Those Crazy Katz' of Windsong Lane: Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Surprises

Sometime after the New Year, the Katz’s were treated to a couple of surprise visits. The first came when a ring of the doorbell revealed Mr. Batcherly on the porch. He was well wrapped in a heavy coat and scarf and hat, and was standing there with his cane and a package under his arm. Ellie yelled to her mom, “Mom! Mr. Batcherly’s here!”

“Come in sir, it’s freezing out there!”

He came in and took off his hat. Karen and Johnathan came into the front room and greeted him warmly. “I’ve got something for you folks. Is there anywhere I can set this down?” he said.

“Sure, Sure.” said Johnathan.

They cleared a spot on the dining room table (There was hardly ever a clear flat surface in the house. The table currently held the beginnings of an electrical experiment and a geography puzzle.) Mr. Batcherly put his box down. “Whew,” he said, “That was heavy. I don’t mind telling you that since the accident this fall, I haven’t quite been the same. It’s good to walk though. Anyway, I have here some things I think you might like to have.” He pulled a couple of vials out of the box, well wrapped and insulated. “These are to replace the two I used the day the snake got me. I can’t think how horrible it would be if one of you scientist types had an accident this year and didn’t have something to help because of me.”

“Oh, my! Thank you Jim.” Said Johnathan, “I was wondering how I was going to explain the use of these particular items on my expense report. I know they were not easy to get, and I don’t know how you managed it, but thank you all the same.”

“Well,” said Jim, “I must tell you, it’s a relief to have handed them over. It was very stressful carrying them over here. I kept thinking I might fall down and – poof - there goes all that money and trouble. Anyway, I also have something else for you. I spoke with your landlord…I grew up with him you know… anyway, your rent has been taken care of until your lease is up in July. Here is the documentation for your records.” He handed over an envelope to Johnathan.

Karen and Johnathan were speechless. “Uh… Jim… my gosh… I never expected… what…”

Mr. Batcherly said, “Never mind, it’s the least I can do. I’ll be going now.” He got up and moved quickly to the door and was gone before they could regain their wits and say anything else.

Johnathan ran to the door and yelled at Jim down the street, “Thank you Jim!!” and Jim just waved back without even turning around. He was hobbling quickly down the road. It was amazing how fast he could still move.

Karen and Johnathan sat down at the table, both still too stunned to speak. Johnathan opened up the envelope and read the receipt. “Rent paid in full through July 2012. He wasn’t kidding. I wonder if he paid that amount or if he got our landlord to waive some or all of the rent. “

Karen said, “I guess we’ll never know.” After a pause she said, “People never cease to amaze me. I’ll never believe that things are as bad as the news reports make them out to be. My experience says that wonderful things happen all the time. It’s just that nobody ever reports them… This is like a little miracle.”

Just then the cat came tearing into the dining room and a loud wail echoed from the kitchen. Karen smiled and said, “Guess I better go see what’s going on”. She got up and went to investigate. It sounded like Emma might have done something she shouldn’t have to the cat.

Johnathan just sat there for a few more minutes. The conversation they had just had with Jim seemed unreal. Did that man just show up on their doorstep and hand them a free ticket for the first half of the year? It seemed like he must have dreamt it, and yet he was sitting there holding the proof. When he had caught his breath, a huge smile grew across his face. He felt he must be charmed. How could his life be so good? He had a job doing what he loved, he had the best wife, and the greatest family he could have ever hoped for, and here was further proof that people were good. Life was good.

In February they had another surprise visit, and this one was a mixed bag. Right around Valentines Day, the house was humming with productive energy. It was a good day. Some days one or more individuals in the house would be out of sorts and this could throw everyone off. Some days, one person would be at the table crying in frustration that they just couldn’t DO the assignment, two other kids would need help with their work RIGHT NOW, and the two littlest would be seeming to try to add as much distraction as possible by demanding Karen’s attention in a sort of contest to see who could take up the most of her time. Those days were hellish and sometimes Karen just had to go for a walk so she didn’t scream at anyone.

This day was the opposite. It was one of those miraculous days where everyone was happy and quietly working in various corners of the house on their schoolwork or projects. Karen was in the kitchen cleaning up the morning’s dishes and Johnathan was upstairs typing up some analysis on his work from the fall. Suddenly, they heard a car come up the driveway. Karen looked up, puzzled. Who could possibly be visiting them? She went to the front and looked out of the window. Who the heck is that, she wondered. She knew that van. Where did she know that van from? Then it dawned on her. Only one person she knew had a VW Van like that. It must be her brother!

Karen ran outside just as he was getting out of the car. ”Eli! What are you doing here!?” Karen said.

“Is that all the welcome I get, sis? I wanted to surprise you!” Eli was a lanky man of middle height with a beard and reddish blonde hair tied back in a pony-tail. Behind him the van door opened and four more people piled out. His wife, Susan, was a small woman with short brown hair. Their kids were Shawn, age 10, who was just as rangy and red as his dad. Next came Evan, age 8, also red but not as lean, and finally Hannah, age 5. Hannah had her mom’s dark brown hair, but much longer. Also with them, was their little Jack Russell named, predictably, Russell.

Eli said, “I just felt like it had been too long since we’d seen you, so we just hopped in the van and came down. I thought you might like the surprise!” He smiled a huge grin. It was a grin he used often to defuse people. It was impossible to deny.

Karen said, “Eli, when have you ever known me to like surprises?” She sighed inwardly. There goes all the learning momentum they had going. Gathering up all her energy, she buried her irritation and said, “Well, it’s great to see you all!” and gave him a big hug. Everyone from inside came out and there was the general hubbub you get whenever big families say hello or goodbye. There were hugs and talking and the dogs running around very excited and getting to know each other all over again. Eventually, the van was unpacked, and everyone went back inside.

Whereas minutes ago all was peaceful and orderly, now it was total chaos. Yeller ran like lightning and hid in the master bedroom. He stayed there the rest of the day and didn’t come out until dinner that night. The two dogs were in a perpetual game of tag, running back and forth and generally creating noise and confusion.

The adults went into the kitchen to talk. Eli and his family lived in the countryside outside the Washington D.C. area. After he had seen his older sister have such a good time homeschooling, he and his wife had decided to do the same when they had kids. It was a good thing, because their eldest son was too smart for any classroom, and their middle son had some issues with ADHD and would never have been able to sit still. Hannah was a little princess and walked around in a tutu wherever she went.

As a unit, the whole family was a little bit on the wild side. They tended to flow with however they were feeling, and this spontaneity of her brothers had always driven Karen batty. He was an artist and it often seemed that the common sense part of his personality had never developed. Susan was sweet, but she seemed to thrive on that spontaneous atmosphere, and as a result they were lucky to get anywhere on time. Their homeschooling was more or less unschooling by default. They went with whatever the kids were interested in at the moment.

Karen had no idea where she was going to put them all. In the end, the boys ended up in one room and the girls in another, with the babies again in with Karen and Johnathan. Eli and Susan had to sleep on the couch downstairs. There just wasn’t anywhere else to put them. Every spare blanket and sheet was put into service, and the entire floor of each bedroom was covered in bedding. There were two bathrooms in the entire house, and they were in almost constant use. Somehow, they managed to scrounge up enough food to feed everyone dinner that night. It was going to be rough.

The next day, while Karen went off to town with Sarah to get some food, Shawn and Evan asked to go see the chickens. Jack led them out to the coop and yard area and let them help him to feed them. Shawn took a look and got bored and wandered off. They had seen chickens before, but Evan kept chasing them and trying to scare them and Jack asked him repeatedly to stop and he wouldn’t. He had to yell for someone to come and help. Susan came out and asked what was wrong. Jack was very upset. His chickens were his pride and joy and he didn’t want them harassed, but Evan wouldn’t listen. He explained that Evan wouldn’t stop. Susan said, “I bet those hens could use the exercise! Anyway, Evan, cut it out. Go find something else to do.” And she left.

Evan stuck his tongue out at Jack then. He was mad he had gotten into trouble. Jack and he did not get along very well. Jack felt it was really hard to have his cousins in his room, especially when they were so… crazy. The way Evan bounced all over the place and kept knocking things over drove Jack crazy. Shawn was nice enough, and they were the same age, but they didn’t seem to have anything in common. Shawn always just wanted to read or hang out with the grownups. It was even worse for Jack because he had no idea when everyone was going to leave. He liked to know what the plans were ahead of time. Like his mother, he didn’t like surprises very much. As a general rule, when their cousins came to visit, each night they all went to bed really late and then somebody woke everyone else up in the morning.

It was a pattern that was repeated this time as well. By the third day, everyone was grumpy and they seemed to be fighting most of the time. It wasn’t only the boys. Sarah and Ellie got along fine with little Hannah, but Hannah was starting to show the effects of lack of sleep and she frequently had temper tantrums. Also, the older girls wanted some time to do their own projects, but they pretty much had to entertain Hannah all day. Hannah wanted to play princess all day. Sometimes Hannah would play with Joe and it would all work out, but sometimes Joe and Hannah wanted the same thing, or somebody wouldn’t share, and they would both end up crying and yelling and someone would have to step in to break it up. Also, the mess was getting out of hand. The cousins never seemed to have learned how to put anything away.

Karen would have liked to have spent some more time catching up with Eli, but the pressure of putting out all of the little fires around the house, finding things for people and feeding everyone left her little time to talk. Susan helped a bit, but she didn’t know where anything was, so really couldn’t do much. She did do some dishes and offer to do some laundry.

One day Russell discovered Yeller and decided that it would be great sport to bark at, harass, and chase her out of her hiding place. They were of a similar size, so it was much harder for Yeller to get away from him than from Snitch. He chased her across the living room coffee table, knocking over a glass of water, and up the drapes and down again. Yeller finally stopped running and turned around with a hiss and gave him a good whack on the nose with her claws. He yelped and went cowering to Susan with a pretty deep scratch on his nose. Susan picked him up and cooed to him in baby talk about how her poor baby had gotten hurt by the mean cat. Karen gave Susan a cloth to clean up his nose, but she wanted to throw all of them out of her house at that point. She was at the boiling point. Many unkind thoughts were running around in her head, including some stuff about how the dog deserved it and had had it coming to him, and how Susan should have trained her dog a little better. The little creep had been putting his muddy paws all over their furniture all week. Having cousins to play with was nice sometimes, but in this tiny house and unannounced… it was just too much. Something was going to have to give soon.

Johnathan visited with everyone some of the time, but most of the time he seemed to have pressing business to work on and was upstairs in his office space or outside mending fences or doing other odd jobs. He had suddenly become very industrious.

It seemed that maybe Susan had finally picked up on some of this tension because the next day they announced they would be going home the following morning. To be fair, some good times had been had. The kids had actually occasionally enjoyed playing together, and games like tag had suddenly become much more interesting. Karen and Eli and Susan had had some nice discussions and had done some catching up on things.  Karen had gotten an update on her parents from Eli. He had gone to visit them before coming down to the house. Her mom was becoming somewhat frail and didn’t travel much, so it was nice to have another perspective on how she was doing. Karen made a mental note to go visit soon if she could.

It was with a collective sigh of relief, however, when the VW bus finally pulled out of the driveway the next day. Their cousins had been there a week. It was almost eerily quiet that day. It was like the aftermath of a bomb strike. The bomb had hit with a tremendous crash and then there was nothing but the destruction left behind. Baby Emma asked where everyone was. Joe said, “Good. I get my bed!” and ran upstairs to move his toys back into his room.

The beds were put back where they belonged and the proper occupants reinstated, and an enormous pile of sheets and towels sat next to the laundry room waiting to be washed. The family was so exhausted that nobody did much else that day. It took a couple of nights of sleep to get somewhat back to normal. Even Snitch slept really well that night. It had been stressful for the dog to keep track of all of those pups, and the other dog had made him nervous.

The reverberations of that visit continued for some time. Jack found that Evan had broken apart all of his Lego’s creations. This made him furious, but since the offending party was no longer present, he just beat up his pillow for a while and then went outside to sit with the goats. It had become his place to go to get away from everything. Somehow, just sitting out there in the pen calmed him down a bit.

All of Ellie’s Calico Critters had been taken out and strewn about by Hannah. No harm was done, but she never did find the little baby dog again. That made her sad, because it was one of her favorites. Sarah found that Shawn had gone through all of her books. She hadn’t minded him sitting there reading her books. At least he was occupied and not being a pest while he was reading, but he didn’t put a single one back, and she spent a week re-shelving them all in order.

It was a week or so before any of them wanted to see another living soul. Justin had come over a couple of times during all of this, and they had played some fun games, but when the weather had turned too cold, and everyone had had to go inside, the noise had proved too much for him and he had left. For the first time ever, he had been glad he was NOT part of a big family. The noise and chaos were defining. How could they live like that?

There was a silver lining to the visit though. Unbeknownst to anyone, Eli had gone out one day and painted the side of the barn. On the wall in bright primary colors was a huge chicken over a multi-colored background. It added some needed color to the drab February landscape and brightened up the yard. Eli had also done caricatures of each of them and left them tucked in a corner of the living room. This whimsical little surprise had them all in stitches that day. It was so funny to see themselves with each feature exaggerated. These they eventually had framed and put together on the wall in the hallway.