by Leah Weiss
“Lucy said a bad word,” Lydia tattles. “She said shit.”
Did I?
“What were you doing in the attic,” Mama asks, “and at night?”
I glance at the attic stairs and step back. “The little ones said they heard crying. Lydia thought it was the wolpertinger crying. I went to show her she was wrong.” Then I whisper words even I struggle to believe. “But she might be right, Mama. It was out of the trunk and out of its box. It was standing beside the trunk. It looked at us with fiery eyes.”
Lydia tugs at Mama’s dress, but Mama looks at me like I’m the troublemaker.
“You’re saying you believe the wolpertinger—the stuffed wolpertinger—climbed out of its box and out of the trunk on its own accord and was waiting for you.”
Lydia tugs again, but Mama still doesn’t look down.
“The wolpertinger that your great-grandfather found in 1881. And stuffed.”
Daddy takes the flashlight from my hand and climbs the steps. Little Lydia is right behind him before I can stop her.
Mama goes on. “The creature that sat on Oma’s armoire for over twenty years and never made a sound or moved an inch.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know it sounds implausible, but I know what I saw,” I say defensively.
Daddy’s boots clomp on the floor above, then he comes down the steps with Lydia behind. She is carrying the blasted wolpertinger under her arm, along with the German paperweight of purple forget-me-nots. I back away, preparing for the creature to pivot its head and shoot fire at me. Instead, Lydia says, “I took him out. He didn’t want to stay locked up, so I took him out. The other day. When Mama got jelly jars.”
It takes a moment for me to understand. The wolpertinger didn’t get out by itself. Lydia took it out. When Mama went in the attic to get jars.
“I tried to tell you, knucklehead.” Lydia is mad at me.
Daddy latches the attic door and heads downstairs with the crisis over and done with. Mama takes the glass paperweight from Lydia and drops it in her apron pocket. “I wondered where that went,” she says and steers the little girls and the dastardly wolpertinger into their bedroom. She smiles at me pitifully, like I’m too old to be gullible.
The wolpertinger now lives in Lydia’s room. She is its caretaker. It makes an appearance on the porch or in the parlor when ghost stories are told. I have a smidgeon of doubt that it is fully dead, but I have more important things to think about, like school tomorrow while Bert gets homeschooled.
On that first day at assembly, Miz Pinkney declares, “Being able to read and write is our civic duty. Millions of men who want to fight in this war have been rejected because they can’t do that very thing. Knowing how to read and write is necessary to keep our country safe.” If there’s another reason to love school, this is it.
Miz Pinkney brings in her biweekly copy of the Mercer County Reporter for our civics class. I feel a sense of pride that my sister Irene works for the newspaper alongside the editor, Drake Cunningham. Occasionally, she writes a tiny article and always points out which one is hers. Some days, my teacher says, “We are living in tumultuous times that will change the world.” Other weeks, the civics lecture focuses on bravery, not sacrifice. War tempers school and flavors everything sparse.
Bert causes a ruckus without even coming to school. All the boys know about Bert Tucker. They’ve seen her at the farmers market, at the soda fountain and the Saturday picture show where we saw Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and For Whom the Bell Tolls—and the bell tolls for Bert Tucker. Even I think she carries her own special oxygen. Her shadow always overpowers mine.
When she bathes shamelessly at the washbasin, comfortable in her splendor, she’s slow to slip her nightgown over her head to spill down her perfect body. One time, she caught me staring and said, “You want to touch em?” and I blushed a heat that mortified me. I left the room, shocked that my first thought was Yes.
In school, I wasn’t prepared for the interrogation from the older boys. Jamie Wichard, Russell Langley, Frankie Moore, and Donnie Gibson are Grady’s age. They rubberneck those first days, checking for Bert’s arrival before the school bell rings. I don’t give them the satisfaction of an answer, but that doesn’t stop them from giving me notes to take to her. One day, I say, “She’s getting homeschooled,” then feel guilty about tattling on her. I thought distance between Bert and me would be a good thing, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Bert works every morning under Mama’s tutelage. She does homework with us in the evening. She’s almost worn out the dictionary to check spellings, but numbers stump her. We use dried beans to teach her arithmetic. It’s a game she’s getting better at. She practices reading The Velveteen Rabbit. She’s getting better at that, too.
I don’t give her the love notes. I stuff them in a sock and tie a knot and hide it in the hayloft.
Chapter 18
Bert: Doing the Deed
“I’m gonna puke. Right in front of everybody, I’m gonna puke or faint and mess up everything.”
Miz Brown keeps brushing my hair and puts bobby pins in to hold the waves away from my face. “You’ll do fine. It’s only nerves. Once you start, it’ll all come naturally.”
“I can’t remember what a single word looks like. My mouth’s a cotton ball. I’m gonna puke.”
“Pretend you’re reading to family. You’ve read to us at story time before.”
I peek out the front window at a terrible sight. The porch is full and the yard’s filling up, too. Everybody I know and then some is here. Everybody waits, laughing and smiling, and I hate em all. Every dadgum one of em. I suspect they mostly come to eat cake, but they wanna see me make a fool of myself.
“I can’t.” I back away from the door. “No, no, no, I can’t.”
Miz Brown takes my face in her hands, locks eyes and declares, “You must do it. This is a big moment, Bert, not because you can fail, but because you will succeed. You’ve prepared fully. Everybody’s rooting for you. Every person out there is a forgiving soul. They know this is a big step, but it’s The Velveteen Rabbit’s twenty-first birthday, and I chose you for the honor. What more delightful foray into public storytelling is there? Now, I’m going to walk out with you and welcome everybody. There’s a glass of water beside your chair. Take your time. Have fun.”
My mouth is dry as ash. My hands shake with the trembles. For the first time since I got exiled, I wish I was back on my mountain and could run to the waterfall. I won’t even mind Sam Logan trying to steal a kiss from me, him with stinky breath that don’t go away.
But you want more, Bert, and here is more. Take it.
I follow Miz Brown and my legs carry me to the only empty chair, and I sit. One hand finds the book, and the other finds the water glass, and I sip. They wait. Somebody clears his throat. Their folding fans stir the warm air like the thrum of bee wings. A honeybee lands on my knee and looks at me, then flies off. My ears are closed off and I hear my voice come from far away. I don’t stumble over hard words like mechanical and government and uncomfortable, cause Miz Brown taught me good. Then I turn the last page, and it’s over, and they clap and Irene carries out Oma’s German marble cake holding twenty-one birthday candles burning, and when it’s cut, I get the first piece.
Lu comes over with the librarian, who shakes my hand proper. Miz Elvira is her name, and she says, “You did a swell job reading. Some of those words are real challenging. I’m glad I came.”
Tiny Junior waits. He stands there beside me while I wait for Lu to say I did a swell job, too, but she walks away with Miz Elvira.
“What?” I say to Tiny Junior, still feeling giddy and lightheaded and smarter than before.
“Real. What do it look like?” He always picks a favorite word from a story he wants to see wrote down, so I tear a scrap from a notepad and write REAL at the top. I say, “I left room so you can practic
e,” and he takes the paper, folds it careful, and puts it in his overalls pocket.
By the fence, Grady’s with his friends, but I don’t recollect their names cept Ricky, who catches marbles in his mouth. He’s sweet on Lu, but she don’t see. The other boys laugh at Ricky catching marbles, but Grady don’t laugh. He stares at me.
Chapter 19
Lucy: Humbling Endeavor
“I hate everything about tobacco.” I confide this to Bert as we stand at the edge of the field after supper, eating oatmeal raisin cookies.
“I know you don’t smoke or chew, but how come you hate it?”
“Because it’s the most demanding crop a farmer can grow. At least that’s what they say. All the plowing and planting and pampering baby seedlings when Mother Nature sends too much or too little rain. The hoeing to hack out weeds and picking off fat green hornworms that can ravage an entire crop. All the bent backs of men and women stooped over in the hot sun and windless heat to pick leaves from the bottom first.”
“You don’t do that kinda work,” Bert says and misses my point.
“No, but I see it. And I don’t have to do something in order to know how it feels.”
She said, “That ain’t true. Doing and knowing go together, but seeing don’t go with knowing.”
I feel a rise of annoyance that she doesn’t grasp the importance of what I’m saying. I’m telling her a terrible secret I never spoke out loud before, and I’m making a pragmatic observation about my family’s livelihood; she’s talking about something else.
For a hundred years, my daddy’s people have worked this farm, and it’s never been easy. I can hardly remember when Daddy was pleased with the outcome and income when the tobacco market started late August and ended in October. He called the tobacco business a humbling endeavor. He said tobacco has been valued all the way back to the Chesapeake colonies. Back to the time when tobacco paid taxes to the British crown. It bought land and paid preachers to save souls. Daddy read it even bought used wives who husbands didn’t want anymore. Mama thought that was a crying shame and told Daddy not to get ideas, but she couldn’t deny it since he read it in a book. Those glory days for tobacco are gone, but the gold leaf is still the money crop for farmers in my Carolina. The crop of ’43 is over, and Daddy said he made enough for us to get by. Now Bert talks about something different and gets my dander up.
She repeats, “Doing and knowing go together, but seeing and knowing don’t.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Well, I could tell you bout going hungry and missing breakfast and dinner and supper all day long. I could tell you how your insides grab and pucker for a scrap, for a crumb, and it’s winter and the woods are mean, and your mind forgets how to get you back home before dark, but telling you those words don’t let you feel it. Don’t let you know hungry. One thing is words, the other’s hungry.”
Oh Lord. “Did that happen to you? Did you go hungry?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Bert. If that happened…”
We’ve been looking out at the field, but now she turns to me. “What do you know bout shame?” she throws at me. “If you got a smidgeon of shame, it’s cause you picked it. Not cause it’s real.”
“I don’t want to fight, Bert. I was saying I don’t like tobacco. That’s all.”
We finish our oatmeal raisin cookies, and Bert says, “Tobacco don’t bother me.”
“Good for you.” I lift my chin in defiance. “But I’m different.”
“You might wanna keep your thinking to yourself.” Bert walks away.
Chapter 20
Bert: Deliver Me
There’s a knock on the front door. I open it to find a government man standing on the porch with his hat under his arm and a telegram in his hand. He says, “I’m looking for Miz Wade Sully.”
I leave the front door wide open with the cold November air rushing in and run to find Miz Brown in the kitchen. She gets Helen from the bedroom and walks her to the open front door with me and the little ones behind. The soldier holds out that piece a paper, but Helen won’t take it. Miz Brown has to take it for her. The paper says Wade Sully is MIA, missing in action. Helen crumples in a heap, right in the open door, like her legs quit working.
Miz Brown says over and over, “He’s not dead, honey. He’s missing. It says Wade’s missing in action.” The government man leaves, and I run into the cold to ring the dinner bell for Mr. Brown to come, and Grady and Yancy, too, and Gertie and Lu come from the barn, and I step back while they hurry to carry limp Helen to the empty bed beside the empty crib.
That woman don’t cry out. It’s way worse. Helen opens her mouth wide and grabs the sheets and twists in pain, but no sound comes out. The pain is outta reach, locked in deep.
Then ice comes falling from the sky like tiny beads. They clatter on the roof and the packed dirt and the oak tree, and Gertie rushes home holding her thin coat over her head. Grady, Mr. Brown, and Yancy run to get animals inside the barn and cover the chicken coop with a tarp and put more feed inside. Me and Lu tie a hold-on rope from the barn to the house, and stack firewood on the porch, and the falling ice don’t stop. It’s like the sky is shooting BBs at us.
It’s a hard night, and the telephone line goes out but the electric stays on. I heat soup and slice bread Helen baked this morning. Irene and Miz Brown stay with Helen in the back bedroom. We eat and watch out the window and listen to branches break and trees fall.
Next morning, the ice is thick on every bush and tree, and broke branches lie on the slick ground, but the ice keeps falling. When giggles come outta Helen’s bedroom, I’m ready to stick my head in their room and say, “What’s so funny?” but don’t have to. I peek through the crack of the door and see Irene on her knees beside the porcelain wash pan. Steam rises from the pan, her helping Helen to a sponge bath. Irene says, “I’m gonna need a bigger washrag…waaay bigger,” which gets them two giggling again over Helen’s necked baby belly, big as a watermelon. Sour bile rises in my throat, this being my first time seeing a pregnant belly without a dress to shield the ugly.
“Bert?” Miz Brown comes up from behind, carrying fresh towels. “You alright, dear? You look pale.” She steers me into Helen’s room as Irene drops a clean nightgown over her sister’s ruint body and commences to brushing her long hair. Helen’s eyes are closed and her face stays tight.
Her mama and sister chatter like magpies bout ice from the north coating everything in the South. They chat bout baby clothes brought down from the attic and washed for this new child. All the while, Helen clutches her belly and sways side to side.
Then it happens. I witness pain hitting Helen like a train. Her eyes grow big in shock, and her body locks, waiting for that pain to let go so she can breathe. All I can think bout is the way that baby’s gotta come out a hole no bigger than a half-dollar. Right then and there, I vow to never get in the family way, even if I do travel to foreign places with fine names to call a baby.
“Would you empty the wash pan, dear?” Miz Brown’s voice is calm as a cloud, and I take that wash pan, glad to escape a room getting ready for a bloody battle. I know now I’d have been no good to Aunt Violet in her hour of need. What was Pa thinking, sending a girl to do woman’s work?
“Should you call the doctor or somebody?”
“The phone lines are down and nobody can get out this far.”
“You know what you’re doing?” I don’t mean to sound rude.
“Bert, we’re all Helen has. We’ll do fine. I helped when Sugar was born. The midwife did the hard work, but at least I witnessed it. And having birthed six of my own helps me empathize. We’ll manage because we don’t have another choice.”
I’m backing away from the bedroom door when Miz Brown says, “I do need you to feed the stove and put on more water to heat and tell Lucy I need her. We’ve got a baby comin
g.”
Helen’s room is at the back of the house, and I walk to the parlor at the front, still carrying that washbasin in my hands, forgetting to empty it. Lu is reading, Lydia and Cora play with paper dolls, and Grady and Mr. Brown fiddle with the radio, trying to get a signal. Fibber McGee and Molly bursts into the parlor, and Mr. Brown shouts, “Hot diggity dog.”
I wish I was a man.
“Lu,” I whisper till she looks up.
“What?” she mouths.
I tilt my head toward Helen’s room. “Your mama needs you.” She puts down her book. I empty the washbasin, load the woodstove, put on more water to heat like I was told, pop popcorn and melt butter to go on top, then brush and braid the girls’ hair. I do anything to stay away from a woman bout to get tore in two.
Helen’s wails travel to the parlor, and the girls tear up. Fibber McGee and Molly is no match for birthing pains. I reach into the bookcase for The Velveteen Rabbit, but on this hard day wrapped in ice, even The Velveteen Rabbit is no help. Cora starts crying, and that starts Lydia crying, too. “Is she gonna die, Daddy?” Cora wants to know.
He turns off the radio and gets down on one knee beside us. “No, sweet girls. Your sister’s working hard, and the baby’s working hard, and she’s got help. Let’s bundle up and go look at a wonderland.”
We put on layers of sweaters, coats, and gloves and stand on the porch and stamp our feet that get near froze and watch our warm breath come out in white puffs. Me and Lydia and Cora stay on the porch while Mr. Brown and Grady take holt of the rope strung between the house and the barn. The rope will keep them upright on the ice so they can go milk cows and feed animals.
I look at those white bee boxes with icicles hanging off the sides. Lu told me the bees huddle together extra tight in cold weather and they make heat by beating their wings. They eat the honey they made in summer, and every forty-five days, the bees die and are kicked out of the hive, and new babies are born. I wish I could put my ear against them boxes and hear that hum like angel wings. The bees need to hold on till spring.