At least, that is how Piper imagined it being. Over and over again in great detail until her imagined picnic fantasy seemed a concrete reality.
And then at long last, there was finally no more need for the fantasy because in reality Piper stood between Betty and Joe on the lawn of the First Baptist Church, where right before her very eyes was every single soul currently alive in the entire county of Lowland. All ninety-seven of them. It was nothing short of overwhelming to Piper to see such a throng of people amassed in one place.
Picnic tables groaned with peach cobbler, cherry pie, fresh berries, mountains of corn on the cob, ham, and fried chicken, and the barbecue was going strong with ribs. Fourth of July banners and balloons decorated trees and tables alike. Kids bobbed for apples, men threw horseshoes, the new minister and his wife enjoyed the banjo and fiddle played by the Straitharn boys, and women drank lemonade and fanned themselves under the trees. There wasn’t a place that Piper could set her eyes where something or other wasn’t happening.
“Mind what I says now. Keep your feet—”
“Keep my feet on the ground. I know. I know,” Piper absentmindedly repeated, distracted by all of the picnic sights. “You’ve told me and told me, Ma.” Just then Piper spied three girls eating ice cream and her heart skipped a beat. Already the picnic was everything she imagined it was going to be.
For her own part, Betty was drenched in a nervous sweat. Standing on the edge of the lawn on the verge of the picnic, Betty suddenly wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. Having spent Piper’s entire life keeping her away from folks, Betty had learned to never leave anything to chance. On Sundays she would see to it that they arrived moments before the church service began and would sit in the back pew with Piper firmly wedged between her and Joe. The moment the service was over, Betty made sure that they were the first out the door. Birthday party invites extended to Piper were politely but firmly refused, and any other social events were simply out of the question as far as Betty was concerned. Even when visits to Doc Bell were needed, Betty insisted upon the first appointment of the day so that the waiting room was empty. It was no wonder that it took all of Betty’s willpower not to hurry the child back to the farm when faced with the full throttle of peopled activity before her. Maybe she’d jumped the gun and rushed things. Maybe the child wasn’t ready.
Joe’s lips were twitching nervously as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite figure out how to translate the thought into sound. When he saw Millie Mae Miller spy them from across the way and practically sprint at Piper, he almost bolted to intercept her. Joe couldn’t abide Millie Mae and her gossipy mean-spirited ways. Sure as anything she’d be spreading rumors about Piper before you could say “jackrabbit stew.”
“Can I have some ice cream, Ma?” Piper noticed a blond girl with big brown eyes heading for the line of children waiting for ice cream.
“Watch your dress,” cautioned Betty, who also saw Millie Mae’s pointed attention and was relieved that Piper was escaping her scrutiny.
Moments later Millie Mae trotted up, clearly disappointed that Piper had already moved on. “Weren’t that your Piper?” She looked after the child with an intense curiosity that bordered on mania. Millie Mae held the unofficial office of town gossip in Lowland County, and it was a position she took very seriously. Nothing went on in the county that she didn’t know about, and relate in vivid detail and at great length to anyone who might be the least bit interested, and even to those who weren’t at all interested but were unlucky enough to be cornered by her and unable to get away without being rude. If Betty’s greatest fears could be contained in two words, those two words would be Millie Mae.
“You keep that child all to yourself too much, Betty. It ain’t good for her. It’s high time she was out and about,” Millie Mae sniffed.
“Didn’t see fit to take her out before. Ain’t no one worth her time meeting anyways,” Betty spat reproachfully.
Joe was careful to hide his smile as the full meaning of Betty’s jab hit Millie Mae.
“That so?” Millie Mae cut back. “I heard tell it’s ’cause she ain’t like other youngens.” In truth, the only person who had ever actually said that about Piper was Millie Mae herself.
“That’s a fat lie, if I ever heard one. Only a fool would say such a thing. The child’s as normal as you or I. Just go ask Doc Bell.” Betty was incensed.
“I reckon I’ll make up my own mind on that account. Thank ya kindly.”
With that, Millie Mae stalked away, her head full of steam. Millie Mae Miller hadn’t risen to the post of town gossip for no good reason, and in her gossiping bones she knew that there was something not right about Piper McCloud. May the good Lord help her, today she was going to get to the bottom of it.
Piper got into the line for ice cream behind a girl just about her age. As Piper well knew, that girl’s name was Sally Sue Miller. After long years of jealously watching Sally Sue’s daily journey to and from school from her perch in the hayloft, Piper was finally standing a foot away from her. As if by some miracle, Sally Sue, who was all but overcome by desire for a creamy cold treat on such a hot afternoon, breathlessly turned to Piper and exclaimed, “My favorite ice cream’s strawberry! What’s yours?”
“Strawberry.” Piper was thrilled that they already had so much in common. “Ever wonder why they call them strawberries? I mean, they don’t look nothing like straw. They’re red.”
Sally Sue had never had such a thought but now that she did consider it, she had to admit that it was mighty strange. “Huh, you’re right about that.”
“Maybe they should call them blush berries. Or rosy-berries.”
“Or red berries.”
“Or scrumptious berries.”
“I ain’t never renamed something before.”
“Ever wonder what it’d be like to eat nothing but ice cream all the time?” Piper had. “I’d have lamb-chop ice cream for dinner with a side of corn ice cream.”
Sally Sue giggled. “I’d have bacon-and-egg ice cream for breakfast.”
“Castor-oil ice cream when you’re sick.” Piper imagined. “And ice-cream toothpaste before bed.”
“Ice-cream sandwiches at school.” Sally Sue allowed room for Piper to stand next to her in the line. “My name’s Sally Sue. What’s yours?”
Everything was going exactly as she hoped it would. Piper beamed. “I’m Piper. Piper McCloud.”
Suddenly Sally Sue took a step back. “Piper McCloud? I heard my mama talk about you. She says you ain’t right in the head.”
Piper gasped, outraged. “There ain’t nothing wrong with my head!”
Sally Sue looked at Piper’s head closely and, indeed, could see nothing wrong with it. She shrugged.
“My mama says there is and she ain’t never been wrong before.” Sally Sue pointed to where Millie Mae stood watching them and Piper instantly recognized her.
“I can tell you, she’s wrong now,” Piper insisted. How dare she say such things about her! It was so darned unfair, it made her want to holler. Instead she said, “And your mama shouldn’t go around kicking dogs.”
Sally Sue’s mouth flew open and she blushed deeply. “My mama ain’t never kicked no dog.”
“Has too.” Piper had seen it as plain as day when she’d flown over their house not more than a week ago.
“Has not. And how would you know anyways?” Sally Sue challenged, placing her hands on her hips.
“ ’Cause I saw her with my own eyes. That’s how. She was right back of your house smoking a pipe and the dog barked and she kicked its bee-hind so hard it yapped.” Piper triumphed.
It was a short-lived victory because Sally Sue’s eyes began to swim in tears of shame. “You don’t know us, how come you know these things?” she whispered and took another step away.
Before Piper could answer, Rory Ray, Sally Sue’s oldest brother, came barreling down on them. “Sally Sue, quit your crying or Ma’ll pack us all up home.” Rory Ray was quickl
y flanked by the four other brothers.
As an only girl with five older brothers, Sally Sue’s life was a torment and the stress was showing. Even her mother had to admit she was a terrible crybaby. “I ain’t crying,” she wailed.
“You is too. I’ll whop you if you start your blubbering.”
“It’s her fault.” Sally Sue nodded at Piper.
“Hey, ugly, d’ya make my sister cry?” Rory Ray redirected his wrath at Piper.
“Uh—uh.” Piper didn’t know how to answer. She hadn’t imagined any scenarios like this when she visualized the picnic.
Sally Sue sniffled loudly.
“Shut your piehole, Sally Sue,” Rory Ray barked at her. “Ma’s looking this way.” The five brothers gathered around Sally Sue, whose face was red, her eyes bulging with unshed tears and her lower lip quivering. She couldn’t trust herself to speak so she just pointed at Piper.
Rory Ray shoved Piper to the ground, where she landed in a swirl of dust. Hand-me-down farm boots surrounded her at every turn.
“Leave my sister be, you freak.”
“Hey, ain’t you the kid who’s got something wrong in the head?” One of the brothers kicked dirt in Piper’s face.
Piper coughed, choking on the dirt.
“Stupid or no, you’ll leave her be. Ya hear, freak?”
“C’mon, Rory Ray. I wanna get me some ice cream,” one of the brothers pleaded.
Rory Ray grabbed Sally Sue and dragged her in front of all of the boys in the line, leaving Piper on the ground.
Piper sat in the dirt for a long moment, devastated. In the course of only a handful of minutes, she had found and then lost her best friend. It was a terrible and bitter blow and while the dust swirled around her, Piper mourned the birthday parties, graduations, weddings, and shared birth announcements that were never to be. When the dirt settled, Piper looked up to find Millie Mae Miller’s eyes fixed firmly upon her, a sneer twisting at her lips.
Piper hated Millie Mae for laughing at her and telling stories that weren’t true. How dare folks judge her when they didn’t even know her at all! It wasn’t right. Piper’s keen sense of justice was tweaked and she immediately resolved to show them exactly how wrong they all were.
Getting to her feet, Piper quickly dusted herself off. Holding her head high, she jutted her chin out and marched right over to a group of kids playing with a ball. If folks thought there was something wrong with her head, then she was going to show them different. All they needed was a chance to get to know her better. By the end of the picnic, she was going to see to it that Millie Mae Miller ate every single one of those ugly words she went around saying. And if Millie Mae got a bellyache from their bitter taste, Piper wouldn’t feel sorry for her neither.
Alas, despite Piper’s Herculean efforts, late afternoon arrived to find Millie Mae no closer to eating her words and Piper no nearer to securing a friend. Bo Bo and Candy Sue, the sun-kissed Hassifer twins, initially took a shine to Piper but her funny ideas became a distraction from their unabated chatter about, and flirtation with, the many strapping young farm boys who caught their eye. When Piper was unwilling to join them on a trek into the nearby bushes along with the sweaty Stubing brothers, she was quickly discarded.
If Piper had been able to overlook the fact that Jessie Jean Jenkin’s chief pleasure was stripping the wings off of struggling flies and then feeding them to her pet spider, Beelzebub, she might have taken Jessie Jean up on the offer of pricking their fingers and becoming blood sisters. Sadly, for Jessie Jean, Piper could not. Then, of course, a lot of the other kids recognized Piper’s face from church. Despite the fact that they’d never said more than one word to her, or she to them, Piper’s reputation, courtesy of Millie Mae Miller, had preceded her, and not a single Christian soul among them was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
While unwilling to admit defeat, Piper realized that things were definitely not going the way she had planned, which was precisely when a baseball game was called to order, providing Piper with a perfect public opportunity to redeem herself and show her true worth. Gathering in the open field next to the picnic, along with the other small fry of Lowland County, Piper watched with fascination as pushing and pulling and shouting kids chaotically organized themselves into teams.
Junie Jane, a tough girl who’d whack any kid who called her a girl, quickly declared herself the captain of one team while Rory Ray took the other. The selection process promptly followed.
“Billy Bob,” Rory Ray called out. Billy Bob, a strapping boy who could slug the ball to the moon, lumbered out of the waiting group and took his place behind Rory Ray. The other children jostled to be noticed, Piper among them.
“Piggy Pooh,” Junie Jane called out.
“Lizzie Lee,” Rory Ray countered.
“Sally Sue,” Junie Jane returned.
With a sinking heart, Piper watched as, one by one, everyone else was chosen until she and Timmie Todd remained. Timmie Todd had just turned six and was small for his age. He also had a nasty reputation among the other children for picking his nose and eating it, not to mention the fact that he bathed no more than once a week. Standing next to Timmie Todd, Piper felt humiliated.
Then, as though that were not enough, Rory Ray agonized choosing between the two of them.
“Oh, alright already, I’ll take Timmie Todd.” Rory Ray kicked the dirt when he said it. Piper was officially the last to be chosen, and her mortification was complete. Or so she thought.
“I don’t want her on my team. She’s not right in the head,” Junie Jane bickered, introducing Piper to the deepest reaches of humiliation.
“If I’m stuck with that,” Rory Ray balked, pointing at Timmie Todd, “then you hafta get stuck with her. Fair’s fair.”
“Ah, beans,” Junie Jane spat, but Piper finally had a team.
Bathed in the late afternoon sun, the whole community gathered on the side of the hill to watch and cheer the children’s baseball efforts. Betty and Joe McCloud couldn’t take their eyes off of Piper. They had seen her attempts to make a friend, and each time she was turned down flat, their hearts got a little heavier.
“Play ball,” shouted Junie Jane, and the game began.
BAM! Billy Bob hit the ball hard and straight for the outfield . . . straight for Piper. With her glove held high in the air, Piper reached up, on her very, very tiptoes. She stretched as far as she could, careful not to let her feet leave the ground. Despite her every effort, the ball went right over her head and hit the grass ten feet behind her. She scrambled for it, but her feet clumsily caught on each other, and moments later, she was facedown in the dirt.
“Aw jeeez.” Junie Jane spat out her gum in disgust.
Betty and Joe sighed, but Millie Mae Miller nodded at several ladies as though Piper’s performance only confirmed her point.
As bad as things seemed for Piper, they somehow managed to get even worse the more the game progressed. Facing Rory Ray, an ace pitcher known for a mean spitball, Piper held the baseball bat aloft, ready to do battle. Half the game was already over and her team needed this base. Their hopes weighed heavily upon Piper’s ball-hitting abilities. Rory Ray wound up and threw the ball with all of his might; Piper gave it everything she had and . . .
“You’re outta there,” Rory Ray called gleefully.
A collective moan rose from her teammates.
At the bottom of the ninth, with two bases loaded and two outs, Billy Bob covered the plate, confidently prepared to hit the home run that would win the game.
Junie Jane, a fighter to the end, called a time-out and gathered Piper and Jimmy Joe to her side.
“Billy Bob’s gonna hit hard and far. McCloud, you’re on the bench. You’ll take McCloud’s place on the field, Jimmy Joe.” Junie Jane knew that Jimmy Joe could catch a fly in his bare hand on a moonless night. Besides, Piper hadn’t caught or hit anything the whole game.
Jimmy Joe reached for the glove in Piper’s hand, but Piper held firmly to it.
“I can catch it, Junie Jane,” she pleaded.
“You couldn’t catch a cold if you lived in Antarctica without a winter coat.”
“Could too.” Piper was reduced to begging. “Gimme a chance, Junie Jane, I won’t let you down. Cross my heart, stick a pin in my eye, and hope to die if I lie.” Piper did as many of the arm motions as she could while holding the glove.
“Gimme it.” Jimmy Joe pulled roughly on the glove, but still Piper held firm.
Junie Jane was not a soft girl. She didn’t coo over puppies, she hated the color pink, and unlike every other girl in school, she hadn’t once wished that Rory Ray would kiss her. In spite of herself, she suddenly felt empathy for Piper McCloud. Had things been different, if there hadn’t been something wrong with Piper’s head, Junie Jane probably would have given her a shot. As it was, Junie Jane wasn’t going to blow the game for some retard.
“Give it over.” June Jane yanked the baseball glove out of Piper’s hands so hard that Piper fell to the ground.
“Y’re on the bench, McCloud,” Junie Jane yelled as she ran back to the pitcher’s mound, her mind already on the next play.
For the second time that day, Piper found herself in the dirt, her humiliation laid out for all of Lowland County to see. Millie Mae Miller was smiling in triumph while pretending to be sympathetic. (Which was not an easy expression to pull off.) Kids were smirking in her direction.
On the side of the hill, Piper saw Betty and Joe, and they looked like they’d been shot clean through the heart. Their features carried the unmistakable look of pity, which drove Piper to feel a deep shame of herself. Why hadn’t she been able to catch or hit a ball? Why wasn’t she able to make a friend? What a terrible thing it was to have your own ma and pa looking at you as though you were nothing. And Piper felt like nothing.