A lovely night and the sweet little orphan scouts were tucked into their little beds. Finally, a breath between putting out fires and hauling in neighbors I found dangling from our windows by...what is that? My missing corset laces?! After I untied the Smithtons and calmed them down with a plate of my 'special' cookies, I finally had a chance to put up my boots and have a splash of Chinese Gunpowder. It isn't often I have a bit of time for myself. Between cleaning up after those adorable, rambunctious children and checking to make sure that Grandpa Grouch hasn't welded himself to something in the workshop, there isn't enough left between for me to slide a playing card through.
A knocking on the door again.....pounding, to be precise. I answered the door and to find a lovely pair of children...well....they claimed to be children. They were rather tall and a bit wrinkly. They said that they were brother and sister and were twins and their names were Robbie and Reba. I had to adjust my glasses and get a better look. I could have sworn that they bore more than a passing resemblance to Mr and Mrs Clankscales down the street. I have never turned down children seeking entry to the Orphanage of Fun and could not do so that night. I knocked on bedroom doors until I found one that was empty and tucked them both into bed.
The next day was quite busy. The orphans in charge of breakfast started another fire, I am certain that it wasn't on accident. All the orphans were fed and the new charges were measured for uniforms. Little Reba wore a woman's size 10 and little Robbie stood 6'3". I left them gleefully filling water balloons so that we could offer to wash down the houses in the neighborhood and took a jaunt down the road to the Clankscales' home.
I rang the doorbell....what a lovely tune. My toes started tapping away so I kept pushing the button. Lalalalala.... A grumpy face man opened the door. He looked as if he had not slept in days and did not seem very happy to see me.
"Good morning...I am sorry I didn't bring any cookies with me, but we have had another small kitchen fire...I am Granny Grunt from the orphanage down the road" I pointed behind me where a plume of smoke could still be seen stretched to the sky like a quill feather. I momentarily forgot my errand as I admired how the smoke was feathering in the slight breeze.
A growl brought my attention back to the unhappy young man. "Whaddya want?"
"Oh, I came by to see your parents.....you are the son of Mr. and Mrs. Clankscales, are you not? You have grown to be a fine young man, but you should smile more often. You are starting to get little frown lines right there." I started to point to the corners of his mouth when I saw he looked more angry than unhappy, so pulled my finger back.
"Yeah, I am. But my parents aren't here. They disappeared yesterday. Left everything....wallets, car, identification, money. Only thing that I found was a note from my dad. Said "Wheee" and that was it. And no one did my laundry or made my bed."
He seemed even more prunefaced than he did when I answered the door. He didn't seem to be as much upset that his parents were gone as that they hadn't been there to take care of him. An explosion of water hit his face, followed by a second and a third. I turned quickly to see Robbie and Reba with the water balloons. Reba let another fly while she screamed "Killjoy!" and her brother yelled "Sourpuss". They turned on their heels, running and giggling while I helped the poor Clankscales son mop himself up.
"Children will be children." I said as I patted his cheek with my handkerchief.
"Your orphans should be in juvenile detention."
With that comment, I patted his cheek and wished him well, inwardly thinking that poor Reba and Robbie would get extra cookies tonight...snickerdoodles. They were children long in need of fun, especially if they had to live with that glumbum.
