by Ginny Rorby
She shook the daddy longlegs out of the tarp and pried the banana slugs off with a twig, then spread it across the soggy, spongy cushion of redwood leaves that blanketed the stump. She climbed up to sit with her back against one of the two trees that grew from the roots of the ancient redwood. She dug the letter from her pocket and peeled it open as carefully as she opened gifts at Christmas.
Dear Joey,
I wanted to write and apologize once again for the way I behaved when we met. With all the rain we’ve had, mushroom hunters have been traipsing in and out of here with little or no regard for the damage they do. I never collect them myself. They all look dangerously the same to me, but I love them and from now on shall depend on you to tell me which ones are good to eat. I admire you knowing the difference.
Also, I hope I didn’t upset you by ranting on the issue of research labs using chimps like hairy test tubes. Once you get to know Sukari and see how closely her thoughts and feelings match ours, testing on them becomes as intolerable as slavery is to us now. Those without voices, politically or literally, risk terrible suffering.
Anyway, I’m really writing to invite you to visit anytime. Sukari pouted for hours after you left and only relented after a bribe of an apple, two Oreo cookies, and a box of raisins—her favorite.
I went to the bookstore yesterday and ordered a present for you. It will be here by the end of next week. In the meantime, why don’t you come visit us on Saturday if you haven’t other plans. You are still welcome to bring your mother and your brother. I’m sure she’ll be fine, once she meets Sukari. If it’s nice, we could go mushrooming, then have a picnic on the deck.
I thought I’d tell you a little about my parents and about living in Africa, but I’m quite tired now. Maybe you could think of questions you’d like answered.
If Saturday is not convenient, just stop in anytime.
Sincerely,
Charles Mansell and
Sukari
Joey read and reread her letter. She ran her finger over Sukari’s scribbled signature. This was the first invitation to anything that she had ever gotten, except to places with her mother and Ray. Whenever they went to someone’s house for a dinner party, they took a dish. Potlucks were a tradition on the coast. She wondered what she could bring to their picnic and what she would tell her mother. Bananas, she thought, suddenly. I can buy them in the cafeteria … and apples and Oreos and a box of raisins. I won’t have to tell Mom anything.
She carefully folded the tarp and placed her letter in the center of it before tucking it back into the hollow. When she turned around, Luke was trudging up the slope toward her.
“Are you a bear coming to eat me?” She trembled with mock fear.
Luke motioned for her to come, then turned to start back down the hill.
Joey cupped a hand over her right ear. “What’d ya say, bear?”
Luke turned and grinned, then humped his shoulders, held his arms away from his sides, and hulked toward her.
Joey covered her mouth with the back of her hand as if to stifle a scream. “Help. Lord help me,” she cried when Luke’s eyes narrowed and his pudgy little jaw set.
“Grrrrrr.”
“Please don’t eat me, Mr. Bear,” Joey pleaded. “I’ll give you honey if you won’t eat me.”
Luke stopped and straightened. “No honey,” he shouted.
“Oh yes, honey,” Joey said. “That’s what you need to make you a nice bear.”
Luke turned to run, his short legs pumping.
Joey charged down the hill and scooped him up before they reached the bottom of the slope. She kissed the back of his neck, making slurping sounds, while Luke bucked like a pony to get away. “Honey for a bad bear.”
Luke screeched to be let go.
Joey put him down and gave chase when he started to run again, but slowly so that he could beat her to the back door, which he locked once he was inside. Joey twisted the knob, calling, “Let me in, Mr. Bear, let me in,” until her mother appeared at the window in the door, pulled Luke away, and unlocked it.
Her mother’s face was still pinched with anger. She pointed to Joey’s place at the table, then turned away without saying a word—for Joey, the ultimate punishment.
The plates, silverware, and place mats were still stacked in the center of the table. Joey ignored her mother’s direction and began to set each place, but her mother caught her by the shoulder, took the plates from her, and again pointed to her chair.
“Why are you mad at me?” Joey asked.
Her mother’s face reddened. “It’s dangerous to keep secrets,” she snapped. “Why would an old man write to you? He might be a pervert, or something.”
“He’s not a pervert. He’s just a nice old man.”
“How do you know?”
Joey shrugged. It was her take on him, that was all. She’d known kind people and cruel people and there was a difference she could almost smell. “And even if he is a pervert, I’m taller than he is and he’s weak and sickly,” she said, taking a seat at the end of the table where she could see the TV. Since she couldn’t follow the conversation at dinner, at least she could practice her lip-reading watching the newscasters.
* * *
On Saturday morning, Joey woke at first light and checked her thumbs for dampness. They were dry. She smiled and rolled over to see what kind of day it would be. If it was going to be sunny, it was too early to tell. She wanted sun. She wanted to mushroom hunt and picnic. She’d spent the last of her allowance on apples, bananas, Oreos, and raisins for Sukari, and stashed them in her backpack, ready to go, along with her list of questions.
When she came into the kitchen, her mother was just lighting the stove. She turned and smiled. “You’re up early.”
“So are you. Are you working today?”
Ruth shook her head, adjusted the flame under the frying pan, then turned back to Joey. “It’s supposed to be sunny for a while. Thought I’d take Luke to the beach, let him out to run.” She grinned. “How ’bout it?”
Joey loved going to the beach with her brother, and her mother knew it. “I—I can’t,” she stammered.
“Why not?”
“I have to … too much homework.”
Though she did lots of homework just to keep up, Joey had never claimed to have too much to go to the beach. A V of suspicion formed between her mother’s brows.
“What kind of homework?”
For a moment Joey couldn’t think of anything. “General stuff,” she said, then remembered that she had chosen a mushroom project for her midterm science paper, similar to what her mother had done in her college mushroom class. “I’m going to start my science project,” she added, leaving out that it wasn’t due for a month and a half.
“What kind of project?”
“I want to make spore prints like you did,” she said, “and use them to identify mushroom families.”
Her mother looked pleased. She finished breaking eggs into the pan, added Tabasco and a little milk, then began to scramble them. “Do you have the paper ---------- them on and ---------- preserve them ----------?”
Joey missed part of the question but got the gist because she already knew she’d need small squares of paper with half-black, half-white circles, and squares of clear plastic to cover the powdery prints once the spores dropped. “I was hoping you had all that stuff somewhere, or I could make the circles with a Magic Marker.”
“I may have. I’ll check in a minute,” her mother said, dividing the eggs between three large plates and a small one. She shouted for Ray, then handed a plate to Joey, but didn’t let go. “I forgot to ask, did you want eggs?”
“Sure,” Joey said, a little too eagerly. But before her mother had time to realize that her enthusiasm for eggs was just relief that her fibbing seemed to have worked, she grabbed a clean fork from the drain-board and headed for the table.
* * *
Lugging mushroom-hunting paraphernalia and her backpack full of fruit, cookies, an
d raisins, Joey climbed the steps to Charlie’s deck and knocked on the sliding glass door. Sukari’s face appeared at the lower edge of the drapes. When she saw Joey, she grinned and signed, I-SEE-YOU. She began to twirl around, rolling herself up tightly in the curtains like a sausage.
“I hope now’s okay,” Joey said, when Charlie opened the door to let her in.
His hands flashed in welcome. FINE, FINE. “Now is fine. Come in.”
Charlie had picked Sukari up, drapery and all, before opening the door. “Ready?” he asked, before unfurling her.
Joey put her stuff on the floor and nodded.
Sukari came rolling out and scrambled into Joey’s arms. HUG, HURRY, HUG, she signed.
Charlie indicated with a raised finger that he’d be right back, then folded his three middle fingers into his palm and held his thumb to his ear and his pinky to his mouth. “I’m on the phone,” he said and went into his library, where he picked the receiver off the desk. The house had a pleasant musty smell, as if the old books in the floor-to-ceiling case that lined the wall were baking in the overheated house. More books rose in stacks on the floor. Papers were scattered everywhere, as if all the doors and windows had been left open during the last storm.
Sukari leaned back so Joey could see her hands and signed something, practically brushing Joey’s nose.
SORRY, Joey signed. “I don’t know WHAT you’re saying.”
Sukari signed again, then descended to the floor and swaggered into the office looking a lot like Luke as Mr. Bear. When she pulled on Charlie’s pants leg and signed, BOOK, he clamped the receiver between his left cheek and his shoulder, freeing his hands to sift through a pile of papers on his desk, where he found a book and handed it to her. Sukari scampered back, took Joey’s hand, and led her to the sofa.
She climbed into Joey’s lap and opened her animal alphabet book. “A” was an alligator. Sukari signed, TEETH BAD, and covered her eyes with her hands. She did, COW, then, DRINK GOOD, before scooting off the sofa and running to the refrigerator. She tugged at the handle, reached up, and pulled on the padlock. She turned and signed something Joey couldn’t interpret, then, WANT DRINK. Sukari suddenly looked past Joey, who turned around to see Charlie standing in the office doorway, the phone still clamped between his ear and his shoulder. SUKARI BAD, FRIEND GO, he signed.
Sukari slinked back to the couch and climbed up to sit beside Joey again. She turned a page and signed, DOG, then, BITE SUKARI, and covered the picture with both hands and glanced at Charlie. He had turned back to his desk. She flipped the pages to “T” and poked the picture of a turtle. “What is that?” Joey asked, just as she did when reading to Luke.
Sukari made a fist with her thumb on top then draped the cupped palm of her right hand over the fist, leaving her thumb to protrude like the head of a turtle. When Joey made the same sign, Sukari signed, GOOD GIRL, then jumped off the sofa and ran down the hall. A moment later she was back. COME HURRY, she signed and grabbed Joey’s hand to pull her along.
Sukari’s room made Luke’s look orderly. Fat hemp ropes, probably scavenged from the harbor, crisscrossed it at various heights and angles and gave the place a slightly fishy smell. Toys littered the floor: balls of different sizes and colors, a dozen stuffed animals, a tricycle, a red wagon, a set of drums, a horn, a xylophone with color-coded keys, and a playpen turned upside down. A plastic chair swung on a chain from the ceiling. Her bed was a mattress with a pillow and blanket on a platform built near the ceiling.
Sukari scrambled through the debris and climbed onto a chair beside the large aquarium beneath her window. She pointed at the abalone shell on the gravel bottom of the tank and signed, TURTLE.
“That’s not a turtle, silly,” Joey said. “That’s a seashell.”
Sukari drew her lips back and shook her arms. TURTLE HIDE, she signed.
Joey grinned. “If that’s a turtle, where are its head and legs?”
Sukari jumped up and down.
“Okay, okay.” Joey lifted the abalone shell. Beneath it was Sukari’s tortoise in a hibernating torpor. I-SEE-TURTLE, Joey signed.
From across the room came a flash of light. Joey looked up. Charlie had taken their picture with a Polaroid. He pulled the print from the front of the camera, glanced at his watch, then weaved through the chaos with his notepad on which he’d already written, Shall we go for a walk now? It’s supposed to rain later.
“Sure.” Joey grinned at him. “I signed a sentence.”
“I saw that.”
Charlie held off Sukari’s attempts to grab the picture. “Behave,” he snapped, before pulling the developed print from its backing.
He had caught Sukari standing on the chair, her hands forming the sign for “turtle,” her lips pursed as if blowing out candles, and Joey beside her holding the abalone shell in the air and smiling. Joey stared at the picture. How could she have imagined this moment? Would Roxy or anyone else believe her if she told them that she had a sign-language-using chimpanzee for a friend? “It’s wonderful,” she said, and moved to hand it back to Charlie.
He pushed it back. “It’s for you.”
Joey wanted to keep it more than anything, but where? It was too valuable to hide in her damp hollow tree, and her mother would find it anyplace else. “Could you keep it for me for a while?”
Charlie’s brow creased, then his eyebrows bobbed. “Did you tell your mother about meeting us?”
Joey missed everything but “tell” and “mother,” all she really needed to see.
She nodded her head. “She knows I met you; she asked about the letter, but I didn’t tell her about Sukari.” She stopped there and hoped that he’d let it go. Her mother was silly about animals, but it had dawned on Joey that if she found out Sukari signed, it would give her just the ammunition she needed. Ruth had convinced herself that sign language was shorthand for real language. If she knew a chimpanzee used it, that would seal it for Joey.
As if he’d read her mind, Still, secrets aren’t good, he wrote. They just make people think there is something to hide even if there isn’t.
Joey picked Sukari up. “I know. I’ll tell her,” she said, hugging the little chimp. “Do you want to see where I live?” Joey asked Sukari.
When Charlie signed, GO WALK. SEE FRIEND HER HOUSE, Sukari squirmed out of Joey’s arms, ran to the front door, signed, HURRY, HURRY, then climbed the coat rack and tried to put her coat on without taking it off the hanger.
Joey led the way along a fairly level Jug Handle State Park trail so that Charlie didn’t have to climb any slopes. Sukari rode draped over Joey’s head, a foot on each shoulder, her arms locked under Joey’s chin. Before they left, Charlie had asked her if she enjoyed birds, and when she said she did but didn’t know the different kinds, he’d loaned her a pair of binoculars and brought along a field guide to western birds.
Joey’s sharpened senses let her spot the telltale movements of birds before Sukari or Charlie saw them. She’d point them out and he’d find them for her in the field guide: two Stellar’s jays, a Varied thrush, a half-dozen Chestnut-backed chickadees, Oregon juncos, and an Acorn woodpecker. When they flushed a covey of quail, which flew into trees like a barrel load of bowling balls, Sukari screamed and jumped from Joey’s shoulders onto Charlie’s back.
BIRD BIRD. “You big sissy.” Charlie clicked her under the chin.
Joey took Sukari back from Charlie so that he was free to write. Something about having him for a friend made her feel like a baby bird teetering on the edge of its nest, craving flight. She took Sukari’s hands in hers, spread their arms, and swooped down a small hill, around a tree, and back up to join Charlie.
They walked a bit farther until Charlie stopped and put a finger to his lips, then smiled to himself. “A Winter wren.” He showed her its picture. “It’s this big.” He held his thumb and index finger about four inches apart. Tiny, he wrote, with a big, beautiful song.
“When I could hear I didn’t pay attention to bird songs; now I wish I
had.”
Jays are noisy, but they can mimic other birds, especially hawks, and there’s a secretive little bird called a Wrentit in the forests here that sounds like a ping pong ball bouncing away. Once, on a trip to New Zealand, I heard the dawn chorus of the Bellbirds. They sounded exactly like hundreds of bells ringing high in the treetops. That’s my favorite memory of a sound. Do you have one?
The note was so long that they stopped in a patch of sunlight while he finished it. Joey looked up at the redwood leaves moving silently against a patch of blue in a slowly graying sky. She thought first of the wind in pines, but when she opened her mouth to answer, that’s not what she said. “We always seemed to live near railroad tracks. The places were ugly, but I loved the wail of a train coming. I suppose that isn’t a pretty sound to have as a favorite one.”
Trains affect a lot of people that way.
She could feel him watching her read. When she handed the pad back, he wrote, The wail is so lonesome-sounding and the tracks so straight, maybe trains offer a way out of places people don’t want to be anymore.
A chill ran through Joey. She looked at him. “That’s it, isn’t it? One of the trailers we lived in was the nearest in the park to the tracks. From my room, it seemed like I could see for miles in both directions. I remember wishing Mom and I could slip out one night and just start walking, one way or the other.”
Charlie looked at her, thoughtfully, and it seemed as if he wasn’t going to let what she’d said end there, but something Sukari was doing got his attention. She sat with her back to them, probing the rotting end of a log with a stick. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Sukari turned and pulled her lips back. A sow bug crawled out from between her teeth and dropped to the ground. Charlie rolled his eyes and shook his head. She likes how they crunch.
Joey laughed. “No more kisses for you,” she said.
Is there a sound you’ve never heard that you’d like to? he’d written when she turned again.
“The ocean.” Then something else occurred to her: “And my own voice.”
