The Gift

by Jeri Anne Agee

  I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer this, because I didn’t want Mama and Daddy to think I was crazy. So I looked down at my feet so I wouldn’t have to see their expressions and said, “I had a dream about it, and when I woke up I had a bad feeling that something was going to happen, and then I saw a vision of the fire in the backyard.”

  I looked up to see Mama and Daddy looking at each other, not at me. Then Mama said, “It’s time, Jim . . . It’s time for Birdie Mae to visit with Grandma Mae for a couple of days, starting tomorrow.” Grandma Mae is my daddy’s mama, and I’m named after her.

  Daddy looked at Mama for a long time, and they seemed to have a conversation without using any words. He nodded his head in agreement, and the next thing I knew it was planned that I was going to Grandma Mae’s house in the morning! I love going to my Grandma Mae’s house, and I would normally be really excited to see her, but I had no idea why I needed to visit so soon. I was even missing school for it. I was a little worried, because I had a feeling my visit had something to do with my visions. But how in the world could any of that be connected to my Grandma Mae?

  Chapter 9

  THE GIFT

  The next morning it was decided that Mama would drive me to Grandma Mae’s house because Daddy had to work. We left early in the morning—in fact, we got there so early that the second I stepped into the house, I could smell breakfast in the air. Grandma Mae said, “Birdie Mae, I cooked eggs, bacon, grits, and biscuits because I know that’s your favorite.”

  Mama and I sat at the table and we all had breakfast while we talked for a while. After about an hour Mama said she had to go and that she would pick me up tomorrow. Grandpa said he needed to run some errands in town, and he walked Mama out.

  So there I was, sitting at the table while Grandma Mae cleaned up the kitchen. I didn’t really know why I was there. I mean, I always like to visit my grandparents, but this was the first time it was just me and Grandma Mae and definitely the first time I’ve missed school for a visit.

  Then she sat down next to me and said, “Your mama told me you asked her if she ever gets a feeling like something is about to happen.”

  I said, “Yes, ma’am. Why, does it mean something bad and Mama and Daddy were too afraid to tell me so they brought me over here so you could tell me?”

  Grandma Mae chuckled and replied, “No, sweetheart, it doesn’t mean anything bad, and the reason you’re here is because I also occasionally get a feeling when something is about to happen, and so did your Great-great-grandmother Edith and your Great-great-great-great-grandmother Ida.”

  Then she looked at me and smiled and said, “You see, Birdie Mae, you were born with a gift.”

  I just looked at her for a few seconds and said, “Well, where is it? I’m almost nine years old, and nobody’s given it to me yet!”

  She laughed and said, “No, Birdie Mae, it’s a gift inside of you. It’s called clairvoyance, or some say it’s like having a sixth sense. It means that sometimes, you may be able to see into the future. It can take time before you begin to recognize the feelings, and it can be confusing and a little scary. It may be that you suddenly feel anxious or excited or even have a feeling of waiting for something to happen. Sometimes, it may come to you in a dream.”

  I immediately thought about Doyle Baker and the fire in the backyard.

  “Grandma, are you telling me the feeling I get like something is about to happen and the visions I see in my head are a gift? Can I give it back?” I asked.

  She laughed again and said, “No, sweetie pie, it’s not a gift you can give back, but I can promise you it isn’t a bad thing. Over time it will get easier, and you will do good things with it.”

  The rest of the afternoon and that night Grandma Mae told me all about when she was close to my age and found out she had the gift and how she has had to learn to let things come to her and not always be waiting to feel something or see something. She also said each person who has the gift is different and special in their own way, and that my strange feelings were the gift telling me to pay attention because something was about to happen.

  I asked her if Daddy knew about it, and why didn’t he have it? She said, “Yes, your daddy knows about it. But so far it’s only been women in our family who have it, and it also seems to skip a generation. When I was just a little younger than you are now, my mama took me over to visit my Grandma Edith and she and I had a talk just like this.”

  “So, is it sort of like a secret club that only me and a bunch of grandmas are in?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Well, I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

  Grandma and I sat there for hours talking and telling stories. She ordered pizza and we ate it sitting right on the living room floor. I told her all about the fire last night and about the day Doyle Baker broke his foot. She said that if Doyle Baker wasn’t so hardheaded he probably wouldn’t be sitting at home right now with a broken foot.

  I couldn’t really argue with that.

  That night my mind was still racing with more questions, and I had a hard time falling asleep. Being able to see things before they happen is kind of a big deal, I thought. Grandma Mae seems so calm about it. Maybe I’ll find out more tomorrow—she said she has a big day planned for us.

  Chapter 10

  RAINBOW PARK

  The next morning, I woke up to the smell of bacon and to what sounded like an injured animal. I lay there for a minute until my stomach started growling and I realized the injured animal sound was just Grandpa blowing his nose. I hopped out of bed and headed for the kitchen.

  Grandma Mae said, “Oh good, you’re up! We’ve got some things to do in town today.”

  I’m pretty sure Grandma Mae’s town only has a post office, a restaurant, and a sheriff’s station, so when she said we had some things to do I just assumed we were going to the post office and to the Fried Green Tomato for lunch. But when we got in the car I noticed Grandma Mae was heading in the opposite direction.

  “Are you taking me home, Grandma?” I asked.

  “Oh no, dear, I thought we’d do a little shopping in Rainbow, maybe stop for ice cream, and take a stroll around Rainbow Park,” she said.

  After we went into just about every store on Main Street, and Grandma Mae talked to just about every person we saw, we finally made our way over to the Dairy Dip for a double scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. From there, we walked over to the park, carefully balancing our giant ice cream cones.

  Rainbow Park is right in the middle of downtown Rainbow, Alabama. It’s lined so thick with magnolia and dogwood trees that it almost looks like a small forest growing right in the middle of town. In the spring when the dogwoods are in full bloom and the wind blows, it looks like it’s snowing. All four sides of the park have tall arched entryways with jasmine vines and white lights intertwined through the arches. There are benches lining the sidewalks all through the park. There’s a playground on one side of the park and a big fountain in the center.

  As we walked, Grandma Mae took my hand and held it in hers.

  We were walking and talking and eating our ice cream when out of nowhere I had one of my feelings. I told her I felt like something was going to happen. She looked a little surprised at first but then she smiled and whispered, “Close your eyes, Birdie Mae, and try to clear your mind.”

  I wasn’t sure how I was going to clear my mind with all those cicadas making so much noise and my mint chocolate chip ice cream dripping down my arm. But I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of Grandma Mae’s hand, and suddenly things seemed to go quiet.

  “Do you hear or see anything?” she asked.

  The butterflies in my stomach started going crazy. Then I had a vision of a little girl riding her tricycle into the grass and right into a tree stump—causing her to fall off her tricycle, start wailing, and lose her pink teddy bear behind a bush.

  I opened my eyes and just then a little girl on a tricycle rounded the corner. She had a pink teddy bear sitting in th
e basket on the front of her bike. She was giggling and looking back at her parents, and just as she passed us she smiled and waved and rang the little bell on her bike handlebars.

  I knew I had to do something! I asked Grandma Mae to hold my ice cream and I quickly started walking toward the little girl and her parents. As I caught up, the little girl rode off the sidewalk onto the grass and was heading toward the tree stump. I started running to get in front of her. Just as she got close to the stump, I jumped on it and stopped her tricycle before she ran smack dab into it—which meant before she could fall and before her teddy bear could go flying in the air and land behind that big bush. I had prevented her accident!

  Her mama and daddy came running up and thanked me over and over for stopping their little girl from crashing into that tree stump. The little girl was now busy playing with her teddy bear. I looked at Grandma Mae and smiled. After the little girl and her parents thanked me again, they left. Grandma Mae hugged me and said, “You did so good, I’m so proud of you!”

  I said, “Grandma, that was kind of cool, if you know what I mean!”

  Grandma Mae laughed and said, “I know exactly what you mean! Now we better get back home or your mama is going to send out a search party for us.”

  That night I slept like a rock and woke up feeling pretty darn good about things.

  Chapter 11

  HALLOWEEN

  The rest of the week was quiet and I didn’t get any strange feelings or visions—just feelings of excitement about Halloween coming up.

  Finally it was Friday! Sally was leaning out the window of my bedroom hollering, “Birdie Mae, we need more trash!”

  I said, “Hold on! I’m trying to find some mud and all I can find is dirt. Go look in Bubba’s closet. He’s probably got all kinds of stuff in there we can use for trash.”

  It was starting to get dark, and we had to hurry with our costumes so we could trick-or-treat before the party.

  Bubba was already running around the house in his costume. He was dressed as a ghost with a bowtie and a mustache. Mama got one of those fake mustaches and glued it to the top part of Bubba’s pacifier so when he had it in his mouth it looked just like he had a mustache. I wasn’t sure why Mama put the bowtie and the mustache on his ghost costume until Mrs. Doolittle and Izzy showed up at the door. Izzy was also dressed up as a ghost but she had a pink bow on the top of her head and some big pink wax candy lips.

  Mrs. Doolittle said, “I hope you all are ready to go trick-or-treating. Izzy is already on her second pair of lips. She decided to bite the entire bottom lip off the first pair and I’ve only got one more left.”

  Mama introduced Daddy to Mrs. Doolittle and Izzy. I think Mrs. Doolittle was trying extra hard to get Daddy to like her. Of course, it didn’t really help things when Izzy looked at Daddy and said, “I smell corn dogs!” Then she turned around and headed for the door.

  Sally and I ran back into my room and put our faces down in my pillow so no one could hear us laughing. We were laughing because it was true—about half the time Daddy comes home from work, he smells just like corn dogs! His office at the grocery store is right behind the deli and about three times a week they cook up those little bite-size corn dogs and give them out to customers. It makes his office and everything in it smells like corn dogs.

  We heard Mama and Mrs. Doolittle leave with Bubba and Izzy.

  When Sally and I were ready I yelled down the hall, “Daddy, close your eyes and don’t open them until we tell you!”

  We walked into the kitchen and stood in front of Daddy and I said, “Okay, you can open them now!”

  He opened his eyes and he looked at us for a second and said, “Dagnabbit, I could have sworn I took all the trash out this morning!”

  We all three started laughing. Daddy said, “I don’t know how you two came up with this but I bet you won’t be seeing anyone else wearing the same costumes.”

  Sally and I were pretty proud of ourselves. We were dressed up as bags of garbage. We took two big trash bags and cut out arm holes and leg holes, then stepped into them while wearing tights and long-sleeved shirts. We stuffed the bags full of wadded up paper after they were on, then tied some string around the top so it looked like the bag was tied up and ready to go into the garbage can. We rubbed mud and some of Mama’s eye liner all over our faces like dirt, and then Sally got one of those little snack bags of potato chips and ate the chips and stuck the bag on her head. I decided to go with an empty toilet paper roll on my head.

  We grabbed our pillowcases, the same ones we’ve been using on Halloween to put our candy in since we were little, and headed out the door. We stopped by Sally’s house so her mama and daddy could take some pictures and then we caught up to Mama, Bubba, Mrs. Doolittle, and Izzy so we could trick-or-treat with them. Mrs. Doolittle said Peter, Billy, and Darrel left her house about an hour ago to trick-or-treat. Sally and I looked at each other and we picked up the pace because we both knew that if Darrel had been out there for an hour, there was a good chance some houses were already out of candy!

  Chapter 12

  PETER, PETER THE PUMPKIN EATER

  After about an hour, Mama was carrying Bubba and Mrs. Doolittle was carrying Izzy. Sally and I were tired of lugging around our giant pillow cases full of candy, so we all headed over to the Doolittles’ for the party.

  We stopped by our house to make sure Daddy was coming and found him sitting on the front porch eating a Snickers bar. At least he was smiling, so maybe he wasn’t dreading going over there so much after all. Or it could be all the candy bars he just ate, because when he stood up there were about a dozen of those little wrappers flattened out on the chair. He grabbed them and stuffed them in his pocket real quick and looked over at us. Mama was talking to Mrs. Doolittle but Bubba pointed at Daddy and said, “Me some candy too!”

  Mama said, “I know you want some candy, you can pick out something from your candy bag when we get to the party.”

  Daddy looked over at me and winked. I thought about all of the empty candy wrappers in my bag and felt a little guilty about eating so much of it.

  When we got to the party, Mr. Doolittle met us at the door and took Izzy from Mrs. Doolittle and introduced himself to Mama and Daddy. Peter came in and told us that all of the kids were in the basement. As Sally and I were heading toward the basement door, I looked back and saw Mr. Doolittle shake Daddy’s hand and give him a smack on the back and say, “I’m Peter Doolittle Sr. It’s nice to meet you. I hear that you and I have something in common!”

  I couldn’t hear Daddy’s response but I had a funny feeling come over me and my stomach started to hurt. I thought, oh no, not now . . . please don’t let anything bad happen between Daddy and Mr. Doolittle! I closed my eyes really tight and waited for a few seconds but nothing happened. I thought about Grandma Mae and what all she told me about relaxing and clearing my mind to allow the visions to just come to me. I gave it one more chance and closed my eyes one more time, but saw nothing. Zilch. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then walked down the basement stairs to join the others.

  Peter and Billy were playing ping-pong. Peter was dressed as a doctor and Billy was dressed as a businessman, complete with a suit, tie, mustache, and his own glasses. Sally said, “What’s up, Dr. Doolittle? How’s it going, Mr. Simmons?” and I laughed louder than I meant to. I guess it was because I was nervous. I didn’t know what was going on upstairs with Daddy and Mr. Doolittle and my stomach was really starting to feel funny.

  I looked around the room and the rest of the kids were either sitting around sorting their candy or playing video games. Darrel was playing a video game with two fifth grade girls, and they giggled every time he said or did anything. I guessed he hadn’t shown them yet how he could burp the ABCs.

  Then Virginia Flanker walked in dressed in a nurse’s costume. For a second I thought I might throw up. I didn’t know if it was because of my stomachache or because of her. She headed straight for Peter and said, “Oh my go
odness, Peter, it’s like we planned our costumes together! We have to get Mother to take a picture of us!”

  Peter turned about as red as his hair and said, “Okay, maybe later . . . Billy and I are going to finish this game first.” Then he turned back, and I saw him roll his eyes at Billy.

  Just then Mrs. Doolittle called down and said, “Who’s ready to bob for apples? And I hope you kids haven’t eaten too much candy because I’ve made my special pumpkin cake!”

  That got everyone’s attention, and we all headed upstairs.

  When we got up there the first thing I saw was Mr. Doolittle and Daddy over in the corner talking. Then I saw Bubba, who of course had stripped off his costume and was running around in his Spiderman underwear with his mustache pacifier in his mouth.

  There was a table full of fruit and vegetables and cheese and crackers and all of the healthy stuff. There was another table over by Daddy and Mr. Doolittle that had the biggest pumpkin I’d ever seen on it. I looked closer and realized it was a cake! A giant cake that looked just like a giant pumpkin! Just then, Bubba ran by and I could see a cheese cube sticking out of his ear. I grabbed his hand and walked him over to Mama. I said, “Mama, Bubba’s got a piece of cheese stuck in his ear.”

  She picked up Bubba and was trying to get the piece of cheese out of his ear but he kept wriggling and laughing. The harder she tried the harder he laughed and said, “Mama tickle me!”

  Then I leaned in and whispered, “How are things going with Daddy and Mr. Doolittle?”

  Before she could answer we heard a lot of commotion and people were crowding around the table with the giant pumpkin cake. We made our way over there and I couldn’t believe what I saw. Why hadn’t I had a vision about this? There was Mr. Doolittle, face down in the giant pumpkin cake—and there was Daddy, standing behind him with a shocked look on his face!