Tales of the Heartily Homeschooled: Sample Chapters

Taxi!

Carolyn:

Ah, schedules. How easy they make life feel―until the schedule meets reality and results in something like a four-car pileup. One bright morning, I was scheduled to teach dance classes in Chilliwack while my teacher was away. I’d originally planned to get there half an hour early to turn on the heat and set up. A good schedule, no?

Disaster ensued the moment we stepped out of the house. When Mom turned the key in the ignition, all our big white van did was make a clickety-click sound. No matter how long and how creatively we pleaded with it, nothing would convince that engine to come alive.

We climbed out of the van. I stood in the driveway with my schedule fast unraveling. I had to teach a class in forty-five minutes at a studio twenty minutes away, and the van absolutely would not start. Furthermore, no one else could take over the classes. I didn’t even have the other teachers’ phone numbers. I was in a foul predicament.

(I do confess, however, that as these horrifying events unfolded, a little impish voice at the back of my head was chuckling. “Boy, this is funny. What an email this is going to make for Rachel!”)

In vain I checked the phone book for a bus that would get me there on time. Finally I picked up the phone and dialed a taxi. Breathless, I waited for someone to answer my call and save the day. The ringing ceased―someone had picked up! But once again, my hopes, newly formulated as they were, seemed foiled. All I could hear on the other end was static.

In desperation, I suggested to my mother that I should perhaps start running, even though I probably wouldn’t get there until next week. I would at least be on my way. I tried calling the taxi again and―oh, blessed sound―I picked out the faintest hint of a voice amidst the static. I finally heard the driver telling me to wait until he got around the mountain so he could hear me.

I couldn’t wait until he got around the mountain. I hollered out my message, asked how much it would cost, choked at the price (for some reason that came through loud and clear), and listened to him say he’d be there in five minutes. Five minutes was optimistic, but he got there and hurried me to the studio with ten minutes to spare.

It was the first time in my life I had ever been in a taxi. It had the most awful gadget at the front that showed how much the ride was costing me as we went along. To my horror I calculated that it was going up at least ten cents every four seconds! The grand total came to more than half my day’s wages. Misery me.

Once I got to the studio, I checked to make sure all of the CDs for the classes had been left for me. Shock No. Two for the day: the Grade 3 CD was not there. I ransacked the place, disrupting another class in my search for it, and finally learned that a student had taken it home with her.

The only thing that actually went according to schedule that day was my arrival home sometime before midnight. I looked at my shot-to-pieces schedule and rolled my eyes. I perused my schedule for the next day and rolled them again. What are the odds this one will go according to plan?

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