Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Friday, May 12, 2017

Something Scary

“Norma, have you seen—?” I stopped in the doorway.
My sister was standing atop a chair.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Standing on a chair doesn’t seem so strange.
What makes it unique in this case is that the chair was atop a table. With that table perched rather precariously on the couch.
So my rather cumbersome and less-than-svelte sister was on a chair. On a table. On a couch. With her white head a mere inch from the very, very tall ceiling in our front room.
Yeah. That was my reaction, too.
I hurried over to her. “Norma, are you insane?!”
She peered down at me and grinned. “Ummm—probably.”
I gazed up at her. “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing?”
She looked around, still with that large grin on her face. “Just—seeing.”
I frowned at her. “Seeing?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Seeing—what?”
“What she sees. She must float around up here—our ghost—looking down on us.” She raised her eyebrows. “It’s quite a view!”
I stepped back. “You are insane!”
“I know it’s kind of a roundabout way of doing it.”
I made a face. “You think?”
“And I know what you’re going to say.”
“I’ve already said it.”
She laughed. “You’re going to say, ‘Back in my day, people didn’t hearken to insidious voices that told them to stand on chairs.”
I stared at her. “I’ve never talked that way in my life.”
“Oh. Well. Someone would say it.”
I rolled my eyes. “And we both know who that someone is.”
Norma suddenly squeaked loudly and quickly began to lower herself to her knees.
“What?” I looked around. “What did you see?”
“Oh, Sis! I saw—” She stopped talking as the pile upon which she perched rocked dangerously. Norma stopped moving. When it settled a moment later, she finished climbing down from the precarious stack.
“What?! What did you see?” I repeated.
“Oh, you simply wouldn’t believe it! It was the scariest—” she said over her shoulder as she disappeared through the doorway into the kitchen.
Whatever scary thing I wouldn’t believe was lost as the door swung shut between us, blocking all sound.
What had she seen? Was our friendly neighbourhood ghost back in residence? Had Elvis returned? Had they invited friends? I walked over to the couch and looked up at the ceiling but could see nothing. Maybe if I stood a little taller.
I stepped up onto the couch and looked up again. Still nothing. Maybe a bit higher?
In a moment, I was standing atop Norma’s chair. I probably don’t have to tell you it was still perched on the table. On the couch. And yes, I did feel a bit foolish.  I put my hands on the ceiling and peered around.
What on earth had Norma been looking at?
Just then she came back through the kitchen door. “What are you doing up there?”
I looked down at her. “Ummm—seeing?”
“Well, while you’re seeing, could you please get that cobweb?” She handed me the duster and pointed. “We can’t have that in the house. It’s downright scary!”

Once a month, Karen issues a challenge. A word challenge. Words from each of her followers are distributed among the rest of her followers.
It’s fun.
This month, my words were: Insidious ~ Hearken ~ Back in my day ~ Roundabout
And were submitted by: The Bergham Cronicles

Here are the rest of Karen’s writers:
Baking In A Tornado                        http://www.bakinginatornado.com
Spatulas on Parade                         http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/
The Blogging 911                         https://theblogging911.com/blog/
Bookworm in the Kitchen      http://www.bookwormkitchen.com/
The Bergham Chronicles                  http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com
Simply Shannon                           http://shannonbutler.org  
Southern Belle Charm                    http://www.southernbellecharm.com  
Part-time Working Hockey Mom         http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/
Climaxed                                       http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

9 comments:

  1. Ha ha ha, I can totally picture this and it looks like something out of The Cat in the Hat!

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  2. Ha ha! I know a person or two who would call a spider web scary, too! Great story :)

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  3. Big smiles. And a touch of envy. Standing on a chair these days is scary, let alone a chair on a table on a...

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  4. I love what you did with those words! There's no way I would ever be up on such a precarious perch. I prefer my bases to be more stable.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great job, loved it. Let me try.
    While sitting at a stop light at 1:00 AM Not a sole in sight I hearkened back to a conversation I once had in England when an old man who had been to Canada asked me why we didn't use more roundabouts instead of lights. He said, "they'll move people along much better, you know!" He theorized that it was probably an insidious onset from the USA. He kept saying "back in my day those damn yanks..."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nothing she saw could be any scarier than the sight of a white haired senior atop a shivering pile of furniture.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ok well the whole chair on the table on the couch is enough to make me just sit right down, on the couch, minus the table and the chair~ Great job with the words.....

    ReplyDelete
  8. We were outside setting up a new canopy the other day and I walked out to find my husband standing up on top of the picnic table with a step stool! I thought he was going to kill himself and would have had there been a spider.

    ReplyDelete

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