Chapter Still Not in Order: Sunday

Some common faults among those who come first in the chronological order of their siblings are bossiness, an inflated sense of self-righteousness, and an overdeveloped responsible attitude. Sunday possessed all three. His brothers, for the most part, tolerated his controlling nature with grumbling compliance, but the recent addition to their family brought out a protective side of him akin to a mother bear. The other six could only tolerate so much.

Bring home a human child completely out of the blue? Fine.

Demand they stop using foul language in front the kid? No problem.

But make them clean the house? Had he lost his mind?!

It was Sunday who brought it to everyone's attention that leaving axes, knives and dragon sized nail clippers lying around the house was not acceptable with a small, soft skinned human poking about, and dust covering all the furniture couldn't be conducive to a healthy childhood. There was also the slight problem of finding a place for Alva to sleep: they tried beside the hearth, under the kitchen table, and finally bunking in the dwarfs' room, but after many restless nights of her trying to sleep through the snoring and then getting stepped on for the dozenth time, it was agreed that she should get her own room.

When it could be put off no longer, Sunday organized the first known observance of Spring Cleaning. This was no simple tidying up; decades of clutter had to be sorted through, entire rooms emptied, and mountains of dishes washed. The jobs had been split seven ways over a poker game the night before, but there was still plenty of griping from those luck had fated to sweep the chimney. Alva occupied herself with bouncing from one end of the house to the other, trying to help but really just getting in the way, caught up in the excitement of the day. She payed special attention to the development of the attic, which was to become her own room. Tuesday chatted with her as he sorted through boxes of old accounting books and unwanted hand-knit accessories from their grandmother, forgotten over the years.

“I don't know how she does it, our gran,” Tuesday said, “she's got near a hundred grandkids to think about but she never forgets to make a hat or sweater or something for each an' every one of us.”

“That's sweet of her,” Alva chirped. She let Tuesday ramble on as she struggle to decipher a page full of dwarven runes. Tuesday turned the book right side up for her and continued.

“I wish she wouldn't though, she's awful-horrible at knitting. She's been practicing for two hundred years, she ought to have gotten better. Just look at this thing,” he held up an example of his dear old gran's handiwork, a vaguely green lump of interwoven yarn of varying thickness and color, ranging from puke yellow to how-long-has-that-been-in-the-ice-box brown, Alva was unsure whether the mouse nest in the sleeve was originally there or a recent development. Tuesday tossed it in the throw-away pile, grimacing. “Is it a scarf? A shirt? We can only guess.”

“If you don't like it, why'dya keep it so long?”

Tuesday shrugged, “Don't rightly know. We just put her presents up her with everything else we don't want to think about. We don't like coming up here, so it's easy to forget about this junk.”

“Why don't you like coming up to the attic? I think it's neat!”

He sensed the beginning of an endless repetition of these “why” questions, but he humored her, “Dwarfs don't much care for high up places. Ladders give me the heeby-jeebies. That's why we like sleeping in the basement, you know, it feels like the mountain caves back home.”

“Oh.” Alva digested that nugget of information, she was learning a lot about people that weren't human. “But if you're afraid of heights-”

“Not afraid,” Tuesday cut in, “just don't like it is all. Ain't natural for earth-loving folk to try and climb away from it.”

“If you don't like heights, why do you ride dragons? Way up high?”

The girl's innocent question caught Tuesday off guard. He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it, opened it again, and pulled his eyebrows down to where they met up with his nose. “Huh,” he said, “I guess I hadn't thought of that.”

Alva giggled wickedly, pleased to have caught an elder in his hypocrisy.

When she grew bored of helping Tuesday empty out the attic, Alva hopped down the stairs to pester someone else. Thursday was balanced on Friday's shoulders, frantically waving a feather duster around the top shelves of the kitchen and begging his living ladder not to drop him and to please, for the love of gold, stop moving around so much! Friday reassured him it was no picnic for him either and accused Thursday of gorging on second helpings just to spite him. Alva wisely left them alone, not wishing to have a two hundred pound dwarf dropped on her head. She headed outside to escape the thick cloud of dust.

In the front yard, Monday was tasked with walloping years of dirt out of the carpets, and he was going at it with a surly temper. He had coerced Shelly into doing the work for him by getting her to stand in such a way that when she wagged her tail she beat the rugs, but his plan backfired. The affable dragon didn't need much encouragement to get her heavy tail sailing back and forth, a scratch under the chin would do it, and she hit those rugs with such enthusiasm that she broke the line they hung on and sent them flying. Now Monday relied on his own two arms and not on any labor saving inventions, much to his dismay.

“Hi, Uncle Monday!” Alva chirped, popping out from behind a carpet.

Monday harrumphed and attacked that particular rug with vigor, Alva jumped out of the way. “Can't you see I'm busy?” he growled, “get lost!”

She didn't waste time in obeying, she didn't want to be on the wrong end of Monday's stick while he was in such a sore mood. Monday was her least favorite uncle, he frightened her some. He was unapproachable before noon and was liable to blow up for the slightest reason, and he hardly kept it secret that he was not fond of the human girl. Alva put all heart into winning him over with a cheerfulness and gap-tooth smiles, but these things had no effect on him. Monday was a grouch; he wielded his grumpiness like a club, smashing anything that looked at him the wrong way with pure negativity. So Alva skipped off to find another occupation, happy to avoid him.

*****

“Uncle Sunday,” Alva whined, tugging lightly on his snowy beard, “I'm booooored.”

“Well now, that is a predicament, isn't it? How can we amend that?” He paused momentarily from scouring a foggy window pane to untangle her fingers from his beard.

“Play a game with me!”

“Hmmm, very well. How about, 'see how fast you can sweep the living room?'”

She let out an unearthly moan, expressing her disapproval of this idea.

“Perhaps a treasure hunt? I have a whole basket of socks and gloves missing their mates, and Wednesday can't find last year's accounting books.”

This was met with equal enthusiasm.

Sunday hummed thoughtfully, “there are always stables to clean. I'm sure there's plenty of dung for you to shovel, since nothing else interests you.”

Alva bolted.

*****

She found Saturday napping under the apple tree, an arm draped over his eyes to block out the sunlight. Alva plopped down next to him and leaned back against the rough bark. She tilted her face up and contemplated the fresh green leaves quivering in the breeze, the twittering birds, the open sky. She pulled at a tuft of grass and delicately stroked Saturday's nose with a blade. After a bout of lethargic yawning and stretching, Saturday forced his eyes open and peered at the giggling imp with amusement. “Aren't you supposed to be helping?” he gently chided.

“Aren't you?”

They shared a conspiring grin.

A pleasant hour trickled by, savored in secrecy like a stolen morsel. “Do you see that cloud?” Saturday directed with his finger, “it looks like Monday when he's boiling over.” Alva giggled and added that the cloud next to it resembled a fish eating a bear with flowers for paws. Saturday had a bit of trouble making that one out.

“What is that bird doing?” Alva asked.

Saturday pondered for a minute, then delivered his theory. “Spring cleaning. His wife is expecting to have eggs and doesn't want to raise chicks in a shabby old nest, and she spent all winter telling him so, nagging and nagging until his feathers fell out. So now he's out gathering bits of string and twigs, all because he lives with a nag. Poor fellow.”

“I don't think so. He looks happy enough. See, he's singing.”

“He's miserable.”

“No, he's happy.”

“Are you being difficult with me?”

“Maybe.”

Saturday tickled her until her smug grin was replaced with hysterical laughter and she had to beg him to stop.

“THERE YOU ARE!” Without warning, Sunday was towering over them, arms crossed and rosy cheeks pulled into a stern scowl. “You lazy rascals! We're working our hides off and you're hiding? Saturday! Finish cleaning the kitchen, and Alva,” he tutted in disapproval, “you help me prepare lunch.”

*****

Grumbling under her breath, Alva slapped a lettuce leaf on half a sandwich and pushed it across the table (spotless for the first time in over a decade) to Sunday, who stood ready with the mustard. “Don't be so grumpy!” he pleaded, “Alva, do cheer up.” After few moments of smoldering silence: “If your frown gets any bigger your beard – I mean your chin will fall off,” he cautioned.

“My beard?” Alva picked at a piece of lettuce and held it up to her chin, “My beard will never fall off!”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Alva Greenbeard,” said Sunday with mock seriousness, “but you have a bit of lettuce caught in your beard.”

A reluctant smile brightened Alva's face. She ripped off a large chunk of lettuce, over half of her prized facial hair, “did I get it, Uncle Sunday?”