Fifth Grade
Grammy has always called Jess, among other things, ‘the redheaded boy’; but that only partially describes him. His hair is sort of red - really more like a coppery brown that winks in the sunshine; it always reminds me of the plumbing aisle at the home improvement store. But Jess has claimed a whole section of the rainbow to himself. He’s all about burnt oranges and golden yellows and browns, and sometimes when he’s really pissed off or embarrassed, he blushes a deep, dried-blood red that clashes horribly with his copper hair.
I met Jess in the parking lot of Holy Cross Church during their annual fall bazaar, a week before starting fifth grade. We would be in the same class that year, but I didn’t know that. All I knew at that point was that Grammy was always cranky and her house way too small for all of us to fit in comfortably. After two weeks of bumping into each other like a bunch of drunken penguins and watching old black and white films every night - ‘there, right there, you can see the genius’, Grammy would say leaning forward in her chair, ‘Jimmy Stewart is the orchestra and Hitchcock is the conductor’, as though that explained why there was no color in the movie - I had discovered how boring it could be to live in an old woman’s house. I was really looking forward to school.
Mom though, had settled into her bedroom like it was a cocoon. It was warmer than in the rest of the house, I thought, the couple of times I went in there. Quiet as a church too. Since Mom spent most of the time sleeping, it was Grammy - her mouth set like it had been drawn by a little kid with a crayon - who finally got us registered in school; Bryan in the eighth grade and me in the fifth, late on a Friday afternoon. She muttered to herself the whole way there and back without mentioning anyone’s name, but not having to either. I knew she was talking about Mom and me and Bryan, and once even Dad. Her tone reminded me of how I felt the time Bryan poked me with a fork, at a restaurant we were eating at. I was eight and he was 11, and furious because I had told everyone at the next table that he still sucked his thumb. It’s true, I said in a loud voice, I saw it with my own eyes.
The fork had sunk into my skin like four little fire brands, hot, then hotter. At the end, I had tiny holes just above my wrist that burned all of the time. Grammy’s words left little holes in me too, every time she grumbled and complained, especially about Mom and Dad. I tried to catch Bryan’s eye several times, but he just stared out of the car window with a stony look on his face.
Grammy was in a better mood the next morning, as though she had made up her mind about something.
“You two ought to go to the church bazaar today,” she said to us but really to her morning paper, which was squarely set in front of her face. “The theme this year, it says right here, is ‘Jesus Takes a Tropical Tour.’ ”
“Don’t feel like it,” Bryan mumbled.
“Umhmm. You will, and so will your sister. Starts at 10. Yes ma’am.” She waited. “Yes ma’am.”
Bryan scowled in Grammy’s direction, then quickly back at the table when she peeked over her newspaper.
“Yes ma’am,” he grumbled into his cereal bowl.
I was excited about the bazaar. I was finally getting out of the house; two weeks of hanging out with Grammy hadn’t made us girlfriends. Sometimes I got the feeling that she wanted to be alone. Like the other night.
“What you doing Grammy?” I asked, sticking my head over the back of her reading chair.
“What does it look like, girl?” she replied grumpily.
“Yeah reading. But what are you reading?”
She sighed. “ ‘Tahoe Death Squad’, it’s a mystery.” She turned back to her book.
“What’s it about?” Grammy sighed before answering.
“It’s about a Bulgarian princess who’s been murdered at a ski resort.” I peered closely at the page in front of her.
“I saw a movie just like that on TV yesterday!”
“Probably, it’s been out for a few years. I haven’t seen it. I’d rather read the book.” I leaned in closer. She sighed bigger this time.
“Why?” I asked, genuinely interested.
“Because I prefer the written word.”
“Oh.”
“You’re standing in my light girl.”
“Sorry.” I leaned back, resting my chin on the back of the chair. I watched the hair on the back of Grammy’s head move with my breath, tall grass waving gently in the breeze. Puffing out through my nose made a lock of hair bounce like a balloon in the sky. I whistled silently, parting the hair, revealing the white scalp underneath…
“Mikaela. Please. Stop that.”
“Sorry.” I stepped around her and kneeled at the coffee table which held an unfinished puzzle. I was putting a piece into place when something occurred to me.
“Grammy?”
“What is it girl?!” I blinked. She was cranky again. It happened suddenly Bryan said, because she was old.
“Ummm…” I hesitated.
“What?” she snapped.
“Well, I was thinking. How can the Bulgarian princess marry the detective at the end of the movie, when she was killed at the beginning by the Russian spies?” I thought about it for a second. “Oh, I get it! They were using a fake body and she was hiding all that time!” I smiled with self-satisfaction.
Grammy just looked at me with the strangest look on her face. Then she set her book on the chair and walked out of the room.
Yeah, sometimes it seemed like she wanted to be alone. At least this time, that meant that I got to go the bazaar. But while I was excited, Bryan was not. In fact, he was irritable and moody. He scowled a lot and tended to grumble under his breath. The bazaar, and having to babysit me put him in an even worse mood than usual. He was furious.
“Go ’head, say something,” Bryan hissed at me, just outside of the front door. “Say one word and I swear I’ll leave you to rot with the nuns.”
“The nuns don’t work the bazaar stupid!” I yelled, running to catch up with him as he strode down the street. “They’re at church!”
Forty five minutes later, my enthusiasm had evaporated. I was hot and tired and hadn’t had one second of fun.
“I want a coke.” Bryan kept walking in front of me, sidestepping to avoid touching anyone. He looked like he did last year on the middle school football team, running with the ball.
“Bryan! I said I’m thirsty!”
He pulled over between two stalls, fists clenched at his sides. “Anything else you want princess?”
“I didn’t make you come, Grammy did.”
“ ‘I love the bazaar, Grammy. Can we pleeeeese go?’ “ he said in a high, girly voice.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I rolled my eyes at him. “We weren’t doing anything at home, anyway.”
“At least I didn’t have to babysit you there. Let’s go.”
“No, I’m tired of walking.”
“Fine! So sit down.”
He scanned the crowd while I plopped down on the hot pavement, occasionally throwing him a dirty look. I noticed he kept looking in one particular direction, so I stood up and looked also. A gaggle of blonde cheerleaders had gathered by the gate, giggling and touching each other’s hair. I looked at Bryan. The scowl was gone.
“Here,” he said, handing me a $5 bill. “Go buy yourself a coke or something. I’m going to walk around.” I looked back over at the girls.
“You can’t leave me. I don’t know anyone.”
“Well go meet someone! There’re a million kids here!” I watched him walk over with a slight swagger. They swallowed him up until all I could see was the top of his head.
I stood there for a while, the money slowly wilting in my sweaty hand. Suddenly a large woman tried to squeeze by me and ended up propelling me in front of her like a soccer ball. When I finally got out of her way, Bryan was nowhere in sight.
The five dollar bill still in my hand, I decided to make the best of it. I walked over to the food section, reading the menus and settling on an ice cream cone. Then I remembered that I was thirsty, so I bought a soda. Thinking that maybe I should eat something healthy, I bought a wedge of mango at the “Fruits of the Galilee” booth. I was just finishing that up, when I spotted an orange headed boy standing in front of the ‘Coconut Bible Verse’ sign, collecting tickets and working crowd control for a group of six year olds. He was wearing a plastic lei around his neck and a straw skirt stretched around his thick waist. He looked like the mango I had just eaten.
“End of the line, right here.” He was looking in my general direction, so I looked over my shoulder.
“Hey you girl,” he said, looking right at me, “I said here.” He pointed to the space behind a snotty-nosed boy.
“I’m not on line.”
“Yeah you are. You get a coconut verse for only two tickets. Piece of candy too.”
I began to walk away when he stepped in front of me.
“Okay, just for you, dude, one ticket.” He had pale blue eyes and about a million freckles of various sizes. I stepped around him, bumping him on the shoulder.
“Hey, didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners?”
I whipped around. “Don’t talk about my mother,” I said spitting out the words.
“Dude, I can say anything I want, it’s America!” Which strictly speaking didn’t have anything to do with my mother, but it made me mad anyway. I shoved him so hard, he went flying into three little kids waiting on line. My last image - before I took off running - was of arms and legs and fake coconuts rolling on the asphalt.
Little kid screams still ringing in my ears, I frantically searched for Bryan in the milling crowd, snaking around small groups of people and finally jumping on top of a crate in order to get a better view. I spotted him down the hill in the adjacent park, talking with the same bunch of cheerleaders that had swallowed him up earlier. There were football players too, jostling and pushing each other, and laughing; Bryan never laughed like that at home anymore.
I half walked, half ran down the slope, looking over my shoulder every few steps, making sure I wasn’t followed. I surreptitiously slipped into the group of teenagers, like I was one of them. I laughed too. I was reaching for a coke when I was noticed.
“Hey, who’s that little kid?” Several sets of eyes turned on me. Including Bryan’s. He walked over to me as I was joining in the conversation. “Yeah, that’s cool, awesome. You should try the menthols, they’re…”
Bryan grabbed me by the arm, pulling and dragging me away, until we were out of earshot.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.
“I want to go home.”
“Well, I’m not ready to leave, go back to the bazaar.”
“No! I hate it up there. You’re supposed to be watching me anyway.”
“You can be by yourself for a little while. Now go back up there.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “No, I’m not going without you.”
He pinched my arm and dragged me further from the group.
“Go back up there right now,” he said through gritted teeth, giving me a final shake. He rejoined the group without looking back.
Kicking at pinecones and occasionally throwing one in Bryan’s direction, I slowly made my way up the hill, sidestepping tree roots and empty cans of coke. I sat with my legs crossed, back against a giant tree, poking at a line of industrious ants.
Two worn converse sneakers appeared out of nowhere, stepping on the chaotic scene. I looked up at a pair of freckled legs, clad in Hawaiian shorts. The orange headed boy was staring down at me. He was sucking on a grape Popsicle.
“You totaled my booth, dude. Now kids can’t get their verses.” He slurped. “My mom is still cleaning up the mess. You could’ve helped.”
“You could’ve helped her, she’s your mom.”
“I did, then she told me I’d helped enough.” He sat beside me, crossing his legs. “So what’s the big deal with talking about your mom?”
I gave him my meanest glare. “Nobody talks about my mother.”
“I figured that out. If someone does, you wreck their booths.” He looked sideways at me and grinned. I rolled my eyes and let out a huge breath.
“I mean it. Don’t talk about her.”
“Okay. Wanna talk about your dad? Or will you break my legs if I say something about him?”
I said the three words that usually got people to shut up. “My father’s dead.”
It didn‘t rattle him. “Oh. So it’s just you and your mom? Oops, I talked about your mom.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. I wasn’t amused.
“I mean it about my mom,” I warned him.
“Okay, okay, I won’t say mom again. Well, I will when it’s about my mom, but I won’t when it’s about your mom.” We watched the surviving ants pick themselves up and move away.
“So when did your dad die?”
Two months ago on a hot summer night. “Last July.”
“What happened?”
He closed his eyes in the middle of a bright, thunderstorm. “He was a spy and a double agent gave him up.”
“Wow. How’d he die?”
He burned. “Poison,” I said ominously.
“Double wow, dude. So it’s just you and your m… other parent?”
“It’s me and my brother, Bryan.” I pointed to the group of teenagers still bunched up. “He’s the one with the yellow shirt. We live Grammy, with my dad’s mom. And my mom too. We just moved here.”
“Do you like living with your Grammy?”
I broke a twig into little pieces. “She gets grumpy. I don’t think she likes us being there.”
“So why did you move in with her?”
I took a long time to answer. It’s not that I had to think about the answer, I knew it of course. Mom missed Dad. Mom lost her job after Dad died. Mom couldn’t control Bryan alone. Mom slept all the time. Or I could say what Grammy had said as we packed up our suitcases to bring to her house. Your mother was never a strong woman. Michael gave her the support that she needed to manage the everyday stresses. It’s hard on her now with him gone, and it’ll be hard on all of us too. Quit your crying. It won’t help. I decided to tell Jess the truth.
“My mom became a ghost.”
“Dude, that’s awesome.”
Bryan finally parted with his friends, which apparently they were now, since he was punching the buttons on his cell phone nonstop. He didn’t even notice that Jess joined us on the way home; Jess only lived a half a block from Grammy. Bryan disappeared into his room the second we got home, so I hung out with Jess. We found Mom in the living room, running her fingers over the piano that no one played. She was still in her robe.
“Hi Mom.” She was rubbing her finger on a spot on the piano in countless tight little circles. “Mom!” I said a little louder.
“I know you’re there Micaela, I hear you.” She still hadn’t turned around.
“This is Jess, from the neighborhood.”
“Hi, Mrs. Watts. I like your piano.” Jess looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you? My husband played this piano when he was your age, children. He had such beautiful hands, he could have been a concert pianist but he loved teaching more.” She ran her fingers over the same spot as before and bowed her head. There was an awkward moment when we just stood there and then Mom’s shoulders began to shake.
I walked out through the front door, Jess following me. We sat on the front steps watching the birds dive across the lawn.
“That was creepy dude.”
I said nothing, knowing it was true. I had seen her this way several times before at our old house. I still wasn’t used to it.
“So like what’s wrong with her?”
“She misses Dad. She supposed to take medicine. Grammy said she’ll snap out of it, someday. Soon I think.” I hope.
“Why’d you say your mom was a ghost? You shoulda just said she was crazy.” He didn’t see it coming.
I punched him squarely on the nose, causing a flare of pain in my own hand. He jumped up, taking several steps back.
“That hurt!” he looked at me incredulously.
I cocked my chin and looked at him with steely eyes. “I told you not to talk about my mother.”
He wiped his nose with a corner of his t-shirt, leaving a red smear across his cheek.
“Yeah dude, you did.” He gave me a huge grin. And became my best friend.
I met Jess in the parking lot of Holy Cross Church during their annual fall bazaar, a week before starting fifth grade. We would be in the same class that year, but I didn’t know that. All I knew at that point was that Grammy was always cranky and her house way too small for all of us to fit in comfortably. After two weeks of bumping into each other like a bunch of drunken penguins and watching old black and white films every night - ‘there, right there, you can see the genius’, Grammy would say leaning forward in her chair, ‘Jimmy Stewart is the orchestra and Hitchcock is the conductor’, as though that explained why there was no color in the movie - I had discovered how boring it could be to live in an old woman’s house. I was really looking forward to school.
Mom though, had settled into her bedroom like it was a cocoon. It was warmer than in the rest of the house, I thought, the couple of times I went in there. Quiet as a church too. Since Mom spent most of the time sleeping, it was Grammy - her mouth set like it had been drawn by a little kid with a crayon - who finally got us registered in school; Bryan in the eighth grade and me in the fifth, late on a Friday afternoon. She muttered to herself the whole way there and back without mentioning anyone’s name, but not having to either. I knew she was talking about Mom and me and Bryan, and once even Dad. Her tone reminded me of how I felt the time Bryan poked me with a fork, at a restaurant we were eating at. I was eight and he was 11, and furious because I had told everyone at the next table that he still sucked his thumb. It’s true, I said in a loud voice, I saw it with my own eyes.
The fork had sunk into my skin like four little fire brands, hot, then hotter. At the end, I had tiny holes just above my wrist that burned all of the time. Grammy’s words left little holes in me too, every time she grumbled and complained, especially about Mom and Dad. I tried to catch Bryan’s eye several times, but he just stared out of the car window with a stony look on his face.
Grammy was in a better mood the next morning, as though she had made up her mind about something.
“You two ought to go to the church bazaar today,” she said to us but really to her morning paper, which was squarely set in front of her face. “The theme this year, it says right here, is ‘Jesus Takes a Tropical Tour.’ ”
“Don’t feel like it,” Bryan mumbled.
“Umhmm. You will, and so will your sister. Starts at 10. Yes ma’am.” She waited. “Yes ma’am.”
Bryan scowled in Grammy’s direction, then quickly back at the table when she peeked over her newspaper.
“Yes ma’am,” he grumbled into his cereal bowl.
I was excited about the bazaar. I was finally getting out of the house; two weeks of hanging out with Grammy hadn’t made us girlfriends. Sometimes I got the feeling that she wanted to be alone. Like the other night.
“What you doing Grammy?” I asked, sticking my head over the back of her reading chair.
“What does it look like, girl?” she replied grumpily.
“Yeah reading. But what are you reading?”
She sighed. “ ‘Tahoe Death Squad’, it’s a mystery.” She turned back to her book.
“What’s it about?” Grammy sighed before answering.
“It’s about a Bulgarian princess who’s been murdered at a ski resort.” I peered closely at the page in front of her.
“I saw a movie just like that on TV yesterday!”
“Probably, it’s been out for a few years. I haven’t seen it. I’d rather read the book.” I leaned in closer. She sighed bigger this time.
“Why?” I asked, genuinely interested.
“Because I prefer the written word.”
“Oh.”
“You’re standing in my light girl.”
“Sorry.” I leaned back, resting my chin on the back of the chair. I watched the hair on the back of Grammy’s head move with my breath, tall grass waving gently in the breeze. Puffing out through my nose made a lock of hair bounce like a balloon in the sky. I whistled silently, parting the hair, revealing the white scalp underneath…
“Mikaela. Please. Stop that.”
“Sorry.” I stepped around her and kneeled at the coffee table which held an unfinished puzzle. I was putting a piece into place when something occurred to me.
“Grammy?”
“What is it girl?!” I blinked. She was cranky again. It happened suddenly Bryan said, because she was old.
“Ummm…” I hesitated.
“What?” she snapped.
“Well, I was thinking. How can the Bulgarian princess marry the detective at the end of the movie, when she was killed at the beginning by the Russian spies?” I thought about it for a second. “Oh, I get it! They were using a fake body and she was hiding all that time!” I smiled with self-satisfaction.
Grammy just looked at me with the strangest look on her face. Then she set her book on the chair and walked out of the room.
Yeah, sometimes it seemed like she wanted to be alone. At least this time, that meant that I got to go the bazaar. But while I was excited, Bryan was not. In fact, he was irritable and moody. He scowled a lot and tended to grumble under his breath. The bazaar, and having to babysit me put him in an even worse mood than usual. He was furious.
“Go ’head, say something,” Bryan hissed at me, just outside of the front door. “Say one word and I swear I’ll leave you to rot with the nuns.”
“The nuns don’t work the bazaar stupid!” I yelled, running to catch up with him as he strode down the street. “They’re at church!”
Forty five minutes later, my enthusiasm had evaporated. I was hot and tired and hadn’t had one second of fun.
“I want a coke.” Bryan kept walking in front of me, sidestepping to avoid touching anyone. He looked like he did last year on the middle school football team, running with the ball.
“Bryan! I said I’m thirsty!”
He pulled over between two stalls, fists clenched at his sides. “Anything else you want princess?”
“I didn’t make you come, Grammy did.”
“ ‘I love the bazaar, Grammy. Can we pleeeeese go?’ “ he said in a high, girly voice.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I rolled my eyes at him. “We weren’t doing anything at home, anyway.”
“At least I didn’t have to babysit you there. Let’s go.”
“No, I’m tired of walking.”
“Fine! So sit down.”
He scanned the crowd while I plopped down on the hot pavement, occasionally throwing him a dirty look. I noticed he kept looking in one particular direction, so I stood up and looked also. A gaggle of blonde cheerleaders had gathered by the gate, giggling and touching each other’s hair. I looked at Bryan. The scowl was gone.
“Here,” he said, handing me a $5 bill. “Go buy yourself a coke or something. I’m going to walk around.” I looked back over at the girls.
“You can’t leave me. I don’t know anyone.”
“Well go meet someone! There’re a million kids here!” I watched him walk over with a slight swagger. They swallowed him up until all I could see was the top of his head.
I stood there for a while, the money slowly wilting in my sweaty hand. Suddenly a large woman tried to squeeze by me and ended up propelling me in front of her like a soccer ball. When I finally got out of her way, Bryan was nowhere in sight.
The five dollar bill still in my hand, I decided to make the best of it. I walked over to the food section, reading the menus and settling on an ice cream cone. Then I remembered that I was thirsty, so I bought a soda. Thinking that maybe I should eat something healthy, I bought a wedge of mango at the “Fruits of the Galilee” booth. I was just finishing that up, when I spotted an orange headed boy standing in front of the ‘Coconut Bible Verse’ sign, collecting tickets and working crowd control for a group of six year olds. He was wearing a plastic lei around his neck and a straw skirt stretched around his thick waist. He looked like the mango I had just eaten.
“End of the line, right here.” He was looking in my general direction, so I looked over my shoulder.
“Hey you girl,” he said, looking right at me, “I said here.” He pointed to the space behind a snotty-nosed boy.
“I’m not on line.”
“Yeah you are. You get a coconut verse for only two tickets. Piece of candy too.”
I began to walk away when he stepped in front of me.
“Okay, just for you, dude, one ticket.” He had pale blue eyes and about a million freckles of various sizes. I stepped around him, bumping him on the shoulder.
“Hey, didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners?”
I whipped around. “Don’t talk about my mother,” I said spitting out the words.
“Dude, I can say anything I want, it’s America!” Which strictly speaking didn’t have anything to do with my mother, but it made me mad anyway. I shoved him so hard, he went flying into three little kids waiting on line. My last image - before I took off running - was of arms and legs and fake coconuts rolling on the asphalt.
Little kid screams still ringing in my ears, I frantically searched for Bryan in the milling crowd, snaking around small groups of people and finally jumping on top of a crate in order to get a better view. I spotted him down the hill in the adjacent park, talking with the same bunch of cheerleaders that had swallowed him up earlier. There were football players too, jostling and pushing each other, and laughing; Bryan never laughed like that at home anymore.
I half walked, half ran down the slope, looking over my shoulder every few steps, making sure I wasn’t followed. I surreptitiously slipped into the group of teenagers, like I was one of them. I laughed too. I was reaching for a coke when I was noticed.
“Hey, who’s that little kid?” Several sets of eyes turned on me. Including Bryan’s. He walked over to me as I was joining in the conversation. “Yeah, that’s cool, awesome. You should try the menthols, they’re…”
Bryan grabbed me by the arm, pulling and dragging me away, until we were out of earshot.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.
“I want to go home.”
“Well, I’m not ready to leave, go back to the bazaar.”
“No! I hate it up there. You’re supposed to be watching me anyway.”
“You can be by yourself for a little while. Now go back up there.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “No, I’m not going without you.”
He pinched my arm and dragged me further from the group.
“Go back up there right now,” he said through gritted teeth, giving me a final shake. He rejoined the group without looking back.
Kicking at pinecones and occasionally throwing one in Bryan’s direction, I slowly made my way up the hill, sidestepping tree roots and empty cans of coke. I sat with my legs crossed, back against a giant tree, poking at a line of industrious ants.
Two worn converse sneakers appeared out of nowhere, stepping on the chaotic scene. I looked up at a pair of freckled legs, clad in Hawaiian shorts. The orange headed boy was staring down at me. He was sucking on a grape Popsicle.
“You totaled my booth, dude. Now kids can’t get their verses.” He slurped. “My mom is still cleaning up the mess. You could’ve helped.”
“You could’ve helped her, she’s your mom.”
“I did, then she told me I’d helped enough.” He sat beside me, crossing his legs. “So what’s the big deal with talking about your mom?”
I gave him my meanest glare. “Nobody talks about my mother.”
“I figured that out. If someone does, you wreck their booths.” He looked sideways at me and grinned. I rolled my eyes and let out a huge breath.
“I mean it. Don’t talk about her.”
“Okay. Wanna talk about your dad? Or will you break my legs if I say something about him?”
I said the three words that usually got people to shut up. “My father’s dead.”
It didn‘t rattle him. “Oh. So it’s just you and your mom? Oops, I talked about your mom.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. I wasn’t amused.
“I mean it about my mom,” I warned him.
“Okay, okay, I won’t say mom again. Well, I will when it’s about my mom, but I won’t when it’s about your mom.” We watched the surviving ants pick themselves up and move away.
“So when did your dad die?”
Two months ago on a hot summer night. “Last July.”
“What happened?”
He closed his eyes in the middle of a bright, thunderstorm. “He was a spy and a double agent gave him up.”
“Wow. How’d he die?”
He burned. “Poison,” I said ominously.
“Double wow, dude. So it’s just you and your m… other parent?”
“It’s me and my brother, Bryan.” I pointed to the group of teenagers still bunched up. “He’s the one with the yellow shirt. We live Grammy, with my dad’s mom. And my mom too. We just moved here.”
“Do you like living with your Grammy?”
I broke a twig into little pieces. “She gets grumpy. I don’t think she likes us being there.”
“So why did you move in with her?”
I took a long time to answer. It’s not that I had to think about the answer, I knew it of course. Mom missed Dad. Mom lost her job after Dad died. Mom couldn’t control Bryan alone. Mom slept all the time. Or I could say what Grammy had said as we packed up our suitcases to bring to her house. Your mother was never a strong woman. Michael gave her the support that she needed to manage the everyday stresses. It’s hard on her now with him gone, and it’ll be hard on all of us too. Quit your crying. It won’t help. I decided to tell Jess the truth.
“My mom became a ghost.”
“Dude, that’s awesome.”
Bryan finally parted with his friends, which apparently they were now, since he was punching the buttons on his cell phone nonstop. He didn’t even notice that Jess joined us on the way home; Jess only lived a half a block from Grammy. Bryan disappeared into his room the second we got home, so I hung out with Jess. We found Mom in the living room, running her fingers over the piano that no one played. She was still in her robe.
“Hi Mom.” She was rubbing her finger on a spot on the piano in countless tight little circles. “Mom!” I said a little louder.
“I know you’re there Micaela, I hear you.” She still hadn’t turned around.
“This is Jess, from the neighborhood.”
“Hi, Mrs. Watts. I like your piano.” Jess looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you? My husband played this piano when he was your age, children. He had such beautiful hands, he could have been a concert pianist but he loved teaching more.” She ran her fingers over the same spot as before and bowed her head. There was an awkward moment when we just stood there and then Mom’s shoulders began to shake.
I walked out through the front door, Jess following me. We sat on the front steps watching the birds dive across the lawn.
“That was creepy dude.”
I said nothing, knowing it was true. I had seen her this way several times before at our old house. I still wasn’t used to it.
“So like what’s wrong with her?”
“She misses Dad. She supposed to take medicine. Grammy said she’ll snap out of it, someday. Soon I think.” I hope.
“Why’d you say your mom was a ghost? You shoulda just said she was crazy.” He didn’t see it coming.
I punched him squarely on the nose, causing a flare of pain in my own hand. He jumped up, taking several steps back.
“That hurt!” he looked at me incredulously.
I cocked my chin and looked at him with steely eyes. “I told you not to talk about my mother.”
He wiped his nose with a corner of his t-shirt, leaving a red smear across his cheek.
“Yeah dude, you did.” He gave me a huge grin. And became my best friend.
Chapter Three
8 comments:
Hi Thea, I'm sorry I didn't get to this sooner today but it's been a very messed up day. First, I want to tell you there is some very fine imagery in this and very good story telling. All I spotted were a couple of grammatical things. I'll note those tomorrow when I read this again. I'm sure my mind will be less muddled after I get a little sleep. Anyway, very good job. Looking forward to the next installment. Thanks!
Well, either I was screwy the last time I read this or you caught the errors I was referring to yourself and fixed them already. Heh I consider both equally possible.
I did want to point out a few things I think work very well and one that doesn't.
"His hair is sort of red - really more like a coppery brown that winks in the sunshine; it always reminds me of the plumbing aisle at the home improvement store. But Jess has claimed a whole section of the rainbow to himself. He’s all about burnt oranges and golden yellows and browns, and sometimes when he’s really pissed off or embarrassed, he blushes a deep, dried-blood red that clashes horribly with his copper hair."
This is some of the fine imagery I mentioned in that last post. Fresh and vivid. Excellent. One thing I would do differently, (maybe this is just me because I'm so often so guilty of the extra jumbo sentence length LOL) is the bit in italics above. I'd break the sentence after "browns" and before the "and". You could make the next bit a sentence on its own but I would favor chopping it off all together mainly because it seems so contrary to the lovely image you just expressed. I'm thinking about copper winking in the sun and then you tell me it clashes with his complexion when he's angry or embarrassed. LOL Come to think of it, what anglo-saxon pale faced person looks good with that embarrassed color on their cheek?
Here's a problem sentence I think:
"After two weeks of bumping into each other like a bunch of drunken penguins and watching old black and white films every night - ‘there, right there, you can see the genius’, Grammy would say leaning forward in her chair, ‘Jimmy Stewart is the orchestra and Hitchcock is the conductor’, as though that explained why there was no color in the movie - I had discovered how boring it could be to live in an old woman’s house. "
I think this one may be the new and reigning champ for sentence length here at HW. Now that took some doing because yours truly has been very very guilty in the past and probably the future too. Obviously I don't mind a long sentence but this one has a major problem with too many things going on in one breath. And they aren't exactly compatible...penguins and Jimmy Stewart? You maybe up to something in that sentence that I missed, the dichotomy may be important for all I know or maybe I'm just miserably sleepy right no. :)
There really are some wonderful images in this installment. You could write poetry if you wanted to at all. Heh No doubt about that. Thanks
It wasn't me pb, I haven't touched this since I posted it.
Oh, the colors. I worked and reworked that copper/colors/blushing thing for days. But that's Jess, you either love or hate him.
You didn't see the connection between penguins and 'black and white'. Maybe it's too obscure...
The sentence length is totally Mike's fault, she doesn't stop to catch her breath.
Poetry, hmmm, I don't know. I think I'm too long winded. ;)
Again, thanks for your comments, as always very helpful. :)
Thea, I find myself wondering where the next installment is...LOL I know I have two novels that are stalled right now and we're also waiting on our old friend Weather to carry on with Fiddles so you are not alone by any means. On the other hand, because I can't look forward to the next chapter of Fiddles or Arrrooo at the moment, I'm afraid you're the one I'm bound to nudge. :D Friendly nudge of course from a friendly bear. LOL
Well pb, the next chapter is ready to go. Actually, 90% of the novel is done but I haven't posted because I didn't want to overwhelm anyone.
I'll post tomorrow. Thanks for showing so much interest, it's great for my ego. :)
Thea, sorry I didn’t get to this earlier…just haven’t had much time lately. I’ll get to Ch. 3 tomorrow and then try to give you some feedback. My first reaction though after reading Ch. 2 is that I cant really see much that needs fixed, other than a couple of typos.
-Steve
Taking a break from finals to finally get to this....
I agree that the opening imagery of the hair is great.
I see the connection to penguins and black and white now that you pointed it out, but it threw me off the first time I read it. Drunken is the word I'm focusing on, and I don't see penguins as typically described as drunken
"I knew she was talking about Mom and me and Bryan, and once even Dad." I would normally just chalk this grammar up to the narrator's age, but you've already established her as very smart, and we know she's writing this as an older girl, not a fifth grader. I think it's better to stay consistent with her speech.
"The fork had sunk into my skin like four little fire brands, hot, then hotter. At the end, I had tiny holes just above my wrist that burned all of the time." I don't know if there's a term for this, foreshawdoing something that already happened, but if there is, you did it well.
I really enjoyed the dialouge between Mike and Grammy while Grammy was reading the book. Funny.
This is picky, but this sentence really bothered me. "Then I remembered that I was thirsty, so I bought a soda." Do you really remember that your thirsty? You're either thirsty or not, you don't forget. If you think you're remembering that you're thirsty then you're just realizing you're thirsty. Or she can remember that she wanted a coke.
"He looked like the mango I had just eaten." Nice.
“I’m not on line.” I think you meant in line.
“Dude, I can say anything I want, it’s America!” Very good language of a fifth grader. I remember when we all thought we could say whatever we wanted because, it's a free country.
"I surreptitiously slipped into the group of teenagers" This is why Mike can't misuse me and I. If she can say surreptitiously, she should know basic grammar.
"We live Grammy, with my dad’s mom." We live with Grammy.
Overall I think this does a very good job of capturing language and actions of 5th graders. The interaction between Mike and Jess is very real to me, especially Jess calling her dude all the time.
I haven't gotten to chapter 3 yet, but I see the end of chapter 1 and begining of chapter 2 setting it up for Jess to be the one giving Mike all her pain. I'm interested to see how that plays out and if that is what's going on.
Thanks for taking time out from finals, you must be swamped.
Going back to the 'drunken penguin' description, I can see that it's too cluttered, too many images. I'll clean it out and call Goodwill.
You've got a point on the 'thirsty', I think I got too caught up being a silly 10 year old.
You think Jess will be the one that makes her to hurt so much? ;)
Thanks for your comments. :)
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