Kitchen Wars
Rodney had slipped into a routine at school in the the past weeks. The routine started after school. After school and before dinner was the time he did what he wanted. Sometimes he played outside with his friends. They played football or basketball, or just goofed around down at the park. Dinner was usually about six o' clock and then after dinner came the time to do any homework he might have from school. Sometimes he had none, and his time was his own. Sometimes it took just an hour, and sometimes his homework took most of the evening. Rodney had a full night of work in front of him the evening his mom made his favorite thing for dinner.
Rodney liked spaghetti better than any other food. Before dinner he heard the muffled sounds of clanking pots and chopping knives, and a bit later the great spicy smells of the sauce came leaking out of the kitchen. That night he ate two heaping platefuls of spaghetti smothered in tomato and mushroom sauce strewn with crispy brown meatballs that burst with juicy flavor each time he bit into one. His stomach bulged out over his pants when he finally finished stuffing himself.
Rodney started his homework after dinner. There were math homework problems, which always gave him a little headache. And after the math homework he had to read out of a book about early American history. It was a book he chose to read, and he was expected to write a report and give a presentation about it. The day before Rodney had made a stone ax out of a flat rock and a thick stick to use in a presentation for school. He also had made a headband from a handkerchief and a crow feather he found on the ground out in the yard. The ax and the headband were visual aids for his book report. He was fascinated by the native people of the continent.
Some of the book was dull and full of dates and places and government legislation. He skimmed the dull stuff and searched out the better parts of the book. The good parts were about great Indian chiefs, Sioux and Algonquin tribes, and how they lived in their land and battled with the settlers when the Europeans started taking over. The tales of courage mesmerized Rodney. These parts of the book moved quickly, and each time he looked up at the clock another chunk of time had disappeared. When quitting time came, Rodney's brain overflowed with flying spears and mighty warriors.
When it was time for him to sleep, Rodney's eyes were tired and his mind was wound tight. He went to the bathroom and washed his face and hands and brushed his teeth like he had done a hundred times before.
He walked back down the hall and into his room. He quickly slipped out of his clothes and tossed them over a chair by his desk. He got under the covers of his bed and felt his body relax. His hand slipped out from under the covers and down to the floor where his stone ax lay. His feather headband hung over the bedpost. Rodney's mother peeked her head in the doorway to say goodnight and turn off the light, but he was already asleep.
Rodney went into a deep sleep that quickly took him into the world of dreams. His body was tired and his mind wrung out from reading all evening. His slumbering thoughts flitted from subject to subject like a kite tossed on a light breeze. He dreamed of playing in the park after school. He shot baskets in the dream, aiming carefully at the basket, shooting and then running to retrieve the ball and return back to the same spot and start the process over. Then in his dream, quite silently, a tall dark man with leather clothes walked up to the basketball court. Rodney stared at his strong face. Not knowing what else to do, Rodney bounce passed him the basketball. The man fielded the ball gracefully, dribbled up the court and did a lay-up. The ball rolled back across the court. The dream continued. Another man in a military uniform ran out of the darkness and onto the court. He grabbed up the ball. He held it greedily to his chest, smothering it with both arms. His stomach was the size of three basketballs and hung over his belt. He hunched low and squatty like a gorilla. He looked from side to side and then ran off the court into the bushes, taking the ball with him.
Rodney's dream moved to the music room at school. A pale skinny woman played a shiny little trumpet. The young and gangly woman wore long blue stockings that hung down around her ankles. Her cheeks bulged out in round spheres that were flushed rosy red. The trumpet sounded like a tea kettle going off. She bleated madly on the instrument and stamped her foot. She stopped playing for a moment and smiled. She had no teeth.
Rodney's dream shifted again, and he found himself sitting at a campfire in a forest. The night was very dark, and only the nearest edges were lit by the glowing fire. Beyond that the woods were black like charcoal. The fire hissed and popped. The coals glowed red like the burner on an electric stove and felt good on Rodney's face. Smoke rose in a column into the dark sky. Suddenly, a metallic racket sounded loudly in the distance. The sound vibrated all through Rodney's dream forest.
The noise in the woods was so loud it shook Rodney out of his dream. He awoke in his room, laying flat on his back looking up at the ceiling. The room was dark and quiet. From the way he was laying he could see the outline of his desk chair where his clothes were hanging, and the window where pale light outlined the curtains that hung there. Silence floated in the air.
Rodney listened to the silence for a while. He closed his eyes and tried to think about the dreams he had been having, but the dreams were starting to slip out of his memory like dreams always seem to do. He gripped his eyes shut, but he could not sleep. He was undeniably awake. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He then realized he was also undeniably thirsty. All that spaghetti had dried his throat. He craved a glass of milk to kill the dryness. Rodney got up to go to the kitchen and just for fun he slipped on his feather headband and picked up his stone ax.
In the kitchen Rodney poured a glass of milk and sat down at the kitchen table. He took a sip of the milk, and when he did he heard a little rattle. He looked around the room, but didn't notice anything unusual. So he took another sip. And when he did he heard the sound again. Rodney's eyebrows popped up. The noise was unmistakably there. He slowly surveyed the room, but still saw nothing. Then the rattle sounded again, louder this time. A movement caught his eye. He looked across the kitchen, and to his amazement the whole silverware drawer was jiggling and rattling. Rodney grabbed his ax, ran for a dark corner of the kitchen and crouched down in the shadows. The drawer made a wild racket and shook fiercely like it would blow apart any second. Rodney wanted to yell for help, but was too afraid. He crouched down lower and stared at the silverware drawer. He watched stupidly as something out of a cartoon nightmare unfolded before him. He stared, straining to believe his own vision. The silverware drawer slowly slid open, and two by two, the knives, and the spoons, and the forks all started standing upright and marching in single file out of the drawer. It was as if they lived and breathed. The utensils marched in time to a silent drummer. All the utensils organized themselves and fell into lines along the counter.
The spoons lined up on one side of the counter, and the forks lined up on the other. The knives fell into an orderly group on the back side of the counter, so they could face both the forks and the spoons. For a brief moment the utensils stood silent, looking at each other. And then, by some unseen signal the ranks of the forks and the spoons scattered about the counter. The knives remained quiet and observant. The forks spread out by the spice rack. Rodney kept low, peeking out from behind the wastebasket.
Two spoons grabbed the toaster and loaded it with bread slices. They tilted the toaster to a good angle and waited. A fork ran out and hoisted a grape out of a fruit basket, and just when it did the toaster went off, hurling smoking toast across the counter. A piece of toast caught the grape toting fork full force. Rodney winced. The toast impacted heavily with the fork. Two other forks had to come out from their places of safety and dragged the damaged fork behind a flour canister. The forks retaliated. Four forks grouped together and mustered a charge across the counter with a hand mixer held out in front of them. One fork spun the crank to make the mixer blades whir furiously. They caught a spoon trying to reload the toaster. Rodney thought it was the end for that one. Spoons rushed out from everywhere and overpowered the four forks. Three forks escaped in the struggle, but one was captured and dragged away.
The battle carried on as Rodney stared horrified. He had never seen a real battle before. He had only read about such things. He had read about battles the ancient Romans fought in golden chariots. He had read about knights in shining armor fighting with sword and battle-ax. But this was something Rodney didn't expect. It was real. awful. Rodney saw a spoon get mangled by a rolling pin that two forks rolled over it. A spoon pinned a fork on the ground and bashed it with a salt shaker. All this time the knives stood silent, sullen and evil looking with bits of light shining off their sharp blades. The sound of silverware being twisted sickened Rodney. The war raged on as Rodney huddled behind the wastebasket watching the destruction. The spoons and forks bashed and smashed each other and bent each other into ugly twisted shapes, and the knives stood silent.
Rodney looked straight at the knives when he jumped out from behind the wastebasket and yelled, "STOP!" He held out his arms, his stone ax held high in one hand. He stood silent for a few seconds while the clanking and clattering settled into silence. The knives, forks and spoons all turned together to stare at the boy with the stone ax and feather headband.
"Enough of this," Rodney said. The spoon with the salt shaker set it down. The fork that was about to get bashed with the salt shaker scrambled to a safe side of the counter. "What are you doing?" he continued, "Why are you doing this?" The utensils stood mute. "Why are you fighting each other? Don't you forks need the spoons to eat the soup, and the breakfast cereal, and to scrape the the last little bit of egg off a plate? What are you doing?" All the silverware faced the boy. "And you spoons need forks to stick meat and to twist up the spaghetti. What's your problem?" Rodney looked around. The utensils were all still.
Rodney shifted his headband a little and addressed the knives. "And you knives, I can't understand why you're just sitting there doing nothing. You're sharp and strong. You could stop this, but instead you just sit there. Why don't you do something?" The knives shuffled and looked nervous.
Rodney stood a little taller. What he was saying sounded right. "Now I want all of you to stop what you're doing and get this place cleaned up. That includes you knives."
The spoons went over and pushed the toaster back upright, and some forks put the salt and pepper shakers back in there place. The rolling pin was put away and a basting brush was used to sweep up the spilled flour. When everything was straightened back up the knives, spoons and forks milled around anxiously. Then Rodney commanded. "Now everybody back to your drawer and shape up. Got it?"
Rodney walked out of the kitchen leaving the utensils standing in silence on the counter. When the boy was halfway down the hall he stopped and looked at the moon out in the night. Then he listened to the silence. He stood in the hall for a few minutes and then turned back toward the kitchen. He walked quickly to the kitchen door opened it a crack and peeked in. All was quiet. He didn't see a single piece of silverware anywhere, and the silverware drawer was shut tight. Rodney walked back to his room trying to recall all the details of what had just happened, but they were fading. The boy set his ax by the bed and hung the headband over the bedpost. He laid in his bed and tried hard to think about his recent adventure, but sleep grabbed him quickly and took him away.
Rodney awoke the next morning to the sound of his mother calling out, "breakfast Rodney, get up." He rolled out of bed slowly, stretching and yawning. He walked out into the hall and down toward the kitchen. When he touched the kitchen door the night's events entered his mind. He stopped cold, waited a moment, and then peeked in warily, looking both left and right. Everything seemed to be in order. No silverware laid out anywhere. Everything was in its usual place. His mom was at the stove making breakfast. Ah! just a dream, he thought.
"Good morning," his mother said.
"Morning Mom," he replied, sitting down in front of a steaming bowl of cereal with toast on the side.
"Sleep well?" his mother asked.
"O.K." he replied.
"It's going to be a nice day."
"Yeah?" Rodney said. He looked at the knife and the fork and the spoon lined up next to his bowl. "I sure hope so."
