Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

We are Jemima and Easter Yeggs.  Lieutenant Yeggs wants his son to write these reports to keep in touch when we are out having our adventures, and Rev C.S.L., my Dad, doesn’t mind an update either.

The first thing that happened on this day…  Okay, a lot happened before I got up, and I am not talking about that part of the world that is to the east, closer to the International Date Line.

I got a phone call when I was in that state of “Do I get up?” or “Do I slip back off to sleep?”  I jumped out of my skin when the phone rang, and I grabbed for the phone.  It was Gwen Quinn, Easter’s and my pretend aunt, since Aunt Pink calls her a sister.  I grumbled a “Hello.”

She asked, “Did I wake you?”

I groaned, “That’s okay, Aunt Gwen, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”

Gwen said, “Good, at least you have your wits about you.  Can you get dressed in your D-ring coveralls and go to the Evident’s apartment?  We have some new residents from the mission that need a full tour.  It is last minute, yes, but Pink Lady went to the hospital about midnight.  What I have been told, she is still in labor.  Between people that are there to be with Pink and a few on vacation, we need this tour completed.  These people are from even further into the mountains from where I lived growing up, so be patient with them, but you know the safety rules.  Pink was thinking they could immediately start with the early season picking, since they both grew up on a farm.  I would appreciate this, we’ll do you a favor down the road, ummm, maybe in about eight months.”

I said, “I would be glad to meet the new folks.  Where are they going to move?”

Gwen said, “They will move into the Williams apartment across the hall once the Williams have moved to the third floor and the apartment is converted into a three bedroom.  And, oh, I forgot.  The ver Waarloosd family has three children, and they are just barely nineteen years old.  That’s another reason you were selected.  You will all be having non-alcoholic cider in the tasting room.”

I dawdled.  I took a shower because I felt funky.  I didn’t think I had a noticeable baby bump yet, but I let out the adjustments on my coveralls.  And while I did all that, there was the following conversation in the Evident apartment.  The report is in third person until I get there.

Georges gently knocked on the bedroom door.  “Tom?  Cat?  You need to wake up.  I have some clothing for you to put on for your employee familiarization tour.  Tom?  Cat?”

Tom groaned, but Cat jumped up, still wearing a night gown that Jochebed loaned her, a couple of sizes too large.  She burst from the bedroom and ran to the room where the children had slept.  Georges tried to stop her, and explain, but he failed.  Cat’s mother instinct was strong, and due to their exhaustion, they had overslept.  Cat immediately screamed and Georges got there in time to catch her as she fainted.

Tom ran out holding the waist band of one of Georges’ sweatpants.  “What is the matter?”

Georges explained as he carried Cat to the sofa.  “Jochebed took your children to the nursery.  Cat walked into an empty room and saw that your children were missing.  I tried to stop her and explain, but Cat is pretty fast.”

Tom nodded, “Yes, she was always a little ahead of me.  We are not negligent parents.  We have just not slept in days.”  Cat awoke crying, but Tom and Georges explained.  Georges had to introduce himself as he had worked late the night before.

Georges handed them pink coveralls.  “Gwen Quinn is great with sizing people from a distance.  Please put these on.”

They looked at the pink coveralls.  Tom said, “We cannot wear these.  It is sinful to wear something so outlandish.”  Cat said, “And a woman never wears pants.  That is sinful also.”

Georges smiled, “I was warned that you might have objections.  All the women doing physical work at Lily the Pink wear coveralls.  You will not be the only one, and that rule only applied in your valley.  You will not find it in the Bible.  The idea of wearing the wrong gender’s clothing does not apply in that these coveralls for you, Cat, have a woman’s cut as the coveralls for Tom have a man’s cut.  And as soon as you see what everyone else is wearing, you will find that you are not dressing outlandishly.  They will all have pink uniforms except for the security people.  I think you met Missy MacDougall last night.  So, one of the safety rules here is that when you get more than eight feet above ground level, you must have these on and you must be tied off to the safety line.  That is not negotiable.  Most of the time, you will be double-tied off.”

Tom said, “Cat is not good with knots.”

Georges explained, “When I say tied off, you will have a lanyard with a ring that snaps into your uniform on one end and then snaps into the safety line on the other.  Each time you get to a safety line support, you have to go through a single line unhook and rehook process.  That way, one lanyard is hooked up at all times.  Your tour guide will demonstrate.”

Cat said, “Pink Lady said she would do the tour.”

Georges replied, “Pink Lady is in labor at the hospital.  She has been there since midnight.  Due to her condition, she would not be able to do the tour up into the jungle, anyway.”

Tom asked, “A jungle?  How could that be?  There are no jungles in this part of the country, not even a rain forest.”

Georges said, “That question will be answered as soon as you go into the greenhouse, otherwise known as the Crystal Mountain.”

Cat snarled, “And why do you not have a pink uniform?”

Georges sighed, “I am a plain-clothes police detective.  I am going in late to work.  I was working until early this morning.”

Then I burst into the room, just as they came out of their bedroom in their coveralls.  As usual, the fit might not be perfect, but they looked sharp.  They did not feel that way.

Georges said, “I think a trip downstairs to the nursery to check in with the children will be a good start.”

Tom said, “But if this girl is the tour guide, why is she wearing a green uniform?”

I smiled, “That is because I am not an employee.  I’m family.  Pink Lady is my husband’s aunt, so I guess that makes her my aunt also.  This is my turtle uniform, the only thing that I have with D-ring hookups.”

Cat asked, “Turtle?”

Georges held up a hand.  “They probably have no idea what a television is, so you telling them that you are a photographer, videographer, meteorologist, and storm chaser for the Storm Chasing Channel on TV is not going to be understood.  Do you see why you were asked?  Most people would be frustrated.  You will not get frustrated when you have to rephrase half the things you say.  Got that, Stinker?”

I snickered, “Yeah, and now explaining you calling me Stinker is high on the list.”

Georges snickered, “Oops, sorry, Jemima.  And I was allowed to come in late, but not any later.  I have a meeting with your cousin in about forty-five minutes.  You know, the cousin that runs the city?  Too many traffic lights, and I might be late.”  With that, Georges was gone.

I smiled and reached out a hand to shake theirs.  “Hi!  I’m Jemima Yeggs.  My husband is Easter Yeggs.  His father, Deviled Yeggs and Pink Lady’s husband, Scrambled Yeggs, are brothers.  So, I am family and Easter and I live here.  I will show you a little bit of video from our storm chasing television show later, but until then, let me just say that our college professor assigns all codenames, and my name of Stinker is one that I really like.  I have made positive changes in my coworker’s lives and the professor being one of them.  She thought I was being tricky, so she called me Stinker.”

Cat asked, “But why would you chase storms?”

I snickered, “I wondered that when my boyfriend, who is now my husband, suggested that we both try it, but we warn people that the storm is coming.  If they have been hit by the storm, we help them.  The team saved a woman’s life just a week or two ago.  During Spring Break a month ago, my friend dove into a river at flood stage to save a boy’s life, and then our professor is going to adopt the boy because both the boy’s parents died in the flood.  You may see him during the tour.  Dr. Quinn, otherwise known as Home Wrecker, drops Michael off here when she works.  I think he is finally finished with school for the semester.  But last summer, Dr. Quinn and my friend, Mary, delivered a baby during a hurricane.  Little Frank Lynn, the little boy, now about ten months old, the one that was born in the hurricane, is probably in the nursery with your children.  Ouch!  I just thought of it!  We will be out storm chasing when his first birthday comes up.  But back to explaining Storm Chasers, we do more than go joyriding into danger, and Easy, my husband, is our driver who keeps us safe.  I hope you can attend a double wedding in a couple of weeks.  Both my friend and my professor are getting married.”

Then I thought of something that should have been mentioned.  These two were from a closed community with strict rules.  What if…

“Let’s sit down here in the living room and I can give you a brief history of Lily the Pink.”  I suggested.  “Back about 30 years ago, maybe forty years, Ashmead Apple bought this property.  He was an enforcer for the mob.  Oh, the confused looks.  Mob, meaning an organized group of criminals.  In Tracy, that meant the Rotten Apple Gang, and during the time this house was built, Red Delicious Apple was the crime boss.  If any criminal in town disobeyed Red Delicious, Ashmead made sure they were beaten up or dead.”

Cat gasped, “Tom, we should leave.  This is a house of murderers.”

Tom replied, “We have no money.  We are strangers here.  Where would we go?  And I think this person named Stinker is teaching us a lesson about forgiveness.”

I laughed, “Tom, you catch on quickly.  Well, my father-in-law’s boss was the policeman that put Ashmead in prison, when Pink Lady was only thirteen years old.  And then, my father-in-law did the same thing to Red Delicious.  Not all the Apples were criminals.  Ambrosia and Honeycrisp were not.  They have recently been able to get full ownership of the Orchard, and Pink Lady is the primary customer.  And Pink Lady wanted to not be a criminal.  But, she had a cousin named Baldwyn.  Pink Lady and Scrambled Yeggs, my uncle by marriage, were going to bed together.  Pink Lady got pregnant, but no one knew at that time.  Baldwyn caught them in bed and thought Pink Lady’s house would make a great place for prostitutes, umm, harlots.”  With harlot, they understood.  “So, as we walk around the building today, there will be a mixture of people who had once been harlots and people that they have hired since then.  Not everyone is a Christian, but they all enjoy equal rights.  They do not like people showing signs of affection except in designated areas, and no nudity.  That rule is due to some of the ladies being in therapy for having been forced to do terrible things.  The sight of people doing those kinds of things might trigger some kind of breakdown.  They have only been freed from their slavery of sin for the past two and a half years.  At that time, there was the main house, the Big House since it was Pink Lady’s prison when Baldwyn ran the brothel, you know, harlots.  But the cider house had been a place where Ashmead took stolen automobiles and took them apart to sell the parts and make money for the Rotten Apples.  Pink Lady insisted that the illegal chop shop, as it was called, would be turned into a cider house.  Pink Lady was an Apple, so why not apple cider?  And it is the hard stuff, but we will be allowed to drink the non-alcoholic version today.”

I noticed they had stopped breathing.  This might be too much, but with the fact there was non-alcoholic beverages, they relaxed again.  “This apartment building was also part of the ‘campus’ as they call it.  Walls were constructed so that people could not spy on the harlots.  My father-in-law was investigating a murder here two and a half years ago.  He figured out how Pink Lady and Gwen Quinn had been trapped, and he shut down all the illegal activity.  So, if you believe in forgiveness, this entire place can be forgiven. It is a safe place to live.  And since then, Zuzka added a bakery and closed in the inner campus in a greenhouse, shaped like a mountain, so they call it the Crystal Mountain.  It is breathtaking and Zuzka keeps adding more hydroponic gardens with elevated walkways.  Oh, hydroponics is growing plants in water.  Water lilies already do that, but now they grow exotic plants from Africa high up in the mountain where it is hotter.  They grow vegetables in various places.  And as Zuzka sees the right type of sunlight in an unused area, she builds more to grow another crop.  Lily the Pink is self-sufficient except for protein, but we do have turkeys and chickens.  So, we have eggs.”

Then I concluded, “So, be polite and courteous to all you meet.  This place is very special.  Some people may be just like you.  They found themselves homeless, without jobs, in Tracy, and Pink Lady fixed that.  She has a Zacchaeus Syndrome.  She finds people who have been harmed, and she pays them back in love four times the harm.”

We went to the nursery.  Jochebed had them look through a special window at their children – special in that on the nursery side, it was a mirror.  They were having the time of their lives.  Reuben and Valin had quickly become friends.  Samantha chased Gretchen Grunge around, although Gretchen was closer to Reuben’s age.  Baby Levi was being held by Greta Grunge and he looked content.

With the anxiety of missing children behind them, we left to walk through the Big House.  I introduced Tom and Cat to the guards, and to Tommie Tat, the comptroller, and a few others.  We stuck our head in the door of Pink Lady’s office to see if there was any news on the new arrival.  Grannie Fannie was taking care of only Kanok, but she was thinking of taking her to the nursery.  Kanok was a socially driven child, and with everyone else in the nursery and Mommie Pinkie not there, Kanok was getting bored.  And no, no news, but Fannie let me know that my cellphone was on the list of people to get the text notification.  PawPaw and Scrambled were at the hospital.  PawPaw was clueless about the new phones but Scrambled had promised to text.

I was getting thirsty, especially without even having breakfast.  I had to eat for two, you know.  We slipped into the kitchen and Gwen was there.  She said she preferred to work in the kitchen, especially when she was nervous.  When Boaz was born, she was right by Pink’s side, but now she had a company to run, and Pink had her husband and father.  She was delighted to scramble some eggs for us and add a little cheese.  She even fried some bacon.  And then she came over with some non-alcoholic freedom cider.  She avoided coffee.  She doubted that Tomcat had ever had coffee.

Now that we were fortified, we went from the kitchen through the huge den where company executive meetings were held and into the Crystal Mountain.

I said, “Welcome to the jungle!”  I gave them time to gasp and to point to things like the swimming pool and the huge water slides, which were in operation.  The high school and middle school children were sliding down both slides.  We walked around some fake trees, and I showed them the beach volleyball arena.  It was there that the elevated tour would start.  My next-door neighbor, Joseline “Amazon” Johnson, greeted us and gave us two lanyards each.  She demonstrated what we would have to do each time we reached a safety line support point.  We unhooked one lanyard on one side and hooked it on the other.  Then we unhooked the other one and hooked it on the other side.  Otherwise, we walked along while our lanyards slid along the safety line.

Tom thanked Jos for the instructions.  He said, “Now, we can start work, so that we can pay back Pink Lady for her generosity.”

Jos replied, “No, you will not.  For the rest of the week, and maybe a little next week, you will be in safety class.  Stinker!  I get to teach it this time!  Isn’t that great?!  No one has unsupervised access to the elevated walkways without completing the training.  We will cover all aspects of safety here from emergency response to Hazard Communication to each individual department’s safety rules.  The general rule of Lily the Pink is no romance except in your apartment (if married) or at designated spots.  But safety rules?  We are just like any other company in this country.  Don’t worry, Tomcat, the training is part of the job.  You get paid.  You even get paid today while this goofy family member walks you around.  No telling what part of the tour is true or not.  You know, she is a PK, preacher’s kid.”

With that Tomcat became uneasy.  Tomcat was convinced that their preacher had told the elders of the church to kill Tom’s parents, and they suspected that the same preacher stole the money in their scholarship fund.  I explained, “Preacher’s kid, in that my Dad is the pastor at the church most of these people attend.  You can go there, but I suggest you try out a few churches.  To be honest, our pews are getting full.  No designated pews, but there are three where people know are the Yeggs and friends pews.  My father-in-law and all of us are on one pew.  Then the Pink Lady crowd overflows the next pew, especially if Boaz and Cassie are there.  He’s the mayor of Tracy and Pink’s son.  Remember when I said she was pregnant with Uncle Scrambled’s baby?  That’s the one.  And then some family friends and work friends are on the next.  The Niblicks, Randy and Polly, oh, a bunch of police and university people.  That includes Jos and her husband Kev, who are a year younger than you two, but they will also be freshmen along with you at the university.  Oh, Jos, where’s Kev?”

Jos shrugged, “Probably carbon recovery.  There were alarms there early this morning.  Either the controls need adjustment or something is messing up.  You will be safe going up.  The alarms were for a little too much carbon dioxide going out the flue, and the flue is outside the enclosed space.”

The view from near the top was breathtaking.  They saw the waterfall.  They met the Daltons, even Emmett, near the top.

I asked Em, “Why aren’t you with Sophie on the slides?”

Em shrugged, “This data has to be collected.  The botanists will be here tomorrow to collect data themselves, but the water slides are for the state champion high school softball team, 5A division.  Of course, Margie, the undefeated pitcher, and Sophie, the freshman shortstop, had to be the first two down the slide.  They got the trophies for the most outstanding pitcher and fielder, and Sophie also got the best offensive player.  She did not have the most home runs on the team, but she had the best batting average, tied for the most RBIs, and she led the team in stolen bases.”

Cat said, “She steals bases?  I thought she was a nice girl.”

Em and I laughed.  Em said, “No, that is where you run to the next base when the other team is not looking.  That’s why she also led the team in runs scored.  Their water sliding is noisy, but they deserve it.  And Margie even let Blaise go down to the maintenance bay that is next to shipping and receiving to work with Easy.  They are both under the Turtle.  I think they are putting in Dr. Quinn’s most anticipated modification.”

I gushed, “I hope so.  After the wedding, we hope to have all three married couples together with room for one more, probably Michael Rowe, if Dr. Kildare will approve it.  It will be my last storm chase until after the baby is weaned.  But even then, the nursery has two wet nurses.”

Cat groaned, “And thinking of that.  My breasts are starting to hurt.”

I giggled, “I guess that is our signal to go back to the ground level.”  As we walked down slowly, unhooking and rehooking our lanyards, I explained, “A little about your hostess in your room.  Before she met Jesus, her mother got sick in the jungles of Africa.  Her father traded Jochebed to the witchdoctor in trade to get his wife well.  Then both Jochebed and her husband became Christians.  The missionary explained to her husband that it was not his dancing and incantations that made the medicine work.  It was the medicine itself.  So, Jochebed’s husband dropped the ‘witch’ from his title.  Then extremists came into their village and killed all the Christians including Jochebed’s husband and all four children.  Jochebed lay on the ground with blood covering her and the terrorists thought she was dead.  When they left the village, she got up and ran to the next village.  The pastor there took her in.  Since Jochebed had been nursing her youngest child before he was killed, the pastor’s wife was having trouble producing enough milk.  So, Jochebed became the village wet nurse, mid-wife, and maker of witchdoctor potions.  Of course, the extremists eventually came to her new village.  Tyler Hill was visiting as a missionary and they tried to escape with the pastor’s wife and their two children, but the pastor’s wife was mortally wounded.  Now the Hills, up in Washington state, have a child of their own and Resurrection and Esther from Africa.  And now, after having four children before she was your age, Jochebed is having difficulty conceiving.  Maybe she is just too busy with everyone else’s children.  And my reason for bringing up that story.  Those plants that the Daltons were measuring are the secret ingredients in those witchdoctor potions.  The university botanists are studying how to maximize growth, and the university pharmacists are trying to isolate what key ingredient of each potion is the effective cure.  So, Jochebed is very busy, and she never went to school, ever.”

We took a break from the tour so that Cat could feed Levi.  Jochebed also gave her a breast pump and showed her how to use it.  Cat said that would have alleviated a lot of pain when she was in high school.

We then went through the cider house.  We sampled a few more ciders, just nothing with alcohol.  We watched the bottling, walked past distillation and carbon recovery.  We walked past shipping and receiving to an odd looking bay just beyond.  Jim Kaiser had insisted they add one bay for maintenance.  Sure, Pink Lady had a maintenance contract with a local auto repair shop, even with one bay there being painted pink, but Jim Kaiser thought his crew could change the oil and do some small repairs, but this was major modifications to the Turtle.  With school finished until summer school started, the maintenance bays at the university were being renovated.  When I announced that we were here, two mechanical engineering students and one professor said hello, but no husband!  Then two pairs of legs became longer as Easy and Blaise rolled out from underneath the Turtle.

Easy looked up and said, “And how are my two favorite people doing?”

Blaise said, “Easy, it’s just your wife with the two new people.”

Easy laughed, “But in my wife’s womb is our first child, Blaise.  He or she is a real person, even now.  The baby has its own brain, eyes, ears, lungs, and heart.  We borrowed Greta’s stethoscope and heard the heartbeat last night.  And, Stink, I am glad you can get into your uniform.  Your body shape is starting to change.”

I growled, “I let out all the adjustments, thank you for noticing!”  Saying the last part with sarcasm.

The professor said, “We were just about to test the turtle shell.  I hear that Stinker is the one that does that usually.  Easy, if you can crank her up, let’s see if we are ready to go into Turtle mode.”

Easy ran around and got into the driver’s seat and he cranked up the Turtle.  I climbed into the passenger seat.  We closed our doors.  Easy told me to only hit the turtle shell button.  The professor yelled for everyone to stand back.  He gave me the thumbs up, and I hit the button.  Everything worked.  I hit the retract button and we got out, but one of the engineering students was not offering a high five.  Two turtle shell panels rubbed against each other.  A couple of washers in the right place would shift the panel just enough for a temporary fix, or Easy could put his welding skills to good use.  The turtle shells had to be shifted and a new pair of them added when they added a few more feet to the back of the vehicle.  There was enough room on the frame, so DOT approval was fairly easy, but the back window of the turtle sloped upward.  Now it was more like a box in the back but we could carry seven, maybe eight if a few were small.  When I asked about gas mileage, Easy told me we did not do so well in the wind tunnel tests.  But the nice thing is that with more people, you need more luggage and the roof modifications added more space for a new luggage compartment on top, for luggage and additional field instrumentation.

When we continued our tour out the entrance to shipping and receiving and back into the entrance to the bakery next door, Tom said, “That was very impressive.  We only got into an automobile for the first time a week ago, but now I understand when you call it the Turtle.  It looks like you go into your shell, but what is that for?”

I laughed, “You do realize we are just using space at Lily the Pink.  The Turtle belongs to the university.  But, the turtle shell on the bottom is to prevent wind from getting underneath the turtle and lifting it off the ground.  We also have anchors that drill into the ground about a foot, maybe a couple of inches further when the ground is soft enough.  But the turtle shell above protects us inside from flying debris.  This last expedition, when I was back here seeing doctors, the team was hit by some big pieces of a house, thrown around by a tornado.  A few things got bent, but everyone was safe inside the turtle shell.  Now, let’s see what Mabel has baking.”

I asked Mabel if she had the birth celebration cake ready.  Pink might not know what the gender was, but I knew Mabel knew.

Mabel rolled her eyes, “As if you can’t see the pink trimmings when Otto and I leveled the cake.  Besides, child, check your texts!”

I pulled out my phone and I had a text from Uncle Scrambled from about ten minutes before.  I must have been in turtle mode and too excited.  The text said, “Pink Sparkle Apple Yeggs, our little girl, both mother and daughter are healthy.  More details later.”  Like yeah, Scrammie!  You always put length and weight in a baby announcement!  Come on! Get with the program!  Healthy might not even mean ten fingers and ten toes!  Note to self. Teach your husband the importance of getting the birth announcement right!

Credits

The joke about having to get up to answer the phone anyway has been claimed in countless forms by a variety of people.  Two instances that were not the first are: 1) A quote in the Yogi Berra book of quotes, The Yogi Book.  2) Someone called Desi Arnaz early one morning during the years that they were making the television show, I Love Lucy.  Many other purported earlier quotes are from 1942 and 1943, predating the first two, but are they substantiated?  We could start a rumor that the first telephone call was not “Watson, I need you.”  No, Alexander Graham Bell would have been polite!  Right?!  He could have said, “Watson, did I disturb you?”  To which Watson replied, “Oh, never mind, sir, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”  If that had happened, that would have definitely predated the rest of them.

And the safety rules for work at elevation is accurate for most companies with the cutoff line (eight feet in this case) varying from one company to another.  This means that people working near the top all day require toilet facilities near the top, something that Zuzka designed into the fake tree trunks.  Structural supports, water tanks, and toilet facilities all covered with fake bark to look like a massive banyan tree – all dreamed up by Zuzka while she was a prostitute and slave, working for Baldwyn Apple.  No wonder it went in so quickly.  She already had the drawings.