Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth

by Sandra Dutton

  "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

  "That's the first place we need puppets," I say. "So what are we going to do up to this verse?"

  "Anyone got any ideas?" says Brother Lucas.

  "Just do God's voice," says Orlin.

  "And we could turn on a light when God says, 'Let there be light!'" says Chester.

  "Flashlight," says Jonathan.

  "I know!" says Chloe. "We could paint a backdrop for each day."

  "Yeah," says Orlin. "'Let there be mountains,' and boom, this backdrop comes down."

  "And we could do some thunder," says Jed. "Get a piece of sheet metal and rattle it."

  "Just use puppets for Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark," says Jonathan.

  "Good idea," says Brother Lucas. "Sounds like you'd like to do it." He looks at me. "What do you think, Mary Mae?"

  I don't want to come around too quick, especially with Brother Lucas and Sister Coates thinking they can teach me a lesson. But truth to tell, it sounds like a whole lot more fun than what we usually do, which is read our Sunday school paper. "Do we get to keep the puppets?" I say.

  "I don't see why not," says Brother Lucas.

  "You can keep mine, too," says Chester Morley. He's making puppy sounds, squishing the air out between his palms.

  "I wouldn't want yours," I say. Then to Brother Lucas I say, "Why ain't we doing Cain and Abel?"

  "Sister Coates says we only got time for three scenes," says Brother Lucas.

  "Then why not Creation, Temptation, and Cain and Abel."

  "Noah's Ark's got more to do with Creation."

  I think about it a minute. I got the whole class waiting for me to say yes. "Okay," I say. "I'd like to do it."

  Brother Lucas nods. "Who knows how to make a puppet stage?"

  "It's easy," says Orlin. "All you do is get three big pieces of plywood. Put hinges and cut a window in the middle. We made one at school."

  "I can get some plywood from my neighbor," says Brother Lucas. "How about us meeting at my house Tuesday night to make the stage?"

  "I go to Scouts," says Orlin.

  "How about Wednesday?"

  "Wednesday's good for me," says Chloe. Turns out it's good for everybody else, so we decide to meet at seven at Brother Lucas's house on Charter Street.

  ***

  During service, me and Granny sing "Light Me Lord, I'm Full of Glory." That's another one of Granny's tunes.

  Sister Coates wants to know did everyone get their stickers out. Chloe says she stood in front of White Castle and handed hers out. Dudley Rayburn pasted his all up and down the main street of St. Bevis. Jaber and Wilma Tatters say they just didn't have time and would get to handing theirs out next week. Me, Mama, and Granny tell how we hit all the malls and rest stops. Mama even confesses to getting a speeding ticket.

  "Lord's way of keeping you safe," says Sister Coates. She winks. "Praise Jesus. Now who wants to give thanks this morning?"

  Chester Morley leaps up. "I got a new paper route."

  Evelyn Mognis raises her hand. "I won a year's supply of free laundry soap." She don't like to stand since she's got a bad back.

  "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"

  Buford Safer, Jonathan's daddy, says, "I'm grateful my foot surgery was successful."

  ***

  This morning Sister Coates preaches on the Ten Commandments. "Some folks think they don't apply, but they're as good today as they was for the people of Moses. And I want you to pay special attention to the fifth commandment, Exodus 20:12, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' You got to be respectful and do what they tell you to do. Don't give them no sass." She winks at Orlin, then tells stories about kids that was a credit to their mama and daddy, pulling out chairs and opening doors, leaving some orange juice in the carton for the next person. Before she closes, she says, "Brother Lucas, is it true the junior class is doing a puppet show on Creation?"

  "Next month," says Brother Lucas.

  "Something we can all look forward to," says Sister Coates.

  ***

  We're driving home, and Mama's all excited about my doing puppets. "You'll learn the true Creation this way," she says. "Get rid of all them silly ideas you're learning at school."

  At home I go upstairs and start putting a check mark on each begat. I'm running a tally at the front of my Bible.

  4. Digging

  I come in to school early Monday, and Miss Sizemore's setting at the desk eating sliced peaches from a plastic cup.

  "Good morning," she says.

  "Morning," I say.

  She's got red hair, short, like she don't want to mess with it. I think about telling her my mama and Sister Coates say the world ain't but six thousand years old, but I ain't counted all the begats yet. Besides, I'm wondering how a generation can be twenty years, when all them Bible people's having kids when they's more than a hundred years old. I got to ask Sister Coates about this.

  I set down, put my lunch away. Then I look at Miss Sizemore's charts. Besides the one with the cutaway hill, she's got a big, tall one with all them eras. It's right up the side of the room. Dinosaurs come 250 million years ago, but the bottom of the chart goes all the way back to 4,000 million years. I can't hardly figure out how far back that is. It's like reaching into a sock and finding no toe.

  I'm thinking it would be a whole lot easier if the world was only six thousand years old. But maybe it ain't.

  ***

  Herschel Cadwallader comes in. He's got some shells he found in his own backyard. Miss Sizemore has Herschel make labels and put them on display. He sets right across from me.

  Soon as everybody's in and we've did the pledge and collected the lunch money, Miss Sizemore points on the chart to the Ordovician age. It's the purple box. She says it once and has us repeat it. Or-do-vish'-e-un. "That's five hundred million years ago," she says. "Right here in southern Ohio, during the Ordovician age, this land was covered with a warm, shallow sea." Just imagine you was alive at that time, she says. There was palm fronds, and we was twenty degrees north of the equator.

  That's what I like about Miss Sizemore. She makes a story out of things.

  "You would be one of the early forms of life," she says. "You might be a trilobite." She writes it on the board,

  Trilobite

  Then she says there was different kinds of trilobites, but the one we had the most of right here in southern Ohio was the Flexicalymene. She writes that on the board, too.

  If you was a trilobite, she says, you probably growed from an egg. And you would be crawling around on the bottom of the sea. "You would be a distant relative of the crab."

  Miss Sizemore shows us a picture. "You have three main parts. That's why you're called trilobite, because trimeans three. And you have little cross grooves so you can roll into a ball. There's a special word for that. It's enroll. Now why do you think a trilobite would roll into a ball?"

  "For protection?" says Herschel Cadwallader.

  "Just like a pill bug," says Miss Sizemore. She shows us some more pictures of trilobites, all sizes, some of them enrolled, and says there was millions of trilobites for millions and millions of years.

  We all look at each other.

  Shirley Whirly leans across the aisle. "She don't know what she's talking about. The world ain't that old." Shirley goes to Calvary Temple.

  But I want to hear Miss Sizemore out.

  "We're lucky, living in southern Ohio," Miss Sizemore says, "because it's one of the best places to hunt for fossils. We have what's called the Cincinnati Arch." She draws a picture up on the board, with a big old arch a-pushing up through the layers. "The new rock has been worn away, exposing the older rock from the Ordovician age." She says this don't happen in most places. In most places the old rock stays buried.

  Me and Herschel look at each other like we's learning important secrets. Shirley Whirly, setting behind Herschel, stares up at the ceiling.

  Miss Sizemore hands each of us a xerox—"Souther
n Ohio Fossils." Most of them look like seashells you'd find on a beach.

  She tells us how them fossils was made. Long ago, when one of them sea animals died, its inside rotted out and limestone drifted in. The limestone got hard, and the shell broke off, so what you have is what you get when you pour plaster of Paris into a mold.

  "We'll be digging for fossils right here in our school yard," says Miss Sizemore.

  Right away I know where she's taking us. They's building a new addition onto our school where the old primary playground used to be, and the hole was just dug last week. She says the principal told her they ain't a-coming back till next Monday.

  "I'll bring shovels," says Miss Sizemore, "but I want each of you to have a hammer and chisel. Or you can bring a screwdriver." She writes on the board

  Hammer

  Chisel or Screwdriver

  "I'm dividing you into groups." She puts me with Shirley Whirly and Herschel Cadwallader.

  ***

  When Granny asks me what we learned in school today, I tell her all about trilobites and how southern Ohio was right down by the equator. "We're digging for fossils tomorrow, too," I tell her.

  "Wish I could dig for fossils," says Granny. "But I'm just an old fossil myself."

  ***

  After dinner I ask Daddy if I can borrow a hammer and chisel.

  "What do you need them for?" he asks.

  "We're digging," I say. I don't say nothing about fossils. Don't want to stir up no trouble.

  "Digging?" says Daddy. "You know when I was in school we didn't go out digging. We stayed inside and learned our lessons."

  ***

  Herschel Cadwallader brings in his hammer and chisel, but Shirley Whirly don't bring nothing. She goes right up to Miss Sizemore. "Mama told me I ain't allowed to dig," she says.

  "She afraid you'll get dirty?" says Miss Sizemore.

  "No, digging goes against my religion."

  I'm thinking Miss Sizemore might try and talk Shirley into it, but she just says, "All right, you can be in charge of labeling," and gives her a box and a pencil with some stick 'ems.

  Shirley comes back to her seat.

  "Whereat in the Bible does it say we ain't allowed to dig?" I ask her.

  "Mama says the Lord don't mind us digging, long as we're just planting seeds. But we go digging for things that ain't in the Bible and we're asking for trouble."

  ***

  Miss Sizemore hands out goggles so we don't get our eyes hurt. We look like scuba divers. Whole class walks down the steps and into where the old primary playground was. They had a ditch digger come and chew right through the blacktop. Got a big pile of dirt up by the street. You can walk into the hole from one side, so we go in and kneel by some big slabs of rock. Miss Sizemore says they's shale and limestone. And they's just a-teeming with all kinds of shells.

  ***

  Shirley Whirly sets on the edge of a rock, her shoes banging against the side.

  I know Mama would be proud of me if I set with Shirley, but truth to tell, I can't wait to see what I can turn up. It's like a treasure hunt.

  Me and Herschel's chipping away on one of them slabs. You got to chip real careful to get a piece out. Everyone's excited. Our whole class, we's spread out over the hole like a bunch of carpenter ants. One group chips a whole bunch of crinoids loose—them's little sea plants with dots like goose bumps—and another group brings out some clams and a starfish. Me and Herschel chip out some coral, and I find a long, fat point that Miss Sizemore says come from a squid. We give them to Shirley. She puts our names on them. When we go back into the building, we clean all them fossils up with some old toothbrushes and put them on a table for display.

  But every time I walk by that window, I want to get out and dig. Can't wait to see what I can turn up.

  Herschel, too. We go out after school. Don't even need a shovel. Just our hammers and chisels. We find a good slab, and Herschel's working to bring up a starfish. I got this little round animal with ridges I'm working on. Want to bring it up whole. Dust is flying up, and my fingernails is getting dirty. Herschel gets himself all but one point of the starfish. "Wow!" he says. "I'm putting this in my collection."

  "Collection?" I say. "What kind of collection?"

  "Things I find. Daddy got me a cabinet with glass doors. Every time I find something, I put it in there—arrowheads, fossils, bird feathers. I love collecting things."

  "Me, too," I say. And I'm thinking, I'll get me a box. Something to keep all my fossils in. I'll have a collection.

  I'm cracking all around these ridges, and pieces is falling away, and what do you know, I find this funny-looking animal. "Look at this," I say to Herschel. Looks sort of like a pill bug, all rolled up. It's an inch and a half, just like one of them pictures Miss Sizemore give us.

  "Wow," he says, "you got a trilobite."

  "Think so?" I'd love it to be a trilobite. I wrap it up in notebook paper and put it in my backpack.

  ***

  Granny's wondering where I've been.

  "Digging," I say, and I show her my fossil.

  "Lordy, look at that," she says. She picks it up. "Looks like a little crab. Look at them eyes."

  "Little bitty eyes," I say. They's sticking out of each side of his head. "Me and Herschel think he's a trilobite."

  "Ohhh," says Granny. I told her all about them yesterday.

  I take a pen with an old-time point to pick off all the grit, and an old toothbrush to clean him up good. I wrap him in an old sock so I can show him to Miss Sizemore.

  Then I find a cigar box down in the cellar. Whenever I find new fossils, I'll put them in here. This will be my collection. I take it up to my room and set it on my dressing table. It's an old wood dressing table with arms that pull out and a drawer inside.

  ***

  Next day I show that little animal to Miss Sizemore. Herschel comes in early with me.

  "Oh my," she says. She puts down her cinnamon crisp and wipes her hands. "Mary Mae, you've found a trilobite."

  "See, I told you," says Herschel.

  And when the whole class is in, she has them gather around.

  My trilobite ain't got no legs, only just the shell that was made from the limestone. But it looks just like a real animal to me.

  After school, me and Herschel go out and dig some more. He finds some horned coral, and I find some crinoids and a giant snail.

  ***

  When I get home, I show them to Granny. "And you know what, Granny, that little animal I found yesterday really was a trilobite." She starts picking out a tune on her guitar.

  "Trilobite crab, trilobite crab,

  He don't need no taxicab.

  Critter and a swimmer from another age.

  Don't need a tank and he don't need a cage."

  Then she hands me her guitar—she's been showing me how to do chords—and I pick out some more words:

  "Trilobite crab, trilobite crab,

  Little bitty eyes and a nose like a scab.

  Rolls in a ball like a little pill bug.

  Swims in the water and he sings, 'Glub, glub.'"

  "Hey, we just made up a song," I say.

  "That's how you do it," says Granny. "If you work too hard at it, it won't work. You just gotta let it bubble up."

  5. Mrs. Noah

  Mama drops me off at Brother Lucas's Wednesday night. He's got a swing on his porch and a big old knocker on the front door. His wife gives us some Hi Ho crackers with grape jelly and fruit punch. Everybody's here but Jonathan Safer. He's got a cold. We go downstairs to Brother Lucas's cellar and all take turns standing next to one of the plywood boards so we can figure out where to cut the hole—not too high for some, not too low for others. Him and Orlin measure down six inches and draw a big rectangle, then we each take turns putting on goggles and cutting the hole with Brother Lucas's jigsaw.

  Feels like it could rattle right out of my hand.

  We put the three pieces flat out on the floor and hinge them together. T
hen Brother Lucas gives us some old draw drapes we can use on the opening, and we screw them on.

  Jed Bean and Chester Morley don't help much, just go riding around the cellar on Brother Lucas's son's kiddie car. It's me, Orlin Coates, and Chloe doing all the work.

  "All right, next we got to list the parts for the play," says Brother Lucas. He writes on a piece of cardboard.

  God

  Adam & Eve

  The Devil

  "I'm God," says Orlin. Him being the tallest and the pastor's son, we don't argue.

  "I get to be Eve," says Chloe, fluffing out her hair.

  "Hey, wait a minute," I say. "There ain't no more girl's parts."

  "You could be the Devil," says Chester Morley.

  "Maybe I will," I say.

  "No, I'm the Devil," says Jed Bean.

  "Settle down," says Brother Lucas. He writes two more parts on the board.

  Noah

  Mrs. Noah

  "I think Mary Mae should be Mrs. Noah," says Brother Lucas.

  "She didn't do nothing," I say.

  "Yes, she did," says Brother Lucas. "She was in charge of the animals."

  I'm thinking he's making this up, just to give me something to do, but I always did like Noah's ark. I had me a cardboard one with little plastic animals I used to march around in the dirt. "But how are we doing all them animals?" I say. "I don't want to be in charge of a hundred puppets."

  "You draw them on the backdrop," says Brother Lucas.

  Oh yes, backdrop. All them animals marching into the ark.

  And then Brother Lucas says, "Chester Morley, I want you to be Noah."

  Oh no. I'm Chester Morley's wife. Him and his penguin walk. I'd lock myself in a closet before I'd marry Chester.

  Brother Lucas writes all our names on the cardboard, then gets a paper bag and pulls out some big old blocks of wood with the ends all narrowed down. "This here's balsa wood," he says. "Nice and light. They's got a finger hole drilled." He sticks his finger up one. "You can carve out a face—or just paint one on if you can't carve—glue on some yarn for hair, attach a body. Get your mama or daddy to help you."