The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

The Bureau of Dreams to be Continued

Page 73

"The Boxer and the Kangaroo"

It was raining in the way only May in Vermont could manage; soft, persistent, and just cold enough to make the attic feel like a secret. Nora had come up looking for the box of summer clothes, but instead found the past.

The magazine was tucked between a stack of old “National Geographics” and a brittle copy of “The Saturday Evening Post.” Its cover was a riot of orange and yellow, and in the center, Humpty Dumpty; egg-bodied and exuberant, was throwing a left jab at a kangaroo in boxing gloves. A bear and a dog stood nearby, also gloved, mid-bout or mid-laugh. The caption read; "Humpty Dumpty, all page boxer, shows his strategy by boxing with his friends."

Nora sat cross legged on the wooden floor, the magazine balanced on her knees. The pages smelled like dust and crayons. She flipped past the cut-outs and puzzles, the coloring pages half-filled by a child’s hand decades ago. There were stories with titles like “The Little Cloud Who Got Lost” and “Timmy’s Invisible Hat.” Some were meant to be read aloud. Others were for “beginning readers,” though Nora suspected the bar for literacy had shifted since 1953.