Here is my first installment.
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Those Crazy Katz' of Windsong Lane
Chapter 1: A Bad Day
Karen stared out the window
at her children playing in the yard. It was going to be a long day. Most days
she was happy to be home with the kids, even though most of the people that
lived in their town believed she was “some kind of nutty” to be homeschooling
her kids by choice. They would argue that for someone to punish themselves with
being with their kids all day, that person would have to have some compelling
noose around their neck. Most days she would disagree and tell them that it was
an honor to be able to share with her family all of the ups and downs that life
has to offer on a daily basis. It made their family stronger.
However, today had started
with the baby throwing up. Little Emma was only eighteen months. She had awoken
in her crib crying at five this morning and promptly thrown up all over the
bed. Since then, she had been running a fever and clinging to Karen like
separation would be the death of her. Thankfully, Emma was now asleep in
Karen’s lap.
Three year-old Joe had seen
that she was focused on Emma and decided that he needed some attention too.
Today he was mad at the world, fussy and clingy. He was hungry but didn’t want
any of the foods she offered for breakfast. He did finally settle on a handful
of Cheerios and a bite of cheese and was currently following the older kids
around the yard. He was whining that he didn’t want to do whatever it was they
were doing, but she was glad he had consented to go outside for a bit.
It looked like Sarah, Jack
and Ellie were out there simultaneously tying each other up with jump ropes and
digging a pit in the yard. Thank
goodness they knew not to tie anything around each other’s necks and to make
sure the other person could actually escape if they wanted to. When this game
had first been played it had scared her half to death. Some serious ground
rules had had to be set immediately, but it seemed safe enough at the moment.
Karen was still in her
pajamas, with her blonde curly hair a mess, and she was just now sitting down
with a mug of very strong coffee and some toast. She was really feeling her
forty-something years. It was already ten o’clock and it was lucky the rest of
the kids had gotten to eat anything at all with Emma and Joe being so fussy. She
had long since given up on having energy to do much schooling today. She was
much too frazzled to be properly patient and kind. This was definitely the kind
of day the home school critics probably shouldn’t know about. They could point
to the situation and say, “See? If the kids were in school they would be able
to remain productive while you would be able to attend to your young ones.” She
had been living this homeschooling life long enough to know that tomorrow would
probably be better, and that she should be thankful that they could actually
take a break when they had an “off” day. The learning happened much more
quickly when everyone was well rested and happy, and sickness was as much a
part of life as multiplication tables, maybe even more so. For now, she had
sent the older kids outside to run off some energy and give herself a few
moments to re-group.
Thirteen year-old Sarah
looked down from her perch high in the magnolia tree. Her long skinny legs were
splayed out from either side of the branch and her blond curls, much like her
moms, were being tossed about by the breeze. She was tired of the game they
were playing. In the game, the evil wizard tied up the hero and left him
trapped, while the wizard went to go do some other dastardly deed, at which point
of course, the hero escaped. She couldn’t even remember who had come up with
the idea. All she really wanted to do now was go find her book and read for a while,
but she could tell that Mom really needed help today and Joe was in a snit. She
sighed and climbed down. Joe was crying to himself and tearing a leaf apart bit
by bit while sitting in the whole they had dug.
Their dog, Snitch, was standing
over him as if he knew something was wrong and was going to protect him from
the world. Snitch had been named during the Harry Potter craze that Sarah and
Jack had gone through three years ago. When they had adopted him as a juvenile
from the SPCA, he had started taking their stuffed animals and hiding them in
unlikely places. He seemed to have some border collie in him, because he liked
to heard things and also move things around. Sarah said that he was quick and
sneaky like a Snitch from the Harry Potter books and the name had stuck. He had
accepted the Katz’s whole-heartedly and seemed to consider them his own.
Sarah said, “What’s wrong
Joey?” and sat down next to her brother at the edge of the hole. He sniffled
and mumbled, “Nuffin.” Sarah felt his forehead and realized he was warm. Oh no,
it looked like he might be sick too. “Joey”, she said, “I think you might be
sick too. Come inside with me so we can have Mommy check.” “Otay” and he
stretched up his arms for her to carry him. She could still do it, but just
barely. He sure was getting big!
Snitch ran off to chase some
chickens. That reminded her, “Jack!”, she said. “Can you go feed the chickens?
I forgot!” “Yeah yeah.” He untied himself and loped off to the barn to get the
feed and check for eggs. You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, he was a
smallish dark-haired ten-year-old, but Jack loved living out in the country.
The best part about the whole thing was that they could have chickens and goats
and as many other pets as they wanted. Sarah had complained bitterly when it
was decided they were to move this year. She hated leaving her friends and felt
like she had been forced to move to the end of the earth, but Jack couldn’t be
happier. He loved animals. He couldn’t get enough of them. He knew he wanted to
be a veterinarian some day… or maybe a scientist like his dad, but not the same
thing… something else. He wasn’t sure what.
He opened the doors to the
big barn and found the chicken feed. Sometimes a mouse or two would be in the
bin, so he opened it carefully. Nothing today! He put a couple of scoops into a
pail and went around to the side of the barn where the chicken coop was. Those
goofy hens were hiding in the garden again. They knew the kids liked to chase
them around, so they ran and hid in the tomato vines whenever they heard
someone coming. It didn’t help that Snitch was also sniffing around looking for
a feather to sneeze at. He wouldn’t actually eat one of the birds (or so they
all hoped), he just liked to tease them. As soon as they saw Jack had the pail,
though, they ran out clucking and squawking, each one jostling to be the first
to get to the feed. Jack spread it around and then checked the coop for eggs.
His dad had built the coop the first week they had moved in. It was a really
neat design. The hens would sit in a cubby and lay an egg right into a little
compartment. If you went around to the other side of the wall, the egg would
just be sitting there waiting for you to grab it.
These hens were still pretty
young and new to laying, so there were just a couple of eggs today. Some were a
nice light-blue color and some were brown. Jack had dreams of selling fresh
free-range eggs to people in town to make some money. He might even be able to
buy a new Wii game if he could sell enough of them! For now, he was just having
fun feeding and watching over this fussy flock. The kids had taken turns naming
them. There was Fluffy, Peanut, Mrs. Whatsit, Goose, Hercules (the rooster),
Froda, Captain Pecack, Jellybean, The Name of This Chicken is Secret (otherwise
know as Secret), and Turkeyleg (who had extra long legs). It was hard to remember
who was who though, and sometimes he would get them mixed up. He decided that
he was going to be the one to care of them, so he could argue later that they
were his chickens! He already fed Snitch every day. It wouldn’t be a big deal
to feed the chickens too. Maybe he
should ask his mom to make it his official job.
Meanwhile, eight year old
Ellie had been digging yet another hole in the yard and was having fun
collecting worms and bugs in a pail. She hadn’t really been interested in the
game either, even though it had been her idea. She did love to find bugs, and
there were so many out here! Some were a little scary, like that big yellow
grasshopper she had found yesterday, but today there was a black beetle,
several earthworms, a couple of grubs and a jumping spider. She wanted to go
inside and find out what the beetle was. Afterwards, maybe she would feed a few
of them to the chickens. She got up, grabbed the pail and headed back to the
house. When she got to the door she heard Emma crying and changed her mind.
Best not to be in the house with that noisy mess going on. Putting down the
pail, she wandered around to the front of the house. Sometimes being a kid in
such a big family was a pain. The good part was that even though they had had
to move and didn’t know anyone really well in town yet, she still had people to
play with. The bad part was that they never went home… they were home. If they
had a fight they had to work it out. They couldn’t go away and avoid each
other. Momma tried, but she didn’t always have time to listen to Ellie’s
exploits with bugs and other things. It was also hard to find some quiet time
in the house. This was a line of thought she had had before. She decided maybe
she should just go get the mail.
She wandered up the driveway
to the mailbox. It sat all by itself on Windsong Lane. In the distance on
either side, over rolling green hills of grass and trees, Ellie could make out
houses in either direction. Their closest neighbors were an older couple. They
had three kids but they were all grown up and living elsewhere. Mrs. Batcherly
busied herself by volunteering at the church in town most days, while her
husband worked at the local hardware store and took care of things around their
small farm. Mrs. Batcherly had come over a couple of times to try to encourage
Ellie’s mom to take them all to church (“to get some gospel and to meet
people”) and Ellie’s mom had had to explain that they were Jewish, but thank
you anyway. Mrs. Batcherly had been very taken aback by that bit of knowledge.
It had never occurred to her that this family, or anyone else really, might not
be Christian like most people in town. Even though she was polite, it had
seemed to cement in her mind an opinion that these Katz’s were a VERY strange
bunch. It was hard to be new here anyway, but to be new AND not a part of the
social network of the church AND to be homeschoolers and thus not part of
school events…. Well, it was downright odd and antisocial. She stopped coming
around after that.
With a sinking feeling Ellie
looked at the mailbox and realized that someone had taken a piece of black
charcoal and written on it in big letters “WEIRDOS”. She sighed. Suddenly she
was furious but she also wanted to cry. Deciding not to let whoever had done
this get the best of her, she wiped it out with her shirt sleeve, got the mail,
slammed the mailbox lid closed, and ran back to the house.
In a tree nearby, a pair of
gleeful brown eyes peeped from the branches. Justin lived in a house a little way down the lane. He
grinned while he watched the curly brown haired head of Ellie run off. He
didn’t exactly know why he had done what he had done, but he had been so very
annoyed with this new family. They lived so close and should have been
playmates. Ellie was his age, but they all were so unlike him and (he would
never quite admit this to himself) he felt a little intimidated. He was an only
kid, and there were just so many of them. Then he found out that they didn’t
have to get on the schoolbus every morning and didn’t seem to have to deal with
all the stupid stuff he had to deal with all the time. That made him mad. It
just wasn’t fair! They should suffer a little bit too. He needed to think up another prank
soon. He didn’t expect his little impulsive thing he had done to have gotten
such a quick response and to have given him such a thrill of satisfaction. He
was glad he could climb the tree fast enough so she didn’t see him. He was a
good climber and his blonde hair and yellow shirt had blended in with the early
fall leaves really well. He hopped down out of the tree and sauntered off down
the lane. He’d have something to tell his friend at school on Monday… and maybe
he’d get lucky and those other kids would leave him alone.
Ellie ran back into the
house. She threw the mail onto the table and couldn’t help herself. Tears began
to leak from her eyes. She flopped down on the kitchen chair. Her mom had just
managed to get both little ones asleep and get dressed. Joe was in front of the
TV wrapped in a blanket snoozing and Emma had been gently put back to bed. Her
mom sighed, and said, “Honey, what is it?” Ellie cried, “Why does everyone hate
us, mom? Why did we have to come here? Aren’t there any other families around
here like us? People can be so mean!” Karen was alarmed, “What happened?” Ellie
said, “Nothing! “ and ran upstairs to the room she shared with Sarah and threw
herself on her bed.
Sarah was on her own bed
finishing an essay she had been writing for her online book club class. At
least she has friends online, Ellie thought. She gets to talk to them every
day. I only get an email from Jenna once a week. Her mom keeps her too busy to
check her mail too often. Ellie was feeling very lonely and sad and sorry for
herself. Sarah looked up from her
laptop, “What’s wrong with you?” Ellie thought about keeping it too herself,
but it all spilled out. She said, “Some jerk called us ‘weirdos’ on our mailbox
and I hate it here. I mean, I don’t hate it here, I love it here. I love this
house and all the bugs, but I hate it here.” “Hmm. I know what you mean,” Sarah
said. “It’s only for a little while Ellie. Daddy said he just needed to be out
here for a year to complete his fieldwork, and then we could move back to
Raleigh so he could write up his results at the college. I miss my friends too,
but it’s only for a little while. “ Ellie thought about that and started to
feel better. Sarah was right. Sarah was always right. It was very annoying.
Suddenly, she felt very tired.
Sarah finished up her report
for her class, and looked over at Ellie. It seemed her sister had fallen
asleep. That was very odd. Ellie never took naps. She went down the creaky stairs
to see if Mom was ok. She thought the house was pretty neat. It was really old
and not very big, but the fact that it had a wrap-around porch and some really
big trees that were great for climbing made up for a lot. Her mom had said that
it used to be a farmhouse and much of the land around them had been part of the
property, but over time the land had been sold off, so that now the farmhouse
just had the small barn and goat pen, a small garden, a few trees around an
open yard, and a nice long driveway off the lane. It was secluded but it had
pretty much everything they could need, and it was very different from their
old house. Their house back in Raleigh had been a lot bigger and newer, but
they had had a very tiny yard and no trees bigger than the width of her arm.
Those little trees were useless for climbing. Neighboring houses had crowded
close, and traffic had been pretty heavy on their street. They had had to be
careful not to go out onto the street or throw anything out there. It was very
different from here, and she liked the extra space and quiet. Still, it was
getting harder and harder to find good friends and it was hard to be away from
her best buddies. It was ironic that she was telling Ellie it wasn’t so bad,
when the truth was, she had protested the loudest in the beginning. She had
since resigned herself to the “year in exile” as she referred to it to herself.
Mom kept saying that they could learn new things and meet new people, but so
far it was just mostly chores and long-distance work. She loved the time they
got outside with the animals, but she would have traded it all for a better
library nearby.
Karen was finishing up the
dishes and making lunch. She said, “Sarah, I sent Jack out to check on the
goats. Could you get a load of laundry going and then go water the garden? I’ll
have some lunch ready here soon.” Sarah balked a little. “Can I make the lunch
instead?” She much preferred cooking to mucking about in the garden. “No hon. I
just can’t leave the house today. Emma and Joe might wake up at any time.” Just
then, a loud cry came from the bedroom. “Yup, there it is. If you get that done
for me we can all have lunch afterwards.” She ran upstairs, leaving some bread
on the counter and an apple half cut up. Sarah privately thought that lunch
might be a while, but she went out to water the garden.
Jack was giving the goats
some feed and fresh water and a rub or two behind the ears. There were just a
couple of goats, sisters that they had inherited from the last people to live
in this house. They were named Mazy and Lazy, and were very sweet and
surprisingly clean, but you had to be very careful when you were around them,
or they might eat anything they could grab at, like the buttons off your coat.
They were really just pets for the Katz’s and the kids had been having fun
figuring out how to care for them.
Karen was somewhat troubled.
She wished Johnathan would get home, but he was pretty much unreachable when he
was in the middle of a survey. He was a specialist in snakes, a Herpetologist,
and had gotten a grant to survey the reptile population in this part of the
state. He could be out for hours at a time directing his graduate students and
setting up pit traps. Karen used to help him with that kind of work, but that
was before kids.
They had met in college. She
was an Education major and he was a scientist in training. She spent all of her
time learning about how people learn and he spent all of his time memorizing
scientific facts and doing research for his thesis. It didn’t seem like they
had a lot in common, but somehow they had just fit together and had spent all
of their free time together. It wasn’t long before they were married. Later on,
she had gotten a job as a teacher while he completed his doctoral degree. When
he was working on his post-doc, she had moved on to counseling and private
tutoring. He had gotten very lucky, finding a job at North Carolina University,
and soon after that Sarah had come along. Their roles switched, and while she
had pretty much supported them before kids, she now got to stay at home and she
considered it a privilege. By that time, Karen had seen enough of the school
system to know that she didn’t want her kids to be part of it. Fortunately,
North Carolina was a good place to homeschool, and it was a life-style that
suited them.
They had followed a natural
progression from exploratory toddler play to a little bit of focused learning
each day, gradually mixing the two in whatever ways worked. When Johnathan was
home, he gave his all to the kids, and he did his best to include them in what
he was working on. Karen had always wanted a big family, but she never really
expected it to be this big. She
hadn’t really planned on Emma coming along, but somehow she had ended up with
five children. There was a huge network of homeschoolers in Raleigh they could
go to for help, activities and other resources. Every now and then extended
family would come and help out as well. On days like today, however, she felt
extremely outnumbered and wished there were more of her. Sickness usually
brought this feeling on. Well, maybe Johnathan would take a day off tomorrow,
hand over some of the work to his grad students, and help her out.
Other than two feverish
kids, she was also worried about Ellie’s latest outburst. She didn’t know what
had happened, but it seemed to be connected to the unfortunate start they had
gotten here with the people of the town. She had hoped to move in and deal with
the “homeschooler” oddness without having to deal with the whole religion
issue, but Mrs. Batcherly had forced the issue to the forefront. Now when they
went into town for groceries or to go to the library, people just gave them
funny looks and didn’t bother to try to talk. She was used to funny looks just
for the size of their family, but it seemed more pronounced now somehow. Maybe
if the kids got involved with some sports teams or other activities they would
get to know some people and it would all work out.
She knew that on a day like
today everything could look hopeless but it probably wasn’t as bad as it
seemed. With Emma now on her hip, and looking flushed but a little better, she
went downstairs to finish fixing lunch. Emma, surprisingly, let her place her
on the floor amongst some toys, and Karen finished cutting up the apples. She
got out some fresh milk and bread and peanut butter for lunch. Always willing
to see the silver lining, she gave thanks for the easy access to farm fresh
foods out here away from the city. The Saturday market had yielded much of this
lovely food, and she had spent a little extra money, knowing that the farmers
and the baker might remember the kindness and think better of them.
Meanwhile, Johnathan was on
one knee, leaning over to look into a pit trap. It always paid to be extra
cautious at this point. You never knew when you would end up looking into the
beady angry eyes of a timber rattler. It was part of the reason he insisted on
doing a lot of this work himself. The other part, of course, was that he loved
it. Most of his time these days was spent writing papers and proposals and
teaching classes. It was engaging work, but he often missed being out doing the
grunt work. Unfortunately, as he got older it had become apparent that the
graduate students had a lot more physical flexibility and endurance than he
did. Getting older really stank. Well, at least he still had the skills and
knowledge to teach them. He looked into this bucket in the ground and found a
lovely little glass lizard. This was a terrific find. They were hard to find
because they were wily and rather rare. They looked like snakes but were
actually really more like legless lizards. His got a firm but gentle grip on
it. You had to be careful with these guys because they could detach their tails
at will. He measured it with his calipers. A nice twelve inches tip to tail. It
was in good health, glossy scales and no obvious parasites. He rattled off
numbers and observations and his assistant wrote it all down.
Just as he was about to let
it go, he looked up to see an interesting character sauntering up to him. “A
good afternoon to you sir!”, the lanky man said. He was wearing a wide-brimmed
hat, blue jeans, a flannel shirt and flip flops. “Nice to meet you. I’m David.”
He extended his hand to Johnathan. Johnathan looked at his own hands and back
at this strange man. “Sorry, I’m a little occupied. My name is Johnathan. Nice
to meet you.” “What do you have there?” David said. He looked genuinely interested. “This here is a glass
lizard, a very unusual type of lizard that looks like a snake but isn’t.” David
said, “Wow, would you look at that?! I’ve never seen anything like that and
I’ve been out here for a while! I was over there on my property looking at you
folks here on the preserve and wondering what the heck you could be doing. I
couldn’t quite figure it out, so I decided to come over here and see for
myself. My wife said you had to be scientists of some sort. She used to help with
bird counts, you see, and said that if there was a group of people milling
about doing mysterious looking stuff they were probably doing science. Darn if
she wasn’t right! “
The two struck up a
conversation and before the day was over, David had invited the family over for
dinner, although Johnathan had asked him repeatedly if he was sure. The Katz’s
descending on any home was no small matter, but David assured him that his wife
would love the commotion. Ever since their own kids had moved out things had
been entirely too quiet around their place. David had been trying to grow and
sell blueberries and the bushes were just getting big enough that he hoped to
sell them next season. He had explained that his wife was an organic gardening
specialist and that they had moved out to the sandhills from Charlotte a few
years back. Johnathan sensed a sympathetic ear and was eager to get to know him
better. After David left, he went on the finish checking all of the traps in
that line. They closed them up and would set up some new ones the next day.
When he came home, however,
it was evident that dinner was out of the question. Karen, looking very tired
and flushed, sat on the sofa with Emma and Joe in her lap. Both kids had that
pink cheeked, glassy eyed look to them that said “fever” bright as day. She was
reading one of their favorite books to them and they were listening, but were
being exceptionally quiet. The other kids were strangely absent. “Oh no!” he
said. “Do we have some sickos here?” Joe nodded “yes”, stretched out his hands
for Daddy and Johnathan picked him up. “When did this happen?” “Oh, about an
hour after you left this morning,” Karen said. “First you leave before the sun
is up and then poor Emma starts throwing up. I swear she waited for you to leave.
She stopped doing that, thank goodness, but it’s definitely the flu. It’s all I
can do to get her to drink something. It a miracle the other kids haven’t
gotten it yet. Oh, and just to make matters worse, I feel like I’m coming down
with it as well.” She paused. “Could you please go check on the other kids?
They all went upstairs a while ago and I haven’t heard a peep since. It’s
making me nervous.”
Johnathan went upstairs to
find Ellie sleeping on her bed (hmmm, also not normal) and the two oldest playing
a game of chess in Jack’s room. They were occupied, so he left them alone and
reported back. “Looks like we have a full blown quarantine situation here.
Ellie may be sick as well. Why don’t you go up to bed with Emma and I’ll handle
little Joe here. I’ll call in sick tomorrow and hope they don’t run into
anything dangerous without me. Oh, and by the way, we got an invitation to
dinner tonight, but I’ll call and get a rain check on that. Looks like we
aren’t going anywhere for a while.” Karen breathed a sigh of relief and gave
thanks to the powers that be (whatever they may be) for good, loving,
dependable husbands. She dragged herself and Emma upstairs and slept the rest
of the evening away. It was an indication of how bad she felt that she didn’t ask
who had invited them to dinner.
That night Johnathan, Sarah
and Jack had a small dinner together, while Joe and Ellie ate crackers and
sipped apple juice and went to bed early. It was a very quiet night. The next
day, the three took care of the chores while the others recovered. Sometime in
the middle of the afternoon the phone rang. Johnathan picked it up and there
was nobody on the other end. He hung up, shaking his head about crank calls.
The phone rang again, again nobody answered on the other end. At the third
call, he was getting really annoyed. A strange voice said, “weirdos” and hung
up. Johnathan decided they had better get a caller id. This kind of thing was
unacceptable. It made him even more angry that it was getting under his skin. A
stupid prank like this wasn’t worth getting upset about, and yet he was upset.
He had been a bit worried about bringing the family out here, but they had all
agreed it would be a great learning experience, and they could see eachother
while he worked. He never seemed to get enough time to be with the kids, and to
have had to commute this distance would have been a real hardship. He just
hadn’t counted on the small town mentality. First, they were outsiders just
because they were new to town and hadn’t grown up there. Next, they weren’t
Baptist and in most peoples minds here that seemed to mean they were heathens.
They weren’t event Christian, which was even worse. Thirdly, they didn’t send
their kids to school. What kind of crazy family did that, unless they were extra
devout or just plain odd? It didn’t seem to cross any of these people’s minds
that in spite of those differences, they were a family just like any other
family.
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