It was a very bad day. . .

We're back in Edmonds, Washington, on a warm day so clear you can see the craggy, snow-capped peaks of Mt. Baker. The Puget Sound reaches sparkling to the foot of the Olympic mountains. We spent the day sitting on driftwood, watching the children wading deeper and deeper into the cold water and eating tart cherries from my sister's garden.

Now we're back in my parent's lovely little apartment, enjoying the breeze through the open door. Martin's doing the Sunday crossword, my Dad is snoozing with the Economist open and limp on his lap, and Merry's eating chips and chatting up a storm with my mother, who is making tea.

Mom just told us a funny little story about my sister's youngest little girl, Eliora, who is three. On a trip to Germany recently to visit her other grandparents, she surprised my sister when, late into the flight, she looked up into my sister's face, and said, "Let me tell you something. When we land, the plane will break into a hundred little pieces."

"Why would you think that?" my sister asked.

"Because," Eliora explained calmly, "The plane has no wheels."

"Yes, it does," Heather reassured her. "They'll come down soon, with a big thumping sound."

"No." Eliora extracted the safety information from the seat pocket. "The plane has no wheels and when we land, it will break into a hundred little pieces. See?"

Heather perused the safety pamphlet and Eliora was right: in every picture depicting the plane, there were no wheels. Apparently Eliora had been studying this pamphlet a good part of the long flight and had come serenely to the conclusion that it would crash when it hit the tarmac.

"Let me tell you a story," Eliora said. "Once there was a family who went on a plane. The plane flew and flew and then it landed and broke into a hundred pieces. The family landed in the mud. It was a very bad day."

Thankfully, Eliora's research, though thorough, did not yield the conclusion she believed it would, and Heather and the children landed safe and sound in Germany. And in the end, it was a very good day.