Kathryn Magendie (2 page)

I slipped off my shoes and socks and pressed my feet into cool earth, dreaming once short and vivid that Sweetie appeared and whispered into my ear,
It’s about time you got yourself back here, Miss Lissa
. I hurried to replace socks and shoes, stood, listened for whispers, then continued my journey. Sweetie had said she’d wait for me. She’d said she’d hide until everyone forgot her, hide until she was safe. I’d come back to find something in these mountains, but could it ever be Sweetie?

Around a bend stood Triplet Tree, a yellow buckeye Sweetie and I used to sit near and whisper secrets. Its gnarled trunks looked like three great trees all grown together. There were many stories of the beautiful mahogany buckeye seeds—carrying one in a pocket for good luck or to help with arthritis; rubbing the flat part of the buckeye and wishing for money, but only if one’s thoughts were just right; or if the fish weren’t biting, rub the buckeye and spit on the bait.

It was a mysterious tree, full of old gashes, thick vines, moss, and rough bark, and it was the place where Sweetie and I became bound together. As our palms fused, before the tearing away, we sat in its shade while she told me the secret of who she was.

The wind blew whispers.
Yes.
Here. She was here. Stop here and dig.

 
I quickly took my stick and dug around the tree’s roots. Anything could have happened to it after all this time, but I knew it was there. Knew it deep in my bones. After digging in an arc around the tree, the stick hit against something hard but more giving than rock. I fell to my hands and knees, dug into the rich
North Carolina
soil. The smell of things long buried: leaves, twigs, secrets? And, there, wedged under the root. The tin box.

 
I lifted it from the dirt, cradled it in my hands. It was rusted and dented, but still mostly intact. With trembling fingers, I pulled at the lid, the latch long broken off. It wouldn’t give at first, the years kept it closed, or perhaps the wish of two young girls that it never be opened to release girl secrets. When I at last snapped back the lid, inside there was only dirt. No, not only dirt. A breeze pushed against my face, moved my hair back.
Whispers. Whispers
. The spirits of our secrets blew against me, out into the open air, a whirring whoosh, whirring whoosh, into my ears.

I caught my breath, called, “Sweetie!”

Mountain Spirit, take our pain and blow it out in the wind.

I doubled over, cradling the tin box, pushing it into my stomach to stop the sobs that wanted to erupt from there up to my throat and then to my eyes, and at last, when I had control, I closed the box and reburied it. But it was too late, our voices were already exposed.
 
Gathering speed and strength.

I hurried up the trail, away from Triplet Tree, calling to her as I had many times that summer when she ran too far ahead of me. “Sweetie! Sweetie! Where are you? I can’t find you!”

As I ran, ducking branches that reached across the trail for me, jumping over growth and scattered rock that stood in my way, I saw the two of us so clearly—Sweetie and Miss Lissa.

There, her shining blonde hair as she disappeared behind the trees. There, her burning eyes as she peeked at me from a tree branch. I was twelve again, running after her, my chunky legs pumping as hard as they’d go. I ran, and I’d never felt so alive, so strong and able, so much a part of something bigger than I—something exciting and wild and mysterious. Sweetie had always let me catch up to her, and gave to me to hold all her known secrets. She trusted me with the part of herself she’d hidden from the world, and in her way, presented back to me the gift to see what I had hidden inside myself.

And in the end, I’d let her down. I’d pretended to forget, in such a long sleep . . .

TWO

Then

Sweetie was on the jungle gym during recess and I knew something weird was going to happen. It always did with Sweetie because she liked to take chances, and whatever would hurt another kid only made her laugh and do something even more foolish. I stood off to the side and watched her swing from one bar to the next, slinging around like a crazy blonde monkey. I had a feeling twist in my stomach, one Mother called
intuition
but I just called
paying attention
.

Although lately, ever since we’d moved to Haywood County in the Western North Carolina Smoky Mountains, that
paying attention
feeling had become something else, something I couldn’t explain. It wasn’t just the big old mountains rising up all around the county or the way people talked different and acted different from other places I’d lived, but something else, something in the air that followed me into my dreams. Mostly, never had I thought to know someone like Sweetie. Never had I known someone to be so much more different and strange.

That day, Sweetie wore a cotton shirt and cut-off dungarees under her dress, but the Circle Girls still snickered behind their hands when her dress flew up as she tumbled around on the bars. Sweetie called them Circle Girls because they liked to circle around, shove some poor soul in the middle, and poke them with their mean words. She didn’t have to tell me about it.

My second day in sixth grade, they’d hooked hands and walked around me, singing, “Fattie Fattie, two by four, can’t get through the outhouse door. Four Eyes, Four Eyes, blind fat fool, has no trouble finding food.” I was branded right then and there with the Circle Girl’s hot cattle iron, right on my big fat thigh. I’d seen it on the cowboy shows. The marks stayed burned into the cow’s hide for the rest of their lives, and that’s how they were spotted in a crowd of other cows if they strayed to where they didn’t belong.

Sweetie swung up her legs, hooked them across a bar, and then hung upside down. I held my breath as she arched over with a backwards flip and tried to catch another bar. That’s where the something I figured was coming came.

The Circle Girls huffed out their air, and the boys yelled out, “Oh man! You see that? She got her finger caught.”

Sweetie held onto a bar with her right hand while she worked at loosening her stuck left pinky finger from the rusted-out corner. We’d been warned about playing too rough and rowdy on the old playground equipment, but most of the kids didn’t listen. (I did. I always listened.) Frannie, another of the Circle victims, said her little brother broke his arm falling off the jungle gym last year, and his arm hadn’t ever healed right. Frannie always had a story about tragedy. Her cat was run over by a tractor and cut into fifty-million pieces; her dog ate a buckeye seed and vomited all over her new shoes and she never got the smell out; her father left them for a whole year and her mother went insane and cut off his head in all of their photos; how the boy who’d slipped off the ridge and never been found was her fault because they’d kissed once in second grade and he’d then been cursed to die tragical and die tragical he did. Stuff like that all the time going on with Frannie. I tried to be her best friend, but she said anybody who became her best friend met with tragical circumstances.

Sweetie’s face hardened in her concentration to remove her pinky from the sharp edges of the rusted jungle gym bar. I watched; we all watched.

When he had time, Mr. Mendel the Janitor patched up the swings, jungle gym bars, slide, rocking horses, tether ball, and merry-go-round. He repainted flaky paint, sanded wood that made splinters catch in people’s behinds, replaced bent chains, put on new ropes. He taped up the rusted-out places when he couldn’t fix them, but the boys picked off the tape because boys just have to pick at things. Since Mr. Mendel the Janitor was out with the gout since last week, the rusted corner was open and ready, and the perfect size for a certain sized pinky finger to become jammed and stuck. And Sweetie had that certain sized pinky finger.

Frannie stood beside me and we both looked up at Sweetie while she grunted and wiggled her stuck finger back and forth. A few drops of blood dripped onto the dirt below. When I saw the blood, I knew I should help her. She was my brand new friend, and since friends didn’t come easy, it was best to try to do nice thing to keep them.

When I stepped forward, Frannie told me, “Best not.”

“B-b-but . . . she’s hurt.”

She made a ‘tsk’ noise, said, “I warned you about her, but you won’t listen. Something tragical will come of you being her friend.”

“That’s silly.”

Frannie shook her frizzed-haired head, then shrugged, as if to say,
Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you
.

Before I could reach her, Sweetie let go and dropped to the ground. I heard a wet, ripping sound, heard it in my head, even if it didn’t really make a sound like that at all. She landed on her backside in the dirt with an
oomph
and then a laugh. The kids shoved each other as they crowded around for a better look. There was the usual, “Eeeww,” from most of the girls, and “Let me see it,” from most of the boys.

I pushed my way in, dropped to my knees beside her, and stared at her hand. The tip of her pinky was raw-meat bloody, mixed with dirt. I wanted to vomit up my lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, banana, milk, and cookie, but I knew if I did, the next thing they’d tease would be,
Fattie Fattie big as a comet, opened her mouth and spewed out some vomit
.

“Sweetie, you really hurt your f-f-f-finger. It looks b-b-bad.”

From behind me, Frannie said, “Too tragical for words.”

Sweetie studied her finger as if it were a bug under a magnifying glass. It was crowded and dusty under the jungle gym and some of the kids smelled like sour milk and bologna. All I wanted to do was go back inside to the library and read a book. I used to spend all my time reading books, or watching television. It was safe. Nobody ever was hurt or teased or looked stupid while reading books or watching television. I looked up to the rusted-out part of the bar, and there was the bit of her pinky still caught like a small white worm.

Sweetie looked where I had, said, “
Huhn
.”

“We better g-g-get Mrs. P-Patterson.” I had to push up on my hands and knees so I could stand up. Some of the kids snickered, and even though I tried to pretend everything was fine, I knew my face was red and sweaty.

Sweetie jumped right to her feet, pulled me up with her good hand, and whispered, “Breathe Miss-Lissa.
Breeeaaaathe
.”

I brushed off my knees, breathed in, out, in, out.

Sweetie stared at the crowd of kids with her hard face. “Move,” was all she said.

The kids moved back, except T. J., who stepped in front of us. He had a bad crew cut to go with his bad breath, and that’s what must have caused his bad moods. He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. “Boy, are you in trouble, Sweetie
-Pie
.”

The rest of the kids laughed, even though I didn’t see what was so funny about that.

I looked at Frannie; she looked away. I knew it was the end of her being nice to me. That left me with one friend: Sweetie.

She stepped closer to T. J. and rose up to her full height. I crouched down behind her. She said, “Get out my way. I am not playing.”

T. J. didn’t want to back down from a girl, but Sweetie was as tall as he was, and she was tough. Besides, he’d already been in trouble for fighting at school. Mrs. Patterson had to call his father, who right in front of the class slapped T. J. across the face hard enough to knock his head back. He told his son, “I could get fired for having to come fetch you out of school, boy.” The next day, T. J. came to school with a split lip and had to apologize to the class. T.J. said, “I don’t got time to mess with you today,” moved out of the way and let us pass.

Across the playground, away from the other kids, I said, “I’ll help you fix your f-f-finger, Sweetie.”

“Take them good breaths when your tongue gets tied. You can do it.” Sweetie grinned at me, but her grin turned to a frown when she saw Beatrice and Deidra had come across the playground, staring at us with their lips curled.

Beatrice and Deidra were the head Circle Girls. They picked the girls to be The Circle, and the ones to be inside of it. It was never good to have their attention until you knew which one.

Deidra said, “She’s weirdo schmeirdo crazy.” She tossed her curls. “
Normal
people don’t laugh if their fingers get ripped open.”

Sweetie looked down at her finger, wiggled it. A bead of blood dripped onto the grass, sliding down a blade and into the ground. I imagined things growing from the blood fertilizer, like another pinky. “Let’s g-go, Sweetie.”

She stayed right where she was, let her finger drip.

Beatrice said, “Mamaw says she’s a witch’s daughter so that makes her a witch, too.”

Deidra rolled her eyes. “You believe that stupid stuff your granny spouts off?”

“No! I was just telling you what my mamaw said about Sweetie and her mom.”

“Well, my mom says they’re out of their minds,” Deidra said, while flipping her hair.

Sweetie’s eyes went bright and hard, then a corner of her mouth lifted, just enough that I noticed even if no one else did. She scrunched her face, and let out a whimpering, “Oh,
owie
. My finger
hurrrts
something fierce!” She hopped around, holding on to her finger, her face a fist of pain.

I stared at her with my mouth hung open. One minute Sweetie was walking tall and proud without a care about her finger, and the next acted as if it hurt like the dickens.

Deidra and Beatrice backed up a step.

“Oh, poor little finger. It hurts,
hurts
.”

I dug into my satchel to find my first aid kit. Mother made me carry bandages, cotton, baby aspirin, and Mercurochrome, everywhere I went. While I sorted through the Snickers, spiral notebook, math homework, apple, chewing gum, library book, pencils with points and pencils without points, blue ballpoint pen, half a peanut butter sandwich, and wadded up tissue, the Circle Girls walked away, a hurting normal kind of Sweetie wasn’t as curious to watch.

I found the kit, opened the pouch, and took out the cotton and the Mercurochrome. I said to Sweetie, “It’s okay, don’t cry. I’ll fix you right up.”

“Okay. Here.” She stuck out her finger, calm as a sleepy kitten.

I unscrewed the cap and poured Mercurochrome onto the cotton. “This’ll really sting, so I’m sorry.” I dabbed a bit of the Mercurochrome on her finger to stop the germs. Some germs were bad; some weren’t. Father showed me pictures of germs and parasites in his science books. He said germs and parasites were just like people, like friends and families, or like enemies; how they infiltrated and parasited each other, and that even though we were all made of the same stuff, we fought against each other for food and dominant space in the world. I listened to him and only understand half of what he said, but I saw in those books what bad germs could do to a body.

She said, “Give it,” and grabbed the bottle. Without using the cotton ball, she poured Mercurochrome all over her finger without even a flinch. Handing me back the bottle, she said, “That orter do it.” The orangey-red stained her finger, her arm, the ground, and part of my left saddle oxford.

I capped the bottle, put the Mercurochrome back into the kit, opened a Band Aid, and wrapped it around her finger while Sweetie sang, “Went to see my gal last night, thought I'd do it sneakin’; missed her mouth and hit her nose and the doggone thing was leakin’ . . . ”

The Band Aid didn’t stick well with the Mercurochrome and blood making her finger so wet, so I tried another one.

“. . . possum in a simmon tree; raccoon on the ground; raccoon said, you son of a gun; shake some simmons down . . . ”

When Mrs. Patterson ran over to us, her dress flapping against her legs, Sweetie changed again. She made an unhappy face and held up her finger, calling out to the teacher in a pitiful voice, “Sure
hurrrts
, Mrs. Patterson.”