“Momma? Can I pull from the shelves?”
“I guess,” she answered, checking her list, which was long since we hadn’t been to the store in a while. Maybe even since Daddy’s last payday.
“Whole oats. No, not that one. The red label. That’s it,” she said, moving the cart before I could even drop the tin into the cart. “Flour. The big sack. Yes, that’s the one.”
Daddy popped up from behind Momma, startling the both of us. “I’m going over to the meat counter. What you want me to order up for supper?” he asked her. “How ’bout some liver?” He winked at me since he knew I hated liver.
“No!” I whined to Momma.
She was still studying her list. “Be sure to get the ground chuck. Four pounds.”
“Now, what do we need four pounds’ worth of meat for?” he asked her over his shoulder.
“I’m freezing it for later,” she said, pulling a box of cereal from the shelf that was high up over my head.
Seven aisles later, the cart was filled to the brim and Momma wheeled us over to the checkout stand. Daddy was already there, talking with Mr. Gifford, the store manager he played cards with from time to time.
“Time to settle up,” Daddy said to him, slapping him on the back.
“’Preciate it,” Mr. Gifford said. “You’d be surprised how many people—now, I’m not naming names—I got to turn away, they so overdue on the bill. Your credit’s always good here, Henry. ’Sides, might as well take your money here than at the card table!” Mr. Gifford laughed, shaking Daddy’s hand. “You got yourself a fine family here, Culver.” And he tipped an invisible hat on his head to Momma and me and went over to talk to Mrs. Fox, an old lady who dressed in her Sunday best every time she left the house.
“C’mon, Pea Pop.” Daddy lifted me out of my seat in the cart while Momma unloaded the groceries onto the moving belt. “Let’s you and me pack up these sacks.”
After we got everything on our side of the belt, and then after the cash register, Daddy squeezed behind me to count out bills for the cashier, Delmer Posey.
“What’d we owe you from last time?” he asked Delmer.
Delmer Posey went to my school when he was little, but he stopped going right after the seventh grade. No one knew why until he showed up at the grocery store asking for work. Momma said the Poseys were strapped worse than us, so every time I’d see Delmer I pictured him with a saddle tied to his back.
Delmer ran his finger down a long list of names on a page in a thumbed-up ledger that was kept behind the register. “Thirty-four fifty-seven, Mr. Culver,” he said.
Daddy let out a slow whistle and added that to the amount we just spent. “Here’s an extra five for the books,” he said, smiling his smile at Delmer, who looked confused. “Just put it down as credit so Mrs. Culver can come grab whatever it is I’m sure we forgot today.”
Whenever you’d say anything to Delmer Posey, it’d take a minute or two before he could understand it, like he spoke foreign and was waiting for someone to tell him what it meant in English. But soon he got what Daddy said and we wheeled the cart to a spot alongside other carts by the glass door with the bright red Exit sign above it.
“You keep an eye on this for us,” Daddy winked back at him. “We’ve got some business over at White’s.”
Momma and Daddy held hands down the sidewalk to White’s Drugstore. They never used to mind when I ran ahead to put in my order at the counter.
“Hey, Miss Caroline,” Miss Mary called out after the bell over the door jingled to let her know someone’s inside.
“Hey, Miss Mary,” I said. “May I have a large orangeade, please?”
Miss Mary put her paperback book down so the pages were splayed out on either side of the middle. “I don’t see why not.” She waddled over to the countertop. Miss Mary was always fat. Fatter than fat. Daddy used to say there’s more of her to love.
The jingle up front told me Momma and Daddy had come into the store.
“Miss Mary, how are you?” Daddy said from the stool alongside me. Momma was picking out a few things from the shampoo shelf. “Isn’t that a pretty dress.”
But it didn’t sound like a question.
“Thank you, sir,” Miss Mary said shy-like, smiling down at herself so hard her cheeks almost folded over the corners of her mouth. “Mrs. Culver here, too?”
“Oh, don’t mind her,” Daddy said, “let’s you and me run away together. Let’s really do it.”
“I’m over here, Mary,” Momma called from behind the only aisle in the place. “Just picking up a few things we been needing for a while. I’ll be right over.” Momma was used to Daddy asking Miss Mary to run away with him. He did it every time he went into White’s. I reckon she smiled so hard and blushed ’cause no one’d ever asked her that before. She’s about a million years old and lives alone with two tomcats and a rooster named Joe.
“What about me, Daddy?” I asked him. “You gonna run away without me?”
“I’m gonna put you in my pocket and take you with me,” he said. Then he leaned over from his stool and kissed me on the head like he always did.
“Orangeade for you, too?” Miss Mary asked Daddy, still smiling.
“You bet.”
Miss Mary cut each orange down the middle until there were ten halves. I counted each one. Then—and this was the best part—she put each one in the big metal press and leaned all her weight onto each orange rind until nothing more dripped into the glass jar underneath it. Then she poured sugar into the jar, added some soda water, screwed a lid on and shook it good and hard until it was fizzy and frothy. The glasses were kept in the icebox so there’d be a nice cool film of cold all over them. I wrote my name in the frost on the side of my glass. White’s had bendy straws so I never lifted the glass off the counter, and that was how Daddy and I’d drink them: without hands.
* * *
Ping. Another tin beer bottle cap hits the kitchen counter.
“What do you want to do now?” Emma asks me. She’s been leaning against the porch railing, counting the pings of the bottle caps just like I have—both of us wondering how many it’ll take to turn Richard into Enemy Number One.
“I don’t know.”
“How about we walk down to the fence out back and do the balance thing?”
The balance thing is something Emma and I like to do when we’re superbored. Actually it’s kind of fun. The top logs on the fence that used to separate our land from the neighbors, back when we all cared about that sort of thing, are all missing. So Emma and I walk on the lower logs between the fence posts and see who can stay up the longest without falling off. The loser has to do whatever the winner makes her do.
“I’ll start, you count.” Emma is already on top of the first log. It’s the easiest since it’s so old it’s split long ways in the middle so it’s wider than all the rest. The tricky one is the newer one that’s next.
“Go,” I say, and I start counting out loud. Emma can do this without even extending her arms and that makes me mad for some reason so I count slow.
“You’re counting too slow!” Emma says. She’s concentrating real hard on the next step she’s going to take.
I don’t speed up, though. Not much she can do about it while she’s trying to stay on the log. Instead of saying the word Mississippi in between numbers like Momma did when she used to play hide-and-seek with us, I spell it all out and it takes twice as long to get to the next number.
She’s on to the next log and I can tell she’s not going to make it to twelve. For once I may even beat her.
Yep, there she goes. She’s off the log.
“Eleven!” I say as I pass her, and hop up onto log number one.
“Cheater. You counted so slow I felt my hair grow,” she grumbled. And before I could even prove I’m the Queen of
the Log Fence she added, “Let’s go over to Forsyth’s.”
Forsyth Phillips is a friend of ours who lives in the house that’s as close as we’re going to get to having a neighbor. Forsyth’s a cure for boredom if I’ve ever seen one. If the Phillips’s house were a flower it’d be a sunflower, all smiley and warm with lots of clean windows and white tablecloths for fancy occasions.
Before I can even balance my way along the log to the post, Emma’s lit out for Forsyth’s.
“Wait up,” I call out to her, but it’s no use. I’ll have to hurry to catch up to her.
“Well, hello there, Miss Parker.” Mrs. Phillips talks that way to kids: like we’re the same age as her. “Forsyth’s upstairs. Y’all can go on up.” Once again, it’s Emma who’s gotten to the door first, so I have to let myself on in.
“Hey, Forsyth,” I say, all breathless from taking the stairs two by two.
“Hey, Carrie,” she says. Emma’s already called the spot across from Forsyth, who’s playing with her Old Maid cards on her single bed that has its own legs, like it’s on a throne. Her room has matching fabric all around, daisies on a sky-blue field hang from either side of her window, on a cushion just underneath it, and stretched neatly across her proud bed. I cain’t imagine what it’d be like to fall asleep every dag-gum night with my head on soft daisies. I guess I’d never have nightmares at the Phillipses’.
“Y’all hungry for some cookies?” Mrs. Phillips pokes her head in the room, smiling above her apron that must just be there for show since it’s never been smudged not once since we started coming over. “Come on down when you feel ready, they’re just coming out of the oven.”
Momma hasn’t baked us cookies in, well, forever. Mrs. Phillips bakes so much that Forsyth doesn’t even look up from her cards, doesn’t even seem to be in a hurry to get ’em while they’re good and hot, the chocolate chips melting on your fingers, making it two desserts in one when you lick it off once the cookie’s gone.
“Aren’tcha gonna go on down for a snack?” I ask her. Please, Forsyth, say yes.
“I reckon,” she says, but she still doesn’t budge.
“What’re you playing?”
“Old Maid, silly. You blind?”
She must’ve woken up on the wrong side of her daisies.
“Can we play?”
“We?”
“Me and Emma.”
“I’m tired of playing with Emma,” she sighs. She always does this…refusing to play with my baby sister like she’s got the plague. Emma doesn’t seem to mind, but I think it’s mean to say it right in front of her like that.
“Come on,” I whine.
“Aw-right,” she says, scooting over on the bed to make room for me, too. “Y’all better take your shoes off, though, or my momma’s gonna tan your hide.”
I don’t think Mrs. Phillips has ever tanned a hide, though.
It’s a hot day, maybe that’s why Forsyth just ends up being as bored as the two of us. This kind of hot sucks out all your life blood and then expects you to be able to breathe and not suffocate. In the middle of Forsyth’s ceiling she’s got her very own ceiling fan that beats the hot air back out the window and brushes our skin with a nice breeze instead. Seems like every room in this house has one of those fans.
“Didja do your homework yet?” I ask her, hoping she’ll lose interest in her game and notice she’s hungry.
“Mmm-hmm. Momma makes me do it the minute I come in the door from school,” she says. “Did you?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I lie. I don’t do my homework till it gets dark and then I hurry through it like it tastes bad. Emma’s still too young to have homework.
“Let’s get some of your momma’s cookies,” Emma says, and I glare at her ’cause it’s rude. Momma would tan her hide if she heard her ask outright for food from someone else.
Momma and Mrs. Phillips have talked on the phone, but I don’t think they like each other much. Momma always says she ruins Emma and me for anyone else. I guess she’s talking about all the food we eat when we come over—we’re never hungry for dinner when we finally drag ourselves home.
Forsyth is my best friend outside of Emma. We been going to school together since we were smaller than beans. We sit together at lunchtime and then we play on the jungle gym at recess when I’m not getting hit by a dodgeball. Usually she’s in a better mood than this.
“What’s the matter?” I ask her, trying to ignore Emma.
She shrugs just like Emma always does.
“Tell me.”
She shakes her head. She has curly red hair with freckles to match.
“Is it your momma?”
She shakes her head again.
“Your daddy?”
Again, no.
“It’s gotta be school, then,” Emma says.
“It’s Sonny, isn’t it,” I say.
Sonny’s the school bully. If someone falls down the stairs, Sonny’s usually up at the top, laughing. If something’s gone missing, it’s usually in Sonny’s backyard. And if somewhere in the recess yard a fire breaks out, Sonny’s usually the one holding the lighter.
For the first time since we came into her room, Forsyth looks up from her Old Maid cards. She nods and the mop on her head shakes like Momma’s Christmas Jell-O mold.
“What’d he do?”
Tears spill past her rims onto her freckled cheeks. “He’s meaner than spit, is all,” she cries, the way you would if you were choking.
“Tell me something I don’t know. He’s our second cousin, don’t forget.” Sonny’s the one who short-sheeted our bed last summer. Sonny’s the one who made me put my tongue to the bottom of an ice tray and then led me around his house laughing. Sonny truly is meaner than spit.
“When God gave out brains, Sonny thought he said trains and he ran for it,” Emma says, flipping through the cards, trying to shuffle.
“What’d he do this time?” I ask Forsyth.
“He pulled down my pants at band,” she cries, “and everyone saw.”
This is worse than I thought.
“What?” I ask her, but I’m glaring at Emma, who’s trying real hard not to crack up. I think Emma secretly likes Sonny but I couldn’t tell you why.
Forsyth is nodding her head, assuring me that I have indeed heard correctly. “I stood up to play.” Forsyth plays the recorder. “And just like that he reached from the row behind and pulled on my pants and the next thing I know everyone was laughing at me,” she cries even harder. “And I didn’t even have my good panties on.” See, there’s another difference between Forsyth and us. There’re no such things as “good panties” in our family.
“You want me to talk to him?” I ask her. Please, Forsyth, say no.
“No,” she practically screams at me. “Carrie, promise! Promise you won’t talk to him about it. Promise.” She’s clutching at my arm like I’m a log in the river she’s drowning in.
“I won’t,” I say. And that’s the God’s honest truth.
“Honor bright?”
“Honor bright.”
I get to thinking and it hits me. “You know what?” I pause to make sure they’re listening real good. “Sonny needs to taste his own medicine.”
“Huh?” Emma says. Even Emma looks interested in what I’m going to say.
“Seriously, we’ve got to get Sonny back for everything he does to us all the time,” I say. Forsyth isn’t looking away so I keep going.
“What can we do to get him back?” I think. Emma thinks. Forsyth thinks. “There’s got to be some way to get him….”
“We should sic Richard on him, is what we should do,” Emma mumbles. Forsyth pays no attention.
“We could pull his pants down,” Forsyth says, all excited-like.
I shake my head. I don’t kno
w what these two would do without me sometimes, I’ll tell you what. “It’s got to be something no one’s done before. Something he won’t expect. But it’s got to be good.”
“What’re you thinking?” Forsyth asks. She’s leaning forward, waiting to catch my idea as it leaves my mouth.
“We could take his G.I. Joe and get one of Jimmy Hammersmith’s firecrackers, take G.I. Joe’s head off, put the firecracker in his body and watch him explode!” Emma shouts out.
Forsyth looks like this might be the way to go but I have my doubts, and once she sees the look on my face she starts acting like she doesn’t like the idea, either. She’s sort of a copycat, if you want to know the truth.
“It’s got to be even better than that,” I say. “But that’s good, though.” I sound just like our teacher when he doesn’t want to make us feel stupid.
“Well, what, then?” they both ask at the same time.
“Cookies are ready!” Mrs. Phillips calls up from downstairs and I cain’t take it any longer. I stand up and I know they’ll follow me since I’m Miss Idea.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I say, making sure I don’t grab, like Momma always warns us.
“Help yourself, sweetie.” Mrs. Phillips smiles while she shovels two more from her pancake turner onto the plate in the middle of the kitchen table, just like a television commercial. This kitchen is already tidied up—wet measuring cups and mixing bowls lie next to the sink air-drying in the V-shaped rack made just for that purpose.
We carefully wait for her to leave the room so we can plot our revenge.
“I’ve got it!” I say, with my mouth full.
Forsyth practically jumps out of her chair, which, by the way, has its very own cushion on it so you never get uncomfortable sitting on hard wood. “What? What?”
“How about,” I say real slow-like, drawing it out ’cause it’s fun to be the center of attention every once in a while. “How about we go into the boys’ washroom before he goes in to use it and we grease the toilet seat so he slips in when he goes to the bathroom!”