“Just one, Monsieur.”
“Right this way.”
All his stuffed animals are seated in chairs around the kitchen table. Teddy leads me to an empty seat between Godzilla and Blue Elephant. He pulls out a chair and hands me a paper napkin. I can hear Caroline upstairs, frantically crisscrossing her bedroom. It sounds like she’ll be late leaving the house again.
Teddy stands patiently at my side, pencil and notepad in hand, ready to take my order. “We don’t really have a menu,” he says. “We can make anything you want.”
“In that case I’ll have scrambled eggs. With bacon and pancakes and spaghetti and ice cream.” This makes him laugh, so I milk the joke for all it’s worth. “And carrots, hamburgers, tacos, and watermelon.”
He doubles over with giggles. The kid has a way of making me feel like Kate McKinnon on SNL, like everything I do is comedy gold. “If you say so!” he says, and then he wobbles over to his play chest to fill my plate with plastic food.
The landline starts ringing and Caroline calls downstairs to me. “Let that go to voice mail, please, I don’t have time!”
After three rings, the machine picks up, and I can hear the message being recorded: “Good morning! This is Diana Farrell at Spring Brook Elementary…”
It’s their third message in a week and Caroline swoops into the kitchen, hurrying to catch the caller before she hangs up. “Hello, this is Caroline.” She shoots me an exasperated look—can you believe this freaking school system??—and carries the phone into the den. Meanwhile Teddy brings me a plate that’s piled high with play toys: plastic eggs and plastic spaghetti and several scoops of plastic ice cream. I shake my head and pretend to be outraged. “I’m pretty sure I ordered bacon!”
Teddy laughs, runs across the room to his toy chest, and returns with a strip of plastic bacon. I’m trying to eavesdrop on Caroline’s call but she’s not saying very much. It’s like the conversations happening at Quiet Time in Teddy’s bedroom, where the other person is doing most of the talking. She’s just saying “Right, right” and “of course” and “no, thank you.”
I pretend to stuff myself with plastic food like a fat hog at a trough. I make a lot of snuffing and snorting noises, and Teddy roars with laughter. Caroline enters the kitchen with the cordless phone and puts it back in the cradle.
“That was your new school principal,” she tells Teddy. “She cannot wait to meet you!”
Then she gives him a big hug and kiss and hurries out the door, because it’s already 7:38 and she’s crazy-late.
After I’ve finished “eating” my breakfast, I pay my pretend bill with pretend money and ask Teddy what he feels like doing. And I guess he’s really in the mood to pretend because he wants to play Enchanted Forest again.
We follow Yellow Brick Road and Dragon Pass down to the Royal River, and then we climb the branches of the Giant Beanstalk until we’re ten feet above the ground. There’s a small hollow in one of the limbs, and Teddy dutifully fills it with small rocks and sharp sticks—an arsenal of weapons, in case we’re ever attacked by goblins.
“Goblins can’t climb trees because their arms are too short,” Teddy explains. “So we can hide in these branches and throw stones at them.”
We spend the morning immersed in a game of endless invention and improvisation. In the Enchanted Forest, everything is possible, nothing is off-limits. Teddy stops on the banks of the Royal River and tells me I should drink the water. He says the river has magical properties that will keep us from getting captured.
“I already have a gallon back at my cottage,” I tell him. “I’ll share it with you when we get home.”
“Perfect!” he exclaims.
And then he skips off down the path, leading the way to the next discovery.
“By the way,” I call after him. “I found the pictures you left for me.”
Teddy looks back and smiles, waiting for me to elaborate.
“The pictures you left on my porch.”
“Of the goblins?”
“No, Teddy, the pictures of Anya being buried. They’re really well done. Did someone help you?”
Now he looks confused—like I’ve abruptly changed the rules of the game without telling him.
“I don’t draw Anya anymore.”
“It’s okay. I’m not upset.”
“But I didn’t do it.”
“You left them on my porch. Under a rock.”