by Beth Mattson
“We may not even have to spend much on flour and rice to get starches,” Mom boasted.
“But we'll be able to,” Dad replied, “Once I start fixing things for money. As soon as this place is ship shape, I'm going to head into town to see who needs what fixed.”
Their eyes gleamed when they looked around the Yard, not just checking for zombies, but proud of their purchase and plotting.
Dad struggled with rusty bolts to affix a large pump handle to an old water well that used to run on Electricity. He tossed the electric pump into the stream with the heads, said it was about as useful, and reminded us not to go poking around down there. I nodded. Kept working on turning my blisters into calluses. Hector kept picking, walking buckets of beans over to Mom, who strung them up to dry or boiled them and stuck them in firmly sealed jars, locked in the big wooden cabinet, next to the crabapple sauce that was simmering. Juliet filled a small pail with water from the new pump and then sprinkled it around the bases of the plants with her slender fingers.
Dad came back from the woods, having found and dragged a freshly downed sapling that we would dry for kindling, but he was happier and stepping higher than just a small pile of kindling would warrant.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Hurry!” he called to me, “Come on. Grab some of these boards!”
Juliet and I rushed to Dad's side. We propped the rough, salvaged boards from the old shed and slapped them into a tall rectangular tube where he pointed. He pinned them with only with two straightened nails per board per corner. We left the bottom open, propped on little branch-y legs, and we made a lid, but didn't put it on yet.
Lastly, Dad wrapped a dry towel around a green stick that he held in the oven until it started to burn, and then he ran, his torch held high.
“Quick! Come on!”
Hector joined us as we galloped along behind Dad to the foot of a giant oak, well into the woods, well away from the safety of our highly visible yard.
“There, there it is. Do you see?”
My heart beat up into my sinuses, unsure what to expect.
He pointed twenty feet above our heads. Hanging in the lush, green canopy, was a twisty, windy ovaloid, about the size of a human head. It was a beehive! A few inhabitants buzzed slowly in and out of their front door, calm and blissfully unaware that they had been discovered and plotted against. Hector was the best climber of the three of us – his chief skill along with bug-following and talking to squirrels – so he followed Dad up the tree, holding the smoking torch where Dad directed him. After they smoked the hive for several never-ending minutes, Dad leaned even closer to the branch where the hive hung, and he made slow, smooth cuts with the sharp saw that he carried on his belt. The spare end of the branch, with its leaves and twigs fell first. Juliet and I hauled it out of the way to dry for more kindling.
Hector held one hand on the smoking torch under the hive and one on the free side of the branch as Dad slowly, … slowly, … cut through the thicker tree-side of the bee's branch. When it was almost free, he wiggled and twisted away the last connecting shreds. He shoo-ed Hector down the tree first and climbed carefully down after, miming more than actually touching the tree roughly at all. He winked at me and motioned for all of us to be quiet.
We took great pains to be an almost-silent parade back to the makeshift hutch behind the kitchen. Dad lay the torch under the hutch so that the smoke drifted up through the top like a chimney. Carefully, carefully he set the branch ends across the hutch's top opening, and placed the lid down on top of it, pinching the stick in place with a large, lumpy rock on top of it. Finally, he gave us the signal that we could abandon our silence. I threw my hands in the air and cheered.
“We did it!” Dad declared, “We'll have easy honey!”
Hector hooted and Juliet danced with me.
Mom stepped out onto the kitchen steps.
“What is this racket? What's going on? Is everybody ok?”
Dad did a little waltz with Juliet in his arms and leaned in for a kiss from Mom.
“We just set up a beehive. We'll have honey! Free sugar for anything you want to make!” he told her.
Her smile stretched from ear to ear, but she composed herself and swatted at us with her wooden spoon.
“Pull yourselves together! Honestly.”
She gave us each a kiss and went back to cooking.
The sauce smelled too wonderful for Juliet to keep away from the oven. Mom tripped on her castle of sticks, so she cursed and tethered Juliet on the far side the Kitchen with a short piece of soft rope. The rope kept her from touching the stove or wandering out of sight, but Juliet frowned indignantly and picked at a tether that she was too old for. At four, she was the most Civilized of all of us, just as Immogen had been: dainty with her fine features and thoughtful gaze. She was smart enough not to wander off while Mom chopped tomatoes and I wood. She knew to stay close to me. Hector was the one standing on his overturned pail, reaching for another tree branch to climb. He had already forgotten about the beans and was busy jumping at leaves and bugs.
Dad called me to the Kitchen door.
“As you can see,” he whistled at Hector to get back to work, “We grown-ups” I blushed at this verbal reward, “We need to make this beehive sturdier and then I think we'll need even another distraction to keep the zombies away from the little Beans who advertise themselves in the House at night. The smells of the Kitchen are a great start, and the buzzing of the bees will help, but the undead like bigger noises too. We have to give them something to keep them away from the House while we're sleeping. What do you think?”
I agreed.
The Funeral
Dad and I built a weighted pendulum that softly pounded on the inside of the Kitchen wall. When it was wound and positioned behind the locked door, it sounded like something small and edible wiggling, to pull the ghouls to it all night long, far away from the rest of us in the House. In the morning, when we checked our work, we found four zombies huddled around the Kitchen, smearing themselves across the reinforced walls, exactly where we wanted them. Far away from us.
I offered Dad a high-five, but he frowned at me.
“This is not for fun, Ophelia. These zombies were somebody's children.”
“They're not anymore,” I reminded him, “Those people are gone now.”
He sighed deeply.
“That tall, skinny one, there – it used to be one of the Clover boys from down the road. Nice people. They traded me a pound of nuts and bolts for a small jar of crabapple sauce. They used to have four boys. Two of them died of the croup. This makes a third dead boy. They only have one left. These zombies are not people, and we have a duty to put them to rest, … but they still have families. They still have parents. I will take care of the ex-Clover boy, and make it neat for the family. Ophelia, do you think that you can handle the other three?”
The other three were decrepit strangers out of the woods, slow and half fallen apart. I nodded that I could handle it. Of course I could.
Dad tipped the ex-Neighbor boy over on its side and drove a very narrow, metal stake through its temple until it was still. The other three zombies came directly for me when I clapped to call them away from him.
I stopped letting my shiny blade dangle at my side. I held it at the ready.
It felt so heavy and my arm so paper light. I swung it wildly at the enormous zombies as they reached for me, pawing at the air and my shirt, streaking it with their inky goo. Airy swing after airy swing I missed them with my sharpened club, and they missed me with their teeth. And then I didn’t miss. My ax cut through the air, and then not just the air. I saw a hand lying on the ground.
I swallowed and swallowed until my mouth was bone dry and I had almost backed out of the Lawn and into the trees. I swung again and again, and then connected solidly with the skin above one of the zombie’s ears. I kept going, as quickly as I could, hitting more and more important body parts. Shaving them down.
When
they stumbled down to the grass, I chopped at them and chopped at them until they stopped writhing and grabbing and twitching. They barely had any neck stumps left. I frowned at my trail of mangled and messy, truly-dead parts. I wiped a black smudge off of my hand and onto my pants. I tried not to think about the one Ranger I had seen get goo on an open cut on one of her fingers, shaking with the fever as soon as she saw it there. But I didn’t have any open cuts on my hands this time. I should be fine.
“It’s nice to know I can count on you, Ophelia.”
Dad patted my shoulder and strode away to get the tarps.
I blinked until I could see again.
At the funeral, the Clovers told everybody how Stand Up and Decent we were, how we had returned their ex-son to them, wrapped cleanly in our best tarp, face not even destroyed, so that they could see him one last time before they burned him. Mrs. Baker scowled to hear all this, pale and prim in a high-collared dress, but by the light of the flickering pyre, everyone else saw us standing Upright and Honorable as Neighbors, not just as Driving newcomers who traded for all the best stuff in their county. Most of them didn't hate us for being new.
Though, that didn’t stop the Older Girls from torturing me at night in the Church, on the third floor, where all of the Older Kids slept for big events. The Church was full of people sleeping over after the funeral, before the Breakfast Feast in the morning. The Breakfast Feast only happened because the Hiking Townies didn’t want to sleep in trees overnight on their way home. I wished we had just driven home after the funeral. I wouldn’t have cared if we had been rude to the Townies without cars. I had work to do at the House, things far more important than listening to the Older Girls gossip for hours.
I wondered if the Older Boys were having more fun sneaking around in the attic and bell tower. Anything would have been more fun than being trapped with the Older Girls. They had all grown up on their Farms near Nasmyth. They were all tall, and none of them as Brown as me, not even the quiet girl with the longest, thickest braid I’d ever seen, whose family had been this far North for eons. I wondered if they had teased her before I came along.
“Hey, Driver,” they taunted me, “Stupid Land Stealer.”
They called me names – Backseat Brat, Road Trash, Filthy Four-Door Dork and other names in the speech of the North that I couldn't understand, but their tone was as disgusting as the remarks that they did let me hear. When I grew tired of trying to track their barbs, I listened to the Grown-Ups on the floor just below us, tending to the Little Ones and ignoring the hurricane of Teenagers upstairs.
“God,” a round girl with dark lipstick shouted so that I would notice her, “Did you see her brother? So Interesting. He’s going to end up just like that last Clover boy – Interesting. Tethered for Bait like a baby.”
The only boy that the Clovers had left was a Teenager like us, but something was wrong with him. He had never been bitten, but his head didn't work like anybody else's. His family had to keep him tied up so that he wouldn't wander away and get eaten without even noticing. And the Older Girls thought that Hector was just like him, the poor, Interesting Clover boy. It made me like the remaining Clover Boy.
I heard a slight rhythmical banging on a pipe below. It was to the tune of one of Hector’s favorite songs. I wondered if he had stolen a wrench, and if he was humming as he went, but I rolled my eyes at the Older Girls anyway.
One of her friends stepped over to me and peered down at my blankets from above her ample cleavage. I hid my mostly flat chest and my pink, flowered nightie under the covers.
“Bet you can’t even kill a zombie, can you? You didn’t kill the ex-Clover that we burned, did you?”
I shook my head.
“But I have killed some. Plenty. Three while my Daddy dispatched that one.”
“Daddy?” the girl mocked, “I’m getting married next week, and she still calls her Old Man ‘Daddy?’”
“She turns sixteen next month,” another piped up, “Let’s see how much her Daddy Loves her then. Sooner or later, even if she is a Driving shrimp, she’ll start bleeding like the rest of us, and draw the monsters right up to the House at night. I bet he'll sell her then, not that she's worth much.”
I rolled over in my sleeping bag, turning my back to them. I wasn’t scared of red blood, and Mom wasn’t either. Dad Loved both of us and would never sell anybody. He hated Girl Sellers as much as he hated zombies. I was never going to leave Juliet alone with Older Girls like this. I pitied the Older Girls with their mean fathers. I hid my inflamed ears underneath my rag pillow.
“Aw, time for the Bitty Baby to fall asleep.”
They made cooing noises. A foot nudged me sharply in the ribs as it padded past to the bathroom. I scoffed at the small bruise it would leave and pulled my flannel wrap further over my head while they stayed up late discussing which of the Older Boys they’d like to have babies with. What was the point of not getting sold if they were just going to volunteer to be slaves anyway?
I woke earlier than all of them, still gagging on their gossip. I wrinkled my nose in disgust as I folded my bedroll to sneak downstairs and help the Grown Ups with breakfast. I stepped on their blankets with my sneakers, shaking dried mud onto them as I passed.
I laughed quietly at them after the feast, when their mothers sent them to thank us for the delightful crabapple sauce that Mom had provided for the pancakes. Only the pale Baker girl was immune from her mother forcing her to thank us politely. Juliet was impressed that I let her stick her tongue out at so many people when Mom wasn’t looking. Hector didn’t notice. He was too busy shoveling pancakes and crabapple sauce into his mouth to notice that the only other person not being careful to share was the remaining, rocking, Interesting Clover boy to his left, six times his size and still tethered to the picnic table like a toddler.
“Very Interesting,” the girls hissed at me, but Hector had long outgrown tethers and he was right to scarf Mom’s crabapple sauce. It was delicious. He was unusual, but he wasn't as Interesting as the Clover boy. And they both had good taste. The pancakes and crabapple sauce were incredible.
Mom’s crabapple sauce was perfect for sweetening things, and I knew that if we had any extra flour, mom would have offered to make me a syrupy cake for my Birthday, but instead of flour we had bags and bags of rice, many of them plunked heavily onto my lap for the drive home. They made booster seats for Hector and Juliet.
We pulled slowly away from the Church parking lot, giving Mom time to accept more gracious Thank Yous. She smiled and waved at the Townie Hikers and mentioned to me, without moving her lips, not to be such a Tom Boy and that it was not very nice of me to let Hector make faces out of the car windows. He had finally caught on that I was allowing face-making, and there was no way I was going to stop him. In fact, I reminded Juliet to keep going and pointed out the Older Girls along the way. Mom was too busy waving to scold us.
While she was in a good mood from the compliments, I asked if we could celebrate my Birthday with rice and butter and honey instead of cake. Even though we didn’t have much butter either, she said yes without a second thought. And then she paused to ponder something else, bringing her fingers to her lips and tapping in sets of four.
As we were all snuggling into bed for the night, she smiled, smoothed out our blankets and said what was on her mind.
“It's six weeks until Ophelia's Birthday. I think we should have a Party.”
The bedroom grew silent except for Hector's humming and tapping. Mom's eyes were twinkling.
“When I turned Sweet Sixteen, I wore a new, pink, full-length, tulle dress to a dance thrown for me by my Favorite Uncle. It was in a Hotel Ballroom, with a buffet and a live band and all of my friends. I would love to throw a Picnic next month. Done-Up Right. With plenty of food. And Ophelia in a dress. Ophelia, you even have an Uncle within a few days journey. It would do us all some good to remember that we have some family. And it would help us make better friends with all of the Neighbors.”
I pictured all of the Older Girls at our Party, forced to say thank you to us again. A Birthday better than their weddings ever would be. I didn't want to wear a dress, but I wanted to show off the huge Wood Pile that I had built.
Dad pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have that many people around, making noise, tempting all the creatures.”
“Don’t discourage Ophelia,” Mom chided, “After spending her entire life in a Car, she could use a break to enjoy the life that we finally have.”
Dad looked at the floorboards. He looked at me. I tried to make my face less hopeful, but it was too late. He saw that I wanted a Party, and, in a flash of guilt he pictured me in the backseat with Hector and Juliet. He forced a smile and agreed. I wondered what kind of nightmares he would have tonight, but he chuckled and reminded all of us that my Uncle Donnie was really more the older, sleazy husband of a cousin who was my age. Mom pursed her lips about the Sleazy Uncle comment, but she was too pleased at the thought of a Party to be mad. I wondered if she was planning my wedding just like the parents of all of those other girls. Whatever. When they showed up I'd be more impressive with my ax than they could ever be with their boring, smelly, future husbands.
“Mom,” I asked, “Can I invite all of the Older Girls to the Party?”
“Of course! Yes! We'll invite everybody!”
I tore off my little kid’s pink flowered nightie and wrapped myself in my biggest most grown-up flannel shirt. I stuffed the pink nightie under my rag mattress and pulled my Little Sister to me, clutching her against the evening chill. Hector was drumming his fingers on the cool window pane when we fell asleep and again when we all woke up.
