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 found her Chatty Cathy coloring book, an envelope,
crayons, a book of stamps, and a nice black ink pen. She spent an hour coloring
a picture of Chatty Cathy helping her mother cook cookies. She picked that
picture because she liked the design on Chatty Cathy’s skirt, but 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. She used the same nice back pen to
address an 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 go back and forth when
got back from the mailbox. Sylvia eyed Maybell with the what was a very good
try at looking nonchalant for a seven-year-old, and she said,
“What did you put in the mail?” 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, and she hoped out of
the swing. Sylvia put her hand on the door knob of the front door when Maybell
said,
“What was that blue light you were playing with?” Sylvia 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, a little unsure if this was the right
time to try to comfort her sister. She certainly did not want to comfort her
sister right then. Maybell had a habit of stealing ginger snaps from the tin in
the kitchen until her father had caught her one day and politely told her it
was wrong to sneak. She was more careful when she stole ginger snaps now.
Anyway, seeing Sylvia on the porch like that made her feel the same as when her
dad caught her with the ginger snaps. Her throat felt funny. Her stomach
turned. Her chest felt funny on the inside. She 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 of openness and sisterly
love was for both of them, and both of them would 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 not
really expected to hear back from Cliff. Still, her plan was working, and she
would push forward with it. She colored a picture of Chatty Cathy in a pink sundress
that day and put it in the mail. The note she wrote on the back read,
“To a guy I know…” Cliff’s response to that message arrived
two days later in the form of a 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. Maybell wrote a longer note that day. 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 sparkles.
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, 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 for her daddy, because 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. She played with her father,
who 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 pick 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 folks 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. Sylvia
looked at the ground. Maybell nudged her, and Sylvia 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, 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 valiantly 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 lost in love. 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 buss 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 as manic as children who
just saw a bottle rocket explode in a school bus. 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 looked 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 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.
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