Animal, the Vegetable, and John D Jones

by Betsy Byars

  They walked on in silence. The waves were gentle. The sand bubbled with the shifting of the sand fleas. Ahead of them the sandpipers ran up and down the shoreline, staying just ahead of the breaking waves.

  “I hate him,” Clara said abruptly.

  “I hate both of them.”

  “Well, I do, too, but I hate him the most. You know who he reminds me of?”

  “Who?”

  “Remember that movie we saw with that real creepy kid who had been possessed by the devil and he would go around with this innocent little smile while his eyes were causing wrecks and setting people on fire? That’s who he reminds me of.”

  “I agree. There’s something wrong with that kid.”

  “And he probably thinks there’s something wrong with us!” Her voice broke at the unfairness of it.

  Deanie moved to the water and began to march through the shallow waves. She kicked her feet and sent water spraying ahead of her.

  Clara watched. She was bigger than her sister and clumsier.

  She was actually beginning to feel like an animal, she decided. The best she could hope for in life was to be trained. With training she could lumber through life like a circus bear, upright and obedient, waiting to plop down on all fours when nobody was looking.

  “I have just one goal for these two weeks,” Deanie said, taking out her fury on the water, kicking like a football player. White foam flew into the air and blew along the hard sand.

  “What?”

  “To get a really good tan and gain ten pounds. I mean, that is the absolute most I can hope for now. A good time is out of the question.”

  “I also have one goal.”

  “What?”

  “To make that stupid John D as miserable as he’s made me.”

  “Put some sand fleas in his bed,” Deanie suggested. She smiled slightly. “And while you’re at it, put some crabs in hers. That would be appropriate.” She stopped. “You know what? I just figured something out. Here’s what’s wrong with the world. Things happen to the wrong people. It’s as simple as that. I mean, the wrong people get caught looking stupid and the wrong people get it for cheerleader and the wrong people get divorced.” She paused. “Look, there are people—Betty Higgin’s parents, for example—well, it would be all right if they got divorced. They fight all the time, right in front of Betty’s friends. He locked her mother out of the house during Betty’s slumber party. Did I tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only who gets a divorce? Our parents, who never fight, never quarrel, never embarrass us.”

  “Just want to go their separate ways.”

  “I hate that expression. Anyway, it would be fine if Delores and her son had got caught looking stupid. I wouldn’t have minded that at all. Only it was us! Oh, let’s sit down. My legs hurt. When you don’t have any muscles in your legs …” She trailed off.

  “You have muscles.”

  “Tiny ones.” Deanie flopped down on the sand, dug holes for her heels, and stretched out her legs. “If each of my legs weighed a half pound more, I would be happy with myself.”

  “You can have a pound off the tops of mine. I’ve got dinosaur legs.”

  “Wouldn’t that be great?” Deanie said, sitting up straighter. “I mean, what if you could just go out and grab some pounds off of somebody? Here, I want some of your fat!” she said. She pretended to grab a pound from an imaginary person and deposited it on her legs, smoothing it out with a wave of her hand. “There, perfect.”

  “But then real fat people would always be trying to slap pounds on you,” Clara said.

  “I never thought of that.” Deanie grinned. “And you wouldn’t dare get near a fat person in an elevator because pow-pow-pow, and by the time you got to the fourth floor, you’d be covered with excess fat!”

  She imitated a startled person reeling out of the elevator, looking down in amazement at the new flab. “And they’d be in such a hurry to get rid of it that they’d slap it anywhere! Probably on your head!” She puffed out one cheek and eyed it with horror.

  Clara’s smile brightened then faded. Her sister’s funniness, her small hands fluttering over the deposits of imaginary fat, the comic look in her eyes—it all made Clara feel clumsier than ever.

  “I don’t want to go back to the house.” She dug her heels into the sand as fiercely as if she were digging a foundation.

  “Who does? Anyway, did you get a good look at her?”

  “No.”

  “Well, she is the exact opposite of Mom. Mom has short grayish hair and Delores has black hair pulled straight back. And Mom’s clothes—well, you know how she wears those handmade necklaces with beads and feathers, and embroidered peasant blouses, and Delores—Did you at least notice what she had on?”

  “No.”

  “A perfect suit and a perfect blouse.”

  “It figures.”

  “I wish I could call Mom. ‘Hi, Mom, I just wanted to tell you that Clara and I are doing fine and aren’t getting too much sun or swimming out too far and don’t worry about us, because Dad’s girl friend Delores is here to look after us.’”

  “She would say, ‘That’s nice. Remind Clara not to snort.’”

  “Oh, Clara.” Deanie got to her feet and brushed the sand off her legs. “Enough of this.” She adjusted her bathing suit—up in front, down in back. “Let’s go.”

  Clara stared at her. How could anybody, embarrassed as they had been, shake like a wet dog and jump right back into the water?

  “You’re going back to the house?”

  “Yes, I’m hungry. I’ve set a goal for myself—three peanut butter sandwiches between meals.”

  Clara squinted at Deanie. “You want to go back,” she accused. She put one hand over her eyes to block out the sun. She wanted to see her sister’s expression. “You do want to go back.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Deanie said calmly. She flexed her arms in a quick cheerleading movement. “It’s just that we have to go back sometime. Besides, I want to see what’s going on.”

  “I’m never going back.”

  “Clara—”

  Clara folded her arms around her legs and leaned over her knees. Her brown eyes watched the sea with the intensity of a sailor.

  “Listen, the longer we stay out here, the stupider we’re going to look. Now, come on, let’s go in and act like nothing happened.” Deanie started up the beach and then glanced back at Clara. “Come on!”

  Clara got to her feet. She sighed heavily. The sun was hot on her head. The part in her hair, she thought gloomily, would probably be sunburned in the morning, would peel, and look like dandruff.

  She watched her sister. Deanie was bouncing along the beach like somebody in a shampoo commercial.

  The main difference between people, Clara decided as she stood there, was what they did after they stumbled and fell. They either bounced right back up like rubber, undented, unmarked, or they sat there and wondered if they would ever move again.

  She herself fell into the sit-there division. Her body didn’t want to do anything. Idly she poked some sand into a crabhole with her toe.

  “Will you come on?” Deanie called. She turned, holding her long thick hair back in a ponytail to keep it out of her face.

  Dragging her feet through the soft warm sand, Clara followed.

  JOHN D HAD NOT written a word in his book since his arrival at the beach house.

  Coming into the house and finding the girls screaming insults at each other, perfect insults—insults that told him everything he wanted to know about them—well, it had been like the opening of a play. No, it was better than a play. It was like one of those TV shows that presents its most exciting scene before the first commercial to make people watch the rest of the program. If he had written the dialogue himself—he admitted this—he could not have made it better.

  He was standing at the window, watching for the girls, when he saw them coming up the beach. He wanted to jump up and down like a child at C
hristmas who spies gift-laden grandparents. “They’re coming!” he almost yelled to the empty house.

  More rudeness, he thought happily. He rubbed his hands like an evil spirit. More insults. More of the awfulness that makes life worthwhile.

  They live in human bodies, but lurking beneath the flesh and muscle are—dah-daaaaaah!—the Animal and the Vegetable! Coming soon to your local theater or drive-in.

  He smiled. He had not had this much pleasure since he had caught his English teacher in a series of grammatical errors.

  Exiled from their planet, this unspeakable duo destroys anything that breathes or grows. Starring in their original roles are—dah-daaaaaah!—the Animal and the Vegetable! Also appearing nightly, in person, at Pipe Island.

  He stepped closer to the window. He noticed that Deanie, the Vegetable, was walking in front, head up, one hand holding her hair, one hand pulling her bathing suit down in back.

  The Animal was walking behind her, slowly, head down, hands dangling at her sides, as reluctant—let’s face it, John D decided—as a mule.

  He watched them without blinking. Then, as soon as he saw them start over the dunes, he crossed the room, flopped down on the sofa, and picked up a magazine. He pretended to look at an advertisement for lingerie.

  He heard the screen door open. It would be Deanie, he knew, waiting on the porch, holding the door for Clara. “Come on,” she said impatiently.

  Yes, come on, John D urged.

  “No!”

  Clara remained—John D could picture it—with her legs planted in the sand.

  Deanie said, “Listen, the car’s gone, so they’re all at the grocery store. You heard them say they were going.”

  He heard the faint sound of Clara’s answer. She was probably saying, he decided, that she didn’t want to come in the house even if no one was there. She never wanted to come in the house again as long as she lived. He loved it when he knew exactly what people were saying.

  He drew in a breath of anticipation and licked his lips. It was Deanie who interested him at the moment.

  She didn’t disappoint him. “Come on,” she said. Her voice was rising with excitement. “Listen, Clara, this will give us a chance to snoop in their suitcases!”

  “Oh, all right.”

  He heard her start up the stairs and clomp across the porch.

  “You take his,” Deanie said. “I’ll take hers.”

  “All right.”

  Clara came through the living room door first. “Deanieeee,” she bawled as she caught sight of John D on the sofa.

  “What is it now?”

  Deanie came in, pulling at her bathing suit. She paused as she saw John D reading his magazine. He held the magazine up slightly so that they could not see that he had been looking at an advertisement for lingerie.

  Deanie clapped one hand over her mouth. John D took her gesture as one of horror, the gesture of a person who has said something so terrible, that even now, too late, she is trying to seal her mouth shut.

  He smiled to himself. If he had planned it, he couldn’t have made it more perfect. He watched her, careful to keep his pleasure in her distress hidden.

  Then abruptly his pleasure began to fade. Deanie’s shoulders were shaking. Her eyes met his and squeezed shut with laughter.

  John D straightened on the sofa. A small frown pulled his eyebrows together.

  With her hand over her mouth Deanie ran from the room. She ran like someone who was going to be sick, but instead of going into the bathroom, she went into her bedroom and flopped across the bed Then the sounds of her helpless laughter, smothered in the covers, came to him.

  John D let his magazine drop down into his lap. He looked at Clara.

  Clara looked back. For a moment it was as if they were playing a game to see who would blink first. Then Clara turned and left the room.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked her sister.

  In the bedroom Deanie tried to speak, but she was laughing too hard. She buried her face in the spread. The bed rattled with her laughter.

  “What is so funny?” Clara demanded. She herself was closer to tears than laughter. She wanted to shake her sister. Deanie did this all the time—laughed so long over some secret hilarity that Clara got red in the face waiting to hear it. Then, Clara thought, her face growing redder, then it turned out to be nothing—someone had mayonnaise on their chin or toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

  “What is so funny?” she asked through clenched teeth.

  “He—” Deanie was trying to speak now. “He—he—he—”

  Her words had the sound of more laughter, but in the living room John D had the uncomfortable feeling she was beginning a sentence about him.

  “He what?” Clara asked angrily.

  Deanie finally got it out. “He—he—was reading Modern Bride magazine!”

  Then she gave herself up to her laughter, no longer trying to smother it. She flipped over on her back, laughed up at the ceiling, whooped.

  John D looked down at the magazine, at the bride on the cover. Modern Bride magazine. Six Steps to Becoming a More Beautiful Bride. Trousseau Tips. He felt a flush redden his cheeks. He had not even known what he was reading.

  “There is nothing funny about that,” John D commented.

  The line of displeasure between his eyes deepened. His dark eyebrows touched. He let the magazine drop onto the floor, then kicked it under the sofa.

  For the first time since he had arrived at the beach house, John D had spoken a sentence that did not contain exactly five words, and he was too angry to care. His pale eyes burned.

  In the bedroom Clara’s clear voice echoed John D’s thoughts. “I really don’t see anything funny about him reading a bride magazine.”

  “I do,” Deanie said. Her laughter subsided. She wiped her eyes. “I mean, here he was, acting so superior—like this big intellectual like he was Einstein and we were Heckle and Jeckle—and then the minute we’re out of the house, he’s poring over a bride magazine.” Her laughter bubbled again.

  “He’ll hear you,” Clara warned.

  “Who cares? At least I got one good laugh out of the two weeks.”

  Deanie lay still for a moment, worn out from all her laughter, as limp as a child who had been tickled too much. Then she pulled herself up, went into the bathroom, and began to run water in the basin.

  She inspected her face in the mirror, right side, left side. Over her shoulder she said, “Don’t let me go out in the sun again without my tanning butter.”

  Clara sat down on the bed. She began rubbing her feet against each other to get the sand off. She heard John D mutter “Idiots” in the living room.

  She glanced down at the dusting of sand on the floor beneath her feet. “This is going to be a miserable vacation,” she said.

  Deanie leaned out the bathroom door and grinned. “I don’t know. I’m beginning to enjoy it.”

  THEY WERE COOKING HAMBURGERS out on the beach, and Delores was laughing as she attempted to turn a patty with two small forks.

  “Let me help,” Sam said.

  “You helped before. That’s why all those burned hamburgers are down in the coals. If you help anymore, we’ll have to go to McDonald’s!” She laughed.

  “It’s like one of those old beach party movies,” Deanie commented to Clara. “Our father and Delores are Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.”

  “I knew it seemed familiar.”

  Deanie and Clara were stretched out on a blanket. John D had brought out a folding armchair, and he was sitting like an old man looking out to sea.

  John D felt apart, and he wanted everyone to know it. Each time Deanie and Clara laughed at something—there, they just did it again. Each time they laughed, he felt a wave of anger wash over him. They knew this, he thought, sitting up straighter, and they were over there on the blanket actually planning their laughter. “Come on,” Deanie was probably saying, “one … two … three—laugh!” He did not know when he had felt such dislike
for two people.

  “John D, are you ready for a hamburger?”

  He looked at his mother. “Whenever you manage to get one cooked.”

  She didn’t even hear him. She was laughing again. Possibly she had ruined another hamburger. What had gotten into the woman? he wondered. He made a silent vow never to fall in love.

  He looked to the sea. He thought that if his mother had spent her entire life thinking up a way to make him miserable, she could not have been more successful. He felt like a wire that had suddenly lost its insulation.

  He had always enjoyed his aloneness, his uniqueness, but tonight he felt just plain lonely. Suddenly he wished for the father he had never seen, the father who had died, as nearly as John D could figure out, a half hour before he was born.

  He sighed, slumping lower in his chair.

  And it wasn’t just because, well, if his father were here, then Sam and his idiotic daughters wouldn’t be. It was more a feeling that he would actually enjoy his father’s company this evening.

  It was ironic that the one person in the world whose company he had ever wanted was—

  “Here you go,” his mother said cheerfully, handing him a hamburger. He lifted the top of the bun and was disappointed to see that she had cooked the hamburger exactly the way he liked.

  He heard Deanie say to Clara, “Afterwards we’ll probably sit around a campfire and sing. ‘Te-llll me why-yyyyyy.’”

  John D wished he didn’t have such good hearing. He no longer wanted to hear what the girls were saying. He thought of moving his chair farther away, but that would be what his mother called antisocial.

  “Don’t count on me,” Clara answered. “I’m going swimming again.”

  “Now, don’t go out too far,” Deanie said in his mother’s voice. “I sat by this man on the airplane, and he said that his sister said that there was a terrible current that would—”

  “Girls! You ready to eat?”

  Deanie broke off her imitation to call cheerfully, “Yes, we’re starved.” She got up and pulled Clara to her feet.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I don’t see how you can swim in the ocean—all that seaweed and stuff. It’s like soup.”