Flavors (7 page)

Lazy-bones.
I couldn't understand why Nellie Jane called me that when nobody would
let
me work. I couldn't understand either why it annoyed her so for me to play and have fun.

I put my pallet away and moved to the lumpy, threadbare sofa, hoping I wouldn't look as lazy there. I scrunched up into a corner, curling my bare feet up under me and tucking the tail of my floppy night shirt around them. I thought about Mama and Daddy again. They couldn't come to see Little Joe and me until Saturday

Farmer Gray said it was Thursday. That meant it was two whole days before Mama and Daddy would come. I felt sad. I wanted to cry.

“Move over!” Nellie Jane muttered at breakfast, nudging me away from her, toward the end of the long wooden bench behind the dining table. She didn't like for me to touch her. That made it kinda hard since there were
six
of us sitting elbow to elbow. Steaming bowls of grits, eggs, milk gravy and crisp bacon were passed around and I filled my plate.

The boys sat on the long bench facing us. Grandma sat regally at one end of the table, Grandpa patiently at the other. Grandma prayed a short solemn blessing. Her “amen” was like a boxing ring bell.
It's time,
I thought, for the boys' show to begin. It was always the same. I watched, wide-eyed, astonished still as the bread-heaped platter zipped through those boys' hands so fast and the biscuits vanished so swiftly it was like magic. I
sneaked a look at my grandparents. They never seemed to notice the guys' bad manners. Mama always frowned at me when I did things like that.

I listlessly ate my food as homesickness lingered, tugging and pulling at my chest. That's when I noticed Doodle-Bug watching me with this nasty little look on his face.

Uh-oh.
My appetite vanished. I twisted around, scooted off the bench and disappeared outside. Warm golden sunlight kissed my skin as honeysuckle fragrance tickled my nose and I forgot Doodle. Dew drops covered grass and leaves, glistening, and the air smelled good, like after it rained. A faint watermelon flavor hovered. Carefully favoring my sore toe, I climbed the knoll, jumped a narrow gully and wandered down a slope toward the forest. Still tender from wearing shoes all winter, my bare feet avoided rocks and searched for sandy places to step.

I spotted the entrance to my castle, a large clearing over which huge oaks, pines, and elms formed an umbrella that protected me from all but the worst rainstorms. And yet, this wonderful roof allowed sunlight to filter through, making it a bright and enchanted place.

“Hello!” I called to my subjects upon entering my domain. They all bowed and called me
“Your Highness”
They laughed at the clever, funny things I said. Then I began to nicely give orders to my servants. There in my palace, my big bed had snowy white sheets and soft, downy pillows and pink satin covers that smelled like the lavender Mama used in her underwear drawer at home.

Flat stones became juicy steaks or a pie or a hamburger, or maybe, when I was really hungry, I topped it with another stone – and presto – a chocolate cake like Mama's appeared.

Everybody at my long table was polite, saying, “Please pass the rolls” and “Thank you.” A big yellow butterfly floated around my head. I imagined she was a fairy. I closed my eyes
tight and wished. “Oh yellow Fairy – give me a beautiful crown for my head.” I spoke real proper, like in the movies. “This one is getting so worn and it's not at all shiny anymore.”

My eyes popped open at the sound. Was that a twig breaking?

I whirled around to see what was making the noise.

Oh no!
There, in
my
castle, in
my
kingdom, stood
Doodle-Bug.

Doodle snickered like a horse, then commenced mimicking me.

“Ohhh, Fairee. Give me a bee-ooo-tiful crown for my head. This old one is so ug-gly.” He scowled at me. “Course it's ugly.” He sneered. “Just like you.”

“You shut up, Doodle-Bug!” I shouted at him and leaped to my feet. “I'm not
ugly.”

“Are, too.” He took a step forward.

“
You're
the one's ugly,” I screamed, shaking with indignation.

He walked right up to me and stuck his dirty fist in my face. “Says who? I dare you to say it again.”

I opened my mouth to repeat it, but just then, my gaze focused on his fist at the end of my nose. It wasn't so much that it smelled like wet chicken feathers – it was that up close, it looked like one of Grandpa's curing hams hanging in the barn. I clamped my mouth shut.

“Go ahead,” he prodded. “I double-dog dare you to say it again.”

Now, that made me mad, the double-dog dare. I squeezed my fingers into fists, stiffened my spine and shrieked, “You-areso-
u-uu-ugly,
and you stink like cairn!”

Doodle's big hands sent me sprawling backward. I landed on the hard ground, feet in the air. Against my skinny butt, the ground felt like concrete. It hurt.

Doodle sniggered, standing over me like he'd done something really important.

I sat up and shook my head, feeling kinda buzzy all over. It took me a minute to get my breath back.

“I'm gonna tell Grandma,” I yelled and started bawling. He looked at me kinda funny then. Doodle didn't like to get on Grandma's bad side.

“Aww,” he muttered uncertainly, hooking his thumbs in his overall pockets and shuffling his bare feet. “You're ain't hurt.”

“I am, too.” I scrambled to my feet and began to run. That was one thing I could do as good as Doodle-Bug – run fast.

Grandma heard me bellowing because she met me as I burst through the door. “What's wrong?” she asked, looking truly alarmed, unusual for my tough grandma.

My weeping was in earnest. “D-Doodle-Bug pushed me d-down,” I sobbed and covered my face with both hands as mortification and real grief set in. “W-why does he have to be
s-so mean
to me?”

Grandma's gaze settled on Doodle, who stood stiffly a distance behind me looking for the world like Sidney Carton, the man sentenced to the guillotine that I'd seen in the movie of
A Tale of Two Cities
.

“He did, huh?” she muttered on her way out the door and to her nearby bushes.

Moments later, I heard the thrashing with a hickory stick that looked three feet long. Doodle's bawling didn't draw much sympathy from me. I was too caught up in the realization that Grandma
cared
.

And suddenly, my day turned
lemony sweet
.

“Like young trees in a forest, her life is being choked by climbing vines.”

Sadie Ann Melton

 

The weekend with Mama and Daddy, chocked full of happiness, ended all too soon. The mood swing, from the high of being home to leaving, left me feeling inordinately low. Getting dropped off at the farm this time seemed like a death sentence. Nellie Jane had settled into a dismissal stance with me. Nothing I said or did impressed her. It seemed the more I tried to astound her, the more she ignored me.

Something alien was beginning to stir inside me. Something I could not label nor begin to understand. Something not sunshiny.

That morning was ripe with adventures, but my attitude grew more and more agitated. Even helping Nellie Jane slop Frances didn't lift my spirits. When eleven-year-old Clarence Henry, the youngest Melton boy, came running into the house shrieking hysterically and turning blue in the face from crying and holding his breath, Nellie Jane grabbed him, shaking him and pleading, “Stop it! Stop it this minute, Clarence Henry!”

It scared her spitless to see him turn blue. In those moments, I saw the compassionate side of her emerge.

All morning, Clarence Henry's naughtiness had peaked, from putting dead bugs in Nellie Jane's shoes to hiding Grandma's sun bonnet. Now this.

“What's going on?” Grandma appeared, wiping her workroughened hands on her large home-sewn apron.

“The – the d-devil!” Clarence Henry bellowed, pointing out the window toward the bottoms, where the path converged with forest. Glimmering beneath the midday sun, the metal water bucket lay where he'd dropped it on the path. Since Clarence Henry was noted for mischief making, Grandma narrowed her eyes, shrewdly evaluating the situation.

She and our little gawkers' caravan accompanied him to the forest and the Arabian Nights entrance that curved sharply downward over natural root-steps, descending to the sparkling water spring. There, at the entrance, coiled lazily over a tree limb, was an enormous black snake. The “devil” flicked its tongue at us, beady eyes staring steadily, hypnotically. I shuddered violently and backed away, tripping on a protruding root.

On the way back up the hill, water in tow, Grandma used that devil-analogy to put the fear of the Lord in Clarence Henry for his ornery ways.

The edginess gripping me did not let up. My head ached and my pooched out tummy hurt. Nellie Jane seemed oblivious to my misery. “What's the matter, Lazy-bones?” she smartalecked when I failed to rush to help her with dishes.

Perverseness sunk its claws in me and yanked me to my feet. I marched up to her and demanded, “I want to read that funny paper first.”

The disbelief on her face turned to implacability. “No.”

Anger rose in me like water bursting over the mill river dam. I could hear myself breathing like Puff the Magic Dragon until I felt I would explode.

“Big Tits!” I shouted, using the most offensive weapon available against her. Actually, she was just beginning to bud breasts and was extremely sensitive about it. The boys, somehow, through some mystical or demonic discernment, discovered her Achilles Heel. They proceeded to tease her. Me? I was still almost flat as Grandma's cornbread fritters. But being
Nellie Jane's sometimes confidante, I broke trust to use this offense against her.

Suddenly, Nellie Jane's hand shot out and slapped me.

The impact was stunning. I grabbed my jaw and cut an imploring look at Grandma, who merely walked away, shaking her head at my stupidity.

I rushed out the front screen door, slamming it loudly behind me.

There on the meadow floor, I thrashed about, cried and vented my anger at life's unfairness. At my placelessness.

Where was God and Jesus? Where was that angel Daddy had shown me one night when I was too scared to go into my dark bedroom? Grandpa's ghost stories were haunting me especially bad that night and after Daddy coaxed me into the darkened room, assuring me that my very own special angel was guarding me, I snuggled down, knowing what real peace was. I felt her white wings spread over me, shielding me from darkness and evil.

But today, I didn't feel her nearby. Where was she? Where was
anybody?

How I wanted my Mama and Daddy. Home.

That very week something happened to restore my sense of trust in the Creator.

Gene, the oldest live-in Melton son, came in one night with a bride on his arm.

The bride was Maveen!

My Maveen, who was my sweet neighbor
.

Now, she was my
daggum aunt.

Hot diggity!
My joy knew no bounds.

“We're gonna stay here until we can get a house on the mill hill,” said Gene, whose mill job qualified him for village housing but had to wait until one became vacant. Standing amid the gawkers, I tried to catch Maveen's eye amidst all the hustle of the adventure. In true Melton form, though all the kids gathered around to gape at the newcomer, the response was muted, faces all but closed. No niceties. No words of welcome.

Gene, with his dark curly hair and lankiness that matched my daddy's, was proud as punch of his bride. And he had a right to be. Maveen was a beauty. It spilled out his hazel eyes and revved up a celebratory anticipation.