Authors: Mae McCall
6
Something was tickling her legs. And her head was pounding.
Those were the first two things she noticed when she woke up. It took her a few
seconds to orient herself. She was on her back, on the ground, looking up at
blue sky through tree branches. There was a knobby tree root attempting to
penetrate her left scapula. She sat up too fast and had to hold her head so
that it wouldn’t fall off of her body. She brushed her hands down her legs,
scattering two dozen ants into the moss underneath her.
After one or two settling breaths, she looked around her.
There was the fence around her house, and once again, she was on the wrong side
of it. Her backpack was behind her, so she reached for it and slowly dragged
herself to her feet. “Well, crap,” she said.
It took her two hours to find the house, because she spent
half an hour following the fence in the wrong direction. Santo had deposited
her on the opposite side of the property from where he found her the day
before, so walking to the right actually took her farther from the front
entrance. It was a lucky break, literally, that saved her from walking the
whole way around the back property line—another missing board gave a perfect
view of…more trees, when she should have seen greenhouses. She slipped through
the hole and turned back left, dragging her backpack behind her and muttering
under her breath until she saw the topiary garden. Finding a good spot
underneath a giant evergreen skull (Darwin and Helen compromised when it came
to the topiaries), she sat down to rest and reflect. Reaching into her bag for
her notebook, she considered her hypothesis for what had occurred at Santo’s
house. Her fingers encountered some old M&Ms, a few loose threads, and a
quarter…but no notebook. She jerked open the bag and dumped out the contents
onto the grass. Still no notebook. Running over the morning’s events in her
mind, she remembered Santo’s odd questions about the book, and understanding
dawned. The bastard. Had stolen. Her notebook.
“Shit!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately,
this occurred at the same moment that her mother was exiting the nearest
greenhouse.
The volume at which “Cleomella St. James!” issued forth from Helen’s mouth
startled both mother and child—Helen because she had never
ever
yelled
at her child, and Cleo because Helen absolutely forbade yelling anywhere near
the greenhouses (the theory being that if music can influence plant growth, so
can other sounds). They stared at one another, open-mouthed, for approximately
five seconds, and then Cleo did the unthinkable—she ran.
***
Later, she would reflect on that moment of panic with utter
regret. If she had stood her ground, her mother probably would have scolded her
and then gone about her business. But the moment that Cleo ran, her
inappropriate timing with foul language became a much larger issue born of a
series of bad decisions and accidents that followed in quick succession.
First, Helen gave chase. The head gardener was able to
maintain his balance when a nine-year old body brushed against his ladder, but
he had no hope against the weight of a full grown woman barreling around the
corner of the second greenhouse. As he fell into the rose bushes, his last
coherent thought before losing consciousness was how successful Helen’s
double-thorn breeding experiment had been.
Cleo hadn’t seen Juniper in two days, and the dog was beside
himself with joy when his young mistress went streaking past him at high speed,
clearly inviting him to play this new game. Helen, on the other hand, had
forgotten about Juniper entirely, and as she screamed her daughter’s name once
more, eighty pounds of dog knocked her off balance and into the large stone
fountain.
Vera heard the shout/bark/splash combination, and came
running from the kitchen, where she had been chopping vegetables for supper.
Unfortunately, in her excitement she had forgotten to lay down the knife before
rushing to the kitchen door, where Cleo just managed to duck under her arm
before slipping on the tile floor and grabbing Vera’s hemline as she tumbled.
Vera would have kept her balance, if not for the golden retriever that came
enthusiastically through the door a second later.
Darwin, who had been up in his study quietly tracing the
etchings on a fragile burial mask, hadn’t noticed his wife’s initial confrontation
with Cleo. However, as the high speed chase moved closer to, and then into, the
house, he could not help but notice the tremendous amount of noise. He tried
his best to block out the innovative obscenities being shouted by Helen as she
struggled to remove herself from the fountain. He took a deep breath when he
heard Vera yell something about Cleo, but the incredible crash, followed by a
piercing scream, that caused the entire house to shudder, also caused Darwin
to drop his mask. “Somebody had better be bleeding,” he growled, as he
considered the pile of dust on his blotter—an admittedly poor choice of words,
considering the tremendous amount of blood he actually encountered when he
stormed down to the kitchen.
It was a scene from a horror film: tiny motes of dust
dancing in the sunlight streaming through the open kitchen door, illuminating
two bodies—one adult, one child—motionless on the black and white tiles, which
were covered in streaks of blood. He stared, open-mouthed, as the (once again)
filthy dog slowly licked blood off of the tiles. A shadow fell across the
doorway, and Darwin almost peed himself as a green and black figure stepped
across the threshold, dripping dirty water everywhere.
***
Later, after Vera’s arm had been stitched and bandaged, the
floor had been cleaned, Helen had bathed and changed clothes, the dog had been
quarantined in the tool shed to be dealt with later, and the gardener had been
carted off by the ambulance, Darwin firmly placed his fists on his hips and
demanded an explanation. Cleo, Vera, and Helen all started talking at once.
Eventually, Darwin managed to take control of the situation, and Helen was
asked to recite everything that had happened. This is where Cleo’s life took a
definite downward turn—where a simple slip of the tongue at the wrong time and
place turned into the following list of sins: use of foul language; use of foul
language in front of her mother; yelling near a greenhouse; yelling near her
mother; running from her mother; causing the near-deaths of the gardener, Vera,
Helen, and three innocent rose bushes; tracking dirt into the kitchen; getting
blood on the kitchen floor; and causing the accidental destruction of an
irreplaceable funerary mask, thereby ruining Darwin’s career (he later admitted
that this was an exaggeration). And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Eager for
revenge, Helen also cited her daughter for not coming to dinner the previous
evening. Cleo, unfortunately, chose this moment to tell her parents that she
had been kidnapped, and therefore was unable to attend the meal, as she had
been tied to a chair at the time.
Silence descended on the St. James household. Darwin and
Helen stared at Cleo, and then at each other. And then, a bone-crushing
earthquake shook the household—or, at least that’s what it felt like to Cleo
when her father coldly said, “Go to your room. You’re grounded.”
They didn’t believe her! And the more detail she shared, the
angrier they got. Cleo decided to give them time to cool off, so she went to
her room anyway (because she wanted to, not because they told her to). The next
morning, it got even worse. Cleo’s mother called the school to inform them that
she felt that her daughter’s “research sabbatical” had gone on quite long
enough, and that she would be sending Cleo back to class that very day. Helen
was furious when she threw open the door to Cleo’s bedroom.
“You told them your name was
LUCY
?” These were the
words that woke Cleo from a dream about skinning a live bear. Groggy, she sat
up in bed and squinted at her mother.
“Huh?” was not the response that Helen was after. She yanked
the blankets off of Cleo’s bed, grabbed a slender ankle, and pulled. Cleo held
her breath when Helen leaned over her, bracing an arm on either side. She had
never seen her mother this angry. Ever. (And everyone knew that Helen was a
volatile woman.)
“You told them your name was Lucy,” snarled Helen. “Your
name is not Lucy. Your name is Cleomella. I know, because I gave it to you
after I was in LABOR FOR THIRTY THREE HOURS!”
“Ummm…,” began Cleo, but Helen cut her off, her voice once
again quiet. “Furthermore, you assaulted your principal, got suspended, LIED
about it, committed forgery, started cursing, and cooked up yet ANOTHER LIE
about being kidnapped?”
Cleo blinked. “Well…” she began. Helen stood up and pointed
her finger at Cleo. “Get dressed. Right now. I expect you downstairs within
ninety seconds.”
After Helen made her exit, Cleo spent the first thirty
seconds trying to process what had just happened. She was, after all, not quite
awake yet. When Helen screamed up the stairs that only one minute remained,
Cleo, for the sake of self-preservation, threw herself out of bed and scrambled
into the first bit of clothing she could get her hands on. If Helen thought it
was odd that her daughter came running down the stairs in a red and black
serape and purple sweatpants, she made no comment. Darwin stepped out of
another room to join Helen in the foyer.
He cleared his throat and looked at the floor. “Your mother
and I are very disappointed in your behavior, Cleomella. Well, that’s not to
say that you are a disappointment…that is…really, it’s just—”
Helen glared at him, and he started to shift from one foot
to the other while looking at a spot just over Cleo’s left shoulder. Darwin
took a deep breath and quickly said, “Wedecidedtosendyoutoboardingschool.”
“What?” asked Cleo.
Helen took over. “Cleomella, we are sending you to boarding
school. You’ll be leaving in a week. I suggest you start packing now, as you
won’t be coming back home until summer break.”
Cleo, for the first time in her life, was absolutely
speechless. Two fat tears slid down her cheeks and splashed on the stone floor.
She looked from one parent to the other, waiting for one of them to say “just
kidding!” or laugh. Instead, Helen walked away, and Darwin cleared his throat
once more before putting a hand on Cleo’s shoulder and adding, “You might want
to make a packing list, just to be sure you get everything.” Then, he went
upstairs to his study. Cleo stood there until, finally, Vera stepped out of the
shadows and pulled her into a hug.
Cleo started to really cry. She buried her face in Vera’s
midsection and sobbed. Finally, the sensation of a hand stroking up and down
her back began to calm her down. She looked up at Vera and hiccupped. “Why are
they making me go away?” she asked.
Vera’s mouth tensed, just for a moment, and she shot a glare
at the top of the staircase before replying. “They don’t know what else to do,”
she said. “But you’re going to be fine, child. You always are.”
Cleo thought about this. She was going to be fine, because
Vera said so. She just needed to approach this as an experiment, a new field
study. Different place, different people, different habits. She was going to
need a lot of new notebooks—which, of course, reminded her of the cause of her
current troubles…the missing notebook.
She looked up at Vera and batted her eyelashes. “I’ve never
had to pack before. I just hope I get everything I’ll need.”
Vera smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it that everything is
bundled up before you go. You just spend your time getting adjusted to the
idea.”
Cleo quickly devised a plan. “Vera, you’re right. I need
some time. I think I’m going to go for a walk.”
Vera nodded and stroked her hair one last time before
heading back toward the kitchen. Cleo waited until she was out of sight before
sprinting up the stairs. She put on some tennis shoes, grabbed her backpack and
a handful of money from her sock drawer, made a quick call from the telephone in
the library, and tiptoed back down to the front door. Nobody seemed to be
paying any attention, so she walked right down the front steps and out to the
road.
7
Santo heard a car door slamming suspiciously close to his
house. He peered out the window at the taxi slowly lumbering over the ruts and
roots of his driveway. Then the pounding started.
He looked out through the dirty diamond shaped panels of
glass in his front door, but didn’t see anyone. The pounding began again, and
the vibrations seemed to be coming from the very center of the door, right
beside the doorknob. He cautiously drew back the security chain and opened the
door, just a crack.
“Give me my damn notebook,” said the very pissed-off nine
year old on his stoop.
He slammed the door and froze. How did she find him? Were
the police close by? Should he run? Hide? Hold her hostage? Santo finally
decided to just be very, very still, and wait for her to go away.
“Open the damn door and give me my damn notebook!” screamed
Cleo.
“No!” yelled Santo as he quietly maneuvered his recliner in
front of the door. This was greeted with silence, and he finally began to
relax. Maybe she really had gone away.
But the jagged chunk of cinderblock that came crashing
through his window, showering him with glass, proved otherwise. He (unwisely)
ran to the window and yelled, “You little bitch!” before saluting her with both
middle fingers. It was during this interval that Cleo managed to locate the
other pieces of the broken cinderblock under the saggy underside of Santo’s
mobile home. The first piece nicked his ear as it sailed past. The second
cleared out the rest of the glass fragments that had been clinging to the frame,
causing one lonely shard to land, quivering, in the top of his bare foot. Santo
made the mistake of looking down while preparing an indignant reply to such
uncalled-for vandalism, and his forehead provided a perfect target for the
final chunk of concrete.
***
There was an elephant sitting directly on his head. He was
sure of it. He forced his eyelids open, and saw only darkness. The womanly
shriek that issued forth from his person made Cleo jump. “You made me mess up,”
she said. The acrid smell of acetone filled the air, and he could feel wet
cotton stroking against the side of his right index finger.
“Ohmigod, I’m BLIND!” Santo wailed.
He couldn’t see her, but all adults instinctively know when
a nine-year old rolls her eyes. It only increased his distress, and he started
to squirm against the weird fabric that was pinning his arms to his sides.
Exasperated, Cleo slapped the back of his hand. “Stop
moving!” she said. “I’m almost finished with this hand.”
Santo took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Why can’t
I see?” he asked.
He felt wetness against the end of one finger, and Cleo
cursed under her breath. “Because I covered your head, dummy. Now quit moving.”
He thought about that for a moment before asking, “Why?”
Speaking as though he were a small child, she replied,
“Because there was blood on your face and I got tired of looking at it.”
“Why can’t I move my arms?” he asked.
Sighing as though the weight of the world rested on her
shoulders, Cleo replied, “It’s your shroud,” she said. “I made it using the
curtains from your bedroom.”
Deep thought only made his head hurt worse, so Santo decided
to accept that, for now. “Oh, okay,” he said. A minute later, he added, “What
are you doing?”
“Painting your fingernails, stupid,” was the reply.
“Oh, okay,” he said again. Really, it was better to just not
think about it, he decided. But, curiosity got the better of him, and a few
minutes later, he asked, “Why?”
“Because I don’t have time to make a death mask, and I
wanted you to look nice for the funeral,” she said.
From some primitive part of his brain, a DANGER! signal
started pulsing. Santo began to feel very uneasy, and this only made the
pounding in his head even worse. He became aware of a burning sensation in the
vicinity of his right ear, and his foot felt like it was embedded in an iceberg.
“Why is my foot so cold?” he asked.
“Because I have it stuck in a bag of chipped ice,” said Cleo
as she sat back to admire her work. “There! That’s a pretty good paint job, if
I do say so myself.”
Numbness gradually worked up Santo’s ankle, until he
couldn’t have said for certain if his leg even extended beyond the knee. Struggling
against the panic attack that lurked just around the corner, he took another
calming breath and cheerfully said, “Can I see?”
After what seemed like years, but was really only a minute
or two, the rough fabric was pulled from his face. He blinked against the
sudden brightness streaming in where his filthy window had previously been.
There was movement behind him, and he felt something hard and smooth slide
between his spine and the floor. Using the board that she had found in a
closet, Cleo managed to prop Santo in a saggy seated position. He was wrapped
in fabric to the hips, where his hands were exposed, and then another piece of
fabric tightly bound his thighs and knees together. Experimentally, Santo tried
wiggling his fingers. The rainbow of nail colors rippled across his pelvis, and
he was relieved that at least part of his nervous system was still functioning.
He had a lot to say, and decided that he might as well lead with the positive.
(There was no use in pissing her off at the outset.)
“Ooohh! A rainbow! How pretty!” he gushed.
Cleo blushed a little. “I couldn’t decide what color, so I
just used all the ones I found in your box,” she said.
“You have an excellent eye,” said Santo. “Really, you should
be an artist.”
“Thanks,” she said, and they both admired her handiwork.
Feeling his opening, Santo spoke again. “Sooooo…death mask?
Shroud? Funeral? I’m a little short on the details….”
“Well, I was pretty sure I had killed you,” she said. “I
mean, there was a lot of blood, and you didn’t move for a whole hour.”
She moved down to begin painting his toenails, which
reminded Santo of another concern. “So, about the bag of ice…,” he began.
Without looking up, Cleo said, “I told you there was a lot
of blood, especially after I pulled out that piece of glass. Also, I was afraid
that you would start to rot, and your corpse-y smell would be so bad that I
couldn’t finish fixing you up for the funeral.”
Struggling to stay cheerful, Santo chuckled and said,
“Silly, bodies don’t rot right away. It would have taken days for me to smell
that bad.”
“Well, I’ve never made up a corpse before,” she said, with
perfect nine-year old sarcasm. “I didn’t know how long it would take.” She
painted another nail before adding, “It sure is taking longer now that you’re
not dead.” Santo didn’t like the little scowl that graced her features as she
said this, so he tried to lighten the mood.
“This is the best pedicure I’ve ever had,” he said. “Hey,
how about we take my other foot out of the bag of ice. I’m pretty sure there’s
no blood left down there anyway,” he said, while his brain flashed words like
Hypothermia!
Frostbite!
Amputation!
“Or, you know—you look kind of tired. Why
don’t you unwrap me, and I’ll finish the other foot?”
Incredulous, Cleo looked up from the floor and raised one
eyebrow. (It reminded Santo of his mother. He usually got punished when that
eyebrow went up, so naturally, this one made him nervous.) “Who ever heard of a
dead man doing his own pedicure?” she asked. “And right before his own funeral,
too!” Shaking her head, she concentrated on painting for a moment before
adding, “Man, the pinky toe is the hardest.”
She put the lid back on the bottle of polish and gently blew
on his toes. For some reason, it made him need to pee. Santo decided that it
was time to use a little cunning.
“I really need to pee,” he said.
“Tough noogies,” said Cleo.
“Okay,” he replied.
He watched her gently remove his foot from the bag of ice.
(If he hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have known. His entire leg was numb from the
thigh down.) “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite that color
before,” he said. “Me, either,” said Cleo, and they contemplated his foot in
silence.
Cleo poked his shin. “Can you feel that?” she asked. “No,”
he replied.
Sighing, she unscrewed the nail polish cap and went to work.
He closed his eyes and tried to think of a way to convince her that he really
did need to be unwrapped. His hands were starting to tingle. He decided to try
to get more information about her plans, but he needed to be subtle.
“So, Cleo,” he said, “What are your plans?”
“What plans?” she asked as she started on his middle toe.
“Ummm….Your plans for that bag of ice. It’s starting to melt
and I don’t want it to ruin the carpet. Hey, why don’t you throw it outside
where the sun will take care of it?”
“I can’t do that. I need that ice. Hang on, I’ll just put it
back in the freezer.” She re-capped the bottle of nail polish and dragged the
wet bag of ice, two-handed, to the small chest freezer in the corner of the
kitchen. As he watched her heave the ice over the edge, Santo marveled at the
fact that she had extracted the (heavier before it melted) bag in the first
place. He told her so, and she blushed. Then, a more important question formed
in his mind.
“What do you mean, you need that ice?” he asked.
“Well, I
might
need that ice,” she amended. “It
depends on the rest of the funeral arrangements.”
“What exactly
are
the funeral arrangements?” he asked
timidly.
“Well, my first choice would be a bog, but I don’t know if
we have any of those around here.” She looked at him. “Do we have bogs?”
“Ummm….I don’t think so. But, why do you need a bog?” he replied.
Dread filled him so suddenly, he almost fell over. Only an instinct for
self-preservation kept him tensed in that propped position, where he could see
her while they talked.
“To make you a bog man,” she said slowly, as though she were
speaking to a slightly handicapped child.
“What’s a bog man?” he asked, partially out of genuine
curiosity at this point.
“Well, when a dead guy (or girl) is thrown in a bog, it
keeps them from rotting, so they’re like a mummy made of leather, and even
thousands of years later, you can still see what they looked like. They even
have hair!” Cleo jumped up and down and threw her arms out to the sides. “It’s
the perfect solution!” She frowned and added, “But, if we don’t have bogs,
it’ll have to be Plan B.”
Santo sensed something sinister in “Plan B.” He was almost
afraid to ask. Almost.
“But…the ice?” he said.
“Well, I was going to pack your body in ice to preserve you
while I found a bog. I don’t want to drag a stinky body through the woods.” She
dropped to her knees to finish painting the last two toes. “But if we don’t
have any bogs, then the ice won’t be necessary. Just good old Plan B.”
“And what is Plan B, if I may inquire?” he said.
She didn’t look up from her task. “Have you ever heard about
the Vikings?” she asked after a minute or two.
He racked his brain. Sometime, somewhere, he had read an
article, or seen a TV special, or… “Oh, my God!” he yelled.
She looked up at him with a spooky expression and said,
“Since we don’t have a lake, I was just going to leave you in here and set your
trailer on fire, which is really kind of cool, since it’s so big. The fire
would be huge! Everybody would see the smoke taking your spirit or whatever. I
mean, what a sendoff! Am I right?”
Santo peed. And then he panicked. Cleo put her hands over
her ears to block out the bizarre, high-pitched screams. After two minutes, she
slapped him. Hard. He stopped just from shock.
“Ow!” he said. His expression was wounded, and he looked
like he might cry. “What did you do that for?”
“To get you to shut up,” she said. “It was hurting my ears.”
He started to pout. “But I’m tied up and bleeding and you’re
going to set me on f-f-fire!”
Cleo got right up in his face. “Quit whining!” she yelled.
“B-but—why are you doing this to me?” he whimpered.
“I HAVE TO GO TO BOARDING SCHOOL BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU
BASTARD!” Cleo poked him in the chest to emphasize each word.
This confused him. “Ummm…why?”
“Because you stole my notebook,” she said venomously.
“Wow, I mean—your parents must be really strict to send you
to boarding school just because of a notebook, but then—Ow! That’s my ear!” he
yelled. “Geez!”
“Let me say this slowly, so that your stupid little brain
can understand. You kidnapped me. You tied me to a chair and kept me for twenty-four
hours. You choked me to unconsciousness and dropped me off somewhere in the
woods….”
“But hey, we had fun in the meantime, right?” he
interrupted. She slapped him again before continuing, “I managed to find my
house again. I realized that you had stolen my notebook. A bunch of weird stuff
happened.”
“Weird stuff?” he asked. “Like what?”