Chapter 55

Everybody, go!” Rachel said in a loud voice as Raina watched her start timing Joey, Jackson, and Jane as they exited the house via the deck door and swung down the log nearest the end of the unfinished decking on the north side of the house. Jane lay down on her stomach and edged her body to the support log, grabbed on, swung down and ran to an area by the clothesline marked by a large flat rock and touched it. Rachel stopped counting from the deck.

“Twenty seconds. Not a bad time getting to the all-clear zone, but I know that we can do better!”

“What are you guys doing?” Raina asked her.

“I’m running them through a fire drill. It’s important they know the quickest way out.”

“Oh, I see,” said Raina, “But what if the deck door is blocked by fire?”

“Good point, Raina. This time, Rachel, time us as we go out the front door,” Joey suggested.

“All right, you guys, get back in the house and we’ll take it from the top.”

Raina smiled as they headed back indoors. She paused to look at their escape route. She was unsure how including the dangerous swing off of the uncompleted deck was the fastest way out. Maybe it was simply the most inventive and fun way out. The way they swung onto the support log was reminiscent of firefighters sliding down a pole in a fire station. As she pondered this, the little runners once again approached the free zone next to the clothesline.

“Twenty-five seconds,” Rachel reported. “The other way’s quicker. Take it if it’s not blocked. Time for a quick lemon-aid break, everybody!” They all headed back in.

After their quick snack of lemonade and strawberries from the garden, picked earlier that morning, they came to see Raina, Erica and LeAnne for some help with their Kiddie Parade costumes for the Old Settlers’ Reunion.

“With you guys and some neighbor or church kids we could make you into “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” said LeAnne.

“Do you have any friends with dark hair?” asked Erica.

“What about Tawny from church? She has dark long hair,” said Rachel.

“Great, call her up and ask her if she wants to be in your costume category. Ask if her brother Tim will be one of the dwarfs too.”

“Okay,” said Rachel and off she went to invite her friend to be in the Kiddie Parade with her.

“I can call Andy and Ben Johnson to see if they can help us with the remaining dwarf spots. Can I call them when Rachel gets off?”

“Sure, Joe, good idea,” said Erica. “Did I tell you, Raina, that there are cash prizes for Kiddie Parade costume winners?” winked Erica.

“Aha,” said Raina, suddenly understanding the importance of the event.

“She can do it, and we can count on Tim too,” reported Rachel excitedly.

“Right on!” They could all hear Joey say on the telephone as he continued to talk. His wide grin let everyone know there was confirmation of the event members. Intense planning began at once.

“We’ll need some pick axes for the dwarfs.” said LeAnne.

“I’ll go talk to Dad,” said Joey, who was just off of the phone.

“Mom, do you have any ideas about what we can do for the dwarfs’ costumes?” asked LeAnne.

“I do have some thick cloth left over from some old project the girl scouts did years ago. I have it in a few different colors.”

“Do you have enough for seven shirts?” asked Leslie, who had been reading in the living room?

“I’m almost sure I do. I think I have enough brown material for work pants. I also have some felt we could cut into letters for putting the names of the dwarfs on the backs of their shirts.”

“I could help you sew,” said Leslie, who was a good seamstress.

As they lined up the material and discovered there was enough in various colors, Leslie traced a pattern from one of each of the youngest four’s existing t-shirts for sizing. She kept the arms long on the dwarf shirt pattern however. She planned to use Rachel and Joey’s patterns to make more for the others, as they were similar in size to them. In the middle of all of the measuring, Joey ran back in with a sample of the pick axe he and his dad had come up with. It was a long dowel rod with a curved pick area they had attached to the bottom. It was made of soft-pine and had been cut out on the jig-saw in the basement.

“We’ll paint the curved area black. What do you think of it?” Joey asked.

“Cool,” said Jackson.

“That’s great! Very authentic looking yet not too dangerous,” praised Katie who had come upstairs after practicing the piano downstairs.

After Leslie traced the fabric patterns with a tracing wheel, Erica, LeAnne, and Raina started cutting them out, and Leslie and her mother began to stencil the letters onto the felt for cutting. Then the sewing machine began to buzz as Rachel and Joey called their friends for their measurements and were delighted to find out that Tawny even had her own Snow White pajamas and wouldn’t need a costume made for her. When the shirts were sewn, Leslie set to work on dwarf pants and the other girls all started to hand stitch the letters to the back of the dwarf shirts.

“What about the hats?” asked Jane. “When I saw the movie, they had long pointy ones, kind of like Joey’s snow hat.”

“We still have some extra material,” said Leslie. “Go and get Joe’s hat, and we’ll trace some out of the green material.”

“We’ll have the coolest costumes!” yelled out Jane, who was getting more and more hyper with each detail.

“Easy there, Jane!” said Joe. “We want to win the prize and if you want to be your favorite character “Sleepy,” that’s never gonna fly!”

Rachel thought that “Dopey” was cute and volunteered to be him. Jackson wanted to be “Sneezy” and demonstrated his ach-oos a few times to practice. Joey appropriately chose to be “Happy” and that left “Grumpy,” “Brainy,” and “Doc” for the others.

By five o’clock, the flurry of cutting and sewing ceased and the young ones tried on their costumes. The pick axes completed the look. Uncle Samuel had made a run to town for more dowel rods and glue at the hardware store and had finished assembling them.

“You guys look great. When’s the parade anyway?” asked Raina.

“At 10:00 a.m. on Saturday. It starts at the Barrett nursing home. We do the driveway loop there and continue on to finish by the American Legion. The winners get to ride on a float for the big parade on Sunday, and they get $10.00 too,” said Rachel.

“Well, good luck. I’ll be marching in the parade, so if you guys are on the float, it’ll distract everyone from all of my missteps.”

“You march well, Raina. Don’t worry about it so much. Just have fun,” said Erica with reassurance.

“I did finally memorize my music, so our last practice tonight will be easier for me.”

“I have to leave for play practice right now, but I’ll see you guys tonight,” said LeAnne as she got up after hearing a honk from the driveway. She looked out the window and saw that her friend Alice had arrived to pick her up.

“Tell Alice we don’t bite,” advised Joey.

“She knows. I’m sure she’s just in a hurry. See ya!” said LeAnne. She grabbed a ham sandwich from the fridge to tide her over, then flew out.

On Friday night, the family went into town for the general admission showing of The Sound of Music. Upon entering, they all filed upstairs to the balcony seating to watch the musical. The dinner plates and food were being cleared from the dinner theatre tables below while the family surveyed the cast autobiographies in the program.

“What does it say about LeAnne?” Jackson asked.

“It says: LeAnne Pederson will be an eighth grader at Barrett High School. She is the daughter of Karina and Samuel Pederson. She has been in The King and I and Oliver previously, and hopes that you enjoy watching the show as much as she enjoys being in it,” read Leslie.

“She’s gonna be a star someday,” said Jackson.

At 8:00 p.m., the musical was underway. The cast came from a wide area and put on quite a professional production. At 9:00 the Soo Line blew its whistle and all acting and singing on the stage ceased as the actors froze in their places until the loud rumbling on the adjacent train track had stopped. Raina had never seen anything like that before. When the train had passed, the actors resumed as if there hadn’t been an interruption at all. It all made sense to Raina as she realized that not even the loudest actor could out-talk or out-sing a train. LeAnne’s speaking parts and her singing were exceptional. After the play Joe pulled the wildflowers that he and Rachel had picked for LeAnne out of the paper bag he had hidden them in, and headed for the stage area where the actors were already coming out to greet the audience. He and Rachel had wet down a paper towel to put around the roots of the flowers and looped a rubber band over the top of it. Rachel then placed the now-moistened roots into a small plastic lunch bag. It had done the trick. They still looked very fresh. Everyone followed Joe down the balcony stairs and up to the front, too, to congratulate LeAnne on her performance. After greeting her family, LeAnne ran back to the dressing rooms to change and resurfaced without stage make-up on and wearing street clothes. The crew took her home with them to have some celebratory strawberry shortcake with berries from the garden.