Dotty’s Suitcase

by Constance C. Greene

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  Dotty’s Suitcase

  Constance C. Greene

  For Audrey Benson

  who cried with me in the movies

  a long time ago

  CHAPTER 1

  “I don’t want to kneel,” Jud said, “I won’t if I don’t want to.”

  “You must,” said Dotty Fickett. “I am the princess and you are my servant. You must kneel when I tell you to.”

  “You don’t look like any princess to me,” Jud said. “You can’t make me if I don’t want to. You just try and make me.”

  “Oh, come on, baby. Don’t be a spoilsport.”

  “Don’t call me baby,” Jud said, scowling. “I’m eight years old and that’s no baby and you know it.”

  “But I’m twelve,” Dotty said in her most princess-like voice. “I’m older than you by far. I am the one who decides what is what.”

  “Who says? Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?” Jud demanded, his eyes bright with spite. “I’m just a little fella.”

  Dotty whirled in a huge circle, causing her burlap cape, which she had made from old feed bags she’d found stored in the barn, to swirl about her in a very satisfactory manner. Then she reached out her long arm and got a grip on Jud’s shoulder.

  “One minute you say you’re not a baby and the next you tell me you’re just a little fella,” she said. “Make up your mind.” She tightened her fingers. “Your bones feel like a chicken’s bones. If I wanted, I could crush you into a pulp. If I felt like it.”

  Jud stood still as a stone, nostrils flaring, breathing hard. She let go. “I have this to say and I will say no more. When I get my suitcase, I won’t take you with me if you don’t obey my commands.”

  “So?” Jud said. “So? When you getting it? You been talking about getting it so long I thought you already had it,” he added, untruthfully and with malice. If Dotty had gotten her suitcase the whole world would’ve known.

  “When I get my suitcase”—Dotty let her tongue move slowly, deliciously over the words—“I’m going on a long journey that I was planning on taking you on also. We will go first to Africa, I believe. We will take a small boat up the Nile.”

  “You got seasick that time we went fishing on the lake,” Jud observed.

  “There are many alligators on the Nile, my dear little friend,” Dotty continued. She was pleased to see the look on his face when she mentioned alligators. It was growing increasingly difficult to keep Jud in his place. He seemed to think that because he was now eight he was gaining on her. She had tried to explain that she would always be four years older, therefore four years wiser. He rejected this.

  “I don’t want to go to Africa,” Jud said. “There’s lions and tigers there and they bite.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My brother!” Jud shouted triumphantly.

  “What does he know? Has he ever been there?” Dotty asked scornfully. “When we get there, we’ll send him a postcard with pictures of mango trees and ostriches and crocodiles. And things you never dreamed of.” Dotty’s voice went slow and soft, like the hypnotist she’d heard last summer at the carnival. “There’s gold and jewels of great price in Africa. And dancing girls with diamonds in their belly buttons.”

  Jud’s jaw dropped. “Diamonds in their belly buttons?” he said in a hoarse voice. “How’d they get there?”

  “They were born with them there,” Dotty said in the same slow and dreamy voice. “Didn’t you ever hear of babies born with diamonds in their belly buttons? It’s God’s way of saying the female is superior to the male. I myself was born in such a manner.”

  “You never,” Jud said, narrowing his eyes. “If you got one, show it.”

  “I removed it in the dark of the moon and sold it for a king’s ransom,” Dotty said, closing her eyes and smiling at the memory.

  “You’re lying!” he hollered. She had pushed him too far. “You never had a diamond in your old belly button and you know it. Besides,” he said slyly, “if you sold it for a king’s ransom, why don’t you go buy yourself that old suitcase and stop talking about it?”

  Sometimes Jud surprised her. “You know nothing, wastrel,” Dotty said in a singsong. “You know less than nothing, little turd. Here”—she threw aside her cloak—“come close and look sharp. There are still a few diamond chips left. If you look carefully, you may see them glittering in the light.”

  Jud crept close.

  “See!” she cried. “See?”

  “Looks like your old undershirt to me,” he said sourly.

  Dotty wriggled, pulling at her clothes. When she felt the cold air on her stomach, she cried, “See!” again.

  Jud squinched up his face so he looked like an old man deep in thought. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Not a blamed thing.”

  Dotty whipped her clothes into place. “You must need glasses,” she said.

  “Give me another peek!” Jud howled.

  “Sacred scripture decrees that only one look is allowed to a mortal,” Dotty intoned. “Perhaps another day when the moon is in eclipse.”

  “You’re a cheat and a liar!” Jud shouted.

  The sound of a bell rang out across the field. “Hark!” Dotty said. Jud stopped in mid-shout. “Hark,” she said again.

  The sound of the bell was very loud, very imperious. It called for instant obedience.

  “It’s your old Aunt Martha,” Jud said. He took off up the hill.

  “Liar!” he flung over his shoulder, on the run. “Cheat!” He disappeared into the bushes.

  Alone, Dotty picked up a stick and brought it slowly down upon the shoulder of an imaginary figure kneeling before her.

  “I deem thee Knight Jud in the name of Princess Dorothea of the royal family,” she said in a dignified voice.

  The wind sighed a secret message through the trees. An early owl hooted a reply.

  Dotty drew in a long breath, lifted her face, and shook her fist at the sky.

  “I shall live forever and ever!” she shouted. “I am invincible. I am indestructible. I am …” In vain she tried to think of something else she was and failed. The bell clamored again, telling her it was the last time and she had better come without delay.

  Dotty broke into a gallop and headed for home.

  CHAPTER 2

  “I declare, Dotty,” Aunt Martha said, squinting fiercely at her, “I don’t know what you do to yourself. I put lots of starch in that old dress last time I did it up, and look at it. It looks like an old dishrag.”

  Dotty looked down at herself. She thought it a very satisfactory dress, covered as it was with blue and white polka dots and possessing puff sleeves. Both her sisters had worn it before her. She loved that dress. The skirt flapped against her legs in a fine fashion, and she tied the half belt as tight as it would go without giving way at the seams.

  “I can’t let down that hem one more time,” Aunt Martha said. “It’s down as far as it’ll go. And your socks.” Aunt Martha’s eyes roved the ceiling, and with her tongue she made clucking noises. “Never saw anything like your socks. From the back it looks like you don’t have on any socks at all.”

  “I know,” said Dotty, trying to pull her white socks up out of her brown oxfords and failing. “It’s like there’s something down there, quicksand maybe, sucking them down inside. I can’t help it.”

  “And I swear I don’t know what you do to your hair,” Aunt Martha continued. “Washed it only two days ago and just look at you.” She circled Dotty. “Looks like you been rubbing bear grease into your sca
lp.”

  “Bear grease is good for the hair,” Dotty said. “And it also wards off evil spirits and keeps away flies.”

  “Oh, you! You and your tall tales.” Aunt Martha grabbed Dotty and hugged her. “I just wish you’d find some nice little girls to play with, girls your own age,” she said, releasing Dotty, “instead of holing up with a book all the time or bossing that little Jud boy around.”

  “Can I help it if Olive moved?” With a start of pure pleasure, Dotty felt her eyes fill and her lips tremble.

  I am Katharine Hepburn. I am Jo in Little Women, and Beth is dying. Dotty squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the tears down her cheeks. Little Women was a movie she would remember for all her days. Except for A Farewell to Arms, starring Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper, Little Women was her favorite. She and Olive had gone to see it to celebrate Olive’s birthday. Olive had made so much noise crying at the end that people had turned to stare. Dotty had skinned across the aisle to another seat so no one would know they were together. When they came out into the sunshine, Olive’s eyelids were swollen almost shut, and Dotty had to lead her to the drugstore where they were to cap the day by having a black-and-white soda. It had been a memorable day.

  And now Olive was gone, all the way to Boonville, seventy miles away. It might as well have been seven hundred miles. Olive’s father had picked up and moved his family practically overnight when he heard of a possible job to be had in Boonville. In 1934 jobs were hard to come by. He’d been out of work for some time. Without a by-your-leave he had announced they were going, and they went.

  “You’ve got to learn to make new friends,” Aunt Martha said, her back to Dotty, wiping off the top of the stove. “Just because Olive’s gone doesn’t mean you can’t make new ones. Take a leaf out of your sisters’ book and be a mite more sociable.” She turned and saw the tears coursing down Dotty’s cheeks.

  “Lands, child,” she said, stricken, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “I was thinking about Katharine Hepburn as Jo in Little Women,” Dotty explained. “It wasn’t you. As for my sisters, I wouldn’t be like them for all the tea in China.” She blew her nose and wiped her face.

  “No danger,” Aunt Martha said wryly. “No danger whatsoever. You look pale. You take your tonic?”

  “I am pale. I am always pale. I can’t help it. I was born pale and I’ll die pale.”

  “Most folks do.”

  “I have been reading The Secret Garden,” Dotty said, to change the subject. “Have you ever read it?”

  “Don’t believe so. Sounds nice. What’s it about?”

  “Well, this ugly little girl comes from India where her parents have been killed in a cholera plague,” Dotty said, “and she goes to live with her eccentric uncle in a house on the moors in England. If I ever get my suitcase,” Dotty went on, “that’s where I’ll go, first thing. To the moors in England. That’s where my heart is, that’s where I long to go. I think in one of my other lives I was a girl who lived in a cottage on the moors. What do you think you were in your other life, Aunt Martha?”

  “Don’t talk foolishness, Dotty,” Aunt Martha said sharply. “I am what I am and have always been. This is the only life I’ve ever had, and when I die, I hope and pray I will go straight to the good Lord and that He’ll be gentle with me.”

  “When I die,” said Dotty, “the world dies with me.”

  “There’s too much talk of dying,” Aunt Martha said. “I don’t hold with such things. I don’t like you saying things like that.”

  “I didn’t say it,” Dotty said. “I think Emily Dickinson did.”

  “I don’t know any Emily Dickinson.”

  “She was a poet. ‘When I die, the world dies with me.’ That’s very profound. Think about it. ‘When I die …’”

  “That’s enough,” Aunt Martha announced firmly. “Time to scrape the carrots and get them in the stew. I’ll leave everything ready so when the girls get home you can go ahead and have your supper. Your daddy will be late tonight, so you start without him.”

  Dotty went to work on the carrots. “Don’t you want to hear any more about The Secret Garden?” she asked. “I have a great deal in common with Mary, the girl in the book. As I said, she’s ugly.”

  “You’re not ugly, child,” Aunt Martha protested. “You’re a nice-looking girl and bound to get better.”

  “I’ve got nowhere to go but up,” Dotty said, but she was pleased, if not convinced, that her aunt was right and she would indeed get better looking in time.

  “You have a very nice smile,” Aunt Martha said, smoothing the hair off Dotty’s forehead. “When you think to use it. And your hands and feet are just like your mother’s. Long and thin. Don’t know where she got those hands and feet. No one else in her family had anything like ’em. They were aristocratic-like. We used to tease her, say she got ’em from the king of the gypsies or someone like that.”

  Dotty flung herself at her aunt, almost knocking her off her feet. “King of the gypsies!” she cried. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right. Why didn’t you tell me before? My darling little mother,” Dotty said, dancing around the kitchen and finally plopping down in a chair. “A gypsy queen!”

  “Get on with your secret garden story,” her aunt said. “You got my curiosity going.”

  “Well, this little girl’s name was Mary,” Dotty continued, “and she’s very unpleasant, ordering everyone around on account of she’s been living in India, as I said, and has always been used to a lot of servants.”

  Aunt Martha nodded. “There’s them as knows how to treat servants and them as don’t. I’ve had experience with both kinds.”

  “Mary had an ayah, you see,” Dotty explained. “‘Ayah’ means ‘nurse’ in Hindu, and Mary’s ayah obeyed her every command. Tied her shoes, brushed her teeth, dressed her, everything. The poor thing didn’t know how to do one single thing for herself. And she bossed her old ayah around so she naturally thought she could boss everyone around, even these people in the house on the moors. But the people there wouldn’t put up with her for a minute.” Dotty scowled. “It was her uncle’s house in Yorkshire, which is in England, you see, and in Yorkshire they weren’t used to such terrible manners as Mary had. But it wasn’t really her fault she had such bad manners.”

  “I don’t hold with young folks telling their elders what they should do and not do.” Aunt Martha shook her head disapprovingly. She exchanged her apron for her old gray coat. “That Mary child has to learn that’s not right and proper. Someone will have to teach her some manners, and that’s all there is to it.” She laid her cheek on the air for Dotty to kiss.

  “I best be getting home or Uncle Tom will think something’s happened to me.”

  “I’ll come with you!” Dotty cried. She looked at the clock. It was 5:25, almost time for her favorite program, The Singing Lady. She turned on the radio so that when she got home The Singing Lady’s voice would be filling the room, almost as if she were there in person, warm, friendly, like a mother’s voice might be.

  “Don’t fuss,” Aunt Martha said. “I can manage alone.”

  “I want to fuss!” Dotty cried.

  “Well, then, if you’re coming, put on something warm. That cape wouldn’t keep a flea from freezing,” Aunt Martha ordered, already out the door.

  “Anyway”—Dotty followed her, still wrapped in burlap—“this Mary had a very sallow complexion. She’d been sick a lot, you see. ‘Sallow.’ That’s a word I must use more often.”

  “Don’t imagine you’ll have much call for it,” Aunt Martha commented. “You left the door on the latch, did you? Won’t be gone but a minute.”

  “Make haste,” said Dotty, “for the night is coming.”

  “There’s nothing to fear in the night if your conscience is clear,” Aunt Martha said, putting one foot in front of the other as fast as she was able. “When I was a child, I was afraid of the shadows. But now that I’m old, I know there’s nothing there. If you’re co
ming, get a move on.” She journeyed down the path so swiftly her skirts belled out, and she moved so rapidly, so smoothly it was as if she wore roller skates.

  They traveled silently for a minute or two.

  Dotty caught up. “As I was saying, Mary has this sallow complexion and no one likes her because not only is her complexion sallow but also, as I told you, she’s very bossy.”

  “People shouldn’t hold a person’s looks against them,” Aunt Martha said as she sped toward home. “A pretty face can hide a heap of sins.”

  “But you see, it wasn’t just her face, it was her bad disposition,” Dotty said, her breath coming rapidly. Aunt Martha might be old but she was fast on her feet.

  In the failing light Dotty could see her aunt nodding. “A bad disposition is the worst thing in the world,” she agreed. “Almost.”

  Nothing moved but the wind and the birds and the creatures of the field. The light left the sky and Dotty Fickett shivered.

  “I can see your house, Aunt Martha!” she cried. “I’m going back now. Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow!”

  Aunt Martha lifted her hand in farewell and continued on her way. Dotty turned and raced toward home. Halfway there, she stopped, stamped her feet like an Arabian stallion, and whinnied to the empty sky. Her breath caught sharply in her throat and she whinnied again, half expecting an answering whinny. In an instant the wind died, and in the silence Dotty heard the sound of a door closing. The sound of a door closing in an empty house is a strange and lonely sound.

  CHAPTER 3

  There was no one there. She was sure of it. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. Olive said if you repeated something many times, you began to believe it. I am not afraid.

  Dotty leaned against the house, looking in, ready to run if someone looked out at her. I am an intruder, come to rob this place. As long as I remain on the outside, on the porch, I’ll be all right. This I know for a fact.

  Inside, the kitchen was the same, untouched, in order. The stew pot was stewing, sending out little puffs of delicious smells from under its lid. Aunt Martha’s discarded apron hung in limp disarray on its hook. The kettle sat on the back of the stove, as complacent as a cat. The big old clock in the corner ticked away the silent minutes as it had always done. And on the wall, in its usual place, hung the picture that Dotty loved. It showed a lively, gay young woman squinting into the sun, holding up for the world’s inspection a baby. That baby, as hairless as a baby bird not yet out of the nest, was Dotty. Her mother looked so proud. So proud. A short while after the picture had been taken, Dotty’s mother had died, leaving her father with a sad heart (“I never saw a man so sad,” Aunt Martha had told Dotty), three little daughters to clothe and feed, a rattly old car, and his hardware store, which provided them with a meager living. Luckily for them, Mr. Fickett’s oldest sister, Martha, came to live nearby with her husband, Tom, and things looked up a bit. Martha had no children. She gathered the Fickett girls to her heart, cherishing and scolding them as if they’d been her own. They couldn’t have managed without Aunt Martha.