Thanksgiving Adventure Continued Again

[Continued from Nov. 30 and Dec. 1…]

Rudolpho and Marlene went back down to Shirley’s below. Rudolpho rolled up a paper towel and set it on fire and stuck it into the oven. Marlene couldn’t stand to watch, so she walked around the apartment, admiring the way Shirley had decorated. The oven finally got lit up and the put the extra pans of food in to do their roasting. Marlene and Rudolpho went back to Maria Betina’s kitchen and continued with the food preparation that would fit into that small room while discussing the merits of Shirley’s decorating.

Four hours and four hundred dollars after they had left, Walt and Maria Betina returned with an un-chastened Wilberforce and the garbage disposal. Maria Betina didn’t have any money, so Walt had to put the vet’s bill on his MasterDad card. Marlene thought it might be good to give Walt a job to keep him from thinking, so she handed him the key to Shirley’s apartment and sent him down to get the pans from her oven. Walt was getting tired of eating, but he liked to eat, so he went. It took two trips. Then Maria Betina looked out the window.

“There goes Shirley,” she said. “I hope she has a good time at her nephew’s.”

“Shirley?” said Marlene. “From down below? But she left a long time ago. She didn’t answer when I knocked so I just went in… and Rudolpho almost burned up her apartment… and Walt just went down there…”

“Oh, my,” said Maria Betina. “Didn’t you know she’s deaf? She can talk on the phone because she has one of those special ones. She was probably in there, in the bathroom or something.”

“Oh, my,” said Marlene. “I feel almost like a criminal. That’s why I rushed in and out and didn’t notice if she was there.”

“For a criminal who rushed in and out, you certainly noticed a lot about how she decorates,” observed Rudolpho.

Then Maria Betina’s Jewish friend, Tiffany McGonigle, showed up with a persimmon pie.

“Is that kosher?” asked Rudolpho.

“Of course,” said Tiffany. “Jewish and Evangelical scholars have declared that the so-called apple in the Garden of Eden was actually a persimmon.”

“What about the other Bible scholars?” asked Walt.

“Oh, no one pays attention to them,” said Tiffany. “They’re fact-based.”

Everyone agreed it was a great meal. Afterward, Walt made four flights up and down to carry to the truck all the things he had carried up a few hours earlier. Plus a little more as it turned out.

“What was that sound?” he asked.

“Oh, my, I think it was just a creak in the truck,” said Marlene.

But a furry head came out of a sack on the other side of Marlene, a furry head with a shaved neck, a furry head that had cost him $400.

“Now Walt, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not safe in that apartment for poor Wilberforce.”

“No,” said Walt, “you really don’t know what I’m thinking…”

[Like “Law & Order,” Periwinkle Chronicles are based on real events.]