The Boy, the Cloud and the Very Tall Tale

“Tell me again, Grumple,” said Flora. “Tell me how Daddy flew away on a cloud.”

Grumple looked up from his sewing, his glasses resting on his nose. Flora, who had just spilled the contents of Grumple’s button jar across the kitchen table, waited patiently for him to begin. It didn’t take him long. No one could resist Flora’s charms. She was as bright and creative as the button rainbow that was taking shape in front of her. Grumple cleared his throat and began.

“It was a cold and clear December day,” he said. “Not a cloud in the sky, and then poof! There it was, hovering outside the window like a giant bed of freshly shorn sheep’s wool.”

It was a familiar story. One that Grumple had been telling the children since their father’s disappearance two years before. Ewan could have mouthed along, if he wasn’t biting his tongue.

“Your father greeted the cloud as if it were a long-lost friend,” continued Grumple. “He even tried to give it a friendly pat, but his hand went right through it!”

Flora swept her hand through an imaginary cloud. “Silly Daddy!”

At age seven, Flora was happy to accept Father’s disappearance as a fairy tale. But Ewan was four years older and remembered clearly the sadness that had driven their father away.

“Imagine,” said Grumple. “A cloud. Right outside that very window. The sight of it made your father go teary-eyed.”

Flora followed Grumple’s bony old finger to the scene of the magical disappearing act. Ewan, on the other hand, kept his eyes fixed on his orange tabby playing catch-and-release with an ant that had strayed through the kitchen door.

“Your father didn’t hesitate to climb aboard that cloud,” continued Grumple. “I mean, who would?”

Ewan could hold his tongue no longer. “Me, for starters.”