Author’s Note: Written for CABB’s Summer 2025 Challenge

~ Altered Episodes, Expanded ~

In which we change one word in an episode’s title and then
craft a tale with this whole new storyline

* * * * *

Nine-year-old Cathy flung back her covers, performed the roll and bounce that would – hopefully – see her land flat on her feet halfway between her bed and her window. She viewed her success as a predictor of a good day, a wobble maybe not so good, and a topple …  Well, sometimes, when that happened, she’d get back in bed and try again.

Not even a waver this morning. She clapped her hands and grinned.

The curtains drawn back, the blinds raised, spring sunlight streamed in. Saturday sunlight. Her dad was home all day. No meetings, no files to go through. She could call the shots, he’d promised, as long as she’d done her homework. No putting it off until last thing Sunday night.

Lately, she hadn’t been in the mood for school. When first her dad and then her mom, more than once, asked her why, she couldn’t answer. She felt her brow wrinkle and her lips twist sideways, but no words came. She’d sigh and shrug, shrug and sigh, then lean into her questioning parent’s side, grateful for their ready embrace, the warmth and strength such acceptance provided. Their willingness to let it be more appreciated than any monetary allowance they might bestow.

But today … she was excited about school.

Was that … chocolate chip pancakes?!

The aroma called her downstairs. She clapped her hands again. It really was going to be a good day.

“So what’s it to be, pumpkin?” her mom asked. Her china cup rattled in its saucer when she seated it, a swell of milky tea spilling over the porcelain lip.

“The Metropolitan Museum,” Cathy was quick to say. “Mrs. Peabody was telling us about a new exhibit. The Temple of Dendur. It’s from 10 B.C and it honors the goddess Isis and two brothers who were … oh, I don’t remember who they were. There’s a front room, a middle room, and the temple in the back. They took it apart in Egypt and sent it over here, or else it was gonna get flooded. I picked Egypt for my social studies project and I want to write a report about it for my scrapbook.” She drew in a big breath at the end of her speech and beamed at her audience.

“Sounds wonderful,” her mom said. “But, honey, that exhibit isn’t ready yet. The Temple has been dismantled, but President Johnson just announced that the museum was awarded the gift. It hasn’t even arrived yet. I’m afraid it will take years to reconstruct.”

“Awww-www.” She must have misunderstood her teacher. She picked up a stray chocolate chip from her breakfast plate and let it melt on her tongue. Now what?

Her mom pushed back her chair and stood up, both hands braced on the table. Her dad set his coffee cup down. “I have an idea,” she said after what seemed like a long moment. “Let’s look through the last few bulletins the museum sends out. I’ve saved them all. I’m betting you can find something exciting to focus on.”

Not as, she thought, still disappointed. But she made an effort to stop frowning and nodded and forked the last of the chocolate-studded short-stack on her plate, feeling better almost immediately with the tasting.

It didn’t take long to find something maybe even better. She’d first considered reporting on the many bronze cats in the Egyptian galleries, mostly because she loved the word Henry Fischer, the curator of of that department mentioned in his essay in the bulletin … Ailurophile. Meaning cat lover. But then her mother handed her a newsletter featuring another article about Egyptian art and she found it, was so drawn to the new idea that the Temple of Dendur faded from her mind’s eye.

Amulets. The word evoked the best shivers! An amulet is believed to have certain properties that can be magically bestowed upon its owner. They could be rings or pendant necklaces or objects folded in a scrap of fabric attached to a string. They could be things found in nature thought to have magical power, like a claw or a shell or a gemstone. Their colors meant things too! Red meant danger, but also protection. Blue and green signified life and re…gen…eration. (She had to go to the big dictionary open on the stand for that one.) And they could be carved into shapes, like scarab beetles or turtles or fish or elephants or a really popular one called the wedjat-eye, a combination of a human eye and a falcon’s. She really wanted to see that!

“Look,” her mother said, pointing to the text in the bulletin. “This says the Met owns more Egyptian turtle amulets than any other collection in the world! There should be brochures at the desk, pictures and write-ups you could cut out and paste into your scrapbook. Maybe postcards in the gift shop.”

“Yeah!” She didn’t own a watch, but she was sure it was time to go.

“So …” her father began. “Homework all done?”

“Well …”

Her parents both smiled at her, but their eyebrows were raised. She’d plowed through her math assignment the day before between her after-school snack and supper and had read Chapter Eleven in her science book before she watched any Friday night television. Her English homework still waited.

Now her parents were nodding as if to say, Go on … We’re waiting too.

“Well,” she repeated, tapping a finger against her chin. “I need to do my English worksheet, but … could I do it in the park? And then go to the museum? It’s such a pretty day. I could use some fresh air. And some exercise.”

Her father chuckled and her mom chimed in.

In the foyer, her father donned his hat and buttoned his sport coat.

“Mommy’s not coming?” She backed in to the yellow-checked jacket he held open for her.

“She’s making lasagna for supper and it takes a while.”

“And a lot of dishes.”

“That too.” He didn’t speak again until they were down the front steps and almost at the crosswalk. “So where in the park would you like to do this homework of yours?”

“The Whisper Bench? The Museum’s right there … almost.”

“To the Bench!”

She’d purposefully saved her English homework for last. A list of words with blanks beside them which they were to fill in with rhymes. Just the kind of thing she liked. She wanted to come up with neat words, too, not just plain-Jane ones. She wouldn’t be rhyming ball with hall or lean with bean. No, she would search her memory for prettier, more unusual words.

She settled into one curve of the long stone seat, her father in the other, his arms crossed, the brim of his hat tipped down over his eyes. She shouldn’t be able to, but it was true what they said. The Whisper Bench. She could hear him … hear him softly humming a little melody, though it was one she didn’t recognize.

So. She opened her blue denim notebook, flipped the divider labeled English, with both hands opposing, pulled the metal rings open to free the worksheet. The little levers top and bottom never worked. Forty words on the list. She should be done in no time.

“Ball … enthrall,” she began, voicing the words rather than thinking them.

“Lean … glassine.” That was a good one … Once when she was little, her mother read her a story about a collector who covered the pages of stamps in her album with the not quite see-through paper, and when she’d leaf through and peel back the glassine, the bright colors of the stamps would be revealed. Like turning on the lights. Like fireworks … She’d loved the way the word seemed to shimmer and float … glassine. Loved that it was a protecting word, a word that guarded something treasured. Loved that–

She shook her head. No time for daydreaming. Back to work.

“Statue …”

“Hmmmm.” She drummed her pencil on the paper, willing an acceptable word to come. “Statue, statue … Ahhh! Menu!” She filled in the blank and sat back, dissatisfaction mushrooming. Her eraser left a smudge, but no matter. “Purview,” she amended, a word she’d hear her father use when he practiced his opening statements in the den.

“Stretch … wretch
“Bleak … shriek
“Rose …  throes
“Bristle … missal
“Moon … lagoon
“Tight … sprite …”

Her favorite fairytale book was really coming in handy.

She was almost finished, just one … last … blank.

“Orange …”

Nothing came to mind that matched.

“Orange,” she whispered into the curve of chiseled granite. “Orange, orange, orange.” She didn’t want passersby to think she was nuts, but she did hope the bench would work its magic and her father would hear her and help her out.

Nothing. Not a peep, not a hint forthcoming.

She stared at him hard. Was he asleep?

She heaved a sigh and repeated herself. “Orange. Orange, orange, orange.” A cloud seemed to gather, threatening to rain on her good mood and word prowess.

“Orange.”

Louder now. “Orange!”

Loud enough to rouse her father from what was left of his nap. “Orange!!”

“I don’t think there is a word that rhymes with orange,” he finally murmured, righting his hat. “Your teacher might be pulling your leg.” He stood up and rebuttoned his jacket. “All done? Done enough, anyway?”

“I guess.” She huffed. Maybe in the night she’d dream a rhyming word.

“To Egypt, then!” her dad proclaimed, a come-along smile shining at her as he sauntered past.

Cathy glared at her English worksheet one more time, her mind furiously blank. Orange! Was it a trick question? She wasn’t as fond of her teacher as she had been before. She shoved her pencil into the tunnel of the notebook’s clip without bothering to prise it open, stuffed the worksheet in the topmost divider’s pocket, brightening as she did so. She’d turn in the best scrapbook on Egypt Mrs. Peabody had ever, ever seen. Orange, my foot!

From the quiet byway that circled the bench, they climbed the stone steps to amble the path toward Belvedere Castle. A breeze roused the leaves of the shrubbery, and from the canopy of trees silky white petals floated like butterflies. The walk from the Castle to the Museum – around the Turtle Pond and through the Graywacke Arch – was one of her favorite routes … even though passing the King Jagiello Monument always made her a little sad. His horse doesn’t have a name!

They hadn’t gone far at all – her thoughts having immediately turned to her Egypt project and the very good Introduction she wanted to compose – when her notebook slipped from the crook of her arm to land widespread on the flagstones. Her pencil popped free and rolled until it lodged in a groove between the pavers filled with acorns and twigs and shriveled leaves. The math divider with its red plastic tab flapped back and forth and back again … a page of her homework torn almost free, clinging to just one of the three metal rings.  She stooped to reach and gather, to reassemble …

Her rhyming worksheet wasn’t there! It must have fallen out!

“Dad!”

A few steps ahead, he turned. “Cathy? What–”

But she was already in retreat. “I dropped something!” she called with only a glance over her shoulder. “Be right back!” 

Scanning the ground left, right, left, right. The bright white paper should stand out against the just-greening grass, against the brown trunks of trees beyond the rustic wood fencing. It couldn’t have blown completely away! She started back down the wide steps toward the Whisper Bench, passing no one, finding nothing of hers, hoping the iron railing that ringed the stone outcrop would keep her homework from sailing away.

She skidded to a stop.

Is that–

It was; she knew it was. But not a loose page of paper skittering along or straining against the fence. It was folded … neatly … and lodged with a small glittering stone on top of a storm grate not far from where’d she’d sat working only minutes before. She dumped her binder on the bench and dashed over, scooped it up.

Someone had rescued it for her! But who? She’d not encountered a single soul on her return and even though the byway circled the bench, it came out on the same main path she’d traveled.

She shrugged a who-knows shrug, sighed with relief. Not turning in an assignment was inconceivable, even if she hadn’t been able to complete–

What!?

There in the blank beside Orange was an answer! No, two answers! Penciled in lightly in a clear but flowing cursive … not just the words but their definitions!

Blorenge ~ a mountain in Wales

Sporange ~ a botanical term (see ferns)

She spun around. Was someone hiding in the bushes behind the bench? That didn’t seem possible – they were hardly leafed-out. To her knees at the storm grate, her weight on her arms, the worksheet scrunched on the pavers under one hand, the shimmery stone covered by the other … she peered into its recess. Sunlight slatted in, but barely. A glint of crossways metal pipe, perhaps another beneath it …

Handles?

No, rungs. A ladder? She pulled on the rusty iron bars of drain guard. Does this thing come out? It rocked and shifted under her efforts, but only a little.

She sensed the soft draw of air. Did her paper fly out and land on the grille? Did somebody pull it through from below? She sat back on her heels and inspected her worksheet. There were reddish-brown streaks on the back of the page, but she might have done that herself.

How … Who …

Footsteps. Footsteps that stopped.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Dad!

She drew in a quick breath and scrambled to her feet. Something … something deep inside told her to pocket the shiny rock, to simply flash her worksheet and say nothing more than Yep and offer a big smile. He handed her his handkerchief with instructions to maybe give her hands a wipe.

At the bench with her notebook, her back to her father, she took the time to re-crease the now more than a little wrinkled worksheet into the precise square that had been left for her and stow it safely under the clip with her pencil. She had her rhyming word now. Words, even! And a mystery she’d unfold again later … in her room.

* * *

The Egypt section … galleries of a world so different from hers …

She had more than enough information to write a good report. The docent knew a lot, and he’d been really nice to answer all her questions. He didn’t mind watching her either, when her dad asked him if he might go to the lobby to make a quick call home. Your mom … might need us to pick up something, he’d said. A nice stack of brochures too. And some postcards. One set opened up like an accordion, the images attached to each other. That was neat.

She settled against her father’s side as the taxi took them home. Her Sunday was going to be busy. The writing, the scissoring and gluing … the organizing, the presentation, the posters she’d decided to make. There was extra credit for an oral report, Mrs. Peabody had said. That seemed a little scary.

And there was this … mystery.

Her hand closed around the stone in her pocket – an amulet? – and felt, suddenly and surely, like she could do anything.