I can tell from the way she says, “Well . . .” that I am and that she wants to be nice about it.
She says, “Come.”
Way back at the end of her yard, there’s a funny little house that we have to lean over to go in. It has two tiny rooms that you couldn’t lie down straight out in unless you put your feet though the door into the other room. It has a little table and chairs, too small for any regular sized person. Are there people I never knew about?
The girl lights a candle and we squinch into the little chairs next to the little table.
Even in this light I can see her eyes are blue just like mine. We’re an awful lot the same.
“Dad was going to take this house down, but I said, not yet.”
She has a dad!
“So what about you? What are you, anyway?”
I can’t answer. I feel like crying. I have to say, “I don’t know.”
“We could look you up on line. There’s a lot of choices, Yeti, Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, Bigfoot . . . .”
She knows more about me than I do.
“I suppose abominable.”
“I don’t think so. You’re too nice looking. Are you crying?”
I thought I was holding it back but that makes me feel worse than ever. I really do start to cry. Mother would be saying, “Where’s my forest girl?”
“That’s all right, go ahead and cry. I’ll make you tea, and there’s cookies, too. I don’t have a stove in here, Dad wouldn’t let me, this is just sun tea, but it’s good. I know I’m too old to have a playhouse like this, but I want it, anyway. It comes in handy, like right now.”
The tea is nothing like anything I’ve had before even though we have lots of teas up there. And the cookies are like nothing I ever had either. I say, “I never had these.”
“Oatmeal with raisins. Mom thinks they’re good for you. She’s a great believer in oatmeal.”
I guess her mother is right. I feel better after the tea and a couple of cookies.
But I’m thinking maybe she has a bad mother. I’ve heard of that. After all, she sneaked out the window.
“Were you escaping? I thought maybe your mother was mean and you were running away.”
“Oh no, my folks are fine. I sneak out lots of times when there’s a moon like this. I’m fourteen. I’m old enough to be on my own.”
“I’m fourteen, too, and I am on my own, but I don’t want to be.”
“I don’t know what Mother would do about you, though. Call the police . . . or the doctor. Or maybe the zoo.”
“Am I all wrong?”
“You’re probably some sort of mutation.”
How can she be so sure of herself all the time? But she does seem to know a lot.
“I don’t want to be put in the zoo.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t mind at all if it were me. I’d come visit you. But I don’t even know your name. Mine is Molly. I picked it out myself two years ago when I started Junior High.”
“You named yourself?”
“Lots of people do. You could, too. But do you have one?”
“Of course I do. I’m not . . .”
But maybe I am—sort of animal. “Mother calls me Binny. It’s short for Sabine.”
“Sabine!”
She looks impressed.
“Don’t change it!”
• • • •
We both get tired at the same time. Molly goes back in through her window and brings me a pillow and a blanket. Tells me to keep quiet and she’ll bring me breakfast after her parents go to work. She says, “Not to worry. Nobody . . . Nobody would dare go in my playhouse unless invited.”
It feels good to stretch out all the way through the two rooms after hunching over all that time. And I’ve never had such a soft pillow before.
• • • •
I wake at dawn, as I usually do. Things are pretty much quiet all over the whole town. I hunch myself around the little house. I didn’t get a good look at it last night in the candle light. There’s a mirror. I see me. Actually Molly and I look kind of alike. Our eyes are blue. Our hair is tawny.
Hair!
On a shelf I find a doll . . . a very worn out doll (not hairy), and a worn out (hairy) dog doll beside it.
• • • •
The town starts waking up. Doors slam. Cars drive by but out along the front of the houses, way across the lawn from me. I saw those last night. Some even came right close to me while I was waiting for it to get dark. Trucks, too. I saw everything Mother talked about and drew pictures of. I even went up to a car and looked in. I saw the steering wheel and the pedals. I can’t wait till I get to ride in one. Maybe Molly can get me a ride. A truck would be even more fun than a car, the bigger the better. I’ll ask her.
I wait and wait for Molly to bring breakfast. Finally she does. Stuff I never had before. Toast and sausages. Actually, enough for both of us. She wants to eat with me. First thing she says is, “I hate eggs.”
I’ve had eggs lots of times and I like them but I don’t say it.
“I have to go to school. Whatever you do, don’t leave here in the daytime. I’ll take you out tonight. We have to figure what to do about you.”
I say okay, but I’m not sure I’m going to stay shut up here all day.
“When do you get back?”
She looks at her watch. (I know what that is, too.) She doesn’t notice I don’t have one.
She says, “Three-thirty, thereabouts.”
• • • •
Pretty soon everything gets very quiet. All the cars and all the children are gone. I’m tired of hunching over; I’m not going to stay in here, but I’m a little scared about just walking right out. Then I think about Molly’s back window. I cross the lawn (by now the laundry’s brought in) and climb in Molly’s window.
Here’s a nice place! Pale yellow walls, an all-white, really, really soft bed (I try it), a not-so-worn-out stuffed dog on the pillows (even fuzzier than the one in the little house), and a wonderful lot of books. Must be twenty or so on a nice little shelf. I recognize school work things. There’s a notebook exactly like Mother has for me.
Time goes faster than I thought it would. I spend a lot of it looking at the books, but then I get hungry. I find the kitchen. The refrigerator! In there it’s like winter. I eat a lot of things that I don’t know what they are. I’ve heard of cheese. Besides, I can read the labels: cold cuts, cheddar, cottage cheese . . . I taste everything. There’s radishes. I’m glad Mother saw to it that I knew about these things. I think she was homesick for all this so she talked about it. Actually she talked about a lot more than I wanted to hear—then, anyway. Talk about not listening! It’s a wonder I even remember radishes.
I wander around the whole house. Turns out they have lots of books. And all over the place. I start reading several of them, one after the other, bits and pieces of all sorts of things. Magazines, too. I’ve been missing a lot. Mother knew it. She tried to make it up to me. When I see all this I realize how hard she worked at it. I start feeling tearful. I wonder where she is and if she’s all right.
Their clocks already say after two. I think I’d better go back into that little house.
I bring some books and magazines, but I don’t read them. I start thinking about dads. I know enough to know I must have had one. I haven’t thought much about it. I thought the way Mother and I lived was the usual way. Like bear cubs and fawns, always a mother and a child or two. And here’s a dad living right with them. Out of the little windows, I saw whole families leaving all together. The dads were living right there with everybody.
There’s a lot Mother told me, but a lot she didn’t. I’d ask her, Where is my dad? Who was he? And, especially, how hairy?
I must have fallen asleep by mistake because Molly wakes me.
“Come quick,” she says, “before my parents come home. We’ll look you up on the web. If Mother comes in . . . she always knocks first . . . you just scoot under the bed.�
�
“Scoot?”
So then I get my first lesson in computer stuff. We look all over the place, but not a one looks at all like me. They’re all chunky and have terrible faces.
Molly says, “You’re much nicer looking than any of these. I like your hair color. There’s a lot of gold in it.”
I’m glad she said that, but it worries me that one of these might be my dad. How could Mother have even gotten close to somebody like that? I hope at least he was a nice person . . . if I can think of him as a person.
I ask Molly, “You have a dad. What’s that like?”
“Oh, he’s okay. He thinks I’m a kid, though. I’ll be forty-five before he’ll think I’m grown up. Don’t you have your dad? Well, you don’t or you’d already know what he looks like.”
I’m thinking, looks aren’t everything. Molly’s father might not be so handsome either. But that’s too much to hope for. And, anyway, why would I hope for that? That isn’t nice.
Then I remember about cars and trucks. I ask Molly if she can take me for a ride in a truck.
“Truck! Of course not. We don’t have a truck. But I could take you in our car—after everybody’s gone to bed. I don’t have a license, but I do know how to drive. Dad already taught me. You’re not supposed to drive until you’re sixteen. I don’t know why they make you wait so long.”
I go to the little house before her mother comes back. Molly loads me up with cookies and milk (I never had milk before) just in case she has a hard time bringing me a supper.
“Don’t light the candle until all our lights are out here in the house.”
• • • •
Finally she comes to get me.
She brings me a big floppy hat, one of her father’s white shirts, pants, socks and sandals. The sandals are terribly uncomfortable.
She says, “I guess you really are a Bigfoot.”
I must look hurt because right away she says, “Sorry, that was supposed to be a joke. Not a very kind one. Look.” She puts her foot next to mine. “We’re almost the same size.” Then, “You don’t have to wear the sandals. I don’t suppose anybody will see your feet, anyway.”
She tells me to button up the shirt and raise the collar to cover my neck as much as I can.
If I need all these clothes and to button up just to go for a ride in a car, I guess I really am entirely wrong.
• • • •
Even just getting in the car is exciting.
Then it jerks forward.
“Sorry. I haven’t driven very much. But this will be good practice. Better put on your seatbelt.”
We drive, and it’s wonderful. We go out in the country so we can go fast. She says in town we can only go twenty five. We open the windows and get the breeze.
She says, “I’ll go even faster if you stop saying ‘thank you’ all the time.”
I stop and she does.
She turns on the radio, which is another new thing—not that I haven’t heard all about it. She pushes buttons to get the right music. She says, “Dad has it on news all the time.” I wouldn’t have minded hearing news.
We start around a curve and all of a sudden we’re in the ditch. Then bouncing up and down, and then upside down.
We’re not hurt, but the front doors won’t open. Molly finally gets a back door open and we crawl out.
She doesn’t look like Molly anymore. She looks scared and like she doesn’t know what to do.
She says, “I don’t even have my cell phone.”
It’s still the middle of the night. There’s not a light in sight. She starts to cry. I feel like I’m the strongest one now. I say, “Come on. Let’s start back to town.”
“I wish I hadn’t gone so fast. We wouldn’t be so far away if I hadn’t done seventy. Daddy’s going to kill me.”
“Your dad will kill you?”
“No, silly, of course not. Don’t you know anything?”
Getting angry at me makes her feel better. She starts walking down the road in the dark and trips and falls flat. And then she’s crying again.
My eyes must be better than hers. I can see a little bit. There’s the sliver of a moon. I say, “We’ll be all right. Hang on to me.”
Pretty soon it starts getting light and we see a farm house and head for that.
“I’ll go in and telephone Dad. You have to hide. Don’t let anybody see you.”
The more she says things like that, the more I worry about myself.
“What will Daddy do? And we don’t even have a car now. And what will we do with you?”
“I don’t want to be put in the zoo.”
“Look, there’s a barn. Go hide there, while I go in.”
In the barn there’s stalls, mostly empty but there are two horses at the back. There’s a ladder up to a loft full of hay. That’s where I’ll go, but I’ve never seen horses—except in picture books. I check on them first. I worry they might kick or bite, but they come right up to me to see who I am, friendly as can be. It makes me feel better, stroking something big and warm. Then I go up and lie down in the hay.
It takes so long for Molly to come back I think maybe she’s just left me here. I’m too shaken up to sleep. I go down again and talk to the horses. I get right in with them. I call one Spotty and the other Brownie.
Finally Molly comes.
“I couldn’t get away from the people here. They’re too nice. They were going to drive me home since they had to go to town anyway, but I said I needed to call Daddy. They went off to town. I know their kid. He’s a couple of grades ahead of me in school. He’s still here. He takes the school bus. Daddy’s renting a car. He’ll be here as soon as he can, but it’ll take a while. I didn’t tell him about you. What’ll we do about you?”
I don’t say anything. What do I know?
But suddenly here’s the boy. First he says, “What are you doing out here?” And then he sees me and gasps.
I’m still dressed, head to toe . . . to almost toe, but even so I’m too much for him.
“What are you?”
I say, “Bigfoot.”
Right away he looks at my feet. Then he laughs. And we all laugh.
He says, “I don’t believe in you.”
I say, “Nobody does.”
And we laugh all the more.
He decides not to go to school—after all, Molly isn’t going either—and invites us in for breakfast.
He keeps staring at me as he cooks us pancakes. And he keeps spilling things.
He says, “You’re a nice color,” and, “I didn’t think a Bigfoot would be so attractive,” and, “You have nice eyes,” until I’m a little worried. Though he could be trying to make me feel good about myself. I suppose I should appreciate it.
He says, “I don’t think you should go back with Molly. I think you should stay here where you have a nice barn to hide in.”
Molly looks relieved.
I’d really rather be back in her little playhouse, but I don’t know how we can get me there.
Then he says, “We could go horseback riding,” and I think, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad here. I’m learning so many new things. Including rolling over in a car. Horses would be nice.
Molly’s father comes by in a rented car. He barely stops, honks, opens the door and yells. I guess he’s really angry. She looks at us, scared, then rushes out. There’s no way I could have gone with her even if I’d wanted to.
• • • •
The boy’s name is Buck. He changed his name, too. I didn’t know everybody could do that. He used to be Judson. He says, “Judd isn’t so bad, but I like Buck better.”
He goes to put on his riding clothes. He has the whole outfit, cowboy hat and boots and all. I’ve seen pictures. I think he’s trying to impress me. And maybe himself. He does look as if he likes himself a lot in these clothes.
He brings a bag of stuff for a picnic and we go out and saddle up. First he has to brush the horses so there’s no dust and stuff under the saddle. He sh
ows me how, and I help.
I feel funny, getting up on something I just talked to and petted, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Buck heads us up into the hills and pretty soon we’re in the trees. He makes us canter even though he can see I’m bouncing and hurting. Trotting isn’t much better. He doesn’t say a word about what to do. It looks as if he likes to see me not knowing how to do it. He’s got this funny little smile all the time. He’s laughing at me.
We get to a nice shady spot and get off and tie up. He spreads out a blanket, he says, for our picnic.
He takes off half his fancy cowboy outfit. And then he takes off even more. Is this what people do?
But I start to know what this is all about. I remember things Mother warned me could happen. I wasn’t listening but some of it must have gotten through.
He’s a lot taller than I am and stronger, too. He tears Molly’s father’s shirt practically in two. I have to really fight and I’m losing.
Finally I grab a stone and knock him away.
He says, “What difference does it make? You’re just an animal. Why should you care?”
“I’m not an animal, or if I am, I’m only half. My mother was your kind.”
He comes after me again but I run . . . uphill. I’m thinking of getting back to our cabin and maybe finding out what happened to Mother.
I’m way faster than he is. I guess from all my hiking around the mountains. Pretty soon he gives up. I see him from way above, put on his costume, mount up and ride away, leading the other horse.
I sit down and catch my breath. I feel like crying, but I’m angry, too. Molly didn’t think I was an animal. Or am I? I wish I was back with her.
I’m glad that, up in the mountains, it’s always just mothers and children off by themselves. I was thinking I wanted to meet my father some day, but now I’m not sure. And he’d be more of an animal than I am. Though if Mother liked him he couldn’t be that bad. Or maybe she didn’t like him. Maybe she couldn’t fight him off.
And then I think how Mother’s little book is in the pocket of my shorts back in the little house. I have to get back there.
I walked there once before, I guess I can walk there again. I’m going to stay in the foothills and walk mostly at night. I’m pretty well covered up with Molly’s dad’s shirt even though it’s torn and has lost some buttons, and the slacks are OK. I don’t have the hat anymore.
Fantasy Magazine Issue 58, Women Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue Page 17