Chapter 1 - Thump Thump

Who would want to wake up from a warm and comfortable bed on an early Saturday morning? Certainly not Virgil Thatcher. He peered through his tired eyes to see the numbers five, zero, one glowing on his clock. With one more hour till he had to get up for work, he certainly didn't want to wake up.

Mr. Thatcher unhappily rolled over to his side attempting to find a comfortable position, but thoughts of work popped into this head. He worked for a roof fixing company called ‘No Time for Leaking,’ which he devoted twenty-five years of his life with never a complaint. That all changed two months ago when the company downsized and laid off workers. Now because of those changes, Mr. Thatcher would have to work Saturdays to keep his job.

Virgil Thatcher turned over in his soft mattress and looked over at his slumbering wife, Elaine. The blankets on her side were wrapped under and over her legs while the bottoms of her rose patterned pajamas were bunched up like shorts.

Mr. Thatcher rolled over again desperate to fall asleep and closed his eyes once more and suddenly heard a thumping echoing from inside the house. Who could be making noise this early in the morning? His big round cheeks started to turn bright red as the noise continued. He grabbed his jumbo pillow and squeezed it over both ears to block out the noise.

The noise seemed to get louder and suddenly he heard a crash that came from downstairs. Both Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher sat up in bed, which must have been hard for Mr. Thatcher as his stomach was pretty big and round. “What was that?” Mrs. Thatcher grumbled at Mr. Thatcher. “Virgil, I’m trying to sleep, go and stop whatever it is”

Mrs. Thatcher fell back onto her bed making sure to fall on Mr. Thatcher’s side. Oh, how he hated when she did that.

Mr. Thatcher shimmied to the side of their large cedar bed. The floor was cold and an unpleasant welcome for his toasty warm feet. The feeling strongly reminded him of how much he disliked the new wood flooring that his wife insisted on installing.

Mr. Thatcher got up from the bed and looked back at his wife. He wondered why SHE couldn’t get up from bed. Her hair was spread wildly over the pillows while she tried to fall asleep as always, lying tangled while she slept.

She must be having a good dream, he thought to himself. Dreams, hmph, he couldn't remember the last time he had a dream. He had been worrying about his job so much lately; he wasn't getting much sleep eye.
He opened up the bedroom door and again heard the thumping. Except this time it was louder and it was coming from upstairs. He followed the noise over to the bright blue door that belongs to this son, Rupert Archim-Angus Thatcher.

Mr. Thatcher had always thought Rupert’s name was a bit long (one name longer than the average person), but it didn’t seem to bother Rupert too much. The names used were a combination of last names from both grandparents to keep everyone happy. Archim and Angus came from both grandmothers’ maiden name, Archim coming from Elaine's mother and Angus coming from Virgil's mother. And of course, the last name Thatcher came from his father.

Mr. Thatcher thought his son was a very adventurous boy with incredible insight and great future. Of course, Mrs. Thatcher had an opposite impression of Rupert. Being the overachiever, she continually pushed Rupert in all areas of life giving him little supportive words and refused to complement him on anything less than perfect, especially in areas that she considered ‘unworthy’ subjects of study or interests.

About one year ago, Mrs. Thatcher gave Rupert a birthday party for him eleventh birthday. In the middle of Mrs. Thatcher’s famous speech called ‘How you need to treat kids right with patience and trust,’ she was hit in the crossfire of a birthday cake fight. Ironically, she didn’t take the cake too well and ended the party early blaming Rupert for having hooligans as friends. She seemed blind to experiencing the joy in having fun.

Mr. Thatcher walked over to Rupert’s room smiling thinking of the cake on his wife and remembered the days that she used to be carefree. It was after Rupert was born that she became more serious and lost most of her good-natured ways. He had tried to confront her many years back but that discussion only ended badly and made her more withdrawn. He sure did miss the woman he married.

Virgil carefully placed his ear up to the bright blue door and as suspected could hear the thumping noise coming from inside. He reached down and twisted the knob quickly to open the door. “Rupert, you've got to keep it down.” he whispered into the room. He looked over to Rupert’s bed but realized he couldn’t see anything except the moonlight that was coming in through the window.

“Rupert…you awake?” he quietly said while walking over to her bed. Rupert just mumbled something, but Mr. Thatcher didn’t quite hear what he said. He didn’t want to awake Rupert since he too was having trouble falling asleep recently.

Mr. Thatcher’s eyes adjusted to the dark and saw a small figure lying in Rupert's bed. Rupert must be sleeping but where was that noise coming from? Mr. Thatcher then realized it was suddenly very quiet in the room. He walked over to the side of Rupert’s bed and sat down.

“Well, I’ll be…” as Mr. Thatcher began to say, and then cried out in sudden pain. “Oww…” he screamed jumping from Rupert’s bed – Something had attacked his ankle from under the bed!! The thing that attacked him was still attached to his pant leg and didn’t intend to let go. As he looked down he saw two little green eyes glowing back at him.

“Well you little, trouble-maker”, he said to the animal that was now starting to bite his ankle. He picked up Raja, Rupert’s small kitten and tore him away from his pajama bottoms. “Now cat, you know better than that to attack me. I’m much bigger than you!”

Raja replied by jumping on Mr. Thatcher’s toes and taking a good bite. “Owww!!…Darn….” Mr. Thatcher howled while taking a step back and stepping on something other than floor. He lost his footing and fell back, hitting the floor while Raja went diving after something that rolled away from Mr. Thatcher. Mr. Thatcher looked up to see if he woke Rupert, but to his amazement Rupert was still awake.

Mr. Thatcher let out a sigh of pain sitting partially up. He looked over to see the kitten playing with a small rubber-bouncing ball. Mr. Thatcher watched Raja pick up the ball with her mouth, jump onto Rupert’s bed and let it go onto the wood floor. Raja darted after the ball, trying to catch and subdue the mysterious bouncing ball of rubber. The thumping must have been from the rubber-bouncing ball and the cat who chased it.

“Darn, cat”, Mr. Thatcher said as he rolled over to get up from the floor. Now his back hurt and he would need to get ready for work in about forty-five minutes. He wouldn’t be able to sleep now. He was much too awake and his back needed to be stretched before he went to work on any roof.