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One more scene from one of the plays I'm working on. Actually, I see this more as a film script but we'll see where it goes as it progresses. Quite pleased so far.

LEONARD
What is this? Move away and let us pass

Please don’t create problems

All we wanna do is stretch our legs. Nothing more and for whatever reason, you won’t let us

That won’t be possible

This is absolutely ridiculous. You can't force us to stay here without a good reason. I’m going to walk, like it or not

Me too!

(bending over and speaking softly)
I strongly advise you to stay put. Take my advice

Sorry pal – you gotta provide more information than vague hints and warnings

Don’t ask me any more questions that I can’t answer. Look - stay put and I’ll see what I can do

My knees are really painful. Can I at least stand up and take a few steps?

A few steps but no long walks

Promise

I got news for you, bud. I ain’t got any intention of staying put. You’re really over-reacting to a simple request of taking a small walk through the train

You didn't hear it from me but rumor has it that a passenger has died

What does this have to do with us? These things happen all the time. We promise we’ll stay away from wherever they’re keeping his body


LEONARD
You do realize you make no sense whatsoever. Why even mention it to us?

CONDUCTOR
Like I said, can't really share any information...

LEONARD
Why all the mystery?

CONDUCTOR
Look - I was told that we'll be delayed in Timmersville. That's all I can tell you right now.

(CONDUCTOR hurries off)

Weird. The guy was really nervous. Kept wiping the top of his lip. If it was a heart attack or normal causes, he wouldn’t bother telling us

MARY
Trying out your detective skills, are we?

LEONARD
(staring out of the window)
That’s what you get from hanging out with reporters.  Kind’a rubs off on a person.  Well…well… police are getting on now... This is more than a heart attack for sure.

MARY
Maybe you’re right. Hmmm...wonder where Mr. Crazy Man got to.

LEONARD
We're never gonna find out anything sitting here. Don't know about you but I feel like stretching my legs

MARY
My old knees are stiff. A little walk works wonders

LEONARD
And if we happen to overhear something...

MARY
Right...

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The weather is teasing me!  A warm day, a nice breeze, flowers peeking from the cold wet ground, and then WHAM! A freak snow storm!  Such is life in Colorado.  Peepsqueak is not worried.  As you can see in this picture, he is thrilled to find the first Spring flower.

Do you have any flowers up yet?  We only have a few tulips and iris peeking out of the dirt. Flowers are still a few weeks away.  I am ready!

 

Filed under: Peepsqueak!

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Forgotten Book of the Week: The Duchess Bakes a Cake

by Virginia Kahl
Scribners & Sons, 1955
Reissued: Purple House Press, 1983

Baking mishaps seem like a recurring motif in children's literature, from "The Gingerbread Man" to "In the Night Kitchen" and onwards, and yet I don't ever seem to tire of it. I'm betting that a lot of kids don't, either. Which, of course, brings me to the delightful dottiness of Virginia Kahl's The Duchess Bakes a Cake. Here's how the book begins:

A long time ago there lived over the waters
A Duchess, A Duke, and their family of daughters --
Madeleine, Gwendolyn, Jane and Clothilde,
Caroline, Genevive, Maude and Mathilde,
Willibald, Guinevere, Joan and Brunhilde,
And the youngest of all was the baby, Gunhilde.

Whenever I read this intro, I can't help but be reminded of that other book from the 1950s about twelve little girls in two straight lines. But the similarity ends there. Kahl's story about the Duke and Duchess' prodigious family is set in a world given over to silliness, where adults and children alike play the fool. "They couldn't think often, and hadn't thought much."

The story begins with the angular, Olive-Oyl-Goes-Medieval-style Duchess, who usually likes to spend her time "reading and writing," growing bored and deciding to bake a cake. Being a noblewoman, she hasn't the faintest idea of how to go about making "a lovely light luscious delectable cake," but simply adds ingredients helter-skelter into the bowl:

In went the almonds, the raisins, the suet;
She added some vinegar and dropped in the cruet.
She added the yeast, six times for good measure.
(A light fluffy cake is really a pleasure.)

Predictibly, the cake rises to immense proportions, trapping the Duchess in the air on an enormous mound of dough. "I fear an improper proportion of leaven / Is taking my dear Duchess right up to Heaven," cries the Duke. How will she get back down? The castle folk all have ludicrously impractical ideas, but, of course, it is the Duchess's own children who create the best solution.

Kahl was a librarian, and you can tell: her rhyming text and clever rhymes beg for this book to be read out loud. As for her three-color illustrations, they seem like a cross between Lois Lenski and James Thurber. Thick lines delineate the characters and scenery, and Kahl uses little details to give the characters charm. The palace cook, with his long, upturned nose and spoon on his hip, looks like he fell straight out of a vintage New Yorker cartoon. The thirteen daughters, meanwhile, are simply adorable with their little red caps, white dresses and pudgy green arms. If I had read this book as a child, I would have loved to have a set of dolls that looked just like them.

Kahl wrote several books about the Duke and Duchess' family; this is the most well-known and is the only one that has ever been reissued. This loopy castle community is addictive; if The Duchess Bakes a Cake falls into the hands of any young readers you know, you may find yourself scouring used book markets to collect the whole set.

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