(note: this is Installment No. 3 in a series. If you’ve missed earlier installments, you can find them by wandering here for the first, or thither for the second.)
Margaret ran from the kitchen into the parlor, where she found Mr. Stewitt out of his recliner and standing beside the window, looking out at the falling snow with one hand firmly planted on his hip. He didn’t turn around when Margaret came through the French doors of the kitchen. “Mr. Stewitt!” gasped Margaret. “Look! Look what was in your box of Puff Its! These aren’t Puff Its at all!” Margaret reached into her pocket and thrust her hand at Mr. Stewitt, who turned and made a face at the black, ink-stained hand before him.
“Did you get into my stationery drawer, Margaret? I hope you didn’t spill ink all over the ivory stock cards.” Mr. Stewitt was frowning. Margaret was frowning too. There was no fuzz in her hand, no remnant of the recently very annoyed and certainly animated creature she’d put into her pocket. “Your kitchen is –there’s something wrong with it, Mr Stewitt,” announced Margaret. She looked at her toes as she said it, bracing for the string of questions that was bound to follow, if her previous experiences of adults mixed with extraordinary stories was any indication. She’d end up describing everything she’d seen, only to be told to stop fibbing or to behave more like a grown up.
When she had finished telling Mr. Stewitt all about the anomalies she’d seen in the kitchen, Margaret was quite surprised to find a look of complete acceptance on the man’s face. “Well yes, girl. My kitchen is enchanted. In fact, that’s precisely what I was going to tell you a story about –how it came to be enchanted, I mean– were you to ever finish with your cereal. Margaret could barely contain her excitement. Finally, a glimpse of the worlds she’d seen beyond the overt and the terribly boring was being confirmed by someone else –someone older and stronger and wiser than herself. She had the sense that with the possibility of Mr. Stewitt’s enchanted kitchen came millions of other tiny possibilities, carrying all the juice and hue and energy of the rainbow back into the gray landscape described by the chattering of old women and the customs of old men.
“I’ll be right back,” said Margaret, in a forced whisper (for how loud her voice might come were she to let it dictate volume on its own Margaret had no idea, but she was afraid that it might be a little like the uncontrolled throatsong of sobbing). She raced back inside the kitchen’s awkward light, and fetched the blue-ribboned box, the first bowl she saw (this one sporting a mane around its middle, though there was no animal owner identifiable), and a pitcher of milk –unblemished!– from the refrigerator. Just as she was about to kick the doors open to give berth to her breakfast armload, Margaret remembered that she’d need a spoon. She turned and began opening drawers, finding all manner of meticulously-arranged crickets, ducklings, and cinnabar-colored treefrogs inside, until finally coming to a tray festooned with flatware in every style Margaret had ever seen or imagined. She hooked a small baby blue ceramic spoon into her grip with a pinky finger and made her way back out the kitchen’s doors, breathlessly laying the ensemble down on the small table near Mr. Stewitt’s favorite chair.
In the Kitchen of the Unmentionable Mr. Stewitt (installment three)
(note: this is Installment No. 3 in a series. If you’ve missed earlier installments, you can find them by wandering here for the first, or thither for the second.)
Margaret ran from the kitchen into the parlor, where she found Mr. Stewitt out of his recliner and standing beside the window, looking out at the falling snow with one hand firmly planted on his hip. He didn’t turn around when Margaret came through the French doors of the kitchen. “Mr. Stewitt!” gasped Margaret. “Look! Look what was in your box of Puff Its! These aren’t Puff Its at all!” Margaret reached into her pocket and thrust her hand at Mr. Stewitt, who turned and made a face at the black, ink-stained hand before him.
“Did you get into my stationery drawer, Margaret? I hope you didn’t spill ink all over the ivory stock cards.” Mr. Stewitt was frowning. Margaret was frowning too. There was no fuzz in her hand, no remnant of the recently very annoyed and certainly animated creature she’d put into her pocket. “Your kitchen is –there’s something wrong with it, Mr Stewitt,” announced Margaret. She looked at her toes as she said it, bracing for the string of questions that was bound to follow, if her previous experiences of adults mixed with extraordinary stories was any indication. She’d end up describing everything she’d seen, only to be told to stop fibbing or to behave more like a grown up.
When she had finished telling Mr. Stewitt all about the anomalies she’d seen in the kitchen, Margaret was quite surprised to find a look of complete acceptance on the man’s face. “Well yes, girl. My kitchen is enchanted. In fact, that’s precisely what I was going to tell you a story about –how it came to be enchanted, I mean– were you to ever finish with your cereal. Margaret could barely contain her excitement. Finally, a glimpse of the worlds she’d seen beyond the overt and the terribly boring was being confirmed by someone else –someone older and stronger and wiser than herself. She had the sense that with the possibility of Mr. Stewitt’s enchanted kitchen came millions of other tiny possibilities, carrying all the juice and hue and energy of the rainbow back into the gray landscape described by the chattering of old women and the customs of old men.
“I’ll be right back,” said Margaret, in a forced whisper (for how loud her voice might come were she to let it dictate volume on its own Margaret had no idea, but she was afraid that it might be a little like the uncontrolled throatsong of sobbing). She raced back inside the kitchen’s awkward light, and fetched the blue-ribboned box, the first bowl she saw (this one sporting a mane around its middle, though there was no animal owner identifiable), and a pitcher of milk –unblemished!– from the refrigerator. Just as she was about to kick the doors open to give berth to her breakfast armload, Margaret remembered that she’d need a spoon. She turned and began opening drawers, finding all manner of meticulously-arranged crickets, ducklings, and cinnabar-colored treefrogs inside, until finally coming to a tray festooned with flatware in every style Margaret had ever seen or imagined. She hooked a small baby blue ceramic spoon into her grip with a pinky finger and made her way back out the kitchen’s doors, breathlessly laying the ensemble down on the small table near Mr. Stewitt’s favorite chair.