Written with elements given to me by Golden to start getting me out of my current writer’s funk.  She said it worked.

Elements:

Pippin, a kitten, a dirty puddle and a bloody nose.

Chasing Blackie

“Tell me again how this all happened,” Eglantine said to her son as she held his head tipped back while pressing a cloth soaked in the coldest well water firmly against his nose.  He was sitting on a high stool in the kitchen, stripped to the waist, his mud and blood stained shirt was soaking in a basin on the floor.

“Ow!” Pippin mumbled as best he could.  “Pushing too hard.”

“I’m sorry dear.”

His mother took the cloth away to rinse it out in the basin of bloody water that sat on the table before plunging it back into the bucket of icy well water.

“I was trying to catch Blackie.  He was trying to catch the bird that was trying to catch a butterfly.  I don’t know if the butterfly was trying to catch anything or not,” Pippin’s words flew as fast as he could say them in order to get them out before the cloth was put back in place.

Lanti sighed.  If Vinca and Nell had been there they would have been scoffing and laughing at their little brother.  After all, only Pippin would manage to end up such a mess from chasing an imaginary cat.

His mother sighed again.  “And Blackie ran through a mud puddle?”

Pippin only shook his head slightly.  She realized she would get no answer until she took the cloth away from his nose again.

“No Ma,” Pippin replied, looking at her as though she were rather dense.  “Kittens don’t like water.  Well, except to drink it.  They don’t like getting their fur wet.  I thought you knew that Ma.”

“I do know that, but then why did you go through the puddle?”

His answer had to wait as a fresh trickle of blood from his nose necessitated replacing the cold, wet cloth.  Lanti waited about a minute before taking the cloth off to rinse it once more.

“I didn’t go through the puddle Ma.  If I had gone through I wouldn’t have been soaked with mud.  Only my feet and maybe my breeches would have been muddy, not the whole front of me.  I fell into the puddle Ma.”

He gave her another look as though he was astounded by how thick his mother was.  Lanti closed her eyes to keep her patience.  Oh how she loathed this age in children.  Thankfully, she knew by now that it would soon pass.

“You are quite correct Pippin.  How did you come to fall into the puddle?”

“I tripped over Blackie.”

Another deep sigh escaped his mother’s lips.

“He stopped short so he wouldn’t end up wet and muddy and I didn’t expect him to stop and so I tripped over him.  Do you think my nose is broken Ma?  Will I need a big plaster put over it like cousin Isenbold did when cousin Ferdi punched him trying to kill that fly on his nose?”

“Lads!” thought Lanti, rolling her eyes heavenward.  At least killing a fly on someone’s nose made a bit more sense than tripping over an imaginary kitten.

“No Pippin.  I don’t think you’ll need a plaster.  Is that when you hurt your nose?  When you fell in the puddle?”

“No.  I did that when I ran into the tree that Blackie had run up chasing the bird.”

The bleeding had stopped and Lanti decided she wasn’t in a frame of mind to hear how her son had managed to run face first into a tree.  She curled her fingers under his small chin and looked lovingly into his sparkling eyes.  He was such an imp!  But he was her imp.  She gently kissed the tip of his slowly bruising nose.

“Why don’t you go to your room, take off the rest of your muddy clothes and then lie down for a wee bit, Pippin.  Cuddle up with Blackie as I’m sure he had a fright with you getting all bloody and crying out as you were.  Read a story to him and I’ll come fetch you when it’s time for tea.”

“All right Mother!” he cheerily said before kissing her on the nose in return and hopping down off of the tall stool.  “Come along Blackie!” he added as he disappeared around the edge of the door on his way to his room.

Eglantine sat wearily down at the table.  She didn’t know if Pippin and Blackie needed a rest, but she certainly did.