Just A Great Day For A Party

 

            “Did you ever just feel like having a party, Ramona?” Ralph was his old expansive self, full of great ideas. He was really feeling this one. It seemed like there was some deep meaningful reason for it that just spoke to him.
            “Not all the time,” she said. “But for sure if there was a good reason. What reason do you have for a party?”
            “What I’m thinking about is a Mystery Party! Let’s see who will come to a Mystery Party! Let’s not tell them who or what it’s for!
            “I suppose we’ll have to tell them when and where. We can’t be mysterious about that, can we?” said Ralph. “You know what? We could have Maeve drop invitations off anonymously, just here and there and see if we get some mystery guests! Can you imagine?”
            “Is it the spring weather, Ralphie?” said Ramona.
            “No….it’s just time. I mean in a day or two. We need a day or two to get ready! I’m feeling this so strong, Mona!”
            “Alright. OK. Let’s do it,” said Ramona. “I’ll get together with Thaga and Maeve. We’ll make the Mystery Invitations up, and Maeve will tuck them in mysterious places. But where do we want to have this party, Ralph? I know you don’t want to do it here….
            “How about at that little camping spot close to the river, downstream, you know?” asked Ralph. “Then we would have lots of room and there are a couple tables there.”

***

            So, the morning of the next day Ramona whistled Maeve down out of the air, gathered up Cherry, and traveled the short path to Thaga’s house. It was time for a visit anyhow. They hadn’t all gotten together during the snowy months much.
            Ramona told Thaga and Ooog about the Mystery Party and they thought it sounded like a great idea. It would be in two days at the little park by the river.
            So, with Maeve overlooking the work, Thaga wrote out ten nice plain cards of invitation to the party. On each card were directions to the location and the time.             They thought it should start a little after noon. They requested that each person bring something, to eat, and to present to the group in honor of the occasion, which was A Mystery!
            Thaga gave Maeve a little cloth bag to put the cards in so she could carry them all at once. There were also a few people she would just speak to, such as Millicent, who would bring Colin too, and Constance and Ferdie, the four guys, if she could find them, York and so on. And Uncle Bob, if she had time. They all knew that Maurice and Sleeky Sue, whom they had never actually met, didn’t have time to get there in two days. But it was OK.

***

Where Maeve put the invitation cards:
    1. On the doorstep of Ranger Rick’s office.
    2. She accidentally dropped one in the river, while she was fiddling with the bag.
    3. She put one in the park shelter in Darrington.
    4. To tell the truth, she stuffed two of them into a small time portal, but didn’t go in herself. She watched them flutter away, to where she had no idea. So that included no. 5.
    6. Under a windshield wiper blade of some car, parked outside a tiny post office in Bow, WA.
    7. She put one under a rock on a picnic table on Camano Island.
    8. She left one in the lunch room at the downtown Milltown High School. She did create quite a sensation dropping in there. Most people didn’t notice the card she left.
    9. She dropped one off at the Naval Station.
   10. The last card she left in the coffee roaster’s shop on Rucker. No customers were present so she just put it by the register. She could hear the counter person in the backroom, but that person didn’t see her!
            Maeve had been doing a lot of flying around, but she has reserves, depths of strength, and she loves a good intrigue, or plot, etc.
            So, before calling herself done for the day, she spoke to Constance, Then Millicent, at home, not at work, then she flew to the garden shed where Uncle Bob had been living, still behind the lady’s house who let him stay there and work in her garden.
            Maeve found him standing and looking at the soil. He seemed to be thinking about starting in on the year’s garden work, one would assume.
            “Uncle Bob,” she said, “do you want to come to a Mystery Party up at the river by Ralph’s place and bring something to eat and something to do or perform?”
            “A talking raven! Far out,” said Uncle Bob, who was still hanging onto sobriety.
            “OK, I’ll come, if I remember,” he said.
            “It’s day after tomorrow. Please try to remember,” said Maeve.
            “Wow! A raven talked to me,” said Uncle Bob, in an awe stricken voice.
            Maeve figured that she had done her duty to best of her ability, and flew straight off to her high nest on the mountain face.

***

        The next day Ramona and Thaga made a cake about three feet to a side, full of dried cherries and chopped hazelnuts and cinnamon, iced with white icing based on sour cream.
            Thaga wrote, This Was A Great Day on the cake in blue icing and decorated it with stars randomly placed on the top and sides of the cake. It looked amazing! The girls were very proud.

***

            The evening of the cake day changed into night. Morning came for the day of the party.
            It was a portentously beautiful morning! The sun made sunstars through the trees as Ralph and Ramona, with Twigg and Cherry, and Bob and Berry made their way downstream to the little park by the river.
            Ralph was terrifically happy and carried one of Ramona’s big flat pans full of roasted wild turkey. Twigg and Ramona carried jugs of minty tea. They got the jugs from Thaga, of course.
            Maeve wasn’t there yet, but they could hear her coming from way up high.
            They had wanted to be there early to kind of put dibsies on the park tables and set up, but Uncle Bob was already there!
            “I came yesterday and slept on the table, Ralph, so I wouldn’t forget!” he said. “I brought cookies the old lady who owns the garden made, and I will sing! How about that? They are raisin oatmeal cookies. I love them so much.”
            “What are you going to sing, Bob,” said Ralph, in amazement.
            “It’s a surprise! You’ll find out. Later,” said Uncle Bob.
            “You probably scared away any human picnickers,” said Ralph.
            While they were standing near the river, they heard silvery voices rising from the water. Ralph and Bob turned in amazement!

“Felicitous Day! We leap and play!

We want to say hoorah, in our fishie way!

We are not poets. We know it!

We only know swim and play,

always and always onward,

eyes on the stars above.

Filled with glory and love!”

            Having sung their song, as required, all ten pretty trout ducked back down under the water and went on their way downstream.
            Thaga and Ooog with a strapping grandson, named Earl, carried the mighty cake to the first picnic table to general acclaim.
            Millicent and Colin Kelly brought chips and dips and cans of various sodas and paper plates and plastic forks because, well, because they can buy such things without causing a riot in town and those things are easily disposed of in a camp fire once used.
            Colin promised to play his guitar.
            Constance and Ferdie showed up with their twins, now a year old, Birch and Beech. The tots were glamorous like their parents.
            A fat young bear tried to crash the party and eat everything, but Berry and Bob drove him away. Nobody could remember his name, but Ralph and Twigg thought he was the same bear who had spent the night of the storm in their cave.
            They didn’t get much of a return on the Mysterious Invitation Cards left randomly all over the area. A girl who was a high school student, came with her boyfriend. The boyfriend didn’t like the looks of some of the hairy guests, so they left before the cake was cut, or any songs were sung or anything.
            Ramona allowed Cherry to demonstrate that she still knew how to fly even though she mostly walked these days. She wafted sweetly around the park a few times and then settled down into her mother’s arms.
            Well, really, you know how gatherings of people who know each other well usually go, nothing that was officially planned gets done, they all just sit around and eat and smoke and drink and talk and talk and talk. It had gotten late enough that a fire seemed like a really good idea, so Ralph and Twigg and Ferdie made a great bonfire, which really added to the festive air.
            But at last Uncle Bob wanted to sing his song, which was to be a surprise.
            He stood up in front of the whole group, in the light of the fire. He smiled sleepily at the whole crowd,             Then he sang “Smoke on the Water” with no musical accompaniment. Colin said he would have helped if Bob had asked, but he hadn’t.
            No one understood his choice, but they laughed and congratulated him, saying it was the best singing of “Smoke on the Water” they had ever heard.
            Since it was getting to be a little late, it was time to cut the cake. Every crumb of it was eaten on the spot. Squatches have large appetites! All Ramona’s turkey was eaten, all the tea was drunk, all the chips and dips and cans of pop disappeared. Uncle Bob’s cookies vanished too, so as picnics go it was a great success.
            But then, just as they were all about to go home a person no one knew walked into the midst of the friendly group. He wasn’t exactly human looking, but he wasn’t a Bigfoot type either. He was Mysterious! He wore a black suit of some strange black fabric that appeared to be stretchy and he wore a bowler hat!
            Just as some were about to start asking questions, he went up by the fire where everyone could see him and said, “I wish you all a Joyous Configuration!” Then he smiled at everyone, with his strange black eyes and almost human face, and walked off the way he had come from.
            “I guess he must be our Mystery,” said Ramona. “Who could he be?”
            “No idea,” laughed Ralph. “He seems harmless though.”
            “It was a great party,” said Uncle Bob happily.
            Everybody was full and happy and getting sleepy so they burned up the paper plates and such, like chip bags and Millicent collected back all the soda cans to recycle.                     

            Twigg ran around to make sure no garbage was left on the ground. Bob and Berry helped snoop around.
            Everybody packed up their kids, cats and pans and such and all agreed that a Mysterious Party was a great thing and that they should do one every once in a while during the summer.
            York and his buds showed up way crazy late and had to just sit by the fire until it burned itself out. By then they were asleep on the ground, and the moon laughed at them too!

🌜🌝🌛