At first I couldn’t work out why the atmosphere in the kitchen had changed. It was Sunday morning, the household was still asleep, and I’d just come back from the grocery store. Why did the kitchen feel so cheery and festive? Oh look, someone had hung ornaments …
Ah. No, they weren’t ornaments dangling prettily from the light fixtures, from the cupboard knobs, and over the stove. They were fruits! Someone had snuck downstairs, tied kitchen twine around a dozen kiwis and tomatoes, and suspended them from every protrusion in the room.
The quiet that seemed to betoken sleeping children was, in fact, the sniggering silence of an April Fools conspiracy.
It made me smile. Given the spectrum of horrendous April Fools possibility, I’d got off lightly.
So thinks many an April fool, I fear, for it was then that I noticed a sheet of paper on the floor near the oven. It bore an ominous black scrawl: “LOOK INSIDE!”
Opening the oven door, I found a gallon of milk tipped on its side and covered with weird green runes. These, when studied, revealed a threat: If I ever wanted to see the house phone again, I must find four hidden bowls.
Four bowls? Argh. A minute later I discovered that the eggs were missing — no, there they were, secreted amongst the saucepans. As I crouched on the floor to extract them, my eye was drawn to a bottle of olive oil on the counter. Was there something odd about it? Double argh! Someone had poured liquid into the bottle, so the oil now sat atop three inches of what looked like water (and was).
“OK, very funny,” I said, as the children straggled into the kitchen.
“April Fools!” they cried, smirking.
“Mummy! Watch out! A spider!” shrieked the smallest girl, pointing near my head.
I whipped around — spiders are a particular dread of mine — and everyone laughed. Oh, right. April Fools.
We got on with breakfast, all very cheery, but I could not shake the feeling that certain children still had surprises percolating within them.
One daughter seemed worried, and eventually sidled over. “Don’t tell anyone I told you,” she whispered, “but there are only three bowls. They said four so that you would keep looking and looking.”
“Right.” We exchanged a wink. “I won’t tell.”
“Oh, no, look at the time,” my husband said, “We’re late.”
As everyone bundled out of the house, I locked up. It meant I was last into the car, and such was my hurry that only vaguely did I notice a resumption of the odd gaiety that had accompanied the festooning with kiwis and tomatoes.
“Please will you turn on the heater?” someone said suddenly. “On high?”
“Well, sure,” I said absently, and hit the button.
Instantly a gorgeous cascade of sparkles began spewing into the air from the vents near the driver’s seat. They pattered delicately down like pixie dust, all over my hair and clothes, into my shoes, and partly over everyone else. It was a mess — a beautiful, magical, glorious mess.
“You trickster!” I cried. The trickster beamed back.
Even now, four days later, I’m still picking sparkles off my person and my belongings.
Also I still haven’t found the phone, but I’m getting closer. Last night I found a sheet of paper in my office that bore the word: “BOWL.” That’s one down, two to go …
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
