I suddenly noticed the time on the stove clock. Seven-fifteen. Babs would expect me to be at the corner of Watershed and Sixth before school started at eight. Babs was always impatient; she’d take off without me if I was too late.
“You drew fancy clothes, but no people in them. Why not? Hey—are you doing a comic book about invisible people? Maybe they’re invisible because they’ve been zapped by space aliens who…”
Will wouldn’t leave without finishing his Marvel Puffs. I put my sketchbook back on the table.
“Will, you’re right. I can’t eat this without grape jelly.” I smiled at him as I plucked the ruined toast off the Marvel Puffs box and took it over to the counter, where I left it by the foul-tempered toaster. I got out a blue Fiestaware bowl, one of the unchipped ones, and a spoon, and carried them over to the kitchen table. I sat down and poured the rest of the Marvel Puffs into my bowl, bottom-of-the-box cereal dust and all.
This time, I looked into Will’s wide eyes as I quietly said, “Not much left. And we’re almost out of milk.” I pointed to his bowl. “May I?”
Will answered with a solemn nod. I poured the milk left in Will’s bowl into mine. I brought the spoon to my mouth. The cereal smelled like wet cardboard—worse than burned toast. But Will fixed his big blue eyes on me, so I finally took the bite.
The cereal tasted like…nothing. Or maybe nothing with a hint of oatmeal. But as I chewed, the bite seemed to just get bigger. I thought, No wonder the stuff is called Marvel Puffs, and I’ll never get through the bowl.
“What do you think?” Will asked anxiously.
I could have chosen to mutter my usual, “It’s OK,” but instead I made my next small choice. I said, “Will, that was Babs who just called. She wants me to meet her before school for this…school project.”
Will scowled, disbelieving.
I rushed on. “Anyway, I’m kind of in a hurry, and not so hungry anyway, so why don’t we take the shortcut by Stedman’s and feed the rest of this cereal to that dog you like so much?”
Will stared at me, clearly staggered, his disbelief about Babs suddenly forgotten.
I smiled. “Shouldn’t that count for your rule?”
“You said if I went there again, you wouldn’t talk Dad out of giving me a whipping,” he said.
I swallowed back shame. I had made that threat, after Mr. Stedman’s last visit to our house to complain about Will feeding the dog. But Stedman’s Scrapyard, down by the river near Groverton Pulp & Paper, was on a shortcut to where I was supposed to meet Babs. Will could just run down Sixth and cut over to Plum and get to school on time.
I looked away. “Go on—get your book bag before I change my mind!” I poured the leftover cereal into the Marvel Puffs box. Then I carefully tore off the box top and held it out to Will. He took it, wide-eyed, as if I had just handed him a deed to the entire Territory of Alaska.
Will hollered, “Trusty, we can trust this case is closed!” It was the cheesy closing line Sergeant Striker shouted to his dog at the end of every episode.
He clapped his hands to his mouth and gave me a look that said, Sorry! We froze, but Daddy’s room remained silent—none of the crying out in restless sleep that usually followed a late-night bender.
Will grabbed his Marvel Puffs box top and rushed from the kitchen through the living room to the stairs, and up to the tiny second floor of our Cape Cod–style house, where we each had a bedroom.
I dropped the burned toast in the Marvel Puffs box, then quickly washed the dishes and wiped up the counter and table. I heard Will coming down the stairs—that third step from the bottom always squeaked—when I remembered one last thing.
I hurried through the breezeway to our garage, pulled the string for the bare-bulb light, and went to the freezer, from which I pulled out a chicken. It was Friday; the chicken would thaw in the refrigerator in time for Sunday’s supper. I could already see Grandma poking at the chicken, saying, Such a luxury, having a garage AND a refrigerator AND a freezer.
Tiny claws skittered nearby. I turned in time to see a mouse scurrying underneath the car.
Mama’s car.
Every time I came out to the freezer, I tried to ignore the car, a 1946 Ford convertible, top still down, the open dash and seats covered with a picnic tablecloth with a faded red border and dull yellow ducks and lambs and farmhouses and flowers, as if the last time the car was parked in our garage we’d all returned from a long picnic by the Tangy River (upstream from the paper mill) and, too happily exhausted to put things away after our family excursion, just jauntily tossed the then-bright tablecloth over the open seats in a moment of silly abandonment—look at us! The perfect family, doing an imperfect job of cleaning up after our perfect family picnic! What a lark!
But I had no such memories, not even ones as faded as the tablecloth. At most, if I pushed myself I could summon, in a hazy, gauzy way that would surely sadden the once-bright ducks and lambs, some impression of riding in the car once or twice. But I wasn’t convinced that was a real memory. I shook my head. No time for not-remembering.
Skittering. The mouse was back out from under the car, right at my feet. I grabbed the straw broom by the door and whacked the mouse, stunning it. I started to whack it again, but at its slight quiver, I opened the door and shooed it out with the broom. I waited a second, long enough to see the mouse regain its senses and run off into our overgrown backyard. That’s right, little mouse. Run away from here…. Far away….
By the time I picked up my school bag and the damp box of Marvel Puffs, careful to hold it away from my new dress, I expected to see Will waiting on the front porch. He wasn’t there.
Then I saw his books scattered down the porch steps. The scruffy heels of his shoes. His long legs in the pants that I’d ordered special from the Montgomery Ward catalog, that he hated because they were too big, that I’d told him he’d grow into. His arms at odd angles pointing away from his body. His head turned so that I couldn’t see his face.
Chapter 2
I rushed to Will’s side, falling on my knees beside him, checking him over. I didn’t see a scratch or bump on him, but he was out cold.
We needed help. I thought maybe I should go back in for Daddy…but then I saw his car parked at the curb, pointing the wrong direction, the driver’s side front tire up on our grass.
Across the street, the Bakers were out in their driveway, about to get in their car, but all three had stopped in their tracks to stare at us. I looked over at Miss Bettina’s house—Come out, come out, I willed Miss Bettina.
But then Will coughed. His eyes fluttered open. He stared up at me, blankly at first, and then with recognition, and he croaked, “Jeez, could you stop yelling?”
I realized I’d been hollering his name this whole time. I hushed and pulled him into my arms. He tried to push away, but I wouldn’t let go of him, and so we ended up lumped together.
“What happened?”
“I must have tripped.”
I almost believed him. I grabbed his chin, turned his face toward me, put my other hand to his forehead. “Do you have a fever? Muscle weakness?”
Will swatted at my hand. “Oh, jeez, Donna, I don’t have polio.” He rolled his eyes.
But over the previous year, 1952, polio had fatally hit or paralyzed many children in Stackville, the neighborhood by Groverton Pulp & Paper, and in Tangy Town, across the river, and even three in our part of Groverton. We heard the reports when Daddy was home for dinner and watched the news on the television in our living room. Of course, he was watching for updates about his hero, Senator Joe McCarthy, and his search for communists—Reds, Daddy called them.
I took my hand from Will’s forehead. He wasn’t feverish; he felt cool and clammy.
“Fine. You don’t have polio. But you also didn’t trip. What happened?”
Suddenly, Will grinned impishly, grabbed his stomach, and said, “Oh, man, like you said—too many Marvel Puffs! My stomach exploded!” He pulled away from me and rolled o
n the ground, hollering, “Oh, the agony! Why didn’t I listen to you? Now my guts are spewing everywhere—”
“Is everything OK over here?”
I looked up to see Mrs. Baker looming over us. She was wearing a black dress and gloves and holding a casserole dish, so I figured she must be going to set up a funeral lunch over at the Groverton First Church of God.
I’ve heard people say that there are no stupid questions, but this one truly was. Of course everything was not OK. The tight little smile on Mrs. Baker’s pudgy face revealed she knew that.
I stood up and smoothed my dress. I couldn’t stand the smirk on her face. Mr. Baker—still a marketing manager at Groverton Pulp & Paper, while Daddy, who had once been his supervisor, barely held on to his job at Ace Hardware—shook his head and got in his perfectly parked car. And Howard gave a smug little grin, a match for his mother’s, as he watched from the driveway.
I focused on the rounded collar of Mrs. Baker’s plain, lumpy, too-tight black dress. The collar was so matronly; I thought it would look much better with piping—perhaps in goldenrod for contrast—instead of lace trim.
“Will here has a bit of a stomachache. So I believe we’re going to stay home today, call Dr. Emory to come to the house.”
She stepped back, hugging her casserole dish as if it could protect her from whatever dread disease the Lanes might be spreading. “I hope it’s nothing catching.”
“I think it’s just too many Marvel Puffs,” I said.
“Oh, I would never let my Howard eat that—not nutritious enough.”
No, you’d just buy the cereal and throw it away so the little brat could get his Alaska deed without—
“What? No! I can’t stay home!” Will jumped up. He gave me a panicked look.
“Now, Will,” I started.
“Good morning, Mrs. Baker.” Thank God for Miss Bettina, in her fresh blue-and-white-checked dress and pretty faux pearl necklace, a dollop of hope compared to the gloom of Mrs. Baker.
Miss Bettina looked at me. “What’s going on?” She knew better than to probe deeper.
“Will has a stomachache, is all, but just to be safe”—the image of Will, splayed flat on our scruffy lawn, made my heart clench—“I’m going to call Dr. Emory, and—”
“No!” Will shouted.
We all looked at him. Across the street, Mr. Baker tapped his car horn. Howard smirked.
“No, I’m fine, and I have to go to school, because, because—”
He stopped, and I watched his expression go from panicked to pleased. That always meant he had some mischievous idea. He grinned and said, “I have to get to school because of the science fair project I’m working on.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him. The kid was stealing my cover stories.
“What? The science fair isn’t until the spring,” Mrs. Baker said.
“Oh, I know, but I’m doing some work ahead of time…for extra credit.” He looked back at the porch and I followed his gaze, and saw that when I’d dropped everything, my book bag had spilled its contents, but somehow the Marvel Puffs box had landed neatly upright on the middle step, its soggy mix of toast and milk and cereal still inside.
Will leaped to the porch, grabbed the Marvel Puffs box, and scooped up his book bag and lunch pail. “I’m…testing the osmosis of various liquids on semipermeable surfaces…like, like milk in a Marvel Puffs box.”
And then he took off running down Elmwood, rounding the corner onto Maple, in the direction of the scrapyard. And my shortcut to Waterhouse and Sixth. Maybe I can still meet Babs after all.
But first I’d have to catch up with Will. I couldn’t shake the image of him from moments before, still, unresponsive.
Mrs. Baker said, “Well, I’m glad I could help.” She gave me a hard look. “Your grandmother will be glad to hear it.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Baker,” I said. She turned and stomped back across the street toward her perfect family.
I put everything back in my book bag and started after Will, but Miss Bettina put her hand on my arm. “Donna.”
My eyes pricked and I wanted to hug her, to let her hug me, to tell her how desperately I wanted away from Groverton, to ask her if she ever felt that way…but then her eyes wandered from mine, and I saw she was looking behind me.
I glanced back. Daddy. He was standing on the porch, staring out at all of us, looking confused. He wore the same pants from the day before, and a stained undershirt. I felt a surge of resentment. I’d have to get that undershirt clean, somehow.
But I saw the look on Miss Bettina’s face. She never said it, but I could see it. For whatever reason, she was in love with my daddy.
“Porter.” She said his name like a sigh.
She went to him, while the Bakers drove off.
I walked down Elmwood until I got to the corner. Then I turned and started running toward Stedman’s Scrapyard. Away from all of them. Toward Will.
Chapter 3
I ran until I reached Stackville, gasping in great gulps of air vile with the rotten-egg mill smell from wood being boiled down to pulp to make paper. I put my hand to my mouth and nose, fighting back a gag, while running, running, until I finally saw Will.
He was kneeling by the barbed-wire fence surrounding Stedman’s Scrapyard. My relief at finding him gave way to a moment of annoyance—my armpits stuck to my dress and my pin curls drooped, a damp mess. So much for looking fresh and perfect for my trip with Babs and my secret job interview.
But just as quickly, my annoyance switched back to alarm.
Will looked fine now—physically. I watched as he stared past the scrapyard’s usual collection of tires and car parts and banged-up iceboxes—dumped as housewives got refrigerators and freezers—at the empty end of a chain attached to the hitch of an old teardrop camper with its door hanging open on one hinge. As he talked loudly to the empty chain, Will looked as unhinged as that camper door.
From Stedman’s, Groverton Pulp & Paper wasn’t visible, but its presence was palpable in the smell and the sight of the steam that plumed in endless white puffs from its smokestacks. That morning, although the neighborhood of narrow, close houses was quiet, the very air seemed tense, or at least I told myself it did; I’d overheard talk at the diner of a possible mill strike. I felt a tremble of hope at the possibility of this—of anything—bringing excitement to Groverton.
The only resident in sight was an old woman who sat on the front porch of a well-kept wooden house across the street from the scrapyard. She peeled apples, leaning forward, her ankle-length skirt, taut between her knees, catching the long strand of apple skin. Her hands moved automatically and she didn’t keep an eye on her peeling—just on us, bemused by the sight of children who did not belong in her neighborhood.
Will’s voice rose in an adamant cadence, like Pastor Stebbins at Grandma’s church: “So tonight, Sergeant Striker and his Trusty are going to be on TV for the first time! Do you think they’ll catch a robber or a kidnapper? I think…kidnapper. It’s been a long time since the old gold miner’s great granddaughter got held for ransom. So Trusty…”
Will insisted on calling the scrapyard-dog-with-no-name Trusty because the dog was a husky—just like, Will said, Trusty from Sergeant Striker and the Alaskan Wild. Will shook the box of Marvel Puffs. Milk dripped from the bottom.
“I wish you could watch the show with me, but Dad doesn’t like dogs,” Will was saying, as if this was the biggest problem in our house. “But guess what? As of this morning, I’m just three away from ten box tops! I’m gonna send in for my deed to my own land in Alaska, and then we’ll go see it—”
“Will!” I went over to him, gently put my hand on his arm. Dayton was as far as either of us had ever been out of Groverton. “Just leave the cereal for the dog—”
He jerked his arm from my grasp and went on, louder: “Did you know that Alaska has a flower even though it isn’t a state? The forget-me-not. Ever since 1917! Did you know…”
He still looked too pa
le, and his babbling to the nonexistent dog frightened me. I grabbed him and turned him toward me. “Stop it! I think we should get back home, call Dr. Emory after all, have him check you—”
Will glared at me, the familiar accusation in his blue eyes: You take everything too seriously! “I’m fine now.”
“Will, I’m sure the dog will eat the cereal if we just leave the box. Let’s get back home, call Dr. Emory—”
He shrugged free. “No. I’m feeding Trusty. Then I’m going to school.”
“What? You’d take any excuse to stay home from school.”
“I don’t like Dr. Emory. I’m—I’m just having, like Grandma says, growing pains.”
Ah…I finally got it. If Will was home sick, and I wasn’t home after school because of my “special project,” Daddy would call Grandma, who called the television “one of Porter’s indulgences for Rita,” along with the house and refrigerator and freezer and furniture and car and everything else Daddy had bought for Mama in 1946, before she got sick, before she left, before he lost himself and his job.
I studied Will.
“Come on, then,” I said. “We still have time to get to school early so I can, uh, go to the school library.”
“You go on. I’m not going until Trusty comes out.”
“Maybe the old lady across the street can tell us what happened to Trusty.”
“Her name is MayJune,” Will said. “She lives in Tangy Town.” Tangy Town was a small huddle of houses and businesses across the river, downstream and downwind of the mill—to the people of Groverton, even less desirable an address than Stackville. Nobody lived there unless they were desperately poor or black (although back in 1953, everyone used the term Negro). Tangy Town kids went to our school, tainted with the mill’s sour stench, usually dropping out by seventh or eighth grade.
It was also where Mama had grown up. But we never visited that neighborhood, or knew anything about Mama’s life there. All we knew was that, like Daddy, she was an only child, that her parents were dead by the time she’d married, that Grandma said she was luckier than a four-leaf clover to have met and married Daddy. My guess was she’d met him at the mill.
My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850) Page 2
