[Critique Group 1] cleora's may submission 969 words

[sitting.duck at springmail.com]

969 words
chapter 5
Frowning, Misty shook her head and looked at the top page of the tablet. The first name now had a smiling faery face beside it. She smiled. That task had gone well. The second name was Gary Plumb. The next name read Mrs. Grace Carper. Misty guessed Ginger agreed with her there was nothing she could do for the boy. 
She put her index finger beside her nose, and flipped.
Instantly, she was transported to an office. An elderly woman sat in the chair in front of a desk with A sparsely decorated Christmas tree standing on a white tree skirt on the upper left corner. There were no presents under the tree. The woman was looking at a picture in an album. Her cheeks were moist with tears. Misty looked over the woman's shoulder at the picture and gasped. The picture was of a younger version of the boy at the home. A sheet of stationary lay on the desk. It read, “We won't be able to come this Christmas, Mom. Have a Merry Christmas. We love you.”
The stationary looked familiar. The name printed at the top was Trents, Jack, Sarah, and Jason. What was going on, Misty wondered. 
She lifted the first page and asked, “what do I do now?” The page remained blank.
She looked again at the top page. The boy's name was Gary Plumb. So, Grace must be his maternal grandmother. She looked at the letter again. It was signed Sarah Trent. Maybe she was mistaken. She looked at the picture again. It looked very much like the boy she had seen at the home, and the stationary looked the same. Too bad she hadn't bothered to notice what name was printed on the boy's letter.
She had a thought. She looked at the second name and did the finger thing. The boy was sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard. The tray of food hadn't been touched. The letter lay on the floor. It had been signed Mom, but the printed name on the stationery was The Trents, Jack, Sarah, and Jason. It had to be the same family. The nurse had called the boy Gary, if it is the same family, why isn't Gary’s name on the stationery? The more Misty learned , the more confused she became.
She did the finger thing to go back to the old lady's office. Now, there was a middle aged woman in a nurse's uniform in the room with Mrs. Carper.
“You go ahead,” Mrs. Carper was saying. “Have a nice Christmas.”
Is your family coming later? asked the nurse.
“No.” Mrs. Carper nodded at the letter on the desk.
The nurse glanced at it briefly. “Oh,” she said. “I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do for you before I go? My husband is out of town on business. I could stay with you if you like.”
Misty felt desperate. Here were three lonely people about to spend Christmas alone. What could she do to get them to spend it together? Misty concentrated on the picture in the album. The page fluttered. 
“Is that your grandson?” asked the nurse.
“Yes.” 
“The resemblance is remarkable. There's a boy that has just been checked into the home where I work parttime. He looks enough like your grandson to be him. But, his name is Plumb, I believe.”
“Gary Plumb?”
“Yes, I believe it is.”
“My daughter recently remarried. But, I don't understand, why is Gary in the home?”
“I don't know all the details,” said the nurse. “He was just checked in a couple of weeks ago.”
“What is the home? Do you know the number?”
The nurse dialed the number from her iPhone, and handed it to Mrs. Carper.
“Do you have a Gary Plumb there?”
“Who's calling please?” asked the receptionist.
“Mrs. Carper. He's my grandson.”
There was a pause, “I'm sorry, your name is not on the approved list.”
Mrs. Carper argued with the receptionist for several minutes, but got nowhere. They would give her no information about a resident unless the person was on the approved list.
“Let me get clocked out, and if you would like, I can take you over there. I hate for you to spend Christmas alone.”
Misty was back at the home when the nurse and Mrs. Carper arrived. “We're here to see Gary Plumb,” they announced to the nurse at the desk.
She turned to her computer and called up the records for Gary Plumb. “Your name is not on the approved list.”
Misty concentrated on the computer. The name Carter, Grace appeared at the bottom of the list. 
“I must be on the list,” insisted Mrs. Carper. “Could you check again?? Grace Carper.”
The nurse looked. “There is a Grace Carter, here. But, no Grace Carper.”
“That's me, of course, it's just misspelled.”
Misty stomped her foot. She was such a dolt. She couldn't do anything right. She concentrated on the screen again and changed the name to Carper, Grace. 
After several minutes of argument, the nurse turned back to the computer and pointed at the name. “It is grace Carter...” She paused with her mouth half open. “Oh, I'm so sorry. I seem to have misread it. It is Grace Carper. You may go on up.”
The three went down to the dining room and had a very nice Christmas dinner and visit. It turned out the step-father Trent had been a perfect gentleman until after the marriage, then he changed. He declared he wasn't going to have any halfwit sickling for a son and made his mother put him in the home. Jason was his son by a former marriage. Gary was sure his step-father was abusing his mother. Mrs. Carper determined to find out for sure.
 
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: chpt 3 misty christmas.txt
URL: <https://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/group1/attachments/20220519/27e3d305/attachment.txt>