Belle Teal

by Ann Martin

  How long has Big Boss been watching? I wonder.

  Now Darryl and Chas and Vernon and Clarice, they all see Big Boss too. Behind me, Darryl starts to back away. Clarice’s eyes get huge, and Chas elbows me roughly in my ribs and says, “Nice going, Belle Teal.”

  I have a huge fear of Big Boss, but I have to look at him one more time, like peeking under a Band-Aid at a scrape. So I do. The expression on his face doesn’t change, but very slowly he raises up his hand and crooks his finger at Little Boss. Little Boss walks across the room to him and they disappear into the hallway.

  Chas and Vernon look at Clarice and Darryl and me with disgust. I do not know what to say to them, so it is a lucky thing when Gran scuttles up to me and says, “There you are . . . honey. Sunday school is over. Time to leave your friends and get on home.”

  I have never been to Sunday school in my life, but this is not the time to go into that. I grab Darryl by the wrist and say, “Come on. We’ll walk you out to your car.”

  Clarice is running off to find her parents. “Come over tomorrow!” she calls to me.

  “Okay,” I say, and I am having trouble catching my breath, even though I have been standing still.

  I try to calm down a little. Then I introduce Mama and Gran to Darryl and thank the Lord that Gran does not call me Lyman or say anything further about church.

  “Darryl’s father is parked outside,” I say to Mama.

  Mama does not know what happened at the party and I do not plan on telling her about it, but she did see Big Boss, so now she takes me by one hand and Darryl by the other, and says, “Let’s walk on out together then.”

  Mama, she does not miss a trick.

  I am shaking as we leave school, but Big Boss’s truck is nowhere in sight.

  “There’s our car,” says Darryl, pointing.

  I peer inside it, trying to get a glimpse of Mr. Craig, but all I can see is someone very tall wearing a hat. As Darryl climbs into the car I give Mr. Craig a cautious wave, and he gives me a little wave back before he drives off. Soon me and Mama and Gran have driven safely up our hill.

  The next day is Thursday, but it feels like Saturday, I think because of no school and the party the night before. I sleep late. But the moment I wake up I shoot out of bed. The very first thing I remember is Big Boss. The picture of him leaning against the wall and eyeing Little Boss comes into my mind and won’t leave. I try thinking of fun things — making my costume and the parade and cookies and candy — but they all lead to the party and our Halloween trick.

  What have I done to Little Boss?

  I pull out my journal and write everything down. Then I get dressed and go into the kitchen. There’s Gran singing “Waitin’ for the Train to Come In” and looking over a collection of bottles and jars and packages that are spread across the table.

  “What’s all that?” I ask her.

  “Why, I’m getting ready to make our fruitcakes,” says Gran.

  I can’t help smiling. That is a very good sign.

  I head on to Clarice’s as soon as I have done my chores. I tromp down our hill in my too-tight boots and look at the trees, which are nearly bare. I use my thinking time to go over the results of the Halloween trick. All I wanted was for the boys to see that they could have fun with Darryl. But Big Boss showed up. And Little Boss . . . I suddenly remember that maybe he has a crush on me. Everything is a confusion.

  I am in a state by the time I get to Clarice’s, even though I am cheered by the bunch of dried corn on the Bakers’ front door.

  Clarice answers the bell when I ring, and she looks like she is in a state herself.

  “Let’s go to your room and talk,” I say while I am still taking off my coat.

  “We can’t. Shari’s in there with Patsy and Deanna, and Deanna is crying about a boyfriend.”

  The only place Clarice and me can get some privacy is in the Bakers’ rumpus room, which is in the basement with their bomb shelter in case someone foreign drops a missile on us. Mama and Gran and I do not have a bomb shelter, but Clarice says we can always go to their house if a war starts.

  We sit on the rumpus-room couch and drink Cokes and help ourselves to a dish of Halloween candy.

  “I’ve got to talk to Little Boss,” I say. “This is killing me.”

  “Call him, then,” says Clarice, waving her hand toward the phone.

  “I can’t. They don’t have a phone, remember?”

  “Then let’s go over there.”

  “And run into Big Boss? Are you kidding?”

  “It’s Thursday. He should be at work.”

  “With Big Boss, you never know. I’m not going over there.”

  We lean back in the couch and each eat a Tootsie Roll.

  “Your grandmother thought you all were at church last night?” Clarice says after a moment.

  “Yeah. And I’m not sure who she thought I was. Maybe Mama, when Mama was little. She was talking about Sunday school and church gloves. You know she made Mama and Lyman go to Sunday school and church every single Sunday while they were growing up. That’s why Mama won’t hold with church stuff now.”

  “But how could your grandmother look around the Halloween party and think she was in church?”

  “I don’t know. How could she look at me and call me Adele? Or Lyman?”

  Clarice shrugs. We are stumped.

  “Want to watch TV?” asks Clarice.

  I shake my head. I don’t want to go upstairs. I want us to be alone. But there isn’t much to do down here. We try looking at one of Shari’s fashion magazines, but it just isn’t us. Hairdos and makeup and all.

  “Do you think we’ll ever care about this stuff?” Clarice wants to know. She is wrinkling her nose at a photo of a girl about Shari’s age who’s holding up a tube of lipstick.

  “Maybe when we’re older,” I say. I don’t want to rule out any possibilities. Then I heave an enormous sigh and add, “One thing, Clarice, do you think Little Boss might have a crush on me?”

  Clarice drops the magazine. “What?”

  “I don’t know. Last night, when he thought Darryl was me, he got him a plate of food, and he won him that prize and all. And you know how he’s always teasing me. Could be that he likes me.”

  I half expect Clarice to laugh, but she does not. Instead, all serious-like, she says, “I guess it could be. Lord, no wonder he was so embarrassed last night. It wasn’t even just our trick. Or that Big Boss saw him get tricked.”

  “I know.” Now I feel more miserable than ever. I decide there is nothing to do but wait until Monday and talk to him at school.

  On Monday morning I am the first one off the bus. I fly down the steps and along the walk to the front door of Coker Creek. When I get to our classroom I look inside. Little Boss isn’t there yet. I will wait for him by the door.

  I wait until the last bell has rung and Miss Casey is about to take attendance. No Little Boss.

  He shows up the next morning, though. I am posted by our door again. Clarice, Chas, and Vernon, they are all in the classroom.

  “Little Boss!” I cry when I see him.

  “Hey, Belle Teal,” he answers. He does not sound too mad. Then I notice that he is holding his notebook and lunch and everything all in one arm, and keeping his other arm pulled against his chest.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask. “Did you hurt yourself?” I try to roll back the sleeve of his jacket for a better look.

  Little Boss jumps a mile.

  “Take off your coat,” I command.

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to. Miss Casey won’t let you wear it inside.”

  Little Boss shrugs out of his jacket. His left wrist is in a splint.

  “What happened?” I say, suspicious-like.

  “I fell down the stairs. That’s why I didn’t come to school yesterday.”

  “How did you fall?” I want to know.

  “I just fell is all.”

  “Well . . . Little Boss, abo
ut the party. I’m sorry —”

  But Little Boss walks ahead of me into the classroom. “Come on. We don’t want to be late.”

  “But I really am sorry —”

  “Don’t mention it, Belle Teal.”

  I don’t. I never mention it again. And when Chas and Vernon see Little Boss’s splint, they don’t mention it either.

  I am not one for bragging, but I have to say that the fruitcakes me and Mama and Gran make every year are some of the best in the county. Now, I am aware of the unfortunate reputation of fruitcakes. They have a funny name, and people joke about there being just the one fruitcake that gets passed around from person to person year after year. Plus, as Mama says, some fruitcakes have a weight problem.

  But our fruitcakes are really something special. They do not weigh a ton. And they are made from Gran’s secret family recipe, which among other things, calls for marmalade and bourbon. Followed by a special aging process while the cakes sit in their tins in bourbon-soaked cheesecloth for several weeks, which is why we always bake our cakes on the day after Thanksgiving. If we want to give them as Christmas gifts, they’ll have just enough time to age before we start handing out the tins.

  Those tins, we collect them all year long. At Christmastime we save the ones that arrive at our house with cookies and candied nuts and things in them. And anytime we go for a long drive in the countryside we scour the shelves of junk shops and what Gran calls anteeky stores. We find little tins and big ones, tins shaped like squares and octagons and rectangles and ovals, and tins with all manner of pictures on them — funny-looking old-fashioned children with angel wings and enormous eyes, glorious Christmas trees lit with candles, country cottages by vegetable gardens that put ours to shame. My favorite tin, it was one I found last year, and it showed all these dogs sitting at a table playing cards. I asked Gran if we couldn’t put our own fruitcake in it, just so’s I could look at the dogs for another year.

  One night in November, directly between Halloween and Thanksgiving, I finish my homework, and me and Gran and Mama decide to sit in the parlor by the fire together for a while. Mama, she has just taken some big tests and she has a night off from school.

  “Got all A’s,” she tells us. “Never did that before in my life.”

  “Mama, that’s wonderful!” I exclaim.

  “Thank you, precious.” Mama lets out a stream of smoke and Gran gives her the eye.

  “Mama, where we going to have Thanksgiving this year?”

  “Right here. I promised Cousin Tic and them that we’d have the dinner this time.”

  Goody. All our cousins from Penny County.

  “Thanksgiving, then fruitcakes,” I say. My mouth is watering at the thought of all that wonderful food. First our turkey and biscuits and gravy and sweet potato pie and Cousin March’s sausage stuffing and Cousin Carrie’s berry pies plus Gran’s pecan pie. The next day, the fruitcakes with all their glorious ingredients.

  “We better start a list,” I say. I get up for a pencil and a piece of paper.

  “A list of what?” asks Mama.

  “Who we’re going to make fruitcakes for.”

  I begin to write: the Bakers, Miss Casey, Bernette, Miss Wanda, a little one for Little Boss. “Mama, who you want on the list? Anyone new from school?”

  Mama sighs, thinking. She stubs out a cigarette and lights up another.

  “Merchant, put that pipe out,” says Gran. “It’s a filthy thing.”

  Now Merchant is Mama’s daddy who left Gran about twenty years ago and then turned up dead in the Foggy River.

  “It’s a cigarette, and I just lit it,” says Mama sharply. “I’m not going to put it out now.” She is very tired, I can tell. I notice, though, that she doesn’t correct Gran on her biggest mistake. Mama puffs away. Then she says more soft-like, “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to help you all with the fruitcakes this year.” She says this like a confession. “I’ll have Thanksgiving day off, of course, and I might get one other day off, but Mr. Titus isn’t sure. If I do get another day off, it better be the one before Thanksgiving so’s I can help cook. But the fruitcakes . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Mama,” I say. “Gran and I can take care of things. We can cook the meal and . . .” I trail off as Gran gets up and wanders out of the room. “And we can make the fruitcakes too.”

  I am not certain about this, though. Especially not when Gran comes back into the parlor wearing that flimsy nightie of hers, and nothing else. Outside, it’s freezing. Inside, it’s freezing too, unless you’re in the kitchen or within five feet of the parlor fire. These days the grass crackles with frost every morning and the wind whips around the corners of our house. And Gran is wearing her short cotton nightie and bare feet.

  “I believe I’ll make myself a sandwich,” she says.

  We finished dinner no more than an hour ago.

  I look at Mama. She looks at me. Then she shakes her head ever so slightly and picks up her cigarette again.

  I am scared about Gran, but the next day Miss Casey takes my mind off of things. As soon as she has taken attendance and written down our lunch and milk orders and all, she says, “Girls and boys, it is time to talk about our school Christmas program.”

  I feel a great joy. To my mind the Christmas program is the highlight of the school year, maybe even of the whole entire year. Every class in Coker Creek Elementary takes part in it, and all the parents and grandparents and little brothers and sisters and even some aunts and uncles and neighbors go to it. Last year our class wrote Christmas poems and read them aloud. The year before, we sang two Christmas carols, and also a Christmas song that we wrote ourselves. The program starts off with the songs and poems and readings, and leads up to the very best part, which is the Christmas pageant itself. Each year, one class is chosen by a drawing (out of a felt hat in the teachers’ room, I think) to put on the pageant. I have never yet been lucky enough to be in the class that gets chosen for the pageant, although I am always hopeful. After the pageant everybody, students and guests, traipses into the cafeteria, where a big old Christmas feast is held. We all bring something for it, and it is a sight for sore eyes — pies and cakes and cookies and hams and turkeys and casseroles and biscuits and oh, it’s just tables and tables so full of food, it could take your breath away.

  Our program, it is almost as good as Christmas day itself. Which is why a murmur of excitement runs through the room now.

  Miss Casey is grinning a wide grin. She says, “And I have a wonderful piece of news for you. Our class has been chosen to put on the pageant this year.”

  I can barely stop myself from jumping out of my seat and cheering.

  “Yes, this is very good news,” Miss Casey goes on, looking at our faces. “It’s a great honor. I am sure we are all up to the job. I will assign the roles for the pageant this afternoon. Right after recess.”

  Then, since Darryl and HRH Vanessa don’t know about our Christmas program, Miss Casey describes it to them. “After the pageant,” she adds, “we have a wonderful party in the cafeteria. Everyone contributes something to it. This year I would like each of you to bring in something that you have made at home, preferably from a cherished family recipe. Take a moment to think about what you might like to bring in and then I will make a list on the board.”

  While we think, Miss Casey, she writes “CHRISTMAS FEAST” across the blackboard, and then lists our names in two columns. When she has finished she turns to us. “Junie? I’ll start with you.”

  “Well, my mama makes molasses cake,” says Junie.

  “That’s just fine,” Miss Casey replies. She writes “molasses cake” on the board next to Junie’s name. Then she calls on Mae.

  “Peach pie, with our own preserved peaches,” says Mae proudly.

  Miss Casey adds “peach pie” to the list.

  As the list grows longer, my mouth begins to water.

  “Vanessa?” Miss Casey is saying.

  HRH stands up beside her chair and says all
hoitytoity, “I will bring in my mama’s fancy Noel lace cookies. They are French, I believe.” Then she sits down again.

  “Lace cookies” is added to the board.

  “Darryl? How about you?” asks Miss Casey.

  Darryl is looking shyer than ever, like he might be tongue-tied, but he manages to say, “Chocolate-chip cookies.”

  Finally it is my turn. “My gran and I will make our fruitcake,” I say.

  I hear a faint snicker from Vanessa’s side of the room. Let her laugh, I think. I know for a fact that nobody has tasted anything like Gran’s recipe. It has been in our family for decades. Plus, over the years Gran has perfected it. She has made so many changes on that dirty, sticky, flour-covered recipe card that the writing is hard to read. But every year Gran deciphers it. And every year the fruitcakes get a little better. They’re expensive to make, but somehow we always manage to buy enough ingredients for our large quantity of cakes.

  I ignore the snicker and announce, “I guarantee it will be the best fruitcake you will ever eat.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Miss Casey replies kindly.

  During recess me and Clarice and Darryl are generally left alone. Which is a good thing because we do need to get our writing time in. We have a whole notebook full of City Lights episodes now. Today I am scribbling away as Darryl, he is telling me a good idea about a fire in a shoe store, when a shadow falls across the book. I look up. There is Vernon, standing in front of us with his hands in his pockets and a frown in his eyebrows.

  “What?” I say, rude-like. I do not feel like being interrupted. Plus, I do not know whether to trust Vernon after the Halloween surprise.

  “You,” Vernon says, pointing at Darryl’s chest like he is only a can of soup on a store shelf, “do not need to bother bringing in those cookies. No one is going to eat your food.”