Resourcefulness

Resourcefulness
A short story by Diana Weeks

Ellen had looked forward to summer every day of the fifth grade. She absolutely hated to get up early. The only day her mother let her sleep late was Saturday. They both slept in that one-day of the week. Sunday's they had to get up to visit sick relatives or help some friend move. It was good deed day.

This was the first summer her widowed Mom had agreed to let her stay home alone. Ellen promised to clean the house and have supper ready when her Mom got home from work, just like the housekeeper they had last year, before the insurance money ran out.

"Wow, she thought and hugged herself. "After Mom goes to work I can read". Ellen could read all night if her mom didn't wake up and lecture about your body needing sleep...and turn the light out…it's getting in her eyes.

Big brother, Sam, had given her a powerful flashlight, for her ninth birthday, for just such occasions. Oh, Sam could make her laugh. And cry, when he would tell her a bedtime story wrong. "Cinderella's mean step-sister sees the Prince coming and gets a jar of Vaseline and spreads it all over her foot, and gets her foot in the glass slipper and the Prince has to marry her".

Ellen would cry and sob. "Tell it right. Dad, make Sam tell it right". Her daddy would laugh, and come in and put his arm around her and say "You're too good for any man, even a Prince. And mean bad things happen". That turned out to be too true.

Reading was the only thing that captured Ellen's mind enough to block out the couldn't hide hurt. Her daddy and older brother had been killed when she was nine, their car hit head-on by a drunk driver.

The second day of the new "summer deal", their electricity was turned off. It had been on last night, after they had eaten dinner, her mother bragged on how cool and neat Ellen had made the house, the table set with fresh flowers, savory pinto beans, cornbread and cantaloupe.

"You made me feel so welcome." Her mom smiled and smiled and kissed both her cheeks three times.

"Daddy always said he loved to come home, because he felt so welcome, we all went to the door to hug him". Tears tracked both their cheeks, but they didn't go into boo-hoos like they did for weeks, after the accident. "I am so pleased, if you keep this up, I won't wake you up to tell you what to do, before I leave in the mornings. I'll let you sleep. How 'bout that?" Then they both bawled and hugged. "You are so good. You don't worry me" her mother told her and hugged Ellen again for a long time.

Ellen felt like she was in heaven and didn't even have to die. She didn't wake up until ten the next morning and read the last two chapters of Rebecca Wells' "Little Alters Everywhere", before she got out of bed. She was surrounded by the "Princess' pillows" her daddy had given her for Christmas in 2001.

Her parents did not let 9/11 spoil their Christmas. She had a million funny family memories. Her parents could make everyday a party.

She splashed cold water in her face and put her Matt down and did her exercise routine. Mostly stretching. Before the unthinkable, and her mom had to get a job as a doctor's receptionist, they did it together every morning. Now her mom gets up at five to do her yoga, but she didn't wake Nita until she was ready for work.

The sluggish youngster didn't know the power was off until she started to cook bacon for her favorite breakfast, a BLT, waiting for the pan to warm, she opened the fridge to get a tomato, and the light didn't go on. She held her hand above the heating coils on the stove and felt nothing. Still in her nightgown she went around the house clicking the light switches.

Yes, the power was off in their all electric home. That meant she couldn't turn on the air-conditioner at four to cool the house down. Had her mother forgotten to pay the bill?

Ellen knew things were tight, the television had gone out and not been replaced, and her mother liked to watch the news. Plus her grandmother had put in a garden on her spring visit, and taught Ellen how to weed and water the vegetables.

How could she have supper ready? Ellen knew better than to call her mother at work. If they were behind on bills, she sure couldn't ask her to bring home fast food.

Ellen got their big foam ice chest from the garage and filled it with everything out of the fridge, having a baloney sandwich for breakfast.

She hurried and made the beds and picked up dropped clothes and the scattered free weekly newspaper, and sat the table for supper, while she tried to think of a solution.

First, she would walk the six blocks to the neighborhood library, the only place she was allowed to go alone. Her books were due and she had read all five, including "Simple Recipes". She dressed in her red shorts and tie-dyed yellow tee shirt. "I'm going to look bright, anyway" she told herself.

Slowly Ellen paced the aisles between the tall brown wooden bookshelves, distracted by her problem. She had to keep her end of the bargain. Her mother had bragged so on last night's supper.

Her grown-up friend, the librarian Mrs. Simmons, was putting up a display on solar energy. "What's the matter Ellen, have you already read all our books"? she teased.

"No, but I want to", Ellen assured her, stopping to look at the arrangement of new books. Her heart thumped and jumped like a frog, right there like magic, "Cooking with the Sun". She leafed through it and quickly found directions with a drawing of a simple solar cooker. All she needed was cardboard, aluminum foil, a clear plastic bag and a black pot. They had a navy blue roaster, that should be close enough. "What a great idea" Ellen thought.

She rewarded herself with a thick adult book, "The Red Tent", and hurried out. Stopping behind the new dollar store, she picked up a large cardboard box. At home she cut out pieces and covered one side with foil, propping them inside her plastic baby bathtub from the attic, creating a big bowl shaped sun cooker.

In the garden she quickly gathered a small head of cabbage, onions, carrots, sweet yellow peppers, butter lettuce and two red ripe tomatoes for a salad.

Ellen retrieved two lamb chops from the freezer, They were the last of the spring lamb, saved for a special occasion but she didn't want to risk letting them spoil. Her daddy's parents raised lambs, and gave them a slaughtered frozen lamb every Easter, so good and easy to cook. It was always eaten fast.

The girl carefully cut the vegetables in small pieces. She buttered the inside of the roaster artfully arranging the food, and put the covered pan inside a large plastic bag. She placed it in the center of her solar stove, and carried it to the sunniest spot in the yard.

Relieved that the book said you couldn't burn food in a solar cooker, Laurie sat in their shady porch swing and luxuriously read, intimate details about the women in the Bible…all afternoon. She had closed all the blinds and curtains and opened the front and back doors to suck a breeze through the house.

Ellen's sun cooked supper was a huge success. "You are resourceful and that's a great blessing" her Mom told her that night, giving her a humongous hug. "Paydays tomorrow and I can get the bill paid".

That night, her mother did not wake up and say one time, "Turn off the light and go to sleep".

THE END
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