Owl and Raccoon – Protected

Prompt courtesy of BeKindRewrite‘s Inspiration Monday. Characters have bled over from other challenges and are slowly taking over. I don’t think having read their previous adventures are necessary. 

Owl sat on wood floor. He zoomed matchbox cars across the room. He would spin and send another one out into orbit, and another, and another, so that a ring of cars surrounded him and made him feel like Saturn.

His big sister and her husband took turns screaming at each other in the kitchen. Owl did his best to ignore them and it was getting easier, since he practiced so often.

He turned into a giant radioactive bear, and stomped about the living room, a low growl in his throat. He pulled roofs off buildings as easily as picnic basket lids. He swiped at the cars before him with a thick padded paw. He popped milk trucks open like soda cans and drank them dry.

A plate crashed in the kitchen.

He returned to being himself and looked toward the kitchen. The yelling had stopped but there was something worse, more threatening in the sudden quiet. Owl crept closer. Slide his back to the wall and listened.

More silence and then the screen door opened, hinges squeaking, and slammed shut, bouncing back two or three times in the frame. Distant crunch of gravel and the familiar, straining roar of the truck engine. The truck’s noise grew smaller as it moved down the lane, probably out into town or maybe to his cousin’s out on the other side of the river.

Owl didn’t hear anything for a long time. Then briefly, he heard his sister’s muffled sobs as she walked across the kitchen. Dad’s old radio jumped on, still sitting on top of the fridge, still tuned to that oldies station he liked.

Owl looked in and saw his sister sitting on the floor, crying and picking up the shattered pieces of plates and cups from the floor. He snuck away and back again, arms full of matchbox cars.

He sent them sailing past her, before her, off to the sides, so that they formed a ring, protected her and hopefully, made her feel as safe as Saturn.