Chapter One
Behavior
Putting the telegram aside, Mrs. Tweed remarked mildly to her son, "Looks as if your father is about to blast his way out of prison."
"Trust Dad to get his hands on dynamite," said Thud.
"Don't be rude about your father. His sentence has been commuted."
"Sprung on a legal technicality?"
"In point of fact, he's being released due to uncharacteristically good behavior. Won't it be nice to have him come home again?" She trimmed a bit of azalea stem and replaced the blossom in a cut-glass bowl.
"He's never been to our Vermont house before. How can he be coming home?"
"Because his home is his family, Thaddeus, and that means us. I hope you'll be welcoming."
"I'll be welcoming as only I know how."
"That's not very promising." Mrs. Tweed turned her attention to the freesias. "Thaddeus, he's been in jail. It has been no picnic for him."
"No, but he had a picnic committing the felonies that p
Chapter One
Behavior
Putting the telegram aside, Mrs. Tweed remarked mildly to her son, "Looks as if your father is about to blast his way out of prison."
"Trust Dad to get his hands on dynamite," said Thud.
"Don't be rude about your father. His sentence has been commuted."
"Sprung on a legal technicality?"
"In point of fact, he's being released due to uncharacteristically good behavior. Won't it be nice to have him come home again?" She trimmed a bit of azalea stem and replaced the blossom in a cut-glass bowl.
"He's never been to our Vermont house before. How can he be coming home?"
"Because his home is his family, Thaddeus, and that means us. I hope you'll be welcoming."
"I'll be welcoming as only I know how."
"That's not very promising." Mrs. Tweed turned her attention to the freesias. "Thaddeus, he's been in jail. It has been no picnic for him."
"No, but he had a picnic committing the felonies that put him there."
"A disrespectful way to put it, but I take your point. He's brought shame to the family. But since he's getting out on good behavior, that's the kind of behavior I want you to greet him with."
"Good behavior?"
"The best."
"How do I do that?"
Mrs. Tweed picked the stem of an heirloom rose and, with fingernails painted roughly the same color as the petals, broke the thorns off, one by one. "You are about to graduate from a school for the first time in your life, Thaddeus. Presumably this means you have learned something. Whatever you have learned, put it to work. If you can think of it in no other way, consider setting your father a good example. Warmth." (Snap a thorn.) "Respect." (Snap.) "Ouch."
"Right," said Thud. "Can I get you a bandage?"
"How kind, Thaddeus," said Mrs. Tweed. "They did teach you something at that school."
"I'll bring the aspirin, too, Mom. You're going to need it."
Continues...
Excerpted from One Final Firecrackerby Gregory Maguire Copyright © 2007 by Gregory Maguire. Excerpted by permission.
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