After Sunday school the next morning, they went over to play at Karma's. Both of them had big houses with big yards, but Karma’s was bigger, with an enormous yard, so when people saw it for the first time -- adults -- they always said something about having to mow the lawn. The house was shaped kind of like a barn, which seemed appropriate, since it was on the edge of town, with fields just past it.
Jessy especially loved its big porch, all enclosed, that had windows all the way around it. It was filled with dusty wicker furniture, and wooden shelves full of mismatched clay pots separated from their round clay bottoms, and half-empty bags of potting soil. An old stove from the old farmhouse sat on the porch, too, and they hid things in it.
Karma had two older brothers who had already left school, but her mom and dad didn’t seem old enough. Her mom still looked young and pretty, even though her brown hair was getting to look a little grey around the edges. It was especially noticeable when she pulled it back in a pony tail, and all the scattered grey bits got bunched together. She still looked younger than Jessy’s mom.
They ate summer sausage sandwiches up in Karma's room, which was painted light pink, with curtains of darker pink and seafoam green. She had a green thumb just like her mom, and in front of every window there were potfulls of African violets.
Jessy hauled the Orange and Black Book out of her bag, and handed it to Karma, who leafed through it while she told her the whole story.
“I want to be this one,” Karma announced, pointing to a beautiful illustrated woman, wearing a long string of dangling orange beads, and holding a feathery black mask, something between an elegant owl and a glamorous bat, on a stick in front of her face.
“Maybe we could make masks on sticks,” Jessy said. She had seen people carrying them at masquerade parties on TV shows.
They talked about that for a while, but suddenly Karma realized they'd have to hold the mask up the whole time, which would be tiring, and besides, it would be hard to trick or treat one-handed.
“I’ve always wondered,” Jessy said. “Is Hallowe’en spelled like that pronounced the same way as plain old Halloween?”
“I think so,” Karma said. “But then, it’s hard to tell sometimes. Maybe it’s more – Halloweeeeeen.”
Before too long, Karma’s mom asked if they wanted to help her dad with the pumpkins. He’d driven his truck in from her grandparents' old farm, just a little further out in the country, and he’d come back with the first of the season. One by one, arms full with the heavy curves, they carried the pumpkins from the truck into the garage. A lot of them had dirt lodged in their creases, and some leaked pale yellowish-green sap. The stems were ragged, where her dad had sawed the gnarly green stems off the vines with a big knife, and they were prickly, too. You could cut yourself on the stems if you weren’t careful.
He’d already set up a couple of card tables on the cement floor of the garage, leaving the car parked outside in the driveway. They filled up with pumpkins, all different shades, some of them darker orange, some brighter, with rounded shapes and oddly flattened ones, and a few that were more vertical, with lumpy, almost gourd-like silhouettes.
A few squash were mixed in, too, looking like interesting aliens. Some were a waxy, sickly pink, and others were a dark, forest green, with warty skin and exposed curves shaped like big acorn tops. Jessy hated the squash on principle, just because of the way they tasted.
“This is just the beginning,” Karma's dad said, carrying tomatoes in a big wooden basket, the slats dark with old water stains. “You girls are going to have a lot of jack-o-lanterns to choose from this year.”
Jessy and Karma walked around, circling the pumpkins, looking them over, like they were judges at a professional pumpkin contest. Tables full of future jack-o-lanterns, waiting for the slaughter. They were already picking out which ones they wanted. Farmers in magazines were always competing to grow the biggest pumpkin, but the shape was much more important. Sometimes the bigger pumpkins were too lopsided, like they couldn’t hold up their own weight. Besides, they’d be a pain to carve.
Character was maybe even more important. Rounder pumpkins made good faces, but so did the tall, thinner, more oblong ones. You always needed a variety: a snaggle-toothed goofy face, a cheerful pumpkin, one that looked especially sinister.
Jessy always wanted at least one jack-o-lantern with a classic batwing mouth, which seemed to go with triangular eyes. But she also had a fondness for the softer, moon-faced pumpkin, with rounded eyes, and even a rounded O for a mouth. Getting the scowly ones just right was a little harder, but when they turned out, they were probably the best.
Jessy walked home for dinner. She was wearing her jacket, so she wouldn’t get nagged, and now that the sun was getting a little lower, she was glad she did. A faint smoky fume in the air told her that some people already had their wood stoves on.
When she got home, she pulled off her shoes, using one toe to pry the heel away from the heel of her foot. Then she threw her book bag down inside the door. Her mom was right there.
“You need to start wearing a better jacket,” she said.
“I was fine,” Jessy said, taking off her jacket and hanging it up in the alcove.
“Dinner’s almost ready.”
Cupcake was lying on the floor in the living room, stretched out on her side, looking like a big pillow, with her fluffiest part sticking up. Jessy sat down on the ground and pressed the side of her face against the cat's side. She could feel the gentle pressure of the breathing, up and down, and stuck her nose into the fluffy patch. The cat stretched, both front paws and back paws hooking into lazy crooked extensions, like she was too sleepy to keep them straight. It was like she was curling around an invisible ball.
Jessy could hear her dad coming up the stairs from the basement. The whole house creaked when anyone was on those steps.
“She hasn’t come home yet,” she heard her mom say, voice low and kind of urgent. “And she hasn’t called.”
“Did you call her friend?”
“Yes. Her mother hasn’t seen her. If you can trust anything they say, these kids she’s been hanging out with lately.”
Jessy sat up to listen, continuing to stroke Cupcake slowly, scritching her under the chin. Half-awake, the cat tilted her chin up higher, purring.
They had an uncomfortable dinner, and Jessy forced herself to eat the cream corn. She tried to hold her breath while she was swallowing, but that didn’t make it taste any better. Thinking about Twyla made her feel anxious. She’d seen plenty of TV shows about teenage runaways, and they never ended well.
Of course, those kids were always running away in New York or Los Angeles, where there was a lot more trouble for them to get into. Here, she didn’t know where somebody would even go. Unless she ran away to New York or L.A., which would take a long time.
About seven o'clock, suddenly the front door swung open, and Twyla walked in, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, like nothing was wrong.
“Hey,” she said.
Their mom was on her feet in a second.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
“There was an extra youth group meeting,” Twyla said. “It’s on the calendar.”
“You’re grounded for a month,” their mom said. “Two months. Maybe until you graduate.”
“Give me a break,” Twyla said.
“I mean it.”
“Maybe I won’t graduate at all. What’ll you do then?”
“I want you to go upstairs right now and go to your room.”
Twyla swung her purse over her shoulder.
“That’s just where I want to go.”
She breezed by, looking totally unconcerned.
Later on, Jessy was in the kitchen, drinking a cup of cocoa a spoonful at a time, with the big radio on. She could hear her mom and Twyla talking in the living room.
“Can I have some toast?” Twyla was saying. “Bread and water?”
“Do whatever you want,” her mom said
, sounding defeated. “You always do anyway.”
“I wish.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I mean what I said about being grounded.”
“I agree. I’m grounded. I just don't want to talk about it.”
“And I need you to be responsible for once in your life. I need you to come home right after school tomorrow. I’m going to a sale with your father, and I don’t know when we’ll get back. But I’m assuming it’s going to be fairly late. It’s a long drive. If I can’t trust you to do this one thing for me …” she trailed off.
“I’ll come home right after school.”
“Someone has to be here when Jessy gets home, so I’m serious about this.”
“Mom,” Twyla’s voice sounded less argumentative, but Jessy’s attention had gotten perked. “She’s not a baby.”
“I know she’s not a baby. I even know you’re not a baby.”
“I’ll come right home, I promise. But she could take care of herself.”
“I know she can. But she doesn’t have to. You’re going to make dinner, and you’re both going to stay out of trouble for one night.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be straight home, Jessy will come straight home, we won’t get into any trouble. Everything will be fine.”
“Okay,” their mom said. “You can make a pizza.”
Great! Jessy thought in the other room.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. You’re still in trouble. I’m not forgetting anything.”
“Fine.” Twyla sounded generous in defeat. Magnanimouse. “Oh, and does this mean I'm grounded from Yearbook?” She hadn't wanted to sign up for that, but their mom had insisted.
“Go have your toast.”
Jessy leaned back in the chair, fiddling nonchalant with the radio dial, pretending the reception had been a little funky.
“You come home right after school tomorrow,” Twyla said, knowing she'd heard the whole thing. “Or else. No Karma, no library.”
****
The Jack-o-Lantern Box Page 14