Maybell's Bottle Rocket

Maybell’s daddy, Jim Vanneste, sat in the old rocking chair he had placed between Maybell’s bed and her sister Sylvia’s bed. He sipped bourbon from a rocks glass and read a book out loud. The only light in the room was an antique lamp that was eggshell white covered in blue, gold, and read paisley patterns. It had yellow tassels on the shade. It was just enough light to read by, not a bit more. His voice was a low rumble.

The smell of him filled the room pleasantly. It was the smell of pine trees, dirt, mowed grass, and gasoline. He smiled as he read, and Maybell, tucked into her bed and surrounded by pillows, felt sure that the world was a good and safe place. She felt certain that her whole life would be like it was now. It would be comfortable. It would be a life snuggled soft thick covers and surrounded by pillows with her daddy there to tell her stories.

The book Jim Vanneste was reading was about a little girl who was afraid to sleep in the attic because a hurricane was blowing against and shaking her house. The girl in the story was embarrassed to be so afraid. She had insisted that the room in the attic should be hers. She tried to stay in her room and be a big girl, but the thought of the roof flying off the house and taking her with it became real enough to her that she went down stairs, despite being embarassed. She found her little brother in the kitchen when she reached the bottom of the stairs. He was already warming milk so he could make hot cocoa. The boy was warming too much milk for one person, and it turned out that he expected the little girl and her mother to come to the kitchen as well. They might want cocoa too. The girl’s mother came to the kitchen shortly after the girl, and the boy made sandwiches.

Maybell thought this story was dull. No one had a laser blaster. No one had a magic sword. She only liked stories about laser blasters and magic swords. She started to make up her own story, a good one. In her story, the boy had a laser blaster. He thought the little girl did not know about his laser blaster, but she did know. What the boy did not know was that the girl had a magic sword that would appear in her hand any time she wanted. But that was not the really good part. The really good part was that she could use her magic sword to block the blasts from her brother’s laser blaster. She, the girl in the story, had come down the stairs and had cocoa and a tomato and lettuce sandwich, but her brother had only done those things to lure her off guard. He pulled out his laser blaster and said, “I’ve got you now!” He fired the blaster at the little girl and the little girl countered with her magic sword. They started a magic sword and laser blaster fight. It was awesome.

Of course, this was all the beginning of her dream. She had dropped into that state between sleeping and being awake. She could hear her father’s voice droning the words as images of mothers and brothers and storms in attics and an epic laser blaster and magic sword fight flickered in her mind.

Maybell was perfectly happy, but suddenly, her father’s voice stopped its low droning, and Maybell remembered with a sudden rush of urgency that she had something to ask her father.

“Daddy?” said Maybell, and she hated how small and young her voice sounded as she said it.

               “Yeah, sweet girl. What’cha got?” said Jim Vanneste. He sat back in his rocking chair. It squeaked and creaked as he did. Maybell sat up in a panic. She had forgotten what she wanted to ask, and it had been very important. She rubbed her eyes and shook out her curly red hair. She made to put her hair up in a pony tail out of habit, found that she did not have a rubber band to use to put her hair up, sighed, felt exasperated, and fell back into her pillows in a dramatic gesture that made the whole bed shake. Sylvia sat up and said,

               “I was sleeping! Why do you always do this? Every night! Daddy, tell her.”

               Jim ignored his blonde-haired daughter for a moment. He spoke to Maybell,

               “Maybell, do you remember? You have time. Think. What do you want?”

               Maybell remembered. She said,

               “Can we go see the Fourth of July fireworks at Cliff Cline’s house?”  Cliff Cline had been Maybell’s best friend since kindergarten, which oddly, was not why Maybell wanted to go see the fireworks. Maybell wanted to go see the fireworks because she liked fireworks. The fact that she had never seen a firework only made her want to see them more. She pushed on with her argument, “and the whole town will be there. Daddy please.”

               Jim smiled at his daughter. He thought about how tenacious she would be as a grown woman. He said,

               “Thank you fore asking, Maybell. I always like to know what is on your mind. No, we will not attend the fireworks display at the Cline’s home. We live on a farm. We take care of animals and plants so we can sell those animals and plants to people who want them. I don’t know if the fireworks scare the plants. Corn stalks and wheat fields don’t run off and break down fences when Albert Cline shoots off his fireworks every year, but your horse Patsy and all the other horses and all the cows and that Jersey bull in the far field, they go to war the moment they hear a firework. So, your daddy is going to be busy at war with and taking care of all the scared animals on this farm on the Fourth of July when the fireworks go off. You will be in this house getting a good night’s rest and growing up to be a beautiful young lady that realizes that even if it is right to pay taxes and all. And yeah, it’s good to have roads and a judiciary system and firemen and such, but when you are full grown and you’ve spent enough time paying those taxes, you might decide that if America is going to tax the land you live on, all your transactions, and even take a cut when you die, you can find a better reason to shoot your fireworks. Oh, and the whole town won’t be there. Hickory Hollow is a four-way stop and a rec center. You have never been to a town. I’d say, maybe, one hundred and fifty people will be there.”

               Maybell looked at her father and blinked her eyes,

               “So no?” she said.

               “No,” said Jim Vanneste.

               “Daddy!” said Maybell. Jim ignored Maybell’s protest and looked at his other daughter, Sylvia.

               “Yes ma’am?” he said.

               “Maybell never goes to sleep during the story. It’s awful,” said Sylvia.

               “Baby girl, neither do you. You weren’t asleep,” said Jim Vanneste.

               “Yes, I was!” said Sylvia.

               “I love you sweetie, but it is rotten to lie. No, you were not asleep. You were faking sleep so I’d go down stairs and leave you with…” He paused, “I don’t know. You’re up to something. Whatever it is, I’m interested, but just now, I don’t mind as long as you keep it quiet and you stay in your bed. This old man,” said Jim Vanneste, as he pointed to himself with both thumbs, “is going to bed.” With that, he finished his bourbon in one gulp, winked at the still appalled Maybell and the equally appalled Sylvia. He turned off the lamp. He walked out of the room. He closed the door behind. The two sisters were left in the dark.

               Maybell lay in her bed listening to the crickets and katydids for a while. She was still appalled, but after a while she was only a little appalled as she listened to her father walk with heavy steps down the stairs. She listened to her father’s bedroom door groan open and groan closed and when from slightly appalled to ruffled. When she was only a little bit ruffled and mostly tired she heard her father’s heavy steps in his room below them and the creaking of his bed mattress as he laid down in it, and very soon she heard the long snores of a large sleeping man.

               Maybell almost fell asleep then too, but just then, she saw a blue light flicker just over Sylvia’s bed. The blue light came back again, and for a moment, Maybell could see her sister’s face and her sister’s hand holding a tiny blue orb of light. The orb flickered again. It sputtered out of existence.

               “What are you doing?” asked Maybell in a whisper.

               “Nothing,” said Sylvia.

               “Let me see,” said Maybell.

               “Daddy said it was alright as long as I’m quiet and don’t get out of bed,” and Maybell was going to argue more, but by then she really was tired. She fell asleep mid-argument.

*****

Maybell woke with purpose the next morning. 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 in a cute skirt, helping her mother cook cookies. 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.

Sylvia was sitting on the white washed porch swing eating an apple and swinging her feet to make the swing go back and forth when Maybell 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 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?” said Maybell. 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. She decided to wait and do nothing, and 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. 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 very 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.” 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 next day. 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 Forth 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 August passed quickly. Maybell fought with her sister, 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 mood. 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. The rooster-topped weather vane on the roof squeaked. They 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.