Chapter 2 - Veering Left

It looked to be a quiet Saturday evening, like every other Saturday evening in the Pufferly household. Mr. Pufferly sat in his favorite armchair catching up on last week’s newspapers, and Mrs. Pufferly sat in her rocking chair knitting her ten-thousand-eight-hundred-and-eleventh scarf. She had never found the need to graduate on to more complicated articles of clothing because “the mindless construction of a thirty-foot scarf is therapeutic.” That’s what she would say whenever anyone asked her. “What? Am I trying to win a knitting prize?” she would add, if they kept pressing. All her patients at Hopensuch Hospital went home with a personalized fresh-off-the-knitting-needles neck wrapping.

On this particular night, Kyan was lying on his back on the thinning living room rug, repeatedly tossing his father’s favorite baseball up into the air and catching it just inches before it reached his nose. Mr. Pufferly used to tell him how, when he was Kyan’s age, he was wildly obsessed with baseball. He would play every day after school with his friends, and sometimes even by himself when no one else could come out to play. Looking at his father now, a man who hardly ever left the house for anything other than work or errands, Kyan found this extremely hard to believe.

Suddenly, a loud jangling reverberated throughout the house, shattering the sleepy monotony into microscopic bits. Everyone jumped a little. Well, except Kyan, who sat straight up—the baseball had slipped through his fingers and landed squarely on his nose.

“YOW!” he yelped, rubbing his nose furiously.

The jangling started up again, and it took a second for them to realize it was the telephone—they weren’t accustomed to getting phone calls on Saturday evenings.

Mrs. Pufferly sprang into action. She vanished through a doorway and was in the kitchen before the half-knitted scarf could even plop silently into the yarn basket.

“Hello? ... Nancy? ... Wait, what? ... Slow down, I can’t understa— Oh! Oh my! Yes, OK, we’ll be right out!”

The receiver clanged loudly into its cradle as she whooshed back into the living room.

“Nancy’s gone into labor! They’re right outside! Let’s go!” She whooshed out another door, this one leading to the front entryway.

“Wha—? Oh dear!” exclaimed Mr. Pufferly, bumbling out of his chair.

Kyan and his father stumbled into the hallway as Mrs. Pufferly opened the front door. A tidal wave of people and sleeping bags poured in from the porch. The wave consisted of Oliver Lee (Kyan’s best friend), Amanda Lee (Oliver’s barely-older sister), and Zoe Something-or-other (Amanda’s best friend). Drawing up the rear was Mrs. Lee, the aforementioned Nancy and (fun fact) childhood friend of Mr. Pufferly. Kyan had a vague notion of what ‘going into labor’ meant, but all the yelling and fast talking was quite unexpected.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Mrs. Pufferly. “Nancy, we were coming to the car, you didn’t have to get out.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” huffed Mrs. Lee. “There’s an issue to be addressed—an issue! And I think so much better on my feet!”

The two families had planned it all out in advance: the children would stay with Mr. Pufferly while Mrs. Pufferly accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Lee to the hospital. Simple, right? The only unexpected element was the presence of Zoe, who just happened to be sleeping over on this fateful Saturday night. Nobody saw this as a big deal, but apparently it was…well, according to Mrs. Lee.

“I’m COMING!” Mrs. Lee yelled to her husband, who was sitting in the car, honking the horn. “I’m so sorry, Peter,” she said, turning her attention to Mr. Pufferly.

She clasped a somewhat alarmed-looking Zoe tightly by the shoulders in front of her very-bulging belly. The poor girl was getting shaken to and fro, bumping into The Belly as Mrs. Lee spoke.

“I can’t believe I’m asking another favor—and now of all times! But they were having a sleepover, and she can’t go home tonight because there’s no one there, and I have no idea what else to do or where else to take her…”

“Please, don’t worry about it, Nance. It’s no trouble at all.” Mr. Pufferly attempted to release Zoe from Mrs. Lee’s death grip, but her hands stayed firm, showing no signs of setting the frightened child free.

“It’s just that we told Allen and Alicia that we’d take Zoe tonight, and so they’ve gone off on a romantic getaway. Otherwise, we would have taken her straight home.”

Zoe’s head wobbled as she bumped against The Belly for the sixth time. Kyan noticed that Mrs. Lee was emphasizing more than normal, and sometimes it seemed like the emphasis was on the wrong word. Perhaps this was a byproduct of going into labor.

“It’s fine, really,” insisted Mr. Pufferly.

“Are you sure? Because we can find some alternate arrangement, I’m sure. I just have to think…”

“NANCY!!” Mr. Lee yelled from the idling station wagon.

“ALL RIGHT!!! My goodness, you’d think he’s the one having the baby. So, you’re really OK taking Zoe too?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Everything will be fine, Nancy,” said Mrs. Pufferly. “We really should be getting you to the hospital.”

“Yes, OK, I just wanted to make sure that it isn’t too much of an imposition.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Pufferly. “Please, don’t worry about it. It’s not a problem.”

“Yes, let’s not worry about anything except bringing your new bundle of joy into the world. And even then, let’s not worry because it’s unnecessary anxiety, and that’s completely unproductive,” said Mrs. Pufferly. She gently encouraged Mrs. Lee out the front door and down the walkway.

“All right then. Good night! Thank you so much! Be good, children!”

And with that, the car door slammed shut, and the station wagon sped off into the night as Mr. Pufferly and the children waved in the glow of the porch light.