Matylda, Bright and Tender

by Holly M. McGhee

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  If my life were one big calendar and I had to mark my favorite day, I’d put all the shiny gold pushpins I could find on an October morning three years ago. I was standing on the corner with my friend Guy Hose and everyone else, waiting for the school bus. We were six years old. It was cold, the air chillier than usual for a fall day. I was rubbing my arms to stay warm.

  “Where’s your jacket?” Guy asked. I told him that I left it at home but I was fine. We were going to school, a short trip, not a big deal. But he took off, not worrying about the bus coming, not worrying about what would happen if he missed it. I watched him go, plaid flannel pants running through three backyards — a knight, fearless, jumping over hoses and fences and anything else, no stopping him. He ran right into my house, knowing my jacket hung on a hook in the laundry room. Then he was back, out of breath, with cold-air cheeks, just as the bus pulled up.

  I don’t think I would have done that. Don’t think I would have risked missing the bus to get a jacket for a friend. But Guy, he wasn’t worried — all that mattered was me that morning. That’s when I knew I loved him — not in a fairy-tale way with a princess and prince or anything like that. I just loved him, the way you love the people closest to you.

  The moment I met Guy is stuck in my mind like rubber cement. I was in kindergarten, and each day at 2 p.m., Mrs. Wolf said, “It’s time for free play!” As soon as she said it, almost everybody rushed to the costume corner. It was so crowded and noisy there, with jumpsuits and dresses and costumes going on and off, zippers going up and down, hangers falling off the rack, masks and ties and jewelry all over the place. There were even tap shoes and goggles. It was too busy for me.

  I liked the Potato Heads, and they were in a different corner of the room. There were boxes and boxes of them, every size and part you could imagine. It was quiet there, and I had my own Potato Head family. I dressed them the same each day: Mama got the green sneakers and the purple hat, Papa got the yellow shoes and mustache, and Baby Tater only got a bow tie, ’cause he couldn’t walk yet. I usually played family with them.

  But when Guy arrived, everything changed. Mrs. Wolf introduced him to the class and explained to him that he could do whatever he wanted for free play. He had on baseball pants and a red shirt, and I watched as he scanned the room, seeing everybody in the costume corner and me there, alone with the Taters. Next thing I knew, he was by my side, sitting down with Mama and Papa and Baby and me.

  Guy wasn’t shy. “Would you like to see a trick?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Okay.” He started digging through the boxes of potato pieces, choosing the ones he wanted — quite a few potatoes and lots and lots of ears, some other stuff too.

  “Why are you taking all the ears?” I said, wondering if he knew how to play.

  “You’ll see!” he said.

  He took an ear and stuck it through the earhole of a big potato head the opposite way, so the ear was on the inside and the peg was on the outside. He did it again on the other side. The potato looked funny, with pegs sticking out both sides of its head.

  “What are you doing?” I said. He didn’t answer; he just stuck a new potato on each peg so there were three lined up all together.

  “Awesome,” I said. Guy added more, and then there were six potatoes in a row. He held it up.

  “You know what?” I said.

  “What?”

  “We could put a potato where the hat is supposed to go! And the feet!”

  “Let’s do it,” he said.

  We put more ears inside each potato so the pegs were sticking out the top and bottom, too. Then we stuck on more potatoes.

  “It’s a never-ending potato!” Guy said. We were both laughing.

  “What kind of eyes should we use?”

  “Creepy ones,” said Guy. I took some eyes out of the boxes.

  “Let’s use the kind with all the veins,” I said.

  “Yeah!” And we added eyes to each of the potatoes, six across and four high. We gave them feet too, all different shoes and sneakers, so the never-ending potato could stand on whichever side it felt like.

  From then on, I shared my corner with Guy — we could hardly wait till 2 p.m. each day. We couldn’t wait to build another never-ending potato.

  We had a school-wide picnic at the end of first grade. I’d known Guy almost two years already, and we were good friends, but not together-all-the-time friends. My dad volunteered to bring ice pops, 125 cherry ice pops, and he showed up when a bunch of us were playing kickball. I saw him coming from the car — I couldn’t mistake my dad, tall and thin, with a Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and a giant mound of hair.

  “Ice pops!” my dad yelled, and everybody started running. “Line up, ladies and gentlemen — one pop each!” But Guy didn’t come. He was kneeling, out in right field.

  “Guy,” I said, running back toward him, not wanting him to miss the pops. “My dad has ice pops!”

  He didn’t get up. “Guy,” I said, getting closer. “My dad —”

  “Look,” he whispered, turning toward me. “Look what I have.” There was a ladybug on his fingertip, with delicate black dots speckled on a coat of red, her teeny wings fluttering as she walked around his finger. I knelt down beside him and put my finger next to his. The ladybug took flight and landed on my hand. I held my breath as she explored.

  “Do you believe she brings good luck?” I said softly.

  “I don’t just believe it,” whispered Guy. “I know it.”

  “How?” I said.

  “Because of my dad,” said Guy. “He was out in the garage a few years ago, trying to make kindling for our woodstove. The wood he used was damp, and he was holding it in place with one hand while bringing the ax down to sliver it off with the other. Me and my mom were in the living room when we heard him yell, ‘ALBERTA, WE’RE GOING TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM.’

  “We’d never heard his voice like that, and he usually called her Bertie; we knew it was serious. His thumb was nearly severed from his hand, and Mom wrapped it in rags and T-shirts and towels to stop the bleeding. We got him in the car, and she reclined his seat all the way back, and then she rested his arm, wound up in all that cloth, on the open window. ‘Just keep it higher than your heart if you can, Jacques,’ she said, making sure it would stay. ‘That’ll stop the bleeding.’

  “She turned to come back to the driver’s side, but Dad stopped her. ‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘It’ll be okay. Look . . .’ And he drifted off. Mom and I saw what he was talking about; a ladybug had landed on his wrapped-up hand, right on the end where his thumb was supposed to be.

  “‘Did you see that, Guy?’ my
mom said. ‘It’ll be all right. A ladybug landing brings luck.’

  “My father didn’t lose his thumb. They sewed it back on and reconnected most of the nerves; they couldn’t get them all, but it works pretty well. The ladybug brought us luck, staying on his hand all the way to the hospital, even with the open window.”

  My dad came over then, a cherry pop in each hand. “Lucky you,” he said. “I have two pops left.” Me and Guy looked at each other with big eyes, hardly believing my dad’s words.

  “Guy,” I said, when my dad headed back. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “The ladybug strikes again!”

  “Wow,” I said. “I guess they can bring luck for everything — the big things and the little things. Your dad’s thumb and our ice pops, too.”

  “Yeah,” said Guy. “I never thought of it that way.”

  From then on, me and Guy looked out for ladybugs, at recess or whenever we got to eat lunch outside. Sometimes they showed up on a windowsill, a swing set, or even on somebody’s hair — we were always on the watch, Sussy and Guy of the Ladybug Landing.

  My dad called us spaghetti and meatballs, ’cause we could usually be found together, and one Friday after school, in the spring of fourth grade, we sat down to have our regular snack: a not-so-little pile of Pringles, the only junk food my mom allowed (she liked the way they stacked), and a glass of ginger ale. She said it was good for your stomach.

  Mom was also the reason we were at the dining table in the first place. She was a why-notter, from why not believe in God to why not eat in the dining room under a beautiful chandelier. She had a good point, and the chandelier was pretty, so we ate our snacks and played Monopoly there too.

  Guy and I laid out the board, tucking in our money, lowest to highest. Like always, I put my five-hundred-dollar bill all the way under, saving it for when I really needed it, while Guy left his out, front and center, ready to be spent. “I’ll see if my dad wants in,” I said.

  Dad was in the basement at his laptop, working on his new self-help book, this one about couples who don’t compromise. I had a hunch it was inspired by him and my mom, because they both have strong opinions about most everything, including my name. Since they couldn’t agree on what to call me when I was born, my dad picked one name and my mom picked another. My first, Susquehanna, came from the Susquehanna Trading Company, based in New York City, where my dad used to work. That’s where he built our family’s “nest egg”— the money that gave him the cushion to try writing books. “It stands for freedom,” he said.

  My mom chose my middle name, Indiana, and it wasn’t about the prairie state. She was a big fan of Indiana Jones from Raiders of the Lost Ark and all the ones after. “For strength,” she said.

  The funny part is that they both ended up calling me Sussy.

  “Gonna play, Dad?” I asked. He rolled back in his chair, running his hand through his hair.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Should I or shouldn’t I?”

  “We’ve got chips,” I said. “Sour cream and onion.”

  “Monopoly and Pringles. A doubleheader. I’m in.” He followed me up the stairs.

  Guy went with the iron, I took the car, and my dad got the wheelbarrow. “You know what Guy’s mom says, right?” I asked my dad.

  “What?”

  “Everything you need to know about life can be learned from Monopoly.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yup, it is, Mr. Reed,” said Guy. “At least according to her. Addition, subtraction, buying, selling, and strategizing.”

  “But what about luck?” my dad said. “Do you learn that?”

  “Luck’s another story,” said Guy. “You just get it, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Unless there’s a ladybug, of course — then it’s always good.” I thought about Guy’s bad luck in the last game we’d played. He ran out of money, mortgaged everything, and then landed on my brand-new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. End of story. Except that I didn’t enjoy winning very much ’cause I had to watch him lose.

  As usual, Guy bought everything he could, and I was more strategic, buying properties with the highest rents. We both had monopolies pretty fast, but not my dad, because he only ever bought reds and purples. “Why are you so stuck on those colors?” I asked him.

  “Research,” he said. “Trying to see if you can win by not compromising.” His logic was crazy, but so was he, and we didn’t mind. Not surprisingly, he went bankrupt pretty fast, and then all that mattered was the dice. I landed on Guy’s properties and he landed on mine, and it seemed like the game could go on forever.

  “I’m bored,” I said.

  “Boredom,” my dad replied. “Something else Monopoly teaches you. Gotta hand it to your mom, Guy. Everything you need to know about life can be learned right here.” He tapped the board. “Between the two of us, I bet we’ve got the makings of another book.”

  I thought about Mrs. Hose and how many times I’d heard her say that about Monopoly. In some ways it was true; I did learn to strategize and count money. I learned that you could pick up a card from the middle of the board and go directly to jail and then just as easily pick up a different card and get out of jail free. And I learned that you could land on a big red hotel on Boardwalk and watch your fortunes change in an instant. It was business and luck, but that wasn’t everything.

  “I know what’s wrong,” I finally said. “There’s no love in this game.”

  My dad made a frowny face. “Banana peels,” he said. “You’re right.”

  I laughed ’cause that’s what Dad said whenever there was something he hadn’t thought of, like boom, he’d slipped on a banana peel.

  “Plenty of other places for love,” my dad said. “You’ve got us and you’ve got each other. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Not really,” I said. “We don’t have siblings or anything.”

  My dad seemed concerned.

  “We need a pet,” I said. “That’s what’s missing. Are we ever going to get one?” It was something I’d asked for so many times that I’d pretty much given up. But it was worth another try.

  “You know what your mom says, right?”

  “Yes. ‘There’s enough animals in the house already,’” I said, quoting her. “Not funny. We’re just hoping for something to love that’s all our own, Dad.”

  “I know what I’d choose,” said Guy. “I mean, if we could get one.”

  “Let me guess,” said my dad. “A leopard gecko.”

  “Right,” said Guy. He had wanted a leopard gecko since our animal unit at the beginning of third grade, and he had read everything there is to know about them, but Mrs. Hose said they didn’t have room for a pet. It was one of the few things she said absolutely no to.

  “What about a bird?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” my dad said. “I had one once. First you stare at it in the cage and then, when you let it out, it leaves droppings everywhere, mostly out of reach.”

  “So you can’t clean it up but you know it’s there?” I asked.

  “You can clean it up,” he said. “But you need scaffolding to get to it.”

  “Ew,” I said. “Guinea pig?”

  “They don’t do anything except squeak once in a while,” said Guy. “We had one in preschool.”

  “Wait a sec,” said my dad. “Who said you could have a pet?”

  “Can we?” I said. “Please?”

  “Are you really ready to take care of it?”

  “We’re not babies.”

  “I promise,” said Guy. “And I vote for the gecko.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” I said.

  “Listen,” said Guy. “They’re good beginner reptiles, and they don’t smell. You keep them in a tank; they don’t just crawl around the house.” Guy was getting going now. “If you want, you can just use paper towels for substrate. That’s what you line the bottom of the tank with.” Guy ran his hand along the table and looked up at Dad.

  He was winning me ove
r. I jumped in. “I think it could be good for us, Dad. We wouldn’t have to walk it or anything. We could keep it in my room.”

  “Your mother would appreciate that.”

  “Mr. Reed, we’ll love it like crazy!” said Guy. “It’ll be something all our own.”

  It felt like the stars lined up for us right then, ’cause my dad seemed to understand, and he ran his hand through his hair again. “That’s hard to resist,” he said to us both. “I want you to have something of your own, too.” He sighed. “It’s part of growing up, isn’t it?”

  And not very long after that, the three of us were in the Honda, backing out of the driveway.

  How can I help you?” a skinny salesclerk in a Total Pets T-shirt asked when we walked in the door. He looked like a high-schooler, and according to his badge, his name was Mike. “Goldfish?”

  “No goldfish for us,” my dad said. “We’re here for a gecko.”

  “That’s a broad term,” Mike said. “So many fantastic species —”

  “A leopard gecko,” Guy said.

  “Clarity,” said Mike. “That’s what I’m looking for. Follow me, folks.” He showed us a twenty-gallon tank with three leopard geckos inside. “The two smaller ones just arrived from the breeder,” he said. “That larger one, with all the dark spots, she’s been here awhile — from before I even started. Take a look.”

  “That’s her,” Guy said, on his knees, pointing to the larger one. She was near the glass, her face staring into Guy’s.

  “How do you know?” I said. I was watching the smaller ones, crawling in and out of a log. They were more playful. I crouched down by Guy and looked at the big one. Her eyes were black, and she blinked. Her skin was dark, too, with patches of yellow peeking through. She was locked on Guy.

  The little ones were out of sight, hiding in the log, as the big one came even closer, opening her mouth and showing us her tongue. We were both pressed against the glass. And then she nodded, right at Guy, with the whole of her long neck and head. Like she was saying to him, “You there, you with the glasses. Hurry up now and take me home.”

  “She means business,” I said. “I think she told the little ones to get out of the way.”