Cassie Binegar (4 page)

She looked at Margaret Mary, then Gran.

“What do you think?”

“I like it,” said Margaret Mary briskly.

Cassie looked at Gran.

“It's not finished,” said Gran.

Cassie frowned as Gran picked up the hermit crab.

“But what do you think?”

“See this?” Gran held up the hermit crab. “Do you know that the hermit crab changes shells as he grows? He doesn't live in the same space all his life.”

“You never answer questions,” said Cassie grumpily. “I asked you what you thought of the poem.”

“Maybe she did answer you,” said Margaret Mary after a moment.

Gran smiled and put her arm over her eyes.

Cassie, angry with the both of them, turned over onto her belly and watched the hermit crab. Wishes? Cassie had many wishes. She wished to be away from here, back home where everything stayed the same. She wished for everything to be perfect. But right now, under the bright sun, Cassie wished most to be the hermit crab, happily carrying his space around with him.

I
T WAS ON THE
W
EDNESDAY
after Gran's arrival that Margaret Mary ceased to be a comfortable mystery to Cassie. It was Margaret Mary's first dinner at Cassie's house, and if Margaret Mary's raucous laughter had not fit with the character that Cassie had wished her to be, it became clear that Margaret Mary herself was not as she had first appeared to be. For neat and combed, saying “Mum” for Mom, using phrases like “very regrettably,” and wearing her lace-edged socks, Margaret Mary also knew all the questionable words in the dictionary.

“Hair ball!” she shrieked, collapsing on Cassie's bed, her finger still marking the place in Webster's.

Cassie, standing in front of her mirror and trying in vain once more to make her curly hair lie down like Margaret Mary's, was astounded. And upset. She had gone through a lot of trouble with her family, preparing for Margaret Mary's first visit.

“Put on your shoes,” she had hissed to her mother.

“Could you wear a dress, Gran?”

“Please wear your tweed jacket?” she pleaded to her father.

“Who are we trying to be?” demanded John Thomas.

“Brainless,” whispered James.

“I may wear a dress,” her Gran muttered stubbornly. “I may not.”

Cassie had walked to Margaret Mary's house to get her, and Margaret Mary's mother had opened the door, looking wonderfully serene. She wore a clump of luminescent pearl earrings that looked as if they might glow in the dark. She had a spray bottle and had been cleaning her plastic plants. The room smelled faintly of cleanser.

Margaret Mary, dressed in a pink dress, surprised Cassie right away. She had cursed twice on the way to Cassie's house. One damn and two hells in a row. Cassie had spent a good part of their walk mulling this over, trying to fit the new Margaret Mary into her picture of the old. She had not managed it by the time they got to Cassie's front door.

“Oh good, your mum's got no shoes,” said Margaret Mary when she was introduced. And as Cassie frowned at her mother, Margaret Mary sat down on the rag rug and removed her shoes.

And now, in the upstairs room, padding about in her socks, Margaret Mary didn't even look like Margaret Mary anymore. She was a stranger.

“Oh yes, I am very fond of the word
hair ball
,” repeated Margaret Mary. “Remind me, won't you? I've no pencil. Two words it is. Comes between hair and hairbreadth.” Margaret Mary leaned over the dictionary, intently studying her new word.

“Your socks,” said Cassie weakly, having no idea what to say to this new Margaret Mary, “they are wonderful.” And with a sigh, Cassie took Margaret Mary down to dinner, only the smallest hope remaining that Margaret Mary would civilize Cassie's family.

But Margaret Mary proved a traitor. She loved fish, for one thing.

“We never have it,” she explained to Cassie's father. “It makes my mother break out in the bumps and honk a lot.”

“No fish?” asked James, amazed. “What do you eat then?”

“Lots of casseroles cooked in slop sauce, very regrettably,” announced Margaret Mary, thereby removing Cassie's last hope for an elegant dinner.

Margaret Mary also loved Cassie's house.

“It's lovely,” she commented in her clipped way of speaking, “the way your floors tip a bit. And your plants! Are they real?”

Cassie's mother smiled at her. “Yes, they are real. All of them.”

“I like that one best of all,” Margaret Mary said, pointing. “The one that looks like a pine tree.”

“That's rosemary,” said Gran who had been watching Cassie watch Margaret Mary. “Rosemary for remembrance. It's an herb.”

Margaret Mary nodded. “We have lots of herbs in England. I think most of them began as weeds.” She beamed at John Thomas and James, who beamed back. “Maybe that's why my mum likes plastic plants,” she added thoughtfully. “She hates weeds.”

Margaret Mary even loved the Jell-O dessert that wasn't quite Jell-O yet.

“I say,” said Margaret Mary admiringly, “one could almost suck this through a straw, couldn't one?”

Cassie sighed heavily. One could all right, she thought, devastated. And she stared at Margaret Mary, happily slurping her runny Jell-O dessert and wiggling her stockinged toes beneath the table.

Most of all, Margaret Mary loved Cassie's family and the talk of boats and fishing. And the sea.

“What's it like,” she asked James, “to be out there? Are you the only boat you can see?”

James, his face touched by the glow of the lamp, his eyes narrowed as if focused on a faraway view, told Margaret Mary.

“Sometimes alone, most times one of many. It's like a giant, or something bigger than all of us, has taken the sky and tucked it down securely all around and kept us safely bobbing within.”

Cassie, her fork caught midway between her plate and her mouth, stared at James. She'd never heard him talk this way before. Or seen his look of contentment.

“But there are storms!” she protested as everyone turned to look at her.

Her father laughed. “That there are, Cass,” he said.

“But after the storms,” said John Thomas, smiling, “coming home with the gulls and terns following us, some even daring to sit on the boat, waiting for scraps of fish, it is like . . .” John Thomas, not used to long speeches, searched for the right words.

“Peace,” said James quietly. “It is peace.”

“And,” said Cassie's father, as if adding to a chorus, “that's the way it has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. Just the men, the boats, and the sea.”

There was a long silence. It had never occurred to Cassie that they loved fishing. She had always thought they did it because they had to.

“It is somehow always the same and yet never the same,” said Cassie's father. “But always beautiful.”

“Like a kaleidoscope!” exclaimed Margaret Mary. She turned to Cassie. “Do you have one?” Then, not stopping for Cassie's answer, she went on. “When I was very little, in England, I had one. I would turn it and turn it and the pieces of glass would fall into patterns, all lovely. But I would want one pattern—one special one—to stay there forever. But the pieces of glass would fall into another shape, then another. And they were never the same.”

“But always beautiful,” said Cassie's mother softly.

“I remember,” said Cassie. “I always wanted one to stay the same for always.”

“And you still do,” said Gran.

Cassie stared at Gran. Then she broke the silence. “Fish stink sometimes, you know.”

She had not meant the harsh flatness of the statement, but everyone knew it, for they laughed.

“Everything stinks sometimes,” announced Margaret Mary. “You ought to smell my mother's casseroles.”

They laughed harder, and got up to clear away the dishes, all but Cassie in bare feet or socks.

Afterward, sitting on the porch, listening to the steady lap and swish of the waves, they sang while Cassie's mother played the flute. Rounds at first, and one that Margaret Mary made them sing over and over again.
“Dona Nobis Pacem.”

“It's splendid,” said Margaret Mary. “What does it mean?”

Cassie's mother smiled. “It means Grant us peace,” she said.

Peace. The word tumbled through Cassie's thoughts. Peace, her brothers had said. She thought about her grandfather. Peace.

“Let's sing something happy,” said Cassie, her voice sounding lost in her throat.

“No, please, once more,” said Margaret Mary. “It
is
happy. What's happier than peace?”

They sang it again, this time Margaret Mary singing, too, her voice clear and light.

“Margaret Mary, you have a wonderful voice,” said Cassie's mother.

“Yes,” said Margaret Mary, looking surprised, making them all smile, “I do, don't I?”

A cloud drifted over the moon, and Cassie's father yawned.

“I'll walk you home,” said Cassie.

“Wait. Before you go I have a gift for you.” Cassie's mother disappeared into the kitchen and came back with the pot of rosemary. “Here. A real plant for a real girl.”

Margaret Mary smiled and buried her face in the plant.

“It smells like the sea,” she said, her voice muffled.

A real plant with dirt in the pot, thought Cassie, embarrassed. Why would Margaret Mary want that when she had a jungle of plastic plants, all perfect, every day the same, at home? But Margaret Mary was delighted.

It was low tide, and Margaret Mary and Cassie walked home, barefoot, on the cool wet sand.

“Your family is splendid,” said Margaret Mary. “Splendid.”

Cassie smiled at the word. It was not the word she would choose for her family. There were other words she had written on her paper list:
wild, raucous, infuriating, maddening, eccentric
. . .

“Thanks, Cass,” said Margaret Mary at her front door. “Shall we meet at the big dune tomorrow?”

Cassie nodded and watched her walk into the house, turning off the light behind her. Cassie stood for a moment. Then, as she turned to leave, an upstairs window opened and Margaret Mary leaned out.

“You are splendid, too, Cass!” she called to Cassie. “Here.” She threw something down, something small and light colored, that fell at Cassie's feet. As the upstairs window closed again, Cassie bent down and saw what it was. It was Margaret Mary's pink lace-edged socks, rolled neatly into a ball.

Cassie smiled all the way home, although she didn't know why. The pieces didn't fit together for her. They kept shifting, first one way, then another. But one thing was certain—she had a friend. That night, before falling asleep, her head was filled with changing patterns, each different, each beautiful. Like the kaleidoscope. And before morning light touched her awake, she had gotten one of her wishes. She had slept a sleep without dreams.

C
ASSIE'S RELATIVES BURST
forth like clowns out of a circus car, tumbling and tripping over each other. Cousin Coralinda, wearing her feathered cape, carried her baby; Uncle Hat carried his suitcase, his telescope, and his bag of surplus hats. The wind was fierce, and Cassie had visions of Cousin Coralinda taking flight, her feathered cape lifting her high above their heads. The binoculars around Hat's neck kept him firmly anchored, and he opened the door to the back seat, letting out Bumble Bee and Bitsy. Bumble Bee was a large and exuberant sheep dog, and unless he was eating or going to the bathroom, it was hard to tell which end was which. Cassie put out her hand to pet him, and Bumble Bee, as always, immediately fell on his back with his legs in the air, asking for stomach rubs. Bitsy, Cousin Coralinda's cat, had a risky nature. She purred and rubbed and snarled and bit those she loved. Poor Hat bore the scars of many affectionate attacks.

Cousin Coralinda set down her baby, Baby Binnie as she was called. “As if,” Gran had once said, “anyone might forget she was a baby. Labeled, you might say.”

“Hello, hello,” burbled Cousin Coralinda, kissing her finger, then touching Cassie's cheek, as if avoiding germs.

“Blamsch,” said Baby Binnie.

“That's ‘hello,'” said Cousin Coralinda.

Cassie smiled at Baby Binnie and Baby Binnie smiled back, a rather long festoon of spit falling out her mouth and down her chin.

Margaret Mary, invited for the arrival, was in awe. Cassie noted, with amusement, that her jaw hung open a bit.

“Oooh, Margaret Mary. How lovely. . . .” Cousin Coralinda's voice trailed off, and so did Cousin Coralinda. Cousin Coralinda had a high forehead and a strong jaw and lots of white teeth. She looked, Cassie thought, like a rather nice horse. Cousin Coralinda didn't move like a horse, however. She moved, as James once described it, as if she were on wheels. “She'll appear at your elbow, out of nowhere, and ask a question,” he said. “You'll stop to answer, and then, when you look up again, she's silently rolled away.”