The Flog – The Fabry Log

We try to look at the positives of the situation we’re in, but I never thought in a million years that there would be eight of us sleeping in one bedroom. It’s something out of The Waltons. Or The Grapes of Wrath.

Still, there are things to be thankful for. When we first moved into this house it was scary. We were worried about neighbors and their pesticides. We were worried about a hole in the bathroom tile and mold growing in there. We were worried.

But something happened last night that was pretty neat. I’ve been reading to the little kids from a book by Cathy Gohlke titled William Henry is a Fine Name. She won the Christy award for it last year in juvenile fiction. It’s a story set just before the Civil War and the follow-up has the main character and his life during the war.

We’re about 80 pages into it. The younger kids are on their air mattresses, listening. The older kids are reading something of their own or listening to a book on CD or their iPods. Last night we get to a particularly tense part of the story. The slave master is coming back, a mean man named Jed Slocum. I closed the book and said, “We’ll pick up from here tomorrow.”

Brandon, 8, sighed and put his head on the pillow.

Kaitlyn, 11, sighed and pulled the covers up over her arms. “That was a short chapter. Can we read another one?”

The answer was no. I had just bought a new novel I have been waiting to read for more than a year. The anticipation is killing me. But before I could say anything, another of the kids, and I will protect that person’s anonymity here, raised up and said, “Yeah, can we read another chapter?” I didn’t even think he/she was listening!

I gathered myself and said, “No, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

I pulled out my new novel, opened it to cover my face, and smiled. Tonight we’ll find out about Jed Slocum.

All of us.