When the Crickets Stopped Singing

by Marilyn Cram-Donahue

  We tried to catch the snowy fluff before it touched the ground, then took turns picking it out of each other’s hair. “We ought to save this stuff for Christmas,” Dodie said. “It would look like snow on a Christmas tree, and it wouldn’t cost us a penny.”

  I tried to imagine a Christmas tree in Dodie’s house. Where would they put it? What would they use for decorations? Then I wondered if Dodie had ever had a Christmas tree. I reached out and caught some more cottonwood fluff. Maybe this was the closest Dodie ever got to celebrating Christmas. I made up my mind to bring this up to Geraldine and Reba Lu.

  After a while, we were sweaty from all that jumping around. We squatted by the side of the creek, trailed our fingers in the cold water, and watched tiny minnows swimming in a shallow pool, where an offshoot of the creek had trickled into a low, sandy spot in the shade of a giant twisted sycamore.

  “I’m thirsty!” I complained.

  Dodie waved her arm. “There’s plenty of water right in front of you.”

  “I’m not drinking anything that has live fish swimming in it.”

  “Would dead fish make it any better?” She laughed at her own joke, then got up and walked over to where the creek was running fast, splashing over smaller rocks in the streambed. “This is the best water in the world,” she said, and she put her face right down into the stream and drank.

  “You don’t know where it comes from,” I said, hearing Mama’s voice in mine.

  “Sure I do. It comes from snow in the mountains. Come on, Angie. It’s nice and cold.” She cupped her hands and threw some at me to prove it.

  I squealed and splashed some right back at her. We pulled off our sandals and waded into the creek. The cold water made me hop up and down, but it didn’t take long to get used to it. Dodie showed me how to drink where the water rushed over rocks. “It cleans itself,” she said. “Go on and try some.”

  I did, against my better judgment. I’d never thought about water having flavor before, but this really tasted good. Cold and fresh, almost as good as lemonade. I took another drink and let the water wash my sweaty face. I splashed it on my arms and legs and felt cool all over.

  We hiked on up the creek, and sometimes in it. Dodie pointed out plants like sage and manzanita and wild lilac. “You can boil wild lilac leaves to stop your skin from itching if you walk through poison oak. And sage tea is good for a fever,” she said.

  “How do you know all that?”

  “Dr. Thomas told me. He said the tea tastes pretty bad though. He knows lots of things about plants.”

  I nodded. I wondered why Dr. Thomas had told her and not me. I didn’t even think he knew her that well.

  Dodie broke off a stem of sage and rubbed the gray leaves between her palms. She raised her cupped hands to her face and took a deep breath. Then she held out her hands to me. I bent over and sniffed. “Whew!” I said. “That’s strong stuff.”

  Dodie grinned. “Dr. Thomas says it’s pungent. That’s why Mrs. Dawson only uses a little in her beef stew. She let me taste it one day, and it was real good.”

  The truth began gnawing at me that Dodie Crumper knew more about some things than I did. It didn’t bother me especially. It just took me by surprise.

  She tossed the crushed sage to the wind and spread her arms wide. With her white-blonde hair blowing, she looked, for a second, like an angel ready to fly. But when she started to talk again, she was plain Dodie Crumper.

  “This here chaparral is like a miniature forest. Did you ever notice?”

  I hadn’t.

  “See, the lizards are like prehistoric creatures prowling around under giant manzanita trees. The creek is like a great river to them, and the rocks must seem like giant boulders.”

  She pointed up the canyon. “The coyotes live up there,” she said. “They only come down at night, so you don’t need to worry.”

  “You can come here with me early in the morning and hear the bird songs. All different kinds come to nest here. There are squirrels, too, and sometimes I see a raccoon washing its face upstream or a red-tailed hawk just flying along looking for its breakfast. Once I saw a mama deer with her fawn. They stood up there at the head of the canyon and watched me. We just looked at each other for a bit, and then they went away. I think they were telling me they owned this place. We’re the visitors, but I don’t feel like one. I feel right at home here.”

  She stood there, the sun shining on her pale hair, and she didn’t look like the Dodie I had known before. The one who picked her nose and didn’t have anything polite to say. Here, in this place, she was another person altogether.

  She took a deep breath. “Can you smell that? Go on, Angie. Fill up your lungs.”

  I did, and I had to admit I’d never smelled anything like it. The heat of the day hadn’t settled in yet, and the air was cool and sweet, full of the scents of growing things. I closed my eyes and listened to the breeze rustling the big leaves of the sycamore trees.

  When I opened them, Dodie was getting down on her knees. She stretched out so her face was only inches from the ground. “Look here.” She pointed to tiny yellow flowers growing so low that I probably would have stepped on them and never known it. “See these little belly flowers?” she said.

  “Belly flowers?”

  “You know. Flowers so tiny and close to the ground that you have to get down on your belly to see them.” She laughed. “They grow knee high to a lizard, and that’s not very high.”

  She shaded her eyes and squinted. “If you half close your eyes, you can imagine this is a separate little world.”

  I squinted, too, but it still looked like regular bushes and lizards and rocks to me.

  Dodie got to her knees and reached out toward a rock. When she stood up, she had both hands wrapped around a squirming lizard. She turned it over carefully. “It’s a blue belly,” she said, holding it out to me.

  I took a step back.

  “You can touch it,” she said.

  I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t like things that hid under rocks. “That’s OK. I’ll just look,” I told her.

  I got a little closer. It really did have a blue belly. “I never saw one like that before,” I said.

  She looked surprised. “I’ll bet you did. They’re common around here. Maybe you never bothered to look at their undersides.”

  I sure hadn’t. The closest I’d been to a lizard was when Buster caught one, and it lost its tail on our front porch. I hadn’t held that one in my hands, and I sure hadn’t turned it over to look at its belly. But I was sure Charles would have.

  Dodie squatted and put the lizard on the ground, but she didn’t stand up again.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered. The tone of her voice told me not to talk either.

  Just ahead of us, sunning itself on a large, flat boulder—the kind I’d been thinking it would be nice to stretch out on—was a snake.

  It was thicker around than my daddy’s arm. Its scaly skin was reddish-brown and looked as rough as the granite it lay upon. Darker scales formed diamond shapes on its back and about seven or eight rattles were attached in a neat bundle at the end of its tail. As we watched, it moved slowly and began to wrap itself in circles until it was coiled, with its head raised, ready to strike.

  I watched as it flicked its blackish forked tongue, in and out, testing the air. Its head swayed from side to side. I felt like it was staring from Dodie to me … again and again … from Dodie to me. It was close enough that I could see that its eyes were glassy looking, and the black pupils were shaped like a cat’s.

  I let my breath out slowly and was afraid to breathe in again. Finally, I had to, but I did it slowly, carefully. I concentrated on standing perfectly still. I didn’t even let my eyes move to see what Dodie was doing. I wished a squirrel would stick its head out from behind a rock or a rabbit would hop by, and the snake would look at them instead. I counted my shallow breaths. One … two … three … four …

  It seemed like forever that we didn�
�t move or make a sound, but I guess it was only a couple of minutes. Finally, the rattler began to unwind. It eased itself off the rock and slid toward the thick chaparral. Only then did we dare move.

  I picked up a large stone and lifted my arm.

  “Leave it alone,” Dodie said. “It’s not hurting anybody.”

  “But it might,” I argued. “Don’t you know that rattlesnakes are bad?”

  “Who says so?”

  “Everybody knows that. They’re poisonous. They can kill you.”

  “So can lots of other things.”

  We watched the snake slink away and disappear.

  “At least a rattler warns you,” Dodie said.

  We hiked on back to the place where the cottonwoods were dropping their white fluff and sycamores bent over the water. Thanks to the snake, I had lost my taste for resting on a boulder, so I went over and sat on a branch that jutted out over the pool where the fish swam. I leaned my head against the trunk. It was nice here. Nobody but Dodie and me.

  Not long ago, that would have been an unsettling thought: nobody but Dodie and me. Now, I felt the sun on my legs and listened to the water bubble over the rocks, and I had to admit that Dodie could be pretty good company.

  She went over to the little fish pool and got down on her knees to watch the tiny minnows swimming in the shallow water. “I have to come back here tomorrow,” she said. “You coming?

  “I guess. But why do you have to?”

  “I need to move these fish.”

  “What for? They seem happy to me.”

  She gave me an exasperated look. “They’re trapped. They can’t get back into the creek, and even if they did, this water will likely dry up before the rains come again. We need to carry them upstream and put them back in deeper water, where they belong.”

  “OK,” I said. “But how?”

  I pictured myself jumping from boulder to boulder, clutching a slippery, wriggling fish in my hands, dropping it back into the creek, then going back to the little fish pool and doing it all over again.

  “Don’t worry,” Dodie said. “We’ll scoop them up in a sieve. You can get one from your mother. Then we’ll dump them into a pail of creek water and carry them in that. We’d better do it first thing in the morning while it’s still cool.”

  She cupped her hands now, filled them with creek water, and carried the water over to the shallow pool. When she went back for more, I started helping her.

  “This is going to take all day,” I said.

  Dodie frowned. “But they’re going to die if we don’t help them. They’ll lie there in their little pond until there’s no more water. They’ll gasp and their eyes will bulge out. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

  I looked at Dodie, at her blue eyes, as pale as creek water. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess it matters.”

  We worked in silence until the little pool held enough water for the fish to swim more freely. Then we made plans for the next morning.

  “You bring the sieve, and I’ll bring the pail,” Dodie said.

  “And I’ll make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” I offered.

  “The fish won’t eat them.”

  “They’re not for the fish, silly. They’re for …”

  She gave me a poke. “Gotcha!” she said. We looked at each other and grinned. As we started back toward the cliff, I kept thinking, Dodie Crumper has a sense of humor! Who would have thought?

  It wasn’t noon yet when we climbed the cliff. When I reached the top, I stopped and looked back over the side. It was a long way to the bottom. I remembered Dodie saying, “Just skid on down!” I was real proud of myself for having done it.

  We cut through the orange groves, walking between the rows of trees, glad for the shade. They had started blossoming early in the spring, but a few trees still wore the waxy white blooms like decorations. They smelled sweet in the warm summer air.

  As we walked on, we made our plans. I wanted Reba Lu and Geraldine and maybe even Charles to help us move the fish, but Dodie wouldn’t have any part of that. “Charles might be all right,” she said, “but those others would get to fooling around and ruin things.”

  “Ruin things, how?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just ruin things.” She seemed to be thinking it over. “I might let them come another time.”

  Might? I stared at her. She was talking like she owned the whole creek. In a way, I could see how she felt like she did. She had made it her own. It was her getting-away place. I didn’t say anything, and she went on.

  “But not tomorrow. Tomorrow I want it to be just you and me.”

  I looked at her, and for an instant I saw the old Dodie. She was clenching her fists, and she had her jaw set in that determined way that made her whole face go rigid. She looked ready for a fight.

  “I mean it, Angie,” she said. “I won’t have those others messing with my fish.”

  It came to me that this was the Dodie—the old Dodie—who needed to protect herself from getting hurt, and I wondered if she was afraid the others might laugh at her for trying to carry some fish upstream so they could swim in deeper water.

  I could imagine Geraldine saying, “Let’s just cook them instead.” Or Reba Lu wanting them baptized. Dodie had said Charles might be all right, but I remembered that he was going to help Reverend Adams paint the parsonage kitchen starting first thing in the morning.

  “OK, then,” I agreed. “Tomorrow it will be just you and me.”

  “Remember, you need to be at my house by eight o’clock in the morning. After that it will be too hot for the fish. And don’t forget the sieve,” Dodie told me.

  “I’ll do the best I can, but it will be hard to get by Mama without eating breakfast first.”

  “So get up a little earlier. If you’re late, I’ll go on by myself and meet you up the creek.” Dodie was using her stubborn voice again.

  “Why don’t you wait at your house until I get there?”

  Dodie made a little sound that could have been a sigh. She hesitated a second before she said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. My house is the kind of place you don’t want to wait around in.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The coyotes howled that night. They often do in the summer months, but this time they came down farther out of the hills and sounded like they were in the backyards of Messina. Ya-ooo. Yipyipyip ya-ooo. It seemed like they would never stop. Every now and then, their howls changed to excited high-pitched yelps, and I could hear the frantic squeals of a rabbit that had not managed to outrun them.

  Of course, they got most of the dogs in town barking. Not Buster, though. I put my hand on him, and he settled down next to my bed with his paws over his ears. Daddy had explained that coyotes are predators, and they get their food by hunting smaller, weaker creatures. “It’s the way of things in the animal world,” he said.

  Maybe so, but I didn’t have to like it.

  I was worried that this would be a night when I’d never get to sleep, and that I’d miss my early morning with Dodie. But after the coyotes finally stopped hunting their prey, the crickets began to sing. It was like a lullaby, telling me everything was safe now. I finally did drop off and didn’t wake up until quarter of eight in the morning. I put on the same clothes I had taken off the night before and hurried to the kitchen.

  I sat down and swallowed corn flakes as fast as I could. Then I had to brush my teeth and make the sandwiches because I’d forgotten to tell Mama we needed some. I was almost to the door when I remembered I was supposed to bring a sieve. I could only find a small one, but it was big enough to hold a few fish. By the time I slammed the front screen door behind me, the clock on the mantle said ten after eight.

  I hoped Dodie might have changed her mind and waited for me even though I was late. I ran all the way up the street to her house. When I knocked at the door, nobody answered, so I lifted the latch and walked right in. I never thought I would do suc
h a thing, but by now, I had decided the rules were different at the Crumpers’.

  “Dodie?” I called. Nobody answered.

  Mrs. Crumper was on the sofa, as usual, lying there barefoot, with her eyes half closed and an empty glass dangling from one hand.

  “Mrs. Crumper,” I said. I put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a little shake. “Mrs. Crumper, when did Dodie leave?”

  She screwed up her face and thought about it. “She slammed out of here a couple minutes ago. Said she couldn’t wait no longer. Said to tell you … something …” Mrs. Crumper closed her eyes.

  “I told her … not to … slam … that door,” she murmured. “The girl’s got no respect. No respect … at all.”

  The empty glass dropped from her hand and broke into splintery shards that glittered on the bare floor. I would have left them there, but I could imagine what Reba Lu would say. You could have kept Mrs. Crumper from cutting her feet if you had cleaned up the broken glass. So I fetched the broom and dustpan from a kitchen corner and swept up the pieces.

  On my way out, I banged the screen door on purpose. I was that put out with Dodie’s mother. Dodie had left a message for me, and her mother couldn’t even remember what it was. I started up the street. I figured Dodie didn’t have too much of a head start. She would probably be at the park by now. If I hurried, I might be able to catch up while she was still in the groves, and we could climb down the cliff path together.

  But when I got to the park, it was empty. Dried eucalyptus leaves covered the place where her little fort had fallen apart. “Dodie?” I yelled. But there was no answer.

  I started to run, following the irrigation ditch through the orange groves. Filtered shade sifted in the morning light like dark butterflies among the trees. A big horsefly followed me, buzzing around my face. I swatted at it, but it kept coming back. A patch of stinging nettles brushed my bare ankles. I quickly got a double handful of water from the irrigation ditch and made some mud to plaster on the hives that were already forming and starting to itch and burn.