What’s for Dinner?

A Spontaneous Story 

Uncle was coming for one of his extremely rare visits and the Twins were looking forward to it. They had been very young when he last dropped by and obviously, they did not remember all that had happened. Mother and Father did, which was why they were the only ones feeling jittery after receiving Uncle’s call.

The fateful day arrived and when the doorbell rang, Mother went to answer it. Uncle, a lanky man with a ready grin and spiky hair that somehow made him look disorganized, hugged her and handed her a sack before turning his attention to the Twins and Father.

“What’s this?” Mother asked, with the tone of one having had previous unpleasant experiences when handed unidentified sacks by her brother.

“Something for dinner”, said Uncle and entered the house merrily, greeting everyone with a wave of his hand.

Mother carried the sack at arm’s length into the kitchen and placed it on the counter. Once Father led Uncle to show him the guest room upstairs, the Twins shot into the kitchen and placed themselves on either side of Mother who, having put on her apron, was looking at the sack. The mouth of the sack was secured with a raffia string.

“What’s for dinner?” one of the twins asked, expectantly.

“Go on, don’t just stand there, Mother. Open the sack! The suspense is killing me”, said the second Twin.

Mother gave a disgusted look at the two faces staring up at her and taking a deep breath and holding the sack upright, cut the string. When she let go, the mouth fell open and a tail popped out of the sack, darkly furry and a little spotty. This was followed immediately by a nauseating stench. Mother swooned and fell gracefully onto the thickly carpeted floor as the twins squealed.Exactly ten minutes later, the men, who had been oblivious of events downstairs, descended the staircase, chattering about the weather, and entered the kitchen only to stop dead in their tracks.

Mother, holding her head with one hand and propping herself up off the floor with the other, was still in a daze. Behind her on the floor, along the counter where she had been standing, were tiny puddles of what looked like yellow vomit. The back door, leading into the garden and neighbourhood, was ajar and a set of paw-prints, larger than a cat’s but somewhat smaller than a tiger’s (hard to be sure since not many of us have seen those), were seen heading outdoors. Uncle’s gaze travelled back to the sack which lay in a heap on the floor, now definitely cleared of any occupant. The Twins were not in sight either. A faint stench permeated the kitchen, of indefinable origin.

“Good morning Sir! Are these yours?”

“Why yes! said Uncle pleasantly and not entirely surprised.

As Father prepared to ask a few pertinent questions (after making sure Mother was alright, of course) and Uncle’s mind was already heading out the back door following the paw-prints, a firm hand pressed the doorbell twice.

Father bent down to hold Mother, saying, “Come on dear. You’ve had a little swoon. Let me help you up.”

Uncle was already on his way to the front door with a brief “I’ll get that!”

A burly policeman, his frame filling the entire doorway, stood waiting as Uncle opened the door. So, Uncle did not see what he was holding in his equally burly hands until the policeman brought both hands closer. Dangling from each hand, dirty and with yellowish streaks on their shirts and shorts, were the Twins.

“Good morning Sir! Are these yours?”

“Why yes!” said Uncle pleasantly and not entirely surprised, reaching out to the wriggling duo, who began talking at once,

“It was a cat wasn’t it, Uncle?”

“What kind was it? I’m guessing it was a baby Leopard Cat or something.”

“Didn’t you kill it before bringing it over for dinner? Mother’s not keen on bashing dinner on the head, you know.”

“Where is it?” Uncle asked calmly, looking at the policeman, who shook his head in ignorance, indicating that these were the only wild things he’d come across so far that day.

Father appeared at the front door and his eyebrows shot up on seeing the condition of the Twins. He was about to utter a few choice words but then remembered that Mother was recovering from her shock inside and the weak chamomile tea he had just made for her was probably only starting to do its trick. He shut his mouth and gave a hard stare instead. The Twins knew that look.

“Where did you boys see it last?” Uncle asked calmly again, as if he was still looking for a missing pair of spectacles.

In response – a sort of indirect response I should say – a blood-curdling scream rang out from somewhere up the lane. The burly policeman and Uncle were off in the direction of the scream.

Father would have shot off after them as well, except for the Twins who had been left with him and having to respond to Mother’s worried query from within,

“What was that sound, dear?”

He paused to say a few mild words to ease her concerns and went upstairs with a Twin firmly gripped in each hand, depositing them in the bathroom.

“Into the tub right away, you two! We will discuss this when I am back,” he said before returning downstairs, making sure Mother’s chamomile tea was topped up before taking off after Uncle who, by then, was out of sight.

The house from where the scream had emanated, was evidently at the very end of the lane because Father could see Uncle, the policeman and several neighbours in casual clothes or evening wear running, jogging or casually sauntering in the same direction, as if they all just happened to have business in the same area at the exact same moment. Then the sound of sirens became audible, grew louder and Father stepped aside, as did the others one by one, as an ambulance, followed by a police car, shot past them to the house in question. A small crowd, which included Uncle, had gathered outside the neighbour’s house, held back at a respectable distance by several policemen, including the burly chap from moments earlier. A stretcher was being wheeled out of the house with a large, prostrate woman on it. She appeared unconscious. A very distraught looking, skinny man, in a white cotton singlet and pyjama pants, followed the stretcher.

“What happened?” someone shouted over the murmur of the onlookers and the skinny man, probably recognizing the caller, replied loudly enough for everyone to hear, something to the effect of,

“She’s got a weak heart. She thought she saw a wild animal trying to sneak in through the window and it gave her an awful fright.”

Much later, Father and Uncle walked back together, feeling that perhaps the worst episodes of the evening were behind them.

“I really should stop picking up wild things I find by the roadside”, said Uncle, more as a lesson-learnt advice to self.

Father gave him a “We don’t eat stuff like that anyway, so why bother bringing them over” look.

They reached the driveway of their house and only then did Father realise that he had not shut the front door properly, in his hurry to dash after Uncle earlier. And that’s also when they saw the long, fluffy tail disappear into the house.

Breaking into a run, they braced themselves for another scream from Mother, which thankfully, did not come. Slowly, gingerly, Father tiptoed into the living room entrance and saw that Mother had finished her tea and was watching something on TV with her back turned to him.

Father turned slowly and followed Uncle’s gesturing, to see dark muddy prints going up the stairs.

One moment later, Father’s eyes widened realizing what was about to happen. Uncle, not aware that the Twins were in the bathtub, had placed his foot on the first stair. They had slowly moved half-way up the staircase and reached the landing when a trail of girl-like whoops and squeals came from the Twins in the bathroom. Both men were about to shoot upstairs when Mother’s concerned voice was raised from below,

“Now what on earth is that?!”

Both men were halted on the landing. Mother’s panic-stricken face appeared at the entrance to the hallway.

Before they could answer her, the shrieking grew louder and two soapy and wet bodies with towels wrapped hastily around the waists, burst out of the bathroom and to the top of the stairs before slipping down, crashing uncontrollably into Uncle and Father, who both fell backwards. All four came rolling, tumbling, yelling and squealing down and around and down again on the carpeted stairs, making all sorts of oof! and oww! sounds until they reached the very bottom and lay in a puddle of water and soap.

“It was the wildcat!” yelled one Twin, first to recover from the fall.

“What a lovely shock!” shouted the other, recalling the fun side of the whole thing.

“Is everybody alright?” asked Father, trying as always to maintain calm above all else, concerned for Mother’s state of mind.

Uncle did not reply. They were all heaped one on top of the other. But Uncle’s eyes were riveted to the entrance of the living room, and the others followed his gaze to see Mother, who stood there, almost as still as a tree on a windless day, one hand on her heart and the other was slowly rising to her mouth. The twins, Father and Uncle stopped moving entirely, fearing the worst.

And then, mother made a strange sound. It took a moment to make sense of it. Softly it came. A gurgle, which grew slowly into a full torrent. It was laughter. She was shaking with it, her entire body convulsing joyously, with the finger of one hand pointing in their direction. No one had seen Mother laugh like that. Ever.

All those in a heap looked at themselves, soap and water and all. And then, all those present were rolling in laughter.

It was so noisy that the critter left out of a top floor window, and went on its way exploring the neighbourhood, glad it didn’t end up in Mother’s pot downstairs.

The End.