Cherry Challenge 1000.21

Cherry sat on the couch, trembling, fearful, clueless on what to do.  Her stomach tied itself into knots.  How were Mumzy, Daddy, and she going to pay for the medical bills?  What if she ended up paralyzed, or in a wheelchair, and they had to take care of her as an invalid?  What if she couldn't do her job, or any other job, or attend school, or...

She made herself stop.  The heart attack she'd give herself over the 'what ifs' would kill her long before her body's collapse or toxic blood would.  But she had to do something.  But what?

She remembered a wisecrack from Daddy:  “If you're looking for something to do, Cherry, how about vacuuming the carpets or washing the dishes?”

Cherry looked down at the floor.  She wasn't sure if the carpets could use it or not; they seemed relatively clean.  But she figured one more vacuuming couldn't hurt.  It'd give her mind something else to do beside dread and worry.  

Walking into the kitchen to look for the vacuum cleaner, she saw some dishes in the rack, waiting to be dried and put away.  Going there, and suspecting they'd air dried already, she grabbed a drying towel to rub them anyway.  She recalled when her cousin Todd was here to visit, and at first didn't want to do chores as a family guest:  he wanted to play games with fighting starships.  But he made himself do it as Mumzy washed and Cherry rinsed.  And as he wiped the utensils off with the towel, he made sound effect noises as he moved each one through the air.  From what she could tell, the forks were his fighters, the spoons were some sort of utility shuttle, and the knives were some sort of space artillery or something with a huge cannon.  And he'd also pretend the bowls, cups and glasses were buildings and towers, and the plates made some sort of generator once they were put into their slots to dry.

Cherry figured he'd feared that she'd think the little game was pretty stupid.  But soon she got into the spirit, and once she rinsed off a dish or utensil, she'd hand it over by arching over the rack's edge like a swooping bird.  And when she said, “Here comes a flying saucer!” and got an actual saucer his way, he went nuts.  

“Ack!  It's the mothership!” he exclaimed.  And he started the blitz against the moisture in enthusiasm.

Cherry wondered what he'd do against a full size plate.  So she sent one to him.  “Here comes the grandmother ship!”

Todd took it, applied the towel and resumed the hydrocide.  Then Cherry rinsed off and got the dinner platter and pushed it his way.  “Now it's the wicked stepmother ship!”

Mumzy thought they'd gone crazy.  And she didn't ask them to do any more dishes.  Until the next day, of course.

She knew her cousin had freshly graduated from high school.  But she wasn't sure if Todd had joined the military right after the ceremony, or if he planned on going to college.  She suspected he would have enlisted to get started on the G.I. Bill, or another plan to save up tuition money, but she'd have to ask her uncle or aunt about that.

Wiping and putting away the last plate and fork, Cherry decided to go to the broom closet to get the upright vacuum cleaner.

Once she got that, she took it to the living room, and started in the far corner to the left of the fireplace, and started working her way row by row in a grid pattern across the room as far as the extension cord would permit.  She started to work her way to the sofa.  And she turned the vacuum cleaner off and got ready to unplug a hose and add in the nozzle to reach underneath.

Then it hit her... she didn't have to crouch like that anymore.

Kneeling down, she simply lifted up one end of the couch with one arm, and looked under for anything too large to vacuum up easily.  And to her surprise, she found a quarter, some dimes and pennies, a few paper clips, an orange marble, and … a small plastic red game piece.  A cannon.

She recognized it.  It came from Todd's board game, Risk.  He'd gotten it for Christmas one year, and he loved it immensely.  And he always begged her to play.  Frankly, she preferred Hungry Hungry Hippos (and no wisecracks, she thought), but she was a good sport and played a round in swap of his new game for her old favorite.  And she teased him a little and said, “Lose to me, and you're going to have to play Mystery Date next.”

She shouldn't have dared him on that.  She got whooped bad.  He grabbed hold of Australia, built up his defenses, soon swept the continents and clobbered her, Daddy, and then his own father.  And he had a small collection of war themed games including Battleship, chess, Axis & Allies, and even one called Fortress America.  Cherry shook her head.  Why was it that girls liked to stay home and make, build, and grow things, and boys wanted to go out, knock them down, break them and take them apart?

Picking up all the other stuff that might come in handy later, she put it in a neat pile on the coffee table, and ran the vacuum cleaner under the couch with her free hand as she held up one end of the couch.  Then she lowered it, and lifted up the other end so she could get the other side easily.  She wasn't sure if she could've lifted the whole thing with one hand, and she didn't want to gamble and risk dropping and breaking anything.  

She wondered idly if once Todd was back from basic training whether he'd be up for another board game night.  She made a point to write him and ask.