Backyard (8 page)

9

Things That Go Snip in the Night

T
here was a disturbance in the backyard.

It had been waking Nan up for the past three nights, and it was waking her up now. It was interfering with the usual life-force sense she had in the middle of a summer's night: that of thousands of little flower souls charging themselves up to fulfill their next day's brilliant destiny . . . with a bit of help from their human friend, of course.

It was subtle. What exactly was it? The unrelenting movement of night toward dawn? A possum poking around at the orange rinds and onion skins in the compost pile? She strained to hear. Was it even a sound? Or was it something about the scent of the night that filtered through the screens of the open windows? Could be. George had often told her that she could smell a dog doing its business in St. Anthony.

Awake, she could only hear the soft collisions of a million leaves in the night breeze and the distant and sporadic engine drone of interstate traffic.

There it was again, this time unmistakably a sound, and an unnatural one at that. Their backyard was being violated. Something was out there that shouldn't be. Nan shivered. After three nights of keeping her own fearful counsel, she determined that some help from what she hoped would be a stalwart spouse was required. She woke up George, whom she knew all too well was not as conversant as she was with the subtle ways of the night, and would have to be told outright what was expected of him. It was three fifteen a.m.

“Listen!” she whispered as she shook him. “Listen!”

“Listen?” said George groggily. “Listen to what?”

“I don't know exactly. I just know there's something out there.”

“Out
there?
Where?”

“In our backyard. Go check, please. But be quiet and don't wake up the kids.”

“I could scream at the top of my lungs for ten minutes and it wouldn't wake up the kids,” he gurgled. With that, he rolled over and adjusted the pillow with a deep sigh. Nan shook him again. Outside, the motion detector clicked on, flooding the patio with light that eerily illuminated the shades covering their windows.

“George, the light just went on!”

George sat up, rubbed his eyes, and gazed at the shades, which flapped against the windows.

“Hmmm. Windy.”

“Our backyard is being violated by something. Please go check it out.”

George blinked rapidly at the shades, then reached under the bed for his Johnny “Smokestack” Gaines bat. It was a genuine Smokestack Gaines batting practice–used bat, not just some cheap imitation used as giveaways to lure kids to the ballpark. The name was burned in black into the barrel of the 36-inch, 32-ounce Louisville Slugger.

George had bought it from a friend back in 1996, when Smokestack Gaines was just a rookie. Now, the aging star, two-time MVP, and shoo-in for the Hall of Fame was nearing retirement and poised to make another run at the home run crown. The bat was cupped at the top, tapered into a thinness at the handle that gave his lightning swing even more torque. A chip had been torn from the knob on the handle, which made this particular bat useless for Smokestack Gaines but quite a prize for the fan—George's friend—who picked it up off the ground. He already had another Smokestack Gaines bat—this one undamaged—so he sold the marred one to George for $75. Now, it was worth $1,000, easy.

So, what the hell was George doing keeping it under the bed as a homeowner's weapon of last resort against an intruder? He had always meant to replace it with one of those metal bats the boys had collected during their years playing ball for the Livia Athletic Association, but he had procrastinated. Now, he was preparing to ruin his Smokestack Gaines bat by cracking it over the head of some idiot running around in the sacred backyard. Where was the justice in that?

“Here goes,” he said, jumping out of the bed, Smokestack Gaines bat in hand. “Coming with?”

“No, I'll just lie here and pray for you.”

George rubbed the grit from his eyes as they became accustomed to the gray semi-visibility of the dark. He plodded heavily down the hallway. An intruder! The full impact of the threat he was facing finally breached the wall of semi-somnolence that had kept him moving obediently ahead, and allowed him to open the back door. He stopped. What if it was an intruder?

“Nan!” he whispered hoarsely.

“What?” came the faint response.

“What if there's somebody in the house? Shouldn't we just dial 911?”

“There's nobody
in
side,” said Nan in the loudest whisper she could muster. “There is some
body
or some
thing
wandering around in our backyard. Or maybe it's nothing. And what would we tell the police, that I just heard a weird sound? If you run into something, just hit it with the bat. Only make sure it isn't one of the kids first.”

They had seen lots of things activate the flood lamps' motion detectors. Leaves whirling across the field of vision. Steam vented from the dryer in the basement. Bugs. Once, they saw a raccoon prowling among the shrubs and rose-entwined trellis at the far end of the light's reach, and its eyes shone at them, two perfect orbs, mirroring the light, suspended in the black void for a moment until the full animal came into view.

The scariest thing, by a long shot, was the nocturnal creature that had clung precariously to the bird feeder perch, too light to lever up the counterweight and bring down the squirrel shield.

“What the hell is that?” Nan had said as they stared at it through the kitchen window. Its furred head moved jerkily and confusedly sideways, then up and down in the glare of the floodlights. “Squirrel of some sort?”

“No squirrel. Squirrels are diurnal.” The tiny creature turned its face toward them, and they both gasped. It looked like the face of a tiny old man, deformed or mutilated into something gray, jerking, and mute.

“It's a baby opossum,” George said. “Gotta be. Night creature. They would eat those seeds.”

They looked it up in their National Audubon Society
Field Guide to North American Mammals,
and discovered that it was a
flying
squirrel, which they had seen twice before, its shadowy form gliding from one backyard maple tree to another.

All these sightings muted much of the panic the sudden burst of motion-activated light would have ordinarily triggered in them. But this was different. There was no opossum, no flying squirrel, no raccoon, no nothing that George could see through the doorway, though he was beginning to suspect that a flying leaf or twig might be the culprit.

What was that snip? There it was again.
Snip.
And again.

“Hey!” George shouted through the screen. “Hey!”

He could have sworn he heard the sound of scurrying feet racing across the lawn and down the slope to the street, where they padded off into nothingness. The lights went off. It startled George. He cried out in surprise.

“Honey? George?” came the thin but reassuring squeak of a voice from the bedroom, all efforts to communicate via whisper being abandoned at this point. “Quit yelling! What's with this ‘Hey!' business, anyway?”

“I thought I heard something,” said George. “Maybe it's nothing. Snipping. Something tearing off into the street. Then, the light went off. Whatever was out there is gone now.”

“Well, look around anyway, please. I'm coming out.”

George waited for the soft shuffling of Nan moving over the hallway carpet. He didn't really care for this notion of going outside on a scouting expedition for something that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Especially since all the signs pointed to it being gone—or just about gone—with no intention of sticking around and causing a fuss . . . that is, unless cornered or provoked.

“Lead the way,” said Nan, clinging to his pajama top. “I'm right behind you.” George slowly opened the screen door. He cringed when it squeaked, and just about jumped out of his pajamas when he stepped onto the patio and the floodlights came on again.

“Well,” he said, chuckling nervously. “Whatever it is that's out there, if it's still out there, can certainly see us now, though we just as certainly can't see it.” They crept toward the edge of the darkness.

“I don't hear anything,” Nan whispered.

“Aliens from another planet. Didn't you hear the snips?”

Nan sniggered.

“Aliens don't snip, they beep,” she said.

“You said you heard something. It wasn't snipping sounds?”

“No. I heard something. But nothing I could identify as a
snipping.
What I heard was more like something in motion, Very subtle, but out here for sure. Probably just kids screwing around.”

“Kids snipping?”

“I don't know, George,” said Nan, the need to sleep winning the battle over her initial disquietude. “Maybe kids. Maybe snipping. But snipping about what?”

“Not snipping as in dissing someone. That would be
sniping.
Not being
snippy.
Snipping as in
snipping
. You know.
Snip, snip.
”

“This is getting silly,” said Nan with a yawn. “Who cares if it was kids, and who cares if kids were snipping. No sign of any damage done. We'll check tomorrow. If it keeps up for a few more nights, I'll get more worried. But, right now, I need sleeeep.”

“Maybe it was
our
kids snipping. I know I heard snipping.”

“Okay. If it makes you happy, we'll check the rooms on the way back.”

Sis was in her room downstairs, which was a good thing since she wasn't allowed out past midnight. Upstairs, a big snoring lump indicated that Ellis was in. Next door, there was Cullen, curled up under the blanket.

“Hmmm,” said George. “So who was it out there, and what the hell were those snips?”

“Just mischievous kids who probably had a few nights of fun in the woods, and won't ever come back again,” Nan said. “Now, get back to bed before I decide to get out the loppers and snip
you
.”

10

Cutworms

“T
his is obviously the work of an amateur . . . a
rank
amateur.”

Dr. Sproot turned from the computer monitor she had been studying. She focused her squint-eyed stare on the furiously blinking Marta, who fought the overpowering urge to hunch over and lower her head like a cringing animal.

They had spent the morning going over Marta's notes. Those had been carefully arranged by backyard section to fill twenty-seven impeccably typed pages held in a fuchsia-colored ring binder, picked out specially by Marta to reflect Dr. Sproot's favorite non-garden color. There were also five maps drawn by Marta to professional draftsman standards.

Through it all, Marta noticed Dr. Sproot downing mug after mug of steaming coffee without any apparent effect on her damaged throat. Apart from reiterating her threat to sue, she had not mentioned her throat or any sort of medical prognosis or treatment in the week and a half since she had been scalded by Marta's hot tea. Wouldn't someone as coffee-amped as Dr. Sproot find that a natural topic to broach, especially to her alleged best friend and the perpetrator of the injury?

Marta toyed with the notion of bringing up the subject in some sort of indirect way just to see what kind of response she would get, but quickly backed off: such recklessness could set off another confrontation with her old friend and more threats. At this point, Marta couldn't bring herself to face any more of that unpleasantness and the disturbing ramifications it might have.

Much of their morning's work involved Dr. Sproot tearing apart Marta's efforts. She picked apart her notes for mistakes—of which Marta freely admitted there were probably a few. She shook her head in disgust at the appearance of smudges on pages four and seventeen. She wondered why Marta, on her maps, had drawn the various plants and flowers in mere black pencil, instead of their true colors, seeing as how pencils of every conceivable hue could easily be obtained at Lelia's Artsy Stuff, near the high school, on the corner of Tremblant and 33rd.

Now, as the day approached mid-afternoon, Dr. Sproot wasted no time dashing Marta's hopes that she would fare better on her photographs.

“Look at this, blast it all,” Dr. Sproot said. “I mean, some of these photos are out of focus. Some are too close. Some are too far away. What am I going to do with these? I can barely see them. How am I to even tell what's here? Huh? You have failed me, Marta. Failed! Failed! Failed! And just when I need you the most.”

Marta leaned in toward the photograph glaring at them from the monitor. There was nothing wrong with it. The detail and perspective were perfect. The clarity and light were all she could have hoped for. She had risked ridicule and worse to take this and scores more pictures for Dr. Sproot. Now, to be subjected to this, even by a flawed, vulnerable, yet towering genius. . . well, this time she wasn't going to sit there and just meekly agree. She would meekly disagree.

“They look crystal clear to me, Dr. Sproot. I thought they were quite detailed and very good, actually.”

Dr. Sproot snorted.

“Very good! Very good, you say! Good God, woman, you might as well have sent a kindergartner over there with a box of crayons or an Etch A Sketch!”

Marta cleared her throat and gazed at the photo she had taken of some meadowsweet they had not noticed before. Meadowsweet! An interesting choice. It would require lots of watering, but that wouldn't be a problem for the Fremonts. They were every bit as diligent as Dr. Sproot. What's more, they put their hearts and their joie de vivre into their gardens. She could tell the moment she set foot in them. The flowers and shoots seemed to want to jump out to her in their joy and fecundity. Even in the photographs, you could see that.

Dr. Sproot's gardens delivered no such warmth. They were like wild animals tamed by the confines of their zoo cages into facsimiles of themselves. Suddenly, the whole notion of the yuccas and coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend seemed inane to Marta. It was like a parody of gardening, with Dr. Sproot as the chief gardening clown. Marta stifled a nervous titter. She imagined Dr. Phyllis Sproot as Doc-Phil-the-Flower-Buffoon dressed in floppy shoes, moth-eaten hat, and a tatterdemalion suit, with a little plastic flower attached to her lapel that would squirt hot coffee in your face if you got too close.

Dr. Sproot frowned at the monitor, clicking her mouse to move from one photograph to the next. She muttered something, then snarled. That snarling was something new, even for Dr. Sproot. It signaled that she might be reaching deep within her tortured soul for something better left unplumbed.

The depth of Dr. Sproot's knowledge never ceased to amaze Marta. Why, there were shoots that had just barely come up through the ground, and Dr. Sproot ID'd them without hesitation. After two hours of going through Marta's photos, she had identified thirty-four different kinds of flowers, shrubs, and vines, and four places where freshly turned and dampened soil indicated that something would likely be coming up soon.

“Very well,” Dr. Sproot said. “Let's go back and pay special attention to the monarda, the first target of our ‘death-by-a-thousand-cuts' campaign, eh?” She clicked back through the images. “Ah-ha, here we are. Now, let's take a closer look.”

Marta stiffened. It was bad enough to get all furtive and dressed up in a steaming hot, ridiculous outfit to go snooping around in somebody's yard, but to violate someone's gardens by taking the snippers to them was quite another thing. To say nothing of having to perform the act of destruction with
noisy
snippers that no amount of cleaning and oiling would quiet. It was no wonder she woke up the Fremonts that night and had to go running through the dark down that wretched hill again. At least she hadn't crashed into a tree! Well, she thought, thank goodness the task was finished.

Dr. Sproot blew up the image of the monarda and studied it intently.

“Well, Marta, you've done the job far too
subtly,
I can tell that right off the bat. For crying out loud, I can barely tell where you snipped.”

“But wasn't that the idea, Dr. Sproot?” said Marta, puzzled at how Dr. Sproot could suddenly make out the details of her photographs quite easily.

“The idea, Marta, was to make it so the damage was not overly obvious. The idea was not to make it so much so that the blasted flowers will look virtually the same when they bloom. What is the point of that? Good Lord, look at this! It's like looking at a
Where's Waldo . . .
Ah-ha, there's a snipped stem . . . uh . . . and . . . there's another . . . And that's all, Marta?”

Marta squirmed.

“Well, Dr. Sproot, if you look at my photos of the other monarda, you will see that I snipped some of them, too.” She clicked on another photo.

“For heaven's sake, where have you snipped? Um-hmm, there's a little snip . . . and . . . there's another, barely noticeable to the well-trained eye, which, of course, is what we're dealing with here. If I can't notice the difference without prolonged and careful inspection, how in God's name do you expect the judges to? And, Marta, these are judges who won't have the leisure that we do to examine each stem so carefully. What do you say to that, hmmmm, Marta?”

“I say that I tried my best, Dr. Sproot. Gracious, you can see where the stems have been cut and I'd be amazed if the Fremonts can't tell. I actually thought I was erring on the side of being too obvious.”

Dr. Sproot gazed upon Marta with all the scorn she could cram into a stare.

“You'll have to go back and do more snipping, Marta. This simply isn't enough. I want you to go after the monarda again, then hit some of the roses. It is a fine line between subtle and obvious destruction, Marta, but you have not even come close to grazing that line. This, of course, is in addition to your continued spying mission. Do I make myself clear?”

Marta could only nod meekly in agreement, and hate herself for doing so. Secretly, she swore to draw the line this time. She would continue her undercover work, as onerous and mortifying as that was, but she would not cut and cripple any more flowers.
Would not!

“Ugh!” cried Dr. Sproot, who had been clicking through some photographs she had neglected to examine during her first run-through. “Those ghastly angel's trumpets! So lovely and yet so lethal.”

She pushed herself back from the monitor, yet continued to stare intently at the image that would not allow her to look away.

“Do you want me to cut those, too, Dr. Sproot?” Marta wondered. “It would be awful if you did, but I know how you hate them.”

“Cut them? Why certainly not! Of course not! That would be too obvious. Far too obvious. That would be the work of nothing less than a top-flight professional. And it would destroy a feeble little thing like you, Marta, or at least scramble your mind beyond recognition. I would not cast you into such a dangerous situation, Marta. How dare you think for one moment that I would do such a thing! And look, look, would you, how they have some power over me. I can't look away! Can't! They've got me in their clutches! Turn off the computer, Marta! Turn it off quickly if you value my life!”

Marta, stunned by Dr. Sproot's reaction to what seemed to her nothing more than a benign image of some lovely, sweet-smelling flowers—flowers she would consider planting in her own gardens were it not for Dr. Sproot's dire warnings—bent over to turn off the computer. Dr. Sproot collapsed in her chair with a gasp.

“Well, it took you long enough,” she whimpered. “It took you blasted long enough when you could see that a few more moments and I might have been lost to their hypnotic spell. Why, maybe you're so slow because you've been exposed to them, Marta. Have you ever thought of that? I hope you were wearing an appropriate breathing apparatus when you approached them. Otherwise, there's no telling what might happen to you.”