As I followed the rest of the family, I heard him testing the lock behind us.
On the first part of the way home the boys woke up long enough to serenade us with some of the songs the choir had performed. The results might have been more melodic if they were old enough to have any idea of pitch and key and if they could have been persuaded to sing the same song at the same time, but Michael and I enjoyed it anyway. I wasn’t quite so sure about Rob. Still, I was relieved when both of their voices began to fade—bedtime would go so much more easily if we could just carry them to bed and tuck them in, still unconscious.
“I see your mother’s been busy again,” Michael murmured as he walked into the foyer with Jamie over his shoulder.
“It’s like living at the North Pole,” Rob muttered as he hauled Josh upstairs.
I was relieved to see that Mother hadn’t rearranged everything—just added a little more of everything. More greenery. More ribbons. More tinsel. About the only annoying thing she’d done was arrange for someone to fit out the entire downstairs with little wireless speakers to pipe in an endless supply of soft instrumental Christmas music. It took me fifteen minutes to find the central source of the music—an iPod set up in the kitchen pantry—and silence it for the night.
I checked to make sure the library was ready for the sewing bee and Michael’s office, with its dangerous cargo of unwrapped presents was locked. Then, after a quick visit to the boys’ rooms to plant good night kisses on their sleeping foreheads, I fell into bed. It was still dark the next morning when my cell phone rang.
Chapter 14
It was my phone ringing, not Michael’s pager—something to be thankful for, I supposed. I fumbled to answer it.
“Meg?” It was Robyn. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
I knew it was customary under such circumstances to protest that no, of course, she hadn’t awakened me, I had been up for hours. But it was 6:00 A.M. and I wasn’t sure I could manage the obligatory cheerful tone with any grace, so I skipped to the point.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Can you come in and work your magic on the schedule again?”
I blinked for a few moments, puzzled.
“Is there something wrong with the schedule everyone agreed to last night?” I asked finally.
“Of course not! It would have been perfect except there’s been another incident.”
Suddenly I felt a lot more awake. I sat upright and began fumbling for the light.
“What kind of incident?”
“Someone left a flock of ducks overnight in the sanctuary at St. Byblig’s.”
“Ducks?”
“What’s wrong?” Michael muttered.
I pressed my cell phone’s speaker button so he could hear what Robyn was saying.
“Father Donnelly came in to get ready for the early mass,” she reported. “And he found the ducks, several hundred of them, roosting on the pews, and a few of them waddling up and down the aisles. And more down in the Sunday school classrooms. And they’d obviously been there for hours, and the place was a mess—no way they could celebrate mass in there till after a good cleanup. So he canceled the mass, and most of the parishioners who showed up for it are already on their way home to change into work clothes and start cleaning. But the cleanup could take a while, and he doesn’t yet know if the building has to be reconsecrated, so he needs to know where he can celebrate mass today—several masses, actually—and you’re the only one who knows the master schedule well enough to figure that out. Can you come down to St. Byblig’s and help us cope?”
“Be there in half an hour,” I said.
“Bless you!” With that, she hung up.
“Ducks,” Michael mused. “Well, at least evicting them won’t be dangerous. Geese, now, might put up quite a fight, but ducks are pretty mild-mannered.”
“Does this mean you’re volunteering to help with the duck removal?” I asked. I was slipping on my jeans and a fairly warm sweater, since I’d probably be spending a lot of time either outside or in a church building whose doors and windows had been flung open to bring in the fresh air.
“Someone has to watch the boys,” he said.
“True,” I said. “And they had a late night last night, so if by some miracle they actually sleep in, let’s let them. I have no idea how long this will take, but I’ll keep you posted.”
“Maybe the boys and I can come over and help when they are up,” he said. “But not until the ducks are gone—they’d want to bring some home, and I don’t think we want any more additions to the livestock just yet.”