Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror (2 page)

‘Now you're over-reacting. A lot of kids pull legs and wings off bugs. It doesn't make them some psycho off one of your CSI shows.'

‘That wasn't what I meant ...'

Guilt silenced me. What kind of mother would fear her own child? How could I suspect my sweet little Lucy with her freckles and curls and giggles?

After that we stayed indoors after kindy. I kept Lucy close. I read her stories and she helped me prepare dinner.

‘I like peeling, peeling Mister Potato, peeling Mister Carrot,' she sang as she stood beside me.

I smiled. Lucy could make up a song to accompany any activity.

‘Be careful with the peeler, sweetie. Remember, you always have to peel it away or you might cut yourself.'

Her eyes widened. ‘It could cut me? Could it cut off your skin, too?'

‘I didn't mean to scare you, honey. But they're sharp and you have to be careful so you don't get hurt.'

Lucy nodded and held out her vegetable peeler to me. ‘Show me the curly peel again, Mummy. Show me on Mister Potato.'

I took the plastic handle and, grabbing a large spud from the sink, spiralled the blade around the top of the potato. ‘My granny showed me how to do this. She could peel a whole kumara in one long, curling piece. Do you think I can do this without breaking the peel?'

‘Uh-huh.' Lucy grinned.

‘Ta-dah!' I dangled the long coil of potato skin in front of her, and she clapped and giggled, but then shrieked when I deposited it into the compost container.

‘Mummy, no! Don't throw it away.'

‘It's just potato peel, Lucy. Don't be silly.'

‘I want it,' she growled.

The determination in her eyes worried me more than the strange request. ‘It's going in the compost. It's good for the garden,' I explained.

I didn't mention the potato peel to Bill. It would sound even crazier than the business with the butterfly wings.

After dinner, Lucy seemed more like her usual sweet self. She sang her ‘I Like Bubbles' song at bath time. She was angelic for hair-washing, scrunching her eyes shut and holding her breath like she was diving under the waves as I rinsed out her hair.

‘I like your skin.' She grabbed my forearm as I wiped the water from her brow, her little fingers poking and feeling along my damp wrist. ‘It feels nice.'

‘Oh. Thanks.' I pulled my arm back.

‘Mummy, why don't people have wings?'

‘We're not born with them, sweetie.'

‘Neither are caterpillars.'

‘No, but they grow them when they become butterflies. People don't become butterflies.'

‘No, silly,' Lucy giggled. ‘They die, die, die, and then they become angels. With wings.'

She reached her dripping hands behind me in an awkward hug and squeezed the skin of my back. Where my wings would be.

‘Lucy, stop it. That's not funny.' I stood up, my voice stern to mask my fear, but she kept laughing. ‘Bill,' I called down the hall. ‘Can you come down here?'

Lucy was still giggling when Bill reached the bathroom. I gave him the look but he just grinned at Lucy.

‘What's all this noise about? Is it you, little Miss Giggles, huh?' He knelt down by the bath and splashed the water at Lucy who squealed in delight.

‘Don't, Bill.'

‘Don't what? Splash the giggle monster into submission?' he joked. ‘Go have a sit down. Relax. I'll take care of this.'

I watched him playing with our cute little girl, flapping and laughing in delight. Was my imagination running wild? How could I let the words of a four-year-old girl, my daughter, get under my skin?

‘OK, don't get her over-excited,' I muttered. ‘It's nearly bedtime.'

A glass of red and half an hour of TV blotted out most of my worries. By the time I kissed Lucy goodnight, she was just my lovely daughter again. I resolved to get a good night's sleep and headed to bed. My exhaustion was obvious as soon as I slid between the sheets. I could barely keep my eyes open and I fell asleep within minutes of turning the lights off.

I woke in the night with a terrible sense of danger. Unsure whether I'd had a nightmare or woken up to one, I blinked in the dark, my own breathing drowned out by Bill's heavy snores. A glint of something silver flashed a few inches from my eyes and a familiar shape stood by the bed.

‘I want to peel off your skin,' she whispered, her small hand pressed against my left cheek, the cold steel of the peeler on the other. ‘You'll be a beautiful angel.'

Grant Stone

W
hen she saw him walking up the path, chainsaw in one hand, jerry can full of two-stroke mix in the other, Maria ran to Susan and buried her face in her shirt. ‘Don't let him do it Mummy! Make him stop!'

Susan smoothed Maria's hair and spoke softly. ‘It's okay, Peanut. We talked about this, remember?'

Maria was sobbing. ‘He can't do it! He can't!'

Maria ran into the house as soon as Paul stepped onto the front porch. He could still hear her crying as she ran up the hall.

Susan looked at the chainsaw. ‘Put that in the garage.'

*

A
s far as Maria was concerned, there was no greater meal in the world than dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, pasta and a carrot on the side. But tonight she wasn't eating. She nudged a stegosaurus around with her fork. ‘Why?'

‘Peanut, you know we love you,' Susan said. ‘You know that, right?'

Maria nodded.

‘Well, because we love you, Daddy and I want to buy a big house for you to live in. Don't you want a great big bedroom? Don't you want a pool?'

‘Yes.' Maria's voice was no more than a whisper. ‘But you can't chop down the tree.'

‘Peanut, I know you love it, but it's only a tree. When we move into our new house there'll be lots of trees.'

‘It's Bobby's tree. If you cut it down he won't have anywhere to live.'

‘Bobby can come and live with us in the new house.'

‘No. He
can't
.' Maria moved so quickly the back of her chair didn't hit the floor until she was halfway up the hall.

Susan stood, but Paul grabbed her hand. ‘Wait. The book says not to give in to tantrums.'

Susan sat back down again. Maria's door slammed shut.

‘Who's Bobby?'

‘Her imaginary friend. Soon as she comes home from kindy she runs straight out to the tree. Even yesterday, in the rain. I took a coat out to her, but she was already soaked. Ran her a warm bath when she finally came in.'

‘She does this a lot?'

‘Every day for the past three weeks.'

Paul shook his head. ‘I should have known that.'

Well, if you'd come home on time once in a while
. Paul looked at his plate. He wasn't hungry either.

Maria screamed again. Susan put down her knife and fork and stood up.

‘Honey,' Paul said. ‘The book—'

Susan was already halfway across the room. ‘Fuck the book!'

*

‘W
hat's his name again?'

‘Bobby.' Susan leaned in the doorway, a cup of coffee in her hands.

Paul considered the tree. It was a big pine, maybe twenty years old. Pine wasn't protected. He didn't have to worry about a neighbour dobbing him in to the council like he'd get with a pōhutukawa. Sticky sap, needles all over the grass. Nobody gave a shit about pine trees in the suburbs.

He tried to imagine what the section would look like, when they were all done. The original house would stay where it was. He'd bowl the fence on the other side, run a thin driveway all the way to the back. Neither of the houses would have much garden but people didn't care about that any more. The tree was right where the living room would be. Or was it the tiny bathroom they'd sneaked in on the ground floor? Whatever. Build another house, sell both, buy a third. The Auckland guide to climbing the property ladder. They'd been lucky enough to buy one of the last houses in the street with a decent-sized section. The back lawn was so valuable it might as well have gold buried under it.

Maria peered around the back door.

‘Hey baby,' Paul said. ‘Come and sit on the grass with me.'

Maria shook her head and hugged her Care Bear.

‘I was just talking to Bobby.'

Maria looked up. ‘You were?'

‘Yes. We've been talking about the tree. I told Bobby that if he let us cut it down he can come and live with us in the house. And when we move to the new house, he can come too. Would you like that?'

Maria stared for a long time. Paul kept up the smile until his cheeks hurt.
You're a bad man, lying to your own daughter. Even by your standards, this is shit
. But it wasn't any worse than telling her about Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny, was it?

‘So, I'll go get everything ready.'

Maria didn't move. A tear rolled down her cheek.

‘Come on, Peanut,' Susan said. ‘Let's go back into the house. It's going to get pretty noisy.'

Paul put on the safety goggles and the earmuffs and the ridiculous arm and leg protection the man at the hire shop had insisted on. The chainsaw started on the first pull. Even with the earmuffs, it was incredibly loud. He revved the chainsaw a couple of times and walked towards the tree.

Something hit him low in the back. Paul stumbled forward. The chainsaw hit the side of the tree and glanced away, barely missing his foot. He slipped on the wet grass and fell to his knees before the tree.

Something hit him again, high on his back this time, strong enough to knock him over.

‘Maria!' Susan ran from the back step, but she too slipped on the grass.

‘Liar!' Paul rolled onto his back. Maria aimed another kick. ‘Liar!'

Susan climbed to her feet and wrapped her arms around her daughter. Maria kicked out backwards, catching Susan on the shin. ‘Liar!'

Maria's heels dug twin gouges from the lawn as Susan dragged her away.

‘Sorry,' Susan called. ‘She got away. I'll lock the door.'

Paul didn't get up from the grass until he heard the click of the lock. Even when he put his earmuffs back on he could still hear his daughter's screams.

*

T
he original plan was to cut the wood up as he went and create a tidy pile. Paul still knew a few people with burners who would pay for a winter's worth of firewood. But either the chain was blunt or the tree was tougher than it looked. He found himself pushing the blade down, which the man in the hire shop had specifically told him not to do. The branches didn't cut clean; they broke away in ragged chunks with dangerous edges that would have sliced him if he hadn't been wearing the gloves.

And all the time Maria looking at him through the window like a ghost.

Four hours later he stood, trembling. The shattered remnants of the tree covered the whole back yard.

He went to the shed for the shovel, slipping on pine needles as he went. He'd cut the trunk as low as he could. Now he had to dig out the roots.

The spade cut through the soil with a satisfying thunk. There'd been rain nearly every day the past couple of weeks. Hopefully, the soil had softened a little. Perhaps this wasn't going to be as hard as he'd thought.

He heard the click of the lock on the back door.

‘Come in and have something to eat,' Susan said. ‘It's been hours.'

‘Not yet,' Paul panted. ‘Nearly done here.' His arms and back complained with every spade of dirt. He'd be sore for days but if he stopped now he'd never get started again. Nothing to do but tough it out.

He glanced back at the house. Maria was out now too, sitting on the steps. Her cheeks were wet. Had she been crying all this time?

Something broke under the shovel with a crunch. Maria screamed at the same moment, a long, high howl.

Paul peered into the hole. There was something white shining there in the dirt. He reached for it. An old teapot, perhaps, or ...

He scrambled back, heels slipping, until his boots lost purchase altogether. As he fell he felt a branch leave a long scratch on his side, but it was a faraway feeling, as if it were happening to someone else.

Paul lay on the ground, looking at what he'd pulled up, what had been beneath the tree for so long. It grinned at him. It was a small thing, white against the sodden earth. The child couldn't have been more than five or six. The skull sat at an angle, its top shorn off by the spade. There were no other sounds in the world but his ragged breathing and the rushing of his own blood in his ears.

That, and the sound of Maria, curled up on the back step, howling like a dog.

Paul Mannering

M
omma slept a lot in the nights before the baby came, leaving Essie to pace the dark and empty house alone, Daddy out doing his job.

Essie would be asleep when he came home before dawn. She always woke up enough to feel his hairy face press against her cheek to give her a kiss, his hot breath wafting into her blanket nest, making her feel warm and safe.

‘I love you, Daddy,' Essie would mumble as Daddy tucked her deeper into her warm bed. Then Essie would sleep until it was time to get up and have breakfast.

When Momma emerged, she looked tired and grumpy. Daddy got her settled in the comfy chair and made a fuss, fetching a warm drink and something to eat. Essie had to sit at the table alone, Daddy's breakfast forgotten on his plate. Those precious few minutes of
just them
time, and of feeling truly loved, were over. Essie's breakfast curdled in her stomach.

Daddy rested his big hands on Momma's swollen stomach while Essie regarded the bulge with suspicion from the shadow of the kitchen door. Daddy spoke softly to Momma and they smiled at each other. Essie didn't feel jealous of the way her parents loved each other. She knew, deep inside, that their love was different and somehow sacred in a mysterious way.