When Ratboy Lived Next Door

by Chris Woodworth

  “Well, yeah. Sure I have. But never from you.”

  “I just wondered if you could talk your folks into coming to the Free Show this week, that’s all.” News traveled fast in Maywood and I didn’t want to face all the questions about Nanna’s leaving on my own.

  “Oh, I can tell you the answer to that. No. But I wouldn’t want to, anyway. Darryl is coming home on leave!”

  It had been almost a year since Darryl had been home from the army. “Ask Darryl to drive you. I’d like to see him, too.”

  “I wish I could. He’s bringing a special girl. They’re here for the weekend, then he’s going to meet her parents. I think they’re in love.”

  “Well, that’s great. I guess.”

  “Lydia Carson, what’s wrong?”

  Boy, where would I start on that question?

  “Nothing, really. Nanna’s gone. She left yesterday. She’s visiting her sister in Michigan, at least until Thanksgiving.”

  “Bet you’re doing cartwheels over that!”

  “Cartwheels?”

  “All I ever hear is you complaining about the stuff Nanna makes you do or the stuff Nanna won’t let you do. Congratulations! You’ve got the whole summer to yourself!”

  “Yeah, um, thanks.”

  “I’ll talk to my parents, though. Maybe I can visit in a few weeks. I’ll see if I can spend the night. With Nanna gone, we’ll stay up till midnight and eat in bed!”

  “Oh, Rae Anne!” I gripped the phone with both hands, as if that would bring her closer to me. “That would be swell!”

  I hung up feeling a little better. Nanna had only been gone a day, but since she left the house seemed to have grown. Sometimes I’d walk in and the hallway would look so long! And the silence was louder than any noise I ever heard.

  I wandered to the porch and saw Mrs. Merrill bring her kitchen chair into her yard, the way she did when she fixed Nanna’s hair. I would have spoken to her, but she led Willis out of the house and started cutting his hair real short. Funny how he let her do that. I’d have thought he’d put up a fight.

  When Daddy and Mother came home that night, Mother was talking to Daddy a mile a minute. She was so happy it hurt me to look at her. How could she be happy with Nanna taking off like that?

  “Oh, Lydia! I was just telling your dad about our new schedule. Come sit down and I’ll go over it with both of you.”

  She pulled her notebook out of her skirt pocket and sat down. She smiled brightly at us.

  “I was saying we need some sort of schedule to divide up the work Nanna did. I’ll do the cooking, and your father will wash the dishes.”

  “Sounds fair to me,” Daddy said.

  “Lydia, will you pick up the mail?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “We’ll make our own beds each day and we’ll all three do the heavy cleaning on Sunday mornings.”

  Daddy fidgeted in his chair a little. “Well, after Lydia and I get back from church, you mean.”

  “Oh, church, right.” Mother looked back at her list, frowned, and wrote something down. “Well, we’ll do it after. That leaves laundry. I’ll do the ironing whenever I can. Now, Lydia, since your father and I both work during the day, I thought you could wash the clothes. I know Nanna had you hanging them out and taking them down anyway. You might as well do the washing.”

  “On the wringer washer?” I asked. Besides being an awful lot of work, the wringer was dangerous—I saw Nanna almost run her fingers through it once. She had me quickly unplug it, and she was all right, but that had scared the daylights out of me.

  “Oh, that contrary old beast. Glen, why don’t you call Sam Green and get a new automatic washing machine?”

  “No!” I yelled. As much as I hated the wringer, Nanna always said she wouldn’t be caught dead using anything else. “Nanna would hate a new automatic. We have to keep it.”

  Daddy smiled an indulgent smile and said, “Now, Lydia, I know Nanna loves that old machine, but she won’t stay away if we buy a new one.” He chuckled.

  Well, none of this was funny to me. “I’ll keep the wringer.”

  “Of all the silly things. Let her, Glen. She’ll be begging for a new one after she has a week or so of that old washer.”

  When Mother said that, something changed in me. I looked at her smiling that cat-that-got-the-cream smile and wondered why I ever cared whether she loved me or not.

  * * *

  I held up Daddy’s T-shirt—whites. My jeans—colors. Daddy’s red bandanna. Nanna always said that reds had to be washed with other reds and that was that. I set it aside for when I had a full load of red stuff. Sorting the clothes was easy compared to washing them.

  I did all right at first. I’d seen Nanna fill the washer enough times. She never changed the water. She went from washing whites to light colors to darks all in the same water. I put the washing powder in it and then the white clothes. After they agitated for a bit, I stopped the machine and fed the clothes through the wringer. Then I plopped them into a tub of clean water to rinse.

  Everything went fine until I put Daddy’s good white shirt in the wringer. I heard a crunch, and then—ping!—a button went flying across the room. I hurried and unplugged the wringer. Every single one of the buttons was crushed except for the one that flew off.

  I kicked that old wringer washer. Dang, dang, dang! Then I kicked it again. I’d never hear the end of it if Mother saw that shirt. I didn’t know how to sew on buttons and didn’t even know where Nanna kept her button jar. Finally I wadded the shirt up and threw it in the trash can. I put a newspaper on it and dumped wet coffee grounds on top for good measure. No one would go digging under those. Daddy might wonder where his shirt was, but then he was always forgetting things.

  I was plumb exhausted by the time I carried that first load upstairs, and I still had two more loads to do. I opened the door to the back porch to get Nanna’s clothespin apron and ran smack into Mrs. Merrill.

  “Oh, Lydia!” She grabbed her chest. “You scared me to death.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Merrill. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Well, it’s Friday. It’s the day Nanna lets me borrow your clothesline. I was just coming for the clothespins.”

  She reached for the apron and said, “I can’t wait until Nanna comes back next week. A lady, Mrs. Duvall, came by and asked if I would perm her hair just like Nanna’s. Can you believe it?”

  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Mrs. Merrill didn’t know that Nanna wasn’t coming back. I suppose Nanna had been so frazzled about leaving that she hadn’t thought to tell her.

  “Lydia, is something wrong?”

  “Well, Mrs. Merrill, I guess … yes. Yes, ma’am. There’s something you don’t know.” I felt my tongue getting heavy. I couldn’t quite make the words come out.

  “What is it?”

  I took a deep, ragged breath. “Nanna isn’t here. She’s visiting her sister in Michigan. She’s gonna be there a while.”

  “I do know that. She told me she visits her for a week every year.”

  “I know, ma’am, but she decided to go for a longer time. I don’t know when she’ll be back. It was a last-minute decision, or I’m sure she’d have told you.”

  A tiny “Oh” came out of Mrs. Merrill. If I hadn’t seen her mouth form a small circle, I wouldn’t have known she’d said it. She looked as if her bones went limber, as if she’d shrunk. It made me want to say something nice to her.

  “Mrs. Merrill?”

  “Yes?” She looked up.

  “Well, ma’am.” My brain froze. I couldn’t think of anything nice about Nanna’s leaving. “I was just going to say that I’ll be doing the laundry now, and I’m not particular about what day I do it like Nanna was. So you can use the clothesline any day you want.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well … thank you, Lydia.”

  For the first time, I realized that Nanna was probably the only person Mrs. Merrill really knew in town.

  “Um, Mrs. Merrill
, I don’t suppose you know how to use a wringer washer, do you?”

  “My mother had one for years.” She smiled, remembering.

  “Is there some special trick to not ruining buttons?”

  “Buttons and zippers. Yes, there is.”

  “Ma’am, do you think you could come inside for just a minute to show me?”

  With Mrs. Merrill’s help, I learned how to work the wringer. By the time the clothes had dried on the line and I’d folded them and put them away, Mother and Daddy were home from work.

  You’d have thought Mother was a teenager, she was so excited about going to the show with Daddy. It was hard even to look at her.

  “You ready, Ladybug?” Daddy called from the door.

  “I’m not goin’ tonight,” I said. “There’s a movie on television I’d rather see.”

  Truth was, I didn’t know what was on. I didn’t want to go with them.

  “But you love the Free Show.” Daddy’s eyes showed concern.

  “If she’d rather stay home, it’s fine, Glen,” Mother said. “Don’t push her.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…” he said as he followed Mother out the door.

  I flipped on the TV, thinking there was surely something on as good as the movie showing tonight, The Fastest Gun Alive. I tried but I couldn’t really concentrate on anything, because I suddenly remembered the serial. How could I miss seeing what happened next with Buck Rogers?

  I waited until it was almost dark and headed for the Free Show alone.

  * * *

  “I didn’t have time to make a pie, mind you, but we are having dessert!” Mother twittered Monday night as she went into the kitchen. I hated how happy she was these days.

  “If it tastes like dinner did, I don’t want any,” I told Daddy.

  “Ladybug! Shame on you. Your mother worked all day and still put out this fine spread.”

  “Fine spread of what? Did you know what we were eating? I sure didn’t.”

  “Well, she’ll learn,” Daddy said as he eyed his plate. I could tell he wasn’t sure, either.

  We heard a dish crash to the floor and Mother scream, “Gleennnn!”

  We raced into the kitchen. Mother was backed into a corner, holding a chair in front of her like a lion tamer. She saw us and pointed to the screen door. Zorro was hanging on to the outside with his arms and legs spread wide.

  I let out a hoot of laughter.

  “I’m glad you’re getting such a kick out of this, young lady,” Mother said indignantly. “That mangy thing nearly scared me to death.”

  “He must have smelled your cooking,” Daddy said as he poked at the screen, trying to get Zorro down.

  I’d gotten into the habit of feeding Zorro peanut butter but had forgotten about it since Nanna left. He must have missed it a lot. Maybe I’d sneak out and give him an extra helping tonight as thanks, seeing as how he made Mother forget all about giving us dessert—one less dish of hers I had to eat.

  The phone rang, and Mother set the kitchen chair back down and reached for it. “Hello? Why, hello, Clancy. How are you this evening? Glen? Yes, he’s here. Just a minute, please.”

  She handed the telephone to Daddy.

  Sheriff Yates sometimes called to tell Mother some bit of news he wanted in the paper. That always gave me a little thrill, since it meant I knew the goings on in town before anyone else, so I stayed in the kitchen.

  “Clancy! How’s the peacekeeping business? You don’t say! No, I didn’t realize they don’t have a phone. Well, sure. It’ll be a mite awkward, but I’d hate for her to worry about him all night. I’ll tell her. Thanks, Clancy.”

  Daddy hung up the phone and looked from me to Mother. “Little pitchers have big ears,” he said, meaning he didn’t want me to hear. He still thought I didn’t know what that meant. Daddy used to spell words in front of me, too, long after I knew how to read.

  I said, “I’ll clear the table,” and walked into the dining room. Of course, all I did was get on the other side of the kitchen door and listen.

  “I guess Boyd Merrill and some boys got a little drunk after work tonight. He was arrested for disturbing the peace. Clancy said the Merrills don’t have a phone and asked me to tell his wife.”

  Mr. Merrill arrested! Nanna was right. He was a drunk.

  Daddy asked Mother, “Would you like to come with me?”

  “No!” Mother said real fast. Then she said, “It’s bad enough you know about it. Can you imagine how embarrassed she’s going to feel?”

  I heard Daddy stirring around, so I quickly stacked some dishes and carried them into the kitchen. Daddy said in a too loud voice, “Ladies, I’ll be back quick as a wink. Got a little something to take care of.”

  “I’m getting a headache,” Mother said. “I think I’m going to lie down.”

  It seemed to me that Mother was taking this whole thing bad for someone who didn’t know the Merrills all that well. Maybe Mr. Merrill’s drinking reminded her of her husband Philip’s.

  “I’ll get the dishes when I come back, Evelyn. You run on to bed.” Daddy got his hat and walked out the front door.

  I carried more dishes into the kitchen until I heard Mother’s feet on the stairs. Then I sneaked out the front door and crept slowly toward the Merrills’ house. I wanted to hear Daddy and Mrs. Merrill, but all I heard was that infernal Zorro.

  There I was, crouched down with Zorro on the loose. Naturally, Zorro took that as an invite to climb up my back. I gave myself credit for not screaming or hurling him off this time. Instead I staggered around to the back of the house while he hung on.

  “Hey, Zorro!” Willis threw open the back screen door and smirked. “What kind of trash did you drag home?”

  “Oh, very funny!” I said. “Get him off me, will ya?”

  He grabbed Zorro with one hand and shoved me with the other. I landed on my knees.

  “Would you stop that, Ratboy!”

  “Ratboy? Why are you callin’ me that?” He didn’t look so happy now. “And what were you doin’? Tryin’ to steal my raccoon?”

  This was the Willis I knew. I couldn’t convince him of anything. But because of Elliot, I tried.

  “Willis. Listen to me. I promise I’m telling the truth. You’d better not let Zorro run loose. He scared my mother tonight by hanging on our screen door. If he does that to the wrong person, he could get hurt.”

  “You liar. That’s all you do is lie. I don’t let Zorro run loose, and he can’t get out of that cage by himself, now, can he?”

  “Well, yeah, he probably can. He’s pretty smart. Maybe you should put a cement block or something heavy like that in front of his door.”

  “That tears it. That just tears it. Leave us alone. And don’t you be telling me what to do with my coon, y’hear?”

  He stomped away with Zorro, and I saw Daddy doing the dishes in our kitchen window. Shoot! I’d missed it all on account of that knot-head, Willis Merrill.

  12

  I didn’t mind making my own bed with Nanna gone. Nobody cared how wrinkled it looked. So far that was about the only good thing about her being gone.

  The days sure were long. I’d have given anything to be able to run over and see Mrs. Ogle, whether Rae Anne was there or not. I also missed Elliot something awful. He spent most of his time working at the Oasis. When I saw him in our garden, I always found some excuse to run outside to be near him. He would nod, but that was all.

  I was getting pretty good at the laundry, but I hated doing it. Dirty clothes were stacking up. Then on Thursday morning Mother said, “Now, Lydia, don’t forget to put clean sheets on the beds.”

  I went to the basement with enough sheets to make up two loads, right there. I felt as if I lived in the basement on wash days. I decided to come up with a plan.

  I stuffed the sheets into a dark corner of the basement. We had lots of sheets. No reason those had to be washed right away. Then I went through all the clothes that were mine and checked to see if there were any spil
ls on them. The ones that passed that test got the sniffing test. If they weren’t too smelly, I took them up to my room and hung them back on hangers. That cut out a load, at least.

  Daddy’s clothes all had to be washed, since he worked up a sweat at his job. There was grease on just about everything he owned. Then I moved on to Mother’s. She wore a skirt and blouse to work each day, but she wore a printer’s apron over them. Some of the blouses had smudges on the sleeves, so I washed those. The skirts didn’t look dirty. I gave them the sniff test. Mother’s work clothes always smelled like graphite and oil. I carried her skirts outside to air them out on the line. There! All I needed was a system.

  I went into the house to get some ice tea. Unfortunately, none of us had remembered to fill the ice cube trays. It made me miss Nanna. I’d been thinking about writing her. I should write and tell her about how much better Mrs. Merrill was doing. Nanna would be so proud of her. She was using our clothesline, and even the day after Mr. Merrill was arrested, she came out and swept off her porch as if nothing had happened.

  I wished then and there that I could be more like Nanna. If I were, I probably could give Willis “special handling,” the way Elliot did. Then Elliot and I could be friends again. But I wasn’t like Nanna, and I thought Willis might have been too much even for her.

  June 21, 1962

  Dear Nanna,

  Bet you never thought you’d get a letter from me.

  I chewed on the pencil and rolled over on my bed. This was harder than I thought. If I told her about Mother’s cooking it might make her worry that we’d all starve. I decided to keep things light in my first letter.

  Nothing much has changed around here. Mrs. Merrill sure misses you but she’s doing real fine. Why, you’d never have known that Mr. Merrill was in jail if Sheriff Yates hadn’t called us. And she’s doing something to every head she can get her hands on. Beth’s hair is always fixed up real nice. She cut Willis’s hair short. I think they call it a crew cut. I hope his pet raccoon doesn’t get too close to her. He may end up looking like a poodle. Ha ha.

  I’ve been doing the laundry but don’t worry. I haven’t turned everything pink yet. Just kidding. Tell Great-Aunt Louise hello from her Great-Niece Lydia. I miss you, Nanna.