Well, that was a first. We’d never previously needed a police presence at the beginning of a party.
Of course, it wasn’t just the party. I pulled up beside the young officer to convince him that I had the right to enter the driveway.
“You’ll have to move along, ma’am, and park down the road,” the young officer said.
“It's all right,” Dad said, strolling up to the car. “She's family.”
“They all claim to be family,” the officer said, frowning.
“They are,” I said. “But I actually live here.” I reached down to fish out my driver's license. “This is my driveway, and—what the dickens is that?”
Shea and the rest of the SOBs were marching up and down in front of our house, carrying their “Let My Creatures Go” and “Animals Are People Too” signs and singing “We Shall Overcome.”
“The chief told them they had to stay out of your yard and not block the road, or he’d arrest them,” Dad said. “So far they’re being very careful.”
“That's nice,” I said. “But I’d rather have them very gone.
Why are they picketing us, anyway? Do they think we’re running a game ranch here?”
“Perhaps they’re associating us with Patrick's misdeeds.”
“Alleged misdeeds,” I said. “And if you ask me, they’re just too lazy to make new signs. And what's with the singing?”
“Oh, don’t you like it?” Dad said. “That was my idea, really. For the longest time they were just trudging up and down in silence— not a very picturesque protest at all. So I taught them the song. I thought it would make a nice note of historical continuity.”
I felt sure Michael's film student appreciated Dad's effort. He was standing on a stepladder across the road, filming busily.
“That's nice,” I said. I handed my driver's license to the young officer. He peered suspiciously at it, and then, when he’d verified my address, he stood aside to let me pull into my own driveway. But he was still staring at me suspiciously.
No wonder. I was, theoretically, the hostess. He probably thought I’d planned everything that was happening.
In my absence, a prototypical Hollingworth family party not only had begun but had hit its stride earlier than usual for such events.
Apparently Michael had given in to the temptation to use the Sprockets’ excavations as the starting point for a swimming pool. Dad had always had a sneaking fondness for water features of all kinds—ponds, lakes, streams, fountains, even fishbowls. Mother had spent much of her married life discouraging Dad's repeated efforts to irrigate the landscape around him. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that Michael had caught the bug. He and a mixed crew of Shiffleys and Hollingworths were crouched over one of the tables, arguing and dropping bits of relish and potato salad onto some rough sketches. A work crew was busy filling in some of the ditches and joining others together, in a plan known only to themselves. Or perhaps there wasn’t a plan at all; perhaps it was a free-form earthmoving event, with everyone pitching in to create or fill holes, according to his or her impulse of the moment. Perhaps I should suggest that at least one of the pool planners keep an eye on them.
But the hole fillers appeared to be in the minority, and their efforts were somewhat hampered by the fact that various other picnic guests found the trenches so interesting or useful. A quartet of uncles had decided that they would work splendidly for pit-roasting an entire pig. Many of the younger kids were playing an elaborate game, rather like a cross between tag and Whack-a-Mole, that required them to scramble in and out of the trenches with much squealing.
And a number of slightly older relatives, not realizing that Dr. Smoot's vampire guise was a form of therapy, had decided to join in the fun. I couldn’t walk ten feet without having a figure in a black cape leap out of the shrubbery or pop up from a pit to laugh sepulchrally at me. Dr. Smoot was in his element— probably the first time in his life that he’d been a trendsetter.
Of course, it was a little incongruous, seeing vampires slinking about the yard on an afternoon so warm and sunny that many of the undead were wearing shades and sipping lemonade. Perhaps the incongruity was a key part of Rose Noire's therapeutic plan.
Rob sidled up and held out a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
“Squames de chats?”he murmured.
“Yuck,” I said. “You’re not going around saying that to everyone, I hope.”
“Mais oui!”he said. “Evidently you’re the only Francophone in the family. Everyone else just smiles, helps himself, and says thank you.”