I didn’t know how to respond to the attention, so I spent the day nodding dumbly like one of those silly little birds that bob their heads in and out of a glass of water.
Avanelle stuck with me between classes, not saying much—just taking it for granted that I expected her to be there. During lunch, she asked where Punky and I were staying, and I told her. That brought a sympathetic look. Once she sympathized with me at having to stay with Aunt Queenie. She’d seen her royal highness at church, staid and stiff as a poker.
In art, my classmates were making Indian pottery. There were mostly lopsided bowls and ashtrays, but Marla Daniels’s vase was flawless, and she was painting it with geometric designs. When kids teased her about making points with the teacher, she said, “Hey, guys, it’s my mom’s birthday present. You want me to give her a piece of junk?”
I remembered the God’s eye, now hanging above the marble vanity in my own personal bathroom at Aunt Queenie’s. It looked as out of place as I felt.
Listlessly, I rolled my clay into a snake, then wound it around and around to form a bowl. I could have made a nice vase, but it wasn’t worth the effort. It wouldn’t match anything of Aunt Queenie‘s, and it would end up hidden in a closet.
After class, I went back to my locker and took a quick peek at the swan. I wanted to hold it and turn it and study its every detail, but that would have to wait until school was out. For now, I’d just have to be content with knowing it was mine.
“What’s that?” asked a deep voice, causing me to jump.
I turned and saw Tree. “Oh, nothing,” I said, hastily closing the lid on the box. If Tree saw the swan, he’d want to know where it came from, and I wasn’t up to a casual conversation.
“We heard about ... everything ... at church,” he said.
“I figured that.” Why was it I hadn’t been able to cry at the funeral, and now the tears were pushing at my eyes like a dam about to break?
“How’s Punky? It must be hard—”
“It is,” I said, not even waiting for him to finish the sentence. I had to get away before the dam collapsed. “I’m going to be late for PE class, and Cooper can really be a bear.”
FOURTEEN
The Tree Breaks Through the Rock
I shot out of the building when the last bell rang. Two boys were taking down the flag, and I immediately thought of Punky. What kind of day had he had with Aunt Queenie? I was sure it would rank right up there with having his teeth pulled or losing his cowboy hat.
Avanelle caught up to me as I detoured behind the buses. “We can walk together if you want,” she said. “Your, uh, new home is right on my way.”
“It’s not my home. It’s just a stopping-off place until I’m old enough to move out.”
The words sounded hateful, but Avanelle understood. My vision blurred when she switched her books to her right arm and linked her other with mine.
“How’s Punky?” she asked after a while.
“He’s getting by, same as me,” I said, snuffling.
“I miss my dad a lot. He had to go away for a while, but at least I know he’s coming back. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you and Punky.”
Her voice was soft and full of concern, and suddenly I thought of that tree I’d seen growing from the rock. Just as surely as the tree needed water and sunshine to survive, I needed to reach out to Avanelle. I needed her for a ... friend.
“I want to show you something,” I said, taking the swan box from my pocket. Gently, I removed the swan and handed it to Avanelle.
“Oooh, it’s gorgeous, and it looks real enough to take off and fly. Where’d you get it?”
“From the woodcarver at Silver Dollar City.”
“Expensive, I’ll bet.”
I swallowed hard and said, “It cost me my parents.”
“What?”
Words gushed out of me then as I told Avanelle everything. The terrible wait for my parents at Silver Dollar City. Whittlin’ Walt. Running away with Punky in the middle of the night. The funeral and Aunt Queenie’s shampoo and the horn bones behind the TV.
When I was finished, we were laughing and crying, and I felt clean from the inside out.
We had reached Avanelle’s house, and she took my arm and pulled me up the steps. This time she didn’t act embarrassed, and I knew why. Her home was the exact opposite of Aunt Queenie’s.
As Avanelle yanked open the potbellied screen door, the spool handle came off in her hand. “Aunt Queenie,” she squealed, “put that in your pipe and smoke it!”
We burst into hysterics at the thought of Aunt Queenie smoking a pipe. By the time we simmered down, we were surrounded by grinning moptops in the living room and the aroma of hot grease and cinnamon.
“Velveeta,” said Birdie, “what’s so funny?” Her mouth was ringed with sugar crystals, and she held a doughnut in each hand.
“My Aunt Queenie.”
“The lady with the bird nest on her head.”
“Birdie! That’s no way to talk!” said Mrs. Shackleford, trying hard to look stern. “What are you doing with those doughnuts in the living room? They belong in the kitchen.”
“They belong in my stomach,” said Avanelle. “Come on, Delrita. Mom makes the best doughnuts you ever tasted.”
As Avanelle poured milk for us into mismatched glasses, I glanced around the kitchen. Flour dusted the counter and Mrs. Shackleford’s belly, and the sink was piled high with dirty dishes. There was no mixer or dishwasher or microwave oven, but there was a coziness, a warmth, that made me go limp with longing.
“Delrita, wake up,” said Avanelle, snapping her fingers in my face. “You’re a million miles away.”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking how nice it is here, not at all like Aunt Queenie’s.”
“Nice?”
“Yeah. Like home. Nice clutter, nice people.”
“Your aunt and uncle are nice people,” said Mrs. Shackleford. “Bert helped us find this place to rent, and Queenie’s very active in the community.”
“I know, but they got stuck with Punky and me, and they—they don’t really need anybody but themselves.”
“Maybe you’ve just had too much togetherness all at once. It’ll get better when you get used to each other.” Mrs. Shackleford passed me a doughnut. “Why don’t you come over Saturday afternoon—you and Punky? Give yourselves and your aunt and uncle a break. Punky’d have a good time playing with the kids, and you and Avanelle could do whatever you like.”
It sounded wonderful. I ate three doughnuts and listened to Birdie telling about the “old” baby chasing a cat down the street.
“I blowed my whistle—like this.” Birdie lifted the whistle to her sugary mouth, but her mother said, “Not in the house.”
Birdie let the whistle fall back onto her chest and continued her story. “Anyway, the cat flew up a tree and Gordy just stood there and bawled.”
“Cats don’t fly.” Avanelle laughed.
“This one did.”
I didn’t want to leave, but there wasn’t a telephone so I could call Aunt Queenie. I thanked Mrs. Shackleford for the doughnuts and told everyone good-bye.
Avanelle walked me to the door. Squeezing my hand, she said, “We’re going to be the best of friends.”
I felt warm inside. I’d finally burst through the rock.
The television was blaring in the family room, and Aunt Queenie was assembling a club newsletter in the kitchen. When I laid my books down beside the neat stacks of papers on the table, she gave me a tired smile and said, “How was school today, hon?”
It was the same question Mom had always asked, and somehow it didn’t seem right coming from Aunt Queenie. I shrugged and replied, “I got through it.”
“Are you hungry? There are carrot sticks in the refrigerator and—”
“No, thanks. I don’t care much for rabbit food.” I didn’t tell her I was stuffed to the gills with doughnuts.
“Well, then, would you mind taking Punky for a walk or s
omething? If I hear one more commercial, I’m going to pull my hair out.”
I grinned at the image of Aunt Queenie’s “bird nest” lying beside Uncle Bert’s toupee on the bureau. “We’ll go out to the patio,” I said, touching the swan box in my pocket. “I want to carve anyway.”
“Just be sure to sweep up your wood shavings. They’ll look tacky if they blow all over the yard. And would you mind putting your books away? I’m using the table.”
I took the books to my room, grabbed my Barbie doll case from the closet, and went to the family room.
Punky was sitting cross-legged at the sawed-off table, lining up crayons and twisting his hair nervously. I noticed his bald spot was getting bigger.
“Hi, handsome.”
“D.J.!” he cried, knocking some leaves off the philodendron as he switched off the TV and got up stiffly from the floor.
I hugged him, scooped the leaves off the carpet, and slipped them into my pocket. “Let’s go outside,” I said.
“Wait a minute,” Punky replied, donning his cowboy hat. He put the crayons in his lunch box with the clowns and tucked his radio under his arm.
We went out to the patio, where Punky started arranging his things on the picnic table. When I opened the Barbie case, we both caught the faint whiff of new wood.
He glanced up quickly, saying, “Sam, Shirley. Come home.”
My hands trembled as I picked up a roughed-out swan shape, and Dad’s words echoed in my mind: Let him spread his wings and fly.
I was still thinking about Dad that night when I went to bed. I missed him and Mom so much that my chest ached and I couldn’t sleep.
I tossed back the covers, crawled out of bed and reached for my Barbie case. Aunt Queenie wouldn’t know if I carved in my bathroom, as long as I cleaned the wood shavings off the tiled floor.
Huddling on the fluffy pink toilet seat, I whittled away. As the feathers began to emerge on the swan’s body, I smiled.
Herkimer. The name came to me out of the blue. “Herkimer,” I whispered, knowing I’d found the perfect name for what I hoped would be a perfect swan. He’d have a long, graceful, unbroken neck and beautiful outstretched wings.
When I finished Herkimer, I’d show him to Avanelle. Maybe I’d even teach her how to carve.
FIFTEEN
Aunt Queenie’s Decision
That week I lapped up Avanelle’s friendship like a thirsty tree soaking up water.
I found myself talking more than I had ever talked before, even to my mom, as Avanelle and I made plans. The football games, the sock hop, the fall concert were no longer events to avoid.
The one thing that bothered me was that Avanelle never told me herself that her father was in jail. In the back of my mind was the fear that since she didn’t trust me enough to tell me her secret, maybe she was just sorry for me because I’d lost my mom and dad. But I tried to push those thoughts away. Whatever Avanelle’s reason for being nice to me, she was a good companion.
With Aunt Queenie’s permission, I began stopping at Avanelle’s house after school. Mrs. Shackleford served us homemade snacks and did her best to make me feel at home. When she asked me about school, I didn’t resent it the way I had with Aunt Queenie. I felt strangely at peace in that household, even with all its commotion.
On Friday, Mrs. Shackleford reissued the invitation for Punky and me to come and visit.
“Yeah,” said Avanelle. “Come right after breakfast tomorrow, and we’ll have the whole day.”
My heart pumped a little harder. Not only would I get to spend the day, but I’d be in the same house with Tree. I hadn’t seen him since I’d run away from him in the hall, but I’d thought about him at least a hundred times.
I left the Shacklefords’ with a spring in my step. As I crunched through the leaves toward Uncle Bert and Aunt Queenie‘s, I removed my jacket and slung it over my shoulder. October had turned warm to match my mood.
Soon I spied Punky on the porch swing, holding his radio to his ear and his pretend microphone to his mouth. “No clouds,” he sang. “No rain. Shirley and Sam come home. No rain.”
He stopped singing when he saw me and said abruptly, “Queenie cry.”
“What?”
“Queenie cry.”
I took his hand and said, “Let’s go see what’s the matter.”
“No way,” he replied, pulling free.
“Well, then, you wait here while I go.”
“Yeah, D.J.” He settled back in the swing, trusting me to handle the situation.
I waltzed into the house, then through the living room to the kitchen, where I plunked my books on the table.
Hearing Aunt Queenie in the family room, I headed in to face her, then froze in my tracks.
She sat in the midst of a great brush pile, ranting about a pair of scissors. Mascara mixed with tears was drawing dirty streaks across her face.
The room looked terribly bare, and my arms broke out in goose bumps when I realized that Aunt Queenie’s plants had been scalped. Their stalks stood tall and lonely in a hundred flower pots, their leaves, blades, blooms, and vines strewn across the carpet.
In a flash, I knew Punky was the culprit. A year before, at the farm, he’d cut all the tassels off the corn.
“Oh, Aunt Queenie,” I breathed.
“My babies, my beautiful babies,” she moaned, scooping up an armload of leaves and letting them fall into her lap.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so the sound that came from my throat was a cross between a hiccup and a burp.
“A job,” said Aunt Queenie.
“It sure is.”
“No. Punky needs a job.”
I gaped at her as if she’d said “firing squad.”
Aunt Queenie got up, dusting the leaves off her skirt. She marched to the desk and snatched up the phone book.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling the workshop to tell them to expect Punky first thing Monday morning. Maybe they can keep him out of mischief. I can’t.”
My head started spinning with a picture of Punky crying for me, crying to come home. That thought stopped me cold. Punky and I didn’t have a home. We were just unwanted guests in Aunt Queenie’s home, where a bunch of worthless flowers meant more than flesh and blood.
I stumbled out to the porch swing, but Punky was gone. I found him on the patio, playing circus with Marcus Gregory. His troubles were already forgotten.
Marcus gave me a wary glance and said, “I was on my way home from Scouts when I saw Punky. He asked me to play.”
“It’s okay.”
Marcus relaxed, but I couldn’t. I felt like a wind-up toy going in crazy circles. What if Punky hated the sheltered workshop? What if outsiders couldn’t understand when he tried to communicate? What if he had a heart attack?
I heard Uncle Bert’s car in the driveway and dashed around the house to meet him. “Uncle Bert,” I said, panting, “Punky’s heart—”
He was reaching for his briefcase, and he backed out of the car so quickly that he bumped his head, knocking his toupee off center. “Is he sick?”
“Not yet. But he could be. Anytime. Especially if he’s made to do something he doesn’t want to do.”
Uncle Bert drew a deep breath. “Are we having this conversation because Queenie wants Punky to go to the sheltered workshop?”
“Yes, and you can’t let her get away with it. He’ll think we’ve deserted him. And who knows what can happen if we’re not there to protect him?”
“Delrita,” said Uncle Bert patiently, “I lived with Punky a long time before you did. In fact, when I was a boy, I clobbered more than a few guys who dared to make fun of him. But times are changing for people like Punky. They’re being accepted by society, and there are opportunities now that didn’t exist twenty years ago.”
Uncle Bert slipped an arm across my shoulders, but I pulled away from him. He was a traitor. He had turned against his own brother.
I sat in the family r
oom and fumed while Aunt Queenie laid out the plan for Punky’s future as if he were one of her projects instead of a person.
The tension was so thick at supper that even Punky sensed it. He didn’t say “Bang!” after Uncle Bert’s “Amen,” and he didn’t eat anything except his creamed peas. After sneaking a horn bone into his pocket, he gathered up his belongings and went back out to the patio.
My eyes swam with tears as I watched him through the sliding glass doors. Carefully he arranged his most prized possessions on the picnic table. This was Punky’s world—a cowboy hat, a radio, a flag, seven clowns, and a lunch box full of broken crayons. How could Aunt Queenie be so cruel as to push him out into a world full of strangers?
“I declare, Delrita, you’ve hardly touched a bite. A skinny little thing like you—”
Suddenly, all the sorrow and confusion and fear inside me gurgled up into a huge ball of hatred that I hurled at Aunt Queenie. “Leave me alone!” I shouted, pushing away from the table so hard that a glass tipped over and broke. “You make me sick! You have to organize everything into neat little categories—everything from clubs and flowers to corn and green beans. Ever since Punky and I came here, you’ve been hounding us to be perfect. Now you’ve got it fixed to where he’ll be laughed at and miserable, just so you can be organized!”
My aunt and uncle stared at me openmouthed. I expected one of them to say something, but they remained silent. Aunt Queenie’s face crumpled, and tears glistened on her cheeks. Uncle Bert, glancing nervously from me to Aunt Queenie, ran his hands through his toupee.
I stormed away to my room and slammed the door, hoping to knock a few pictures off the walls. Nothing happened. There was only a deafening stillness. I threw myself onto the bed, hating the slick, cold feel of the pink coverlet. Just how many heartaches could one person stand before she would shrivel up and die?
My gaze fell on Walt’s swan on the dresser, and I remembered his note. How could I carve out a beautiful niche for myself in this house when I was no more welcome than a blister?