“However,” Teacher continued, looking directly at me, “we will begin by discussing frog eggs and tadpoles. Perhaps you will find your answer in today’s lesson.”
I was surprised to be glad Mary Grace spoke. “I would never touch a frog; they cause warts. They’re nasty.”
From the back row came a low voice that cracked into a high one on the last word. “I think they’re real tasty.” Tully gave me that crookways grin that always settled me.
“Ew,” squealed Mary Grace, turning four kinds of pink before settling on green.
I considered this curious behavior. Maybe those too-tight curls were making her simple.
“Very funny, Mister Spencer,” Miss Arthington said. “Let’s all have frogs for lunch tomorrow. Mary Grace, touching a frog does not produce warts—any more than kissing one will produce a prince.”
“I’d rather kiss a frog than a Mary Grace Newcomb,” I muttered.
I don’t rightly feature why MG was acting so tartly, unless it was because until then she’d had a front row desk to herself. I suppose it didn’t matter that I didn’t want to be there any more than she wanted me there.
Still, for no wrong done to her I could own, she set on peck-peck-pecking at me.
For one, she stepped on my toes with her Buster Browns, which were shinier than wet rocks. She’d say, “Oh, I’m sorry!” like sorry was the last thing she might ever be.
For two, she drew an imaginary line down the middle of our table and pushed my things over if they crossed onto “her” side, which seemed bigger than mine and growing.
“You lost your senses,” I whispered.
She squinted at me and smiled like a rattler.
For third, she was more trouble than rocks on Tuesday.
All told, it made for one of the longest mornings I could recall that did not involve a toothache or skunks.
At three-quarters past on the tick, Teacher said to take our lunches outside. “Fresh air helps the blood flow to your brains so you’ll be alert for the rest of the day.” I was practically out of my seat before her mouth was closed, that Mary Grace on my heels. She snickered as she whispered, “You need a lot more than that.” Her elbow jabbed my side as she darted on past me.
“I can be fresh for you this second,” I said, balling up a fist.
She slowed down and turned her smug-again face toward me. Then, barely looking away, she made a show of taking down the biggest, shiniest lunch pail. “Miss Arthington,” she bleated loudly, “I brought candy to share with the class again.”
Nobody could have been more pleased with their self if they’d a caught a mountain lion barehanded and taught it to dance.
Teacher looked up from something she was reading. “That’s very generous, Mary Grace. Class, please eat your lunch before having a treat, and be sure to thank Mary Grace for her thoughtfulness.”
At that, most of the boys lit out for the door so fast they made their own breeze. I hustled on behind quick as I could to get myself a breath of freedom before I forgot how it smelled. But before I could get through the doorway, which was not big enough for a girl so full of airs, Mary Grace pushed past me without so much as a “may I.” And right behind her, poor June May like to fall under that gal’s wheels if she didn’t calm back a mite.
Like a pageant princess, Mary Grace high stepped out onto the schoolyard, nose in the air, a flock of candy-lovin’ hopefuls in her wake. To the nearest one, she remarked loud enough for all of us to hear, “That Possum is so immatured. I don’t know how I’ll survive a day. Still, a leopard can change its spots.”
I snorted. “You’re all stink and no skunk, Mary Grace. Everyone knows spots are spots; they go all the way through.” But she just kept walking.
Then, from a grassy spot about twenty paces away, lacy ankles crossed, Mary Grace rolled her swamp eyes in my direction. “It is a speak-easy-ism.” She looked at the little kids around her. “It means to say something that means something else.”
See what I mean? Dumb as the lacy pockets on her dress. All those little holes.
I settled by the creek to let its babble drown out the sound of that lacy lump. Even in that hot spell, the water made a quiet “come-here” sound, and I bet there were fish to be caught in the shade of the bridge and wished not for the first time that I had my cane pole. Close as it is to the hills, in spring this part of the creek is more stream and runs fast till long past the swimming hole.
I reached into my pocket for my whittling knife and rubbed my finger along the tear Momma mended last spring. I wished everything could be stitched back together so easy.
That thought put me in mind of June May and all those creatures she tries to save, even the ones you wouldn’t think worth saving. A dose of June May would’ve done me good about then.
I hadn’t even thought the period on the end of the sentence when she floated up alongside me and sat. From inside the neck of her dress she pulled the little pouch. Sometimes she strokes that bag likes it’s a brown bird she’s keeping warm against her neck, but other times she carefully takes out the penny, which she proceeded to do, and rubs one nail-bit thumb over Mister Lincoln. The look that comes over her then, you’d think she could trace her daddy’s face on it, feel his whiskers even.
“June May, that penny won’t be worth a cent if you rub Mister Lincoln’s face clean off it.” It wasn’t the first time I’ve said it, and I didn’t guess it’d be the last.
She said what she always says. “I kin feel his face smiling at me.”
And I have to say that, despite myself, maybe because I needed a smile so bad, I smiled too, knowing that even in a world gone wrong, you could count on at least three things, so long as two of them were the sun waking in the east and June May thinking good thoughts.
She fixed those eyes of pale caramel on me the same way Trav does when he thinks I’ve said something wrong, and—putting a fresh tail on an old cat—said something new. “ ’Sides, it’s not for spending, this penny.”
I knew better than to ask what was the good of money you didn’t plan to ever spend, which was just as well because right then Teacher rang the bell to go back inside.
I was doomed to give up another whole hour of my life to listen to Teacher read from a book called “Paul the Peddler,” and I didn’t even have a penny to rub or a strop to chew. I envied June May her small comforts, thinking how nice it must be to be a sunny day in a calendar full of rain.
Still, as long as I was there, I thought I’d listen hard and be able to take that story home to tell Momma that night. At first, I thought it might be a sorrowful story, and I wasn’t sure Momma would want to hear it. We don’t like the sorrowful ones as much. But in the end, the story Teacher read proved to be about how hard work paid for itself in good ways.
Well, and wouldn’t that be a nice life, if your name was Paul and you had stuff to sell and could make yourself rich.
I guess Teacher might’ve missed the point, ’cause even though she smiled when she finished reading and closed the book with one slim finger holding the spot, she asked us what the story was about. You could tell by that smile that she hoped someone could tell her. Not wanting to draw eyes to themselves, nobody said a word.
If she didn’t even know what her own story was about, how could I be expected to learn anything between these four walls? Surely, this room was way too small to hold anything I didn’t already know.
Finally, just to save the necks of all those heads hung low, I said, “Work hard and your life will be better for it.”
“Miss Teacher!” whinnied Scary Grace, pushing down on the words as they left her mouth.
“Mary Grace?”
MG stood, smoothed her dress, turned to face the entire room, and said, “It is never allowed for students to speak without clear permission given by the teacher, this being the only way to maintain proper order and good manners in the student body.”
It sounded like she was reading from a book only without the book. When she finishe
d reciting, Mary Grace nodded her head like she had made a point. She looked at Teacher like a cat wanting thanks for leaving a mouse in your bed.
The teacher looked from me to Mary Grace and back.
I could not read her face.
“Please sit down, Miss Newcomb. Thank you.” Teacher touched her collar at the neck and cleared her throat like she was thirsty.
“LizBetty, I don’t want to have to remind you again against speaking out of turn. Why, what sort of society would it be if people just willy-nilly said and did whatever they pleased without concern for order, never mind the thoughts and feelings of others?”
Mary Grace raised her squashed piggy nose so high in the air I could have looked into her brain if she’d had one. As the teacher looked around the classroom for a moment, Mary Grace smiled with the side of her mouth nearest to me and elbowed me in the ribs again. “Now you’re done for.”
I took the teacher’s words to mean this was one of the times I was supposed to answer, so I stood like I’d been told to earlier.
When the teacher looked my way, I said, “Ma’am, the kind of society where someone speaks out whenever he pleases would be a democracy.”
Mary Grace stared long and cold at me, so I knew I’d finally gotten one right.
Still, my nose felt tingly again.
Teacher shook her head like Trav does when he has water in his ears, and I figured she would be about ready to send me on my smart way home, as it was clear as the creek that I was even smarter than her.
This time tomorrow, I’d be under the pecan tree where I belonged.
I settled on the back stoop with rags and shoes. Spit and elbow grease do the job, Daddy says, and I like a reason to practice spitting as much as anyone might. For want of any trouble to get into, or anyone to blame it on if I did, I decided to polish up all the shoes in the house, which would be a grand total of four, or one pair each of mine and Daddy’s. ’Sides, I did my best thinking when I was polishing shoes, and I had some important thinking to do.
I’d been to school for one entire week of days and was no better for it that I could see.
Only thing I could say for certain I’d learned was I could shave twenty minutes off the hour-long walk home if I climbed Hefty Rock and went around back.
That and that—apparently—some folks call a baby frog a tadpole.
I couldn’t figure why Teacher hadn’t told Daddy I was too clever for school after the very first day. I was sure my smart pants were making the other students feel sore about their sad learning. When I tried to point these things out to Daddy, he said the matter wasn’t up for discussion. Maybe he’d missed the lesson on democracy back when he was in school, or his head was just so full of Momma and Baby and the sorrow that there weren’t no room left for reasonable thoughts. That’s why I needed to be home taking care of his sad self. Every day we were apart, he seemed to droop more, like a seedling in parched earth thirsting for somethin’ to keep it on growing.
Shaking the sad from my head, I twisted a rag tight around my knuckles. Having wasted the best piece of five precious days away from Daddy and the home place, I set to doing my chores as bigly and loud as I could to make sure Daddy noted what all was being neglected and how hard I was forced to work in the little time we had together. I was partway through fifty percent of Daddy’s shoes when I felt his shadow on me.
“What’s got into you?” Like he’d never before seen me do a lick of work.
“What do you mean, Daddy?” I made my eyes all big. That only lasted a second, though, because he was in the sun, so I gave him the sunshine salute and went back to my work.
He sighed real heavy and turned to leave again, so I blurted, “What say you and me go into town?”
He stopped like stone but didn’t face me. “Possum, honey—”
“We need flour! And I been thinkin’ about makin’ Momma’s apple pie.”
Still he didn’t turn.
Since Momma died, it seemed to me that me and Daddy about had got so we knew what the other was thinking. Still, it took me by surprise, Daddy practically ignoring me this way. It would have been a rare thing indeed, for he never could say no to me or Momma when it came to important things like ice cream socials and taffy pulls.
“Daddy?”
I’d decided I could forgive Daddy for sending me to school long enough to enjoy a market day. Every Saturday, when all the folks in these parts gather by the dirt lot just this side of town, it’s like a church picnic. They swap sundries and stories. The smells alone can swoon a stone.
“I been hankerin’ for apple pie for nigh on a week now,” I said. “We can meander and keep an eye out for apples.”
There are a whole lotta reasons to go to town depending on the sort of person you are. For most, it’s as social as church, maybe more even, because the people with money in their pockets tend to be more interesting than the ones with sin in their hearts.
Daddy doesn’t hold with gossip, and there’s lots of it goes on in this holler. Folks like each other so much, they seem to get into everybody else’s business. But he is known for his woodcraft and has picked up supplies and sometimes even work by showing up in town. I hoped the thought of a job might lure him now. ’Sides, he enjoys talkin’ a bit of politics now and again.
And the orange Nehi treat that came at the end. We always shared one for the walk home, an orange Nehi with three straws.
“I’m positively positive apples’ll be right next to the Big Orange Nehi place, don’t you think?”
“Quit worrying ’bout that sodee drink,” Daddy said, but he broke a tiny smile so I knew he was agreed.
Thinking about orange soda all of a sudden made me mad for no reason, like a wasp gets. (Bees always have a reason; they’re more civilized, I reckon.) I stamped a foot to try to shake the bitter-tonic feeling out of me. “Maybe I don’t want any dumb old Nehi. And maybe I’ll make a PEACH pie instead.”
Daddy lifted his hat and scratched at his head. “Peach pie ain’t near as tangy as apple.”
Oh, for pity’s sake, what does he mean peach ain’t—
I looked up at him, and then we smiled for a blink, remembering the way we pretended with Momma to quarrel over what kind of pie nearly every week of every summer ever.
We took our usual path to town, passing where I’d break off to go to school, but I didn’t see any need to bring up that old place on such a sunny day.
Seemed like Daddy and me on that path we three had taken so often before could walk it with our eyes closed, so surely we could share our memories without opening our mouths.
As the road wound lazy left, the carts and cars on Ferguson Field came into view.
Daddy said, “I got to see some people ’bout some things, and I guess you could use you a pair of proper shoes, now you got a proper teacher. I’ll see you back here in an hour.”
His face was open, but in a flash, I felt hot and slapped. He wasn’t going to walk around with me like we used to with Momma? Why bother coming at all?
I reached for the closest mean thing. “How can you say that, Daddy? How can you stand so close to Momma’s own footsteps and say she wasn’t a proper teacher?”
His smile melted. His whole face seemed about a foot closer to his neck. “Possum, you, we both have to forget what we don’t got and focus on what we do.”
Wind roared in my ears, and one of those ugly toads jumped from my mouth, words I didn’t know were there till they came out. “I know I can’t be as good as Momma at anything, but it seems like you can’t wait to make changes. Why, before you know it, it’ll be like we never even had Momma.”
I was running before Daddy could call “Wait!” but my feet couldn’t stop if they wanted to. I tore down the road, my brain screaming what my mouth was trying to keep in.
Eventually it got shoved down into my feet. On the dirt road, they slapped out, “Come back, Momma. Come back, Momma.” I wished I could just keep running till she heard me and did.
At las
t, my chest felt full of fire, like when I beat Tully for the breath-holding swimming-hole record two summers back. I slowed, then bent and put my hands on my knees while I caught my breath. Traveler, who had been at my heels the whole way, plopped under the shade of a tree by the side of the road, and I joined him.
“Did I ruin it for us, Trav?”
Much as we love trapping and frog gigging, me and Traveler loved going to town best—the way it used to be. Town days had their own music.
I’d wake early and eat breakfast and do my chores and sit on the stoop till Momma and Daddy were ready. I did what I could to help them along, asking useful questions like “Are you ready yet?” and “When are we going?” At first, every time I stood, Traveler got up too. Even the birds seemed excited, to judge by their flit and flicker. Usually, by the time Momma and Daddy were ready, the sun was full up and Traveler snoring.
On those trips into town, Momma and Daddy turtle-walked the whole three miles, holding hands, whisper-giggling. Trav and I ran off the road, exploring, and back, and off again, like playing tag and always having Home Free to come back to.
We’d follow where the dirt road rambled lazy left. Me and Trav crashed into thickets and hid behind trees. If I thought pirates lurked nearby, I only had to whisper, “Trav, ‘ya, bo’,” and he’d appear right by me. He and I were pups together, and we had our own language.
“Possum, you heard a word I said?”
Traveler tugged on one leg of my coveralls. Looking up, I squinted into a Daddy-shaped silhouette against a robin-egg sky.
“No, sir,” I said. How long had I been sittin’ that Daddy had time to catch me up?
Daddy’s shadow spread and shrank along to the sound of a loud sigh. Then he turned and proceeded toward town once again.
He didn’t say another thing, so neither did I. Still. I followed.
All I can reckon is that Daddy knew me well enough to know that me running away once was rarer than a blue moon and not about to happen twice in a row, much less twice in one day.
The second time that walk was longer than ever with the weight of all that had been said—or not said. Yet somehow at last we arrived back at the noise and news, smells and sights of the market.
Otherwise Known as Possum Page 6