For a moment, Teddie’s entire world was suspended in time as the shock of what had just happened spread from just a ghastly expression of total surprise to the painful clarity of total understanding.
His head turned from broken mess to broken mess,
uncertain which way to go.
The sounds of his mother’s and sister’s steps on the gravel walk told his churning mind that he didn’t have time to clean up both accidents.
That meant that he was in deep,
deep trouble.
No matter how many times his brain calculated the potential outcomes from the discovery of either accident, the end result was the same.
He was dead meat.
To Teddie, however, one thing was perfectly clear.
A broken lamp would certainly get him in trouble with his mom,
and would probably even get him grounded for playing so carelessly in the house.
On the other hand,
the fact that Tammy Lou’s favorite doll in the whole wide world had just happened to fall mysteriously off the couch and shatter into a thousand pieces on the wood floor while Teddie was the only one home was bound to spell even greater disaster.
No matter how Teddie explained it or how good of an excuse he could come up with, his mom would never believe it.
There had been too many times that he had been warned about fooling around with Tammy Lou’s dolls.
If he didn’t act fast,
his own toys would be leaving on the next train to needy kids’ village.
Teddie did the only thing he could think of on the spur of the moment.
As his mom and sister made their final landing approach to the front door,
Teddie quickly brushed all the broken pieces of Sally under the couch and straightened the hem of the throw skirt.
He was just rising from the floor when his mom came through the door.
Immediately, her eyes went from the guilty look on her son’s face to the busted lamp on the floor.
“Theodore Benjamin Garvan!
What in the world have you been doing?”
His mom’s voice was authoritative but only laced with a small amount of anger.
Good old mom, not one to jump immediately to conclusions.
Give him the benefit of the doubt and let the anger build slowly and fester while he swung to the end of his rope.
Then, when he had buried himself sufficiently and her inner suspicions were confirmed,
the anger would swell and jerk the noose closed. It isn’t any wonder that Teddie opted for silence to his mom’s initial rhetorical question.
“What happened to my lamp, Theodore?”
The shortening of his name indicated to Teddie that it was time to start swinging.
Maybe a quick-thinking story would lengthen his rope.
He only half feigned a shocked look at his mother and then at the lamp as if to mentally say,
what,
that lamp over there?
The one that is busted?
“Well, I’m waiting for an explanation, Young Man.
That lamp certainly didn’t just fall over by itself, did it?”
Tammy Lou stood behind her mother and smirked at Teddie.
She was secretly enjoying his discomfort and hoping that the hammer of mom would soon fall on her bratty brother.
Teddie leapt to a well-versed, time stalling technique.
“I don’t know, mom.” To punctuate his assertion,
Teddie offered a small shrug and a slight cocking of his head.
“What do you mean you don’t know?
You were the only one home.
The lamp wasn’t broken when Tammy and I left.
Don’t tell me that someone else came in just to break my living room lamp.” The sarcasm wasn’t hard for Teddie to detect.
Mom had played the old unknown entity to blame called “I don’t know” and his brother, “Not Me”.
Fortunately, Teddie quickly recovered.
“I mean, it was an accident.” Teddie countered.
“I don’t know how it happened, Mom, honest.
I think I tripped over the corner of the couch and bumped it by mistake.”
He paused long enough to throw on his hurt little boy pout that usually helped to melt his mom.