Uncle Dave patted Muffin’s hand. "Out of the mouths of babes... I’m the one who’s studying the Wonders of Life, and you’re the one who reminds me. Everything is perfect all the time, isn’t it, Muffin?"
"Of course not, dummy," she answered, looking at Uncle Dave the way she did when he tried to persuade her he’d pulled a dime from her ear. She turned around in her chair and reached over to the buffet to get the photograph they’d taken of her kindergarten class just before summer holidays started. "See?" she said, pointing. "This is Bobby and he picks his nose all the time, and he’s picking his nose in the picture, so that’s good. But this is Wendy, with her eyes closed ’cuz she was blinking. That’s not perfect. Wendy cries every time she doesn’t get a gold star in spelling, and she knows three dirty words, and she always gives Matthew the celery from her lunch, but you can’t tell that in the picture, can you? She’s just someone who blinked at the wrong time. If you want someone who should be blinking, it should be dozy old Peter Morgan, who always laughs too loud."
Uncle Dave scratched his head and looked awkward for a bit, then said, "Well, Muffin, when you put it like that... I suppose there are always some things that aren’t aesthetically pleasing... I mean, there are always going to be some things that don’t fit properly, as you say."
"Not always," she said.
"Not always? Someday things are just going to be right?" Uncle Dave asked.
Muffin handed me the dice and said, "Your turn, Jamie. Bet you’re going to land in jail."
Next morning Muffin joggled my arm to wake me up. It was so early the sun was just starting to rise over the lake. "Time to go down to the boatyards."
"Again?"
"Yep. This time for real." So I got up and dressed as quietly as I could. By the time I got down to the kitchen, Muffin had made peanut butter and jam sandwiches, and was messing around with the waxed paper, trying to wrap them. She had twice as much paper as she needed and was making a total botch of things.
"You’re really clueless sometimes," I said, whispering so Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear. I shoved her out of the way and started wrapping the sandwiches myself.
"When I rule the world, there won’t be any waxed paper," she said sulkily.
We were halfway down to the bus stop when Uncle Dave came running up behind us. He’d been staying the night in the guest room and he must have heard us leaving. "Where do you think you’re going?" he asked, and he was a bit mad at us.
"Down to the boatyards," Muffin said.
"No, you aren’t. Get back to the house."
"Uncle Dave," Muffin said, "it’s time."
"Time for what?"
"The Eschaton."
"Where do you pick up these words, Muffin? You’re talking about the end of the world."
"I know." The first bus of the day was just turning onto our street two corners down. "Come to the boatyards with us, Uncle Dave. It’ll be okay."
Uncle Dave thought about it. I guess he decided it was easier to give in than to fight with her. That’s what I always think too. You can’t win an argument with Muffin, and if you try anything else, she bites and scratches and uses her knees. "All right," Uncle Dave said, "but we’re going to phone your parents and tell them where you are, the first chance we get."
"So talk to me about the Eschaton," Uncle Dave said on the bus. We were the only ones on it except for a red-haired lady wearing a Donut Queen uniform.
"Well," Muffin said, thinking things over, "you know how Daddy talks about astronomy things moving? Like the moon goes around the earth and the earth goes around the sun and the sun moves with the stars in the galaxy and the galaxy is moving too?"
"Yes..."
"Well, where is everything going?"
Uncle Dave shrugged. "The way your father tells it, everything just moves, that’s all. It’s not going anywhere in particular."
"That’s stupid. Daddy doesn’t understand teleology." She waved her hand at the world out the window. "Everything’s going to where it’s supposed to end up."
Uncle Dave asked, "What happens when things reach the place they’re going?"
Muffin made an exasperated face. "They end up there."
"They stop?"
"What else would they do?"
"All the planets and the stars and all?"
"Mm-hmm."
"People too?"
"Sure."
He thought for a second. "In perfect frozen moments, right?"
"Right."
Uncle Dave leaned his head against the window like he was tired and sad. Maybe he was. The sun was coming up over the housetops now. "Bus drivers driving their buses," he said softly, "and farmers milking their cows... the whole world like a coffee-table book."
"I think you’d like to be in a church, Uncle Dave," Muffin said. "Or maybe walking alone along the lakeshore."
"Maybe." He smiled, all sad. "Who are you, Muffin?"
"I’m me, dummy," she answered, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a kiss.
He left us in front of the warehouse by the lake. "I’m going to walk down to the Rowing Club and back." He laughed a little. "If I do get back, Muffin, I’ll have your parents ground you forever!"
"Bye, Uncle Dave," she said, hugging him.
I hugged him too. "Bye, Uncle Dave."
"Don’t let her do anything stupid," he said to me. We watched for a while as he walked away, but he never turned back.
Up on the warehouse roof, there was a monk waiting with a McDonald’s bag under his arm. He handed it to Muffin, then kneeled. "Bless me, Holy One."
"You’re blessed," she said after looking in the bag. "Now get going to the temple. There’s only ten minutes left."
The monk hurried off, singing what I think was a hymn. We got into the plane-boat and I helped Muffin strap herself into one of the big padded seats. "The thing is," she said, "when the earth stops turning, we’re going to keep on going."
"Hey, I know about momentum," I answered. I mean, Dad is a physicist.
"And it’s going to be real fast, so we have to be sure we don’t run into any buildings."
"We’re going to shoot out over the lake?"