Maybell's Soda Can Podcast Episode 1

Song for Ellie 1

MSC Episode 3: The Bright Thing

MSC Episode 3: The Bright Thing

Scene 1: The Highly Trained and Efficient Testicle Kicker

            Maybell was a highly trained and efficient testicle kicker. She ran in the woods nearly every day of the summer. All sixty pounds of her was lean and heavy muscle. She could slip her fingers between the wobbly planks on the front side of the big red barn and putting pressure on the wall with the grip on her shoes, she could shimmy up the loose beam, reach over, grab the ledge of the loft, swing over, and pull herself onto the dusty floor of the barn’s second story. She could swim across the fish pond and back. She could dig post holes, carry 50-pound seed bags, and drive nails.

 Her daddy had taught her how to fight too. They had spent a lot of time leaning to kick. She knew the aim of any strike was to put all her focus and all her power into one full-body motion. She knew how to point her knee just beyond what she wanted to kick, that the real damage came from putting an extra snap of force and hip power into the kick by sitting down into the motion just as the extended foot reached the point of impact. She knew that she needed to snap her foot back as soon as it connected to block her inner thigh and return to a stance that is not so vulnerable. She had practiced kicking a feed set up between two posts until the sack ripped open.

            So, when Maybell kicked Cliff in the nuts on the bus in front of the bus kids, Mrs. McClellan, Sylvia, and all the light and darkness residing in the fog and mist of Hickory Hollow that morning, her foot hit Cliff’s soft bits like a god-hammer wrapped in canvas shoes. It went into him until it was stopped by something hard as stone that might have been his pelvis and might have been his hip bone. She felt as the thing that might have been his pelvis and might have been his hip bone was raised up in the air a full two inches. Whatever it was, it would have bent her foot back a touch too far, far enough to pain her, but true to her training (and like I mentioned she knew to do once already), she snapped her foot back and set it on the bus floor. Then she lowered her weight, got centered and balanced and ready for more.

            Cliff made a squawkish horrible noise when she kicked him. It was half-grunt and half-scream, one of those inhuman animal noises people make when their reaction is all involuntary. Everyone who heard it recoil. His heels left the bus floor by a full two inches. His heels touched the bus floor again. He crumpled to the bus floor in a fetal position and stifled a cry.

The bus kids turned their heads and covered their faces with their hands when they heard Cliff cry out like that. It was not the kind of sound that made anyone want to giggle and laugh. It was a serious pain noise. Most of these bus kids were also farm kids. They knew enough about pain and life and death to feel a sort of horror-struck empathy for Cliff

Besides, Cliff was liked by almost everyone who met him. He was not a good kid. People liked that. He was also not a rude, arrogant, or unduly abrasive kid. People liked that more. He had helped or been kind to everyone on that bus at some point. No one was in a rush to laugh at him.

            Mrs. McClellan was the only person on the bus who managed to retain a smile. Her smile was perfect. It was placid. It was angry and full of glee and somehow not the least bit vindictive.

Looking at that smile, it occurred to Maybell that fireworks, ball-kickings, and gut-wrenching screams were not such a big deal to a woman who lost a pinky and ring finger in an accident involving a hatchet and a drunk older brother. Mrs. McClellan had a different way of assessing the normalcy of a situation other people. Maybell began to respect for Mrs. McClellan in a new way. She saw a whole lot of strength in Mrs. McClellan. Her new found respect did not, however, make Maybell think fondly of the woman.

            Mrs. McClellan’s head rocked back. Her poufy mullet bounced. She cackled, leaned over Cliff, and said,

            “Boy howdy! Didn’t count on that, eh?” Cliff ignored Mrs. McClellan. He looked at Maybell astounded. He said,

            “What was that for Maybell? I mean, really? What was that?” Mrs. McClellan pulled Cliff up to his feet by his thick camouflage jacket. He bristled and threw up his fists like he was ready to fight. She shrugged and said,

            “Chill out, kid. You are in enough trouble already.” She set him on his feet. She leaned in close. She said,

            “Learn this little lesson while your guts are squashed, and your groin is exploding all full of hurt. The pretty one’s aren’t all nice. They are some nice, but not nice through and through. Learn that little lesson right now. Learn it for good.”

            “I was just…” said Cliff, but he never finished the sentence. Maybell tackled him back down with a fit of fists and enthusiasm. She punched him twice in the face with her left hand. She gut-punched him with her right hand. He took a few swings at Maybell, and each one missed as she rolled clear of him. Then she put a foot against the wall of the bus and used that as a base-point. She pushed off that wall with her foot and flew from one side of the bus and across the middle isle in the bus to land on him again. She hit him with her shoulder in the solar plexus so hard that she knocked the air out of Cliff’s lungs. He coughed and she started slapping at him all over.

            Mrs. McClellan laughed and loaded Maybell on her shoulder like a kicking slapping sack of horse feed. All the kicking and slapping Maybell could manage did not phase the woman. Mrs. McClellan grinned down to Cliff, Maybell still kicking and slapping on her shoulder,

            “Nope. The pretty ones aren’t all nice. They sure are precious, just not all nice, not the way the rest of us have to be nice.” With that, she raised her voice and spoke loud enough for all the bus kids to hear,

            “What I’m about to say isn’t fair. I don’t give a roadkill opossums last thought that it isn’t fair. All I care about is that you hear the truth of it in my voice and act right. I don’t want to hear one peep out of any single one of you for the rest of our ride together to the school.” She walked slowly with Maybell on her shoulder until she reached the front of the bus. She turned and said, “Not one peep. Don’t breathe too hard. Don’t think too loudly if you can help it. If I hear one sound that is not this loud bus engine or that squeaky bus door,” she gestured toward engine rumbling under the yellow bus’s front hood. She motioned toward the bus door. “If I hear a squeak out of any one of you before we arrive at Hickory Hollow Elementary, the squeaker I catch will be in just as much trouble as this one here. I will find you. You will go to the office. Your folks will receive a phone call. I will ruin your whole life. Try me.” She punctuated the last statement of ‘try me’ by plopping Maybell down in the right-side front seat of the bus. Luckily, that seat was empty. Mrs. McClellan knelt in front of Maybell, looked her in the eye and said,

            “Don’t move. Don’t talk. You will get through this. Try me and you won’t.” She patted Maybell on the head twice, got into the driver’s seat, and pulled the big bus back onto the highway.

.     .     .     .     .

            It might be a testament to the power Mrs. McClellan had to terrify young children that, where a speech like this would normally backfire or fall flat, this one worked. Where most bus children around the world would scoff at a speech like that and start making loud fart noises just to be heinous, these bus kids were quiet for the rest of the ride to school. They did not cough. They did not whisper. They did not even snigger and chuckle as quietly as they could. They were quiet, completely quiet, silent.

            And that should have warned everyone that strange things were going on in Hickory Hollow. No one is so terrifying that they can make a bus full of children quiet like that. Someone should have remembered the two reasons silence occurs in the woods. The first is that everything that lives and makes noise has already gone. The scorched earth left by a forest fire is quiet. The second reason silence occurs in the woods is that something horrifying and powerful is present. Nothing wants to draw its notice. Someone should have remembered that, looked at Mrs. McClellan, discounted her as nothing more than another hardline authoritarian bus driver trying to keep her rout on schedule, and they should have looked around for the truly frightening thing that could make a bus load of children fear to speak. It was there.

Scene 2: Arrival at Hickory Hollow Elementary

            Mrs. McClellan pulled her bus into the big half circle loading and unloading zone at Hickory Hollow Elementary a bit late. All the other busses were already in place. Each of the other busses had a roaring engine and hydraulics that made a steady chugging racket punctuated by whooshing and wheezing noises at odd intervals. Each of the other busses was filled with screaming, shouting, window pounding, smiling, and laughing children. Filled with these youngsters, the buses were these fantastic big yellow joyous organic things of roaring machinery radiating naivete and unabashed silliness.

Mrs. McClellan’s bus did not radiate anything. It was a dead-zone, an unnerving static point causing dissonance in that cacophony of enthusiasm, movement, and sound. Mrs. McClellan left the engine running like all the other busses, but the children on Mrs. McClellan’s bus did not scream. They did not shout. They did not pound the windows, smile, or laugh. They sat still looking terrified or bored or worried. Their silence had its effect on the silly happy children on the other busses. The other children turned to look. They began to point toward Mrs. McClellan’s bus. A hush fell on the bus loading zone.

Mrs. McClellan sighed. She opened the bus door. She motioned for a teacher to come help her. A youngish lady with long brown hair and a plain face left the bunch of teachers she had been talking to and walked to the bus. Her name was Mrs. Ivey. She taught one of the second-grade classes. Her face was stern when she said,

“Hey, what’s up?”  Mrs. McClellan did not respond to Mrs. Ivey right away. She shook out her poufy mullet, stood, and called to the back of the bus,

“Cliff and Sylvia. Up here please. The rest of y’all were lovely. Stay lovely for a little longer, hear?” Then she turned to Mrs. Ivey,

“Hey, would you be a doll and watch this bunch until the bell rings. Just keep them quiet and get them to their classes for me if you would. I got a situation to deal with.” Mrs. Ivey nodded and stepped onto the bus.

“All right you three, let’s walk,” said Mrs. McClellan. She marched them off the bus and onto the semi-circle sidewalk of the bus loading and unloading zone.

            All the children on all the buses got to their feet to see why a teacher had been called over. The young one’s stood in their seats. They put their faces to the bus windows and peered out through the hazy windows to see what had happened to make a bus come in late and so quiet on the first day of school. There was something primal and other-than going on at Hickory Hollow that morning, and if the children had been aware enough to notice, they would have noticed that they felt the oddness before they noticed that the bus was quiet. The oddness was there before Mrs. Ivey had been called over. It was an oddness like the one felt at the bottom step of the stairs in a dark basement, the final step before reaching the floor that is longer than the others. It was a sudden weak feeling in the stomach and a need to find the ground.

The bus kids watched Maybell step off the bus trailed by Cliff and Sylvia with Mrs. McClellan hunched over them. Grayson McCann, a ruddy freckled cheeked boy who had been in Maybell’s class the year before called out his open bus window,

            “Aye! Look who’s in trouble already!”

            All the bus kids started to hoot and holler. The hollering began as an “oooh” that started low and the pitch went up until it became uncomfortable for them. Then the hooting started. It was a steady, “Woo! Woo! Woo!” The children quickly bored of “Woo! Woo! Woo!” and started chanting in a sing-song way, “Maybell’s in trouble! Maybell’s in trouble!”

            Maybell got so angry at the bus kids for hooting at her she felt she could burst. She felt like she could come apart into a million pieces, die, come back to life, and throttle every single hooting one of them. She could cry and scream as she scratched at all their faces. She could punch them all in their stomachs and kick them all down to the ground. She could stomp on the as tear poured out her eyes and blurred her vision.

            But she could not do any of those things, not really. She could only be an embarrassed little girl with no recourse at all to the taunting of the bus kids. She could keep breathing. She could keep walking. She could refuse to cry. She could forbid the tears to come, stuff the sobs back into her belly, and just not cry. That is all she could do.

It’s what she did. She kept her eyes focused on Mrs. McClellan’s poufy mullet. She put one foot in front of another. She breathed deeply. She held her head high, and when she had composed herself, she turned and waved to them all the way she thought Jaquelin Kennedy might wave at a line of reporters. She flashed a brilliant smile. She took a long slow and deep bow. Some of the hooting turned into cheering. Small victories.  

Maybell felt a small clammy hand take her own hand. It was Sylvia. Sylvia was grinning a frightened grin and sobbing openly. She was looking at the school busses horror struck. Maybell gave Sylvia’s hand a reassuring squeeze. They were in this together.

Maybell tried to catch Cliff’s eye as they marched away from the busses, He would not look at her. He kept his focus straight ahead with the hard gaze Maybell had seen on photos of Greek statues. The ancient generals and of the great thinking men from way back always had a proud look to them. Her father wore that look sometimes. She poked Cliff with her finger, and he still would not look at her. She said, “Psst,” to get his attention. Cliff nodded his head “no” without looking at her and suddenly tripped over his own feet. He fell on the sidewalk hard and grunted. He grabbed his knee and winced shutting his eyes against the pain. He grunted again and rolled to his back.

“No, you don’t,” said Mrs. McClellan. She pulled him up by his jacket for the second time that day, set him on his feet, and kept walking, but he fell again. This time he fell into Mrs. McClellan. She grabbed him by the shoulders and said,

“Hey there, buddy. You get your feet under you.”

“Yes ma’am, sorry. I’m just still feel’n it you know?” said Cliff. Mrs. McClellan nodded and kept marching. The three of them marched behind her in a line along the sidewalk in front of the red brick buildings and halls of Hickory Hallow Elementary. The hooting of the bus kids fell behind them so much that they could hardly be heard, and soon enough, they came to a pair of doors with a little overhang over them. Mrs. McClellan held one of the big doors open and urged the sisters and Cliff inside.

They walked into a room Maybell instantly recognized. She had never entered it from the outside, but she knew it. The teachers usually gave her a wooden hall pass and made her walk to the school office herself to Principal Harrison why she was in trouble. The receptionist’s desk was covered in a tidy mess of papers and folders. There black push-button phone with dingy manila buttons the size of hard candy sat on one side of the tidy mess on the desk. A clunky, dirty grey personal computer that had not been turned on sat on the other side of the tidy mess.

The receptionist, a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Bee, sat at the desk. She looked to Maybell like a potato might look if the hair from a Chatty Kathy doll had been placed on top of it, and whoever had done the hair placing had been too rushed to do a good job. Mrs. Bee had better skin than a potato, but not by much. There was a hallway leading beyond Mrs. Bee’s desk to a place only teachers could go. A door beside Mrs. Bee’s office bore a name plate that read Principal Albert Harrison. The walls of the area in front of Mrs. Bee’s desk were lined with folding chairs. The sort of green leafy plants that look fake but aren’t fake had been placed in the corners. The floor was covered in dingy white tile. It all formed a chintzy waiting room. Mrs. McClellan cleared her throat. She said,

“Mrs. Bee, we had some excitement this morning. I need to see Albert.” Mrs. Bee raised her eyebrows and gave Mrs. McClellan a hard look. She picked up the phone headset with so much force it made a chingging sound. She dialed an extension without saying a word, which was odd to Maybell. Mrs. Bee normally chatted with Maybell until Maybell grew visibly exasperated. Mrs. Bee spoke into the headset.

“Principal Harrison?” Mrs. Bee gave Mrs. McClellan that same reproving raised eyebrow look again and went on, “we had an incident in transportation that requires your attention.” There was silence as Mrs. Bee listened to what Principal Harrison had to say. “No one is hurt, I don’t think. I believe this is a disciplinary matter, sir,” said Mrs. Bee into the phone. Another silence. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay. I’ll tell’m.” She hung up the phone with another chingging clang. She said, “Mrs. McClellan, if you will have a seat, Principal Harrison will be with you shortly, and…” and she stopped. Her large potato face broke into a very large broad toothed smile, “Maybell? Is that you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Maybell.

“What did you get into this time, hun?” Maybell shrugged. “Well, you and your friends best have a seat and wait on Principal Harrison too.” Mrs. Bee returned to her work typing, filling out forms, and sorting stacks of paper.”

The wait for Principal Harrison was short and miserable. Cliff slouched in his chair. He stared at the ground. Maybell sat beside him. She nudged his knee with her knee. She said,

“I’m sorry, okay?” but Cliff only shook his head again and turned away from her. Mrs. McClellan sat on Cliff’s other side. She hushed Maybell and said,

“No talking, sweetie,” and she smiled so sincerely that Maybell felt perplexed by it. Mrs. McClellan sat back in her seat. She pulled a pack of Marlboro Red’s out of her jacket pocket, looked it over fondly, smiled, put it back in her pocket. She bounced one knee and checked her wrist watch.

Sylvia still held Maybell’s hand. The place where their hands met was sweaty. It was gross to Maybell, but she could tell that holding her hand mattered to Sylvia. She put it out of her mind.

What Maybell cared about was how she could get Cliff to look at her again. She knew that if he would just look at her, he would think it through. He would understand. He would keep what he saw of the little blue orb of light Sylvia had produced to light the bottle rocket on the bus to himself.

The minutes crawled by. Maybell felt a big throw-up inducing doom in her belly as she looked at the principal’s door. The doom sank down to her feet. It made her legs feel weak. It rose back up through her. Her heart started to beat too fast. Her head began to spin. She saw visions of military men bursting through the big double doors of the school office to take her sister away. Maybell was deep into a reverie about armed men in black suits with high powered riffles and walkie-talkies when the phone on Mrs. Bee’s desk rang. Mrs. Bee answered it before the first ring ended. She listened to it for a moment. She said,

“Alright. I’ll tell’r.” She placed the phone back on its base with a clattering chunk, and she addressed Mrs. McClellan,

“You go on in and catch Principal Harrison up on this business. He’ll take it from there.” Mrs. McClellan scratched her poufy mullet with the two good fingers on her right hand and went in to Principal Albert Harrison’s office.

“Psst,” said Maybell again. She shook Cliff’s knee with her hand and said, “Now, what woulda happened to Sylvia if you got it out and told Mrs. McClellan and the whole bus what Sylvia can do?” Cliff shrugged. He looked at the ceiling.

“Ya’ll be quiet over there,” said Mrs. Bee without looking up from her work.

 Maybell heard Mrs. McClellan’s muffled talking through the door. Then a deep voice spoke. The deep voice broke out in laughter, but it wasn’t the sort of laughter that made Maybell feel good. It was the other kind of laughter. Mrs. McClellan laughed and cackled too. The door to principal Harrison’s office opened. Maybell could hear Principal Harrison clearly through the open door. He said,

“Well you know, these things happen. The first day is always a gut buster. We’ll get it sorted,” Principal Harrison and Mrs. McClellan stepped into the hall. They shook hands just outside Principal Harrison’s door. Their eyes creased when they smiled at one another. Mrs. McClellan popped a cigarette into her mouth and let it hang from her lips. She said,

“See you around,” then she burst out in a big grin, crossed the room, and stepped outside through the big office double doors.

Maybell nudged Cliff in the ribs with her elbow.

“You’re not going to tell the principal about what Sylvia can do are you? He’ll call the police. They will take her away. Scientists will put her through tests. They will stick her with tubes and cut her open. You can’t tell. You can’t.” But Cliff just kept looking at the ceiling. “Will you at least look at me?” said Maybell. He never changed his gaze at all. His face gave away nothing at all. Principal Harrison started walking toward them.

“Please,” said Maybell one last time as the principal approached. The principal wore a bushy mustache, had thick round eye glasses, and wore a green cardigan with a thick yellow border along the collar that continued down on each side to form a thick yellow line along the middle of his chest where the garment was buttoned in the middle. His belly was big and paunchy enough to round out the bottom of his shirt in a way that made Maybell think of water balloons. He passed his hand through his shaggy curly grey-white hair and looked the sisters and Cliff over with intelligent analytical eyes. His eyes paused on Sylvia, and for a split instant his gaze changed. His eyes looked much like the big brown eyes of a dog that has been confused. He shook his head and walked to where the children were sitting. His voice boomed again,

            “Maybell! Lovely to see you again. You had a terrific summer holiday, I hope. And this must be Sylvia.”

Scene 3: Principal Harrison’s Office

Principal Harrison’s eyes took on that same curious dog look again. Maybell got the feeling that Principal Harrison wanted to sniff and howl. He did none of that, of course. He said,

            “It is so nice to finally meet you. Jim has told me so much about you. All good things, I promise. And Cliff! I’ll be honest. I expected to see Maybell today, though, not this early.” He gave Maybell a reproving look. “I’m surprised to see you here at all. Please, don’t misunderstand me… but the circumstances of our meeting could be more pleasant for all of us if… Well, it will be better if we all talk this over in my office.” He held a hand out toward his open office door.

            Principal Harrison’s office was small. It looked cramped and uncomfortable from the outside. Maybell did not want to go in, but Principal Harrison raised a bushy eyebrow and motioned with his arm for the three children to enter the room before him. The first thing Maybell saw when she walked inside was a large painted portrait of Principal Harrison holding a grey-white Tibetan Tarrier in his lap. If you do not know what a Tibetan Tarrier looks like, it is a mid-sized dog with a grey, white, and black shaggy coat, kind of like a small sheep dog with extralong mustaches. The dog and his owner looked the same, same bushy shaggy appearance, same stately bearing, same mildly aggressive and perplexed look on their faces.

The next thing Maybell saw was an uncomfortable looking couch. It was the sort of antique couch people keep in a room with glass cases containing the dishes and tea china they only use on Easter and Christmas and an out-of-tune piano that no one ever plays. Only, this couch was upholstered with an odd ugly yellow and green paisley pattern. It had dingy yellow tassels hanging from a bottom fringe. It was so ugly that even the sort of people who like to keep an uncomfortable couch in an uncomfortable room for uncomfortable events and uncomfortable company would have been uncomfortable looking at it.

Maybell saw a big desk beyond the ugly couch. The desk was of dark stained wood, and it was so big that it made the already cramped office feel much smaller and much more cramped. The legs of the desk were round and thick with scrollwork done into them. The wood on the front of the desk had been carved to depict three women, presumably witches, stirring a caldron in the middle of the woods and hidden in the woods surrounding the women and the cauldron on the fire were hundreds of dogs, dogs of every shape, breed, and size. It was impossible to tell if the dogs were protecting or attacking the women. The leaves of the trees in the carving were all plated with silver.

Photos of Principal Harrison’s family were placed in thick and overly large silver leaf frames that covered most of the useable space on the desk. The photos featured a wife and two boys who had something of the Tibetan Tarrier to their appearance, which did not mean that they were ugly people. They were mildly attractive doggish people with bushy bangs and eyebrows and haircuts that parted down the middle.

Two book cases loomed over the desk just beyond a large leather rolling swivel chair that was for sitting at the desk. The shelves of the book cases contained thick new books with glossy covers. Several diplomas were mounted to the wall between the two book cases in overly large silver-leaf frames that matched the ones on Principal Harrison’s desk. Principal Harrison walked around he desk, sat down in his chair, leaned back, put his hands behind his head and said,

            “No one is in trouble yet,” said Principal Harrison, “Then again, I’d be lying if I said I expect that to remain the state of things once our conversation has concluded, and it is so important to be honest, don’t you think?” He motioned toward the couch and said, “Please sit.” The sisters and Cliff sat. “Good,” said Principal Harrison. He placed his hands on the desk before him. “I’m leaving the door open. Mrs. Bee will be able to hear what you say.” He scrunched his face. His bristly mustaches flared out like spider legs. “But… she isn’t exactly paying attention and she promises to keep what she hears to herself.” Principal Harrison’s voice boomed, “Isn’t that right Mrs. Bee?”  Mrs. Bee leaned back in her desk chair to see into the office. She said,

            “What was that Principal Harrison?”

            “Don’t worry about it,” said Principal Harrison with a conspiratorial grin he expected Maybell, Sylvia, and Cliff to share with him. Sylvia tugged on Maybell’s arm. She looked horrible. Her eyes darted around the room one moment and lulled back in her head the next. Her face was pale, extra pale, pale even for her; ghost-like. She was breathing in long deep breaths like a sleeping person. A sheen of cold sweat had appeared on her forehead.

            “Your best bet is to be honest with me and trust that I have your best interest in mind,” said Principal Harrison.

            “Nothing happened. Can we go?,” said Maybell in a rush.

            “Nothing?” said Principal Harrison. “What about you, Cliff? Did nothing happen? Just a pleasant ride to school?”  Cliff looked up from the ground. He shook his head.

            “Cliff says no, Maybell. How about that? Alright Cliff, what happened?” said Principal Harrison. Cliff pointed at Maybell,

            “She kicked me in the nuts for one thing.” Principal Harrison’s bushy eyebrows went up. He said,

            “Maybell did you kick Cliff?”

            “Yeah, but I had to,” said Maybell. She felt like she might cry again. She was so tired of feeling like she might cry. She had been so busy feeling like she might cry that she had not yet had time to feel bad about kicking Cliff. Suddenly, she did feel bad about it, and that almost undid her. Principal Harrison said,

            “Why did you have to? I thought the two of you were friends.” The rolling leather swivel chair squeaked as He leaned forward over his desk.

            “We were,” said Cliff, and he glared at Maybell.

            “That was a vicious use of the past tense, Cliff. You’ll want to reconsider that. You don’t want to add to the list of apologies you’ll need to make later. If she thinks she needed to kick you, you can bet she thinks you did something that warrants an apology. Don’t make life harder than it has to be.” Cliff’s face softened. It hardened again.

“I’m not going to apologize to her ever,” said Cliff.

“I thought you were smart, Cliff. Of course, you will apologize, and now you will have to apologize for saying you wouldn’t apologize. Come on boy, get with it.” Principal Harrison addressed Maybell again,

            “I believe we have established this much at least, that you struck a student while on school grounds. You will serve a detention for that. Let’s keep talking.” He beamed an overly warm smile at the three children. It was the smile that did it, not that he smiled; that he smiled the way he smiled, like a bully or like a bad guy in a film. Maybell did not know how, but she would fix him for that smile and for what he was doing here with his questions. She would ruin him and his whole Tibetan Tarrier-looking family. She would put him in a chair in front of her someday. She would ask him questions while she sat in a desk. She would be the one making judgements and proclamations.

            But right now, she just needed to get out of this room without letting this dog-looking friendly faced not-friend know anything about anything. He looked so pleased with himself at his desk with his mustache and his little twinkle eyes.

            “Don’t all speak at once,” said Principal Harrison. No one said anything. Principal Harrison waited a few moments. Those moments drifted on by, and no one said anything. They all listened to Mrs. Bee clicking the large buttons on a calculator the size of a shoe box. She must have pulled out of a drawer somewhere. But she could click away at the buttons and every now and then a ticker tap printer would print the sums that had been calculated with a little buzz and whir. They listened to that for a few moments. Principal Harrison squinted his eyes at Cliff. He squinted his eyes at Maybell. He squinted his eyes at Sylvia. He had a thought. His eyes went wide. His mouth dropped open. He looked around the room, and he almost seemed to be sniffing the air when he stood up, leaned forward over his desk, pointed at Sylvia and said,

            “This is all about you somehow. I know why Maybell is here. She kicked someone. I know why Cliff is here. He got kicked, but there’s more. There’s something more that matters. No one will talk. And here you are. But, why? I could think they sent you along with your sister as a matter of keeping the two of you together, but that doesn’t really make sense.” He sniffed the air. “No, this is somehow all about you. So, tell me, Sylvia. Why are you in my office?” Sylvia started to cry. She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Her shoulders shook, and her chest heaved. She turned and buried her face in Cliff’s shoulder. Principal Harrison rolled his eyes,

            “What about you, Cliff? Why did you get kicked in the nuts by your friend here?”

            “Couple reasons,” said Cliff. He put a hand on Sylvia’s shoulder. His eyes flashed with anger for an instant. He said, “but they all boil down to Maybell be’n so even tempered and nice to everyone all the time. You get me Mr. Principal Harrison Albert?”

            “Albert Harrison,” corrected Principal Harrison. Principal Harrison thought a moment and corrected Cliff again, “and that would be Principal Harrison to you, Cliff.”

            “Whatever,” said Cliff. Principal Harrison smiled his least pleasant smile yet. He checked his watch and said,

            “Tell me about the bottle rocket.”

            “What bottle rocket? All I saw was this one,” He gestured toward Sylvia, “do’n magic tricks in the back seat. First, she started farting out live pigeons. They flew right out the window of course, but not before they each laid a few golden eggs a piece. We were all fight’n over the golden eggs when the eggs turned into little golden monkeys and jumped around the back of the bus caus’n trouble. I don’t know where they got off to neither, because Silvia here started the fireworks show then. Shot’m right out her eyes. One of’m got out of control and hit the front of the bus. Plumb wore her out. She don’t look good. I don’t feel so good either after have’n my nuts pushed into my liver either, not that you and the T-Rex lady care much. My daddy’s on the school board. I recon I’ll be explain’n all this to him in a few minutes when he comes to pick me up. I want to go home.”

            “That will be a detention for your lip, young man,” said Principal Harrison.

            “Sorry Principal Mr. Albert Terror-son,” said Cliff.

            “Harrison. Principal Harrison,” corrected Principal Harrison.

            “Principal Terror-son, again. I’m sorry. I just can’t get it right.” His eyes had that look like the Greek and Roman statues again and Maybell fell in love with him a little bit for that just for a moment, maybe for a little longer than a moment.

            “You will serve two detentions for that. What about the lighter?” said Principal Harrison.”

            “What this?” asked Cliff. He produced the lighter from his back pocket again. “Oh, I sneaked it back from Mrs. McClellan while the bus kids were yelling after us. Faked a fall. She fell for it. Helped me up. Standard stuff if you have four older brothers. I was going to barter a cigarette or two from a 6^th grader. It’s a lot easier to do if you bring your own lighter. They snatch a few cigs from their parents, but lighters and matches are harder to come by. Snatch your parent’s lighter and they’ll be looking for it fifteen minutes later when they go for their next smoke. If I light the cigarettes, I can get one for free usually, and since my daddy don’t smoke, he won’t miss the lighter till we light candles on the next birthday cake. It’s a good trade.”

            “Oh really? Which 6^th graders have the cigarettes?” said Principal Harrison.

            “Officially? No one yet. This is the first day remember. But you aren’t so good at this if you don’t know who comes back from recess smelling like an ash tray.” Mr. Harrison was ruffled. He ran his hands through his hair again and sighed.

            “Look,” said Cliff, “You wanna make me sit still for an hour after school and get me in trouble with my parents because I had the bad luck of sitting next to this one,” he pointed at Maybell, “and got kicked in the gonads so hard my spirit drifted through the furthest realms of outer space  before I came back to my senses and felt like I’d been drawn and quartered, you do it. I have done harder things than sit still in a chair. I’m not scared of your detentions. Just right now though, I don’t feel good. Will you please call my father to come pick me up. I’ve got not much more to say.” Principal Harrison, who was still standing leaned way over his desk. He put a finger in Cliff’s face. He barked, “Look kid…” Then he stopped. He sat back down in his big comfy leather swivel chair. He leaned back in his chair. He folded his hands across his belly and said,

            “We will arrange the details of your three detentions and Maybell’s one detention when everyone has had some time at home to refresh themselves, sure. Principal Harrison picked up the phone on his desk. He dialed an extension. The phone at Mrs. Bee’s desk rang. She picked it up before the first ring had finished.

            “Yeah huh?” said Mrs. Bee from her desk.

            “Call their parents and send them home.”

            “Mmmhmmm, will do,” said Mrs. Bee.

            The sisters and Cliff were brought to the waiting room again. Maybell grabbed Cliff’s hand, and he looked at her. Just that was enough to make Maybell’s shoulders relax.

            “Thanks,” she said. Cliff rolled his eyes.

            “You are going to tell me everything you know about that blue light business.”

            “No, I won’t,” said Maybell.

            “You should tell someone,” said Cliff.

            Silvia’s daddy arrived at the school twenty minutes after Mrs. Bee placed the phone call. He pulled up in the old pick up truck that smelled like gasoline, walked through the big double doors and into the school’s front office where Maybell and Sylvia were waiting for him. He stood there, chest heaving and back bowed for a moment. He was 100% red-faced wide-eyed and effervescently angry. He looked at Maybell. He looked at Sylvia. He said,

            “Come on.”

Scene 4: What About His Bones?

Sylvia’s daddy walked back out the big double doors to his big orange pickup truck. The two sisters followed him out. Sylvia got into the pick-up truck first. Maybell hopped in after her. Her father stood with the door open for a moment seething with anger. He looked at Maybell and said,

            “What were you thinking?” and he slammed the door before she could answer. Her father walked around to his side, got in, slammed his door, started the truck, and drove the pickup out of the school parking lot and onto the highway in brooding silence. Maybell said,

“I’m sorry okay?” but her father never answered her. The rest of the ride home was the most horrible kind of quiet, and the quiet was not the most horrible part. The pickup smelled like gasoline for one thing. Sylvia already felt nauseous for some reason. The gasoline smell was not helping. For another thing, it was cold and damp. The vinyl bench seat was cold to the touch. Everything felt so cold. Then she would touch her forehead and it would feel extra warm. So, it was cold and stank and she felt like she had a cold and no one was happy.

Sylvia liked the middle seat most days. Her chances of a good cuddle in the middle seat of the pickup were twice as good as they were at home. She could cuddle up to her daddy while he drove. That was almost always a sure thing. If her daddy got too caught up in driving to pay her any attention, Maybell was on the other side of her. Maybell would be willing to cuddle her in the truck even if she was in a bad mood. It was nice, and there was nothing else to do in the truck anyway.

Sylvia wanted so much for someone to put a comforting hand on her back and help her get warm. It seemed irrational and insane how much she wanted someone to put their arm around her. She specifically wanted her father to be the one who comforted her. She wanted him to make jokes, to speak with his big deep warm voice, and to make everything okay, but he middle seat of the big orange pickup was devoid of affection and warmth that day. Maybell had pulled herself as close to the door as she could go and had put her forehead on the glass of the window. The glass in front of Maybell’s face was fogging up and unfogging as she breathed. She had fixed her eyes outside the truck at the morning light flickering between the trees as the big orange pickup drove by them, and Silvia’s daddy was so angry he was breathing hard.

Sylvia had seen a television show once. It was educational, and the people on the show had dipped a banana in liquid nitrogen before shattering it with a hammer. Something like fog had come billowing off the banana once they pulled it out of the canister with the liquid nitrogen, and that is how Sylvia felt her father’s anger as she rode on the bench seat beside him, like the anger was flowing from him the way the fog billowed off that banana. His jaw was clenched tight. His knuckles were white on the steering. Sylvia figured that if the steering wheel had been a living thing, it would be dead by now.

All cuddling was right out. It was almost too much to bear. She decided that she was too tired to deal with anything anymore. She had encountered entirely too many things today. The things she had encountered in the last hour had all been so awful. She decided that there should be no more things to encounter, no more things to seem nice and turn out awful, so she pulled her knees up to her chest and went to sleep until the ride was over.

.     .      .     .      .

She woke when blast of cold mist blew over her face. The truck had stopped. Her daddy was gone from sight. The driver’s side door slammed shut with a metallic clatter.

“Get up,” said Maybell’s voice. Maybell sounded scared, which was odd. Maybell never sounded scared. Sylvia felt a hand on her knee. The hand gave her a gentle shake. Sylvia opened her eyes. She saw Maybell’s face. Maybell looked sad, and Maybell never looked sad. She was usually too proud to look sad. Maybell took Sylvia’s hand and started to gently and forcefully pull Sylvia out of the truck. Sylvia let herself be nudged and tugged out of the truck.

Sylvia could feel the sadness in Maybell every time Maybell touched her though. It was an astounding sadness. It made Sylvia want to cry. It seemed silly to Sylvia that she should want to cry just because the person who touched her felt sad. That was silly, but it happened like that all the time. They had gone to a funeral when Maybell’s uncle Joe had died of lung cancer. She had only been two years old at the time, but she still remembered all the sadness all the other people had brought with them into the room with the flowers and the casket.

Sylvia followed her sister across the yard and up the stairs to the porch. Her father opened the door to the house with a key and said,

“Sylvia, sit here on the porch swing while I talk to your sister. I’ll come back to get you in a bit.” He picked her up and put her on the swing, got down on one knee, looked her in the eye and said,

“Sit still now. Don’t you come inside till I come get you.”

Sylvia’s daddy probably thought he was talking the way he always talked. It sounded a lot like the way he always talked, but it was not the way he always talked. It was a little louder than he always talked. She could not typically hear what he said inside from the porch swing, but now his words were percussive enough, the consonants all had enough click to them, that she thought she might be able to understand what he was saying if she really listened. Sylvia could not identify exactly what else was different about her father’s voice as she sat outside on the porch swing. She only knew that it made her feel afraid.

His voice grew a little louder. She heard the word ‘delinquent’ through the walls. She did not know what delinquent meant, but there was so much anger in that word. She could feel it like a physical blow, like someone had punched her in the stomach and given her a fever at the same time. She wiped her forehead. She had started to sweat. The cold outside air was making her head feel funny.

She tried to distract herself by swinging in the swing she was sitting in, but she was awful at swinging. She had short legs. She was a bit clumsy. She could never do the thing she saw Maybell do where she sunk her body weight down as her legs went out and brought her body up as her legs came back, doing all of this in tune and in timing with the swing as its pendulum arch grew wider and wider. She had not managed that yet, so even the diversion with the swing made her feel upset.

And that is when the bright thing said, “Hello.” It was not a literal greeting, like a person on the street or even an old friend saying hello. It was a flicker and a flash in her mind. She had discounted that flicker and flash as odd and wrong. Lighting the bottle rocket on the bus had caused so much trouble, but the flicker and flash was reasserting itself in her mind. It flickered. It flickered again. It flashed. It flashed again. Then, in a way that felt disconnected from Sylvia’s own wants, in different frequency and tone than the thoughts and desires that belonged to her and composed her inner dialogue, the bright thing began to shine in her mind.

Have you ever gone walking in the woods with a friend? If you go walking in the woods with a good responsible friend, this will never happen to you, but since going into the woods is risk intensive, you will probably go walking in the woods with an idiot at some point. This idiot will rush off on their own and leave you alone in the woods. They will run off and leave you alone listening for their steps in the woods. It is amazing how quick an idiot can vanish from the senses in the woods despite the ruckus that same idiot will make when they are walking beside you. And if you have been alone in the woods like that, you might know how Sylvia felt, because the moment before the ruckus making idiot that ran off and vanished int the woods comes back into view, the moment before his or her vanished footfalls become audible again, there is a feeling. It is the feeling of no longer being alone. It can be terrifying feeling to suddenly feel the presence of another after an extended period of loneliness. It can also feel wonderful.

Sylvia thought the feeling was delicious. She said “hello” to the thing that had appeared in her mind. It was not a literal hello. It was more of a friendly recognition of the presence that had appeared. The bright thing in her mind acknowledged her presence as well. It asked her what was wrong. It was not a literal question. It was something she felt. The tiny bright thing in her mind was curious about her. She could feel the curiosity.

Just then her daddy’s voice came roaring out. It said,

“What am I going to do with you, Maybell? What am I going to do?” She heard Maybell’s voice answer. It said,

“Daddy, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, daddy!” Sylvia felt the tiny bright thing in her mind offer to help. She ignored it. She heard her father’s voice say,

“Sweety baby, I love you, but I can’t just let you hurt people. That wouldn’t be right. Come here.” Maybell was going to get the paddle. The tiny bright thing in her mind have her a feeling that if it had been translated into words would have sounded like,

“I can help.” Sylvia didn’t want Maybell to get paddled. She moved her lips and said,

“Okay.” The words came out of her mouth out loud.

“Okay, sweet one,” said the bright thing in her mind, and now it most certainly did have a voice. If a spider web wet with morning dew and yet still bathed in moonlight had a voice, the bright thing in Sylvia’s mind would have a voice like that. It was light and airy and almost like nothing at all, “You can help,” said the bright thing. Sylvia said,

“I can help.” And she scooted herself off her seat on the swing. She balled up her fists and placed them at her sides. She walked to the big white-washed oak door to her house. The bright thing said,

“How should we help first?”

“We should open the door,” said Sylvia.

The door shuddered in front of her. The door shook in front of her. The door flew forward in front of her and crossed the living room between the television and the couch. The bottom half of the door struck the island in the kitchen. It flipped forward and shattered to pieces on the refrigerator. Sylvia’s daddy had been talking to Maybell on the couch. He stood up and said,

“What?” He came rushing toward Sylvia. The bright thing in her mind said,

“How should we help now?”

“We should hold Daddy still,” said Sylvia.

Sylvia’s daddy stopped moving that instant. He came to a full and rigid stop. A moment later he started floating backward and up toward the ceiling. The bright thing said,

“What about his bones?”

“What about his bones?” repeated Sylvia.

“Good,” said the bright thing, and Sylvia’s daddy’s body was thrown against the wall above the couch. He hit it with a series of wet smacking sounds as different parts of his body all hit at different times. Sylvia’s daddy floated slowly back toward the center of the living room. He said,

“Sylvia! Baby!” but the bright thing asked Sylvia again,

“What about his bones?”

“What about’m?” said Sylvia out loud. The bright thing smiled in her mind. It was a nasty greasy smile that she could not see. She felt it in her heart. It felt like pure joy and eons of starvation.

Maybell’s daddy flew into the wall above the living room couch, crashed through it, and vanished from sight.

But now all she could see was Maybell’s face. Maybell was crying. Maybell took Sylvia’s face in her hands. She said,

“Stop! Stop! Please, stop! You’ll kill him! Stop!”

The bright thing said,

“What about her bones?                        

Sylvia thought about it. She said,

“No.” She said the words out loud. Maybell gave her a funny look, but the bright thing was gone, just like that. And just like that, she felt cold inside and out. She said,

“Maybell, I’m so cold.” She saw darkness creeping into the edges of her vision. The darkness swept over her. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, she was warm in her bed. She out her bedroom window. The sun was rising pink and yellow through the trees.

           

Maybell's Soda Can: Scenes Two and Three of Maybell's Bottle Rocket, F...

Maybell's Soda Can: Scenes Two and Three of Maybell's Bottle Rocket, F...: I’m Daniel Verdin, and this is the Maybell’s Soda Can Podcast. The Maybell’s Soda Can Podcast is about a woman named Maybell; how she li...

Scenes Two and Three of Maybell's Bottle Rocket, Final Draft

I’m Daniel Verdin, and this is the Maybell’s Soda Can Podcast. The Maybell’s Soda Can Podcast is about a woman named Maybell; how she lived, how she died, and how she stayed dead. Most people live and die and stay dead. I know, but this time it was a near thing, her staying dead. There was a lot of magic involved, and not just the every-new-day-is-a-miracle kind of magic, the fun wizards and monsters kind of magic. Also, there was the bit about the indestructible and unmovable soda can that destroyed the world. So, that was different.

Today, Maybell is eight years old. She has bright red hair. She is manipulating a little boy and probably falling in love a little bit too. Her sister Sylvia, the blond sister, the younger sister, is up to some mess and won’t talk. Their father, Jim Vanneste trying his best.

*****

Maybell woke with purpose.  If she was not going to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July, she was going to find another way to have fireworks in her life. She got to work right after breakfast by finding her Chatty Cathy coloring book. It had been thrown in a rubber tub in her closet with a lot of other books. Then she poked around her daddy’s office until she had collected an envelope, crayons, a book of stamps, and a nice black ink pen. She selected a picture of Chatty Cathy helping her mother cook cookies and spent an hour or more coloring it. She picked that picture because she liked the design on Chatty Cathy’s skirt, but for her purposes, it could have been any other picture. She wrote,

“Because, it is you...” on the back of the picture as neatly as she could with the nice black ink pen from her daddy’s office. She used the same nice back pen to address the envelope to Cliff Cline at 208 Gower Road. She put the picture with the message in the envelope, put a stamp on the envelope, and walked down her long gravel drive way to the mail box. She put the letter in the mailbox and hoped for the best. Her trap was set.

Maybell found Sylvia sitting on the white washed porch swing eating an apple and swinging her feet to make the swing sway back and forth when she got back from the mailbox. Sylvia eyed Maybell with what was a very good try at looking nonchalant for a seven-year-old, and she said,

“What did you put in the mail?” Her voice turned up at the end to make a little song out of the question, and she turned her head to the side as she spoke. Then she squinted her eyes, all suspicious.

“Don’t worry,” said Maybell. She jutted her chin out at her sister, “Daddy said it was alright as long as I’m quiet and don’t get out of bed.”

“Hey! Don’t be like that,” said Sylvia. She hopped out of the swing and made to go. She had her hand on the door knob of the front door when Maybell said,

“What was that blue light you were playing with?” Sylvia stopped, but did not answer. She turned to face her sister, put her face in her hands, and she started to cry. Maybell watched her sister cry. She felt a little unsure if this was the right time to try to comfort her sister. She did not feel like comforting her sister right then anyway.

The best way to explain is to say this. Maybell had a habit of stealing ginger snaps from the tin in the kitchen. Her father caught her one day and told her it was wrong to sneak, which made her feel awful. It gave her a bad feeling, being caught. She was more careful when she stole ginger snaps now. She did not want any of that feeling that went with being caught.

Anyway, seeing Sylvia on the porch like that gave Maybell that same uncomfortable caught feeling she got when her dad caught her with the ginger snaps. Her throat felt funny. Her stomach turned. Her chest felt fluttery, and since she did not want to be nice to Sylvia and was nor set on being outright mean to her either, Maybell decided to wait and do nothing. That must have been the right thing to do, because Sylvia looked up at Maybell a few moments later and said,

“I don’t know.” A tear ran down Sylvia’s cheek. She walked over to Maybell and hugged her. It took a second, but Maybell hugged her sister back. Maybell and Sylvia formed a bond in that moment that they had not had before, a bond that would be strained without breaking for most of their lives. Neither of them ever knew how important that moment was, and they would both forget it ever happened before the year was over.

*****

A letter arrived for Maybell from Cliff Cline the next day. The letter was a perfectly colored picture of G. I. Joe shooting a gun at a tank. The note on the back read,

“Maybell, I think you are swell.” He used a comma and everything. Maybell was elated and surprised to receive a response so fast. She had been nearly sure Cliff would respond, but not so sure that she did not blush and grin when she found Cliff’s note. Her plan was working. She would push forward with it. She colored another picture of Chatty Cathy. This time Chatty Cathy was in a pink sundress. Maybell put it in the mail before the end of the day. The note she wrote on the back of the picture read,

“To a guy I know…” Cliff’s response to that message arrived two days later. It was a perfectly colored picture of G. I. Joe sporting a beard and a grin. The message he wrote on the back read,

“I think you are great,” and this message frustrated Maybell. It was basically the same as his first message, and some of the thrill of getting a response at all had gone. Besides, he had two whole days to think on it. She thought he could have come up with something better than I think you are great. Maybell told Sylvia about her frustration, that Cliff could have tried harder, that he had made her wait two whole days, that she was disappointed and surprised to be disappointed, and that she did not know what to say to Cliff now. He had not given her anything to respond to. Sylvia only shrugged and said,

“I don’t know.” They both colored Chatty Cathy pictures that day, and Maybell wrote a longer note on the back of the page this time. It was about laser blasters and magic swords and how she thought the magic sword was much better than a laser blaster. Cliff responded the day after that. The two of them kept this up for twelve messages and responses. The notes grew longer and more specific until the end of the thirteenth message Maybell sent to Cliff read,

“Bring the bottle rocket with you on the first day of school. I’ll meet you at the back of the bus.” It had been a lot of work coloring in all those Chatty Cathy pictures, but it was all going to pay off on the first day of school.

*****

Maybell lay snug in her bed on the Fourth of July. She listened to the fireworks going off in the distance and thought about what it would be like to really be there to watch them. She wondered if being around fireworks was anything like being at the range when her daddy practiced shooting his guns. She wondered if anyone ever got hurt or if anything ever caught on fire in the woods because of the falling sparks.

Her father did not sit in his rocking chair reading stories in his deep rumbly voice that night. He was outside keeping the cows calm, keeping the horses calm, and patrolling the borders of their property looking for broken fences or animals in the road. He rescued some cows from their neighbors down the street that night. The cows had broken down a fence and were walking down the high way. Maybell’s daddy found them, and got them back into their field without any car wrecks or injured cows. Word about it spread, and everyone in Hickory Hollow thought he was a great man for that, at least for a while. He didn’t have to buy coffee at Julie’s Diner for a month.

Maybell would always remember that night as the first time she had ever been afraid that her daddy might get hurt. It was the first time she had ever known why he was out all night on the Fourth of July or why he did not take her to see the fireworks. Maybell also remembered that night as the first night she ever felt glad because she had taken matters into her own hands. She had found a way to fireworks that did not involve asking anyone for permission. That was a feeling she could get used to.

July and the first half of August passed quickly. Maybell fought with Sylvia, who had become more and more secretive, but they also played together. They played house, which was just like being in a house, but with imagined roles. They played tea time until Maybell decided playing tea time was silly and taught her little sister to make tea. From then on, they established a daily tea time and had real tea time instead of an imaginary one. Maybell played with her father too. He taught her cool things like how to fight, how to throw a knife, how to drive a tractor, and how to skip rocks on the pond.

*****

On the first day of school Sylvia had refused to wear the same pink and red corduroy overalls her father had picked out for Maybell. She had screamed and fussed and bargained, and now she was wearing black corduroy overalls and a white cotton shirt with lacey frills at the ends of the sleeves. She had not objected to the white canvass shoes Jim Vanneste had picked out for the two of them, so her shoes matched Maybell’s shoes. The three of them stood on the front porch that unseasonably cold late August morning with their faces scrunched against the mist and rain with the beauty in the green misty fields all around them unable to lift the drowsy, rotten, somber, sad mood three people get when they are all missing the same person at the same time in ways that are all their own. The sparrows and doves and chickadees and towhees began to chirp a morning ruckus. The cows stood by the fence looking at Jim like he owed them something. To be fair, the cows were right. The rooster-topped weather vane on the roof squeaked and squeaked and squeaked. The three of them could hear the roar of the big engine of the school bus getting closer. They could hear it roar and stop and roar and stop as it picked up the other kids on their street. Jim got down on his knees and looked both of his little girls in the eye. He said,

          “Ya’ll have fun at school.” His scraggly beard had grown down his neck. His ice blue eyes had purple bags under them. His flannel shirt was wrinkled. His jeans and work boots were already muddy from when he went out to see the cows and the chickens earlier that morning.

          “Yes sir!” shouted Maybell while Sylvia looked at the ground. Maybell nudged Sylvia, and she echoed Maybell saying, “Yes, sir,” in a whisper.

          “And Maybell,” said Jim, “I don’t want to hear from your teachers that you knocked some boy down or spat on someone or anything.” Maybell scrunched her face.

          “I wouldn’t knock no boys down. I’d kick’m in the nuts like you told me.”

          “Now, you know that’s not what I meant. You can’t just go around injuring little boys in their private parts.”

          “Why not? That’s what you said, ‘If any boys try anything you just kick’m in the nuts,’” said Maybell.

          “I know what I said, and now I’m say’n not to do that unless you really have to,” said Jim.

          “Why would I really have to?” Maybell was genuinely perplexed.

          “For now, just… You won’t… I hope, so… No kick’n little boys in their private parts today, okay?”

          “Daddy?” said Maybell.

          “Yeah?” said Jim.

          “Why do you always tell me what not to do, but you never tell Sylvia stuff not to do?”

          “Cuz, Sylvia don’t kick little boys or throw people down or ask me how to break someone’s arm or any of that.” Sylvia looked smug and said nothing. The bus arrived at the end of their long gravel driveway. It never occurred to Jim to hug his little girls or tell them how much he would miss them while they were away at school. He said,

          “Alright. Bus is here. Ya’ll best get on it. Be good. Make friends. No kick’n little boys in the nuts,” and he walked toward the barn.

          Maybell took Sylvia by the hand and they ran to the bus. The bus door opened and Mrs. McClellan said,

          “Did you miss me?” and she cackled. Mrs. McClellan had frizzy hair cut in a poufy mullet. She smelled like cigarettes and had only two fingers and a thumb on her right hand due to a childhood accident with a hatchet. Maybell knew she shouldn’t think unkind things about adults or injured people, but Mrs. McClellan’s hand looked to her like a chicken foot. It looked like she was using a big chicken foot to control the lever that opened and closed the door on the bus, and that always freaked her out, even if it was unkind and a bit unfair to be freaked out. Maybell chuckled and said,

          “Yeah, yeah, good to see you too,” and she ran to the back of the bus where Cliff was waiting for her. Cliff was wearing a full set of camouflage. He had the camouflage pants, the camouflage t-shirt, and a camouflage army jacket. His hair was dark and buzzed so close to his head that his scalp showed. He looked at Maybell with the wide brown eyes of a young boy having a big hazy unknowable emotion about a girl. Sylvia sat next to her sister and studied the floor.

          “What’s up with her?” asked Cliff, looking at Sylvia. Maybell shrugged.

          “I don’t know. She’s quiet lately. Did you bring it?”

          “Yeah,” said Cliff. He riffled through his backpack and pulled out a bottle rocket.

          “Whoa!” said Maybell, “Is this real?”

          “Sure, it is real. What else would it be?” said Cliff, and he grinned.

          “I don’t know. I can’t believe you brought it.”

          “My older brother is an idiot. I took it and stashed it just before we started setting off fireworks for the Fourth. He never noticed. I planned to get him with it when he wasn’t looking, but this is better.”

          “So, what’s your plan?” asked Maybell.

          “What?” said Cliff.

          “When do we set them off?” said Maybell.

          “Oh, um… now?” said Cliff.

          “In the bus?” said Maybell.

          “Out the window,” said Cliff.

          “Oh, okay,” said Maybell.  She looked at Cliff with expectation. He was only nine, but that look made him feel like a man. He opened the bus window, held the bottle rocket out the window by the end of the stick, and produced a cigarette lighter from his back pocket. He winked at Maybell and clicked the lighter next to the bottle rocket’s wick outside the window. It didn’t light. He started clicking the lighter franticly. He could not get the lighter to hold a flame. Maybell touched his arm and he sat back down in his seat in a huff. Maybell said,

          “Maybe we should just wait until the bus stops.” Sylvia tugged on Maybell’s arm. Maybell leaned in to listen to her sister. Sylvia pulled Maybell in very close and whispered in her ear. Maybell could feel Sylvia’s lips on her ear as she whispered. Sylvia said,

          “I can do it.”

          “You can do what?”

          “I can do it, Maybell. Let me see the rocket,” said Sylvia.

          “No,” said Maybell.

          “Please,” said Sylvia. Cliff nudged Maybell on the shoulder.

          “It’s alright,” he said, “I won’t give her the lighter. There’s no trouble if she’s just looking at it.”

          Maybell shrugged. Cliff handed the bottle rocket to Sylvia. Sylvia pointed the bottle rocket toward the front of the bus and snapped her fingers. A small blue orb of energy the size of a pencil eraser appeared in front of Sylvia. She cupped the hand she had snapped and brought it under the tiny blue orb of energy until she seemed to be holding. It hovered an inch from her hand. She brought the orb to the bottle rocket. The wick lit. There was a shower of sparks as the wick burned. The rocket zipped off toward the front of the bus. It hit the front windshield, zipped along the windshield toward the door, got stuck, and blew up with a bang and a shower of sparks.

The bus screeched to a halt that threw all the kids on the bus forward in their seats. All the other boys and girls on the bus were reacting saying, “What?” and screaming and pointing and acting exactly like children who just saw a bottle rocket explode in a school bus. They were manic, accusatory, and suddenly quiet again when Mrs. McClellan came storming up the center aisle of the bus. She grabbed on to seats as she marched to the back of the bus. Maybell kept her eye on Mrs. McClellan’s three fingered hand as it grabbed seat after seat, and in her mind, she created a mental picture of Mrs. McClellan as an angry pterodactyl rushing to the back of the bus and grabbing seats with the little three fingered hands pterodactyls have on their wings. She knew that it was wrong to think of Mrs. McClellan that way, but she couldn’t help it. She also knew that she had just seen something very important, and that her little sister was very vulnerable right now. It was too much to process. She had started to giggle about it by the time Mrs. McClellan reached the back of the bus.

          “What’s so funny young lady?” said Mrs. McClellan, who was not a caricature of a pterodactyl, who was a full-grown woman in authority. Mrs. McClellan, standing very close to Maybell with her face flushed red and her eyes wide with anger was, suddenly, very frightening to Maybell. Maybell did not say anything. “Well?” said Mrs. McClellan. The three children sat still unable to do or say anything. “Alright, you three in the back seat, you had to light it somehow. Stand up. Empty your pockets. Chop, chop.” Maybell, Cliff, and Sylvia stood. They emptied their pockets. When Cliff pulled the lighter from his pocket, Mrs. McClellan took it from him. She said,

          “Young man, can you explain how a bottle rocket went off in my bus and how you just happen to have a lighter on you?”

          Cliff pointed at Sylvia. He said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. She…” and that is when Maybell kicked him squarely in the nuts.

*****

          This has been the second episode of The Maybell’s Soda Can Podcast. The music and story are written and recorded by me, Daniel Verdin. You can help the podcast out by giving it a clap on the Anchor app, by writing a review, by liking the Daniel Verdin facebook page, and by telling your friends. Thanks so much. I appreciate you. Catch you next time.