Drafts: Frog Haven, Chapter 4

read chapter 1 if you haven't already

read chapters 2 & 3 if you haven't already

Chapter 4: Garryd Knudson

The next frog got away and refused to be caught, even when Sissy explained how important it was. “You’re not safe here. The boys might kill you.” But the frog floated at the top of the water, completely out of her reach. She gave up and went after another. She caught it, but missed the next one.

Then she heard someone coming and stepped back out of sight into the cattails, balancing on a wobbling cement block the boys had placed there as a stepping stone. She teetered back and forth, afraid she would lose her balance and tumble in. She looked to see who was coming. It was Bill. He was shuffling along with his head down looking dejected. Sissy jumped back off the block onto dry land. Bill jumped backwards, almost falling into the swamp behind him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay,” Bill answered, looking curiously at her pail. Sissy was about to ask him if he wanted to help rescue frogs. He probably would. Last summer, he helped her move pollywogs when the pond was drying up.

“Listen . . .” she started. Then she heard a long shrill whistle. It was her Mom, calling Marc, Michael and her home for lunch.

“Gotta go,” she said, taking off running. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the meaning of that whistle. Bill’s Mom had a different one she used.

Sissy’s pail was full of frogs, but they would have to wait a little while for their freedom. She’d have to hide them in a safe place, fast, before the boys came out of the swamp and saw her with them. Sissy ran for home, cutting into the front yards where the boys were less likely to spot her. The pail banged against her legs as she ran, but that was okay. At least the frogs couldn’t jump out with the pail crashing around like that.

Sissy could think of absolutely no place to hide the frogs. Every secret place she knew of, the boys knew, too. She didn’t want to take a chance that the boys might just happen to go there and discover the frogs before she had a chance to let them go. Sissy could think of only one fairly safe place in the whole world—her bedroom, and even that wasn’t absolutely safe. She had posted a sign on her bedroom door that said, “No fat ugly stinky boys allowed in this room.” Of course, that only meant she didn’t want them in there. They were supposed to only come in when invited. Marc had pointed out that it didn’t apply to him or any of the kids in the gang except maybe Kelvin, because none of them were fat.

He tested his theory by entering uninvited. Sissy’s shrieks of rage had brought the wrath of their mother and he was informed that he was not ever to enter the room without permission, fat or not. Of course, when Mom or Papa weren’t home, he didn’t always obey. And he delighted in sticking one foot or one hand into her room, just to make her mad. Still, it was the only place Sissy could think of where the frogs would probably be safe. The problem was getting them into her room and back out without the boys catching her.

As she ran across LeFevres’ front yard trying to think of an instant plan before it was too late, she spotted a moving van in front of Coovers’. Coovers’ old house, that is, since the Coovers had moved to California. It was not a real moving Van, but a large yellow “Ryder Rents Trucks” truck, and two boys were riding bicycles. One was older than Sissy and the other looked younger, maybe Kelvin’s age, halfway between Marc and Michael. He had sandy blond hair and a nice friendly-looking face. She wondered if he would join the gang and become a frog-killer or if he liked animals. She wondered if any boys liked animals enough not to kill them. Other than Bill. She wished she had time to talk to him, but she had to hide the frogs.

Out of desperation, not knowing what else to do, Sissy dove through the front door with her pail of frogs. That, of course, was strictly against the rules. She dashed down the hall and into her room, sliding the pail of frogs under the vanity and then sliding it back under the table at the end of her bed. There, they were completely out of sight. She grabbed her pillow and put it over the pail to keep the frogs from jumping out.

“Sissy,” yelled her Papa from his study, “You are not to use the front door.”

“I’m sorry, Pa, I forgot,” Sissy lied. Sissy was really good about not going in and out the front door most of the time. Usually, it was the boys who kept breaking that rule. But now, their thundering hooves stampeded in through the kitchen door from the garage and Mom was screeching something about muddy feet. It sounded as if the entire gang was in the kitchen. Sissy walked sweetly in and was surprised to see only Marc and Michael kicking off their sneakers on a pile of newspapers. She looked down at her own feet and was horrified to see the mud clinging to them.

She slipped her sneakers off and added them to the newspapers and slunk into the living room. She had left a few clops of mud on the rug, but they were relatively firm and left no mark when she gathered them up. She traced her steps down the hall and cleaned up every trace of her passing. Phew! That was close.

Then she dashed back to the kitchen. Her father was helping to assemble sandwiches. “New people are moving in, Ma, Pa, right now,” she said, wanting to be the first with the news in case the boys had spotted them.

“Really,” Michael said. “Let’s go look.” The boys hadn’t seen the truck. They must have come in through the garage.

“After lunch,” Pa said. “It’s all ready.”

“They have at least two boys, and one of them is about your age,” Sissy said to her brothers. She thought the boy was probably about Michael’s age. Michael was 8. Marc was almost ten, and the boy was too small to be ten. She was happy to be the one with the news. The boys were looking toward Coovers’, but there were no windows between the kitchen and that side of the house.

“Let’s eat quickly, and then we can all go over,” suggested Marc.

“They arrived about two hours ago and we knew you’d want to be nosy. Papa backed a batch of brownies and I made a loaf of bread for you to take over.”

“Oh, good. Thanks! Did you save any for us?”

“Of course. Tomato soup with cheese melted into it, toasted cheese sandwiches on fresh homemade bread, juice soda, and hot soft brownies for dessert. Slightly under-baked the way you like them.”

“You guys rock!” Michael said.

“Let’s chow down,” Marc said, as the three kids scrambled to the table.

“Go wash your filthy hands first!”

“Oh, Papa!”

After they sat down, Michael got sent back to wash his hands again. He had only washed his palms, and the backs of his hands and wrists were caked with mud. Sissy laughed, because it was just like when he washed dishes, especially pans. If the insides were clean, it was a stroke of good fortune. The outsides were always skuzzy, like the backs of his hands. They couldn’t be put in the cupboard without gumming up everything else.

They scarfed down their food quickly and leaped up to run next door. “Where are the brownies and bread?” Sissy asked.

“Just a little minute. Carry your dishes to the kitchen and wash your faces and hands.”

“Aw, Ma.”

“Good. Sissy, you carry the bread, Marc, you take the brownies, and Michael, you take this jar of homemade strawberry jam. Be careful now, don’t drop it.” She brushed the hair out of his eyes and gave him a kiss. She kissed each of the others and they impatiently kissed her back. Finally, they were off.

They went out through the garage and came face to face with a man who was struggling to pull a huge over-stuffed chair off the back of the truck. The children ran over, set their goodies on the tailgate of the truck, gathered around, and helped the man unload the chair and carry it in. They all struggled to keep their part of the heavy chair up. No one spoke until they had gotten the chair inside and set it down. Then the man turned and smiled a great big smile. He nodded and made a grunt of approval.

Sissy stepped forward and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Sissy Mancini. This is Marc and this is Michael. We live next door. We brought you some brownies and bread and jelly. They are out on the back of the truck. Let me get them.” The whole time Sissy was talking, the man was shaking his head and waving his arms. His smile began to fade a little. He pointed at his ears and shook is head.

“He can’t hear you, you dummy,” Marc said, “he must be deaf.”

“Oh, and none of us know any sign language,” Sissy groaned. She looked at the man. He looked like a nice man. He had blond hair, a beard, nice clothes, and a wonderful sweet smile. Mom said that you shouldn’t trust anyone, strangers, that is, no matter what they looked like or how nice they seemed, but on the other hand, she had sent food to these new neighbors. She took him by the hand. His hand was warm and dry and felt nice. She led him back out to the truck and showed him the brownies, bread, and jelly. His face lit up. He looked up and down the street. The boy Sissy had seen earlier was riding toward them up the street from a distance. He was on a red ten-speed bike. The man waved to him to come, hurry. The boy stood up on his bike and pedaled faster. Sissy wondered if he was deaf, too.

“Hi,” the boy called cheerfully, with a charming smile, as he rode closer. “My name is Garryd, Garryd Knudson. Who are you guys?”

“I’m Sissy Mancini. These are my brothers, Marc and Michael. We live next door. We brought you brownies, bread, and jelly,” pointing toward the stuff they’d left on the tailgate.

“Oh, good, let’s have some,” Garryd cried, taking the Saran Wrap off the brownies, helping himself to a large one and offering them around.

“They’re supposed to be for you guys,” Sissy objected.

“Well, if they are ours, we can share them if we want to, right?”

“I guess so,” Sissy agreed doubtfully, “if you’re sure there are enough.”

Garryd counted, “Mom, Dad, Sven and I can each have two and you guys can each have one.”

Sissy took the smallest one, not wanting to seem piggy. Her brothers had no such qualms and helped themselves to the biggest ones visible. Garryd gave one to his Dad.

“This is my Dad,” Garryd said. “He’s deaf. He can’t talk, either, but he’s not dumb. He’s really smart. He used to work for NASA, the space agency, you know? He’s fantastic with computers. Let’s go in and give my mom a brownie. She’s deaf, too, and besides, she’s legally blind.”

“What do you mean, legally blind?” Sissy asked.

“Well, the government has classified her as blind, but she can see a little. A very little. She sees a little light and some shapes, but only in the very center. She can’t hear at all and she doesn’t talk, either. Not much, anyway.” Garryd signed to his father.

“What did you say?”

“I just told him we were going in to give this stuff to Mom.”

“But you just said that.”

“Mr. Knudson’s deaf. He can’t hear Garryd,” Marc said, snidely. Michael snickered.

Sissy wanted to sink into the ground. Of course he couldn’t hear. She already knew that. Only knowing it was different than really knowing it. It was hard to imagine not being able to hear anything. Sissy suddenly became painfully aware of birds singing in the maple trees, wind blowing through the pines between the houses, dogs barking a few houses up the street, trucks on the main road. A lone cricket singing. Sissy looked around with new appreciation. She heard their footsteps on the wooden stairs, the sound of the door shutting quietly behind them, the sound of footsteps in the hall.

Another boy, older than Garryd, appeared in the living room. Like Garryd, he was blond, but his eyes, instead of being dark grey, were bright blue. He looked at them in silence. Sissy wondered if he was deaf like his parents or could hear like Garryd.

“This is Sven, my brother. He’s thirteen. Sven, these are the kids next door, Sissy, Marc, and Michael.”

“Hello, nice to meet you,” Sven said politely. Then he turned and left. He was quieter, not as friendly and enthusiastic as Garryd, Sissy thought. Or maybe just shy. He’s sort of cute, though.

Garryd continued to the kitchen, followed closely by the Mancini kids. A woman was unloading dishes from a box on the counter. Her back was toward them. Garryd walked up to her and touched her lightly on the arm. She turned, looking puzzled. She was blond, like the others, and wore thick glasses. Her eyes looked huge and sort of glazed behind the glasses. Garryd began signing to her. She leaned forward, taking his signing hands into hers. Then she smiled a nice warm welcoming smile and looked toward her visitors.

“He-LOH” she said in a funny voice. It sounded sort of like a male computer voice. Sissy wondered what she should do. She smiled, feeling stupid. Not being able to either see or hear seemed unbearably lonely to Sissy. Her whole world seemed to be seen. Frogs floating in the pond, a heron coming down for a landing. Swallows glimmering over the water’s surface. Mud caked her bare feet. She poked at the mud and some fell off on the floor. She bent, gathered it up, and dropped it into a flower pot on the counter. She wondered why Mrs. Knudson had flowers if she couldn’t see them.

“Tell her about the brownies and stuff,” Marc instructed Garryd. Garryd’s hands began to move again, his mother gently feeling them. Then she looked at—or toward, Sissy wasn’t sure —her guests, and smiled again, nodding her head. Garryd handed his mother the stuff and turned to the kids, saying, “Want to see my room?”

“Sure,” they agreed.

Garryd touched his mother lightly on the arm and turned on his heel toward his room.

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Drafts: Frog Haven Chapters 2 &3 1/12/07

Read Chapter 1 (if you haven't already)

Chapter 2: Frog Stew

Sissy held the matches in her hand and thought of all the warnings they had had about “playing with fire.” But it seemed fairly safe, surrounded by water and everything as wet as it was. Sissy hated paper matches. She preferred sturdy wooden kitchen matches. She always managed to burn herself when she had to use paper matches, but she wasn’t going to admit that to Paul LeFevre or anyone else. Marc was smirking to himself—probably aware of her unhappiness. Maybe he had even told Paul. But he had to also know that Sissy was an expert fire builder. She’d had lots of practice on family camping trips, picnics, and lighting the family woodstoves. She was confident she could build a good fire, even in these wet conditions, if she just had wooden matches.

“Let’s get some dry wood,” she said to Bill. His family did a lot of camping too—Sissy had gone camping with them. Sissy was a good tree-climber if the trees had branches, but none of the nearby trees had lower branches. She knew she’d never be able to get up them and would have to go far afield for dry wood.

“Can you shinny up these trees and break off some branches—just the dead ones, and throw them down to me—carefully so they don’t fall in the water and get wet?” Bill always walked in a nervous sort of hangdog hunch. But although he shuffled rather hesitantly over to the first elm, Sissy was surprised to discover that he could shinny quite well.
“Good, Bill, terrific,” Sissy said excitedly as he handed down some dry branches. Bill smiled happily. Hardly anyone ever said anything nice to him. Sissy felt sorry for him and decided to try to be nicer.

The other boys had all disappeared again with their buckets. They were trying to catch frogs, Sissy could tell, from their shouts of, “Oh, I missed it,” and “It slipped right through my fingers,” and “I got one!” Sissy was glad they weren’t hanging around watching her build the fire. First, she cleared the cans out of the fire circle, regretfully throwing them into the bushes where she could see other cans and garbage. If she joined the gang, there would have to be some changes. For one thing, they would have to haul all the garbage home so their parents could take it to the dump. Mama and Papa were very strict about that. When they went camping, they always left the camp cleaner than they found it. When they went hiking, they brought garbage bags to pick up the litter that other people left behind. Sissy wondered why Marc and Michael hadn’t stood up for the environment. Were they afraid of being teased?

Sissy fished out some old tissues from her pocket. Her mom always made her carry them, even though she would rather snuffle up or wipe on her sleeve. The tissues weren’t used but were shredded from being carried in her pocket. Some of them had even gone through the laundry. She put one of the shredded tissues on top of some dry bark she had peeled from Bill’s branches and put some dry grass and a few tiny twigs on that. The first three matches went out. “Dumb wind,” Sissy mumbled to herself.

Bill came over without being asked and helped to shield the fire with his hands and body, blocking most of the wind. The fire started and Sissy carefully laid tiny twigs onto the fragile flames. As it grew bigger and bigger, she laid more and bigger twigs and then sticks on it. When it was going well enough that she could trust Bill to watch and care for it, she said, “I’m going for more wood. Keep it going.”

She headed toward the back of the pond where the boys rarely went, braving the edge of the cut grass to collect fry wood. She returned three times with large armloads while Bill fed the fire. On her forth trip back, she encountered Paul, Marc and Donny with their pails full of frogs and tadpoles, wading into the swamp with their shoes on. Sissy knew her parents would be annoyed with Marc, unless she believed he had really slipped in accidentally. Maybe the first time, he had. Each of the three boys was holding a little strainer and Sissy wondered if Marc had borrowed it from home. What would her parents say? She didn’t think they’d be pleased.

The boys stood in a shallow spot in the swamp that was teaming with small black tadpoles. Paul took his strainer and swizzled it around in the water and pulled it out almost brimful with tiny tadpoles. He poked at them a minute and then discarded them on land. Marc got some and tossed them up on shore so that they were scattered around with no chance of getting back to water. Sissy couldn’t believe it, but she said nothing. She went her way in silence, seething with anger. When she got back to the fire, she said, “I’ve got to rescue some tadpoles, want to help or not?”

“Sure.” Bill replied. They built the fire up with the wood Sissy had brought back. When they got to the scene of the crime, the boys had moved on. A few of the tadpoles had been stepped on and the ones that were not squished looked a little dry and funny. Most had their tails wrapped tightly around their bodies so that they looked like little black beads. Bill and Sissy carefully gathered them up and put them back in the water. Sissy was greatly relieved to see them swim away, apparently not seriously harmed by the drying. They kept finding more and more of them under the leaves, hung from the grass, disguised as little rocks among the pebbles. Finally, they could find no more. Sissy worried that they might have missed some and searched a little longer. Finally, they headed back to the fire each carrying an armload of wood.

Sissy remembered one time when Marc and Michael were burning ants on the back terrace of their house. They had all learned how to start fires with a magnifying glass. Even Sissy thought that was great fun. Someone, maybe Paul, maybe Marc, had discovered that they could aim the beam of light at a passing ant and fry it to death as it walked along. Marc was frying every ant he could find. Michael was frying a few, but not with the same thorough meanness as Marc. Sissy tried it too, once, but when she saw the ant curl up in pain and then shrivel and die, she went back in the house and cried. She never fried another ant. But she was careful not to say too much about it because she didn’t want the boys saying that she was a sissy just because she was a girl. It wasn’t that at all.

She could remember, even longer ago, when Marc used to pull the cat’s tail, and laugh when the cat screamed. Once, he dragged the cat out from behind the couch hissing and squalling by the tail, and once, he picked her right up off the ground by the tail. But still, Sissy didn’t think Marc was bad. She wondered if he felt guilty when he hurt things. But she thought if he played with someone other than Paul, he wouldn’t be so horrible. Was the same thing true of Paul? Sissy thought he was the source of the badness. But sometimes, Marc did bad things when Paul wasn’t even there to show off to. Paul hadn’t even moved in yet when he’d picked the cat up by the tail.

Sissy saw Bill heading back with another load of wood. She stopped daydreaming and quickly gathered some, arriving at the fire about a minute behind him. The boys had all returned to the fort. They had hung a large aluminum pot over the fire with a propped-together tepee-like arrangement of sticks. It was filled with pond water and pond scum and Sissy could see some tadpoles swimming around. She reached in and scooped three of them out and tossed them into the water of the nearby swamp.

“Hey, cut that out!” yelled Paul angrily.

“No!” Sissy yelled back, reaching into the warm water to scoop out the last tadpole. “You can’t kill tadpoles while I’m around. You shouldn’t EVER kill them. They have feelings, too, you know.”

“I told you she was a sissy! A big sissy, just like her name. It fits her perfectly. She’ll never pass the initiation rites.”

Sissy gave Paul a shove and he slipped into the swamp up to his knee. He pulled his foot up out of the mud and kicked toward Sissy, spattering mud all over her clothes. She gave him another shove and he fell backwards into the black muck. Instead of getting angry as Sissy thought he would, he started wallowing around in the mud. He laid in it face first and then fell backwards into it.

“What a show-off,” Sissy whispered to Bill, who looked too worried to respond.
“Paul, you’re going to get it,” Guy said.

“SHE did it,” Paul screamed, pointing at Sissy. He laughed his most sinister laugh. “You all saw her push me in.” Sissy knew Paul would make every attempt to see that she got the blame for it. “Come on in,” Paul yelled. The water’s great!” He stomped stiffly out of the swamp with his clothes stuck to his body. He grabbed Kelvin and gave him a big shove. He turned and shoved Donny in and then moved toward Marc. Marc jumped aside, knowing, as Sissy knew, that their mother would not be pleased. Paul shoved Bill, whose foot went in. Bill managed to leap back onto land. Then Paul, Donny, and Kelvin threw mud at each other and at the other kids.

Paul sloshed back up to shore and peered into the pot. “The water is boiling!” he shouted. The boys gathered around the pot and at a signal from Paul, they each threw a frog into the boiling pot of green scum. The frogs thrashed convulsively for a moment and then their only movement was a slow bobbing with the roll of the bubbles. Sissy felt sick. Bill was turning green. She was sure he was going to throw up, but he didn’t.
Paul handed Bill a pail. “It’s your turn he said. This is the first step of your initiation.”

Bill stared at the pail with a wild look in his eyes. Tears started welling up. He reached in and grabbed a frog but it slipped out of his hand. The second time, he held it tighter. He took it out of the pail and looked at the pot with the dead frogs floating in it. He looked furtively toward the bushes and cocked his arm. Sissy was sure he was going to shoot it into the bushes, but just as he was about to release his grip, Paul’s hand chopped down onto Bill’s, knocking the frog into the boiling water. It screamed and Bill threw up.

“Yuck, clean it up!” said Paul. Bill scraped the side of his sneaker against the puke, shoving most of it down into the water. It floated there pink and lumpy and mixed with mud.

“You passed the first test. The second really, you did a great job with the fire. But wait until you see what’s next.” He seemed to glow with badness. Sissy hated it when he acted like that.

“It’s your turn now Sissy,” said Paul with a sneer. He pronounced her name in such a way that it sounded like a challenge. It sounded like he was saying, Prove that you are not a sissy!

Sissy picked up her frog and before anyone could move, pitched it across the near cutgrass into the far part of Blackfords’ pond where the cutgrass was so thick that the boys ventured there only rarely. The frog plopped cleanly into the water and swam away below the surface. Then, kicking left and right with great fury, Sissy overturned all the buckets so that the remaining frogs escaped.

“You FAIL,” shouted Paul, “You fail, you SISSY!”

Chapter 3: Resolved

Sissy turned and ran away from the fort, ran away through the cattails and reed grass, across the board bridge over Blackfords’ pond, and down along the shore of the pond the culvert that ran under Van Vleck Drive. Tears stung in her eyes. She felt angry and disgusted and at the same time she felt hurt and rejected. She thought of all the mean things she could have said to them. She imaged telling her parents about the whole thing. At least Marc and Michael would get in real trouble. And the other parents might be told and also be upset. And they deserved to get in trouble, she was completely convinced.

More than anything else, Sissy hated being called a sissy. But as she half crawled through the culvert to the little stream on the other side that fed Blackfords’ Pond, she suddenly realized that it was NOT brave to kill a helpless frog. It was brave to stand up against bullies. She was the one who was brave. The rest of them were all cowards. They were yellow-bellied sapsuckers. THEY were the sissies.

Suddenly Sissy felt much better. She wiped her eyes on the muddy hem of her T-shirt and picked up an old bucket that lay on its side in the creek. There was a crack in the bottom, but that didn’t matter to Sissy. Now she had a mission.

She crawled back through the culvert and started catching frogs, quietly and swiftly. She would take them to Dzabel’s pond, where they would be safe from the gang. The gang of Sissies. She’d better raid the fort for a good bucket—one to rescue tadpoles in. The frogs and tadpoles of the world needed someone to protect them, someone who was as brave as Sissy. The sun was warm on the back of her neck and a breeze played around her face. A heron squawked and landed in the swamp off to her left. Sissy smiled and dropped another frog into her bucket.

Frog Haven Draft 070110 Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Invitation

Sissy listened for voices. She turned and stretched her neck and ears in each direction, but all she heard were robins and red-wings calling, the hum of flies, and a chorus of green and bull frogs in the pond. A faint breeze in the trees. The regular pond sounds. No boys. She let her breath out slowly in relief. She was glad to be alone.

The boys might be shooting baskets at McAllisters’, damming the creek in Dzabel’s woodlot, hitting hardballs in her own backyard or any number of other things, but at least, for the moment, they weren’t at the pond. Sissy was glad because the boys were often so loud. She could be loud, too, but, at the moment, she was in a quiet mood.

A water skater glided over the surface of the water, its feet dimpling the pond like falling raindrops. A water boatman surfaced, bobbed once and rowed back into the murky green depths. Sissy watched until it faded out of sight. Down in the narrow part of the pond, a great blue heron squawked a great squawk and took off, releasing a huge white dropping as it tipped first one way and then the other to fly between the elms along the far shore of the pond. The neighborhood kids called the herons “cranes,” except her brothers, Marc and Michael. They knew better. Like Sissy, they knew the names of flowers, trees and birds, but often kept their knowledge quiet, not wanting to seem nerdy to the other kids.

Sissy, however, wanted to be the first and best. The smartest. She was the one in the front row center in school, waving her arm to be called on. “Nobody likes a smart-ass,” one of the other kids hissed at her. Sissy was shocked. She didn’t like that bad word. Besides, she wanted to be both smart and well liked. It wasn’t fair.

“Nobody ever said life was fair,” Sissy’s mother reminded her. “Just you be sure not to use any bad words. Two wrongs never make a right.” Sissy sighed, thinking about it. It still didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t her fault she was smart. Some people made smartness seem like as bad a handicap as being “special.” By which they meant not smart. Sissy thought being smart should be a good thing. She thought she was special. Other people treated her like just another person.

“Give someone else a turn, Maria,” Mrs. Waverly would say, pressing her hand down slowly to tell Sissy to put her hand down.

“But I know the answer,” Sissy would groan. Her real name was Maria, Maria Luisa Mancini. When Michael was little, he couldn’t say Maria, so he began calling her “Sissy,” short for sister. Now, her relatives and everyone on Van Vleck Drive called her Sissy while most of the teachers and kids at school called her Maria. Except her best school friends like Peggy Bell.

A few kids at school, especially new ones, upon hearing her nickname was Sissy, tried calling her a sissy. That didn’t last long. Sissy was a tomboy and proud of it. She believed she could out run, out bike, out climb, out bat any boy in the neighborhood. There were many contests to prove it. She often won, but Paul or Marc sometimes beat her. Although she liked to think of herself as peace loving, “a pacifist,” as her Papa would say, she did not hesitate to attack anyone who called her a sissy and meant it the wrong way. She would knock them down, sit on them and flail at them with her fists. Marc and Paul tauntingly called it the old windmill technique. They meant this in a mean way, and their taunting often caused her to turn her fist windmill on them, often to further taunts and laughter.

Sissy groaned at the image, dismissed it, and climbed carefully up the slanting elm. She stuck her head into the tangle of grapevines where a pair of cardinals had built a nest. Sissy had watched them gathering long strands of grapevine bark. At her mother’s suggestion, she had unbraided her own hair and left some strands of it for the red birds. She sometimes remembered to bring hair from her hairbrush, too, wadded into the watch pocket in her jeans. The birds had woven her hair into the nest. She had been watching it ever since. Now the baby cardinals were almost ready to fly. Fledge, her mom called it. The stood at the edge of the nest flapping their wings. Tufts of down still fluffed from their heads and they looked like cartoons to Sissy. She hoped they learned to fly quickly on a school day next week. She was afraid the boys might hurt them. She hoped they would not fall into the pond and drown. The world seemed dangerous for a baby bird.

Distant shouts pieced the stillness, coming slowly closer.

Oh, no! The boys! Sissy thought.

Sissy backed down off the elm and walked away from the pond into the swamp, intending to take the long trek through the cut grass and out into Doolittles’ backyard to avoid the boys. Not that she didn’t often play with them, she did. But she didn’t want her quiet mood ruined by their rowdiness. Contemplative, her Papa would call it. He was proud of her “contemplative streak.”
Unfortunately, it was too late. The boys had spotted her bright red loon shirt and were calling to her. She debated whether to join them. She looked down at the long red slashes and burning welts from the cut grass on her bare arms and legs and decided, as her father would say, that wisdom was the better part of valor. She turned back. She was curious to see what the boys were up to anyway.

Her brother Marc led the way, followed by Paul LeFevre, Kelvin Moore, Donny McAllister, her brother Michael, Guy LeFevre, and finally Bill Taylor. They carried big white construction pails that she imagined they had “borrowed” from the construction site past the pines behind Taylors'.

Marc said, “We are taking Bill to the fort to initiate him into the gang. We had a vote and decided you could join too. We weren’t going to let any girls in, but you’re not like sissy girls . . ."

“Even if you are a Sissy,” Paul interrupted, laughing.

“He means your name,” Marc said, soothingly. “You can join if you want, but you have to pass the initiation tests. Just like Bill. Want to come?”

“I guess so,” Sissy said, doubtfully. Something seemed fishy to her. Paul looked just too pleased with himself.

“Then go to the end of the line behind Bill and follow us,” Paul said, drawing himself up as tall as he could. Paul was small for his age and even the much younger boys were taller than he was. Sissy was tall for her age and towered over Paul. But he seemed bigger than he was. A lot bigger.
Sissy normally made every effort to avoid taking orders from anyone, especially Paul LeFevre. She thought he was a meany. But now she was even more curious and went quietly to the end of the line behind Bill. The gang went single file now across the plank at the narrow waist of Blackfords' pond. It was really Moores’ pond now. It belonged to Kelvin’s parents. But it had been Blackfords’ pond so long no one could remember to call it Moores’ pond and even the Moores had begun calling it Blackfords’ pond. Sissy couldn’t remember the Blackfords and had begun to think they were legends and not real people like the Moores.

Sissy watched the boys wind single file through cattails, reed grass and “pricker bushes.” Paul was first now, followed by Marc. Donny McAllister, Kelvin Moore, Michael, Guy, Bill and Sissy. The order they walked was the order of who bossed whom most of the time. Paul, Marc, Donny and Bill were in fourth grade, going in fifth. Paul was the size of a second grader, but he was tough and mean. Bill was tall but stood hunched over. He was often considered a wimp. The other boys picked on him. Sissy was the oldest of the whole group. Most of the time, she could boss Marc and Michael when she was alone with either of them. But sometimes the two of them stood up to her, and Marc almost always stood up to her when Paul was around.

The fort was made of old salvaged lumber nailed around four trees. One side had a window that came from Moores’ when they had remodeled their back sunroom. The frame was yellow and it had lots of little windowpanes, some of which were broken or cracked. A thin yellow curtain was attached to the inside and fluttered spasmodically in the breeze. On the other side was an old door that didn’t fit right and hung crookedly from a broken hinge. Two old doors covered with tarpaper and plastic formed the roof. A strip of green translucent fiberglass at one end let in a little light. The floor inside was covered in the back by two pallet boxes scrounged from the construction in the pines behind Taylor’s. Different colored, mud-stained pieces of rug were nailed to the pallet boxes. A small empty wire spool acted as a table in front of the pallet boxes, and upside down white construction pails flecked with putty and spackle acted as chairs around the spool. The floor around the table was wet and muddy. The fort was on a small rise in the swamp behind the pond, but the water was higher than usual after several days of rain.

They paraded through the fort and out the broken door to the “back yard” where another larger spool and more over-turned pails sat. There was a fire ring full of burned deposit soda cans. Sissy counted enough burned cans to have turned them in for a hot fudge sundae if they had been undamaged. What a waste. And what a mess besides.

“You and Bill build a fire,” Paul commanded, throwing her a pack of matches. None of them were supposed to build fires without permission. It was strictly against the rules. The grown-up rules. The kids had their own rules, sometimes, Sissy thought, wryly.

Read Chapters 2 & 3

Today's Morning Pages with new poem

Thursday, October 19, 2006; 8:39 AM  "Morning Pages"

OK, I am not going to necessarily share this.  Because when I think I'm going to share then I find myself censoring certain things.  It would be interesting to look at the things I think I need to censor and the reasons behind that feeling or fear for example last night I had two dreams, well probably lots more, but two that have risen to the surface like fortunes in an 8-ball and are vying for space at the window.  One was about Bruce.  I have been dreaming a lot about Bruce lately, more so since the divorce went through and the move is becoming reality than before that for a long time, though I did dream of him from time to time before that.  I don't remember much about the dream except that he seemed to be my husband and young.  And I loved him.  Some young inner part of me must still remember that love. My waking self finds that difficult. 

The other dream was about Keith and he was telling me that he felt hurt when I was berating him for something and I got a flash of how he must have felt but I cut him off, I didn't want to hear about it.  I felt bad, but was unwilling to listen.  I need to be careful not to berate him and try to listen to him when he talks.  I don't want to be berated.  I don't like hurting people and often want to escape from feeling guilty or responsible when I fail.

Today is Keith's birthday and of course he has to work from 6 AM to 5 PM, ugh!  How wretched.  I am so glad I don't have to do that and I wish he didn't have to.

OK, this is the hard part, the part where with morning pages you run out of things to say but you have to keep writing anyway even if all you say is nonsense.  I always wish I could write something stunning and interesting.  Instead I am sitting here with my stomach growling wishing I could hurry up and go do my sit-ups and make the bed and lay out my clothes so I could have some breakfast.  Then I hope to work on my poetry for the reading a little bit.  I have a huge long list of things to do, none of which moves me forward in any meaningful way.  At 4:00 I have to take Graham to his music theory lesson and drop him off and then come back and make dinner for us all, well for Keith and me, because we are having Calamari in white wine sauce and he is having pizza which Keith will pick up on the way to get Graham at music theory lesson—it's a 25-minutes drive from home to music theory and will take me a total of an hour, probably, with the delivery part, taking him in etc.  Though I may just drop him off in the interest of time.  I was hoping to make an apple pie and some cookies too, because I can't eat the cake I made, it's a chocolate wafer cake.  With whipped cream.

The m–key on the computer is sticking and I have to keep going back and putting in the ms.  Sometimes I miss them.  Boy I am getting really hungry for some reason!  More so than usual.

I used to sit down at the morning pages and write a poem.  Maybe I should READ a poem or two or three before I sit down to morning pages.  Instead, I am ready to be done with this and move on to something else.  Like eating cause I'm hungry.  Poems for PA, unpacking, cooking, ordering Christmas gifts.  Checking my email.

A wavering call penetrates the dark street, just at the edge
of hearing.  Listen.  The sidewalks are wet and covered with small ponds,
cradled by leaves, the colors gone now in darkness, visible only in the pools
of street lamplight.  Branches heavy with wet leaves, eerie
in their brightness, dripping.  Pumpkins everywhere, and witches.
Maybe a recording to set the children worrying a little, that weeping call,
so soft yet spooky, mysterious.  We pause, look up.  A lump,
a ball of fluff, sits on a branch above us.  A flashlight from your pocket,
a pair of binoculars from mine:  we see flat face, two round eyes. 
A small body, like a robin, only squarer.  Silent now, with the flashlight
in its face, the screech owl looks back, then turns and flutters
almost bat-like back into the night. 

And we're so happy.  A little nature, an unexpected encounter.  We've never seen a screech owl in the city, so close to home.  I'd put that in the poem, but where doe sit fit?

A Ball of Fluff, October

A wavering call penetrates the dark street, just at the edge
of hearing.  We're returning from an evening walk,
two houses from home on. Listen.  The call again. 
Low and eerie.  We've seen the usual houses
and stores, the diamond-studded spiders in orange confetti
at Wayson's  jewelry on Kirchivel.  The sidewalks are wet
and covered with small ponds, cradled by leaves, colors
gone now in darkness, visible, a bit, in pools
of lamplight.  Branches droop with wet leaves, dimly bright and eerie,
dripping.  Pumpkins everywhere, wadded spider webs and witches.
And that strange quaver.  Maybe a recording to set the children worrying
a little, that weeping call, so soft yet spooky, enigmatic.  We pause,
look up.  A lump, a ball of fluff, sits on a branch above us. 
A flashlight from your pocket, a pair of binoculars from mine, 
and we see a flat face, two round eyes.  I grab your hand
and squeeze.  Small body, like a robin,
only squarer.  Silent now, in the flashlight
glare, a screech owl looks back as us.  A first, here, for us. 
And more, a touch of wildness and mystery.  It stares.
Then  turns and flutters almost bat-like back into the night,
leaving us both bereft and exultant. 

Mary Stebbins Taitt
For Keith on his birthday and for the screech owl, may it remain safe and healthy and without too much flashlight in the face
061019b

Hey, I did it, I wrote a new poem, dunno how good it is, but it's a start anyway.  YAY!

see the next draft of this poem , still probably nowhere near being done.

Please feel free to leave constructive criticism and comments. (Probably on the newer draft, see link above)

After the Party

After the Party

(The Herpetologist)

by Mary Stebbins

for Jackie Greene, Dick Baldauf

and Sara and Erin Stebbins

unfinished first draft!

i. prologue

It felt a bit like a mysterious, unhappy carnival. For years, all I could remember of that night was Da-Glo orange plastic ribbons cordoning off the area, giant searchlights aimed into murky brown water, and six gum-ball-lights, spinning over the dark fields and lake, and cops everywhere. I clung desperately to a young policeman, Officer David Michaels, sobbing hysterically. I'd ever been hysterical before. When they asked me about what had happened, I couldn't remember anything.

An older policeman, Officer Grogan, tried to talk to me. He had jowls and watery blue eyes. His blond crew cut, was touched with grey at the temples.

"Just calm down a little, miss, and tell us what happened," he said. An edge of irritation crackled in his voice. I couldn't see anything beyond a wall of darkness in my mind. I stared. Nothing. Then, in the darkness, an image formed of myself, as a small child, walking down a beach. I was carrying something large and heavy. It was a struggle. I walked between the blankets and towels toward my mother and father. I was proud.

"I found a snapping turtle when I was three," I said. I stopped crying suddenly; I knew this was important. "I carried it down the beach by its tail. Everyone was yelling at me, but I didn't understand what they were saying. When my father saw me, he leaped up and said, `Alicia, drop the turtle!'"

"I didn't want to. He had to pry my fingers open. When I finally dropped it, he held a stick in front of the turtle. Its neck shot out with lightning speed, and it snapped the stick in three pieces. The stick was much thicker than my fingers. My father carefully carried the turtle off the beach and let it go at the edge of the swamp. He told me to be careful of snapping turtles."

"Good," the older officer said impatiently, with more than a trace of sarcasm. "Very good. Now, will you tell us what happened here?"

But I couldn't. I had no idea. A wall in my mind had started to clear, like a window losing its condensation. Now it fogged and darkened.

"We'll be coming by your house to talk to you again," Officer Grogan said. I felt a hint of threat in his voice.

Officer Michaels led me to a police car. I watched him as we walked. He was tall, slender, and dark. He reminded me a lot of my friend, Billy, only a little older, more confident, less awkward. I remember thinking he was cute, and wishing I could get him to hold me again, the way he had when I was crying. But I couldn't just "turn on the tears" the way some girls seem to.

As we walked up the hill, state police divers drove up and unloaded. They climbed into wet suits and put on air tanks. I looked at them blankly, my mind empty. I don't even remember being curious. Though I was able to talk, some parts of me had apparently shut down.

"I'll get your seat wet, Officer Michaels," I said, when he politely held the door open for me. It was the front door, not the back, where the criminals ride.

"You can call me David," he said, a little shyly. It was dark, but I would have sworn he blushed. Maybe he wasn't so different from Billy after all. Or maybe I imagined it.

David got a piece of canvas from the trunk for me to sit on.

"Thanks!" I said. "I already got your clothes wet."

"I don't mind, it's a warm night," he said, blushing again.

I wondered if he meant he didn't mind being wet or he didn't mind having held me. I watched him all the way home, wishing that I was the kind of girl, like Shelly, who asked boys out. Men, in this case, though he didn't look that old. But I wasn't. And the ride was short. Too short.

I arrived home still dripping wet. My parents, of course, were terribly upset. How had I gotten from Billy's graduation party to the back seat of a police car, soaking wet? But no matter how they plied me with questions, I had no answers. David stayed for a little while, but had nothing reassuring to tell my parents. He did take my father aside and I could hear them whispering. I thought I could almost catch the names of some of the friends I had been with earlier, but I couldn't seem to focus enough to concentrate on listening, or bring to mind any of the events of the evening. Since I had to work in the morning, David left, and I went to bed.
Turtle

1. Fritz

The next day, I started my job with the Youth Conservation Corps, YCC. YCC assigned our crew to the nature center, where we began building a new boardwalk. Lots of snakes lived in the swamp around the boardwalk: garter snakes, ribbon snakes, milk snakes, and water snakes. The water snakes weren't very friendly. I saved a number of them from the crew. It was, after all, against the rules to kill animals at the center. The kids on the crew seemed to think they were exempt or something. I made sure they knew they weren't.

I might not have been successful at saving the snakes, if it hadn't been for my allies, Billy White and Beardsley Beardsley. Billy didn't particularly like snakes, but he defended them because I liked them. Beardsley liked snakes. He liked all nature. Like me, he didn't like to see anything killed. But he didn't have much clout with the other kids, who called him Bee, Beebee or Bobo to mock him out for his double name.

Billy had told Beardsley and me about the YCC job. He found out about it through his father, who owns the Messenger, our town paper.

Billy was a tall, thin boy with dark hair and deep-set, dark brown eyes. I always believed, even when we were much younger, that he had a crush on me. Sometimes, he ignored me, or acted cold and withdrawn. Other times, he followed me around looking at me with his fathomless eyes, never smiling. It seemed as if he was just soaking me in, soaking me so hard that it seemed as if I might disappear into his mysterious eyes.

When he did speak, he always said my name slowly, as if it were a gold coin he was turning in his hand. "A-LEE-shee-a," he would say, slowly, looking deep into my eyes. It never failed to give me the shivers.

I liked him a lot, but he scared me. Something a little strange about him made me want to avoid getting too close. Friends, yes. But when the thought of romance with Billy occurred to me, as it did fairly often, I put it aside. We went to the movies, a concert, a play or something fairly regularly, but I never thought of it as a date. I did often let him pay my way, because he had more money than I did, and he wanted to. Sometimes, he tried awkwardly to kiss me or touch me, but I never let him, even though I sort of wanted him to. Occasionally, we held hands like little kids, when he seemed playful instead of dark. There was a lot about Billy to like, but I particularly liked his sharp intelligence and generally gentle nature.

Billy worked as a reporter for his father's paper, and also had a column in The New Environment, our local environmental paper. I read his stuff; he was an excellent news writer. He also wrote poems, strange, scary poems and gooey love poems. I didn't like them. The scary poems made me nervous, and so did the love poems, in a different way. I would find them folded up in my knapsack when I got home. They were always dedicated to "Angela," but I was 99% sure they were written to me. Not a hundred percent sure, though.

Beardsley liked me, too. I had started dating him when I was fourteen, and had dated him on and off for four years. Although people sometimes thought of us as a couple, we were more like really close friends. I did occasionally kiss him. But his kisses didn't make me feel the way I thought a boy's kiss should feel. No thunder and lighting.

I had a hard time making the transition from a tomboy kid whose very best friends were all boys to a dating teen when the same boys who were my best buddies and comrades suddenly wanted to kiss me and touch my body. It was confusing, to say the least, and I hadn't reconciled it. I wanted Beardsley and Billy to continue to be my pals, but at the same time I sometimes wanted to kiss one or the other, or both. Not at the same time, though.

Beardsley was lots of fun. He had none of Billy's darkness, either physically or emotionally. His hair was such a pale "platinum blond" that it was almost white. His eyebrows and eyelashes were brilliant blond. His eyes were a pale but striking bright blue-white, almost like a malamute or an Australian shepherd. His skin was pale and often pink from sun. His face was round, his nose slightly turned up, and he looked about 12. He was always happy and excited and eager to do a variety of things like hiking, swimming, photography, science experiments, etc. He was an ultra nerd, and the kids teased him mercilessly. He wore his pants at his waist instead of at his hips like other teenage boys, and so they also called him "High Pockets" or "High Water."

When I was alone with him, I always had fun and enjoyed his company. He took me on the most interesting dates. One time, we went for a ride in a small plane and flew over our houses and school and the lake and took pictures. Another time, we went for a ride in a glider, which was towed by a plane and then released. We flew utterly silently though the air. I felt like an eagle.

Sometimes, in a group, I wished he wasn't quite so nerdy and weird. And what were his parents thinking when they gave him the first name, Beardsley? Especially when that was his last name. Of course, his father also was named Beardsley Beardsley, and so was his father. So he was Beardsley Beardsley the Third. But he didn't look that important.

Billy, on the other hands, also known as William Radcliffe White the fourth, looked very distinguished and sort of preppy. Actually, they dressed similarly, but what looked preppy and distinguished on Billy looked nerdy on Beardsley.

Beardsley Beardsley wasn't the only kid at our school with a double name. In the senior class alone, there was also Charles Charles, Wilson Wilson, and Gregory Gregory. And there were others in the other grades. For example, Beardsley's brother's best friend was William Williams. And most of them don't come from retarded redneck families. I can't understand why a parent would do that. I'm glad I'm not Alicia Alicia or Taylor Taylor. But that's just my opinion. Obviously not everyone agrees.

Billy and Beardsley were best friends, and had a number of things in common. They both like photography, science, and the out-of-doors. Billy leaned more toward writing and journalism and Beardsley toward science and computers, but they complimented each other and often worked together on independent cooperative projects with no adult supervision.

Billy lived near the Nature Center, and he invited me home for lunch that first day of YCC. He said he had to talk to me about something very important. I wondered if it had to do with the events of last night, and in the midst of the sunny day, I felt that strange darkness invading my mind again.

It was a perfect day. The sun was softly warm, a gentle breeze was blowing, and the air smelled of honey and roses. As we walked along East Mud Lake Road, a bee flew out of the fields and stung me. A bee had never before stung me, and I remember clearly how shocked I was.

I stood there repeating, "That bee stung me," over and over as if it had been a terrible mistake.

"Let me see if the stinger is still there," Billy said. It was there, still pulsing, still injecting its poison into me. Billy pulled it out for me. He got some mud from the ditch and put it on the sting.

"I'm disillusioned, Alicia," he joked. "I thought you were in perfect communion with all of nature." He recalled how I picked up bees and wasps in my hands and took them out of the classroom, all through school, for years. I'd led a charmed life when it came to bees.

I told him how I would go down to the beehives with Beardsley, who lived next door to me. Beardsley raised bees for 4H. He would be wearing a white suit that covered him from head to foot, with screening over his face and head. I would walk down barefooted, in shorts and a halter-top, and stand beside him. The bees swarmed around me, but they never stung. Beardsley always somehow managed to get stung, even through all his protective gear.

"Animals like me," I remember saying to Billy, somewhat smugly as we continued toward his house. A moment later, Martins' German Shepherds came charging out of their yard. Billy had never liked those dogs, but they didn't bother me. Until that day. The bigger one, Fritz, ran out around Billy, growling ferociously, fangs bared, and attacked me. It ripped through a brand new pair of super-thick Levis I'd gotten for work and laid open my thigh. Brave Billy managed to beat the dog away after it knocked me down and was going for my throat. I think I was screaming, but I'm not sure about that part. I've never been much of a screamer. Lying in the road with the dog at my throat felt somehow familiar. So did Billy on his white horse, look strangely, ironically unfamiliarly familiar.

Billy's father took me to St. Joseph's Hospital, and I missed most of the afternoon of my first day of work. But the more disturbing part is that I was taken into a little office with a nun. She had crinkly skin and a wide face that was as white as if it had been powdered with baby powder. There were all these beautiful nature posters on the wall, with saying about God on them. One of them said something like "With God as my shepherd, whom shall I fear?" I remember at the time thinking that God didn't always seem to be hanging around helping. He must be looking the other way some of the time. It wasn't a fully articulated thought, and yet the sense of it still remains.

The nun, Sister George, asked me if either of my parents ever hit me. When I looked shocked and said, "Of course not," she uncovered some bruises--I was covered with bruises--and I had no idea how I got them. "Not my parents!!" I kept insisting, but had no other explanation to offer. I didn't mention the gumballs the night before, the strange events and the big dark gap in my mind. I didn't see any point in telling her when I couldn't tell her what I was telling her.

I had twenty-nine stitches. Before I saw Sister George. I remember thinking, as I watched the curved needle going in and out of my skin, that whatever had happened at the lake last night had used up all my luck. If people had something equivalent to nine lives, eight and a half of mine had been used up last night at the lake. I wondered if you could regain any of them--I didn't like that feeling of teetering on the edge. I couldn't remember what had happened, but it had been a real strain on my guardian angels. That's why the bee had stung me; that's why the dog had bitten me. I felt as if I could relax a little, now, though. I'm not superstitious, or anything, but everyone knows that bad things happen in threes. Perhaps, I would be safe for a while.

That night, lying in my bed unable to sleep, watching how the moon silvered all the lawns and trees making everything look sort of like one of those old fashioned photos that Billy's father collected, I began to remember just a little bit about what had happened that night at the lake. I remembered some of the events that led to my leaving the party. It wasn't a pleasant memory. The "dirts" had gotten drunk and raided Billy's party. For some reason that I couldn't remember, they had come after me. I didn't really want to think about it, but I expected that my parents would be asking me, and probably the cops would, too. One thing was sure, I wanted to talk to Billy about it, and I was sure that's what he had intended to talk to me about at lunch.

In the morning, my clock radio came on to wake me for work. Just as I was about to punch the snooze and catch another five minutes of sleep after a restless night, I heard something that shocked me completely awake. Four of my classmates had been killed, drowned, when their Volkswagen bug went off the road at the overlook at Beaver Lake Nature Center. It was two nights ago, and I had been there, wet, but alive.

They announced the names: Rudolf Heath, Michelle Sawyer, Wilson Wilson, and Nicholas Smith. I sat up in bed and started crying, and then wailing. I had never wailed in my life before, I just wasn't that kind of kid, but the idea of Shelly being dead was just too awful. I couldn't believe it. It was Scratch's fault. I knew it, because I'd been there. I saw what happened. Oh, Michelle, Michelle.

My mother was coming in to make sure I hadn't punched the snooze too many times, and she sat down on the bed next to me. I buried my face in her shoulder and cried and cried and cried, and she put her arms around me and rocked me. My mother's not the overly demonstrative or huggy type, but she can be there for me when I really need her. She just quietly held me and whispered little motherly inanities.

I was crying for Shelly, but suddenly, I realized the others were dead, too, Weed and Scratch and Nick, and I started bawling all over. I could hear my own crying, it sounded different suddenly, angry as well as sad. And then, more angry still, because I just knew it was Scratch's fault that Shelly and Weed were dead—he had killed them. He had killed Shelly just when she finally, for the first time in her life, had something to look forward to. My wailing began to sound more like roaring, like a lion roaring. For a minute, like remembering a dream, I almost knew what happened. The whole terrible thing slid through me in an instant and away again.

At work that day, Billy told me, and later everyone else, that there was going to be a Memorial service Saturday for the kids that died. It would be at the Unitarian Church. That's where our town always held multi-denominational services. He whispered to me that all the funerals were going to be private, for the families only.

Saturday, he and Beardsley came by and picked me up about 9:30. I had been rummaging through my stuff and had located five pictures of Shelly, two of Shelly and Weed, a really and out of focus picture of all four of them, and one of Scratch by his motorcycle. None of Nick. Billy had a few more, including one of Nick that actually made him look like an almost decent human being. Beardsley, who takes more pictures than anyone I know, had a bunch, too. When we got to the church, we put the pictures up on an easel, for people to look at. I was wondering what the preacher would say about Nick and Scratch. They weren't exactly exemplary students or particular nice people. Weed was a few notches better than Scratch and Nick, but not great. Shelly was actually nice, but she was rough around the edges and not many people liked her, other than Beardsley and me.

It turned out that the preacher had no idea what to say. He came around and talked to those of us who showed up. There weren't many people there. Some scuzzy looking adults I had never seen before, a few of the other dirts from school, and a few of the kids who try to like everyone, even the creepy kids. So I had to try to think of nice things to say. I kept talking about Shelly, how far she'd come, how hard she'd worked, how excited she had been to get into college, the scholarship she'd won. And then I moved on to Weed, and how much he'd liked Shelly and how hard he'd been working, and how his grades were coming up.

The only nice things I could think to say about Nick were the time he had shared his lunch with Shelly when she lost her lunch money down the storm sewer drain and the time he had given Ryan a whole bunch of packets of honey roasted peanuts, which were Ryan's favorites. That was when Nick was in 4th grade and Ryan was in third grade. Later, we found out that Scratch had stolen them and passed them on to Nick, but that wasn't Nick's fault. I didn't tell the preacher that part.

Scratch was smart. No one could deny that. A few other people said stuff about them, too. And from our fragmentary memories, the preacher got up and made his remarks.

When he started talking about Shelly, I burst out crying. I couldn't help it. But I gulped down my tears and after that, I was pretty much dry-eyed.

They served refreshments afterward, which seemed weird. I know now that funerals and memorial services often have food, but at the time, it seemed strange to me, as if we were celebrating their deaths instead of mourning them. They had little quarter sandwiches where the crusts had been cut off, like in kindergarten. I found some ham on pumpernickel that tasted outrageously good and kept taking another quarter and feeling guilty that I was enjoying it so much. There was potato salad and macaroni salad and potato chips and really good fruit punch. Punch! It just didn't seem right to me.

Billy was going around talking to the other people, and when I picked up my 6th sandwich quarter, I decided to join him so I wouldn't be tempted to take any more. When I joined him, he was talking to the skuzziest looking people in the room. I could smell them as I walked up. I guessed they were Scratch's parent, and I was right.

They, like Scratch, seemed articulate in an uneducated way. They also seemed dazed somehow, not altogether with it. I know that sounds strange and contradictory, but they'd be conversing normally about something and then stare off into space. In the middle of a sentence.

Weed's parents looked like they were right off the old homestead and dressed in their Sunday go to meeting clothes. His father was old and leathery looking, and his mother plump and rosy-cheeked.

I had already met Shelly's parents, separately, but that day, for a few minutes, they were standing together. Her mother was looking bewildered and her father looked angry. We made our way over to them and I said how sorry I was. And started tearing up again. Her mother thanked me for all the time I spent with Shelly and I said, truthfully, that Shelly was my friend and I loved spending time with her.

I have to say, though, that I was not very good at making small talk, at knowing what to say, so I was glad Billy was able to pick up with the sorts of polite things you say at these times. He seemed so much better at it.

Beardsley had been talking to some of the kids and joined us when we were talking to Shelly's parents. He knew Shelly really well because he had been teaching her photography, which she had discovered that she loved. And he had been helping her on the computer, which she was also taking a liking to. Beardsley was a total computer nerd.

People began dispersing, and Billy told me no one had come for Nick, no parents, no relatives, no friends. And though I never liked Nick, I felt really sad. Someone should have cared about him.

From After the Party or The Hepetologist (Turtle story)

Under the Pondweed: Linnette

* * *
    Pendula had spotted them and backed up so that the bulk of his porcupine-like body completely closed the mouth of the cave entrance to the underground castle.  The great pendulous mane of snakeheads came erect, as did the pointy quills on his body.  The lion eyes were fiery red and followed them as they circled overhead.  The snakeheads, now erect, bobbed and weaved and followed them as well. Sassy had imagined they might slip past Pendula when they first saw him, for he hadn't looked large or scary and there was room between him and the entrance to fly in, but now she saw this was hopeless.  No way could they just get past.
    "Could there be another way in?" Lonnie whispered.   Sam circled around looking.  The mountain rose in sheer cliffs above Pendula, up and up. 
    "Look," Sassy said, excitedly, "what is that?"  Sam climbed, stretching his long wings.  Far above Pendula, there was a ledge and what appeared to be a narrow opening.  Sitting on the ledge was a single rattlesnake as thick as Sassy's arm.  But the opening was high enough that the rattlesnake probably couldn't reach them, if they flew in right at the top.
    Sam dove for the opening. It was dark inside.  If there were other snakes, or monsters, they couldn't see them.  The cavern turned to the left and far in the distance was a faint light.  Sam flew toward the light.  Sometimes his wingtips brushed the cave wall in the darkness.  Sometimes fluttery wings of what must have been bats brushed against their faces.  But they flew on toward the light.  Gradually, the cave brightened a little, and they could see magnificent stalactites, stalagmites and huge columns.
    After a while, they saw that the light came from two huge torches burning on either side of another entrance, this one a rectangular doorway hewn from rock.  The torches were clutched by iron hands with long clawed fingers that emerged from huge oaken doors that were dark with dampness and mildew except for a dark teardrop shaped area burned and stained from the flame of the torches.
    Sam flew through the open door and voice called, "Halt!  Who goes there?" They saw no one at first.  Then they saw a figure sitting in the shadows at a low table.  It was a woman.  A very small woman, smaller even that Lonnie and Sassy.   She didn't look too dangerous, but for some reason, Sassy imagined she had special powers.
    "We are Sassy, Sam and Lonnie," Lonnie said.
    "We come in friendship," Sam said.
    "We want to speak to the King of the dwarves," Sassy said.
    "You've come to the wrong place," the woman said.  "This is a gateway to the realm of the Faery folk."
    "May we speak to you without harm?" Lonnie asked.
    "You may speak. If you offer us no harm, we will not harm you."
    Sam, who had been circling and hovering settled to the cave floor and Lonnie and Sassy scrambled off.  They towered over the woman, who came only to Sassy's waist.
    "Are you a fairy?"  Sassy asked, "I thought Fairies had wings and would fit in the palm of my hand."
    The woman, who had looked like a normal human only smaller, stepped into the air and flew up to sit on Sassy's shoulder.  She was smaller than before, and huge butterfly wings waved slowly at her shoulders. They were golden and glowed faintly in the dark cave.
    "I thought the Faery Folk were just like humans only smaller and more magical," Lonnie said.  The woman stepped off Sassy's shoulder, grew larger again, and suddenly disappeared.
    "Are you still here?" asked Sam. The woman reappeared.
    "What's your name?" asked Sassy?
    "You can call me Linnette.  I cannot give you my true Faery name right now.  Tell me, what is your business with the dwarves?"
    * * *
written while walking at Barry Park today.

I'd like to remind you that this is a first draft. 

Under the Pindweed, Part IV: Eilisha

    Sam didn't answer.  Instead, he flew silently, up and up and up until the world below seemed tiny.  He was flying toward the mountains and the mountains were huge.  Sassy went mountain climbing with her father, but these mountains were nothing like hers.  The mountains she climbed with her father were in Upstate New York's Adirondack Mountains.  They were tree-covered and rounded, like hills, but bigger.  They had rounded rocky peaks, sometimes, or at least rocky ledges where Sassy could look out at the view.  She liked to race up the mountain and beat her brothers and Billy and Frankie and Misty, the neighbor kids who often came along.  They all beat her father.  He was really slow, because he always wanted to stop and look at the views.  Sassy liked to look, too, but it only took her a few seconds to see what she wanted to see, the vast open spaces and the mountains, row upon row, and be off again. Grown-ups were so slow.
    Sassy's mother used to climb too, but she had given it up and stayed behind in the base camp, reading books and making dinner for them.  Sassy's Mom loved the views, but she also liked a chance to rest and have some "peace and quiet".  Papa spent a lot of time at work when Mama had the kids to herself, and it was a treat for the kids to be with Papa for a change.  Mama said it was good for everyone, and it was great to come back to a hot meal, too.  When Mama climbed with them, she'd always be the last one back, so it was a long wait for supper then.
    She turned to Lonnie, "Did you ever go mountain climbing?"
    "There aren't many mountains in the pond I lived in most of my life," Lonnie answered, "but in Mearddth, I've been up a few."  He said it like "mirth," a word for laughter people rarely used any more. It rhymed with earth.
    Sassy leaned out over Sam's wing and peered down.  It made her stomach churn a little to look down so far.  Scary!  But she was sure that Mama and Papa would both the view.
    They would really be impressed with the mountains here.  They were tall, huge, and pointy, made of rock, all cliffs.  There were no trees at all on the tops.  In fact, the mountains behind the first set that Sassy could see had snow on them.  The lowest parts of the mountains had trees, and the trees were different than the trees in Upstate NY.  There were two kinds of trees, some tall, skinny pointy trees, and some trees that were all funny and crooked and grew out of the cracks in the rock and looked like a Chinese painting that Sassy had seen in one of her doctor offices.
    Sam flew toward the cataract, the giant skinny waterfall that plunged from the mountain pass between two huge pointy peaks.  He flew on and on toward the mountains, and finally, gradually, they seemed to be getting closer.  After a while, Sassy could hear the roar of the falling water, a sound something like thunder and something like static on the radio and something else entirely, a loud sound that grew louder and louder.
    Sam flew straight toward the falling water and it was so thick and fast that Sassy was frightened, but at the last moment, he swerved slightly and flew behind the water.  Sassy had read in a book about someone going behind a waterfall, and they said it was like a veil.  A veil, Sassy thought, was sort of like a piece of curtain that a bride wore over her face while getting married.  Hardly anyone did that anymore, but they used to.  Sassy had read about it in a book.  Besides hunting frogs catching tadpoles and salamanders and exploring, reading was one of Sassy's favorite things to do.
    Sassy thought she was lucky.  Misty's parents made her read age-appropriate books, but Sassy's parents let her read anything she wanted.  She could read a baby book one time and a grownup book another time, and she could read the same book over and over if she wanted to. She often did.
    Sassy thought about the bridal veil as the wall of water roared past them.  It did not look like a bridal veil to Sassy, but like something huge and indescribable.  Sometimes, Sassy thought she'd like to be a writer, but how could she be a writer if she couldn't describe that water? 
    She didn't have time to consider it any longer, though, because Sam had turned suddenly and entered a cave.  The cave was wide and Sam could easily fly inside it.  It was dim, lit only by light coming through the wall of falling water.  It was also wet, from water splashing in, but suddenly, Sassy knew that it dry ahead, and that someone was waiting.
    Sure enough, the cave turned and they flew into a tunnel of darkness and then into a cavern lit by candles and a small fire. Sam landed on the floor beside a huge statue of a person that was wrapped in a blanket.  But the huge head turned slowly toward them and spoke in a huge voice.
    "Welcome, my grandchildren, welcome."
    "Greetings, oh great grandmother," Sam said.
    "Greeting, great grandmother," Lonnie repeated.
    "Greeting, great Grandmother," Sassy said, respectfully.  It seemed that that must be the right thing to say.
    The woman stood up.  She towered enormously high above them, and then, she was smaller. She was smaller than her mother, but bigger than Sassy and Lonny, kind of the size of Sassy's own Grandma, only not as fat. 
    "My name is Eilisha."  She pronounced it like AY-lee-sha.)  "You're not in Kansa any more," the woman said, laughing at the stunned look on Sassy's face.  Lonnie and Sam did not seem to be surprised.
    "I've never been to Kansas," Sassy, said, half confused and half indignant.
    "Oh, I was sure you would know what I meant, from The Wizard of Oz."
    "Are we in Oz?"
    "No, We're in Mearddth."  Sassy thought she'd heard that before, but couldn't remember when.   "Mearddth is a little like Oz, and a little different.  You've been here before, but you might not make the connection."
    "I've never been here before" Sassy exclaimed, indignant again.
    "Not exactly here, maybe," Lonnie said.  "But you've been to Mearddth before.  Every night."
    "What I mostly due at night is sleep."  Sassy said.
    "Exactly," Eilisha said.  "Now we have to get down to business.  Since you kissed Lonnie, even though you didn't mean it in the traditional sense, you set the wheels in motion for a huge prophecy.  Changes are happening that will put the world in jeopardy, and I don't just mean Mearddth, but Earth itself, your world."
    "But . . .  "
    "This is serious.  Everyone is in danger, you, your parents, your brothers, your grandmother, Misty, Billy, Frankie, everyone.  Your piano teacher, you school teacher.  Lonnie, me, Sam.  Everyone is in terrible danger."
    "But . .   ."
    "Because it was you, Martina Maria, who kissed Prince Lonnard Longshad, it is you and he and Samuel Gillian who must travel to Ransomhome and bring back the golden scepter."
    "But, I can't go, I have a piano lesson," Sassy said, turning her wrist to look at her watch, "in half an hour.  If I'm not back I'll get in trouble."
    "You'll be in worse trouble, if you don't go."  Sassy was staring at her watch. Something seemed wrong, but she couldn't figure out what it was.  "I can't make you go; it has to be your own choice.  But I can show you a little of what will happen if you don't go."
    She held out her hand, palm down, with a ring that sparkled. Sassy leaned forward. Inside the huge diamond, a scene began to unfold. Buildings were crashing down, and flames spurting up. People were running and screaming; she could hear their tiny voices, and the terror in them. The scene shifted.  It was the street she lived on.  There were soldiers, tanks, guns, flames. The scene faded.
    "Did you need to see more?" Eilisha asked, gently.   
    "No," Sassy said, "if I have to go to stop that, I'll go."
    "Lonnie?" 
    "Of course."  He spoke quietly, with deep conviction.
    "Sam?"
    "Yes, Grandmother, I will go."
    "Then it is settled.  There is no guarantee you will succeed; you can only do what you can do.  It is gravely dangerous.  You could die, any of you.  All of you.  Your best chance of survival is to stay together.  To work together.  Do you understand?
    "Yes, Grandmother," they chorused together.
    * * *
    "King George has the scepter. It belongs to the people of Mearddth.  He is not a rightful king. He is not even rightfully elected.  He has used lies and greed and powerful friends to take over the country, and he has declared himself King.  He pretends to be on the side of good, but everything he does is evil.  I have yet to determine if he truly believes he is good and is simply misguided, or if he is truly evil.
    "However, he calls anyone who stands against him a terrorist, and he will eliminate you if you try to cross him.  The scepter gives him power.  Without it he'd be just an ordinary man.  Taking it from him would-be the first step."
    "You mean there are more?" Sassy asked, looking at her watch again.  Half an hour 'til her piano lesson.  She didn't want to get in trouble.
    "Take one thing at a time," Eilisha said. "We won't know what will be needed until we see what happens."
    "But how will we know what to do?"
    "Bring me the scepter and we will go from there.  You may need some aid along the way.