Almost Eden

by Anita Horrocks

  All morning already while we were painting, Lena had been bugging Dad to take her to see Mom. Now Dad started getting cleaned up and said it was time to go. But I kept right on painting.

  “You should get yourself cleaned up a bit for Mom, meyahl” Dad said.

  Soon I was going to have to go back to Eden. I knew that. Soon, but not yet. Not today. “Can I go later?” I asked. “By myself?”

  Dad didn’t look too happy about it, but he nodded. “Beth can give you a ride over tonight or tomorrow, if that’s what you want. Don’t wait too long, though. Mom’s been asking about you.”

  “She has?” I didn’t mean to act so surprised. Only I was sort of relieved. I mean, if she was asking about me, at least that meant she remembered who I was.

  “Of course.” Dad looked at me curiously. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with?”

  “I’m kinda tired. I just want to take it easy this afternoon, you know, like the doctor said.”

  He couldn’t very well argue with that.

  For once I did take it easy, too, just like I said I would. Except for the five minutes it took for me to run down to the Co-op and get this week’s paper after promising Beth fifty times that I was only going across the street and back. I checked the weather forecast. Partly cloudy most of the week with evening showers, but by Friday clearing again.

  Friday night it was, then. I had two days still, to figure out a plan.

  First thing after breakfast the next day the police came over. They asked Lena and me a bunch of questions about the man who had followed us, and what kind of truck he was driving and everything.

  Lena remembered the truck was brown with lots of dents and rust, and that the back had a white top on it. “It was old.”

  “Do either of you remember the make, or the model? Was it a Ford or a Chevy or a GM?” asked one of the cops.

  Like we would know the difference. But there was one thing I did know. “The license was ADP something.”

  The officer stopped writing to look up at me. “You know that for sure? You actually remember the license plate?”

  “The first three letters. Yeah.” My face was getting hot. The first three letters of the license plate were the same as Aaron’s initials–Aaron David Penner. I used to scribble them in my notebook at school all the time. But no way was I telling that to the police, or anyone else either. “They were ADP I’m positive. And I’m pretty sure there was a five in the last three numbers.”

  The officer grinned, making a note in his book. “That’s going to be a big help.”

  “Do you think he was really after us?” I asked.

  “We’ll know more after we find him and talk to him. But from the way he hung around at the farm for so long…I’d say you girls did the right thing, running away.”

  All of a sudden I was almost glad I wasn’t allowed out by myself for a while yet.

  “Nah yo” Dad said after the police left. “That’s over. There’s a couple of paintbrushes with our names on them.”

  But before going outside to paint, I did something I never thought I’d ever do in a million years.

  I phoned up Mark Giesbrecht.

  Anyways, it was Beth’s idea. She thought I should phone to say thank you to him and his mom for being so nice to me and Lena. I mean, his mom had called Dad and let us clean up in their bathroom and made us pancakes, and his dad had dropped off our bikes for us and everything. The least I could do was phone to say thanks.

  First I talked to Mrs. Giesbrecht. She was nice, and awful happy that Lena and I were okay. She called Mark to the phone and I thanked him yet, too.

  “No problem,” he said.

  Then out of the blue he said, “Do you want to come over to our house some time to ride horses?”

  I was so stunned I didn’t answer. So the phone line was pretty much quiet for a bit and then Mark kept on talking some more.

  “Uh, how about Sunday afternoon maybe? You know, if you have nothing on and it fits.”

  I could almost hear him groaning and I knew he had said in English what he was thinking in Plautdietsch and for sure it wasn’t the same. But I knew already what he meant to say before he added, “I-I mean, if you’re not doing anything.”

  I still didn’t know what to say. So I said, “Sure, okay.”

  “Bring Lena with, if she wants.”

  “Sure. Okay.” My brain was stuck.

  Imagine that. Me going horseback riding with Mark Giesbrecht.

  Uy uy uy.

  “What was that all about?” Beth asked when I hung up.

  What was I going to tell her? I couldn’t very well keep it a secret. I was going to need a ride over there. So I made it sound like no big deal. Because it wasn’t. “Nothing,” I said. “I’m going horseback riding on Sunday. At Mark’s.”

  Beth raised one eyebrow. “All right, little sister. Your first date.”

  Date? Who said anything about a date? I rolled my eyes so Beth would know how ridiculous she was being. “We’re just friends. We’re just going to ride horses. And he invited Lena, too.”

  Beth was grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Hmmph” I turned on my heel and headed outside to paint. Dad and I had got a lot done yesterday, and with two of us working again, we might even finish the first coat this morning.

  Anyways, it didn’t count as a date if your little sister came with. Did it?

  The second Jillian came coasting up the back sidewalk after lunch I ducked out the door to meet her. Maybe it was because I was so happy to see her, and that’s why the thing I was thinking just popped out of my mouth.

  “I’m sorry!” Both of us blurted out the same thing at once.

  Then we both broke up laughing yet, too.

  We had so much to catch up on, neither of us remembered even to say what it was we were sorry for. It didn’t make any difference. Making up was so easy I wondered how come it had taken me this long to get around to it.

  Right away Jillian and I rode over to Sadie’s. I didn’t beat around the bush. I came right out and told her I was sorry about running out on her at the pool that night. Saying sorry didn’t seem so scary anymore, not after everything that had happened the last couple of days.

  “It was a lousy thing to do,” I said, “even if I was scared. And kind of jealous, you know, that Aaron liked you instead of me. But I’m over that now, and I’m really sorry. Can we be friends again?”

  Sadie started bawling, so it was almost impossible to understand a word she was trying to say. Finally, when she calmed down a bit, I found out that she wasn’t really mad even about getting ditched.

  “I probably would’ve done the same,” she sniffed. “Everything happened so fast.” Sadie said she was the one jealous of me, because I was never scared of anything and was better at stuff like swimming and diving. Which was pretty funny when you thought about it, because most of the time I felt like I was scared of everything.

  Sadie said she was afraid Aaron would dump her for me and that’s why she’d given me the cold shoulder. “I’m sorry, Elsie. Now Aaron doesn’t like me anymore anyways. He broke up with me!” And she started bawling all over again.

  Aaron, that moron, had told Sadie he wanted to play the field. As if in Hopefield there was so much to pick from.

  “His loss,” said Jillian, fiercely, after we finally got Sadie to stop crying. “What a schozzle!”

  Then I knew she’d been listening to Pete again because I didn’t know even what a schozzle was. Still, it sounded like it fit Aaron pretty good.

  Holy Moses. We’d gone and wasted practically half our summer over a stupid guy. That really cracked us up. Talk about schozzles.

  At the pool everyone was all over me to tell them about what happened. So I had to tell the whole story all over again. They laughed themselves silly at the part about the bull chasing us up a tree. Everyone except Mark.

  “Good thing you stayed put,” he said. “That old bull would as soon rip you
to shreds as look at you. He’d have run right over that guy if he’d come into the pasture after you.”

  I wasn’t used to this Mark. I figured he’d be itching to tell all about what a blubberface I was when Lena and I showed up at his farm. For sure they’d all get a good laugh out of that.

  Instead, here he was sticking up for me. I wasn’t the only one who noticed either. Jillian poked me in the ribs.

  “What?” I hissed.

  She rolled her eyes, grinning, so I knew exactly what she was thinking.

  Even Aaron was impressed that we’d spent the night in an abandoned farmhouse. Only I didn’t seem to care so much anymore what Aaron thought.

  I never said anything about waking up in the night and seeing the ghosts and the stars. That part was mine.

  “Weren’t you scared?” Naomi shuddered. “All alone at night like that?”

  “Witless,” I nodded. “But we were too ootyepoopt to think too much about how scared we were.”

  “Ootyepoopt?” howled Jillian.

  “You know. Wiped out. Pooped.”

  That cracked her up a good one.

  “But what if that creep had come back to look for you?” Heather shuddered.

  “He didn’t,” I shrugged, like it was no big deal, only the goose pimples crawled across my skin. Even riding to the pool with Heather and Sadie I was checking every truck that drove by or was parked in the parking lot.

  “God was watching over you,” said Joy. Which was what Beth and Auntie Nettie and Grandma and Dad had said, too. And Mrs. Giesbrecht and the doctor and one of the cops even.

  Maybe they were right. Maybe there was a God watching over Lena and me and that’s how come the man went away without coming into the pasture after us. It didn’t make sense that God would first send a stranger to scare us and then save us from him. What kind of joke would that be?

  Part of me sort of liked the idea that if there was a God, he would be the kind of God who would look out for people whether they believed in him or not. But then why would God take care of some people and not others? I mean, bad things happened to good people every day.

  I just didn’t get how come God got to decide who would get hurt and who wouldn’t. Who would be sick, and who wouldn’t. Who would be rich and who wouldn’t. Who would be beautiful and who wouldn’t. Who would die today and who wouldn’t.

  If there was no God, then there was no one to be mad at when bad things happened. You just had to live with what came your way and make the best of it. Or not. It was up to you. It was sort of scary to think like that, like we were all alone in the world with no one but ourselves to watch out for us. But it was a lot easier to understand.

  Except for one thing. Except for the way I felt at that old farmyard that night, standing under the stars. I didn’t feel like I was all alone then. I felt like I was part of something big, big as the whole universe. Something wonderful.

  And that made me feel braver than I’d ever thought I could be.

  “I can’t believe you’d go to all that trouble for a scraggy old alley cat,” Aaron shook his head.

  “I can,” said Jillian, still laughing so hard she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. “I think it was a perfectly noble thing to do. We should put up posters, all over town.”

  Posters. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  “Someone will have seen him, you bet,” Sadie nodded. “You can’t give up hope.”

  So we agreed to meet at my place in the morning to make posters. And I would tell Jillian and Sadie about my idea, I decided. I’d ask for their help.

  For sure I was going to need it.

  That night before I went to bed I was checking out how hairy my legs were already, and thinking I should maybe shave them again. If I went horseback riding with hairy legs, Mark might say something again about loaning me a swather. I mean, if he helped me up into the saddle or something. He seemed different from before, when he’d made that joke, but probably it would be a good idea not to lead him into temptation.

  Besides which, I’d read in one of Beth’s Chatelaine magazines that women should shave their legs once a week at least.

  Only problem was, I felt guilty about using Beth’s razor without asking. It was okay before when Beth was being such a bossy old bag, but now, when she was being almost nice, it didn’t feel right anymore.

  Anyways, the light was on in her bedroom so I knew she was reading in there. I knocked, waiting until she said to come in. I didn’t go all the way in. I stood in the doorway in case I had to make a quick getaway.

  “Do you think it might be all right for me to use your razor?”

  “What?” Her nose stayed stuck in her book.

  “Do you think it might be all right if I used your razor? You know, to shave my legs.”

  Beth’s eyes and nose appeared above the top of her book. “You’re going to ride horses, not going to a prom.”

  Right away my cheeks began to get hot.

  “Why in heaven’s name would you want to shave your legs? You’re twelve.”

  That was the problem with being honest. You have to do it all the time. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  So I told her about Mark’s joke about lending me a swather.

  She didn’t laugh. She put down her book. “You sure you want to bother with this guy? If you ask me he sounds like a first-class idiot.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Only, I don’t think he’s so much of an idiot as I thought before. Sometimes he can be almost nice even.”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “It’s your funeral. C’mon, you’ll slice yourself to shreds if you try it alone.” And then she looked at the scabs healing on my shins and ankles and I could see she was putting two and two together. But she only shook her head and marched me downstairs to the bathroom.

  She gave me a new razor blade, and let me use her shaving cream and showed me how to run the razor over my leg real light, in slow smooth strokes. “Like this. You don’t have to press hard, and don’t be in a hurry or you’ll nick yourself for sure. And be careful around your ankles especially.”

  Lying in bed later feeling my smooth legs against the sheets, I was thinking Beth was maybe not so much of an idiot as I thought before either.

  “Voh scheent et, meyahles?” Dad grabbed Lena when he came down for breakfast, giving her a whisker rub until she squealed and giggled and squirmed to get loose.

  He headed for me and Beth, too, but I ducked and Beth warded him off with a spoonful of waffle batter. Waffles, on a week day. That’s one thing conditions never favored. I definitely liked the new Beth better. Only I wondered how long she was going to stick around.

  “How come you’re in such a good mood this morning?” she asked Dad.

  Dad chuckled. “Look once what I found.” He went into the porch and came out holding something behind his back. “I thought Lena could do with a playmate.” And he plopped a little black-and-white fur ball on her lap.

  My father. A kitten.

  Wonders never cease, says my mom.

  Lena let out a terrific squeal. So did the kitten. It scrambled across the kitchen table, knocking over the milk carton. Milk spilled over the table and dribbled off the edge onto Dad’s shoes.

  Dad lifted one foot. Milk dripped from his shoe to the floor. “What is it with me and cats?” he said.

  I scooped up the kitten and handed it back to Lena. Everyone agreed it was adorable. Tommy would have thought it silly, though. Too silly to be worth a glance. My heart hurt, a little stabbing hurt, whenever I thought about Tommy. I couldn’t help it. The kitten was cute, but I missed that old torn still.

  Lena cuddled the kitten against her cheek. “I can keep it? Really?”

  Dad nodded. “You feed it, you clean the litter box and it has to have its shots and get fixed when it’s old enough. That’s all I need is a litter of kittens yet.”

  He didn’t fool me. Or Lena. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!
”

  “You can thank Elsie’s boyfriend. It was his idea.”

  The milk I was drinking practically sprayed out my nose. “My boyfriend?!”

  “Giesbrecht’s Mark, the one with the hair that makes him look like a sheepdog,” grinned Dad. He was getting a real kick out of this. “He phoned up, said they were looking for homes for their kittens. He thought Lena maybe would like one. Then I think he said something about the two of you going horseback riding?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He invited Lena, too. Sounds like Lena’s the one he likes. She’s the one who got the kitten.” The more I talked the redder I got. The more I talked the more Dad and Beth laughed. Jumping Jehoshaphat. The only thing I could do was shut up.

  “I don’t know,” Beth wheezed. “I think Dad’s right. Elsie has a boyfriend.”

  “Elsie and Mark,” chanted Lena, “sitting in a tree–”

  “Grow up, knirps” I tackled my little sister, wrestling her to the floor. She didn’t put up a fight even, she was so busy laughing. Only the kitten didn’t think much of all the commotion. It squirmed out of Lena’s arms and bolted across the kitchen floor, right under the broom leaning next to the back door. The broom toppled over, hit the counter, and knocked over a glass. The glass rolled right off the counter, hit the floor, and burst into a million pieces.

  Dad laughed harder than ever. Beth doubled over. All knippsing Lena’s nose got me was more squeals and giggles.

  Fuy. I gave up. This family was more like the family I was used to. Loud and obnoxious. Funny thing was, I thought maybe I liked them this way.

  “Domino,” giggled Lena. “I’m going to call my kitten Domino.”

  That afternoon Sadie, Jillian, and I plastered posters all over town–at the Co-op, library, town hall, post office, Janzen’s Variety, Rexall Drugs, Driedger’s Photography, the Credit Union, and the Harvester, which pretty much covered Main Street from one end to the other. Then we put more up at the pool and on all seven bulletin boards at all seven Mennonite churches, and even the Lutheran Church yet, too.