The A Girls Archive

“Girls!? Where are all the spoons? And the cheese grater!? Girls?” The mother making her way to the open back door had her confusion doubled when she got there. “What is going on?! Who died? WHAT died?!”

From their positions in front of ten small dirt mounds in the back yard grass, one tall head and three tiny ones turned to her at once. “Do you mind? This is a solemn occasion” Snubbed Alice through her makeshift black veil. “Yeah! Show some respect!” April chimed in and gruffly turned back to face the mounds. Her sisters and most remarkably, the father, all turned their heads back as well. The services continued as the mother quietly stood, arms folded, and waited on the back porch.

Alma spoke to the mounds in the mourners united voice: “We are gathered here . . . and one over there on the porch too, but she doesn’t know it and is being rude, to honor and commemorate the passing of these kitchen utensils. May they rest in peace. Or peaces. It could be plural and then it would be like a funny pun too. Pieces and peaces. You get it? Okay. Amen.”

The foursome turned to the house and began to walk heavily toward it. “You didn’t deliver that joke very well. No solid punchline.” Alice criticized and April agreed, “When you try to be funny I get sleepy.” The Father put a hand out and stopped his daughters with one motion, “Girls. Have you forgotten why we came here? This is a funeral.” The three black clad bowling pins stood still, heads lowered as the father went inside followed quickly by the mother.

“I thought I had it all figured out until I saw you had joined them. Why did you get out of bed and into your good suit to mourn over what are apparently all of my cooking tools? And if you think I want to hear a joke about my cooking, you have another think coming.” The mother plopped down on the bed while the father returned to his night clothes.

“What did you make for old Ed’s funeral reception?” Questioned the father.

“Potato salad. Why?” The mother looked at him intently waiting for the joke.

“And you make something for every funeral reception. That’s nice but it’s been a busy year. How many potato salads have you had to make?”

“Five. Oh. I see. Five. They think . . . nope. I still don’t understand.”

The father sighed and explained, “They really liked old Ed. The other funerals we’ve gone to were for people the girls did not know. Ed used to give them pennies to throw into the wishing pond at the church park. He did that for all the kids but I guess we adults never caught wind of it. So without our knowing, our girls have experience death for the first time. But true to form they did not shed a tear but went searching for the killer. Alma wasn’t buying the heart attack story she read in the obituary. They came to the conclusion that right after each time you make potato salad, we have to go to a funeral like Ed’s. Apparently generosity won the day and they decided that you were innocent but that your utensils needed to learn a lesson about being dead. I made sure they kept them all wrapped and they can dig them up later. No harm done.”

“Oh. Okay then. What did they say when they woke you?” The mother asked clearing up one last question mark.

“April pulled up my eye lids and Alma said that you were a murderer. Alice nodded behind her so I thought I better check things out. After a bit of talking, they concluded that I would never marry a death dealer.” The father trying very hard not to smile got under covers and asked the mother, “Could you turn the light out on your way down?”

The mother headed back downstairs where the girls were still mumbling in the lawn.

“Her shoes were much shinier. And she had a matching purse and a bracelet.” April noted gravely examining Alma’s shoes. “No. You will not do like this. We may have to have a do over. Your socks are inside out and your hair is a mess.” Alma’s brows creased with anger, and just in time Alice jumped in, “Shhh you two. The mother is watching.” All three girls resumed staring at their feet and walked past their mother into the house. April being the smallest took the longest to climb the stairs. She stopped to face the mother. Looking up to make eye contact, April confided, “You know the only problem with the fashion at funerals is the lack of color. They’ve got the accessories down well.”

The mother raised a single eyebrow, “I thought you were all sad about Ed’s dying?”

April put a finger to the air as if to add something and turned running up to her bedroom. Pausing briefly at the head of the stairs she called one last observation down to the mother, “Now if jeans and t-shirts were good for funerals we would not have to change right now! You see my point?!”

“Where are my keys! You girls are always moving my things!” The mother frantically roamed the tossing up paper and coloring books.

“I didn’t move them,” Alice offered but did not get up from watching cartoons to help.

“What about you Alma? Have you seen my keys?” The mother snapped sharply at the most likely girl. “Uhm, no. I don’t drive. I am not allowed remember. Only eight over here.”

April came in the back door covered in mud. Trying to be helpful and avoid a smart alec backhand Alma asked her, “Have you seen the mother’s keys?”

April said, “I don’t know where the bloody keys went.” A tiny pause of assimilation fell into the room and all looked to the tv as if to credit it for April’s European cursing.

The mother went out of the room and Alma, not convinced that Sesame Street had taught April a darned thing much less how to curse like a Britain, probed further, “Where are her keys, April?”

Still tiny but already filling a void, April said, “I threw them at Joe Joe and when they hit his face his nose got ‘em all bloody and they fell down the sewer. I don’t know where they went after that.”

“Oh. That makes more sense.” Alma nodded satisfied at her predictive accuracy and moved over on the couch so that April could watch cartoons too. “Probably should keep that to yourself from here on out okay?”

April looked at Alma and then at Alice to be sure. Alice did not remove her eyes from the cartoons as she lifted a finger to her lips and shushed in agreement.

The mother hung up the phone and screamed her normal line up cry, “Girls! Get down here!” She waited and then screamed, “Right this minute!” After thirty more seconds passed without noise she added, “I will ground your butts!”

The girls lined up ready for any number of things. The mother, exasperated and confused, slumped into a desk chair and plead, “Why did you three pee on Mr. Hoagard’s porch rug? What could you have been thinking?”

Alma immediately asked in response, “Why should he get special treatment?”

April chuckled at that and added, “Cause he a fucked up bastard that’s why. He was askin for it! Do it again in a heartbeat muthas!” And she raised both arms to the ceiling as if she were at a rock concert.

A quiet came across the room as Alice began to shake and cry. “It was an accident! I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t know what’s wrong!”

The mother looked at Alice and was as disconcerted as the sisters at this stoic girl’s collapse. Alma shifted her feet and admitted, “It’s that medicine you gave her. Since she’s been taking it she has to pee more.”

Alice snapped her head to stare a hole into Alma, “What the hell? You keep track of when I pee? Sicko!”

The mother grabbed the prescription and read the bottle. “Yeah. I guess that is a diuretic. Wow. Sorry Alice. I didn’t realize. Your little body just gave out on you! Oh poor girl! That had to be embarrassing.”

April had been looking at Alma since the term “sicko” had been stapled to her, “You notice all that shit don’t you?”

Alma sighed heavily, “Yeah. It sucks.”

“How long were you gonna let her pee like that?” April asked starting to laugh and Alice began to ball a fist hearing the question.

“I didn’t know it was that bad. Do you think I’d sympathy piss on a rug for kicks?”

April shrugged, “I did.”

The mother stood and walked across the room to look out of a window and think. “You are so ready to fight each other but when something hurts one, you pull together like magnets. You are weird children but you are right, he is a real ass. I cannot believe I am saying this but girls please do not pee on people’s rugs anymore.”

The mother went out of the room and April, building a case for squatters’ rights with profanity, whispered to Alma, “I totally got an F-word for free outta this. You catch that? Keep track of that for me will ya?”

“I saw you kiss him. Somebody took a picture too.” Alma was dipping cheese puffs into her chocolate milk pretending that she wasn’t needling Alice.

“No way did somebody get a picture of that. I didn’t . . . well, he kissed me first!” Alice shifted defensively in her chair.

“It is surprising to me. All the evidence seemed to point to April being the first to be kissed by a boy.” Alma shoved a soaking bit into her mouth as she and Alice looked out of the kitchen window at April holding her dress up to show her new underwear to the cars that passed by the house.

“It was no big deal. He likes me that’s all. So, who took that picture anyway?” Alice was pretending to be nonchalant.

“Don’t panic, Alice. I doubt anyone cares that you kissed the stupidest boy on our street.” Alma pricked away, “And the ugliest, and wow, he is the smelliest too isn’t he?”

“No. J.J. is smellier.” Alice kept good track of such things.

“That’s right. I guess you have nothing to be embarrassed about then.” Alma got up to rinse her glass and hands, “I wouldn’t worry about that photo.”

Alice got up to go outside and see to April who had finally achieved her goal of getting a car to pull into the driveway and was explaining her theory that daisies are better than roses on underwear and before the screen door snapped behind Alice she called back, “Oh! The mother is going to the store in a few and wants to know if we need anything. You have to tell her. I don’t know what we need.”

Alma waited at the sink and the mother hurried through to find her purse. “What do we need Alma? I am in a hurry. Can you write it down?”

Alma handed her mother a complete list of her sisters and her needs for the week and an long envelope.

“What’s this? Film? Okay, I’ll drop it off. Thank you for filling out the envelope form. You are such a good girl.”

“Girls! Get down here!” The mother hollered up the stairs in a sing song tone that made the arm hairs of all three girls salute.

“Shid.” April slurred as five year old mouth was just beginning to master the fine art of appropriately placed profanity.

“What April? There is no need for that. She’s probably just trying to lure us down there to eat something she made . . . oh, I see your point.” Alice wavered at the top of the stairs as she thought of the last Thai-nightmare-on-a-plate the mother had concocted.

“No. It’s worse. It’s Aunt Bea.” Alma said from the window over the drive way. Alice and Alma passed a look that frightened the tiny April who began to cry.

Alma raised an eyebrow and went to open a front window while she advised, “April. Do not cry. You have a range of like 100 emotions by now, how about choosing one that doesn’t slow us down?”

Alma was out on the roof of the porch and set to help April escape as well when Alice stepped in front of the mite. “Are you crazy?” Alice pointed a finger at Alma’s face and quickly stepped out of the window to chastise her sister for her lack of safety considerations. “She cannot curse properly and you think she will make it down that side pole? You remember when you first tried it. We almost died!”

Alma rolled her eyes ready to argue the difference between near death and five stitches when a voice came from within the room. “Girls? Where are . . . Oh! There is sweet baby April! She is the one I was looking for! April baby, me and Uncle Basil are gonna take you to the country with us this weekend! We’re gonna pick our own corn. How’d you like that? Won’t that be fun? Your sisters have to do stuff for school so they can’t come. Boy, they are going to be jealous of you!”

Aunt Bea whisked April up into her arms and as she walked from the room April looked back at the window and the two silent murky faces just outside. She sensed their laughing and mouthed to the window, “Shit.”

Alice whispered in the dark outside, “It’s a darned good thing articulation doesn’t figure into first word status or Ape would be banned from speaking altogether.”

“Let’s just be happy she’s learned how to do it silently now.”

“So she asked me, ‘Aren’t you the mother of those odd girls with the A names?’ Can you believe that?” The mother had no intention of listening to an answer so she continued even though the father made as if to speak and then ceded the dinner table yet again. The tirade lasted throughout the shoe-leather bottom round and the box potatoes many of which escaped moisture altogether in the mixing.

“I figured I should do something about it, just in case. So I called Michelle Horvath and she said the girls could come over and spend some time with their family.” All clinking of plates stopped and since the meat required a significant amount of sawing with dulled blades this sudden silence took the father aback.

“Hon? Have you thought this through? Are you going to send them all? Isn’t that . . .” The father was cut off again and did not seem to mind.

“Oh no. I figured just April and Alma could go. Alice could pass as normal to look at her. It’s the other two who have no idea what the outside world thinks when it encounters them. For crying out loud, Alma has already tried to shave her head because. . .what was it . . .’hair is nonsense,’ and April cannot . . . well, just look at her.”

The father turned his eyes to the other end of the dinner table at his daughters two of whom were glaring at the mother and clutching cutlery. April was wearing a swim cap covered in crayon daisies and pierced all over with barrettes and bows. Alma had on a dive mask and a snorkel was hanging dead against her cheek. Alice was reading a romance novel and could not be bothered once she heard of her reprieve from the visitation to normalcy.

Having not completely swallowed her mouthful of potato flakes Alma’s remark came decorated with a puff of whitish dust, “Oh good. I thought for a minute there you had gone blind and did not realize we were sitting here, you know, in earshot? My mistake.”

The father quickly shoved an enormous piece of beef into his mouth and sat back for a very long chew. “You will be going to the Horvath’s tomorrow after lunch. They will be providing dinner and you will be searched before you leave.” The mother smiled a nonsmile at Alma as she laid down the law.

“We don’t have much time to plan Ape.” Alma whispered amid April’s plush toy cell block in post dinner commiseration.

“Do you think they are allowed to say ‘shit’ at the Horvath’s house?” April was genuinely curious and began to make list of words to ask the Horvaths about and continued, “Well, I know they have to say ‘damn.’ Everyone says that. And ‘dumbass’ too.”

“She said they would be providing dinner. You know, this might be interesting. I wonder if they have sharp knives.” And both Alma and April began to feel as if this new experience might not be all bad.

“You are so toast.” Alice said from the doorway as a final judgment after hearing her sisters ponder the possibilities, “The Horvaths are normal people. Their kids are normal. A normal girl and a normal boy. They do normal things. You’ll be lucky to come out of it alive.”

Alma put her hand to her chin and mentally sized up the challenge, “We’re going to get to see how normal people react. Hmm.”

April’s eyes became huge in her prepubescent skull, “A boy will be there. Hmm.”

“So, April and Alma, how would you like some cookies!?” Mrs. Horvath’s question was nearly drowned out in the station wagon by her children who screamed with glee at the mention of cookies.

“Now Matthew and Renee, be gentle with our guests ears please. You act as if I never give you cookies.” Staring at Mrs. Horvath from the passenger seat, Alma was entranced with the interaction and she decided to be very proper. “Am I to assume from your offsprings’ reaction that the cookies of which you speak are delicious?”

“Uh. Well, Alma, you will have to be the judge of that. Here we are!” The station wagon seemed to position itself behind a powerboat as if to mount it. Renee and Matthew unbuckled and were out of the car and into the house before April and Alma had moved. “A boat,” they said in hypnotic unison.

April leaned forward and whispered to Alma, “Do you think her cookies are going to be like the mother’s? How are we going to get out of this Alma!?” The Christmas tray hockey puck platters had clearly left and impression.

“Let’s give it a try. I cannot tell if this mother is like ours or not.” The girls got out of the car and thanked Mrs. Horvath for holding the front door for them.

“Cook Es! Cook Es! Cook Es!” Was chanted and accompanied by fists pounding a table in the distance. Still just beyond the threshold, April grabbed Alma’s hand. With great wariness the two took seats at the table and waited silently as the chanting continued. A plate was plunked down and four little hands, none of which came from the girls, grabbed at the treats.

“Oh now you two! Be polite and let your guests have some first!” Renee and Matthew looked with scorn at their guests and threw the cookies back onto the plate as mandated. The girls hesitated. April was waiting for Alma and vice versa. “Oh come on! Just eat a cookie!” Matthew whined in frustration and this made April smile. She took a cookie and a bite.

Alma studied her intently. “What are you waiting for?” Renee asked Alma. “I want to see if she will die.” Alma responded with surgical seriousness. When April did not die or choke or break a tooth, Alma took her first bite into an honest to goodness homemade wonder. “These are fucking outstanding!” She shouted between chews not realizing her faux pas until it was too late.

Renee, Mattthew and Mrs. Horvath all stopped moving. April took the opportunity to grab several more cookies and shove them in her pants pockets. “I guess you guys don’t say the ‘fuck’ here? How about ‘shit?’ Do you say that? I was telling Alma last night that you must say ‘damn,’ ‘hell,’ ‘ass’. . .” When it was clear that April was about to embark on a journey that could put horrifying ideas into her son’s head, Mrs. Horvath interceded, “No April, we do not use curse words in this house. Do you do that over at your house?”

To the observers April and Alma shared only a tiny glance. To the girls a tacit agreement to lie like stadium sized rugs was made. Alma began, “Oh yeah. We don’t like it but they say everything at our house. I am sorry for my slip. It’s just that these cookies are so good, I lost track. The cookies we have eaten are the kind that hurt.” Everyone looked to April for verification, “Yeah, the last one the mother made me eat cut my damn gums. . . Sorry. Slipped. You are an amazing baker, Mrs. Horvath.” Alma was aghast and thrilled at April’s new advances in fabrication and flattery.

As if summoned by some unwritten trumpeting, Mrs. Horvath went into her kitchen and reappeared beside Alma with a plastic baggie, “You will take as many home as you like girls. Now children, you can go to the play room while I make dinner.”

The four meandered down a hallway like tiny drunken sailors. Renee lead them to the play room and Matthew followed behind. He paused for a moment and pulled at April’s arm, “That was a load of shit wasn’t it?” April smiled prettily in response and continued into the room.

This time, in the face of more gadgetry than either girl had ever seen in one place, Alma grabbed April’s hand and said what would become a standard pre-evaluation for years to come, “Oh this is going to be good.”

“May I have more, please?” In all her six years April had never asked for seconds at the dinner table, but Alma was too busy eating to notice the anomaly. “You dear sweet little thing. Of course you can!” Mrs. Horvath plated more food and as she put the dish back in its place, she met April’s adoring eyes and felt it time to ask a few questions.

“Girls? Did you have a good time?” Alma jerked to attention like a dog at its bowl and fought in her mind with the glorious flavors of a skillfully prepared meal. In her experience such a question had never meant that good things were to come and she was on guard in spite of her dancing taste buds. “What do you mean?” The suspicion in her face made Mr. Horvath, who had joined the family for dinner, guffaw.

“I just wanted to make sure that you had fun here, Alma. Everything is, okay. Don’t you worry child. You are safe here.” Mrs. Horvath’s soft but grounded voice eased Alma’s mind but she could not understand why Mr. Horvath was giggling into his napkin.

When the girls were dropped back home, each carrying a baggie plump with cookies, they stood at the end of the drive waving goodbye to the Horvaths until they were no longer in sight. “Better hide those cookies April,” Alma advised, “They won’t last an hour in there.” With that Alma ran to the front porch and hid her baggie in a shrubbery.

“Girls! Welcome home sweet home!” The mother had gone insane for all the two could tell. Her smile was wide at the door and the father was waiting just beyond in the living room. “Come. Sit.” He ordered them. They placed themselves on the floor in front of their jury and judges and waited for the verdict.

The mother took a slip of paper from her pocket and began: “Let’s see. We use profanity rabidly. We force you to eat rocks. We beat you and we make you do all of the work around here. Mr. and Mrs. Horvath called me while you were playing. Did you know they could have called the police and had me arrested for child abuse?”

Alma and April looked once at each other and then to the father who put his hand to his head and rubbed it red. “Your mother doesn’t deserve that.” His voice cracked and the girls believed he was verging on tears.

“Let me go on because this is one impressive list. If you had stopped at the beatings we would all be in trouble, but you two really had some style didn’t you? Here we go: At our house, we go naked after 8 P.M. except for our socks which are made of carpet so where ever we walk there’s carpet.” The father interrupted, “That was my second favorite.” The mother poked him in the side and he set to rubbing his head again.

“We cannot have pets because I get up in the night and eat them whole and uncooked. We pull our teeth out for fun. We do not sleep unless people are looking. I don’t even understand that one. Alice is not real. She is a robot. You father lights his farts on fire.” The father put both hands in front of his face at this mention. “You both are married and Alma’s pregnant. Impressive for eight years old, Alma. Oh, and let’s not forget that your father and I do not love you and tried to sell you to an Avon lady last week. I think that’s it. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”

April raised her hand as if she were in a class and had the right answer straight away and she did, “I’m six!”

Alma, not knowing if she was too aged to get away with the cute kid tactic remained silent. “Alma?” The father asked still holding his hands over his face. “They have really good toys over there,” was all that she could come up with in the moment and she thought it was enough.

“Go to bed now girls. And tomorrow we talk about lies.” The mother pointed to the stairs and the girls ran up as if they were on fire.

“What’s going on?” Alma whispered to Alice who was returning from the kitchen a few minutes later, “Are they really mad?” Alice shrugged, “I don’t know. The mother is on the phone reading some dumb list and the father is sitting at the table flicking his lighter open and shut and laughing. They are so odd.”

“Just sit out there and stew! I can not put up with this . . .”

“The mother is really funny today. Do you think she will threaten to send us to the orphanage again? I love it when she does that. I get to pretend my real mother is fabulous.” April, picking at the hem of her bathrobe, began the punishment discussion.

“Well, she doesn’t often send all three of us out here, so there must be something really bugging her. So I would say yes. I expect the orphanage threat will come very soon.” Alice scratched her feet against the grit of the sidewalk.

“April? Why can’t you pretend your real mother is fabulous all the time? I mean, why do you have to wait for the threat?” Alma, not really interested but unable to let an incongruous detail escape mention, pounded her head lightly on the welcome mat.

“You see if she doesn’t threaten to send me there then I forget. How long do you think . . .” April was interrupted by the mother at her tiny back, “If you three cannot abide by the rules of this house I will see to it that you get another home to destroy!”

As the mother disappeared back into the house Alice listened at the screen door, “I think that was close enough. Don’t you? So who would you have as your real mother April?”

“Yeah, who?” Alma added and this flood of attention made the tiny April puff up with importance. “I would have some lady with sunglasses and lots of money and candy . . . and very nice hair.” April held her hands clasped to her chest as if she were wishing upon a star.

“That’s not a who, April,” Alice noted, “I would have Mrs. Kliber be my real mom.” This statement of claim for the best first grade teacher in existence caught the envious attention of both girls.

“That’s not fair. I want her too!” April complained and was ready to argue the point with shrill nonsensical screaming.

“Excellent choice, Alice. I would have to say that Mrs. Kliber would be my first choice as well. But my second choice will do just fine.” Alma waited for her sisters to pay attention to her announcement of her would be pretend real mother. “Mary, the mother of Christ. She would be excellent.”

April rolled her eyes and Alice bit her lip but spoke first, “Alma? She had to have her baby in a barn. There is no way she would be able to get good cookies for you.”

“Yeah, and she’s dead and she doesn’t have good clothes.” April added as if sealing the dismissal of Alma’s choice.

“I guess you guys are right. But what about miracles? I was thinking more along the lines of a genie and three wishes, but with Mary it would be kind of holy and stuff.” Alma bit her fingers wondering where her reasoning had gone awry.

“Okay girls, you can come back in. Just do not bother me right now. I have a lot on my mind.” The mother pushed the screen door open and inadvertently hit the prostrate Alma in the forehead, “Ouch a little.”

“Oh, it’s alright. We’ll stay out here for a while. We’re figuring out who the best real pretend mother is besides Mrs. Kliber.” Alice waved behind her head to the screen door and all three girls went back to pondering the alternatives.

Four minutes later the mother sang from distance inside that could only be the kitchen, “I am making cookies! The good kind!”

April stood up, straightened her robe and called back, “Can I try on your shoes?” With her permission granted April added another bonk on Alma’s head while going inside.

Alice let out a sigh and grabbed Alma’s hand, “Let’s go, Alma. The real mother wants us and if you get hit in the head anymore we’ll get in trouble again. Plus, we have to stop her from baking. Really. We do.”

Alma finally sat upright and began to lift herself, “Yeah, I think you’re right. The mother seemed pretty upset about all the blood the last time. Want to draw a mustache on April? I got the laundry marker.”

“So how many people are down there?” Alice asked the only girl willing to step foot in the room with the visiting relatives and April shrugged her response, “Like fifty thousand.”

“Are you two really going to do it?” Alice was smiling, tempted to join.

“Hell yes. Been waiting all my life for a shot at the big time.” April moved past her older sister and began to generously apply the mother’s lipstick to her cheeks. “What? In all your six years you have not had the chance to embarrass yourself?” Alice’s sarcasm almost hit home but it was intercepted by the virgin.

“That’s good on the lips too you know Ape.” Alma swept into the room with a light blue sheet draped over her head, “And Alice, it’s not about embarrassing ourselves. It’s about embarrassing as many people as possible. Now if you don’t join us it will be sacrilege.”

Alice bit her lip weighing whether or not it would be more egregious socially to be a part of the most gawdy living manger scene in history or to have Mary give a speech in front of the entire family tree about the perils of single motherhood. “Okay, hand me the glue. What is this anyway?”

Alma handed a box of fluff to Alice, “You don’t wanna know.”

In short order the trio, Mary/Alma equipped with a utility belt and a bucket of confetti, Jesus/April with rag doll cheeks and a towel wrapped around her bottom (pink bikini top on of course) and Joseph/Alice with the shorn hair of the neighbors’ afghan dog glued to her cheeks, made their way to the dining room table and waited.

“Okay everyone! It’s time to eat! There’s a buffet in the kitchen and your plates are on the dining room table.” The mother’s voice herded the crowd toward the sliding door. “Oh this is going to be so damn good.” April whispered as she took her position on the table between her sisters. Alice reached down and shoved a napkin firmly in April’s mouth. “It’s for the best.”

The door slid open and Alma sprayed the relatives with confetti and announced, “Behold! The miracle!”

An understandable pause later, the mother spotted the piled dishes and said normally, “Here they are. Help yourselves. Very nice nativity girls and thank you for cleaning up tonight and tomorrow and for the rest of your lives under my roof.”

As each guest passed the scene muffling a laugh, Alice looked up to the heavens as if to ask forgiveness. “Of all you, Joseph looks the most realistic.” Aunt Bea critiqued briefly as she trudged through.

Alice whispered to Alma, “Is this the way you thought it would go?” Alma held her hands together white knuckled and peered down at the squirming April. “Pray now. Pray harder than you ever have that the napkin holds.” And as they held hands in silent prayer and looked down at the ruddy child they actually did look a little angelic. Except for April.