Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe

by Jo Watson Hackl

  Mama screeched her car to a stop in front of the Mississippi Museum of Art. The way Mama bowed and held the door open for me, she made me feel like the whole museum was set up just for me.

  I followed Mama as she flitted from one picture to another, lingering over only one painting, The Garden Steps. “Pay attention, Cricket,” Mama said. “Feel the music from the picture.”

  She leaned up against the PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THE ARTWORK sign and ran her fingers over the canvas. “I remember the music from the Bird Room. When I peeked through that keyhole, I saw a whole room singing and dancing.” She touched my shoulder but kept her eyes on that painting. “A room that held the whole outdoors.”

  Mama turned to me, her face lit up.

  “You’re an artist, Cricket. Don’t you forget that.”

  Before we could see even half of the exhibits, the museum guard and his sneak-up-on-you shoes appeared.

  “We’re closing, ladies. Please finish your tour.”

  I pulled Mama toward the door, but we both couldn’t help stopping for a minute over an engraving of birds by an artist named John James Audubon. “This place is beautiful, Mama. I reckon it has about everything there is to see in the whole state.”

  Mama put her fingers to her lips. “There’s something missing.”

  Mama spit out her gum, opened her purse, pulled out a drawing of a bird’s nest I’d done the week before, and stuck it to the glass over the engraving.

  She smoothed out the wrinkles. “There. Much better. Finest in the whole museum.” Mama gathered me in a hug.

  The guard was heading back our way. I hustled Mama out to the car.

  On the way home, we ran out of gas and had to walk a mile to the gas station. When we got there, Mama flirted with a convertible driver in a cowboy hat to get us a ride back to our car, a scary trip with him driving too fast and looking over at Mama the whole way.

  None of that mattered one bit.

  I was safe with Mama. She liked my picture best.

  But now in the tree house, the cold seeped in at me and Charlene. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to bring back the smell of Mama’s gardenia.

  I thought about how lonely it must have been for Mama, off looking for the Bird Room by herself all these years. Never finding it. Why didn’t she just give up?

  Then I knew.

  The way Grandma always asked Mama a question and looked at me to see if Mama was telling the whole truth. The way Grandma always went behind Mama’s back, always snooping in the medicine cabinet, even after that time Mama filled it with marbles. The way even Daddy had started to treat her different toward the end. Who could Mama feel safe with?

  And the Bird Room was the beginning of all that.

  If Mama could prove the Bird Room was real, she’d prove she wasn’t crazy.

  After all these years of not finding it, had Mama started to doubt? Maybe she needed to prove something to herself, too.

  * * *

  I woke up the next morning with Charlene crawling on my shoulder and the sun sparkling from a thousand icy shards.

  But our tree house was still nailed tight against the tree.

  All around us, there were broken-off branches.

  It was funny, though.

  The few trees with high branches still on them had squirrel nests in those branches.

  I craned my neck. The same old tight lump of squirrel-nest leaves still hung ten feet above us.

  The squirrels bet on my and Charlene’s tree.

  The squirrels bet on us.

  From the bright of my rebuilt fire, the woods looked even emptier. Every branch, every leaf, every twig, was trapped inside a thick layer of ice. Nothing green, just rust-colored honeysuckle vines.

  My too-fast breath puffed little white clouds in the empty air.

  The woods hadn’t taught me anything that could help us in this kind of weather. The peanut butter wouldn’t last.

  How will I find more food?

  I had to. That was all there was to it.

  Charlene was counting on me.

  And Mama would be here in a week.

  I tromped through the woods. The ice was melting, leaving behind mud and limp, leaned-over greens. Even after I washed them in the cold creek water, they tasted mostly like grit.

  The water rippled.

  A fish was striking at something. A fish!

  Maybe the woods had taught me this one big thing—you do what you have to do.

  But I didn’t have a hook to go fishing the regular way.

  The book! I scampered back to the tree house, picked up what was left of the book, and learned up on how to make fish traps. I read the directions twice to make sure I had everything right. Then I gathered supplies—honeysuckle vines, lots of sticks, and the wire from the tree house. I peeled the bark off the honeysuckle to make rope and imagined the way Daddy would do it, sure and steady. I made a cone out of sticks and honeysuckle rope and put it inside a sort of barrel kind of thing I made from more sticks, honeysuckle rope, and wire. That way, the fish would swim through the cone to get the bait but wouldn’t be able to find their way out.

  I smeared a little gob of peanut butter on the inside of the cone to bait the trap. Then I sank it where I’d seen the flicker of fins.

  The whole thing held together. I’d done it! The first big thing I’d ever built all by myself.

  * * *

  When the trap finally worked, I almost wished it hadn’t. The sight of that hopeful fish near about made my legs go out from under me.

  But I cleaned it the way the book showed me and fried it up in peanut butter juice.

  Its smoky flavor hit my tongue, and I’d never tasted anything so good. I could even taste the hickory flavor from some wood I’d used for the fire.

  Still, I couldn’t enjoy it all the way. Soon as supper was over, me and Charlene had a little funeral for what was left of the fish. “I hope you lived a happy life. Thank you for providing for us.”

  I thought about all the fish I’d eaten at the fry, around Mama’s table, and even at Aunt Belinda’s. I’d never once thought to thank the fish. This time felt different. It was personal between me and that fish.

  A coyote yipped from somewhere far off.

  “No coyote would ever have a funeral for a fish,” I told Charlene.

  She didn’t look at me.

  But the fish gave me enough energy to keep looking for clues and bring back Charlene a good mess of chickweed. So we were both getting fed, and that had to be a good thing, didn’t it?

  * * *

  It was weird, but after I’d spent so much time outside, my every sense felt sharper. I felt like a part of the woods now, even if I was a part that was eating up some of the other parts. I noticed things more. I could taste things and smell things better. It even felt like I could think things quicker.

  By afternoon, it had warmed up into clue-searching weather.

  My eyes darted around the homeplaces, looking for walls and tanagers.

  I swung on a possum grapevine hanging from a big tree, that question thumping through my head: What walls aren’t for everyone?

  Could there be a house or barn near whatever was putting out that hickory smoke?

  No. Mama said the Bird Room house was in a big, nice neighborhood, not out in the middle of nowhere. Besides, there’s lots of hunters out this time of year. It was probably one of their campfires I smelled.

  I swung that possum grapevine higher, giving me a little better view. Lots of homeplaces I hadn’t combed all the way through yet.

  I’d made it through the ice storm, and I was feeding myself from the woods. I’d found the feather rock. I’d found the tanager tree. I’d figured out how to open the wood box. If there was another basement wall out here, I was sure going to find it.

  Grandma w
ould help.

  “Charlene,” I said, “we’re in the home stretch now.”

  I felt the bite before I saw the snake. Another warmish day, and I was out looking for basements with the doogaloo in my pocket for luck.

  I should have known better than to walk too near those rocks. Charlene was on my shoulder, and even she didn’t see it coming.

  Pain shot through my left ankle.

  It felt like I’d just touched the prong of a half-plugged-in lamp cord.

  I lurched back.

  The snake coiled fat and low.

  Those yellow eyes didn’t show one speck of mercy. An hourglass pattern stretched down his pink-brown back. He wiggled his tail, but there wasn’t a rattle. His overripe cucumber smell hit my nose, and I knew.

  Copperhead.

  I’d heard Daddy tell stories about that smell. A bad-enough bite could kill you.

  Everything went quiet except for the cicada heartbeat slamming in my ears.

  From the east, I smelled more hickory smoke.

  Was it friendly smoke or “turn you in” smoke?

  It wasn’t any time to start getting picky. To me, it looked like maybe “save your life” smoke.

  Tucking Charlene in close, I ran, best as I could.

  I went farther than I’d ever been.

  The sidewalks stopped, and so did the briars. I kept going, past straight rows of trees, past a pond. Crows cackled and cawed above me.

  The top of a two-story house appeared. Something was moving on the roof. Far off, I saw what looked to be a driveway.

  Out of nowhere, a huge three-colored dog bounded up. His body swiveled back and forth, powered by the fastest-wagging tail I’d ever seen on a dog. He came to a dirt-cloud stop in front of me and dropped into a sit. He cocked his head, held out a huge paw, and bobbed it up and down.

  Help. I just needed help. Where was his owner?

  And why was he blocking my way?

  But that tail was wagging, and that had to be a good sign. Right?

  I shook the paw he was still wiggling at me.

  He sprang up and led me toward the house, like he was getting ready to introduce me.

  Something was still stirring around on that roof.

  I could feel the skin on my ankle pulling as it swelled.

  Everything was coming at me bugs-on-a-bike-ride fast.

  Then I saw the lady. She was clomping up on the roof and swishing a mop. A tall ladder leaned up against the front of her house with its even-spaced windows. She started yelling churchgoing cuss words. “Heavens to Betsy! Tarnation! There’s more up here that needs patching than I thought, Percy. What we really need is a new roof.”

  She came down the ladder, red-faced, and stopped at the bottom rung when she saw me.

  For a second, we stared at each other.

  She wore a cowboy hat with turned-down sides, a camouflage jacket, a long skirt, and black-specked sneakers. She nodded at me like she saw girls appear out of the woods every day of the week. “That’s Percy. Don’t let him think he’s got your attention. He’ll be impossible to live with.” She smoothed back her hair. “Have you earned your survival badge yet, or do you need to go back and chop some more wood?”

  Huh?

  “Don’t you know you can’t break so much as a twig in these woods without the crows hearing it and letting me know? These birds only have me to keep track of. Young lady, you’re some kind of exciting news to those crows. Why do you think they’ve been bringing me all this?” She pointed at a bird feeder covered in scattered peanut shells. There were two crawdad shells and my missing button.

  “Ma’am, I need help.”

  A buzzing metal taste had took over my mouth. It felt like every mistake I’d ever made was right there on my tongue.

  I slumped on the front steps, rolled up my pant leg, and pulled off my shoe and sock. The skin swelled up around two red holes.

  The lady squatted down, ran two fingers over the bite, and clucked her tongue.

  “He only got you once.” She straightened. “You’ll live. Come on in.” She opened the front door.

  I followed her inside and sank into the daybed she pointed to.

  The lady grabbed hold of my hurt ankle. “Hang it off the side of the bed. Keep it lower than your heart. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She disappeared behind a door.

  Charlene huddled in my sleeve, smoothing her antennae against my arm.

  Back in front of me now, the lady held a weighted-down dishrag.

  She pulled out a gray stone about half the size of a hen’s egg. “This here’s a madstone.”

  Mama. I just want Mama.

  She laid the hot, rough stone on my bite and circled the stone with her fingers.

  “The best madstones, like this one, come out of white-furred deer. This one has cured both rabies and snakebites. Don’t move.”

  What in the world is she talking about? Is this really happening?

  The stone sucked at my skin until the rock went bathroom-tile cold.

  The pain eased back a notch.

  The lady let out a loud breath, trotted off, and came back with a bowl full of milk, steam rising off the top. “Watch.” Using the dishrag, she lifted the stone and slid it into the bowl.

  Green lines swiggled out of that stone and marbled the top of the milk. After a couple of minutes, the whole bowl was covered in a foamy green scum.

  She ran her fingers over my ankle and nodded. “I got most of that venom out. You rest now.” She hurried up a narrow staircase in the corner and came down carrying a box full of jars with masking-tape labels.

  She plucked out a jar. “Wild plantain.” She scooped out a bunch of chopped black bits, spread the lumpy mix on my ankle, and wrapped a dish towel around it. Then she handed me a coffee cup filled with something that smelled the way jelly does if it’s sat out on the counter too long. “Drink this. It’ll help you sleep.”

  Holding my nose, I drank it down.

  My eyelids scratched, sandy, against my eyes.

  Every part of me was giving in.

  Using my last awake breath, I eased Charlene out of my sleeve. “Can you take care of her for me?”

  The lady didn’t snatch Charlene up the way I thought she would. Instead, she held her palm out flat like a bridge. She kept it still and steady while Charlene tapped her way across it, one lacy leg at a time.

  They say that when you’re dying, your whole life flashes before your eyes.

  But it wasn’t my whole life that I saw.

  All that I saw, over and over, was my last Christmas tree with Mama and Daddy.

  I was studying up on homeschool pre-algebra and Daddy was frying wild turkey breast for dinner when Mama banged open the back door, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve found our tree.”

  Mama walked fast, inventing her own route. We followed her past the waterfall me and Mama had built out of rocks in the stream, past the pecan grove, deep into the woods.

  Mama’s tree was a cedar, the dark-green color of Christmas.

  As soon as Daddy put the tree in the base and set it in the living room, Mama pulled out six boxes of lights. “Let’s do them close. You know I like them close.”

  We strung the lights, two strands to a limb, until the light filled the whole living room.

  Mama pulled out a box labeled Fragile in Grandma’s handwriting. I’d only seen the box once, when Grandma showed me the handblown glass ornaments she’d gotten from her grandma in Germany.

  “I don’t think we should…,” I said, but Mama was already unwrapping thin glass shapes—clocks, smiling babies, happy couples. But the best, the most beautiful, was the gold angel with green eyes like Mama’s.

  “When I was your age, your grandma wouldn’t even let me in the same room with this angel, it’s so old. She said to
keep this one put away.” Mama traced her fingers down the ornament. “But what’s the point of having pretty things if you can’t enjoy them?”

  Mama hung that angel next to the glitter-spackled sweet-gum ball ornaments I’d made when I was four.

  The next night, Daddy had to go to a Lions Club meeting. On his way out the front door, he shot me a look. “Keep an eye on your mama,” he said. “She’s been staring at that tree for hours and is back to pacing again.”

  Daddy’s truck had just left the driveway when I heard Mama yelling, “Cricket, come here quick.” Mama pointed to a bird’s nest made of twigs, bark strips, grass, and threads. It was so deep inside the tree that you’d never see it if you weren’t looking hard. The nest was woven tight, with a tiny blue thread going through the side. That thread made so many zigs and zags that it almost looked like writing.

  Mama hugged my arm around her waist and eased out the blue thread. “This looks like it came from your jacket.”

  She studied the thread and balled it up into a tight bead. “You know what I think happened, baby? That mama bird gathered up every pretty thing she could find for that nest. She guarded that egg. She fed the baby bird all the food she could find. Till one day, that baby bird spread its wings and that mama bird knew, she just knew, that baby could fly.”

  Eyes still on the tree, Mama handed me that string. “Then that mother bird got out of the way and she let that baby bird fly off.” Mama looked out the window. “That bird is probably floating on a breeze right this minute over our house. I bet that baby just soared. Just like you’ll do when you’re a famous artist.”

  My eyes cut to the window, but it was too dark outside to see.

  Mama unhooked Grandma’s angel ornament and propped it in the bird’s nest. Not reclining, exactly. Just leaning up against the side of the nest, keeping an eye on things.