Peculiar Country

by Stuart R. West

  I didn’t stick around, no moss on me. I pedaled fast as my legs could work. A safe distance away, I looked back. The two men hadn’t moved from the center of the street. They held court, imposing as all get out, arms folded and shoulders back.

  Further on down the street, two women stood side-by-side, shoe to shoe, arms interlinked. Watching me. Or at least one was watching me.

  The Sooter sisters—as James would say—had rat-finked on me.

  Shadows drew fast over Main Street, very wrong for the time of day.

  * * *

  It seemed all of Hangwell’s townsfolk had been picked up by a twister, stirred, then dropped back down on their heads, everyone acting a might odd. A funny feeling, adults rarely gave me the time-of-day, let alone considered me the center of their storm.

  Even Odie Smith had abandoned his breakfast swinging post. Surely, a prophetic sign of the times.

  As I pulled my bike into the school rack, I took a long look at the sky above. Blue skies forever cottoned with a few clouds. It surely didn’t look or smell like a brewing storm. But it felt that way.

  I barely made it into my seat before the bell rang. Classes proved endless, the monotony broken only by furtive glances and coy smiles shared with James.

  Aggravating to a fault, I couldn’t even get a word in with James. Because of Mrs. Hopkins’ rigid structure, even our lunch period was highly regimented, assigned seats and no talking. Now I truly knew how those star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, felt as dark forces conspired to keep them apart.

  Surely melodramatic, but as I couldn’t concentrate on classes, I had to occupy my time somehow.

  Of course you can’t have good without evil. Suzette and her evil battalion of Barbies were at it again, stabbing me with eye daggers and blatantly whispering about me. Years of that behavior, though, had fortified me with the skin of an armadillo.

  Still, I dreaded the inevitable end-of-day public apology, worse than seeing the dentist over in Durham.

  The time came. I braced myself. In front of the class, I stood next to Suzette. Not too close, though. I didn’t want any of her rubbing off on me.

  “Class, Suzette and Dibby have something they’d like to share with you.” Mrs. Hopkins beamed like we were two of the cutest puppies ever witnessed. “What do you have to say for yourselves, girls?”

  Silence. I wasn’t going first. I figured Suzette felt the same.

  A dead heat, Mrs. Hopkins called the tie. “Suzette, do you have something to say to Dibby?”

  Suzette studied her stupid shiny shoes, just swaying back and forth. She smiled, big and metallic, a demonic smile of trickery. “Yes, I would. I’d like to say I’m sorry…” The pause lasted longer than the entire agonizing day of class. Her painted fingernails flew to her mouth to stifle a not-so-subtle giggle. “…that Dibby hit me!”

  Not to be outdone, I shouted, “And I’m mighty sorry I didn’t sock you twice!”

  The class erupted. Hoots and hollers and two-fingered whistles rooted for another round of battle. Outraged, Mrs. Hopkins stood, her eyes twin eggs and her mouth wide enough to fit ‘em both in. She smacked her yard stick against the chalkboard, screamed for the class to settle down. Over the barnyard calamity, her shouts went unheard.

  The final bell, however, accomplished what Mrs. Hopkins couldn’t. Bloodlust forgotten, my classmates barreled out the door. The last one out, James shot me a wink, followed by a small, hand-clap, the kind usually reserved for polite social functions.

  The consequences be hanged, I felt empowered. Based on Suzette’s hideous, metal-covered smile, she felt the same way. I caught her eye, smirked. Laughed. Just couldn’t help it. So did Suzette. Whether a shared laugh or mocking laughter, I couldn’t rightly tell, but it just seemed like the only response to a silly situation.

  On the other hand, Mrs. Hopkins appeared less than tickled. Her yardstick still beat the tar outta the chalkboard and she gave us a grimace that could mortify babies.

  “Girls…that’s not what had been discussed.” When she spoke, her lips remained locked just like a ventriloquist. “Apologize…this instant! Or you will be suspended.”

  Since the last sunrise, things had changed for me. Yesterday at this time, I wouldn’t have given two hoots and a holler if I’d been given the school boot. But that meant three days without seeing James.

  Begrudgingly, I turned toward Suzette, grumbled, “Sorry I socked you yesterday.”

  Suzette adopted the same put-upon, stomach-growling tone. “Sorry I made fun of you.”

  “There! That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Sunshine informed Mrs. Hopkins’ smile. “Now, girls, I want you to act together and clean the chalkboards and erasers. I’ll be stepping out for a spell. Can I trust you girls to behave like young ladies on your own?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hopkins,” I groaned.

  “Very well. You’ll find rags in the sink. Your future relies on this, girls. We wouldn’t want bad marks on our permanent records now, would we?”

  “No, Mrs. Hopkins,” I bellyached.

  Already reaching for a cigarette inside her purse, Mrs. Hopkins fled in a hurry.

  I’ve never understood the reasoning behind cleaning chalkboard erasers. Seemed to me like a fairly futile exercise. The next day, the erasers would be full of chalk again. Some of the boys in class actually enjoyed banging the life out of them, and I had to ‘fess up to banging things around (like Suzette) did hold a peculiar charm. Still, cleaning things just so they can get dirty again seemed an uphill battle.

  From a bag beneath her chair, Suzette pulled out an apron. It draped her full-length. Like a Mummy, her wrappings dragged the floor.

  I laughed, pointed at her. “Are you wearing a mop?”

  “At least I care about my appearance. Maybe you should try it sometime.” A trollish sneer gummed up her face.

  “I tried, remember? Didn’t make a lick of difference. You made fun of me when I dressed up. And you belittle me when I don’t.” The absolute nonsense of it all struck me. “You and your little hellions want it both ways and neither way far as I’m involved.” I shrugged. “I don’t care.” Although, I reckon I did. Just a bit, but I’d never let Suzette know that.

  “Cry me a river.” She balled a hand in her eye and rubbed it.

  “No, thank you. You did enough crying yesterday to last a lifetime.”

  That righteously shut her maw. At the sink, she wet down a rag. When she finished, I did the same. I set to work, mindlessly scrubbing the board. Humming just to keep my mind occupied. We managed to stay out of each other’s paths, until we met at the middle of the chalkboard.

  “You like the Beatles?” she asked incredulously

  “You talking to me?”

  She stomped a foot. “There’s no one else in the room, Dibby! You were humming—if that’s what you call it—I Wanna Hold Your Hand. I can’t believe you like the Beatles.”

  I hadn’t even realized the song I’d been humming, not consciously. “You gotta monopoly on the Beatles? Sure I like ‘em. Like ‘em lots. Unlike you, though, I don’t paste my walls full of pictures of them, praying for them to notice me.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “You’re stupid.”

  A silence fell over us. Frankly, the never-ending battle just ate up too much energy. I took back to humming, turned it up a bit.

  “Must you do that so loudly?” Suzette screeched. “You’re gonna call the cows home!”

  “Well, it got your attention, didn’t it, Bessie?”

  She sighed, the fight gone out of her. And I had to confess, it made her a lot less interesting. Probably because she didn’t have her flock of geese to impress. “You’re really weird,” she said.

  “Better weird than one of the same ol’ lemmings,” I volleyed back.

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Don’t strain your brain.”

  “So…who do you like? I mean in the Beatles? This should be rich.” She rolled her eyes. If they st
uck that way, I vowed to attend church regularly again.

  “I like them all. Duh.”

  “I mean, which one do you like?”

  I gave it some thought, first time really. To me, the Beatles were nearly indistinguishable in their dark suits and black mop-tops, a collective, unattainable group. Nearly fictional. I didn’t care. The cutest Beatle in my mind was my would-be bug, James. But to tell Suzette that would be to hang a target on my back, proclaiming, “It’s Dibby hunting season!”

  Instead, I answered, “I guess I like the cute one.” Let her gnaw on that a while.

  “Me, too.” She stopped, looked at me, dumb eyes wide.

  Before I embarrassed myself with my lack of Beatles knowledge, I left the topic behind. “Why do you do it anyway?” I asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Why do you try berate me every time I turn around? I can’t remember ever doing anything to you. Matter of fact, I seem to recall we played together in grade school.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “That was back in kindergarten, Dibby! Grow up!”

  “You’re the one dressed up in baby doll clothing.”

  “And you look like Farmer Leroy who—”

  “You’ll end up marrying,” I finished.

  “You’re so…so…darned aggravating!”

  “So that’s why you try to beat me down, Suzette? ‘Cause I aggravate you? According to science, the world doesn’t rotate around you.”

  “See? See there?” I didn’t. But I rightly felt we were finally getting somewhere, rather than trading insults and punches. “That’s what I mean about you! You’re weird. Maybe if you acted normal—like a regular normal girl—people wouldn’t make fun of you all the time!”

  I considered her argument. Didn’t like it one iota, no sir, not a bit. “You never took time to get to know me, Suzette. And, frankly, if it takes being like you and the others to be your friend…no thanks. I reckon I’m okay with our relationship just the way it is.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me and my friends!” She wrung the rag in her hand. Water dripped onto her polished shoe. Her face scrunched up. “You’re the one who’s weird! Not me!”

  “We’ll just see ‘bout that in ten years when you’re still living here, kissing on ol’ Farmer Leroy, and slopping his pigs supper.”

  Apparently, I struck bone. She came at me with two chalk erasers, her mouth twisted and ugly. Hardly fearsome looking, just a little dolly in a too large apron, near sobbing, prepared to felt me to death.

  She brought the erasers together with a surprisingly mighty clap. A cloud of white dust rose, surrounded me. I coughed. My eyes irritated to the point of tears. But not so much I couldn’t find my own weapons.

  Determined to storm down clouds of dust upon my nemesis, I banged my erasers together. I blew into the resultant cloud, unfortunately getting a bit of backlash. But Suzette got the brunt end. Snowy dust caked her hair and face ‘till she resembled a powdered donut down at Carol’s Diner.

  She squeezed out a girly “ooh!” As she reloaded, she scribbled a piece of chalk over one of her erasers. Then she whomped ‘em together.

  Like Old Man Winter, we filled the classroom with blinding snow, the fall-out hard to breathe through. We took turns chasing, both of us screaming. Most surprising, laughter stitched up my belly.

  I held up a hand, halted our impromptu battle. Our battleground lay in shambles. If we didn’t do something about it soon, we’d be topping that heap of trouble Sheriff Grigsby warned me about.

  “Come on!” Eyes running like leaky faucets, I waved Suzette over to the windows. Together we opened them, the kind that opened bottom out to keep kids locked inside. Panting, I stuck my head outside. Next to me, Suzette did the same thing.

  My eyes cleared a bit. I looked over at Suzette. With our hands and heads hanging out, we resembled witches clopped into the stockades of olden days. Again, it tickled my funny bone and apparently struck Suzette, too.

  “So,” I said, facing the back field, “you don’t like me ‘cause I’m different? I don’t rightly think that’s fair, Suzette.”

  She let out a cleansing sigh. “I guess I just kinda thought…you were fine with it.”

  “‘Fine’?”

  “You know…how we act around each other. We each do what we do. It’s just the way it is.”

  “I never considered it that way before. And you know what? Now that I’ve considered it, I reckon it’s the dumbest thing I ever did hear.”

  Laughter ruled ‘till we sucked up our share of fresh oxygen.

  “Mrs. Hopkins must be taking the longest cigarette break in school history,” said Suzette.

  “Sure seems that way.”

  I don’t know what came over me. Maybe the fact I’d cracked Suzette’s mean, icy exterior put me a bit at ease. Or maybe our adversarial relationship had just grown old and tiresome. Could be, now that I had her vulnerable, a prisoner locked up next to me, I could pick that pea-brain of hers.

  More than likely, I’d just banged up against a dead end and had nowhere else to turn.

  “Suzette, you ever hear tell what happened to Evelyn Saunders’ boy, Thomas?”

  Like a prairie dog vanishing inside his hole, Suzette withdrew back into the room. On the way, she banged her curly-haired head on the sill, which brought a grin to my face. I wiped it clean before I reentered the room.

  Even through the chalk dust, I could see Suzette was a right shade whiter than usual.

  “Why on earth do you wanna know about that?”

  “Because it matters to me, okay? And not a single adult in town will say boo about it!”

  Regardless of the still cloudy classroom, Suzette took a seat, and motioned for me to join her. “Could be the adults are right for once,” she said.

  “So darn frustrating!” I tossed up my hands and dropped into the desk facing her. “All I wanna know is what happened to Thomas! His daddy, too. But no one—”

  “I know what happened.” Suzette lowered her voice, uncustomary behavior. Usually she shrieked everything out like a vulture cawing after prey. And she looked frightened to death. The same precious look I committed to memory right before I walloped her.

  “Then do spill,” I said.

  “Dibby, I don’t understand why you wanna know—and I don’t care either—but you best be careful. Again, I don’t care about—”

  “Just tell me!”

  “That ol’ witch Hettie Williquette fixed Thomas Saunders’ wagon. Gobbled him up like candy.”

  Of course, I’d given Hettie a fair dose of consideration. Everyone in town considered her, it’d be dang foolish not to. Hangwell’s resident witch, Hettie’d provided many a sleepless night for children throughout the years. The stories were endless, every one growing bigger than well-kept stalks of corn. As a kid, I regularly checked under my bed at night for sightings of Hettie and her crooked visage. When I saw her at the drug store, I’d scurry away to a different aisle, before she swept me away on her broom. Kids knew well enough to stay out of her pasture, off her front porch at Halloween, and out of her path for fear she’d cast the evil eye on you.

  Like she did to ol’ Hyrum Thurgood.

  Everyone knew Hy liked to tip at the bottle, no secret there. But rumor had it he made the mistake of saying some mighty disparaging words about Hettie down at the Tavern. Once word got back to Hettie (and ‘round here, word travels faster than electricity), ol’ Hy found his big toe rotting away, the end shriveled up like a sun-baked walnut.

  “Suzette, I know you can’t grasp much, but surely you don’t think Hettie Williquette ate Thomas Saunders.”

  “I know it as gospel. You just sit there on your high horse, Dibby Caldwell, but I know what I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Angela told me. Saw it with her own eyes.”

  Right when I felt near to gullible, Suzette lost her credibility. Just one rung down on humanity’s ladder from Suzette, Angela spent most of her time gossiping a
nd spinning mighty tall tales. “The day I start believing Angela Brader is the day I—”

  “Angela saw Hettie eat Gordon Turndell.”

  I blinked, tried to clear the outlandish imagery from my mind.

  Of course everyone knew Gordon Turndell. Or had known of him. The high school senior with a face chiseled out of granite, and a chin that could slice through wood was hard to miss, all the girls ga-ga for him. Successful at everything, Gordie made the grades and conquered the football field as the Hangwell Lions’ star quarterback. With two months to go until fetching a diploma, it seemed highly unlikely he’d turn his broad shouldered back on such a promising future, but that’s exactly what he did. Just up and packed a bag and took off without so much as a peep or goodbye to anyone. Just like Thomas Saunders. Those in the know—and by that, I mean the regulars down at the Tavern—reckoned it was just a case of a boy’s wanderlust, the way cats are prone to. But when Sherriff Grigsby was called upon to investigate and came up with no satisfying answers, people talked.

  Or more than likely, they whispered, the way of Peculiar County.

  Although I down-right despised Suzette, I never considered her particularly naive. “Come on, Suzette! Hettie Williquette didn’t eat Gordon Turndell! Angela saw no such thing!”

  As Suzette nodded, her goldie locks bounced over her shoulders. “She surely did. The night before Gordon went missing, Angela was out riding her bike, and she saw Gordon’s car pull into Hettie’s drive. She dumped her bike in a ditch, hid behind the front hedges, and watched Gordon stroll right on up to Hettie’s front door.”

  “And Angela just happened to be riding her bike by Hettie’s house? Out in the woods? Alone, late at night?” I sighed, long and dramatically. “Everyone’s scared to death to even be in the same town as Hettie, let alone her neck of the woods.”

  “Well…truth be told, Angela might’ve been following Gordon, since she was sweet on him.”

  “That sounds about truthful.”

  “Anyhoo, when Hettie opened the door, she grabbed Gordon, and swung him into her creepy ol’ house. Angela decided to take a closer look. She snuck up to Hettie’s porch and heard screaming. Terrible noises! She took a gander through the window. Ol’ Hettie had taken off Gordon’s clothes and had him on the floor, just gnawing away at him. Biting his neck, his man nipples and, um, even…” Beneath the chalk dust, Suzette’s cheeks reddened. She cradled a hand around her mouth, whispered, “…his man parts.”