Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  “Never mind,” she said.

  Lalena said, “Never mind what?”

  “Just never mind,” Fern said.

  “Redneck, right?” Lalena said.

  Fern said, “Lalena.”

  “Redneck or straights, right,” Lalena said.

  “Lalena,” Fern said. “Be kind. Be generous. Be better than them.”

  Lalena looked at me and made her stupid face.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And do unto others.”

  “Family of man,” I said.

  Lalena snorted, which made me laugh, like I always laugh when Lalena snorts.

  I said, “I’ll be right back.”

  My butt felt wet from sitting on the grass. My knees were green. I walked over to the big tree, and Jimmy Henry put his sunglasses on top of his head. He leaned on one side of the big tree and Lalena’s daddy was leaning on the other side of the tree. Lalena’s daddy had his sunglasses on his face. They were both smoking Marlboros.

  Jimmy Henry said, “Time for a bottle of pop?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He got a bottle of pop from the white cooler box and he opened it with the opener on his keychain. He got a beer out of his backpack, and he put the other beers into the white cooler box, except one for Lalena’s daddy. Margo filled up a paper cup with yellow Kool-Aid. Jimmy Henry got our blue squirt gun from his pack and he gave it to Margo. She pulled out the little white squirt gun cork, and she poured the yellow Kool-Aid into the blue squirt gun. The blue squirt gun turned green. She stuck the little white squirt gun cork back in.

  “Give it to Sarajean,” Jimmy Henry said.

  He said, “Take it out to the circle. See if Lady Jane wants a squirt. Or any of the grown-ups that want some, you get to squirt it into their mouth. Be sure to tell them it’s Margo’s Kool-Aid.”

  Margo said, “No Kool-Aid for kids.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I mean it,” Margo said in her serious voice that she didn’t use very much. “Don’t you squirt that in any kids’ mouths.”

  I aimed the squirt gun at Jimmy Henry’s mouth.

  “Not me,” he said. “I don’t do Margo’s Kool-Aid.”

  I set my bottle of pop in the grass next to my cutoffs bag and went back to my place in the circle next to Lalena and the big twisted pile of dandelion ropes.

  “This is our blue squirt gun,” I said.

  Lalena said, “That squirt gun is green.”

  “It’s green because of yellow Kool-Aid,” I said. “Yellow and blue makes green, remember?”

  Lalena took the squirt gun and shook it, looked at it, shook it.

  “You can’t have any,” I said. “Just grown-ups, Margo said.”

  “Electric,” Lalena said. “We’ll make it a cord to plug it in, look.”

  She stood up and pulled her dandelion rope out from the dandelion rope pile. She walked away, pulling the dandelion rope along with her until a long dandelion rope was pulled across the grass. Then she wrapped the end of the dandelion rope around the handle of the squirt gun, mashing some of the dandelions, so that the dandelion rope was hanging from there. It was beautiful. We walked over to Fern.

  I said, “Want some Kool-Aid in your mouth?”

  Fern said, “Did Margo make that Kool-Aid?”

  “Yes,” I said. “In the milk bottle.”

  “None for me,” she said. “And none for you either. Ask Lady Jane.”

  We squirted Kool-Aid into Lady Jane’s mouth.

  “Far out,” Lady Jane said. “Today my name is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

  I said, “A special Memorial Day weekend name?”

  “Just for today,” Lady Jane said.

  The dandelion rope dragged out behind us. Lalena squirted until the squirt gun was empty and blue again, and we went back to the tree to fill it up. The dandelion rope was getting shorter. Margo dripped the last of the Kool-Aid into the squirt gun and the squirt gun turned green again and she gave it back to me.

  I said, “Let’s go squirt Lady Jane again. She’ll say far out again.”

  “You mean old Lucy?” Lalena said. “What a weirdo name.”

  We walked back across the grass. The singers in the circle were singing, and then the singing stopped, a few voices at a time, until the only voice left singing was John Fitzgerald Kennedy Karpinski. Then he stopped too.

  Lalena said, “Pigs.”

  She was looking at the road that went by the edge of the grass. A black and white police car was there, stopped at the edge of the grass.

  I said, “Not pigs. Fern said don’t say pigs.”

  “Pigs,” Lalena said.

  “Brother Bacon,” I said. “Fern said to say Brother Bacon.”

  The police guys walked up to the tree, and Jimmy Henry and Lalena’s daddy stopped leaning on the tree and stood up straight. They both had their sunglasses down on their faces. Margo put the empty milk bottle in the grass. The police guys walked past Margo and the empty milk bottle, walked to the big tree and stopped.

  Lalena went, “Sh.”

  She went some tiny tiptoe steps toward where the police guys were, toward the tree.

  I said, “No,” in a whisper.

  She said, “Sh.”

  I went right behind her. She stopped a little way behind the police guys.

  One of them said, “There’s some patriotic Americans out here today, boys.”

  The other one said, “It is boys, isn’t it?”

  The first police guy took Jimmy Henry’s Marlboros out of his T-shirt pocket. The police guy looked at each Marlboro and then dropped it on the grass until all the Marlboros were lying on the grass. There were a lot of people around us, watching us, watching the police guys look at Jimmy Henry’s Marlboros. The singers in the peace symbol watched. The pickup truck guy drove by on the road.

  Lalena’s daddy said, “America.”

  He said, “Vietnam . . . my buddy . . .”

  He said, “Officer, you are looking at patriotic Americans.”

  Lalena turned to me and she said, “Brother Bacon, you are looking at patriotic Americans.”

  I said, “Sh.”

  She whispered back at me.

  She said, “Squirt him in the butt.”

  I said, “Squirt the police guy?”

  “Just in his butt,” she said. “Look at that fat butt. He won’t even know.”

  I aimed the squirt gun at the police guy’s fat blue butt.

  “Go on,” Lalena said.

  The squirt didn’t go anywhere close by the police guy’s butt. I saw Jimmy Henry. I saw Jimmy Henry see me. Jimmy Henry took his sunglasses off his face and frowned right at me. Then he smiled at the police guy. I put the squirt gun into the side pocket of my truckers and turned back to the circle, just seeing my sneakers on my feet. I kicked one sneaker off hard. I sat back down at our same place in the circle and Fern’s feet came over by me in the grass.

  I said, “Leave me alone.”

  Lalena said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Just shut up,” I said. “Now I’m in trouble.”

  “You never get in trouble,” Lalena said.

  Fern said, “Why don’t you give me the squirt gun?”

  I put the squirt gun into her reaching-down hand.

  “It’s okay,” Lalena said. “They’re leaving. The pigs are leaving.”

  “Lalena,” Fern said.

  The black and white car drove away along the curvy road.

  Then Jimmy Henry and Lalena’s daddy left, walking away out of the park.

  There never were any potato chips.

  A bee got in my bottle of pop and drowned.

  When it was time to go, Jimmy Henry still wasn’t back and some of the people were going home out of the park.

  Margo said, “You come on with us.”

  Fern said, “You can come with us, Sarajean.”

  Margo said, “Jimmy Henry is probably over at our house.”

  I walked back to Corona Street, wa
lking behind Margo and Kate-Katie and Lalena. Jimmy Henry was there, asleep on the couch at Lalena’s house. Lalena’s daddy was asleep in his chair. They didn’t wake up, and I slept in Lalena’s bed with her. She went to sleep and snored little snores for a long time.

  DANDELIONS GREW all over my backyard, and it was hot back there, and not too many bees. Lalena and I sat in the tall weeds behind the ivy tub, in the little bit of shade from the sumac tree, making dandelion ropes, and Tina Blue’s back door opened and there was Tina Blue.

  She leaned in the doorway with her eyes closed, with the sun shining right on her face. She had her wooden hairbrush in her hand. She didn’t open her eyes and see Lalena and me behind the sumac tree, behind the ivy, in all the tall weeds.

  Tina Blue had a swishy purple top with beautiful purple ribbons dangling from her neck. The sleeves were long and big, like purple wings, lacy and see-through to her arms. Her skirt was made from blue jeans and patches.

  I leaned over close to Lalena’s ear and I said, “That’s her.”

  Lalena whispered back. She said, “Why is she standing there with her eyes closed?”

  I said, “She likes to have her eyes closed.”

  Tina Blue touched her neck with the wooden hairbrush. She brushed the hairbrush on the bare skin of her neck, down her shoulder, up to her neck again, up and down. Then she went back in. Shut the door. Never opened her eyes.

  Lalena said, “Fucking stoner.”

  I said, “Fucking stoner?”

  “Fucking stoner,” Lalena said. “Fucking stoner fucking stoner.”

  Lalena said it again, over and over, fucking stoner fucking stoner, until it was so funny we both started falling over, falling down in the dandelions saying fucking stoner fucking stoner.

  WHEN IT was hot and summer out I stopped going to Free School. Jimmy Henry said who’s in there sleeping, but I was usually already awake, early, the sun coming in my window, on my face, in my bed, and on the red truckers folded up, Tina Blue’s silver flower spoon ring under the blue star, snapped into the pocket.

  Sometimes after I got dressed I got back in bed and hugged my pillow. It made me sleepy again, back in bed with the red truckers on and Tina Blue’s ring in the blue star pocket and hugging my pillow against the bump of it.

  It was granola for breakfast almost every morning, with bananas for me, with coffee for Jimmy Henry. I didn’t have to eat the granola all the way to the bottom of the bowl, but I had to put the bowl in the sink. After breakfast was in the sink we walked outside without shoes. We walked to the corner across from the Safeway store to the yellow metal newspaper box and I put the nickels and the dimes in. Jimmy Henry opened the little door on the front of the metal box and he got a Denver Post from the stack of Denver Posts inside there. Then he let the little door bounce shut and it locked, and we walked barefoot back to our house. Jimmy Henry usually went back upstairs. I stayed on the porch. I got the funnies.

  Sometimes Jimmy Henry came back downstairs with his coffee in his cup. He drank coffee and smoked Marlboros on the top steps of the porch. Making smoke rings. Flipping his cigarette butts in a swoop out into the street. Quiet but not too quiet. The bluejays screeched a lot right there in the holly bushes, and sometimes people came over, and Jimmy Henry would get up and say come on up.

  I was coloring Brenda Starr’s hair with yellow, which didn’t look blond, it looked yellow, and then I heard Kate-Katie’s green Volkswagen, which always sounded like roller skates. Lalena’s daddy was driving, and Kate-Katie was in the front seat and Lalena was in the back seat. They all got out, and Lalena had her shoe box of colored pencils and crayons, a whole shoe box full.

  Lalena’s daddy said, “Hey.”

  He stomped his feet on the steps like there was snow on his shoes, like it was winter, not summer.

  Jimmy Henry said, “Come on up.”

  Lalena’s daddy and Kate-Katie and Jimmy Henry went in the door and then their feet went up the stairs. Lalena walked over to me at the table and dumped her shoe box upside down on top of the table.

  She said, “Fucking carrot juice.”

  Most of the colored pencils and crayons stayed on top of the table, rolling around, some on the floor. The pink pencil rolled off the edge of the porch and under the holly bushes, which is where there are spiders. Lalena didn’t see the pink pencil go under the holly bushes.

  Lalena always got in a bad mood when Margo made carrot juice. Lalena wouldn’t drink it. John Fitzgerald Kennedy Karpinski said carrots made Lalena’s hair orange. I gave her the Daisy May part of the funnies.

  When Kate-Katie and Lalena’s daddy came back down the stairs, Kate-Katie came over to the table.

  She said, “I think Brenda Starr is a redhead.”

  Lalena said, “Shut up.”

  Lalena’s daddy said, “Margo will come after you later, Lalena girl.”

  They got in the Volkswagen, and the Volkswagen drove away.

  Lalena didn’t color. After a while she went and sat in one of my boxes. The boxes were lined up facing away from the door. After a while I went and sat in the other box.

  I said, “What do you want to do?”

  “Nothing,” Lalena said.

  The sun was shining on my face, and I laid down and closed my eyes a little, for rainbows in my eyelashes. When I closed my eyes all the way it was bright orange. The door opened behind us. Banged shut. Sandals across the porch, down the stairs, away on the sidewalk. Lalena stuck her face around the side of her box and whispered.

  She said, “That was her.”

  “Tina Blue,” I said.

  Lalena got out of her box. Her feet went to the porch steps, and then they came back. She stuck her face in my box.

  She said, “She’s gone.”

  “I know,” I said. “I can tell.”

  I laid back down and closed my eyes to the sun. Lalena got in my box next to me and whispered at my ear.

  She said, “Let’s go in there.”

  “In where?” I said, whispering back.

  “In Tina Blue’s,” she said.

  “We can’t,” I said, not whispering.

  “Sh,” Lalena said. “Why not?”

  “We’ll get in trouble,” I said.

  “You never get in trouble,” she said. “She won’t know.”

  “Jimmy Henry will get mad,” I said.

  Lalena got out and went to the front door, opened it, and went in. She came back out.

  “It’s not locked,” she whispered at the back of my box.

  I crawled out.

  “Your pink pencil went under the holly bush,” I said.

  She went to the front door and stood there, looking at me, and then she went in. I went after, into the dark of inside. Lalena went first and opened Tina Blue’s door a tiny crack, and she looked back at me. Then she went in, and I went in.

  It was dark inside Tina Blue’s apartment. It was quiet. The bed was messy and full of blankets. I shut the door behind me and stood still, looking around in the dark. Lalena went over to the table. There was nothing but a glass there. She went through the door to the bathroom. All Tina Blue’s stuff, her albums lined up across the shelf, the white elephant, the little wooden box.

  The skinny window by the bed was closed down and a green and purple striped cloth was hanging there. The blankets all smelled like new laundry. I got on the bed on my knees and across to the window, pushed the striped cloth a little bit away and looked out, down to the skinny sidewalk between the houses. I unsnapped my blue star pocket and took out Tina Blue’s ring and set it on the windowsill. Silver flowers. I put it back in my pocket and snapped the blue star.

  Lalena came back out of the bathroom and she went to a little dresser with four drawers. The top drawer was open, and Lalena took out a lacy undershirt.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  I said, “I don’t think you should look in the drawers.”

  I climbed back across the pillows and blankets, climbed back out of the bed.
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  Lalena took out some pink underpants with flowers.

  “Beautiful,” she said.

  Then she took out a little blue painted box. There was a little click when it opened.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll get your pink pencil back.”

  Lalena said, “Look.”

  The blue box had balloons inside. Balloons tied with knots, two red balloons, one blue.

  “So what,” I said. “Balloons. Come on.”

  “Balloons,” Lalena said, “Ha. Fucking stoner.”

  She clicked the little blue box closed. She put the box back in the drawer, and she put both hands in the drawer and wiggled her hands around in all the underpants and things.

  Jimmy Henry’s feet walked across the ceiling.

  “Come on,” I said.

  We tiptoed out, shutting Tina Blue’s door as quiet as we could shut it. Nothing, not Jimmy Henry coming down. Outside on the porch was bright again, and noisy from bluejays and from cars and being back outside. I laid down on my stomach at the edge of the porch and quick grabbed Lalena’s pink pencil.

  IT WAS raining, big thunderstorm raining, and Margo and Lalena and I ran home from Cheeseman Park all wet. We ran on the sidewalk splashing. My sneakers got completely wet. Lalena’s hair was sticking to her shoulders and sticking to her face in all red squiggles, her face mad, her whole self mad. Goosebumps on all her arm freckles. We ran up onto my front porch out from the big raindrops. Margo opened the front door and stopped there looking in. I looked around her while I took my wet sneakers off my feet.

  Tina Blue’s door was open, and Jimmy Henry was sitting on a box in there. I went past Margo, through the dark hallway, to Tina Blue’s doorway. Jimmy Henry sat on the box in the middle of Tina Blue’s apartment with a piece of paper, holding it.

  Tina Blue’s apartment was empty. No albums lined up across, no books. No white china elephant. The little curvy table was gone and there was no blanket, no pillow, just plain striped mattress stuff with old mattress stains. The little dresser against the wall had all the drawers sticking out.

  “Is she gone?” I said. “Did Tina Blue move out?”

  Jimmy Henry’s hair was down hanging over his face, over his eyes. Lalena went over to the little dresser and she looked in the top drawer.