Full Cicada Moon (7 page)

My science project is finished,

a demonstration of the eight phases of the moon.

It is a Styrofoam ball

hanging from the lid of a shoebox.

I punched eight holes around the box,

one for each phase.

When I aim a flashlight at the ball,

it's like the sun shining on the moon.

You can look through the holes and see

the phases of light and dark:

New Moon

Waxing Crescent

First Quarter

Waxing Gibbous

Full Moon

Waning Gibbous

Last Quarter

Waning Crescent

and back to New

“This explains the phases very well,” Papa says,

peering through a hole.

But Mama has noticed my waning crescent mood,

and asks, “What's wrong?”

“It's small and boring and flimsy.

I could have made this in fourth grade,” I say,

and thump the Thom McAn shoebox

until the moon sways.

I will never win first prize with this moon box.

“What are you going to do about that?” Papa asks.

I snap off the flashlight, and the kitchen goes milky dim

from the Full Sprouting Grass Moon outside.

I know what he wants from me,

and so do I:

“Make a better one,” I say,

then sigh. “I just don't know how.”

If I had a power drill

and a power saw

and a power screwdriver

and a vise for holding glued boards together while they dry,

my moon project would be stellar.

But all we have are a rusty saw

and a screwdriver with a yellow handle

and a drill you crank by hand.

But every time I use those tools

to make a bigger, better, stronger moon box,

the wood splinters,

the corners bend,

my arms get tired from turning the crank,

and I think about switching my project

to lichens.

We have ten new babies—

ten turkey poults—

that Mama wants to raise

and “give away,” as she says,

for Thanksgiving.

It's her way of saying

ten families will eat them for dinner.

But they are too cute to be eaten.

The poults will need to stay in the house,

where it's warm, until spring

because the coop out back

doesn't have the right heater.

So Mama set up the extra bedroom as an incubator

for the babies

and a cardboard gate to keep them in.

They clump at the gate

and peep whenever we talk or come down the hall

because I have spoiled them by sitting in the room with them.

They climb all over me, looking for food and cuddles.

“Don't name them,” Mama says,

because then I won't let her give them away in the fall.

But it's too late—

Rufus has short wings,

Bobo's claws are stubby,

and Shirley has a brown streak across her beak.

I wonder how I could bring them to my room

and let them sleep on my bed.

Everyone in study hall is quiet, except for David Hurley,

who's telling Ann at the next table about his science project,

a water mill that has a motor.

“I'm making it in wood shop. Mr. Sperangio lets me

go in after school.”

“Quiet, now,” says Miss Borden, the librarian.

David and Ann glance at each other,

then back at their books.

I'm staring at my math book,

but trying to solve a different problem—

How to ask Mr. Sperangio in wood shop

about using the tools.

“That's not possible,” he tells me

in his classroom after school.

“Shop is for boys.”

“But I'm not talking about taking shop.

I just want to use the tools.”

“These tools are dangerous.”

“I'll be careful. I'm always careful.”

“You haven't had any training.”

“I can learn . . . really fast.”

Mr. Sperangio lifts his hands,

and shakes them, like I'm a fly.

“Look, Miss Oliver, I'm sorry,

but girls can't come in here.”

“So, the answer is no?”

“Yes,

the answer is no.

You'll have to find another way

to solve your problem.”

Disappointment

ripples through me,

but I won't let it defeat me.

I'll find another way.

As I walk to the door,

David Hurley comes in

and slips on a pair of goggles.

Mama has been invited to a tea

for the wives of professors at Hillsborough College.

When the invitation came in the mail last week,

she opened it and read it

like Mifune

and set it next to the napkin holder.

Today, Papa asks, “What are you going to tell them?”

“What is this tea all about?” she asks, looking at the envelope

like it has poison ivy in it.

“Well, I've never been to one,

but I think you drink tea and talk with the other wives.”

“Oh. I don't need to do that, James.”

“I think it would be good for you.

You would meet new people and

make some friends.”

“I don't need friends—

I have you and Mimi

and the turkeys.”

Papa says nothing. Mama says nothing

for a minute, and then,

Papa says, “If you knew

there would be someone at the tea you could talk to,

would you go?”

Mama sighs. “If it's that important to you, okay.

I will go to the tea.”

Then Papa sits back in his chair and smiles.

“Thank you, Emi,” he says.

It is that important to him.

And now I wonder who that someone will be.

Our yard is now a brown lake,

with patches of snow like stepping-stones.

The ground smells sour, like it threw back its covers

after napping for a hundred years.

Over there, in Mr. Dell's yard,

is that boy again,

the one I threw snowballs with over February vacation,

the boy Mr. Dell told me didn't exist.

He tosses a Frisbee across the backyard,

and Pattress chases it, jumping and barking.

She catches it, runs in a wide circle,

drops it on the ground in front of the boy.

Then she backs off, barks again.

He tosses it,

then sees me standing here

by the turkey coop. I wait

for him to wave, speak, or walk away

like he did before.

I won't go first—

respecting his ways

and protecting my feelings.

I spread grain in the feeders.

I refill the waterers.

I check the inside temperature.

“Hi,” I hear behind me,

and turn around.

He's standing

on his side of the fence.

Pattress is sitting, but

her tail sneaks a wag.

“Hello,” I say, and wait.

“Are those chickens?” he asks.

“Turkeys.”

“Oh.” He stretches his neck for a better look.

“Wanna see them?” I ask.

The boy glances over his shoulder at Mr. Dell's house,

then steps over the fence,

mud squishing around his boots.

Pattress jumps the fence and scampers ahead.

She nudges my hand with her nose

and I nuzzle it,

so cold and soft.

It's the first time I've touched her,

and she makes me want a dog of my own

just like her.

“How did she get her name?” I ask.

“Well, my uncle named her Patches,

but I pronounced it ‘Pattress'

when I was little.”

“I'm Mimi,” I say to the boy.

“I know,” he says. “I'm Timothy.

He's my uncle—my great-uncle,”

and I know
he
is Mr. Dell.

“I was about to clean the coop. Want to help?”

“Yeah,” he says, and tells Pattress to stay.

Inside, the coop smells like hay and sawdust

and turkey poop.

The turkeys think we have more food

and mob us, gobbling.

We shuffle through them,

and they stream around us, gobbling.

I give Timothy a shovel. “I don't think your uncle likes me.”

Timothy scoops some spread and dumps it in the bucket.

“I don't think he likes anybody

but Pattress.”

We both shovel more, and I have more questions,

starting with “Why?”

Timothy shrugs. “He likes to be by himself.”

“But you're here.”

“My brother, Wesley, brings me here on school vacations

to keep Uncle Raymond company.

My mom gets worried about him

all alone.”

As we clean the coop,

I find out more about Timothy's uncle:

His wife died eight years ago,

he flew missions in World War II.

Now, when the weather is good, he goes flying

by himself. Or driving when it's bad.

And he has a telescope.

“It's huge,” Timothy says. “You can see planets and stars.”

When he says that, I drop my armful of hay.

“And the moon?”

Timothy nods.

“Can I see it?”

But now he shakes his head.

“Please?”

“He won't even let
me
touch it.”

“I'll just look through it. Please-oh-please?”

Timothy shoves his hands in his pockets, then

says, “Maybe . . . when he goes out.

But no promises.”

Just the thought is good enough

for now.

The back door of his uncle's house opens,

and Wesley sticks his head out and looks around.

Timothy doesn't call him. He just says, “I gotta go now.”

“You're not supposed to come here, right?”

He looks down and shakes his head no. “But I don't care.”

After Timothy leaves, I realize he didn't ask me

all the usual questions.

Maybe he doesn't care about them.

And that makes me smile.

While Mama is at the wives' tea,

Papa and I are baking bread.

He uncovers the dough that's been rising in the ceramic bowl

his dad—my grandpa—made long ago.

“And this bread is from your grandma's starter,” Papa says.

It has lasted all these years,

longer than I am old.

“Tell me her stories,” I say,

even though I've heard them all before.

As Papa spreads flour on the counter and kneads the dough,

he tells me how she walked to the fields every morning in summer

to work the crops,

and ate lunch from a tin pail,

and visited with neighbors on their front porches when the day was done.

At school she shared a desk and a pencil

and wrote double between the lines to save paper.

He tells me how it feels to hold your breath

in an outhouse,

and I wonder if these are her stories

or his.

I hold my breath and pretend I'm there,

forgetting for a moment I'm in this warm kitchen

making bread with my dad.

Papa pinches off a handful of dough

and replaces it tightly in the jar.

This is our history, and I won't forget it.

Then he writes my name in the flour:

Mimi
for the cicada's song;

Yoshiko
for my
obaasan
;

Oliver
for Papa.

“You have your mama's eyes,” he says,

“and you have my stories.”

Timothy raps on the back door.

His cheeks are flushed in patches,

and his brown eyes sparkle.

“If you want to see the telescope,

you gotta come right now.”

I pull him inside so he won't freeze

while I put on my shoes and jacket.

The kitchen smells like warm bread,

and he sniffs. “Mmm,” he says,

and I tell him, “My dad's baking today.”

“Your dad? That's cool.

All set?”

We run to Mr. Dell's garage, careful

not to slip in the muddy patches in our yards.

Timothy slides the heavy door shut behind us.

He leads me to the back of the garage,

past all Mr. Dell's machines,

where the windows are as tall as the ceiling

and curved at the top.

Planted near the windows is the telescope

pointed toward the sky,

like a kid gazing at the stars

in wonder.

Timothy bends over and looks in the eyepiece,

turns a knob, turns it some more,

then waves me to him.

“Can I?” I ask, the words shaking in my throat.

“You can look through it,” he says,

“but
do not touch it
.”

I clasp my hands behind me,

just to show him
I will not touch it
,

and bend over the eyepiece

and look

at nothing

but blue sky.

“Be patient,” Timothy says.

So I look again and wait,

for something to come into view.

And it does—

at first I see an edge so bright I have to blink,

and curved like the peel of an onion—

the moon, so close.

It's peering back at me

as it slides across the circle of lens,

a waxing crescent

dark,

silent,

enormous.

I see its pockmarks—

its craters and seas—

though it tries hard to hide them

in our shadow.

“I will touch you,” I whisper,

but Timothy says, “I said no touching.”

His words pull me back

to Earth.