by Lorraine Ray
While Granny Hilda helped Drummond leave the library after his fall, her body blocked Drummond’s view of Stephanie who scampered out from behind the large basket where she had been hiding. She slipped out the doorway behind her grandparents in a very ingenious and happy fashion like a slithery spy, a role which Stephanie assigned herself whenever she escaped in a close call, which that certainly had been. Grandpa Drummond had nearly caught her that time, but she had proved more resourceful. She could fit behind baskets. She could sit in a room and not make a bit of noise while grownups talked.
And she could sneak up on her resting aunt. Stephanie, still wearing the hideous mask, crept up the stairs behind her grandparents and scampered toward the bedroom where her aunt was supposed to sleep, the room next to Stephanie’s. Stephanie pressed the door to Helen's bedroom open and slithered close to Aunt Helen, who was waiting for her niece.
Helen was talking to herself while she rested on the comforter cover. “I know I did the right thing by dropping out of school,” she said, “but I can’t feel happy about the painting yet. What is it? What am I missing? Something seems so wrong about it. I can’t get myself happy.”
“Auntie Helen? Oh, auntie? Oh my aauunnnttieeee,” whispered Stephanie.
Helen didn't acknowledge her niece, instead she switched from talking aloud to thinking about the terrible times she had been having in her first year in graduate school. She felt relief that she did not have to worry about passing her comprehensive exams later in the summer (that would have ruined the next six months) and she knew in a day or two she would have to contact the two other women she had befriended and planned to study with that summer. It was going to be hard to tell them she had already dropped out of the program, but she didn’t regret what she had done.
“Auntie Heeellennnn,” said a voice.
Helen roused herself slowly and turned her head toward the sound of her name being called.
Helen blinked.
A mass of stringy black hair with empty eye sockets, flat red skin and a horrid nose rose up slowly at the side of the bed.
“Holy fuck!” she yelled, sitting bolt upright in a split second.
“Hey, don’t worry, it’s me!” said Stephanie pushing the mask back on the top of her head. “Hey, you said the f word.”
Helen collapsed sideways—only a little—but, Stephanie thought it was an awfully wonderful sign, along with the loud yell, almost a scream. It was a wake-up yell. The kind of yell that Stephanie felt would do Helen good.
“Oh, my God,” said Helen, pushing on her chest, “Oh, my, fucking God.”
“You said the f word again,” said Stephanie.
“Sorry, but you really scared me,” said Helen.
“Don’t be sorry. I sayed it a lot. Were you thinking about dropping out of school in eekie-something and all that? I want to tell you all about me dropping out, too.”
“Why did you do that?” asked Helen.
“I thought it would do you some good. I think it did!” said Stephanie brightly.
While Helen recovered from her fright, Stephanie told her aunt all about how awful her new school was and who she hadn’t gotten a sticker once. Stephanie had gotten out the bedtime book, by the time Grandpa Drummond wandered back along the hall outside the rooms where Stephanie would be sleeping.
“I hope my ankle and hip will feel stronger tomorrow,” said Drummond, frowning at his foot and rotating his ankle. “I don’t want to be limping in the parade.” He stood in the lighted doorway and squinted at Helen and Stephanie. Stephanie quickly jammed Terror Tales under the bed covers.
“I’ll be so disappointed if I’m not fit to march in the Mountain Man Rendezvous and Vaqueros y Hombres de Montana Parade with my little granddaughter,” he said loudly from the hall. “Is that my littliest, ittliest snickerdoodliest girl in there with her auntie getting all ready for beddie-by?”
“Ah yeah,” said Stephanie, raising her hand. “Right here.”
“Are you going to be ready for the Vaqueros y Hombres de Montana Parade tomorrow?”
“Okay, sure,” said Stephanie.
“Maybe a parade is what I need. I’ll be going too,” said Helen.
“O-O-O kay,” said Drummond wandering off. “My little daughter and my granddaughter, my little Native American curator granddaughter, is going to be ready!”
“Whackeros?” Stephanie exclaimed from her pillow beside Aunt Helen when Grandpa Drummond had left the doorway. “Aunt Helen, you gotta tell me, do they actually have a parade of whackeros?”
“Hehe,” said Helen, tittering. “You know, that’s a little bit funny the way you say things.” She brightened up at the prospect. “Whackero, that’s very funny.”
“Well, do they? Do they?”
“Yes, yes, they do, Stephanie. Each year they have a whackero parade and your grandfather is in it. Tomorrow when we wake up we have to dress up like mountain men and drive up to the mountains together and we’ll all be in a parade of mountain men and whackeros.”
“This is so weird,” said Stephanie. “I mean it’s just freaky!”
“Kind of.”
“Are you ready for the bedtime tale before you have to go to sleep?”
“Sure,” said Aunt Helen bravely.
“Okay.” Stephanie pulled the book out from under the covers. She propped it in front of her resting the back against her bent knees. “It seems that there was a town called Bust Guts, Arizona and this tale is from that town, okay?”
“Go ahead. I hope it puts me to sleep, though,” said Helen. She shut her eyes. “I’m going to imagine all this wonderful stuff as you read it. Hope it’s a really good story.”
Stephanie looked for the page where she planned to begin reading. “Sure is. Um, this tale I’m gonna read you is all about this undead dead guy and it begins with the terrible and horrible part with a bloody stagecoach—it’s dripping blood—and that bloody stagecoach comes a creaking and a groaning down this windy street, a dark old street in a spooky western town, and this coach is a creaking and a groaning in the spookiest, terribliest, horriblest way...”
“Did you say we’re going to act this out?” asked Helen apprehensively.
Chapter Nine