The Book of Bright Ideas (6 page)

I watched the door, waiting for Freeda to race up the stairs and give it to Winnalee good for not minding, but she didn't come.

“Hey, I thought of something else we need for our adventure,” Winnalee said.

“What's that?”

“A compass. Tommy said the beck is straight west. If we have a compass, we can find it.”

Out of the two windows above the window seat, I could see the patch of white pine Tommy had pointed to. The one that led to the beck, he said. And to Fossard's ghost. Just looking out at that clump of trees made me scared.

Winnalee kicked at the dirty clothes on her floor. She watched me as she did this. When she heard a clunk, Winnalee rooted around with her foot. When she brought her foot up, the handle of a hairbrush was stuck between her toes. She took it from her foot, flicking aside the pair of underwear that was snagged on the bristles. “You're scared to go look for fairies, aren't you?” I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head. “You are too,” she said. She tilted her head and her hair dripped down her side, all the way past her hip.

“All because of that ghost Tommy talked about.”

I shrugged. “I don't know if I'm so scared of that ghost,” I lied. “It's just that I'm going to get in a heap of trouble for running off.”

Winnalee brought me her hairbrush, then plunked down on her bed beside me and twisted herself so I could reach the back of her head. “Ouch! Start from the bottom first, then brush the topper parts,” she said.

As I pulled the brush down, her hair straightened, then sprung back into loops once the brush left it. I watched it, thinking of how if I had her hair, I'd brush it all day long.

“You are too scared. Because you're afraid of dead people.” She paused a minute, like she was thinking hard, then she said, “You're scared of live people too. But you don't have to be a-scared of either.”

Winnalee got up. She turned and yanked the brush out of my hand and tossed it on the unmade bed. She grabbed me by the shirt and tugged me over to the window seat, where her ma was sitting in that jar. She leaned over, her still-damp fingers fumbling for my wrist. “Ma?” she said right to the jar. “Button's scared of dead people, so I'm gonna have her talk to you a bit so she can see that dead people aren't going to hurt her. Oh, and I washed behind my ears too.” I grabbed at my cheek skin with my teeth. “Go on, Button,” she said. “Just say anything to her. If you do, you won't be so scared of dead people anymore.”

I'd been Winnalee's best friend for nine days now. Long enough to know that if Winnalee had something on her mind for me to do, she wasn't about to let up till I did it. I didn't lean down, but my head did, and I said, “Hi.”

Winnalee waited, like maybe I was going to say more. I waited for her to stop waiting, but it didn't look like she was going to, so I leaned over again and added, “And I washed behind my ears today too.”

When I backed away, she said to me, “You should practice talking to live people too.”

Then she crossed the room and fetched her Book of Bright Ideas out from under her pillow (where she said she was gonna keep it from now on, in case she got a good idea right before she fell asleep), and she opened it up and wrote:
Bright Idea #86: If you're scared of dead people, then you're probably scared of live people too. But you don't got to be scared of either.

6

It was a Saturday, so I couldn't go see Winnalee. Ma made me clean my room, stripping down the bedding, and dusting, and then I had to dust the rest of the rooms. She checked on me over and over again and corrected me when I didn't make neat enough corners with my sheets and when I left streaks of Pledge on my nightstand. We were cleaning good because Aunt Stella was stopping by that night, while on her way to Minneapolis to see a friend. Aunt Stella lived about three hours away from Dauber. She looked just like Ma, but older, and not so tall, and not so skinny. She sniffed a lot, even when she didn't have a cold.

Since I couldn't have any fun, I busied myself while I worked by thinking about me and Winnalee's plans to go find the fairies. We already had a plan sheet that we kept in Winnalee's shoe box. So far, we just had a list of some of the things we needed to bring along. Things like peanut butter sandwiches and cookies, Kool-Aid, if we could find something that shut tight to pour it in, shoes for Winnalee, and a compass and a map to help us find that beck. While I stood on a stool and waited for Ma to take down her bell collection so she could wash them and I could dust the shelf, I wondered where we'd come up with a map to show us the way to the beck. Winnalee and me had been working on the plans for three weeks now, which told me that big adventures sure did take big planning.

“Evelyn?” Ma said. “Are you going to answer me or not?”

I started making those noises (that Aunt Verdella once called a “nerve tic,” or something like that) in my throat, because I didn't know what the question was, so I didn't know what the answer should be.

“You weren't listening, were you?”

When I cleared my throat, it sounded like the sputtering of a car that just didn't want to start.

“I asked what you and that little girl do while you're at Aunt Verdella's,” she said. Her voice was slow, and lower than it usually sounded.

The truth was, when we weren't making plans to go find the fairies, we played games Winnalee made up. Like riding out west on sticks to lasso wild horses, then sitting in the saloons while the cowboys hit each other over the heads with beer bottles, because they all wanted to be our only boyfriends. Or we'd play TV. We'd put on Winnalee's dress-up clothes, and then I'd sit cross-legged on the floor while Winnalee stood on the bed. I was the audience lady, and she was the actress. And, boy, did she have good stories! One day, when I thought up a story of my own, it would be my turn to be the actress. Till then, though, I was just gonna be the audience lady. I didn't tell Ma these things though. Instead, I just said, “We play.”

“Play what?” she asked, and her voice sounded strange again. I stopped clearing my throat when a car sounded in the driveway. Ma peeked out the window. “Oh God, don't tell me…” she said.

I looked out the window, just as Aunt Verdella was getting out of her car. I watched her walk up the little stones leading to the house, Winnalee hopping alongside of her, her ma in her arms.

Aunt Verdella waved to me, then yelled, “Yoo-hoo!” as she was coming through the door without knocking, like she always did.

Aunt Verdella gave me a hug first, then she told Ma she had to use the phone.

“What'cha doin'?” Winnalee asked. I was glad she was wearing real clothes today but wished she had on shoes. She started circling the living room, gawking at everything, her fingers smearing over the tables I'd just polished.

“I just got done cleaning,” I said, remembering to say my
g
at the end, because Ma didn't like it when I sounded like a “country hick,” like Aunt Verdella.

Aunt Verdella picked up the phone, then said, “Oh, sorry, Louise,” and set the receiver down. She came into the living room and flopped down on the chair we weren't supposed to sit down hard in, because we'd break the springs, then said, “Oh, Jewel, Reece asked me to grab some electrical tape while I'm here. I know Rudy's got some layin' around somewhere, but you think I can find it? I couldn't believe it when I saw Reece at Mae's place so early this morning, workin' away. He fixed the front door so it doesn't scrape anymore too.”

“What does he need electrical tape for?” Ma asked, and Aunt Verdella told her she didn't know.

“Button, honey, will you pick up the phone and see if Mrs. Slaga is still on the line?” I hated checking, because folks would get real crabby when you picked up the phone while they were talking. But I did as I was told. I held the receiver to my big ear, and sure enough, Mrs. Slaga was still talking. I put it down carefully.

“If Louise is on there much longer, I'll ask her if she'll get off for just a bit. I've gotta call Henry and reserve a place for the first sale. I can't believe that the community sale starts in two weeks already. Where does time go, anyway? I'm gonna tell him that he'd better not put me on a lot in the far back either. The old codgers like my baked goods, and that's too far for some of them to walk.”

I took my dust rag and brought it to Ma, telling her I was done. Ma gawked at the bell shelf, then at the floor where Aunt Verdella's cruddy shoes were resting. She looked over at Winnalee, who was touching the little glass doll who was riding a wire bike over the end table. I knew she wanted Aunt Verdella and Winnalee to go away so she could stay busy, making everything perfect for Aunt Stella.

Aunt Verdella went back into the kitchen and picked up the phone again. This time she asked Mrs. Slaga if she could use the line for a little bit. She told her why she wanted it and why she didn't want that back lot.

“Can we play while Aunt Verdella talks, since you're done cleaning?” Winnalee asked.

“Why don't you girls color,” Ma said, so I told Winnalee, “Come on,” and she followed me into my room. “I got a brand-new coloring book. It's all ballerinas.”

As I got out my box of crayons, sixty-four count, Winnalee looked around my room. She grabbed my Barbie, who was propped in her doll stand on my dresser, and examined her. “It's a lady doll!” she said. “Ohhhh, she's pretty!” She looped her fingers around Barbie's blond ponytail, then poked at her bumps. “Hey, she's got boobies! I never saw a doll with boobies before!” She giggled, then she tugged down the top of Barbie's zebra swimming suit to look at them. I glanced at the door and wished I'd thought to close it. “She doesn't have any nipples,” she said.

I hurried to fetch my coloring book.

“We have to color on the kitchen floor,” I told Winnalee.

“Why?” she asked, and I told her I didn't know, but that was the rule.

Me and Winnalee picked out pages with two good pictures on both sides, then we stretched out on the floor, the linoleum cool against our bellies. “Hey, can I have that one instead?” Winnalee asked. “I like the way her arms are stretched above her head. Look, they make a heart shape!” I told Winnalee we could trade, and she rolled over the top of me, her hair tickling my bare arm as she went.

Winnalee didn't know about outlining the picture first so your crayon stops you from coloring outside of the lines. She didn't care when I told her either. She just started coloring the curtain on the stage, her fist going up and down for a few swipes, then back and forth; not all in one direction, like you're supposed to. She colored one side of the curtain green and the other side purple. She made her lady's skirt black, not a pretty color, then said, “I like black dresses. They're sexy.” Then she leapt to her feet, lifted her arms, and shook her butt back and forth real fast, and said, “Sexyyyyyyyy!”

I didn't know what “sexy” meant for sure, but Ma obviously did. She must not have liked sexy at all either, because her face got so tight that it looked like her cheekbones were going to pop right through her skin. She set down the bowl she'd just pulled from the cupboard and came over to Winnalee, snatching the black crayon out of her hand. “In this house, we use pretty colors—girl colors—for ladies' dresses.” I slid my fist off of my page so Ma could see that I was using pretty girl colors for my ballerina's dress. Pink, with yellow trim.

Aunt Verdella didn't hear this because she was busy on the phone with Harry. “Yeah, I'll have at least two tables. Long ones. And don't be tricky and try to put me way on that back lot, like you did once last year. So far back that the old people can't get to me.”

I got more and more itchy as we colored and Aunt Verdella yammered, because Ma kept glancing at the clock, the gouge between her eyebrows sinking deeper and deeper with each glance.

When Aunt Verdella got off the phone, she plunked down at the kitchen table. “Well, I've got four afghans crocheted, twenty pairs of baby booties, and the squares cut out for two more quilts. I'm gonna sell some old junk too. A few lanterns we haven't used in years, some extra canning jars. Things like that, you know. I've got four crates of things ready. Then all I have to do right beforehand is bake. Those old codgers sure do like my sweets. I'm gonna get that color television set yet!”

When me and Winnalee finished our pictures, she took the sky-blue crayon and drew big, pointy wings on both of our dancing ladies. Then she tore out her page in one rip. “What are you doing?” I ask, scared.

“I'm taking my picture home.”

I looked up at Ma, who was watching me out of the corner of her eye, and I didn't know what to do. I was glad when Aunt Verdella stood up then and said she had better get back home and get some work done.

“Can Button come to my house and play?” Winnalee asked.

Ma didn't look at her when she answered. “No, Button is staying home. Her aunt is coming by early this evening, and we've things to do before then.”

“Stella's coming?” Aunt Verdella asked. Ma looked sorry that she let that slip.

“Well, just for a quick visit, and I'm not sure what time. She's coming through on her way to Minneapolis to visit a friend.”

“Please, can she come over?” Winnalee asked. “Pretty please?” And then she did something that made my mouth drop open like I'd gone dumb. She grabbed Ma's arm and gave it a couple tugs, then she started swinging them like they were jump ropes. “Please, pretty please with a cherry on top? She got her cleaning done, didn't she?” She tipped her head back and bumped herself right against Ma. “Let her come. Please?”

Ma yanked her arms back to her sides and said, “Evelyn will be staying home today.”

Winnalee's bottom lip poked out and she crossed her arms across her chest. “Whyyyyyy?” she asked.

“Button will be over on Monday, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “You can help me make bread when we get back, okay?” I looked down at my hands, which were busy twisting each other. Aunt Verdella baked bread on Saturdays, but sometimes (when Uncle Rudy gobbled it up before the next Saturday) she'd bake during the week, and I'd help her. I liked helping her bake bread. I liked the way the dough was soft against my hands and the way it smelled when it came out of the oven. Only today I couldn't help.

“Oh, if she'll be here for supper, I could drop off a loaf of fresh bread to go with your meal,” Aunt Verdella said. Ma told her that that wouldn't be necessary.

“For all I know,” Ma added, “she won't even stop.”

Aunt Verdella rolled her eyes. “I don't know about that sister of yours, Jewel. You're her little sister by only three years. The only sister she's got that lives within five hundred miles of her. And you get over to see her twice a year, like clockwork, even though you rarely leave Dauber. She tramps all over the country, it seems, yet it's almost a cold day in hell before she'll stop here. Even when she does drop in, she only stays a few minutes. I just don't understand that. If I had a sister, you can bet we'd be as close as peas in a pod.”

“She comes when she can,” Ma said.

“Well, I hope she comes this time. By the looks of things, you've been getting ready for her visit all day long.” Aunt Verdella patted Winnalee's back. “Well, sweetie. Let's get goin' and let these two get back to work.”

“No fair!” Winnalee said, as they were heading out the door without me.

After they left, Ma called me to her and told me to bring my coloring book. “It's obvious that that child doesn't know how to behave like a little lady. You start acting like that, Evelyn Mae, and you won't play with her anymore. You understand me?” I said I did. She snatched my coloring book out of my hands and said it was too bad that I let Winnalee ruin my new book. Then she tossed it in the trash can under the sink. Even though only two pages got ruined, and even if it was my most favorite coloring book I ever got.