Red Rover, Red Rover

After 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, number 9 in Poetigress's weekly prompts was the word "red."

     As the fabled April showers start subsiding into the equally 

legendary May flowers, I get back into the swing of things, bundle 

myself up in the twilight after supper, and roll out into the 

neighborhood to see who's who and what's what.  I guess it's my 

version of spring fever.

     But the sweeter weather means that El Brujo'll join me more 

often than not--she takes her vocation as my nurse and personal 

physical therapist much more strongly when it's not raining, I've 

noticed.  And last night while most of the house headed up to Holy 

Thursday services, she and I sallied forth for our first Evening 

Cruise of the year.

     At the sidewalk outside the front door, I paused.  "Which 

way?"

     She'd settled herself in my lap, her paws tucked under 

herself in that way that makes her look like a black furry 

meatloaf.  "Take some initiative, August," she said with a little 

feline sigh.  "I shan't always be around to make your decisions 

for you, after all."

     So I turned left--mostly because that's east and the sun was 

setting big, bright and yellow behind the stringy clouds and 

silhouetted ficus trees to the west.  Hard on the eyes, in other 

words, and one thing I've learned navigating the sidewalks of the 

neighborhood here is that the ficus roots tear up concrete pretty 

well given a little rain and a little time.  I had a pretty 

thorough mental map of the bumps and cracks for a two or three 

block radius, but it was a new year.  And that meant navigating by 

sight would be the best practice for a while.

     Turning left, though, takes us down the street, and at the 

corner at the bottom of the hill sits the Ramsays' place.  I 

didn't even think about it till we'd rolled past their front gate 

and I heard the first whoops of laughter: two voices, one scratchy 

and raucous, the other deep, almost baying.  "Red Rover, Red 

Rover!" the scratchy voice called.  "Let cottage cheese come 

over!"

     "I beg your pardon?" the deeper voice said, slurring and 

messy in a way I recognized all too well.  "How on earth does 

cottage cheese come over?"

     "Like rotten milk!" the first voice cawed, and their laughter 

this time was higlighted by a clinking like glass against metal.

     "I shall certainly drink to that," chuckled the second voice, 

and I heard the lap-lap-lap of a tongue in liquid.  "I've always 

been rather fond of human food after it's reached the stage they 

would call spoiled."

     "Tell me, bro.  It don't age a little, it's got no piquancy, 

y'know?"

     I couldn't help looking till I found the doberman and the 

crow in the shadow of the garage, the rest of the house dark.  

Several brown bottles stood arrayed beside them, Traveler with his 

nose in a large metal bowl between his front paws, Jefe perched on 

the rim of another bowl, dipping his head down into it, then 

straightening up, his beak pointed at the gathering evening above.  

     Traveler raised his head, his pointed ears perking.  "I have 

one!"  He touched a paw to his chest.  "Red Rover, Red Rover, let 

spinach come over!"

     "Spinach??"  Jefe blinked.  "How does spinach come over?"

     The doberman rolled onto his back.  "All over queasy!" he 

barked.

     Jefe stared a second, then burst out laughing, threw his 

wings wide, and tumbled backward into the grass.

     A sniff from El Brujo.  "Must I be made to witness this 

debauchery?"

     Grabbing the rims, I started rolling us away.  "Not in a 

party mood?" I asked her.

     Her ears folded, and she shot a little glance over her 

shoulder at me.  "After inhaling the stench of Killian's Irish 

Red?"  A shudder rippled her silken fur.  "I can see that I'll 

need to introduce them to the pleasures of Bass."

And the adventure continues with 10.