I cry, so I can’t answer. She cuddles with me on the couch, watching a Leave it to Beaver marathon until Mama comes home. Oma returns an hour later with a get-well card and a Barbie doll.
Chapter 13
It took a week for the swelling of my nose to go down. During that time, I stayed home, enduring Oma’s constant questions. They revolved between, “Why aren’t you in school?” and “Where’s your mother?” Once, Oma thought I suffered from the chicken pox. “Don’t come any closer!”
Other times, Oma tried to teach me how to play the piano, even though I couldn’t see the keys or sheet music. I couldn’t have read the sheet music, anyway, but I loved listening to Oma play. She used to play whenever I had visited as a child. I would sit on the couch hugging a stuffed skunk and close my eyes, losing myself to the perky show tunes from musicals I’d never heard of, since they were from the 1950s.
My favorite song was one Oma said belonged to the Goat Children - their anthem.
Phebe called to read her children books to me over the phone. Dad’s brother, Tom, called to see how I was. He hardly ever called, so it brought bitter tears to my eyes because it had taken a nearly broken nose to make him care.
Michael brought over Bloody Jack on CD from the library
Mama called the school and complained they should’ve been more concerned about my state of wellbeing. The substitute gym teacher stressed it was my fault. I should’ve paid more attention to the game instead of daydreaming and talking to my friends.
I’d wanted to pay attention, but I didn’t understand the game. The gym teacher stuck to her story, though. I hadn’t asked for help. If I had, the teacher would’ve been more than happy to explain the rules.
The principal was more concerned with my walking home, despite saying I was going to class. I hadn’t been allowed home sick since Oma and Uncle Jan hadn’t answered their phones. This meant a day of in-school suspension on Monday. I would have to go back to school then, even if I still had two black eyes and a swollen nose.
Shit.
On Saturday morning, Oma stepped in front of the television while I ate Rice Krispies for breakfast.
“I want to buy some half-moon cookies.” Oma waved her purse. “Up and at ‘em. It’ll make you feel better to get out of the house. We’re going to the bakery.”
I might look like crap, but that didn’t matter with no one to impress at the bakery.
I stepped outside, and the cold wind tingled against my face. The air smelled tangy, like rain. I shivered and held tighter to Oma’s arm. Maybe the walk to the bakery wasn’t such a great idea. Neither of us could see well, and Oma was becoming more apt to reach for the wall when she walked around the house.
The clouds parted to let sunlight soak the city. Oma fiddled with her sunglasses. “We’re going to walk the cookies over to Lesley,” she said.
“Lesley?” The name almost sounded familiar.
“My friend Lesley,” Oma snapped. “We used to visit her all the time when you were little. Back before your mother dragged you off to who knows where with them.”
I drew a deep breath before blurting out. “Why don’t you like Phebe?”
“Lesley never learned how to drive.” Oma ignored my query. “I always used to drive her everywhere, back when I still drove.” She exhaled. “Uncle Jan took my car keys away. He’s afraid I’ll drive, but I wouldn’t get far before the police caught me.”
The car keys were still on the hallway table, but whatever. Images of Phebe flitted across my mind. Oma shouldn’t act like my sister was little more than crap.
Oma continued. “I told Lesley about the Goat Children. She believed me. No one ever believes me about the Goat Children, but you believe me, don’t you? Everyone used to think I had a wild imagination, and now they just think I’m a crazy old woman. Ha!” She barked a laugh. “I’m not crazy.”
No, Oma wasn’t crazy. She had dementia.
“I told Muriel, too.” Oma sighed. “Poor Muriel. She believed me, you know. I used to tell her if she kept taking things from my garage, the Goat Children would come after her.”
We strolled away from the bakery. I had to keep Oma on the sidewalk by steering her, else she walked into the grass.
“I want to be a Goat Child again.” Oma stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. “I left them to marry your grandfather, but now I miss them. It was so much fun having that kind of power.”
“What kind of power?” Even if Oma had dementia, at least she could find happiness in her stories.
“All sorts, but you never grow old. You remain the age you were when you joined them. They don’t accept anyone younger than fourteen, or older than nineteen. I was there for so long, and I was always sixteen, never a day older or younger. Then I met your grandfather. I had never cared for a man as much as I loved him. I left them to be with him.”
“Can you go back?” Someone had left a baseball bat on the sidewalk. I kicked it away so Oma wouldn’t trip.
“Yes, they’ll take you back, sometimes, but then you can never leave again, and you’ll always be the age you were before. I’ll be sixteen again, forever.” Oma really should’ve published these stories as books.
“Why did you join in the first place?”
“My parents died of pneumonia. I would have had to go and live with my uncle in Holland, but then the Goat Children came to me. They asked me to join them.”
“That must’ve been nice.” No one ever mentioned Oma’s parents. I didn’t even know their names. A pang of regret stabbed my heart.
“It was. Isn’t it weird how, back then, I would be amazed to get a peppermint stick from the store, but now I’m buying sweet cookies?”
I remembered those words when we reached the bakery, and looked around for an old-fashion peppermint stick stand. No such luck. Oma picked out a jelly bun and two half-moon cookies for her friend, and I paid since Oma couldn’t see which bill was worth five dollars.
“How much longer before we reach Lesley’s?” I asked once we left the bakery.
“What?”
“How much longer till we get to your friend’s house?”
“What?” Oma scratched the mole on her cheek.
I shouted the question.
“There’s no need to yell at me. Where’s my little Keziah gone off to?” Oma’s brows drew together, and her lips pressed into a thin line, whitening.
I tightened my arm around my grandmother. Tree roots grew under the slabs of cement, cracking it. If Oma’s toe caught in one of those cracks…
The silence became unbearable, and I racked my brain for something to say. Cars zoomed by, yet we only met a woman walking a fluffy white dog.
“Hello,” the woman said.
Oma had, of course, not heard her. I hadn’t wanted to stress that Oma couldn’t hear, so I only waved at the woman.
“What are you looking at?” I asked Oma as she stared across the street.
“Things that aren’t right,” she said.
Okay then. “Cool.”
“That’s when you know something is wrong. You have to memorize the right so you can see the bad.”
I wanted to say Oma couldn’t remember what “right” looked like on the street since she didn’t go out much, but instead, I stepped on an orange leaf. It crunched beneath my Converse sneaker.
“It’s a Goat Child thing,” Oma added. “You wouldn’t understand.”
No, I don’t understand at all. I stepped on another leaf, this one with a reddish shade.
“Here we are.” Oma turned toward a walkway leading from the sidewalk to a squat yellow house with green shutters. What an awful color combination.
“Your friend lives here?” I had a sick feeling we were about to knock on a door and be greeted by a stranger who would have no idea who we sought, this friend of Oma’s named Lesley.
Oma pulled away from me and marched up the walkway to the front stoop, so I ran after her. First, I’d had to hold her just to keep her from falling, and now sh
e walked like an athlete.
The walkway was strewn with fallen leaves, the tree in the front yard turning colors earlier than most others in the neighborhood. The leaves hid the edge of the stoop, so Oma wasn’t lifting her foot to step up.
I grabbed her arm. “Watch out for the step!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Here, see?” I brushed the leaves with the side of my foot and tapped the edge of the step with my toe.
“I can see that.”
Oma missed the step and stumbled, grabbing the railing to keep from tumbling over. I kept my grip on her arm.
“The step’s broken,” Oma exclaimed. “Ring the doorbell.”
I pressed the glowing doorbell. From inside the house, a faint chiming sounded. When the stranger opened the door, what should I say? Hi, excuse us, but my grandmother seems to think her friend Lesley lives here.
What if Lesley didn’t even exist? She could be a friend from years ago, no longer alive.
The front door opened a crack, and an elderly woman peered at us. The pale eyes narrowed, and she opened the door wider. “Leontien?”
“Lesley?” Oma looked down at me to comment, “She certainly hasn’t aged well!”
I winced at the rudest comment I’d heard all day.
“Leontien, is this your granddaughter? My, she’s grown. What grade are you in now, honey?”
The wind blew a strand of hair into my mouth when I started to speak and I spit it out. “I’m in twelfth.”
“What’s her name again?” Lesley seemed to ask Oma, but she stared at me.
“I’m Keziah.”
“That’s pretty name,” Lesley said. Wow, Lesley existed.
Oma smoothed her hat. “We’ve come calling. I brought you some cookies. Give her the cookies, Keziah. Oh, Lesley, you have to watch my girl like a hawk to make sure she does what she should. I said give her the cookies.”
I already held out the bakery box, but Lesley didn’t take them.
“Won’t you come in?” Lesley stepped back, frowning at the doorframe. She held out her hand and pawed at the air as if expecting a screen door. There were hinges for it, but someone must’ve taken it in for the winter.
Oma stepped passed Lesley into the house. I followed with one hand still on my grandmother’s arm. Lesley muttered at the missing screen and shut the inner door.
“My mother was here earlier.” Lesley led us down the narrow hallway into the first room on the left. “She made me some iced tea. Would you two ladies like some?”
“Your mother was here earlier?” Lesley’s mother had to be dead. Lesley looked to be at least eighty years old.
“Yes.” When Lesley nodded, her short white curls bounced. “See, here’s a picture of her. Here’s my mother.” The elderly woman pointed to a picture on top of a table near the doorway. Lesley looked the same; the only difference was a change of dress. A younger woman stood beside her on a pier, with a sailboat in the background.
“You mean daughter?” I asked. “She’s your daughter?”
“Yes, my daughter.” Lesley quirked her right eyebrow. “Who else would she be? She’s found me a nice lady to come every day and just sit with me for company. If I need anything, I tell her, and it’s all free. You should have Jan find someone like that for you,” Lesley told Oma.
“Jan’s mother isn’t feeling well. It’s her back.”
“Oma, you are Uncle Jan’s mother,” I said.
“What?” Oma scratched her mole again.
“How about some iced tea?” Lesley asked. “My granddaughters love iced tea. They’re both working at the Gap. Do you ever go there?” She peered at me, licking her wrinkled lips.
“I never go there,” I said.
“Well,” Oma flared her nostrils. “I’m glad I came. All you two do is talk without me. I feel like I don’t belong here at all.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. “But Oma, I was just answering her questions!”
Oma huffed, rolling her shoulders as if ruffling her feathers, and glared at Lesley. “How’s your cat?”
“Mr. Fluffy died.” Lesley frowned as if she tried to think if Mr. Fluffy really was gone.
I opened my mouth to say I was sorry about the loss of the pet, but Oma still had a pout on her face, so it would be safer to keep quiet.
“Jan’s mother got hurt,” Oma said.
Wife, I corrected in my mind.
“How did that happen?” Lesley asked.
“She…fell, I think.” Oma frowned.
My aunt had pulled a muscle in her back lifting a box, but I decided not to correct her.
“That’s a shame.” Lesley shifted in her seat. A lace doily slid off the armrest to land on the hardwood floor.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Lesley waved her hand at me.
“Of course she doesn’t,” Oma snapped. “She’s too young. She’s a good girl.”
I picked at my blue nail polish; an edge loosened and the chip drifted onto the floor. How long before Lesley served the iced tea?
****
I am eight years old. Since I have a cold, I am staying home from school. Dad is home, so I don’t get to spend the day with Oma. When she watches me, we play games and I forget about being sick. Dad, however, keeps working on a new article while I watch TV.
“What would you like for lunch?” he asks.
“Garlic knots and dill pickles.” My belly craves them.
“We don’t have any. I’ll make you some seaweed soup later.” He returns to his office.
Oma calls. “How are you, honey?”
“Still stuffy.” My nose runs, so I wipe it with a tissue. “I really want garlic knots and pickles, but there aren’t any here.”
She drives to the pizzeria for garlic knots and stops at the grocery store for pickles. After she brings them over, she sits with me in bed for the rest of the day. While I doze, she reads to me. I feel better, even if I still can’t breathe through my nose.
Chapter 14
Iced tea haunted me. Ever since the visit to Lesley’s, the beverage seemed to be everywhere. A huge sign hung in front of Ann’s, advertising a special of iced tea and egg salad sandwiches. Every teacher at school seemed to carry around a cup of iced tea instead of the normal coffee thermoses. Even some of the students guzzled iced tea.
Who has iced tea in autumn? Puffy white flakes of the season’s first snowfall drifted towards the ground, visible through the window of the school’s computer lab. On the news, the weatherman assumed the children would trudge through snow on their trip from house to house next weekend during Halloween.
Every Halloween, I stayed home with my parents and Phebe. We watched black-and-white movies with bowls of popcorn. I could almost, but not quite, remember when we used to live in New Winchester, and I went trick-or-treating around the block. Mostly, I remembered snowflakes in the air and shaving cream sprayed across sidewalk squares.
Too bad Phebe couldn’t come for Halloween. I’d asked Mama, promising to escort Phebe house to house with her bag for gathering candy.
“Absolutely not,” Mama had said. Oma wouldn’t want to watch Phebe while I was at school, and Mama couldn’t get time off to accompany her upstate.
I tapped my lower lip with my green pen. Was I too old to go trick-or-treating? It would have to be alone, since I didn’t have any friends, yet. Maybe I could hint to Matt. No, Matt was going to a party on Halloween. He’d already told me that at our lockers. I rubbed the crease forming between my eyebrows.
“Listen up,” the computer teacher said. “We will be researching our family trees and creating PowerPoint presentations on them. Our school subscribes to some great search engines. Those are listed on the papers I passed out earlier.”
The packet included systematic instructions on how to create the presentation, and the last page was a list of helpful sites, along with a doodle page to sketch my family tree.
“Excuse,” a boy called.
“What is it, K’Paw
?” the teacher asked.
“What if I don’t know? I’m adopted.”
“Don’t worry, baby,” his girlfriend cooed. “I’ll help you with your current family. You know I always help you.” She licked the edge of K’Paw’s stubbly jaw when the teacher looked down at his desk. I stifled a gag.
“You have today dedicated for research, and next class, you’ll start your PowerPoint. Then, the third class you present. If you need extra time, ask me for a pass to come in during lunch or study halls. Any questions?”
I gazed at my computer screen. The sign-in window was open, and in the dark blue background, my mirror image reflected. Brown hair hung limp around my face. I hadn’t bothered to braid it last night, so the tresses lacked their usual waves. Two sparkles indicated where my glasses reflected the electronic glow.
The teacher clapped his hands. “Get to work.”
I flipped to the last page of my school agenda, where I’d written my computer username and password. I typed them into the system and shut my agenda as I waited for my information to load.
The girl next to me twirled her ponytail. She wore a white summer dress and kept pulling the hem over her bare thighs. How was she not freezing? Perfume oozed off her like a disease.
I folded back the first page of my assignment packet and pulled the cap off my pen, using my teeth. I spit the cap into my hand and scrawled my name on the correct family tree blank. The space branched into two areas. Beneath each blank space what family member’s name belonged there was written in tiny font. Over where it said “mother,” I wrote Mama’s full name. Following that, I wrote Oma’s maiden name, Leontien Kinbeer.
My information loaded, so I clicked on the Internet icon. The classmates chatted; some hadn’t typed in their login information yet. I glanced at the teacher. He sat at his desk drinking iced tea from Dunkin’ Donuts. A boy in the back of the room had his hand raised with a question, but the teacher hadn’t looked up yet.
“I haven’t gone tanning since last week,” the girl in the summer dress complained to her friend.
The Goat Children Page 10
