Karen reflected that if she’d flirted with that cop, maybe he would have let her off. Or maybe not. Maybe he had a quota to fill, so many tickets to write each day, in order to earn his bonuses and feed that family of thirty-seven that he was buying all that food for. Karen shook her head, and laughed.
“What’s funny?” Robin asked.
“I was just thinking about a man at the store today who bought a whole case—that’s twenty-four quart jars—of pickled pigs’ feet.”
“What’s that?” Robin wanted to know.
“When they butcher hogs and take off all the bacon and hams and good parts, they’ve got leftovers like feet, which they preserve by pickling, and sell cheaply.”
“Ew,” Robin said. “That’s gross.”
“You’ve never had any, and I hope you never have to.”
“What did he look like?” Robin asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“Anybody who eats lots of pickled pigs’ feet must look weird. Maybe like a monster.”
“He’s a state trooper,” Karen said, “although he wasn’t in uniform.” She attempted to describe him: mid-forties, strong build but potbellied, plain grizzled brown hair, bushy eyebrows. “He might not look weird but he certainly wasn’t good-looking. Just an old country boy without a brain in his head. He was buying case loads of everything. Maybe the state police are going to have a big picnic.”
Robin laughed, and said, “A zillion pigs chomping on pigs’ feet!” Then she said, “Let’s not get off the subject, okay?”
“What subject?”
“I want to go to Kelly’s slumber party.”
Karen sighed. This was going to be difficult. She tried to tell herself that Kelly’s parents, whom she’d never met, were thoroughly responsible people and would do a proper job of riding herd on the party. They would make sure nobody got hurt and that all of them behaved themselves, as much as girls of seven and eight possibly could. Maybe the parents would even make sure the kids put out the lights and went to sleep before dawn came. Still, Karen would worry herself sick the whole time Robin was away.
The whole idea just wouldn’t work. Robin had a daily schedule that she was required to observe, from the time she woke up until the time she went to bed, that included her chores around the house and her homework, as well as her “fun” things like watching television and reading comic books and talking on the telephone and playing with her paper dolls, most of which she’d made herself. She was particularly responsible for strict observance of the rules while Karen was at work and Robin was home alone. She was not allowed to invite her friends over unless Karen was home. Robin had memorized the numbers for the fire department, the family doctor, the police, and Karen’s place of employment. Robin was allowed to use the vacuum cleaner but not the toaster, the electric can opener, the mixer or the stove.
Robin was permitted to check the mailbox quickly when the school bus dropped her off, but then she had to go directly to the front door and unlock it with her key that was kept in a special pocket under the lid of her lunchbox. Karen had timed her: it took only twenty seconds for her to step down from the bus, glance into the mailbox and then walk to the front door and, before unlocking it, check the house for any sign of a broken window or anything that didn’t look right. Karen had requested that the bus driver wait those twenty seconds until Robin was inside before driving off. If Robin noticed anything about the house that didn’t look right, she was supposed to get back onto the bus and ride back to the school and phone for Karen from there. After actually entering the house and locking it from the inside, including the deadbolt, Robin was supposed to give the house its inspection, looking for anything amiss: back door ajar or unlocked, windows not closed, any smell of smoke or gas or anything suspicious.
If anyone phoned for Karen while she was gone, unless it was Grandma, Robin was required to tell the caller that Karen couldn’t come to the phone and to take a message, and never to tell the caller that she was home alone. Robin was not to unlock the door for anyone except Grandma and Grandpa, and they had a special code knock which Grandpa called shave-and-a-haircut-six-bits; a rhythm of knocks that was easily recognizable, so if Robin heard a voice on the other side of the door saying, “Open up, it’s your Grandma,” even if it sounded just like Grandma, she was not to open the door unless she’d heard that code knock.
Despite all these rules and procedures, Karen still worried constantly about leaving Robin home alone. And today Robin had violated her routine by coming to the store to meet Karen instead of taking the school bus home. That was not excusable, and Karen considered punishing Robin for it by forbidding her from attending the birthday sleep-over. If nothing else could persuade Robin to back down, Karen might have to resort to that.
“Did you just walk from school to the store?” Karen asked her daughter. Robin nodded. It was only a few blocks from Woodland Heights Elementary to the store, but still, Robin knew she was not allowed to walk alone. “That’s not permitted, you know. You must never forget ‘stranger danger.’”
“I never forget,” Robin said.
“What if a man had driven up beside you and told you that I was in the hospital and he’d been sent to pick you up?”
“I would’ve told him that I know where the hospital is and I could walk there by myself, thank you very much.”
Karen smiled. “That’s good, but what if he had tried to get out and grab you?”
“I would have given him a chagi in the nuts.”
“A what in the what?”
Robin stood up from the table and said, “Chagi means kick in taekwondo. Watch.” And she delivered a swift kick into the groin of an imaginary man who somehow took the form of mean old Sergeant Alan in Karen’s mind.
“I didn’t know you knew those words,” Karen said.
“And if that doesn’t crumple him up,” Robin declared, “I’ll give him a chireugi right in his windpipe.” And she demonstrated, making a spear of her fingers and thrusting them toward his neck.
Karen flinched. “Wow. That hurt, I bet.”
Robin dusted her hands together, and sat back down. “Next question.”
“I wish you wouldn’t drum your fingers on the table,” Karen said. It was a bad habit that had gotten worse in recent months. On one hand, it was clear proof that a career as a concert pianist was waiting for Robin, if only they could afford piano lessons. On the other hand, it was annoying and showed a complete lack of patience. “Tell you what,” Karen offered, “if you’ll clean your room, and I mean clean it, I’ll give you two dollars to buy Kelly a birthday present.”
Robin thought about that. “You mean that I could take to the party?”
“How else would you get it there? Mail it?”
Chapter four
Few things frightened her. She was scared of thunder but not of the lightning that went with it. Thinking about this, and about the explanation that her mother had tried to give her about the connection between lightning and thunder, how the latter is the sound of the former (even though this was hard to grasp because she often saw the lightning long before she heard the thunder), she decided that what most frightened her about thunder was the noise. Not just because it was so crashing and booming but because it was inexplicable. What was happening? Was the whole world blowing up and coming to an end? She had lived through many thunderstorms and always found that the next day the world was just as it had always been, but every time she heard a sudden loud noise (gunshots too and, at least once in her short life, the fireworks that accompany July 4th) the sound seemed to be suggesting mass destruction.
And because she was not afraid of the lightning, or of any sudden light, or of light in any of its forms (not even the moon, although it sometimes seemed to be an intruder), she was not afraid of the absence of light either. The dark did not bother her at all. This seemed to her an unreasonable lack of fear, when she ought to be rightly apprehensive about all the unseen things out there in the dark which could cause her
harm. Often she could hear them, and smell them without being able to see them, but she reflected that their odor and their sound were fearsome but not their invisibility. She hated the high-pitched echo-shrieking of bats; she knew they had to do it to find their way around in the dark, but she couldn’t stand the sound of it.
She didn’t need to make any sounds to find her way around in the dark, and so now she trotted easily and effortlessly down the remains of the old logging trail that meandered up the north face of Madewell Mountain. But her tongue, hanging out of her mouth to catch all the night’s fragrances, was becoming dry. She was very thirsty, and hoped she’d soon catch a sniff of a spring bubbling out of the earth, or a rivulet in a ravine, and she realized too it was well past her suppertime, with no prospect of anything to eat in the offing. Sure, she could catch a squirrel or a rabbit, or even one of the night birds whose plaintive advertisements for a mate filled the air sweetly with pleasant sounds, but the simple fact was that she had never in her life killed a thing. Not a thing. Well, of course she’d caused the demise of various fleas who had burrowed into her coat and fallen victim to her chomping. But that was self-protective murder.
She encountered along the trail many creatures, edible and inedible, none of whom could understand her attempts to communicate with them: a porcupine, a green turtle, an armadillo, a family of raccoons, and a possum. In the dark she could see clearly enough to tell what an ugly creature the possum was, but she knew from experience that possums were good folk, and friendly, and she was sorry she didn’t know their language. Overhead were flying squirrels whose sounds were too mild to frighten her but noisy enough to be distracting. There was also an occasional owl, whose hoot stopped her in her tracks and reversed her ears.
After a long time the logging trail met up with a larger trail, a dirt road, and she came to a habitation. She and the other dog caught wind of each other at the same instant. The other loudly announced her name: “Arphrowf!”
“Hreapha!” she answered.
Soon they met, and took turns sniffing each other’s identities. Arphrowf wanted to know where in tarnation she thought she was a-heading, this time of night. Hreapha explained that she’d been up on the mountain with her master, but had decided to revolt against him and to disaffiliate herself from his activities. Good gracious to Betsy, said Arphrowf, you don’t mean to tell me. I never in all my born days heard tell of nobody a-quittin out like that. Hreapha explained, He wasn’t a very nice man. I had all I could take.
Say, said Arphrowf, does he by any chance drive a old beat-up Chevy pick-up? I reckon I’ve seen that feller go past here a hundrit times lately. And wasn’t that you a-settin in the back end? Amidst all kinds of passels and totes and plunder? Where’s he a-haulin all that freight?
Hreapha sat for a spell (she needed the rest) and told her new friend all about how her former master had taken possession of an old farmstead up on the mountaintop and was apparently stocking it up with enough food and supplies to last forever, including enough hard liquor to enable a flight over the moon or an early death, whichever came first. She asked Arphrowf if she’d ever been up there to that old abandoned house. Her new friend said, I caint say as how I have. I think I know where it is, though. It’s just too fur and snaky for me to want to mess with. Hreapha observed that she hadn’t seen any snakes yet. Then she asked, You wouldn’t happen to have any surplus food lying around loose, would you? Arphrowf apologized: I done et in the forepart of the evening and they won’t be a-layin out my breffust till the sun comes up. But you’re shore welcome to stay and share it with me.
I guess I’d better be getting on, Hreapha declared.
Don’t be rushing off. Stay more and we’ll visit till they lay out the chow.
I thank you, Hreapha said. I reckon I’ll see you again sometime. “Hreapha!”
“Arphrowf!” her friend bade her goodbye.
Hreapha possessed an unerring sense that told her which way to go to meet up with her in-habit in what remained of the tiny village where she’d lived recently and where she still had a friend or two. While this sense depended upon a collaboration between her ineffable internal compass and her memory of the complex of odors she had sniffed the many, many times she had been in the pickup on this road, it was primarily a knowledge of that part of herself she had left behind at home, which her mother had told her was called her in-habit: an invisible, unsmellable presence, a second self beyond the senses. So now she headed down the dirt road that would lead there sooner or later. Hreapha was a little sad to be leaving Arphrowf, who was a good old friendly country girl, and she had ever-so-briefly considered the possibility of hanging around and seeing if Arphrowf’s people might want to have her, or at least feed her. But she believed her chances for a meal or a new master might be better in or near the village. Home is home, after all, where your in-habit remains and never wants to leave. There was even the possibility that after her former master had completely moved out of his house, she could move back into it, and continue to enjoy living there, in her old familiar home, the only real home she’d ever known, and if she didn’t have a master, if nobody took possession of the house after he had left it, she could just count on a friend or two to help her forage for food. Possibly, even if somebody did take possession of that house, they might adopt her! She really did have a bright future, and her steps quickened as she trotted along the road. Almost as if in celebration, she came to a spring trickling out of the roadside bank, with a small pool where it fell, and she quenched her thirst at length before trotting onward.
It was a long way to the village, and she passed very few houses along the road, most of them vacant, and the few inhabited ones domains of her kindred, who continued sleeping or perfunctorily called their names to her as she trotted past. She knew none of them, and only occasionally called her name back to them.
The only difficulty she had on the long road was an abrupt encounter with a striped skunk. She recognized it instantly and knew that if she antagonized it she’d carry its foul squirtings on her face for days and days. In her own language she tried to assure the skunk that she meant no harm and simply wanted to go her own way, but the skunk spoke a complex foreign language and began circling her with its tail raised and then, at the instant she sensed the animal was about to fire its fetid spray, Hreapha took off, running as hard as her legs would carry her. Thus she escaped the full brunt of the foul vapors, but not entirely their all-encompassing effect. Further along the road she had to stop and burrow her nose into the dirt and hold it there for a long time until the worst of the hideous smell had gone.
She still carried the awful stink when she finally arrived on the outskirts of the village sometime after daybreak, at one of the very few houses still occupied, where lived a very good friend of hers, a big shaggy fellow named Yowrfrowr. He was always thrilled to see her, especially because his only companions other than his mistress were the countless cats who filled the front yard. Yowrfrowr was a jovial and gentle fellow, but he had little affection for or tolerance of his yard mates, who were now eyeing Hreapha with mean and unwelcoming looks.
“Yowrfrowr!” he greeted her, but then he backed away from her and said, Ew pee-you, that kitty must’ve had a pole down its back!
Sorry, she said. I guess I didn’t jump out of its way fast enough.
They’re a botheration and a pestilence this time of spring, Yowrfrowr observed. A body can’t take a little constitutional without the danger of being squirted by one of their fulsome atomizers.
Hreapha didn’t always understand Yowrfrowr’s language, which she assumed could be the result of the fact that he was purebred, not of mixed ancestry as she was. He was well-behaved and kind, as well as extremely good-looking, and she thought she liked him more than any other dog of her acquaintance, although he did constantly hint at his sexual attraction toward her.
You wouldn’t happen to have any of your breakfast left over, would you? She asked.
Didn’t that bastard give you en
ough to eat? Yowrfrowr demanded.
He doesn’t know I’m in town, she said. But even if he did, I wouldn’t want him to feed me. I’ve forsaken him.
Yowrfrowr’s big soulful eyes grew enormous. You what?
I just decided I don’t want to live with him anymore. So I ran away.
High time! Yowrfrowr exclaimed. Though I must say I’ve never heard of such apostasy before. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
But I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday breakfast, Hreapha said, and I’ve been walking for miles and miles.
Yowrfrowr tilted his head and looked at her sideways. Miles and miles? It’s less than a mile from here to his house.
He has another house. He’s moving. Way off to some godforsaken run-down homestead on the mountaintop far north of here.
No wonder you left him. He has no right to take you away from this town…and from me. Yowrfrowr winked at her.
So? She reminded him of her request. I’d really appreciate a bite or two.
Sweetheart, I’d give you all my breakfast if I still had any. Truth is, I’ve cleaned the dish, at least those morsels which I could beat the blasted felines to. But tell you what: I could go over there and scratch on the door and whine piteously and maybe she’d come out and give me some more.
Which, bless his heart, he proceeded to do. You hide behind that bush, he told her, and then he scratched at the door and whined for a while. As the door opened, he said “Yowrfrowr!” eagerly. The old woman stood there looking down at him. Yowrfrowr had once explained to Hreapha that his mistress was the oldest woman in town, was the grandmother of some of the others who still lived nearby, and was also, despite her age, the most beautiful creature on earth. Her only grave flaw, her hamartia, was her fondness for worthless felines.
The woman said to him, “What’s bothering you, Xenophon?” The woman never called him Yowrfrowr. Usually she just called him “Fun” for short, or sometimes “Funny.”
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