Cliffhanger

I've been reading A Manual for Cleaning Women, a collection of short stories by Lucia Berlin. Her tales of pink-collar workers are pretty cool. Some are good. Some are otherworldly (and somewhat drunk). Some are truly touching.

But, to be honest, I love another story book more: Once Upon an Alphabet. This is Oliver Jeffers' collection of short stories, each of them dedicated to an alphabet, from A to Z. I read this book with Jasmine recently. We both love the twenty-six crazy stories. Always entertaining, from the alpha to the omega.

The story plot is simple but always a spark of joyful game. Turn to the page H, we were introduced a lazy Helen, who lived in half a house. Where is the other half? It had fallen into the sea during a hurricane a year and a half ago. Think about it. A half-sized house on the edge of sea cliff. Literally a cliffhanger plot.

"Oh, what shall we do?" Nothing. Being lazy, and not owning a hammer, Helen hadn't quite got around to fixing it yet. Which was fine.

Until the horrible day she rolled out the wrong side of bed.

Ugh.

The story ends with a bit of drama, with Helen plunging all the way into the sea.

The first time we read this story, we were almost laughing our heads off. We read the story the second time this morning, before my daughter took the school bus. Jasmine turned out to build a new ending.

"Dad. Let me finish. What if Helen is able to swim and dive? She must. She must go to the bottom of the sea and find the other half of her house, and live there happily ever after. The End."