by Kit Duncan
Sister Mary Frances had encouraged us to use the new words and phrases we learned to help us remember them.
"When I grow up I'm going to be a celibate Englishman!" I announced over breakfast the following morning. "But I won't be priggish about it."
Papa had just taken a long swig of coffee and Mama was chewing a piece of bacon.
They both choked and coughed, and Papa used both his napkins to wipe off his tie. He had to change it before he left for work.
Aunt Myrna only smiled at me across the table and swallowed a bite of toast.
As an afterthought I added, "What's priggish, anyhow?"
In unison, the three adults chanted, "Look it up!"
My dad added, "And look up celi?." But my mother put her hand on top of his to restrain him, and said, "Perhaps that one can wait a little while, Dear."
After Papa had left for work my mother gathered up a small armload of throw rugs. Handing them to me, she said, "Katie Honey, take these out on the deck and give them a good shake, then you can go find Danny and Timmy if you like.
A good shake, by my estimation, meant two or three snaps against the air. A little dust escaped with each snap. I tossed them in the chair on the deck and ran down the steps yelling, "Danny! Timmy! Where you at!?!"
Papa came home for lunch, a rare treat. He had another man with him. I recognized Leon from the shop at the dealership. I admired him because he was always greasy and he had a fake bottom tooth that he took out once and showed me.
The five of us ate lunch, tomato soup and sandwiches. While Mama and I did the dishes, Papa and Leon and Aunt Myrna spoke in the living room. Papa and Leon left soon afterwards, and as Aunt Myrna returned to the kitchen we heard the roar of Grandpa Wilhelm's old truck being turned over. It was almost out of ear shot before it backfired.
"Needs a new tailpipe," Aunt Myrna said as she sat at the table. "Walter says they can have it back in three days, maybe less."
"Well," Mama answered, rinsing off a glass, "Leon can fix just about anything. Little old tailpipe shouldn't be much of a problem."
"Walter wants me to go over to the dealership tomorrow afternoon," Aunt Myrna said, then, with a knowing smile she asked, "Think I ought to go?"
"Go if you like," Mama said. "But leave your pocketbook at home. He's got designs!"
"I thought as much," Aunt Myrna laughed. She winked at me. "Kate, your papa is incorrigible. Just like his daughter!"
I wasn't exactly sure what incorrigible was, but I figured if it was related to precocious, I shouldn't be unduly concerned.
"Yes," my mother turned around, wiping her hands with a tea towel. "Katie's a regular chip off the old block! Here," she reached for my towel, "I'll finish that up for you. Don't you have some dragons to slay or a treasure chest to discover?"
"Oh, Mama!" I protested. "Danny and I killed the last dragon last week, and that map was a fraud. Only thing we ever found was a rusty hubcap and a couple of broken bottles. Anyhow, we're building a spaceship today. I'll bet we'll be able to fly it even! Timmy wants to go to Mars, but Danny says we ought to set our sights more realistically. I expect we'll just get as far as the moon for now."
"Well, be home in time for supper," and she swatted me playfully as I ran past her and out the back door.
Throughout the next few days I was able to avoid Aunt Myrna, except at dinnertime and the occasional verbal skirmish when Mama and Papa were preoccupied with other matters. Well, no, skirmish isn't quite the accurate term for it, I suppose. A skirmish implies two opponents. No matter how much I baited her, though I don't know why I baited her, Aunt Myrna refused to fight with me.
Papa was planning on taking off the whole day on Saturday. Aunt Myrna had told him and Mama she would love to go to Bardstown and see My Old Kentucky Home before she left. I shrank from the thought of being trapped with her all day.
The night before the trip, after Aunty Myrna had retired to the guest room, my parents discussed it in hushed breaths. Their room was right across the hall from mine. I was already in bed and could barely hear them, but when I heard my name I was compelled to quietly, very carefully open my bedroom door an inch or so.
"No, Laura," Papa said. "I think Katie ought to come with us."
"But, Walter," Mama countered, "not if it makes her uncomfortable. Emily said she'd keep an eye on her while we go to Bardstown."
"What's to be uncomfortable about, for God's sake?" my dad asked, and he sounded exasperated.
"She's just a little girl. She can't help how she feels."
"Myrna's my sister!"
"And Katie's your daughter. What's your point?"
I was a little frightened. Both my parents were fairly lenient with me, but my dad more so. When limits were set, it was usually my mother who initiated them. I wasn't accustomed to hearing her defend my behavior to Papa.
My dad wasn't sure what his point was. While he was trying to figure it out my mother added quickly, "Walter, just because you adore them both doesn't mean they have to adore one another!"
"Well, Myrna adores Katie!"
"She does?" my mother asked. "She tell you that?"
"Yes," but his tone wasn't very steady.
"Hmm." Mama wasn't convinced, I could tell from her voice. Papa must have heard her doubt as well.
"No, really," he conceded. "I asked her straight out if she thought our little Katie was a princess and she said, 'Yes, Walter, she's a royal pain.'"
There was a pause in the air and I heard them both giggle. I frowned.
Papa continued, "But really, Laura, Myrna had that Morgenstern twinkle in her eye when she said it. And you have to admit, Katie can get on people's nerves."
"That's true," Mama admitted. "I thought poor Sister Mary Frances was going to blow her habit half a dozen times this past year."
"Still," Papa said, "when you get used to her, she's a real charmer."
"Myrna or Katie?" Mama asked, and they both giggled a little more.
"Hmmm," I heard Papa purr. "You know, you're right. I hadn't really thought about it before, but they really are a lot alike, aren't they?"
"Two peas in a proverbial pod," Mama agreed. "But you give them a little space they may come to appreciate one another."
"Might even learn to love each other," Papa mused.
"Come back to earth, Dreamer-Boy!" Mama laughed at his optimism.
"Well, it could happen!" he snorted with fake indignation.
"That's true," Mama agreed. "Anything's possible, I guess. Who would have believed we'd have a Catholic in the White House in our lifetime?"
I slipped on my elbow and the door bumped against the frame.
"Katie Arlene! Are you out of bed?"
I shut the door quickly and scampered across the bed, dived head first, and didn't even notice the springs screaming under me. I yanked the covers over my head and lay very, very still. The door opened slowly and I felt my parents' eyes on me. They stood there for half an eternity, then chuckled quietly as the door closed.
The three of them left the next morning just after breakfast, and Danny, Timmy, and I watched cartoons on the Watson's living room floor until noon. Janey kept running in and out of the room, the way small children do. I found it very annoying, and frowned a couple of times.
"She'll get tired in a little while," Danny whispered, and sure enough, by 10:30 she had disappeared into her room.
"Dolls," Timmy said, pointing with his head toward the hall.
"Sissy!" I hissed.
"I know," Timmy agreed. "She's such a girl!"
"What's wrong with girls?" I objected.
"Nothing," he answered. "So long as they keep out of the way!"
"But I'm a?."
"Hush!" Danny admonished us sternly. "Commercial's over!"
Cartoons were about the only things that could keep me inside when the sun was shining. Danny liked Quick Draw McDraw best, and Timmy laughed uproariously through every episode of the Road Runner. But, as I told them both, there was no greater hero on televis
ion than Mighty Mouse. He had a strong moral fiber, he had a great respect for fair play, and I loved his tights and cape.
Danny conceded that my first two arguments were valid, but how in the sweet name of Jesus and all that is holy, he asked, could tights and a cape be evidence of a great hero.
"Superman wears tights and a cape, too," Timmy argued in my defense. "Plus he's faster than a sleeping bullet!"
"Speeding bullet," his older brother scoffed. "Still, Superman's, well, man enough to be able to wear tights. But a measly old mouse? Now that's just silly!"
"Well," I said with heavy conviction, "It's not so silly as a stupid horse wearing a sheriff's badge and talking like he's got a mouth full of sawdust!"
Mrs Watson interrupted our debate with a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies, warm and moist. We forgot all about our differences, which is easy to do while eating chocolate chip cookies.
We watched Sky King, and then, inspired with visions of flight, went outside to evaluate the progress of our space ship.
"It don't look so good, Danny," Timmy said sadly.
"Doesn't look so good," Danny corrected him.
"That's what I just said!"
We decided to ditch space flight and Mr Watson helped us dismantle part of our ship. With just a little re-engineering and four tires from one of the older lawn mowers behind their house, we made a go-cart. It took Mr Watson an additional half an hour to install a front rotating axial. The go-cart didn't have any power, of course, so we nailed a length of rope across the front to pull it. A second rope looped through holes in the frame and attached to each of the front wheels, and the driver of the cart could navigate direction by pulling either end.
The spaceship-turned-into-go-cart finally complete, Danny and I pulled Timmy in it up to the crest of the hill at Birchwood. Mr and Mrs Watson sat on their front porch swing and waved as we set off with our cart for Birchwood. Mrs Watson was holding PJ and Janey started crying, begging to go with us. Her father called her to him and held her. I heard him say, "Now, you stay here and keep us company. You're still just a little too small." Her crying faded to a whimper. I dreaded the time, and I knew it was coming, when Janey would quit being "too small."
Saturday nights were the worst time of the week. Mama would call me into the house early, long before the sun had set, and, with great focus, great purpose, she would engage in the time-honored ritual I detested worst than white milk.
She called it Getting Ready For Mass. I called it Unnecessary Pain. Every Saturday evening I looked plaintively at my dad for a last minute reprieve, but he shrugged and said, "Can't help you, Princess. I voted for a boy."
"Hush, Walter!" Mama would scold. "You'll give her a complex!"
Papa would just shrug and grin, and turn his attention back to the television.
The extra tub time was bad, but not terrible. The occasional trying on of a new dress, while not pleasant, was tolerable. Even going to bed a little bit earlier, while inconvenient, was manageable. What was, under no circumstances, acceptable treatment of a helpless minor was the fixing of the hair.
Mama's special instruments of torture were bobby pins. The process was simple and inflexible. You take a little strand of thin, innocent six year old hair, you pinch it into a real tight ringlet until the roots are nearly yanked from the scalp, and then you jam two bobby pins into a cross shape. That finished, you exuberantly exclaim, "There!" with inflated satisfaction, and then grab another little clump of thin, innocent six year old hair and start all over. Repeat this about five hundred times, make your precious little angel sleep all night with little metal prongs jabbing her delicate little skin, and in the morning congratulate yourself on what a darling child you've brought into the world.
So when the sun was nearly down that Saturday evening I felt a very special relief. Surely, I reasoned, Mama and Papa and Aunt Myrna would get home from Bardstown too late me to Get Ready For Mass. I was giddy with anticipation at the image of me kneeling between my parents the following morning, limp-headed and comfortable.
Mr Watson had made us park the go-cart long before it got dark, but he let us play in our two adjoining front yards while he sat on the front porch. Janey ran with us while we played tag, whined like a little girl every time she was It, and screamed at decimals no human ear should ever be exposed to when anyone tagged her. Danny, Timmy, and I soon quit chasing her. That made her cry even louder.
"Ya'll let her play now, hear!" Mr Watson chastised us, and the cycle continued.
Headlights were coming down the little crest as the car turned left onto Thistlewood. I looked into the sky and saw at least ten stars. No, I assured myself, there was no way we were going to have time to Get Ready For Mass. I smiled in my great fortune.
Mr Watson stood up and whistled for his children. He could just as easily have called for them, but he liked to whistle. Danny and Timmy ran toward the house with promises to see me tomorrow, and Janey, yelling, "Wait for me, wait for me!" scurried behind them, the way nasty little rodents do. Mr Watson waited until the burgundy Galaxy 500 had pulled into the drive before waving hello to my parents and Aunt Myrna, goodbye to me, and going into his house.
"Thanks a heap, Fred!" Papa called just as the Watson screen door was slamming, and I heard Mr Watson call back, "No problem, Walter. Glad to do it!"
I was in such a good mood at the prospect of missing my Saturday night torture that I said hello to Aunt Myrna with such a dance of glee in my voice that she stared at me in bewilderment. I grabbed my mother's hand in anticipated gratitude of being spared the shanks of hell.
Mama smiled down at me as we walked toward the front door. "Well, Sugar," she said, "We'd better hurry up and Get Ready For Mass before it gets too late."
CHAPTER 5