“Is Ryan out of the shower? Yes or no?”
“I don’t hear water running, so I think so.”
“If we’re rained in tomorrow, you should work on your dress.
Your stitches are perfect! You’re making progress!
And I love the colors of your embroidery.
You’re quite the seamstress, when you don’t try to hurry.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I blushed slightly, “I’m happy with it.
I’m shocked I could do it, I have to admit.”
Suddenly my mother seemed so out of place.
I cherished her, but I could see from her face
that she had no idea what was happening tonight,
as if aging extinguished her second sight.
I guess that’s one more thing to regret as we age.
We’re not older or wiser, we just disengage
and bow to one version of “the way life is” now.
A blight, self-imposed perceptual kowtow.
Lightning cut through the sky far past our window.
My mother’s eyes glinted an omniscient glow,
and she gazed far away as if she could bestow
permission to launch the storm’s turbulent flow.
Puzzled, I rushed upstairs. Thunder shook the walls.
My brother and I collided in the hall.
But he hurried away, not inclined to discuss
the impending Mud Gullumper grand exodus.
So I went to my room and I lay on my bed
and I picked up my funnel-tipped hose and I said,
“Hey Pam, do you think Ryan will be alright
when all of the Mud Gullumpers take leave tonight?”
A spooky silence filled the other end.
“Hey Pam, are you there?” I queried once again.
“I’m here,” Pam replied, “I’m just thinking about Ryan.
He’s at his window. Think he sees that I’m spying?”
“I can’t see you at all, so I wouldn’t worry.
I just see our dumb hose twisting up the tree.
I guess he’ll be fine. Things change all the time.
People come and they go, and we’re doing just fine.
Plus, although they are leaving, in a sense they’re not gone.
They’ll be a past from which the future is drawn.”
While Pam and I took a minute to discuss
what was making Ryan so lugubrious….
“Breaker, breaker,” burped Cyd on his walkie-talkie.
“Are you there Ryan? Got your ears on Danny?”
“Roger Cyd. This is Danny. I’m at my window.”
“Evening Danny,” said Cyd. “I can’t wait for the show.
Calling Ryan,” Cyd beckoned, pacing his attic.
But his walkie-talkie just emitted static.
“How strange,” Danny mused, “that he wouldn’t be on.
I was sure he’d watch it,” he voiced through a yawn.
Although Ryan was listening, he didn’t dare speak.
He sat at his window, his fist on his cheek,
and he stared at the dead end with sad, forlorn eyes,
reflecting on the king’s approaching demise.
Pam and I eavesdropped to the boys’ banter
on our own walkie-talkies tuned into their channel.
We yakked back and forth through our hose-a-phone,
while the boys prophesized the most active zone.
The boys grew impatient, complained it was boring
to sit there and wait for the rain to start pouring.
The sky, hostile black, as clouds churned overhead,
showed two fierce eyes advancing, glowing cherry red.
Bursting through the clouds and spewing lightning,
was a head with deer horns and a ruffle of wings
that fluttered through the wind like dorsal fish fins.
It was clear it was time for the show to begin.
“The rain dragon!” I exclaimed. “Did you see its claws?”
“A what?” Pam asked in disbelief after a pause.
Then the sky opened up; like a dam, it just burst!
I sprung out of my bed and prepared for the worst.
The wind howled, lightning flashed, making treetops glow.
Rain splatted my screen, so I closed my window.
“Can you see?” I asked Pam through our green hose machine.
“Yes, through my window top, the part without the screen.”
“I see a Mud Gullumper near the crab apple tree!
Look toward the dead end! They are starting to flee!”
“I see them!” shrieked Pam. “Just look at them go!”
“Can you see Ryan?”
“Yes, he’s still at his window.”
“Oh man!” Cyd’s voice squeaked through the walkie talkie.
“This is awesome! 10-4,” replied a charged Danny.
Mud Gullumpers fled from all the spots where they’d dried.
Thousands rose from the trees and the telephone wires.
With them flying up and the rain falling down,
it looked like a cyclone was blowing through town.
They were so relentless, escaping their plight,
that it was a quick end to the Mud Gullumper flight.
Not one took a chance of missing this climb.
They all fled the dead end in world-record time.
Then I saw his great form rising up in the air
and he surveyed below, regally taking care
to see that no Mud Gullumper had been left behind
to an uncertain life with the rest of mankind.
Rain swiftly enabled the king’s lunar journey,
with the rain dragon as an escort appointee.
As he rose, the rain stopped at his form and below
as it had for Chang Er many evenings ago.
Then after the brief pause, the rain continued,
and it rained cats and dogs, its strength now renewed.
Once the king was not visible deep in the sky,
Pam and I settled down and we said our goodbyes.
We heard the boys crackle their “over and outs”
around 9:37 or thereabouts.
I lay my tired body down onto my bed,
so wild dreams of flying could fill up my head.
My head got so light, keeping me elevated
over my bed, numinously elated.
Ryan moved from his window to his bottom bunk.
From his nightstand drawer, he took out his mud chunk.
Placing it on a red bandana from his drawer,
he wrapped it as tight as the cloth allowed for.
He cut a square tag from a white paper sheet
and in red ink, he wrote words especially neat.
A hole-pocked corner from a hole punch he found,
received string on its way to be fastened around
that small, precious bundle of fecund earth’s crust.
He was the sole heir of the king’s ample trust.
Parcel set on his nightstand, he climbed into bed.
Streetlights near his window beamed bright and widespread.
His window, cracked open, allowed the cool rain
to drum steadily on his ears and his brain.
Sullen hurricane winds caused his label to stir.
The tag flipped from a gust and read: Just add water.
###
Bibliographies
E. L. Purnell has played with language ever since she was a child. She spoke Pig Latin and invented her own alphabets so that she could pass secret notes in school. The Mud Gullumpers is her first book.
Io Kovach desperately wants a cat, but has to settle for a couple of gold fish. So she draws pictures of cats instead. Io creates artwork every single day. She is happy The Mud Gullumpers is her first book illustration.
Thank you for reading books on BookFr
om.Net Share this book with friends