Evenings in the Parlor Part II

 

They spontaneously assembled on the distant side of the room eyed the picture in horror, where it gradually stopped.  For a moment, no one could break their fixed stare.  Ancel laughed nervously.  Eleanor slapped him across the head.

          “It’s your fault,” she said in anger.  “You had to play your devilish game.  Now see what you’ve done.  You know how Grandma Inger felt about gambling!”

          “Well,” exclaimed Oliver cheerfully, “Do you think we could get her to move the picture again?”

          “Are you insane?” mouthed Eva in near silence.

          “What?  Didn’t you think it was exciting?” he returned.”

          She merely glared in response.

          “I think we should get Ma,” said Eleanor.

          “Why?  She’ll only get mad, and she’ll probably burn the cards,” moaned Ancel.

          “That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard,” exclaimed Eleanor.  She grabbed the deck of cards before Ancel could respond, marched across the room, and threw them into the stove.

          In anguish, he dashed after his prize, but was only rewarded with singed fingers.  “I paid five cents for those.  You owe me!”  At that instant, the picture on the wall made one final dance move.  Ancel, who had moved in close proximity to the picture during his failed rescue, let out a little yelp and ran back to join the others.

          Later that evening, everyone ate a cinnamon roll in uncharacteristic silence.  Many furtive eyes darted right and left above a mouth concealed behind a crown of cream cheese frosting. Ma looked over the assembly, puzzled and suspicious.  No one had the nerve to tell of her dead mother-in-law’s unexpected visit.

 

.    .    .    .

 

          “It was you! “said Oliver in the darkness.  “I knew it had to be.”  Reuben’s quiet laughter muffled by his pillow confirmed Oliver’s suspicion.  “Did you use strings?” he asked.  Reuben continued to laugh.  “Well?” persisted Oliver.

          As Reuben finally contained his glee, he responded, “It was a pin.”

          “A pin?”

          “A long hat pin.  Went right through the wall from the next room over.”

          “Brilliant!” admired Oliver.  “What’s next?”

          “Dang!” he said in dismay.  “I’ve been having such a good time that I haven’t thought of a follow-up -- besides another night of the same.”

          “Boring!  They’ll catch on fast and you won’t have had any new fun.  Besides, it needs to be so good that it will make up for Ma’s inevitable retribution when she finds out,” reveled Oliver.

          “You think she’ll get mad?” asked Reuben.

          “Just how dumb are you?”

          “Pa would laugh.”

          “Now that you can be sure of,” said Oliver.  “I wish he were here.”

          Both young men pondered how best to carry out the next phase of this artistry.

          “OK, I’ve got it.  No wait.   .   .   Yes.  This is fabulous!” savored Oliver.  “We’ll need to make the hole bigger, maybe a half inch.  Oh, we are going to get into such trouble, but this is a beautiful plan.”

          “Get to it,” beckoned Reuben in anticipation.

          “We will run a small pipe through the wall with a fitting on the end, and we’ll fasten it into the back of Grandma’s picture.  We’ll have to detach the actual hook that holds it to the wall.”

          “Yes?” said Reuben, still not seeing the point.

          “Don’t you get it?  Instead of just bouncing the picture on the wall, we can have it shoot straight out of the wall a couple feet and slam back.”  He basked it the image.  “We can even make it spin in place!”

          “I am not worthy to be in your presence.  You are an artist of the highest order,” marveled Reuben.

          “I’ve got more.”

          “More?  My heart can’t take it!”

          “When we begin the spin, you scream as loud as you can.  Something in Norwegian.”

          “Norwegian?”

          “Have you forgotten.  Grandma didn’t speak any English.  We can look up some words to scream.”

          “Like what?  Does it matter?” asked Reuben.

          “Correct.  No one will know what we’re saying.  It just has to be Norwegian.”

 

.    .    .    .

 

          Everything was coming together.  They would carry out their masterpiece tomorrow night; Halloween itself.  They would leave the party at the grange hall early enough to assemble their grandma-spinner just before everyone else got home.  They only needed to perfect the audio portion of their special effects.  They arranged a time when everyone would be finishing up work on the sugar beets in the southwest corner of the farm, while Reuben and Oliver volunteered to bring in the cattle that had been grazing near the Northeast corner of the farm.  There, they practiced their screams.  Reuben gave it his best shot.

          “You are a sad little boy,” said Oliver in dismay.  “You call that a scream?  Listen to this.”   He let out a sustained shriek that would have blistered the paint on the barn had they been closer.  He merged the scream into Norwegian words using an unnerving high falsetto.

          “MAMMA SKAL DREPE OSS!”  Not knowing Norwegian, the cows paid little attention to the shriek.

          “You sound like a girl!” exclaimed Reuben.

          “Isn’t that the point.  It is highly probable that Grandma Inger was a girl.”

          “Right, but seriously, that is truly creepy,” shuddered Reuben.  “Now just what did you say?”

          Oliver smiled for a moment.  “It means ‘Mom is going to kill us.’”

          “Creepy,” said Reuben again.