Skip promised his mother he wouldn’t talk to strangers. And it was easy, at first, because he didn’t see a soul until he got to Waycross Street.
“What have you got there?”
The boy froze. An old woman was crouched behind a low stone wall, tending to an overrun flowerbed: “Young man! You there! What have you got?” She waved her garden clippers for emphasis.
The old woman was a stranger, Skip thought. But she was also an old lady.
“Signs,” he said.
“Signs for what?” she asked.
The boy hesitated. “My mother told me to give them to – people in the
neighbourhood," he said. What his mother actually said was playing in his head. Even in a neighbourhood like this, you have to be careful. Don't talk to strangers.
“Give them to people for what?”
“For jobs.”
“Jobs for you?” she asked.
He nodded. Probably old ladies did not qualify as strangers.
“How enterprising,” she said. “May I see?”
Skip approached, offering a page from his scant pile. The old woman scanned the page with hooded eyes, murmuring under her breath, her voice too low to tell if she was reading aloud or talking to herself. The boy was spellbound by the spectacle of her ancient face, the skin that slipped loose and thin over her cheekbones and made a headlong, trembling drop into the place where, once upon a time, her chin must have dwelled, where she must have had an actual neckline. She wore a festive floral blouse with the sleeves rolled up; all the better to display the work of age upon her arms, moles and freckles of every variety: flat, raised, brown, pink, reddish; the back of her hands decorated with the peculiar marks that his mother had referred to as liver spots, a phrase that made the boy shudder and feel queasy where his throat met his mouth. There was something familiar about her, but not because she looked like his grandma; she didn't even look like the spry, chirpy grandmas you saw on television– the cherub-faced, wisecracking kind who was always baking cookies and looking straight into everyone's heart or innermost thoughts.
"Would you like to help me right now?" she asked. The boy was elated. Just moments before he'd suffered a sad, dejected epiphany: they didn't really know anyone in this neighbourhood, so that everyone who lived here, house after house, street after street, was, in fact, a stranger. Skip was on the point of turning home when the woman called to him. And so here she was, an actual bird in hand, eager to put him to work. He nodded, his face grave with the weight of how much he wanted a real job. "I don't have to go home until dinnertime," he said.
“All right then,” the old lady said, looking him up and down. “But what about your clothes?”
Skip dropped his head to examine himself. Stiff blue oxford shirt, regulation chinos, dress shoes. The lady was right: his mother would not want him to get the school uniform dirty.
“Go home and come back in your play clothes,” she said. “Then you can help me weed. Do you know how to weed?” He wanted to say yes, but that struck him as possibly inaccurate. “I think I can,” he said. “You can show me.”
The lady looked pleased. “Run home and put on something that can get dirty,” she said.
He trotted off back down the street, signs clasped to his chest, eager to return before the lady pulled all the weeds on her own. He burst in through the back door, where his mother was on the phone, pacing the kitchen floor. She flashed her eyes at Skip and put a finger to her lips, the code for do not interrupt when I am on the phone. He ran to his room and stripped, flinging pieces of his uniform around the room. Everything in his bureau was wrong: more dress shirts, an itchy pullover. Down the hall he found his sweatpants in the laundry hamper, short but highly favoured for their softness and the fact that his mother had cut the tag out of the waistband. A crumpled t-shirt, almost as soft, was wound into the sweats. Skip dressed and hurried downstairs, where his mother was still pacing and talking. "Yes, but jeez," she said into the phone. "Two time loser, you know what I mean?" For once the boy was glad she hated interruptions; he wouldn't have to negotiate the question of whether an old lady even qualified as a stranger. He scurried out the door. Halfway to Waycross Street he caught himself skipping. For a moment he went rigid and curled his hands tight. Letting his arms go loose and wide, he broke into a run until he reached the stone wall. The lady was still on her knees, crouched over the same straggly bit of neglected garden. She looked up as Skip came into view."My, that was fast," she observed. "Did you fly?"
Skip followed the winding line of slate steps from the sidewalk into the garden and stood uncertainly by her side. She patted the grass beside her, and the boy lowered himself to the ground. He reached for a spiky plant, but the lady caught his hand in hers before he grasped it. “Careful,” she said. “You want gloves for that one. I don’t suppose you brought gloves?”
He shook his head.
“Well then, don’t touch those,” she said. “They have prickers. Thorns, and they hurt. Watch out for prickers – there are plenty of other weeds here you can pull.” She released his hand and gestured at a clump of weeds at his knees, extending her index finger through heavy work gloves..
The boy grabbed at a hairy-stemmed plant; the leafy top came off in his hands. He flinched and looked up at the lady with dismay.
“Let me show you,” she said. She seized the broken stem at its base so that the whole plant broke loose from the earth. She held the stem upward so he could see the roots. “Then you shake the dirt off,” she explained, and throttled the plant in the air until its roots were bare. The boy was struck by the energy left in the upturned plant, how the roots in particular looked both fierce and helpless, as if unearthing them animated the plant in some way that leaving it in the ground would not. He half expected the weed to cry out and perform some macabre, unnatural dance, like a beanstalk thrusting upward, or the mandrake he’d seen in one of his mother’s old dusty books, fairy tales she’d kept from her own childhood. The old woman throttled the plant in the air until the roots were bare; then she tossed it into a sloppy pile of weeds lying sprung and hapless on their sides.
The boy reached for another weed and pulled. The thick hairy stem broke just above the dirt. Again he flinched, looking at the lady with alarm.
“Don’t worry, it just takes practice,” she said. “Get a good firm grip. Put your hands at the very bottom.” Her gloved hand took hold of his bare one. “Like this. Near the dirt,” she said, placing his hand at the base of another weed. “Really get a hold of it, as close to the ground as you can.”
The boy looked from her face to the weed. He used both hands to pull, and the soil yielded with a satisfying give. “I did it,” he said.
“You did,” she answered. “Now shake the dirt off that one and pull some more.”
The boy pulled another, and smiled when the roots broke free, intact.”You know a lot about gardens,” he said to the lady.
She laughed. “I really don’t.” The boy looked doubtful and she laughed. “When I was your age,” she explained, “most people had some things growing. Even people who didn’t garden had flowerbeds, or some tomatoes in pots. “
“We have a garden at school,” he said.
She nodded. “Nothing new under the sun.”
“But they have to learn how to do it at home,” he said. She fastened her rheumy eyes on him. His whole purpose, she sensed, was to intuit your beliefs and recite them back to you, as if this was the best way he knew to engage a companion.
“That’s right,” she said. “You stop and after a while, you forget. But you can always learn again.”
The boy kept hesitating, his hand hovering above the flowerbed. “How do you tell the weeds from the other ones?”
"Sometimes it's hard," she conceded. "Besides, what some people consider weeds, other people call flowers." In the private space behind her hooded eyes a reel of images unfurled, each arrayed in a splendour of wordless associations. Dandelions and may-apples. Wreaths of clover and Queen Anne's lace. Buttercups the colour of egg yolk, raised again and again to the baby's chin. Let's see if you like butter. A host of others, anonymous little wildflowers, weeds whose names were lost to her now. Perhaps she had never known their names or their purpose, either. They also serve who only stand and wait. The old woman tossed her head and the pictures drifted off like milkweed. Recalling the boy at her side, she roused herself. "Most of this flowerbed is weeds. I didn't get to this garden at all last year."
“Why not?” he asked.
”Well–” she paused as if genuinely perplexed. “I had a fall. That was it. I was stuck inside and couldn’t do much of anything.”
“But you’re good now,” he said. There was a catch in his voice that made her look up and give him a quick, reassuring nod.
“I am good now,” she agreed. “and today I’m lucky to have help.”
“What will you plant after we pull the weeds?” He asked.
“Something easy,” she said. “Something that can take care of itself, like lily of the valley. Some of that still grows over there,” she gestured across the lawn with her gloved hand, “and we can move some of those here. Lily of the valley comes back every year. Spreads like magic.”
“Will you grow anything to eat?” he asked.
“Probably not. Herbs, maybe,” she said.
“Herbs?”
“Herbs like basil and garlic, for cooking,” she said. “Other things, too. Rosemary, for remembrance. Catnip, because why shouldn’t Slinky have his fun?”
“Is Slinky your cat?”
“I did have a cat called Slinky, once.” she said.
“Do you cook with herbs?”
”You can cook with herbs. Herbs are good for all kinds of things.”
“I can help you cook,” he said.
“Do you help your mother cook?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “We’ve been talking about cooking.” Something grazed his arm. He jumped: a sleek cat, black as tar. “Oh look,” the lady said, pointing over his shoulder. “Another helper.”
“Is that Slinky?” he asked.
“Slinky,” she said. “Slinky seems familiar somehow.”
“But this isn’t your cat, Slinky?”the boy asked.
“I don’t believe so. He seems happy enough. He looks like the sort who is nobody’s cat, and everyone’s cat too.”
The cat wound her way around them and stole off toward the house. The boy could feel the lady’s attention drift away, following the cat to her back door. “I must have something for that cat to eat in the kitchen,” she said and reached out to Skip. “Give me a hand,” she said. “Getting up is hard.” He extended his spindly arm and she grasped it with one hand, using the other to push herself off the ground. For a moment she squatted low and shaky over the earth and the boy expected her to fall, face forward, into the dirt. But she groaned and released his arm, and rose to her tottering height. “Oh my knee-bones,” she keened.
“Are you hurt?” the boy asked.
“No my dear. Just old. My knees are worn-out.” Beyond her the cat was restless, pacing through a rapid series of figure eights on the doorstep, stopping every so often to arch its back. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she crooned. The cat miaowed its impatience, jaws snapping open to reveal tiny pointed fangs. Skip shuddered – he was afraid of cats. The lady reached her doorstep and disappeared inside with the cat.
The boy went back to the weeds. After a while he noticed it was getting dark, and cool. He shivered, and wondered what was taking the lady so long. Knocking on the door might annoy her, and yet it seemed rude to leave without saying goodbye. He struggled with this for a while until mercifully, the door opened and the cat darted past. The old lady stepped out and called to him.
“Well hello,” she said. “How wonderful to have a helper in my garden.”
His face went warm with pleasure. “I’m almost done with these weeds,” he said.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
”Skip,” he said, and realised he didn’t remember her name, either. Maybe she never told him. There was no graceful way to ask. “I think we got all the weeds,” he said.
“I didn’t get to the garden all last year.” she said.
“You had a fall,” he answered helpfully.
Mild surprise crossed the old woman’s face. “What time is it?” she asked. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
She knew his mother; that was good. “She said I could bring my signs to people we know,” he said. “ She knew about the signs, just not the weeds. I can’t ask questions when she’s on the phone.”
The lady looked as if she had reached a conclusion. “Your mother may be wondering where you are,” she said.
“Is it dinnertime?” he asked.
She raised her arm to peer at the watch round her wrist. “Well, my watch says 3:00, but it’s getting dark,” she mused. “Old thing must have stopped.”
The boy stood up. “Maybe I can come back tomorrow,” he said.
The lady smiled, but the boy sensed a vagueness that wasn't there before the cat arrived. "That would be nice," she said. Skip wiped his hands on his sweatpants and looked carefully around the yard for the cat. He wanted to avoid not only Slinky but the wake of Slinky's path. This was the work of his mother, who claimed superstitions were silly (don't spill milk, don't leave a hat on the bed, don't step on a crack or you'll break your mother's back!) yet went to great lengths to observe the same precautions she mocked for comic effect. At his old school, she'd made an illegal u-turn in kindergarten carpool to avoid the path of a stray that forged a living from what the children dropped on the playground. Laughing helplessly she looked over her shoulder at the children bundled into the seat behind her and cried out: "You kids know this is silly, don't you? Black cats are perfectly safe – I'm just being silly." All that week Skip was a minor celebrity, with first graders as well as kindergarten gathering round to ask what else his mother did that was funny.
The old lady waved as Skip left the garden. When he arrived home his mother called from the living room, where she was lying on the couch. “There you are,” she said. He lay down beside her and she put her arm around him. “I should have started dinner,” she said. “but I was so tired. Are you hungry?”
“Kind of,” he said.
“I wonder what’s in the fridge,” she murmured.
Yogurt, he thought. Bacon. Eggs. Before they moved, his mother had made all sorts of plans for the new house. Cooking – really cooking – was one thing. They would plan elaborate menus and make trips to the farmer's market. Friends would come over for dinner. Skip knew that his mother really meant what she said, and fully intended to follow through on her plans – whether it was cooking, or playing board games together every night, or taking the train into town every weekend for the ball game or the Franklin Institute. But somehow there was always a reason to put things off another day. They were out of baking soda, or olive oil – something crucial. The traffic was too awful to brave the drive to the grocery, and besides, it might rain. His mother had a migraine, she was exhausted from waking up in the middle of the night. Maybe tomorrow, or next weekend. Does that sound good to you, Skip?
Skip could not imagine lying down in the living room – in daylight, no less – and falling asleep. Most nights he spent hours waiting to fall asleep. “You didn’t sleep even when you were a baby,” his mother often said. He’d heard her talk at more length on the subject to grown ups, adding in her half-serious, half-mocking tone: “Penelope Leach says wakefulness in babies is a sign of intelligence.”
Every night Skip lay awake in his own tossed sheets, dreading the school bus and the long week ahead. There were boys in this neighbourhood who hated him, hated him the very first day of school, when they didn’t even know him yet. He was awed by their power to make life so miserable. The boys were bigger than Skip, third and fourth graders, and they tormented him on the bus, tripping him in the aisle, calling him names he didn’t understand, mocking the cartoon characters that festooned his lunchbox, the lunchbox Skip had begged his mother to buy. Somehow all this took place without the bus driver noticing, without the objection of any other child on the bus. He knew that what they did was despicable, and yet he was ashamed he’d been chosen so unanimously as the victim of every bully on the bus, in the schoolyard, on the playground, the perennial victim, chosen as if by decree. The other children on the bus watched, enthralled or impassive, but even those who looked troubled never made a move to intervene, as if all understood that this kind of suffering was to be expected, part of the just and natural order.
His mother would be appalled if she knew about the bullying, but Skip could not bring himself to tell her. He didn't know why, but he was certain that the only thing worse than getting bullied would be for his mother to find out. Remembering what she had said before they moved here – "you will love the new school, Skip – I know it," going on and on about the new house, the fancy neighbourhood, the park around the corner – made him pity her, so foolish and innocent, so blissfully off the mark. Maybe there were no bullies when she was little. He'd never asked, and she'd never said. His mother tended to worry more about things like clothes and what he was eating, or whether they were teaching to the test at his new school. She was always distracted. Even now she looked not at Skip but upon the ceiling, her face wearing the pained expression of someone concentrating on a tedious but necessary problem. "What about an omelette?" she asked.
“Okay,” Skip said.
"That's our thing, isn't it?" she said. "Breakfast for dinner. We love breakfast for dinner." She groaned and hauled herself off the couch, headed for the kitchen. He heard the radio switch on: the news. "Do you have any homework?" his mother called.
“My only homework is reading,” he said.
His mother laughed. “You read all the time. Don’t they know how much you read?”
"It doesn't count unless I write it down," Skip reminded her, even though he knew what she thought about the reading diary. She started to say something and stopped. He had heard her on the phone to her old friends, or her sister in Connecticut. Prizes and star charts for reading. What about reading for its own sake?
But now she said: “Why don’t you do your reading now, before dinner. So you’ll remember to write it down.”
Skip went to the bookcase in the hallway, rummaging through the shelves for a particular book. This book had been his mother’s as a child, a collection of fairy tales with a cloth cover and illustrations that were almost grotesque in a way that fascinated him. Before he learned to read, Skip had made up stories to go along with the pictures, stories that he would recite out loud to the delight of his mother. Once he began to read he had become impatient, insatiable for the next page while his mother was still reading aloud. “You’d really rather read this to yourself, wouldn’t you?” she had asked, handing him the book one night. At first Skip was proud that he could read so much faster in his head than his mother could manage out loud. But lately he wondered if his mother might still read to him sometimes, even though he could do all the reading he wanted on his own. There might be something shameful and babyish about asking your mother to read to you when you knew how to do it for yourself.
“Dinner’s ready,” his mother called. “I mean, breakfast! Breakfast for dinner!” Skip abandoned the bookcase; the book wasn’t there anyway. He joined his mother at the kitchen table.
“Did you play with anyone today?” she asked.
“A lady gave me a job,” he said. “A lady who’s a friend of yours. I gave her a sign and she gave me a job.”
“A friend of mine?” His mother looked blank. “Who?” she asked.
“An old lady on Waycross Street,” he said.
“I don’t know anyone on Waycross Street,” she said. “Was she nice?”
“I helped her weed,” he said.
“You did?”
He nodded. “I’m going back tomorrow, to help her plant.” He paused, deciding what to tell his mother. “She didn’t pay me,” he said.
His mother surprised him with the thoughtful way she looked into his eyes. “She didn’t?”
He shook his head.
“You really want to get paid, don’t you?” she said.
“I want a real job,” he said.
“This sounds like a real job,” his mother said. “Sounds like you really helped her out. There are all kinds of ways to get paid, you know, besides money.” She pushed scraps of scrambled egg around her plate. “We should have a garden,” his mother said. “Would you like to plant a garden?”
“I guess.”
"I thought you would like that, if we planted a garden together." She sounded a little disappointed. Skip did not understand why his mother kept making these suggestions – Let's go to the baseball game! Let's have a lemonade stand! – and never noticed they never did the things they talked about every day, that she would keep coming up with new ideas for things even while she was saying she was too tired to do anything today, and there was a long list of other things they hadn't done yet, a list so long Skip had lost track.
The next day was like always, the bullies on the school bus. No matter what Skip did, he could not evade their attention. He would try to hide, or pretend it was all a joke, but no matter what they came for him, ruthless as ever, every single day. As Skip approached the lady’s house, he could see she was already in the yard. When he saw the look on her face, he froze by the old stone wall that circled her garden.
“Are you– that boy? That boy next door?” she asked.
”I’m Skip,” he said. “The boy from – yesterday. Yesterday I helped you with the weeding.”
The old lady was doubtful. “I thought you were the boy next door,” she said, “the one who makes all the trouble. Do you know him, that boy next door?
Yesterday she was so friendly, so happy to have a helper. Skip shook his head. “You’re the only person I know on this street.”
“Well,” she said. “That boy next door –” and then she stopped herself. It was a terrible thing, she thought, to dislike a child, an impulse that one must always resist. She made an effort to focus on the boy at her side, a boy who somehow managed to look earnest, skittish and forlorn, all at once, an unusual combination of humours in so small a child.
“Never mind,” she said, and motioned him to come to her. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Seven and a half.”
“Seven,” she said. “A lovely number, seven.”
Skip relaxed; she believed him. “I’ll be eight next month,” he said.
“Oh my.”
“Do you have anything to plant?”
“To plant?”
“In your garden,” he said. “yesterday you told me about some things – different plants.” He faltered, still shaken by the stern way she had looked and spoken just moments before. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “You said – rosemary and catnip.”
“Ah,” she said. “I used to garden. I used to visit the nursery every fall, “and here she fixed her rheumy gaze upon the boy. “most people don’t realise this, but autumn is actually the best time to plant.”
“Nursery?” Skip asked.
She laughed. "A nursery for plants. Like a garden store."
“Are you going there soon?” he asked.
“Well, my car...” she waved her hand and let the words drop like bread crumbs in the forest, waving her hand to indicate complications better left unsaid.
Skip could not hide his disappointment, and she relented. “You know,” she said. “I might have some old seed packets in the basement.”
“Really?’
“Old seeds sometimes do just fine,” she said. “I’ll go look.”
“Can I help?” he asked.
“That’s all right. The basement steps are steep and hard to climb. Just wait here, I’ll be right back.” She turned, closing the door behind her. The boy remained, straining to hear through the door, hoping against all odds that she’d be right back. She wasn’t, so Skip stepped back into the garden, looking for something to do. But the flowerbeds were clear of weeds, and so he sighed and looked back at the house, wishing she would invite him in, because old people usually had all kinds of weird stuff in their houses, and sometimes they liked to give things away.
Skip didn't know how long she'd been gone, but it seemed like forever. He approached the back door, still not certain he would actually knock. On the way he noticed there were low windows set at the base of the house, windows that must open into the basement. Skip paused, uncertain, and then a terrible thought struck him: she may have lost her footing and fallen, landing out in an old lady heap at the foot of the stairs. What if she was having a heart attack, and he never checked? She seemed to live alone. Skip thought of the news stories he had seen on television, headlines in the newspaper. Five-year-old hero calls 911, saves neighbour's life.
But Skip could not bring himself to open the door. He compromised, deciding that he could at least look into the low windows, try to spot the old lady’s whereabouts in the basement. There was a part of him that hoped she was in need of help – not seriously hurt, but in some kind of position that would let him come to her rescue. He pictured his face on television, saw himself shaking the hand of the paramedics, getting a medal pinned on his chest by the Mayor. In the grip of imagined glory, Skip advanced to the house. Getting at the window was awkward because it was surrounded by a dug out space in the ground, a space like a well without any water. A low, rounded sheet of corrugated metal held the earth back from the window, making a small deep hollow in the ground. Skip leaned carefully over this little well, as close as he could get without cutting himself on the metal or falling into the open space. His position was awkward and it was difficult to see through the dirty glass into basement, but he was patient, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He strained his eyes to decipher the darkness framed by the window, finally making out what looked like a fair number of boxes – at least Skip thought they were boxes, all sizes and shapes, some on the ground, and others lined up on a number of long tables. Skip spit into his hand and rubbed at the glass. Ah. The old lady was at the very far end of the basement, bent over one of the boxes, her arms thrust deep inside. Listening very hard, Skip could just make out the sound of her crooning voice. There was something odd about the box, like it was crushed or ripped open, full of holes – Skip had his face pressed flat to the glass when the voice hit him:
“SKIPPY! YO SKIPPY!”
Skip was so startled he almost pitched headfirst into the window well. He pushed himself upright, craning his neck to see Chase Dixon at the edge of the old lady’s garden. Of all the bullies at school Chase was the worst.
“What are you doing, Skip?”
Skip said nothing.
“If I were you,” Chase said, “I wouldn’t spy on that old witch.”
Skip ignored him and looked back into the basement window. She was still there, crooning, and something was moving inside the box. Only it wasn’t a box, but a cage. A cage like they had at the pet store. All the boxes were cages.
Chase was getting closer, jeering:
“What’s the matter – did the old witch put a spell on you?”
Skip pretended he couldn’t hear Chase. The old woman straightened up and took a step back from the cage. For a moment Skip thought the old woman was looking at him, and then he realised she was still crooning to whatever was moving around that cage. She pursed her lips and blew a kiss. Skip scrambled back from the window, he never looked at Chase. He just ran. As he reached the sidewalk he heard the old lady’s voice cry out, “Who’s there?” but he didn’t stop until he reached his own front door. To his horror the door was locked. In a panic Skip found an open window around back, and clambered inside. He locked the window behind him, and went to the living room. His mother was fast asleep on the couch. Skip’s ragged breathing pounded in his own ears, his chest heaving violently from his flight home, Skip crept to his room and lay on his bed, waiting for his breathing to still. He wanted to be calm when his mother woke up for dinner. No, breakfast , he thought. Breakfast for dinner.
Usually Skip was up early, even without an alarm, and he’d wait until the sky grew light. Then he’d creep down the hall to shake his mother awake. The next morning it was the other way round. He woke to his mother looking down at him, vague but smiling, patting his shoulders.
“You had a good sleep,” she said. “But you’ve got to hurry for the bus.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“You’ll feel better once you get there,” his mother said. “Hurry.”
Chase didn’t look at Skip when he boarded the bus, and Skip dared hope he might be left alone. He sat as far away as he could from Chase, but the only empty seat was located near Chase and his gang of bullies. Everyone had to stay seated when the bus was in motion, but Chase and his friends thought it was hysterical to move around behind the driver’s back. Skip took the vacant seat and did what he aways did: slide to the window seat, clutching his lunchbox, and wait. In almost no time he felt a familiar shove. Chase was up and leaning over his seat. Skip tried to keep his face as blank as possible.
“Why’d you run away?” Chase asked.
Skip didn’t say anything, and Chase sat down next to him. “Is that your grandma?”
Skip shook his head.
“Well, what were you doing there?”
Skip knew there was no answer that Chase wouldn’t mock. The best he could do was wait it out.
“If I were you,” Chase said, “I’d leave that old witch alone.”
“Witches are pretend,” Skip said, his voice breaking.
“Witches are pretend,” Chase mimicked. “Pre-tend. Fairy make-believe. What were you doing there, faggot?”
“I do jobs for her,” Skip said.
“Looking in her window, that’s your job? Spying on her?”
“Other things,” Skip said, wondering if Chase had ever looked in her windows.
“Other things,” Chase said. “Like cleaning her broomstick.” He stood up, like he was bored, and got up out of the seat.
“Sometimes,” Skip said. Chase froze, and Skip saw his chance. “Mostly I help her with the cages,” he added. For a moment he was sorry. But then he saw the look on Chase Dixon’s face.
“Cages? What are you talking about?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You better tell me,” Chase growled.
Skip shook his head.
“You better,” Chase said, leaning in close to shove Skip. For once Skip wasn’t afraid. He noticed this fact from a distance, as if he were watching Chase bothering someone else. He could see that Chase was stricken, even as he went through the motions of beating on him, leaning close to grab Skip by the shoulders and drag him out into the aisle.
“I said, what are you talking about?” Chase snarled.
“Are you the boy she hates?” Skip asked. Chase stared.
“The boy next door,” Skip said. “ Is that you?”
“It’s not my fault I live next door,” Chase said. He was whimpering. A strange, unaccountable peace come over Skip. “She hates the boy next door,” he said to Chase. “I guess that means you.” Skip said it so quiet he could scarcely catch his own words, but he knew from the look on Chase’s face that Chase had heard him just fine.
“What do you mean, cages –” Chase faltered. His face was white.
Skip didn’t know it was coming, it just happened. His own hand flew up and out, and he gave Chase a shove that knocked the boy to the ground. This was revelation: Skip couldn’t believe how easy it was to knock Chase over. Chase’s face was twisted and red as he scrambled up and grabbed Skip by the collar. Skip fell into the aisle, but even with Chase looming in close and his fists balled up a few inches from Skip’s nose, he felt safe, utterly cosseted by the deep, unfamiliar peace settling over him, he was splendid in its invisible, potent balm. “You better tell me!” Chase screamed in his face.
“Chase Dixon!” the driver shouted. “Is that you again? “
“That faggot hit me,” Chase screamed.
“You watch your mouth, “the driver screamed back. “Or I’m gonna pull this bus over.”
“Everybody saw him!” Chase screamed. “He punched me!”
“You put your behind in a chair!” the driver yelled. “No fighting on my bus!”
Chase scowled but retreated. Skip returned to his seat; the mantle of peace still resting upon him. He didn’t have to look across the aisle to know Chase was trembling. He relaxed into his seat and looked out the window. In a few minutes the bus would pull into the school driveway and let them out. For once Skip wasn’t worried about what would happen next.
When Skip got home that afternoon, his mother wasn’t asleep or on the phone, but waiting for him at the kitchen at the table with a glass of milk and a plate of chocolate-studded cookies. There was a funny look on her face. “What’s the name of the lady – the one with the garden?” she asked.
“She never told me,” Skip said.
“Well, does she live on Waycross Street? Next to the Dixon boy?”
“I thought you didn’t know anyone on Waycross Street,” Skip said.
“Well I don’t, but Celia Dixon is the head of the PTA –”
“It wasn’t my fault, Mom –”
“Skip?”
Skip felt his face pulling down. The one time he fought back, he was going to get in trouble.
“Skip. What isn’t your fault?”
“Nothing.”
His mother sighed. “Skip, Mrs. Dixon called because Chase saw you next door, and thought we should know that the lady...”
So his mother didn't know about the fight. The relief he'd felt on the bus washed over Skip again. "But you knew I went there. I told you," he said.
“Yes, but Ms. Dixon thought we should know that the lady is...unusual. Cranky. She says that she has – well, she has been ugly to Chase a number of times.”
“Chase is a jerk.”
“Skip –”
“He is, Mom. He says bad words.”
“Bad words? Like what?”
“Like – lots of bad words. Faggot.”
Skip got the desired effect: his mother looked shocked. “Did he say that to you?”
Skip ignored the question. “I bet he said bad words to Mrs – to the lady.”
“Skip,” his mother said. “Do you know what that word means?”
“I just know it’s a bad word.”
His mother shook her head. “Look it up in the dictionary. All that word means is a bundle of sticks.”
“Well, Chase says it like it’s bad. He says it to call people names.”
“Is he calling you names?” In an instant Skip saw that his new-found mantle of peace could be ripped from his shoulders at any time, even at home, where he thought he was safe. Lying would buy a little time, maybe enough time. “Not me,” he said. “But Chase is a bully. He bothers people all the time. “
Skip’s mother relaxed. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. His mother is the PTA president, and she said she wanted to reach out to us –”
“Mom!”
“Maybe he’s a lonely boy –”
“He’s not lonely – he’s mean,” Skip said.
“Sometimes people –”his mother stopped. “All right, Skip,” she said. “But I don’t want you to go back to Mrs – to the lady’s house today.”
“But I have a job!”
“Skip –” his mother sighed. “Tomorrow – or this weekend – I’ll take you there myself, all right? We’ll get this all figured out.”
Skip could see his mother was worn out. There was no point in fighting when he could just let nature take its course.
“Skip, please,” his mother murmured. “I’ve got a migraine. Let me lie down for a minute, and then I’ll make dinner. This weekend – we can – I’ll take you over to Waycross Street myself and we’ll figure this all out.” She rose from the kitchen table, headed for the living room couch. Skip remained at the table, drinking his milk and looking at the cookies. They were chocolate chip. He chose one and nibbled at the edges, saving the most chocolate part for last.
His mother called from the sofa. “All right, Skip?”
“All right,” he said, and got up from the table. He passed his mother on the way to the stairs. She’d be asleep in a matter of minutes. There was plenty of time to get to Waycross before dinner. He found his work sweatpants were under his bed, and he put them on. He could fix this. Chase was afraid of the old lady, and now he was afraid of Skip. The old lady didn’t like Chase, but she did like Skip. Skip didn’t think his mom would ever make it to Waycross Street, she’d put it off it off like everything else. But if she did go, the old lady would tell her that Skip was a helper, and Chase was bad. Then his mother would understand. Everything would be all right.
Skip crept down the stairs in his work clothes, pausing to confirm his mother was fast asleep. He let himself out, hoping the old lady had found the seeds, and was waiting in the garden. Maybe she would tell him what she was doing with those cages in the basement. He thought he knew, but he wanted to be sure. The old lady trusted Skip, and she knew so many things, things she could teach him. Most of all he pictured the way Chase’s face looked on the bus today, right after he said: “I help her with the cages.”
These thoughts carried Skip to Waycross Street. When he arrived at the house with its old stone wall, the old woman was already outside, resting in a painted garden chair. She had Slinky nestled in her lap. Skip hesitated, but she called to him. “Don’t be afraid of this cat.”
Skip approached carefully. “Do you need some help today?” he asked.
“Help sounds wonderful,” she said. Skip gazed at her mottled old hands, stroking the animal in her lap with movements so deft and tender the animal was in a helpless state of surrender.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Skip said. The woman looked surprised. “Why?”
“The boy next door...”
She waited.
“He’s bad,” Skip said.
She nodded. “I guess he is. Although he is just a child.”
“He hates me,” Skip said.
“There are always people like that, “she said. “You can’t let them bother you.” Abruptly the cat jumped off her lap, and Skip took a step back, watching the animal cross the yard. He turned back to the lady.
“When you grow up, do people stop bothering you?”
“There’s always someone to bother you,” she said.
“Are grown ups like kids?” he asked. “Do they still call names?”
“Has someone been calling you names? “she asked.
“That boy next door,” Skip whispered.
“What kind of names?”
“Faggot.”
“Faggot,” the lady said. “That’s a very old word. Most people don’t know what it really means.”
“My mom told me it means a bundle of sticks.”
”Do you know what it’s for?” she asked. “The bundle of sticks?”
Skip shook his head.
“Of course you don’t,” she said. “An old word for old times. A bundle of sticks, for starting a fire.”
“Maybe I should tell Chase that’s what it means,” Skip said. “Because he thinks it’s a bad word.”
“You can make anything into a bad word if you want to,” the woman said. Lifting her crooked old finger in the air, she beckoned him close, and Skip saw the pink cardigan and matching Keds were a disguise. “Listen to me,” she said.
Skip went to her side, and she grasped his shoulder. “I can tell you are an unusual boy.”
Skip held his breath.
“And sometimes people are afraid of anyone who is….” she paused. “Special. But the older you get...”
“They leave you alone?” he asked.
“Sometimes yes, sometimes not,” she said. “But you learn how to get along. How to protect yourself. There are all kinds of ways to get along.”
“You’re special, too,” Skip whispered.
She laughed. “I don’t know if I’m so special. I just know–”
“You know all kinds of things. Tricks.”
“I know some tricks for getting along,” she said.
“I could tell,” Skip said. He felt his mouth pulling up at the corners, and the old lady nodded, to encourage him.
“Are they all like you?” he asked.
The ancient corners of her mouth quivered. “What do you mean, like me?”
Skip meant a lot of things, but he wasn't sure how to put any of them into words. He sensed the wrong words might upset some tacit understanding, some fragile accord. His mind darted about, afraid of going too far but dense with images that conjured all he longed to know: weeds wrenched stark from the earth, upturned roots bare and crying their grief to the sky; the litany of herbs the old woman had recited: rosemary, for remembrance, and catnip, because why shouldn't Slinky have his fun? Tender dill, whose airy growth climbed upward and outward as if to defy the very laws of gravity. The inky cat, quick and lean, weaving through the grass and into Skip's head, pacing impatiently at the doorstep for his mistress. The slate steps, faded and uneven, that led from the stone wall into the garden. The boy was elated with longing and excitement: if he could just summon the just and sanctioned words, he could ask her everything. Everything. Like what exactly could witches do, and whether their powers suffered any limits. Did witches live forever? Were there more bad witches than good, and how could you tell the bad from the good? Was there anything that made witches afraid? Did they ever get sick? Could they see the future, move forward in time? To the past? Could a witch change the future by going to the past? Might she take a human boy with her? Instruct him to fly, with or without a broomstick? Teach him spells and incantations, give him the power to ward off enemies and draw friends. And if any of this could be done with charms or potions, why did witches bother with any kind of earth-bound labour. Why did they make soup and sweep the back steps, or crouch in gardens to plant rosemary and pull weeds? Because what good was it to be unafraid and free if you could only get there with spells and magic?
The old lady waited, patient. The boy had so many questions. There was no reason he shouldn’t take his time.
Evelyn Walsh is first generation Irish-American, a native of Philadelphia, who now lives in Atlanta, teaching writing to children while working on her story collection and a novel. She won the 2015 Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize, which was judged by Danielle McLaughlin
