by Alan Madison
That night, climbing into bed, my room seemed to get darker faster, as if it were winter times two. I organized my bedzoo, putting my three lucky C’s (Cassie my camel, Cary my cat, and Cory my cow) across the top of my headboard to watch over me. Staring at the blank ceiling, I squeezed my limp blankie hard and pulled Freddie my frog close to my belly.
Dad soft-knocked and eased past the door. Nearing the bed, he leaned down and scooped up my long-haired lion, Larry, and my long-tailed squirrel, Sylvester, and wedged them back among my other animals that stared up at me from the foot of my bed. He tucked the covers tightly to my chin, then sat on the edge. The mattress slanted hard under his weight and several animals slid back to the floor.
“Esme, you’re going to have to help your mother around here,” he ordered and asked in the same exact sentence.
I understood and nodded in the same exact motion.
“Especially on Saturday mornings, because, as we know, your mother is a Swishback and Swishbacks don’t make perfect pancakes.” He grinned, herded a stray strand of hair back behind my ear, and left his warm hand to cup the side of my face.
“On Saturday mornings, you’ll be the boss. You’ll have to remind them that there are rules for pancakes.” He brought the left corner of his mouth slightly up toward his ear to form a lopsided grin.
“That’s a big responsibility for someone your age.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied in my most military voice, to try and assure him that I was absolutely one hundred percent “can-do.”
“Every day you look more and more like your mother,” Dad commented, which made me feel good because she is a very pretty mother. He gave me a peck on my forehead to try and assure me that he knew I was absolutely one hundred percent “can-do.”
The fullish moon outside my window barely lit the tattoo on his right forearm. I closed my eyes tight so I could memorize every detail of it. A robin, its red chest proudly puffed, perched on the edge of a twig nest with a long wiggling worm squeezed in her beak. At her feet sat two small baby birds, mouths open wide, anxiously awaiting their meal. No one really knew for sure exactly what it meant. Grandpa McCarther had the same tattoo though. He said that McCarthers have gotten that particular mark since the beginning of time or at least since they began joining the army — which to him was probably the same thing. I half worried that one day I would have to get that tattoo and half wanted to one day get it too.
Dad smoothed my tangle of brown hair, his soft strokes pushing me toward sleep. I remembered a beach in Kenya where the sand was so boiling hot we could not get back to our blanket without burning the bottoms of our feet. I could see it and feel it as if I were there and not tucked into my bed here. Mom tried but couldn’t carry little Ike and me across the sand at the same time. Dad came running, almost flying, and scooped us up. I remember watching the baby robins on his forearm frantically jumping, trying to reach the worm but never quite reaching it. He carried us for what must have been a mile, maybe more, or maybe not so far at all, but he did deliver us safely to our blanket and then even raced back to get Mom!
To me that tattooed robin meant that my dad, August Aloysius McCarther the Third, was the strongest, bravest person alive.
When I opened my eyes, he had turned and started away.
“Daddy,” I said, just a tad too loud, then said just a tad too low, “take this with you.”
I held out the tangled web of pink and blue cotton that was my treasured blankie.
“I’d be honored. But won’t you need it?”
“I think you will need it more.”
“You’re a very courageous girl, Esmerelda Swishback McCarther. One day you’ll make a great soldier.”
“You won’t forget to bring it back?”
He shook his head, sharp-saluted, and marched away.
I think every single one of my animals wanted to cry, from my frayed aardvark, Alvin, to Zelda, my zebra. I pulled my goat, Gabriella, closer; her usually clear eyes began to fog, and my walrus, Wallace’s, marble eyeballs got moist. I knew that if I started even a whimper they, all thirty-two of them, would join in. We would most surely wake the entire neighborhood with our sad cries and lonely howls and fill my bed with tears. Under the covers I squeezed Pete my python’s tail tight, then dug my nails into my palm, so I wouldn’t cry. And since I didn’t, they didn’t.
Goat
My dad’s best buddy is Supply Sergeant Gabe Sutler. Dad says he has known him since “basic” (which is the beginning of being in the army). Gabe’s job is to make sure every soldier has everything they need, from butter to bullets. By accident, a company once sent Gabe a box of stuffed goats instead of a crate of overcoats. This was unlucky for the army but lucky for me.
“One hundred days and ninety-nine nights is a long time,” Ms. Pitcher, my teacher, threw out to the class. “How many daddies or mommies are away?”
Open hands sprouted like spring flowers. Arthur’s father was in the air force and Martina’s mom was in the marines, Pedro’s pop was in the paratroopers and Brid-get’s older brother was in the navy.
I wasn’t alone.
“Why?” Ms. Pitcher pop-quizzed. “Why?”
That was a hard question. Why, I wondered. There was a war. He was in the army. The president. Duty. He was a McCarther. To protect me . . .
“Because that’s how long a tour of duty is,” replied Pedro. “When they go to fight they are sent for one hundred days and ninety-nine nights. After they do this, they come home.”
“Very good, Pedro. A tour of duty.”
“It’s a long time.” The words rolled heavily from my lips and lazy-lolled across my desk.
“Not really, Esme, no. If you look at these days differently it will go by — like that.” Ms. Pitcher snapped her fingers to emphasize the “like that” part.
“One hundred days and ninety-nine nights sounds like forever, but it is also only fifteen Saturdays, and that doesn’t. And if you say three months, well, that doesn’t seem like a long haul at all.”
Arthur, Pedro, Martina and me all forced smiles and gratefully agreed, but no matter how our teacher added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided the days, to us, it was still an awfully long time.
After lunch, Martina and I playground-played on the seesaw. We tried to count one hundred times up and ninety-nine times down, but somewhere around fifty we would forget and have to start again.
Martina and I were best friends. We sat across from each other in class, sat across from each other at lunch, and sat across from each other on the seesaw during recess. She had long brown hair and short brown eyes, just like me. And light brown skin and heavy brown eyebrows, not at all like me.
Ms. Pitcher said we were like “two peas in a pod.” We had no idea what she meant, and since neither of us really liked peas we didn’t consider it any sort of compliment. But since Ms. Pitcher was a grown-up and our teacher and we mostly liked her, we forced smiles and sort of agreed.
“Let’s play king and queen,” Martina requested. One of the reasons we liked each other so much was because we both loved to play made-up games.
“And they are our villagers!” I added, motioning to our playground-scattered classmates.
Slowly and carefully, I eased off my side of the “see” and then pushed down with all my weight to gently let her off her side, the “saw.”
We climbed the cold metal bars to the top of the jungle gym, where we could see our whole playground kingdom.
Pedro and Arthur were playing catch in the far corner. Bridget and her little brother, Walter, were wandering near the swings. Richie C. and Georgina B., whom Martina and I did not get along with so much, were hogging the water fountain. Ike was trampolining his butt against the chain-link fence, arguing with his friend Stony Jackson. For best friends they sure liked to argue a lot.
“Ike!” I yelled to get his attention, but the playground was too loud. Stony was tiny for his age, and Ike tall for his, so he towered over his friend. But Stony was “
tough as nails and had a chip on his shoulder.” At least that is what Dad had once admiringly observed while we were sitting on the front stoop watching them play-wrestle. Dads can be silly.
The two boys stopped arguing and scrambled happily around the swings, playing tag.
“You be the queen,” Martina barely suggested and mostly ordered.
“On Monday you were the teacher and I was the student — remember?” I reminded her.
“But yesterday you were the princess and I was the evil stepped-on sister!”
“Evil stepsister.” As soon as the correction slipped my lips, I realized I shouldn’t have said that and that I would be the queen today.
“Okay, I’ll be the queen first. Then how about we switch in the middle?” After being mean and correcting her, the best I could hope for was halvsies.
“Cool.”
We stood atop the bars of the jungle gym barking orders to our loyal subjects, who scurried this way and that.
“I want to have a royal ball that will be remembered forever!” Martina grandly announced.
“A dress of gold and diamonds for your queen!
“Bring me my magic sword!
“Bring me my ruby crown!”
Food, sodas, shoes, jewels, clowns, and music. We commanded and planned, ordered and laughed, imagining every last detail of the grand ball. Then as our dessert of chocolate strawberries, chocolate cake, and chocolate ice cream was being served, the end-of-recess bell rang. Balancing on the round bar, Martina rose up to give a final order. She swept her hand across her body and commanded, “To war! Follow my magic sword and defend our castle.”
“All to battle. Defend your queen and king!” I added so enthusiastically that I lost my balance and wobbled down onto the bars, barely catching myself from falling farther.
Across our playground kingdom, our pretend villagers and very real classmates scooped up their book bags and streamed toward the big metal push doors where our arm-crossed teachers waited.
“To war! To war!” we again urged.
Martina and I laughed and laughed at the shoving students trying to funnel into the doorway. Exhausted, gasping for breath, we sat hooking our feet under a bar and watched the final boys, who had been playing basketball at the far end fence. Giggling, playfully pushing, still rhythmic ball-bouncing, they disappeared through the doors.
“To war . . . ,” Martina barely whispered under her breath, breaking the momentary quiet of the emptied playground.
“To war . . . ,” I soft-echoed to no one in particular.
“You girls get down right this minute. Martina! Esme! Recess is over.”
This direct order set Martina’s mouth straight. Sad at being relieved of command, she dropped to the ground.
On top of the jungle gym in the middle of the empty school playground, for one single moment, I was really alone. Half that moment felt really good, and then for the other half it felt really, really scary.
“Esmerelda! Now!”
Hippo, Horsey
Hanna my hippo (missing her right button eye) and Harry my horsey (rip on his left rear hoof) are the oldest animals in my bedzoo. They were given to me when I was first born, and Mom says that they have “seniority,” which is a long word that means that they should be respected since they have been around the longest. And they are! Parents sometimes make up long, serious words for such short, simple things.
The first days that Dad was gone flew fast, like I was on a galloping horse. Those were the easy days. When I missed him first thing in the morning I pretended that he had gone to an early meeting. When he didn’t come home at night I pretended he was away for just a few days on “maneuvers.” This was when he and his unit painted their faces green and went to a nearby forest and pretended there was a fight in that forest so that if there ever were a fight in a forest like that one they would pretty much be ready. It was something he did every few months and it sounded pretty fun.
I imagined him upstairs in the attic when I was downstairs in the basement. In the kitchen cooking dinner when I was in the bathroom taking my bath. When I was outside in the backyard playing freeze tag with my friends he was inside watching the football game with Grandpa. In my mind we just kept missing bumping into each other by a minute or two. “Bad luck,” I would mumble to myself, and go on my way.
Although the first days were easier for me, they were harder for Ike. Even though he can be both a skunk and a skink, I felt bad and tried as hard as I could to help.
“Pretend he went to the supermarket and he’ll be right back,” I explained one morning when Ike was particularly blue.
Ike did and smiled — for five minutes before the dark thundercloud of real memory crossed back over his face. Poor Ike, if only he could imagine like me.
But then, as the days began to fall like raindrops, I couldn’t keep running between them and pretending I was not getting wet. So, as each day got easier for Ike because he had gotten used to being soaked, it got worse for me. Soon I was drenched and shivering.
One night when Ike and I were having dinner and Mom was in the shower, the phone rang.
“Hello, may I speak with your daddy?” asked a man’s voice.
“One second,” I replied out of habit.
“Thank you. I’ll hold.”
I put the phone down on the counter, turned to yell “Dad!” and swallowed the word whole as I realized what I had done, and now I didn’t know what to do. Ike slow-turned to me from the table, his mouth filled with steak and potatoes. “ ’At’sa atter?”
I didn’t know what to do. The phone lay there. Mom was upstairs. And Ike just stared.
“It’s for Dad.”
“He’s not here.”
“I know, but I . . . forgot.”
Ike slurped up a final forkful of green beans and circled around me to the phone.
“Hello? He’s . . .”
The man on the other end of the line interrupted Ike thinking he was Dad and started to talk and talk. I watched Ike listen and listen and every few seconds try to say something to set him straight. But I could hear the man just keep on talking.
“Ike? Who is it?” Mom stood at the door toweling her hair. Ike shrugged. Mom made her squishy concerned face and opened her hand for the phone. Ike passed it to her. I could still hear the man on the other end talking.
“Hello? Yes, who is this? No, I’m sorry, we are not . . . no . . . I’m sure the Caribbean is beautiful but . . . I’m sorry, we are not interested.” And before the man could say another word, she hung up.
“Very funny, Ike.” She crossed to the sink to start washing the dishes. “A Caribbean cruise. Very funny indeed. Finish your dinner, you two.”
After answering that one call I couldn’t pretend anymore that it was just “bad luck” that I kept missing Dad and I started to just miss Dad. And after Mom hung up the phone I made my very first rule: Don’t answer the phone. So I didn’t.
With Dad gone, every day passed at a hippo’s clumping pace. After dinner I crisscrossed off each date from the calendar thumbtacked above my bed. Then I dove down between my covers and tried to sleep. There was no blankie to cuddle, so instead each night I adopted one of my stuffed animals. I started with A (aardvark) and was up to I (inchworm).
When I finished the alphabet with Zelda my zebra, I’d just start again.
Tight-gripping Ida my inchworm’s ear, I wished my father, Sergeant August Aloysius McCarther the Third, had tucked me in. Then I squeeze-closed my eyes and dreamed my wish.
Inchworm
When I lost my absolute first tooth, the tooth fairy gave me Ida my inchworm. She is much longer than an inch and has green and yellow fuzz and a big red-mouthed smile. I put my tooth under the pillow and the next morning the tooth was gone and Ida had inched into its place. Back then, I believed in the tooth fairy.
I shoveled clumpy mounds of brown-sugared oatmeal into my mouth and angrily stewed at Ike while he, on purpose to bother me, poked at his.
Ev
ery morning everything happened differently from the morning before it. With Dad away there was no “routine.”
Sometimes Ike would wake before me, sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes he’d pound on the bathroom door, sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes cereal was out, sometimes it wasn’t. I looked up at the clock when the big hand clicked upright to the twelve. That was the same. Thud! That was the same. Yes. The newspaper hit the front door. But now the switch had broken. Ike lazily played with his food. The stairs silent, the muffled scuffling sound of Mom getting dressed upstairs, no big rush, no jumble of words, no juggling of bags. No “routine.” No fundamental plan.
“Eat,” I instructed.
“You’re not my boss,” he snappped, and then stuck his oatmealed tongue out at me.
“Yes, I am,” I stated, thinking I should have the same “seniority” here that Hippo and Horsey had in my bedzoo.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
If our father were here he’d administer Ike an A1 immediate attitude adjustment.
“Isaac Aloysius Swishback McCarther, you apologize to your sister this minute and eat your oatmeal, young man. Or you will find yourself . . .”
I listed the delicious menu of choice punishments: in the corner, in your room, no TV, to bed early . . . Ike would apologize fast. My skinky brother had stubbornly refused to do what I commanded and was still just pushing and pulling his now cold oats.
I looked over to Dad’s chair. Since it was empty I could see past it to the corner of our kitchen counter where a stack of unopened mail addressed to him was piled high.
“Eat.”
“Why?”
“It is your duty,” I exactly explained because I know he sometimes forgets.
“Doodeee!!” He howled. “Doodeee!” he repeated, and ran upstairs, laughing, basketball-bouncing the word over and over and over in his mouth as if it were funnier than yogurt, llama, and spatula all smushed together.