Ritzy Racoon

        Couldn’t have been a prettier morning. The sun blinked its way through the cottonwoods as Minnie made her way down the river road to town.  She had her Mama Maddie’s basket on her arm and she had been sent to pick up the baby-blue yard for her mother’s latest project—a quilt for Penny Possum’s little boy.

     Coming from the quilt shop, a horn caught her attention and she looked across the street, a voice called to her, “Hey, baby! How ‘bout a little spin in the Raceymobile?” and the convertible owner wheeled around and pulled up to the curb where she was standing. She tried to look embarrassed.

     “The way home won’t as long if you ride with me,” invited Ritzy Racoon, “I’ll have you there in a jiffy,” and he swung open the door patting the seat where he wanted her to sit.

     She couldn’t resist.  Besides the sun was up a bit higher now and the road home might be hot. Along the way, Ritzy told her about a great place called the Avalon up on the highway. “Let’s go on Saturday night and I can show you all my friends and you’ll see where everybody in town goes dancin’.” She didn’t know what to think about it.

      At home, she couldn’t wait to tell her mother about Ritzy asking her for a date. “No, absolutely not. Ritzy is not the kind of boy you need to go out with,” her mother scolded.

     Two weeks later Minnie told her mother she and some girls were going to the Disney movie at the Paramount. Instead, she met Ritzy at a preplanned place.  They drove to the Avalon and three of  Ritzy’s friends did indeed meet her at the door with tongues hanging out.

     When they reached for her, she flew to the rafters and kept going up to the highest rafter and crouched in a dark corner. When her eyes adjusted, she saw the open transom window and scrambled to it, flying down the roof and half running, half flying across the grass straight for home.

     She didn’t know it but O’Marney Owl flew in and out of the trees behind her in case any of the Avalon gang picked up on her trail.

    “Oh Mother, it was awful. I’ll never disobey you again, sobbed Minnie as her mother tucked her in bed. “Please don’t tell anyone what happened.” And you need not worry, little reader, about O’Marney Owl; he would keep the whole thing under his wing.  After all, he was the preacher.