer, what with the curry and all.”
There was a small argument then. I won’t write it outbecause it was too stupid, but it was about something Lucia had said earlier regarding teeth brushing and which Max had taken very literally, which was typical of him.
In the end they dug through their bags and pulled out their toothbrushes. The toothpaste was in Max’s bag. It was a very dry brushing. They parted the willow branches and spit outside the tree so things didn’t get repulsive inside.
Max put his toothbrush and paste back in his bag then began to rummage through his clothes. He frowned and searched around the bag some more.
“Spoon’s not here.” He looked up at them with an alarmed expression on his face.
“It must be, look again,” Lucia said.
Max did and Otto scooted over next to him to look as well. After a few moments, Otto looked up at Lucia and shook his head.
“Well, Dad must have forgotten, that’s all,” she said. “He was in a hurry.”
“He’s never forgotten before,” said Max. He looked genuinely stricken.
Spoon is a spoon. He’s made of sheeny silver-colored material and is stuffed with batting and has a sly, smiling face embroidered on. Max has slept with him since he was an infant. You might think it’s immature for a ten-year-old to still sleep with a stuffed toy but Spoon has what you might call Special Family Meaning. Spoon was part of a set that was given to Otto when he was a baby (though no one remembers who gave it to him). The set was based onthe nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle.” When it was new it had seven stuffed pieces—Cat, Fiddle, Cow, Moon, Dog, Dish, and Spoon. Otto lost Fiddle and played with Cat so much that it became too thin-skinned to hold its stuffing, and was thrown out. Moon was set on fire in an experiment, but Otto would rather we not go into that. When the set was handed down to Lucia, she managed to stuff Cow down the toilet within the first week but she held on to Dish and Dog for many years until she left them out in the garden overnight and Dish and Dog were carried off by something. So by the time the set came into Max’s possession there was only Spoon left and, curiously, the box that held the set, which says on the back that the nursery rhyme was based on something that happened in the court of Queen Elizabeth I in which her serving girl (Dish) fell in love with the royal food taster (Spoon) and they eloped. But they were caught and were locked in the Tower of London. I think it’s very twisted of people to sneak these things into kids’ mouths through nursery rhymes, incidentally. But that’s another issue altogether.
The week that Mum went missing, Spoon went missing too. When Max couldn’t find Spoon, he carried on like a maniac, kicking the wall and sobbing on the floor, and none of the Hardscrabbles knew what to do. I think it was because they all felt like carrying on like that on account of Mum, but instead they were all very quiet because Dad was. They needed something to do, though, so they wenton a massive search for Spoon, scouring every cranny of the house and the garden. It took their minds off Mum, and when they found Spoon crammed between the oven and the wall, it made them all feel that everything would be okay. That they would find Mum too, eventually.
So you can see why Spoon held Special Family Meaning, and why Max slept with it every single night, and why it was such a big deal when Dad forgot to pack it. It gave them all an eerie feeling that something was wrong.
Otto said, “Do you think Dad has ditched us?”
In each of their bellies, they felt a swelling of fear, like a balloon that was slowly being filled with
pooshy
breaths. Spoon had
It was a really excellent idea and they all agreed, even Otto.
“Good, that’s settled,” Lucia said. “Now I think we should all brush our teeth because our breaths stink like an open sewer, what with the curry and all.”
There was a small argument then. I won’t write it outbecause it was too stupid, but it was about something Lucia had said earlier regarding teeth brushing and which Max had taken very literally, which was typical of him.
In the end they dug through their bags and pulled out their toothbrushes. The toothpaste was in Max’s bag. It was a very dry brushing. They parted the willow branches and spit outside the tree so things didn’t get repulsive inside.
Max put his toothbrush and paste back in his bag then began to rummage through his clothes. He frowned and searched around the bag some more.
“Spoon’s not here.” He looked up at them with an alarmed expression on his face.
“It must be, look again,” Lucia said.
Max did and Otto scooted over next to him to look as well. After a few moments, Otto looked up at Lucia and shook his head.
“Well, Dad must have forgotten, that’s all,” she said. “He was in a hurry.”
“He’s never forgotten before,” said Max. He looked genuinely stricken.
Spoon is a spoon. He’s made of sheeny silver-colored material and is stuffed with batting and has a sly, smiling face embroidered on. Max has slept with him since he was an infant. You might think it’s immature for a ten-year-old to still sleep with a stuffed toy but Spoon has what you might call Special Family Meaning. Spoon was part of a set that was given to Otto when he was a baby (though no one remembers who gave it to him). The set was based onthe nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle.” When it was new it had seven stuffed pieces—Cat, Fiddle, Cow, Moon, Dog, Dish, and Spoon. Otto lost Fiddle and played with Cat so much that it became too thin-skinned to hold its stuffing, and was thrown out. Moon was set on fire in an experiment, but Otto would rather we not go into that. When the set was handed down to Lucia, she managed to stuff Cow down the toilet within the first week but she held on to Dish and Dog for many years until she left them out in the garden overnight and Dish and Dog were carried off by something. So by the time the set came into Max’s possession there was only Spoon left and, curiously, the box that held the set, which says on the back that the nursery rhyme was based on something that happened in the court of Queen Elizabeth I in which her serving girl (Dish) fell in love with the royal food taster (Spoon) and they eloped. But they were caught and were locked in the Tower of London. I think it’s very twisted of people to sneak these things into kids’ mouths through nursery rhymes, incidentally. But that’s another issue altogether.
The week that Mum went missing, Spoon went missing too. When Max couldn’t find Spoon, he carried on like a maniac, kicking the wall and sobbing on the floor, and none of the Hardscrabbles knew what to do. I think it was because they all felt like carrying on like that on account of Mum, but instead they were all very quiet because Dad was. They needed something to do, though, so they wenton a massive search for Spoon, scouring every cranny of the house and the garden. It took their minds off Mum, and when they found Spoon crammed between the oven and the wall, it made them all feel that everything would be okay. That they would find Mum too, eventually.
So you can see why Spoon held Special Family Meaning, and why Max slept with it every single night, and why it was such a big deal when Dad forgot to pack it. It gave them all an eerie feeling that something was wrong.
Otto said, “Do you think Dad has ditched us?”
In each of their bellies, they felt a swelling of fear, like a balloon that was slowly being filled with
pooshy
breaths. Spoon had
Similar Books
