I almost always know the answers to the questions, but I can’t put my hand up at all. My arm gets as heavy as lead. People that put their hands up all the time are pushy and Yankeelike anyway.
Mrs. Underwood called Momma after the second day and asked her if I had always been so shy and Momma said no, I had never been that way before and that she and Daddy had had trouble with me the other way around. Mrs. Underwood is concerned that I’m not talking to the other children, but I would rather talk to her than them. I don’t know anything about potatoes and shrimp and I don’t want to.
It’s still hot here. Kay Bob Benson’s mother brought a big electric fan to the classroom the other day and turned it right on Kay Bob. I was nearly dying of the heat, but I wouldn’t sit next to her if they paid me.
Michael got the surprise of his life this morning on the school bus. His momma packs him a lunch every day. He is such a pig that he starts eating it before we even get to school. This morning he took a hard-boiled egg out of his paper sack and broke it over his head, showing off the way he always does, but Michael’s mother must have forgotten to boil it because the egg was raw and it ran all over him. On top of that, it was rotten. He had the funniest look on his face I’ve ever seen.
I went up to Mrs. Butts, the bus driver, and told her she better stop because Michael was sitting back there with a rotten egg on his head.
Mrs. Butts stopped the bus and made us open all the windows because it stunk so bad. Michael had to sit in the back of the bus while she drove him home. Everybody was late for school, but I didn’t care. It was worth it just to see his face.
I went over to Michael’s this afternoon because he never did come to school. He said by the time Mrs. Butts got him home, the egg had dried hard as a rock and his mother had to wash his hair eight times with Halo shampoo.
Daddy had to give up on stuffing the flamingo. The neck was too long and he couldn’t get it to stand up right. He used a coat hanger and everything, but it still didn’t work, so he is working on the bobcat that Jimmy Snow brought him.
October 21, 1952
I’ve been in school three weeks now, and I still can’t look at Mrs. Underwood. I’m liable to get a double chin from looking down so much. She gave us a reading test and I made the highest score. I am only in the sixth grade and I am already reading at a ninth-grade level so I figure I can just coast until I hit the ninth grade.
Momma is mad at me. She doesn’t pack me a lunch to take to school because she says it’s very important children have a hot lunch, and since they have a cafeteria at school, she gives me lunch money. But someone with the initials K.B.B. told her mother, who told Mrs. Romeo, who told my mother that I was going over to the Pig and Whistle Barbecue Stand at lunchtime and getting me a barbecue and a Coke. First of all, this is a lie. I get cheeseburgers. Second of all, Mrs. Dot, who I admire, said she wouldn’t be caught dead in any cafeteria ever since her uncle, Willis B. Crenshaw, choked to death on a catfish bone in the Red Star Cafeteria in Selma, Alabama, in 1936. And third of all, here is the menu for the school cafeteria for this week alone that they print in the Magnolia Springs paper. You be the judge.
MONDAY ………spaghetti and meatballs and ice cream
TUESDAY ………meat loaf, potato sticks, succotash and a peach half
WEDNESDAY ……cheese wiener, rice and gravy, buttered spinach, coconut pudding
THURSDAY ……tuna salad, pickled beets, macaroni and cheese and a banana
FRIDAY ………beef stew, snap beans and Jell-O
Puke.
Daddy finally finished stuffing that bobcat. It has a big smile on its face. Momma said nobody was going to buy a stuffed bobcat grinning from ear to ear and that’s what Daddy gets for learning how to be a taxidermist through the mail. Momma is right. That bobcat doesn’t look mean at all. In fact, it looks like it is tickled to death to be dead.
I don’t know what is wrong with boys. I can play baseball as good as any of them, but they don’t want girls to play with them. Up until the sixth grade, boys were nice. Now they are acting like jerks. All they do is giggle about Patsy Ruth Coggins wearing a training bra. You’re never gonna catch me wearing a bra. Michael’s mother said I should tell my momma to get me a bra, but I didn’t.
I wish I had a black satin jacket from Japan. Amy Jo Snipes’s brother sent her one from Korea. It has a dragon on it and everything.
Momma and Daddy stopped fighting over money and are now fighting over some woman she thinks he is running around with. Kay Bob Benson said her momma and daddy saw my daddy at some beer joint with a woman, but I don’t believe it. Momma must have believed them because when he came home late the other night, she got the gun out and told him she was going to shoot him dead. He was on the back porch holding the screen door closed with all his might so she couldn’t get out there and get a good aim at him. He was in a bad spot because if he ran, she would shoot him in the back, and if he stayed where he was, there was a chance she would shoot him through the screen door. He was between a rock and a hard place. He said for me to help him, so I ran in between him and Momma since she didn’t want to shoot me.
She was mad as hell. She reared back and kicked the door so hard she knocked it clean off its hinges and Daddy was thrown eight feet out in the yard. She chased him all over that beach but never did catch him.
Mrs. Underwood took me aside at recess and said she heard my momma and daddy were having some trouble. I said it wasn’t true, that everything was fine. Kay Bob Big Mouth Benson had better shut up! Anyway, Mrs. Underwood said anytime I wanted to talk to her, I could, I was her favorite sixth grader, and she wished I wouldn’t put my head down on my desk so much. I knew all along I was her favorite. I don’t have much competition in that class, but it sure makes me feel good to hear it.
Sometimes I think about the school catching fire and Mrs. Underwood being trapped inside the schoolroom. When I run in and drag her to safety, she is so happy she gives me a big kiss and a hug. I wish there was some way she could know I saved Angel Pistal’s life without me having to bring it up. I tried to get Michael to tell her, but he won’t. I guess it’s just as well; to hear him talk he saved Angel and me at the same time and swam the English Channel to boot. That lagoon is only fifteen feet across.
I wish I had a Buick Super 8, Dyna Flow, with the holes on the side. I would take Mrs. Underwood for a ride.
October 27, 1952
Kay Bob Benson said to me today, “Don’t you ever change your clothes? You have worn that same outfit every day since school started.”
I told her, “Yes, I do change my clothes every day; it’s just that I have a lot of white blouses and blue skirts that look alike.” She was a pain in Jr. Debutantes and she’s getting to be a bigger pain in school.
We are having a big sixth-grade Halloween party and you should have heard what those dumb sixth graders thought would be fun to look for on our Halloween scavenger hunt. My suggestion was the best. I wrote down “an albino,” but Kay Bob Benson squealed out she knew that suggestion came from Daisy Fay Harper. The suggestions were supposed to be anonymous. Mrs. Underwood thought finding an albino would be too hard, but I told her one named Ula Sour was right up the street in the colored quarters. Even so, she didn’t think it would be a good idea for us to be running around the colored quarters at night. Rat’s foot! I’ll bet some of those country kids could find that albino. My one big chance to see her ruined by you know who!
I think when I grow up, I am going to be a Republican. We had to vote on the Ten Best Items to Look For. Mrs. Underwood said it was the democratic thing to do. I could have given them ten great things to look for. Instead, we are going to look for things like a toothpick, a cigar butt, a powder puff and an empty lipstick case. Easy stuff like that.
I went to Elwood’s Variety Store and bought my Halloween costume and it is terrific, a red devil suit with horns and a tail that stands up. The rubber pitchfork that came with it is not too good, but Jimmy Snow said he would bring me a
real one.
Listen to this ad that was in the paper today:
HALLOWEEN NIGHT AT THE MAGNOLIA SPRINGS THEATER … COME ONE, COME ALL, SEE ONE OF THE SCARIEST STAGE SHOWS OF THE CENTURY. THE MAD DOCTORS’ BLOODCURDLING VOODOO SHOW. THE MAD DOCTORS’ VOODOO SHOW FEATURES BLOOD-SPATTERED THRILLS, SAID TO MAKE FRANKENSTEIN LOOK LIKE A SISSY. INHUMAN MONSTERS WILL RUN FOOTLOOSE THROUGH THE AUDIENCE. GHOSTS, GHOULS AND WEREWOLVES WILL LEAVE THE STAGE AND COME SIT WITH YOU.
YOU WILL SEE ONSTAGE IN PERSON GIRLS SACRIFICED TO INHUMAN CREATURES! HEADS CUT OFF WITH A BUZZ SAW! YOUR TONGUE MIGHT BE RIPPED OUT! VAMPIRE PEOPLE WHO DRINK YOUR BLOOD! MURDER BEFORE YOUR OWN EYES! WARNING … GIRLS SHOULD NOT COME ALONE! ALL SEATS … 50 CENTS. UNDERTAKERS AND GRAVEDIGGERS WILL BE ADMITTED FREE.
Too bad it is a white theater. Peachy Wigham could get in free because of her mortuary.
But I’m not going. Do you know why I am having to miss this show, probably the best show to ever come here as long as I live? Because when Mrs. Underwood asked the class if we would rather have the Halloween party the night before Halloween or on Halloween night, a certain party stood up and said, “Oh, no, Mrs. Underwood, it just wouldn’t feel like a real Halloween party unless it was Halloween.” I pointed out that there were some of us who might be interested in going trick or treating Halloween night or to a movie, and if we had the party the night before, we could kill two birds with one stone.
Mrs. Underwood said, “Let’s have a vote. How many want it Halloween night?” Kay Bob Benson threw her hand up so fast it’s a wonder it didn’t fly out of its socket. And then all those potato farmer children and the shrimpers’ daughters voted yes. Michael and I were the only ones that voted no. I’m going to get even with Miss Kay Bob Benson if it is the last thing I ever do.
As much as I would like to, I can’t go to the Halloween show at the theater because I would disappoint Mrs. Underwood if I wasn’t at the party. Besides, I have never seen her at night.
October 29, 1952
Today I put my plan in action!
I asked Mrs. Underwood if Michael and I could do a show at the Halloween party. She said, “What kind of show?” And I told her we wanted to do a house of horror. The customers would come in one at a time. She thought that was a fine idea, so Michael and I have been working on it all day.
He wanted to call it “The Hall of Blood and Guts, Enter If You Dare.” I wanted to call it “The House of a Hundred Horrifying Horrendous Horrors,” but Michael said, since we couldn’t think of more than eight horrors, his title was better. I let him have his way because he is my partner in one of the all-time great revenges in the world.
Daddy made us a sign that says “HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS … ENTER IF YOU DARE” and it is dripping with blood!
I’ve already written the script for the show. Michael and I are busy testing out the props. Daddy bought me an ugly rubber mask. I am going to be Madame Bodini, the ugliest woman that ever lived. Michael is to be my faithful assistant, Grondo the Gruesome. Someone will blindfold the customer and lead them into the HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS … ENTER IF YOU DARE AND I WILL SAY IN A SCARY VOICE, “I AM THE FAMOUS MADAME BODINI, THE UGLIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.… YOU ARE BLINDFOLDED BECAUSE NO MORTAL CAN LOOK UPON MY FACE AND LIVE.… MY FACE IS GUARANTEED TO CAUSE HEART ATTACKS.” THEN I SAY, “WELCOME TO THE HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS.… ENTER IF YOU DARE.… BE WARNED, THERE IS NO TURNING BACK.… YOU ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.… THE MANAGEMENT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR HAIR TURNS SNOW WHITE FROM FEAR, BUT WE WILL GIVE YOU A DISCOUNT ON HAIR DYE. FEEL THE HIDEOUS HUMP OF MY FAITHFUL ASSISTANT, GRONDO THE GRUESOME.” The hump will be my sweetheart pillow, which Michael will have under his shirt
After they move a step, I’ll say, “YOU ARE NOW IN THE HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS, ENTER IF YOU DARE, WHERE MONSTERS CHEW UP AND SPIT OUT SMALL CHILDREN.” Michael will make growling and spitting noises and I will do a scary laugh. Then I say, “FEEL THE HEART OF A SMALL CHILD, STILL WARM, JUST RECENTLY RIPPED OUT.” We are going to put a piece of raw liver in their hand. “DIP YOUR HAND INTO A BUCKET OF WARM BLOOD FROM THE SAME CHILD.” Campbell’s tomato soup in a bucket feels just like blood. “HERE IS THE EYEBALL OF A MAD FIEND WHO WENT SO CRAZY FROM FEAR WHEN HE LOOKED UPON THE HORRIBLE FACE OF MADAME BODINI THAT HIS EYEBALLS POPPED RIGHT OUT OF HIS SOCKETS. BE CAREFUL, WE ONLY HAVE ONE LEFT. I ATE THE OTHER ONE FOR BREAKFAST. YUM, YUM, GOOD TO THE LAST DROP.” And I’ll give them a peeled grape.
Then we are going to put this big rabbit’s-foot key chain in their hand and say, “HERE IS A DEAD RAT WHO GRONDO JUST BIT THE HEAD OFF OF AND IS CHEWING ON AT THIS VERY MINUTE.” And Michael will make chewing noises and I will do my scary laugh again.
We will move them another step and I say, “AS YOU CONTINUE DOWN THE HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS, ENTER IF YOU DARE, YOU ARE WALKING BY THE SPIDER WEB OF THE GIANT THREE-FOOT SPIDER, WHO, AS I AM TALKING, IS WALKING ON YOUR ARM, LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO BITE YOU.” What will happen here is I drag a hairnet I got from Nita’s Beauty Box over their face and Michael will put his mother’s fox fur on their arm.
“HERE IS A DISH FULL OF WITCHES’ MOLES THAT FELL OFF FROM FEAR.” We haven’t found anything that feels like moles yet, but we are still looking.
“STAND PERFECTLY STILL, THE FAMOUS WATCHDOG SNAKE OF MADAME BODINI IS CRAWLING UP YOUR ARM.” We got five wieners and put two toothpicks at the end for teeth. We are going to wait until the night before and glue them together so it will be a long snake.
“AND NOW. FOR THE ULTIMATE, ULTIMATE SUPERHORROR OF ALL TIMES … GET READY AND REMEMBER, THE MANAGEMENT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HEART ATTACKS … A HANDFUL OF WORMS AND MAGGOTS JUST TAKEN OUT OF THE STOMACH OF A PERSON WHO DIED OF THE BLACK PLAGUE.” This is going to be the Kay Bob Benson special!
“CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE STILL ALIVE. BUT YOU HAVE NOT YET LOOKED UPON THE FACE OF THE HORRIBLE MADAME BODINI.” Michael is going to pull their blindfolds off and I am going to shine a flashlight under my chin and scream. How about that! Pretty good, huh! It is going to be authentic. We are even going to have a hot plate in the room to keep the heart and blood warm.
Michael’s mother is still mad at him, though, because when we were over at his house trying out things to use as blood, before we settled on Campbell’s tomato soup, we tried out some beet juice, but it was too thin. Michael threw what was left of the beets and the juice in the toilet and a few minutes later Michael’s mother went in and used the bathroom. After she was finished, we heard her scream for Michael to get his daddy quick, and she kept yelling, “Oh, my God,” over and over. His daddy ran in there to her and began yelling, too. What had happened was Michael had forgotten to flush the toilet and she thought she was dying or something.
November 1, 1952
On Halloween, Daddy and Jimmy Snow came up to the school after class and made a great room out of blankets and quilts and put up the sign. It was nice and dark in there. We took all the horrors inside and got the hot plate ready to warm up the blood and the heart of the small child. I made Michael rehearse his part five times. I knew mine. Jimmy kept his word and got me a real pitchfork.
Daddy stopped by the Elite Nightspot and I picked up my packages I had ordered from Peachy Wigham. You can always depend on Peachy. She is a good businesswoman. I was in my devil costume by five o’clock and I couldn’t sit down for two hours because I would ruin my tail if I did. Michael’s mother took us to the party and I finally saw his costume, which he had been keeping a surprise. He went as a pirate with a black patch over his eye. Not very imaginative if you ask me. We had a hard time getting that pitchfork in the car, but we finally made it. I stood up in the back seat all the way to protect my tail. Since I’m pretty tall for my age, I had to lean over a little. Michael’s mother drives as slow as a snail, and I thought we would never make it. When we got there, dumb Michael got so excited he couldn’t wait for me to get my package and pitchfork out of the car. He slammed the door on my tail and ruined it before Mrs. Underwood even had a chance to look at it.
You should have seen t
he costumes those potato farmers’ and shrimpers’ children showed up in. If there was one ghost, there were a hundred. One stupid boy was dressed like a Pilgrim. There was a witch and a scarecrow and the little bald boy in my class, Vernon Mooseburger, came as a mean potato. Those people sure have potatoes on their mind.
Kay Bob Benson was the Good Fairy, in a costume made especially for her in Meridian. It took first prize, of course. What can you expect with a broken tail, but Mrs. Underwood told me I looked darling. She was beautiful in a blue sweater with her initials S.U. sewn on.
They had a grab bag set up for a nickel and I got a bat-the-ball paddle and a tin frog you can click that I swapped Michael for a set of jacks and some wax lips. He nearly drove everyone crazy clicking that thing all night.
We had popcorn and red and black licorice, which I hate. Mrs. Underwood had put up paper skeletons and black and orange crepe paper and black cats and witches all over the room. I bet she could be a professional decorator if she wanted to.
They had a big tin washtub full of apples for bobbing. I wouldn’t get near it because Mrs. Dot had told us at Jr. Debutantes that her cousin had married a very wealthy banker from Mobile and at their wedding party he’d drowned accidentally while bobbing for apples. Just think, Mrs. Dot’s cousin was a bride and a widow on the same day. Mrs. Dot won’t touch an apple to this day.
When the other kids went out on the stupid scavenger hunt, Michael and I got ready to open up the HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS … ENTER IF YOU DARE. We made the witches’ moles out of corn candy that I had eaten the white tips off of, which is OK with me because that’s the only part I like. We warmed the blood and the heart and waited for our first customer. Amy Jo Snipes was the hostess for the HALL OF BLOOD AND GUTS … ENTER IF YOU DARE … and was in charge of putting the blindfolds on. I used my scarf with the map of the state of Mississippi on it that I got from my grandmother for the blindfold. I told Amy Jo Snipes when Kay Bob Benson was coming through, she was to say, “Here Comes the Good Fairy,” so I could get ready.