by Lorraine Ray
Marching beside Helen, her grandfather, and the other mountain men, Stephanie didn’t do anything bad for the first handful of blocks of the parade. Of this feat, she was justifiably proud. During that whole time she was content to pass the admiring crowds and notice the interesting effect she had on them, for several adults and many children pointed to the small mountain girl among the group of mountain men and she felt wildly satisfied by their attention. She tried to hold herself erect and swagger a bit like the rest of the group. She wished he had a rifle like the others or some traps; those beaver traps would be just right slung on her shoulder, jingling and clanking away.
“Chaining up the beavers! We’re chaining up the beavers!” Stephanie cried in every direction. Aunt Helen thought she was terribly funny, that she had never seen anything funnier, but Mr. Thom accidentally conked the side of Stephanie’s head with his elbow.
Why, Stephanie grumbled, they hadn’t even given her a sharp stick to carry. She would have liked a sharp stick very much indeed. What kind of mountain man was she without even a sharp stick to defend her against rabid beavers? What if she encountered a wolf pack or something? Wouldn’t a real mountain man girl have a weapon to defend herself with? A measly slingshot even? Or a wonderful gun that she could use to shoot whatever challenged her. She liked to think of animals challenging her and she would whip out her gun and blast them.
Things about this parade were getting her down, especially the lack of a sharp stick. She was starting to feel sorry for herself.
But then she saw the big, green steaming pile of something lying in the street ahead. She realized pretty quickly that it might be horse pooh. She approached the pile fearfully, not exactly certain what it could be. She was not well informed about horse pooh. However, it proved to be quite fascinating stuff. It was strange to look at. She bent down to examine it and then got a whiff of the gassy stink wafting up. She quickly pinched her nostrils together and scampered away as fast as she could, hoping that the smell wasn’t following. Unfortunately, a horse-faced boy with slanted green eyes liked what she did and laughed. “Look at the funny girl! She was looking at the horse poop! Look! Look!” he screamed to his brothers. That boy’s laugh was contagious and soon all his brother, and lots of other people, were laughing at what she did.
The mountain men, especially Mr. Thom, marched on, impervious to the effect the little girl was having on the crowd. Aunt Helen was in on the whole thing and trying not to laugh. Some of the mountain men thought the rumble of laughter was the way the crowd had of reacting to the seriousness and historical authenticity of their many mountain man costumes. Others thought people were a little over-awed by them, impressed to the point where they needed some relief which they had found in a comical clown, perhaps, near them at the sidewalk.
Stephanie marched another block and then dropped a pace behind her grandfather and Helen and waited for another of those miraculous piles of steaming green fun that put everyone in a good mood. When one finally came, she kept her eye on it and maneuvered herself so that she would come straight on to it. That way she could step over the stinking load in an elaborate fashion, which would make more people, new people, laugh. And it did come and she did step and the crowd did laugh at what she did. It was a miracle! She was an entertainer! And with such a simple prop. There seemed to be a lot of it, too. Grandpa had said she should be the star of the parade.
And another pile came! She jumped over that gob of horse poop like a silly lord a-leaping. She flung her body out into space and soared over that glob of gunk like some kind of stupid poopy headed prince who was dreaming of his lady love and full of all kinds of imaginary, princely, poopy thoughts.
Whee!
The crowd loved it.
Stephanie beamed a smug sort of self-satisfied smile and bowed in several directions.
A long stretch without horse poop ensued.
When the mountain man group reached the intersection of Desperation Street and Wreckage Avenue, she thought it would be funny to scratch her underarms like a little silly monkey. And people liked that a lot, too.
Then she tried hopping instead of walking. Lots of the kids thought that was very funny and laughed and laughed.
The marching men began to notice and look around and so she stopped all her crazy antics for a while and walked soberly looking around as though she was uncertain what was making all the people in the crowd laugh. Who did they think they were laughing at when mountain men were so awfully serious and all?
After that, she walked behind Grandpa Drummond. It only took her a few minutes and she was pulling a hundred different faces. She puffed out her cheeks and crossed her eyes. She scratched her belly and picked at her bottom in a goofy way, lifting her legs and seeming to scratch her crack in an excruciating fashion.
She then decided that it would be humorous to stride down the street with her legs wide apart while walking on the sides of her feet. The crowd liked this quite a bit and lots of people were tittering at the girl walking in a crazy way.
For a while she decided to march like a wind-up toy and she buzzed around a new pile of horse pooh.
She reached to the back of her pants and pretended to give herself a wedgie and then chased a Sabar clown in a dinky car.
That was when the crowd went wild and Mr. Thom turned around to see exactly what all the commotion was about. He looked directly at her as she was crossing her eyes and puffing out her cheeks. She expelled air and smiled in a sickly fashion at him.
“Hi, Mr. Thom,” she called.
The parade was over.
She had loved the whole thing, except for the part when Mr. Thom had squeezed her neck. That hurt and she told Mr. Thom that it did but he didn’t stop what he was doing and he wouldn’t take his hands off her neck as he propelled her toward the curb. Mr. Thom’s face went sort of purplish and he told Aunt Helen that she’d better stop Stephanie from behaving silly for the rest of the parade for, “God save my soul, I want to kill her.”
It was news to Stephanie that God was a woman, but if Mr. Thom said so, she would have to believe him, however, killing God, if God were a man or a woman, would not be a good idea, Stephanie reckoned. A person could get into a lot of trouble for doing something like that.
Chapter Twelve
