I told her about the group of CCC boys stripping our house clean. I told her about the kitchen sink, the azalea bush, the dogtrot. I told her they’d be doing the same to every newish-looking house in the Cove.
She leapt up from the bed. Katie hadn’t moved that fast in two weeks. She grabbed my hand so tight I thought my fingers might meld together.
“C’mon, let’s find Gramps. That old coot has gone too far.”
We found Gramps in the barn-turned-hotel. The next ten minutes of my life played out like I had some two-bit part in one of Miss Winstead’s school-house productions:
Gramps: “Come again?”
Katie: “I said this time you’ve crossed the line.”
Gramps: Cold, menacing stare.
Me: “But—”
Katie: “Them CCC boys are tearing down all the Cove houses! My house—Mama’s house—is gone, thanks to you and your silly park!”
Gramps: “Aw, they ain’t tearin’ down any houses.”
Katie: “They are so!”
Gramps: “Says who?”
Katie: “Says Autumn!” Finger in my direction. “She saw them do it!”
Gramps: Short, throaty grunt. (Which, translated, meant, “That girl? She don’t know her head from a hole in the ground.”)
Me: “But—”
Katie: “If you don’t believe her, go see for yourself.”
Pause.
Gramps: “They’s puttin’ up a hotel.”
Me: “But—”
Gramps: Snap! “Listen here, you two. You’re lucky your mama ain’t here to witness you tellin’ these lies. Now, I’m sorry your pop’s gonna be out of work, but that ain’t no reason for you to go making up tales. If I hear another word about this from either one of you . . .” His icy glare shifted from Katie to me. “Well, let’s just say the last few weeks of chores have been a real party compared to what they could be.”
Gramps stomped out of the barn. I didn’t even get to explain that I didn’t think Gramps was mixed up in this. I didn’t get in one stinking word.
Katie whipped around to me, her green eyes burning. “Autumn, don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone, you hear? You know what kind of shame this’d bring on our family if folks knew they was losin’ their homes because of Gramps’s park? It’s bad enough they’re losin’ all them lumber jobs.” She rubbed her earlobe so hard it turned red.
“Nope, not a word. If you do . . .” She leaned in toward me, and I could smell sweat and talcum powder. “If you do, I’ll tell Mama about that little bundle you’ve stashed under your mattress.”
And then she stomped away, too. Now, how could she know where I chose to hide my explosives?
Katie and I trudged the three miles to school through the fields of sloppy mud, Katie working over that earlobe of hers the whole way.
“Now remember, not a word about this park, got it? I don’t want to ruin the entire school year on the first day back.” It was early September, one looooooong week since my coffin ride. The longest week of my life. I might be the worst secret keeper in the whole world, but I’d managed to keep my mouth shut the entire week. But before me lay the true test for a reformed gossip: school. I thought I just might choke on this secret if I didn’t turn it loose soon.
We approached the grove of oak trees under which our small white schoolhouse nestled. A group of kids hovered outside. Katie’s big frame seemed to grow straighter, lighter. “Mable, wait!” she yelled, and ran off. I ducked inside the dank schoolhouse and plunked down on my bench. One row further back than last year. Better view out the window.
The scene out that window hadn’t changed and wasn’t likely to for, oh, the next hundred years or so. As everyone filed in and found this year’s spot, a ratty gray squirrel chattered a song from his perch in an old oak: I’m-outside-you’re-inside. I’m-outside-you’re-inside. I’m-outside-you’re-inside. Stupid squirrel.
We said the Lord’s Prayer, and the first day of school got under way. I thought if I could twitch my knees fast enough, swing my feet high enough, sigh my breaths loud enough, this godforsaken day just might go faster. I was wrong. Crept, it did. I’d been sitting on that bench (which might as well’ve been made of sandpaper and bent nails, for all its comfort) for years. Okay, so three hours.
To pass time I made a list in my head of all the things that were mucked up right now. Mama calls it a “laundry list.” I sure felt like I had been rubbed raw across a tin washboard. The list went something like this:
Pop will lose his job.
Gramps will lose his farm.
Gramps is furious with me because he thinks I’m making up the bit about him losing his farm because my pop is losing his job.
Katie is mad at Gramps because she’s convinced he’s sold us all out.
No one knows about any of this, not even Mama. (Keeping a secret from Mama is about as easy as keeping a hound dog from sniffing out your trail.)
Since Pop is losing his job, there’s no reason for us to move to Knoxville. But we can’t stay here, either, so . . .
We’re homeless.
Everyone else I know will be homeless, too.
I’m grounded, thanks to my coffin adventures with Cody.
Cody is a known park supporter, and his loyalty is thereby in question.
And oh, yeah . . . my very clever classmates keep pinching me, just to make sure I haven’t up and died on them again.
“. . . and that’s how babies are made.”
Cody stood at the front of the one-room school-house, feet crossed at the ankles, eyes on the dusty wooden floor. He swayed like he just might take a header, and his face burned like an ember. The rest of the forty-two faces in the class glowed, too, and those who could muster any bit of sound managed to spit out a giggle. Even the older kids—Katie and her gaggle of friends—were rapt. What had I missed?
Miss Winstead stood and smoothed her skirt. “Uh, thank you, Cody, for that extremely detailed report on the, ahem, reproductive system. I believe anyone in the class can tell you, however, that I asked if you knew anything about the respiratory system? Breathing?”
At the mention of breathing, the whole class exhaled. Shoulders shook and giggles turned to belly laughs. Even Cody managed a smile.
Miss Winstead pinched the place where the top of her nose and the bottom of her forehead meet. She does that a lot. “Class dismissed.”
I scrambled out the door and down the schoolhouse steps to the group gathered under the oak to play Club Fist. Twig Ogle and the rest of the girls ran off to play Drop the Handkerchief, but I preferred my pastimes to be more rough-and-tumble. A good game of Club Fist should make me forget this dadblamed park for a while. But even as fast as I am, I was one of the last ones to the circle. Five fists stacked together already! But to beat all, the top thumb was hitched to none other than Tommy Bledsoe. I shrugged and grabbed ahold of his thumb as tight as I could. Cody stepped up and grabbed my thumb, making his fist the top of the club. Seven fists in all. Not a bad round.
Donnie Dunlap was it. He was a big oaf, but as soft as bread. Shouldn’t be any problem hanging on to the club with him as odd man out.
“Take it off or knock it off, Cody?” Donnie asked him.
Cody sagged like a bag of flour. “Take it off, I guess.” He let go of my thumb and stepped out of the ring.
“Dang it, Cody!” I said. “Don’tcha even want to try?”
Cody crinkled his forehead at me like I’d hurt his feelings or something. Jeez.
Donnie turned to me. “Autumn, take it off or knock it off?”
I shot Cody a bullet of a glance. “Knock it off.”
Donnie licked his lips like he was studying how to remove my fingers from their clasp around Tommy Bledsoe’s thumb. I steadied myself and tightened my grip.
“So, Autumn, tell us s’more about your coffin ride,” Tommy said.
I smiled inside, not a little surprised that the request had been posed by my sworn archenemy.
“Well,�
� I started, deciding to suck my teeth for effect, “I think we left off where I was just about to tackle a wild boar so’s me and Cody wouldn’t starve to death, when a gargantuan explosion shook the ground and drove the boar away.”
Donnie stepped up and tried to pry my fingers open. I tightened my grip around Tommy’s thumb.
“That’s not how it happened,” Cody said, crossing his arms across his chest.
Tommy and the rest of the Club Fist circle looked at Cody, then at me.
I panicked. Nobody ever called Gramps out like this!
“It was,” I protested. “At least until we ran into that no-good bunch of park builders—”
“Boy howdy, that park!” Tommy interrupted. “My dad says that park’ll be the best thing ever happened to Cades Cove. Says we may even have to start storing our money in a bank, we’ll be so rich. Think I’ll buy me a full-bred golden retriever with all that dough. How ’bout you, Donnie?”
Donnie shrugged but never looked away from my grip. “Well, I reckon I’d buy me a Smith and Wesson.”
“I’m gonna get a John Deere tractor!”
“A new Chevy pickup!”
“A Kodak camera!”
Then Tommy Bledsoe smiled at me—smiled! “How ’bout you, Autumn? What’ll you buy?”
I do things different. It helps to remind yourself of that when you’re keeping a secret so big and so nasty it makes your skin itch.
It wasn’t fair, holding on to a secret like this one. They needed to know they were about to lose everything. I could have just blurted it all out. Cody could’ve just blurted it all out. He had nothing to lose, being the new kid. But nah—he’d never do that. He was all for the stinking park.
In the background, Twig Ogle and the girls held hands and chanted over their handkerchief:
“There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it ill becomes any of us
To talk about the rest of us.”
My grip on Tommy’s thumb loosened, and Donnie slid his fingers under mine and pried my hand loose. “Aha!”
I suddenly felt all dizzy and sick. I shook my head. “A, uh, a . . . a zeppelin.” I nodded. “Yeah, I’d buy me a zeppelin, all right.”
“Wow!”
“Boy oh boy!”
“Just like the Hindenburg! Ain’t she a beaut!”
9
I do things different.
It helps to remind
yourself of that
when you suddenly
find that you’re
the snake offering up
the forbidden apple.
After my coffin adventure, Mama had decided that part of my punishment would be teaching me how to knit. So every Saturday morning, we’d gather up the supplies and Mama would proceed to snap at me for the next hour or so. I’d rather floss a bull’s teeth than sit still for as long as it takes to knit a sample square. I drop more stitches than big fat Aunt Lydia drops cookie crumbs into her cleavage.
But one thing my knitting spells did let me do was puzzle how to get Gramps to believe me about this park mess. I’d tried to get him to hitch up his team and ride with me to our old house, but he’d have nothing of it. I figured Gramps’d find out in due time that I was right, that the Cove really would be inside the park, not bordering it, and that everyone would lose their homes because of it. That all his coaxing and sweet-talking and persuading our neighbors would leave him with naught. In a way, it served him right for not trusting his kin. Course, nobody deserved what I thought he was gonna get.
“And then you loop the thread around the needle—other way, Winnie. No—other way! And push it through the loop with the—no, honey. Through the loop. No. Here—like this . . .” I bet right about then Mama was regretting adding this chore to my list.
Cody burst into the cabin. He was still hanging around, even though I’d made it clear that he was now the enemy, him being for the park and all. But he didn’t seem to mind.
“Excuse me, Miz Oliver,” he said to Mama. “I saw Mr. Tipton on my way in. He wants Autumn to come right away.”
Gramps wanted me? The stubborn coot hadn’t addressed me or Katie directly since Katie confronted him, and that had been two weeks ago. (Instead he’d say things like, “Martha, tell your girl she’s to clean up that dog poo she’s tracked in again.” Mama just ignored all the ill feelings. She’s not one to meddle.)
Mama nodded at me, so I followed Cody out to the yard. He showed me then that his fingers were crossed behind his back. “Sorry I lied to your mama, Autumn, but there’s something I need to tell you and I knew she wouldn’t let you out of the house for just me.”
Once Cody told me what he’d overheard, I knew this was the way to show Gramps once and for all that this park was not his park. But I might have to dig out that stick of dynamite for the trip. Because we were headed to Chestnut Flats.
Getting Gramps to hitch up the wagon and take us for a ride was difficult, to say the least.
“I done told you, girl—no way I’m hitching up my team for you. You’re still grounded,” he grunted.
“Gramps,” I finally flat out told him, “you’re gonna want to see this.”
Gramps huffed a big showy sigh, but to his credit, he pulled out his team and strung them up. I hoisted myself onto the wagon seat, and Cody hopped in the back. Gramps switched the lead horse and we took off at a handsome trot. I told him the briefest of directions so he wouldn’t know that we were crossing the Cove, else he’d never go. The day glowed orangey yellow, and the air smelled like wet dirt after the big rain we’d had the night before. How is it that dirt smells so clean?
I’d never been to the Flats before. It was just eight miles from Gramps’s cabin—about thirteen from our old house—in the southeast corner of the Cove. Rumor had it there were only about five or six families who lived there, but nobody knew for sure. Flats people kept to themselves—they married Flats people, had Flats babies, were buried in Flats cemeteries. But from what I’d heard, their living was anything but flat.
Folks in the Flats were known as far as Knoxville for their corn whiskey. Mama said it was a sin, the way they kept those moonshine stills running day and night. Mama said liquor and spirits and such had been outlawed for a reason, and she wasn’t about to condone any lawbreaking in these parts (even though spirits had been legal again for a whole year now). Naturally, I was forbidden to go to the Flats.
But Mama was about to lose everything she knew. I figured she could turn the other cheek, since we were talking about the whole Cove losing the roofs over their heads, right? Besides, I was already grounded. So I touched the stick of dynamite tied to my leg and bit my tongue to keep quiet.
It was getting late in the day. The sun skimmed the mountaintops, throwing long, creepy shadows across the floor of the Cove. Gramps grew fidgety as we steered him toward the Flats.
Soon Cody pointed at a cluster of clapboard houses down the way. “Over there.” A shiny black Ford sat in front of the shack he pointed to. (“Shack” was putting it kindly. I’d built treehouses that looked sturdier than that lean-to.)
“The Flats?” Gramps yanked the reins taut and we came to a halt about a half mile up the road. “You gone crazy?” He looked at me as he said this.
“Gramps, Cody overheard his uncle say to a CCC boy that he’s got some business to conduct out here. I think you ought to be in on it.”
Gramps shook his head. “I don’t need in on any kind of business in the Flats. See no evil, hear no evil. Got it?”
I saw it flash across his face just then: Gramps thought the colonel was here to buy moonshine.
“Gramps, this ain’t about moonshine!” I said, maybe a little too loud. But I was getting real hot with him not listening to me. “It’s about the park.”
“Colonel got no park business here,” Gramps said, shaking his head and readying the reins. “Nope, let’s just head on home.”
I studied my gramps. Crag
gy old face, graying hair—he looked older than most fellas his age. Maybe the long string of failed get-rich schemes had taken a bigger toll than I knew. He really seemed to need this park, for more than just the money. He seemed to need a win.
“With all due respect, sir,” Cody said, and cleared his throat. “Adam and Eve had a chance to stay in paradise, but they were dumb and they ignored all the warnings and they blew it.”
I couldn’t believe my ears! Here was this scrawny city kid sassing my granddad, telling him he was too dumb to see the signs. I braced myself for Gramps to spin around and whup him one. I know I would’ve. But instead, Gramps just sat there, shaking his head.
And this from the same kid who, just days ago, wouldn’t shut his trap about the Cove being all magical and whatnot. That the park would be about the best thing that’d ever happened to this place. I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Cody—are you for this stinking park or against it?”
Cody shrugged. “Let’s just say I never saw a thing that lived up to its promises.”
At that, Gramps seemed to wake up. He squared his shoulders and locked his jaw. “Let’s go get us some knowledge of good and evil.”
Gramps halted the wagon and sauntered up to the shack like he visited the Flats every Tuesday. A trickle of smoke rose up from the backyard. A sickening sweet smell, like burning molasses, smacked us in the face.
“Moonshine,” I whispered to Cody. He nodded like he knew that already.
Gramps circled past the colonel’s car and round the house. “George? You here, Burchfield?” How Gramps knew who lived here, I didn’t know.
Then we saw it: a real moonshine still! On one end, a huge vat shaped like a potbelly stove sat over a small fire. Moonshine ran through rusty pipes and poured out into a barrel in a steady, water-clear stream. The whole thing burped and fizzed and stank to high heaven.
Screeeeee—blam! A screen door on the backside of the house squealed open, then banged shut.
A giant hulk of a man stepped outside and scanned the yard. He had to crane his neck all the way round to see us thanks to a puffy pink scar that sealed his left eye shut. He was bald and his head had a pointy shape to it, like a big acorn. He spat a long brown stream and swung a shotgun round to greet us.
Autumn Winifred Oliver Does Things Different Page 7