Drafts: Frog Haven, Chapter 6

In a few hours, my mother is going to die. I don't know that yet. Not on "this day," January 15th. She's been declining, but there is no imminent sign of danger. She will die, however, unexpectedly of late stage dementia and myocardial infarction at 2 AM on the 16th. (Obviously, I am backposting this.)

I've been so involved in notifying people and institutions and making arrangments etc, plus some health issues of my own, that the novel got put on the back burner. I still have more to do concerning my mother's death, some of it urgent. But I wanted a peek at the novel. Being away from it for so long has made me lose my place. A novel is big and unwieldy, and at least for me, I have to stay immersed in it. I have yet to find my place, but here, anyway, is the next chapter, chapter 6 (and the links to earlier chapters if you haven't yet read them):

read chapter 1 if you haven't already

read chapters 2 & 3 if you haven't already

read chapter 4 if you haven't already

Chapter 5: Getting Acquainted

Chapter 6, The Fox and the Skunk

“You shouldn’t agree to things until you know what they are,” Sissy said. She pushed her bedroom door shut, reached under her vanity and under the table in the corner between the vanity and the end of her bed, and pulled out the pail that was hidden there. She lifted the pillow from the bucket and she and Garryd both leaned over to look, bumping their heads together.

“Frogs!” Garryd observed, rubbing his head. “What are you going to do with them?”

“Let them go in a safe spot.”

“Then why did you catch them?”

“They weren’t safe where they were.”

“Why not?”

“The boys. They have a gang and they kill frogs.”

“That’s stupid, and mean! We’ll have to stop them!”

“How?”

“I don’t know. We’ll think of something. In the meantime, we will rescue as many frogs as we can and let them go in a safe place.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it!” cried Sissy, jumping up and down and throwing her arms around Garryd and kissing him. “Oh, Garryd, I love you!”

Garryd unwrapped Sissy’s arms and stood there looking embarrassed, for once at a loss for words.

“I wish you were my brother, instead of those rats,” Sissy exclaimed.

Garryd looked visibly relieved. “I guess you’d be an okay sister. I never really wanted a sister. Usually I don’t like girls that much. All they ever want to do is play with dolls. Ugh!”

Sissy waved her arms around the room. “I don’t have any dolls. Not one single one. Come on, let’s go release these frogs. First we have to make sure the coast is clear. Put the hamster away.” Garryd did.

Sissy stuck the pillow back over the frogs. They went out the back door and looked around. There was no sign of the gang anywhere.

“You stay here and watch for the gang, and I’ll go in and get the frogs. If you see them . . .”

“I’ll whistle like this,” Garryd said, giving an ear-piercing whistle.

“Okay, and I’ll hide the frogs again if I hear it.”

Sissy ran in and grabbed the pail, tossing the pillow onto her bed. The pillow flipped over and there was a big circular spot of mud and slime on it. Sissy grabbed it and stuffed it under the bed. She dashed out through the house. Both her parents were bent over the keyboards of their computers. Sissy shut the back door slowly and quietly, not wanting to be slowed down by being yelled at for slamming.

She led Garryd down the path past the fruit trees and the vegetable garden and her Papa’s arboretum. When they got to the fence, Garryd took the pail without a word while Sissy climbed through. Then he handed her the bucket and climbed over. They slid down the dirt cliff on their butts and headed for Dzabel’s ponds. As they walked across the short-cropped grass to the ponds, Sissy [MNS1] told Garryd about finding the starling that had heat stroke. By the shore of the small pond, two starlings were feeding a bunch of noisy babies. The male, shining and black, looked like the bird Sissy had rescued. She hoped he was, because he looked healthy and happy.

“It didn’t take us very long to get here,” Garryd observed. “What’s going to stop the gang from coming down here and killing frogs.”

“Nothing, I guess. It’s closer than Blackfords’ pond. Kids don’t come here quite as much because Dzabel yells when he sees us here. But they could. But I didn’t know what else to do with them. There’s a pond beyond the Bushwhack, Coon Pond, but that’s not much farther away and it’s such a small pond. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“Well, a couple weeks ago, we were doing a unit in school on maps, and Papa got out a topographical map of this part of Burnt Hills. It showed Blackfords’ Pond (I mean Moores’ Pond) and the swamp around it, but it did not show Coon Pond because the dam hadn’t been built or Dzabel’s Ponds because they hadn’t been dig yet when the map was made. It did show two ponds I’ve never been to, in the woods over there,” she said, pointing across the pastures and scrubland.

“Well, let’s go them,” Garry said, picking up the pail and starting for the woods.

“Wait a second,” Sissy called running to catch up. Garryd kept on walking. “I’m not allowed to go there. None of the kids in the neighborhood are.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just know it is strictly forbidden. Not even Paul LeFevre goes there,” she added, as if that would clinch it.

Garryd kept walking. Sissy felt really nervous. She did not like to directly disobey her parents. What if there was some really good reason not to go there? Sissy pictured bad men with guns who would kidnap them or kill them or something. Maybe torture them.

“Do you want these frogs to be safe, or not?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Look, we’ll go to the edge of the woods together. How far is it to the ponds from the edge of the woods?”

“Not far, according to the map.”

“Okay, no one has forbidden me from going there. I’ll find one of the ponds, the first one I come to, and let the frogs go. It will only take a few minutes and then we can go back together.”

“Okay.” Sissy was satisfied with that plan. At least she would not be disobeying. “But we will have to watch out for the farmer. Dzabel. He doesn’t like kids on his land. He’s afraid we’ll bother the cows or drown and cause him to get sued or something.”

They covered the distance to the edge of the woods faster than Sissy expected. It didn’t really seem that far, though she had always thought of it as a really long ways, and had never considered going there. As they approached the woods, they noticed a dark area that turned out to be an opening, so they headed for that. As they got closer, they saw it was an old road, an old gravel road grown up with weeds. Small trees were starting to invade the edges, but it was still quite walkable. Sissy walked along with Garryd until tall trees came up on either side. She stopped, backed up a little, and waited. Garryd went on. The road turned into the trees, and Garryd was lost from sight.

Sissy felt very alone. Not frightened exactly, just alone. The sun was shining and the woods smelled sweet and fresh. A tiny breeze played around her face. She sat on a mossy spot on the roadside and waited. An ant crawled over her bare foot. She watched it, but couldn’t feel it. Then she felt it, and it tickled so much she picked a blade of grass and encouraged the ant to climb onto it. She held the grass up and watched as the ant crawled toward her hand. Then she took the other end in her other hand. When the ant got to the far end, it started back toward her other hand upside down on the bottom of the blade. Sissy set the ant down near a squashed wild strawberry. Maybe it would like to eat it. There were lots of wild strawberries. Sissy started picking and eating them.

Garryd came running down the road, swinging the empty pail. “Sissy, Sissy, come here!”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve got to! I want to show you something. It’s a wolf or a coyote or something.”

“Is it alive?” Sissy asked, jumping up and backing away from the woods.

“No, it’s dead, but it’s really cool.”

“How far away is it?”

“Just around the corner.”

“Well, okay,” Sissy half-heartedly agreed. She walked beside Garryd. The sun was warm and she could hear insects buzzing around them, and birds calling: a crow, a veery, and others, too, farther away. A wood thrush deep in the woods. Everything seemed peaceful. There was no feeling of danger in the air. The trees arched up over the road and became a forest, a nonscary, park-like forest.

They walked a short ways into the woods along the road and Garryd shouted, “There it is!” At first, Sissy saw nothing but fallen leaves and branches. Then the shape of the dead animal formed itself before her eyes. It’s body was exactly the color of the fallen, faded leaves, but its face, ear-tips, and feet were black, a shining black that was not the dull black of coal or the iridescent black of her rescued starling. At first, she thought it was a dead dog, and not a very big dog, at that. Certainly not a wolf or coyote.

“Oh, Garryd, it’s a fox! It’s beautiful!” Not many people would have called the dead fox beautiful. It had decayed to the point where all that was left was the somewhat rotted fur and the bones. The stiff, dried out, tattered fur was beyond saving, but the bones . . .

“Let’s take it home. We could bury it in the sand and dig it up later. Maybe we can reconstruct the skeleton. That would be great fun.”

“Yes, it would, but how would we get it home?”

“Hmm . . . maybe with a burlap bag. Papa uses them at the arboretum.”

“A burlap bag? I saw some in the woods near here. A whole pile of them! Come on.” They went down the road a little farther and came to a stop sign. It was a regular six-sided stop sign, but it was rusty yellow instead of red and had diamond-like things embedded in the letters and around the edges. Sissy took new interest in the road, looking up and down it.

“Never saw a stop sign like that. Why do you think it’s here?” Sissy asked.

“I’ve seen stop signs like that. Way out in the country on old dirt roads, near my Grandmother’s house. It’s the old kind they used to have a long time ago.” Garryd said. Then Sissy thought, yes, she too had seen some like that, when they were camping, and maybe near uncle John’s. She touched the diamond-like shiny glass pieces and rubbed the dust off some of them. Then looked back at the road.

There was no intersection, but as Sissy looked around, she spotted an old split rail fence in the woods that was mostly tumbled down, and barbed wire. There was an old gate, open, and lying half buried in the woods. Behind the gate was a tree with a board sign that had a paper sign hanging off it. Sissy walked up, and standing on tiptoes, lifted the paper sign and read it. It said, “NO TRESPASSING” in large black letters. It was signed Judson A. Williams.

“This stop sign is here because Judson A. Williams, whoever he is, doesn’t want people in his woods. Like Dzabel doesn’t want us in his pastures,” Sissy murmured nervously.

“I didn’t even see that posted sign,” Garryd said.

“Well, you couldn’t read it upside down and it was pretty hidden in these branches,” Sissy said.

“But it doesn’t matter. The burlap bags are thrown away. Look, they are right over here.” Sissy followed Garryd a few steps off the road where they found an old dump. There were cans and bottles and old lamps and galvanized buckets and washtubs and broken crockery. There were also old dolls, broken metal trucks, a rotted red rubber ball and other toys. “I came over to look at this stuff because my old neighbor, Mrs. Larson, collects old bottles and crocks. I found some good ones, too,” he said, pointing to a small stash he had made in the gnarled roots of an old beech tree. “And there are the burlap bags. I was going to take one to wrap the bottles and stuff in for Mrs. Larson.”

There was no doubt they’d been discarded, so Sissy figured it wouldn’t be stealing if they took a couple. But the bags were pretty rotten. They were almost as rotten as the fox. In the middle of the pile, she found a few that were fairly strong, and headed determinedly back toward the fox.

Garryd wrapped his bottles in some of the burlap and put them in the pail. He ran after Sissy, who had stopped in the middle of the road. A skunk was headed toward her. It looked friendly. Sissy stood holding the burlap and looking at the skunk. The skunk sat down in the middle of the road, facing Sissy.

“At the science museum in Syracuse, they have a take skunk named Willie, only it’s a girl. I’ve held it and fed it mealworms; it’s really nice. It doesn’t bite or anything,” Garryd said.

“But I don’t think this is a tame skunk. It could have rabies. Let’s try going around it. Nice skunky, nice skunky,” Sissy crooned. The skunk titled its head and looked at Sissy.

“Nice skunky,” Garryd said, too, imitating Sissy’s tone of voice. The skunk tilted its head the other way and looked at Garryd. “I think it’s friendly,” Garryd said, as they skirted around the skunk through the woods. The skunk watched them as they walked, standing to turn when it couldn’t move its head any further. Then it sat back down in the middle of the road facing them.

Garryd helped Sissy get the dead fox onto the burlap. They started home, taking turns dragging the fox, and carrying the pail. At first, the fox seemed very light, but it seemed to get heavier and heavier. Sometimes, they both dragged it, and took turns with the pail. The trip back seemed a lot farther and a lot longer.

---

[MNS1]The prior part of this story has been removed, so this reference either has to be expanded or deleted!!!!

Drafts: Frog Haven, Chapter 5

read chapter 1 if you haven't already

read chapters 2 & 3 if you haven't already

read chapter 4 if you haven't already

Chapter 5: Getting Acquainted

Garryd had Francie Coover’s old room, which was still painted pink. Francie had left her old curtains, too, with the fluffy blue poodles. The room looked a lot different, though, without Francie’s white canopy bed and matching vanity, desk and dresser. It was full of boxes and the bed was in pieces on the floor. Also on the floor was a cage of mice, a fishbowl, and another cage on the mattress with a parakeet in it. He took the parakeet from the cage and held it cradled gently in his hand.

“Will it sit on my finger?” Sissy asked. She held out her finger and the bird stepped on. She held it up to her face. “Pretty bird, pretty bird, pretty bird,” Sissy crooned in a birdy voice.

“Tweety doesn’t talk,” Garryd said.

“Your parakeet is named Tweety? We have a parakeet named Petey that looks just like it,” Sissy said.

“That’s funny,” Michael said, laughing.

“Hill-arious,” said Marc in a dry sarcastic voice. Michael instantly stopped laughing.

A sudden crashing in the living room startled the bird and it flew from Sissy’s finger wildly around the room. Michael pushed the door shut and they all took chase.

“You should throw a pillowcase over it,” instructed Sissy in her teacher voice.

“Or a pillow . . .” Garryd said.

“Or an encyclopedia,” Marc said, picking up a heavy book.

“Marc, shut up. A pillow might squish it,” Sissy screeched, as she made a dive for the bird and missed. She made another grab for the bird and caught it, holding it carefully in the cage of her fingers. Garryd held the cage up with the door open. Sissy put the bird carefully inside. She couldn’t figure out how to close it. It was different from the door to Petey’s cage. Garryd showed her how to work it.

“I have a cat, too. It’s locked in the bathroom right now so she doesn’t sneak out while we’re unloading. Want to see her?”

“Yes, I love animals. Oh a calico, she’s so pretty. We have a Siamese.”

“You do, that’s great. I love animals!”

“Me, too,” Sissy cried, happily. Marc and Michael exchanged disgusted looks. Sissy paid them no mind. She sat down on the toilet lid and began petting the cat. Michael didn’t hate animals. He just wanted to please Marc. If Marc hadn’t been there, she thought he’d have been the first one trying to pet the cat. It had long brownish black fur with a little orange and white mixed in. It seemed very nervous and squirmed to get away. Michael edged closer and reached out his hand.

“She doesn’t like strangers,” Garryd said. Sissy felt bad, because animals usually liked her. But when Garryd picked her up, she scratched his arm trying to get away and hid behind the toilet.

“She’s probably scared about moving and being in a new house and everything. Taffy was really weird when she first moved in with us,” Sissy said.

“She’s still really weird,” Marc commented. Michael snickered. Marc gave him a withering look and he stopped.

“Taffy?”

“That’s our cat. My cat. Our art teacher, Mrs. Dietrich, gave her to us, to me. She lives up on Goode Street. The cat’s real name is Aphrodite, but we call her Taffy for short.”

“I can see why.”

“I named her that,” Sissy said, slightly miffed, “Because she was so beautifully loving. Aphrodite was the Greek god of love.”

“Miss Smarty-pants here thinks she knows everything. She always names her animals stupid things. She has a mouse named Henrich Hamster the third.”

“Well, in that case, well . . .” Garryd floundered, sounding embarrassed.

“Want to see her? You can come over and see all my animals. Or maybe you should be helping unpack.”

“Nah, we can do that later, it’s okay!”

“But you didn’t even ask.”

“I know it’s okay.”

“Ask anyway,” Sissy insisted, not wanting to cause trouble on Garryd’s first day in the neighborhood. So Garryd used signs to explain to his parents where he was going. His Mom felt his hands while his Dad looked on and smiled. Sissy hoped Garry was saying the right things, but had no way of knowing.

When they got outside, Marc said that he and Michael had to meet someone. He looked a little guilty, but slipped off without another word, with Michael at his heels. Sissy looked closely at Garryd to see if he minded being left with a girl, but he seemed cheerful and happy and didn’t seem to notice her concern. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“What’s wrong?” Garryd asked, picking up on her sigh.

“Nothing! Nothing at all. I am so glad you’re moving in next-door and that you like animals. Come on, let’s go see mine now.”

They ran into her back yard and up onto the terrace, to a doll carriage covered with cheesecloth.

“Dolls?” he asked, sounding slightly disappointed.

“No, snakes!” she answered. She lifted the cheesecloth and Garryd leaned over and looked. The carriage was full of garter snakes. Garry reached in and picked one up.

“I love snakes,” he said, as the snaked crawled over his hands, slithering from one to the other. Sissy could see the Garryd knew how to hold and handle garter snakes. He was supporting the snake’s body rather than just letting it dangle. He held his face down in front of the snake; she flicked her tongue over Garryd’s nose.

“She’s smelling you, you know.”

“I know.”

“I love snakes, too, as you can see. Come on, let’s go in.”

“Hello, Mrs. Mancini,” Garryd said politely, stretching out his hand, “nice to meet you. I’m Garryd Knudson, I’m moving in next door.”

“Wow, such nice manners Garryd, would you like a brownie? Sissy, do you want another? How old are you, Garryd?”

“I’m ten and a half, I’ll be eleven on September 26.” Sissy was surprised.

“Really? That’s Sissy’s father’s birthday. Are you in fourth or fifth grade?

“I’m in fourth,” Garry said, looking down at his tattered sneakers. “I should have been in fifth, but I got held back in kindergarten.”

“Oh, Garryd, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Here in Burnt Hills, the cut-off date is September first, so you would have been in the fourth grade anyway.”

“If you are almost eleven, how come you’re so small?”

“Sissy!” her mom said in a shocked voice. “Don’t be so rude!”

“That’s okay, Mrs. Mancini. I don’t mind. I was the smallest kid in the whole fourth grade, even though I was the oldest. I don’t know why I’m so little,” he continued, turning toward Sissy. “My mom is sort of short, maybe that’s why. Dad’s not that tall, either.”

She’s not that short, thought Sissy. Garryd’s smaller than Paul and Paul is a year younger and the smallest kid in 4^th grade at BHBL.

Garryd was just about Sissy’s age. He was closer to her age than anyone in the neighborhood except Lannie McKeever, and she didn’t count. In all the time both lived on Van Vleck Drive, Sissy could only think of maybe once or twice that she had played with Lannie. They were friends in school, they were nice to each other, but they had nothing in common. Lannie liked dolls and hated snakes. She liked to stay inside and play house. Sissy hated dolls and liked snakes and hated being indoors. Maybe Sissy would finally have a friend her own age. She hoped Garryd would be okay, would be like her.

“Here’s Petey,” Sissy pointed. The bird was sitting on the top of the curtain rod chewing the curtains, which were tattered.

“Hello, hello! How are you? How are you, I’m fine. Happy birthday, Petey! Pretty bird,” the bird chattered. He flew over and landed on Sissy’s shoulder and started gently chewing her ear. Sissy laughed and Garryd laughed too.

“How did you get him to talk?”

“Just say ONE thing over and over until it drives you batty and you can’t stand it another second. Just when you never want to hear it again, the bird will start saying it over and over,” said Sissy’s mom, laughing. She sounded as if she were joking, but Sissy knew it was also sort of true.

“Hold out your finger,” Sissy instructed. The bird stepped right onto Garry’s finger.

“Wow, that’s neat!”

“Now move your finger slowly down.” Garryd looked down and saw a small but somewhat chubby dark Siamese cat.

“Down there?” Sissy nodded. Garryd looked at Sissy’s mom and she nodded too. Slowly, Garryd lowered his finger. The bird flew and landed on the cat’s back. The cat twitched her tail angrily and everyone laughed. Then the bird spiraled up and landed on the curtain again.

Sissy led Garryd to her room. “This is Henrich Hamster the third,” she said, plopping a great fat hamster into Garry’s hands. Garryd stroked the fat thing, who sniffed contentedly around in his hand.

“Where are Henrich Hamsters the first and second?” Garryd asked. Sissy pointed. There were two small golden skins tacked on her bulletin board.

“You skinned them!” Garryd cried in disbelief, cradling the hamster protectively, turning his body slightly away from her.

“They were already dead,” Sissy answered defensively, “and I wanted to learn how to do it. I didn’t kill them, honest. I loved them.”

“How could you do that if you loved them?” looking at her as if she were a monster.

Sissy looked him straight in the eye and said, “Garryd Knudson, I loved them. I loved them when they were alive and was kind to them. I still love them. I never hurt them. How is skinning them worse than burying them in the ground to rot?”

“Well, I guess . . .”

“Here is Henrich Hamster the fourth.”

“But that’s not even a hamster, it’s a white mouse, and a female. And it’s got babies. Like about a hundred. All different colors.”

“There’re thirteen babies. I know it’s not a hamster, but I wanted to name it after my first two hamsters because I really DID love them and I missed them.”

“Okay, okay! All right, already! Can I have one of the baby mice?” Garryd asked.

“Sure, if it’s okay with your parents.”

“It’s okay,” Garryd answered.

“You didn’t even ask,” Sissy protested.

“I know it’s okay.”

“Well, you have to ask first. I don’t want to get in trouble, even if you don’t care.”

“No one will get in trouble,” Garryd said. But Sissy was sure someone was going to get in trouble, probably her. Garryd looked around Sissy’s room, still holding the fat Henrich Hamster the third. He peered into the fish tanks at her guppies and mollies and studied her cactus collection.

“What’s that thumping noise I keep hearing?”

“Do you really like animals?”

“Yes!”

“A whole, whole bunch?”

“Yes!”

“Do you ever kill animals?”

“No”

“Never? Not any kind of animals. Not snakes or frogs or anything? Ever?”

“No. I never kill animals. Where I used to live, if I saw kids hurting snakes or frogs or turtles or anything, I’d make them stop.”

Sissy wondered how little Garryd, all by himself, could make the gang stop killing frogs and tadpoles. She was tempted to ask, but first, “can you keep a secret? Promise? Boy scout’s honor? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“I’m not a boy scout and I don’t hope to die, but I always keep my promises.”

“Good!” Sissy breathed a big sigh of relief. “You’re supposed to hope to die IF you break your promise, which means you won’t break it so you won’t die. But I know what you mean, ‘cause I don’t want to die either, really die, that is. Anyway, I have a problem and could use your help.

“Okay,” Garryd cheerfully agreed.

P365-07W

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.

Read Chapter 5

P365-07W

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)