Autumn in Philadelphia Trilogy

Cory and Shawn's Miracle Soap IV

An ear-splitting scream shook the Matthews' house early Tuesday morning. Amy grimaced at the eternal shriek as she set a plate full of hot cakes down in the center of the kitchen table.

"Would it really be too much to ask for just one quiet morning?" Alan asked, pouring himself a second cup of coffee.

"Apparently so," Amy watched her youngest child thunder down the stairs. "Morgan, was that you screaming?"

"SWAMP THING IS IN THE BATHROOM!" she cried hysterically. "AND HE'S COMING TO GET ME!"

"Oh, sweetheart." Alan pulled Morgan into his lap and cradled her. "Swamp Thing isn't in the bathroom."

"Uh huh, he is, too. I saw him, Daddy!"

"Honey," Amy reached over to stroke Morgan's corn silk hair. "Swamp Thing was a good guy anyway, remember?"

"No, I don't," Morgan insisted, obviously shaken up by something. "I turned on the sink and he oozed out of it. He was all green and slimy."

"Sounds like two you-know-whos let her watch scary movies again," Alan said over his daughter's head.

Amy nodded in agreement. "And those you-know-whos are in trouble."

Eric was the first one downstairs.

"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad." Eric grabbed for a pancake with no intention of sitting down. His mother smacked his hand away, pulled a chair out from the table, and pointed for him to sit.

"What's with the squirt?" Eric asked nodding to Morgan whose face was buried in her father's chest. He sat down and again reached for breakfast. Amy handed him a fork and plate.

"It seems your sister had a nightmare last night," Alan said, awkwardly juggling Morgan and his food.

"I did not!" was Morgan's fervent, but muffled, response. "It was real. It happened this morning!"

"Did you let your sister watch a horror film last night?"

"No!" Eric exclaimed. "Absolutely not. Come on, Dad, we watched a Green Acres marathon last night. Cory and I both went to bed before it was over. When would we have had the chance to have watched anything else?"

"Then explain why Morgan woke up screaming this morning?" Amy stuck a napkin between Eric and the shirtsleeve he was about to wipe his mouth on.

"That was her this morning? Man, kid's got some lungs!"

"Morning, wonderful parents of mine," Cory chirped, joining his family. "What's with the squirt?"

Morgan removed her face from her father's shirt long enough say, "I am not a squirt!"

"Okay, sorree!" Cory reached for the pancakes only to be reprimanded by his mother as Eric had.

"Sit down, use a plate and fork, and use a napkin not a sleeve," Eric said through a mouthful of food.

"And don't talk with your mouth full," Amy finished.

"Yuck, Eric, you just spewed crumbs everywhere!" Cory cried, raising arm in front of his face.

"That's not spewing. This is spewing!" Eric leaned over and showered his brother in pancake debris.

"Mom!" Cory shouted.

"Eric!"

"Daddy, Swamp Thing is going to eat me!"

With that the Matthews' household erupted into a chaos that Mr. Feeny would have heard had he not already been on his way to school.