Just For You to Know: Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

In which I write a letter, Dad tells a ghost story, Jimmy and I get mail, Walter Cronkite tells us the last straw and there are the best and worst of times.

I found a box of stationery, a present from Aunt Bevy to Mama, who’d never opened it. “I guess it’s mine now,” I muttered to myself. With my blue ballpoint pen and my best handwriting, I wrote a letter on a sheet of the pink paper, folded it up and stuck it in its pink envelope.

Friday, October 11, 1963

Dear Mrs. Montisano,

I already went to the office this morning before First Hour and told the counselor that I wanted to take Study Hall instead of your class from now on. I hope this does not hurt your feelings. I would really rather be in your class, but if I don’t start taking Study Hall on Monday, I will flunk.

Your former student,

Carmen Cathcart

Before Art class was even over, I’d put most of my art supplies into my crumpled lunch sack, my heart pounding every time Mrs. Montisano walked past my table. It took me a while to get up the nerve to hand her the pink envelope and say,

“This is for you.”

“What is it?” Then, loudly, “Class, start cleaning up. The bell’s about to ring.”

“Uhm...” I looked away from her smile and gathered up the rest of my things. “You’ll see.” Greg and some other kids shot puzzled frowns at us as everybody milled around the sink and the door, all noisy and busting for school to be over for the weekend. “You in trouble?” Greg whispered as Mrs. Montisano’s eyes flitted over my note. Her eyebrows furrowed and her lips parted.

“No. Well, kind of...” I answered him through gritted teeth, not wanting to see his blue eyes looking at me. The bell clanged. Mrs. Montisano shouted over the racket, “See you Monday!”

I was going to make for the door with everybody else, but she clamped her hand on my arm. “Carmen –?”

“I gotta get to Mr. Henderson’s class.”

“I’ll write him a note,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of her cluttered-up desk. I wished I could run out into the hall. Instead, I followed her, her smock billowing out like a purple sail. Already ninth graders, coming in for their last class of the day, were giving me curious looks as I rehearsed what I’d say to Mrs. Montisano. I wasn’t planning on what she said to me.

“Carmen, I know about your mother’s passing.”

Huh?

“The other teachers and I have talked about your dilemma.”

They had? My – what?

“Your problem,” Mrs. Montisano explained, seeing my frown. “I just wanted to tell you I know how hard this decision must have been for you.”

I looked down at the pennies in my loafers. “It was Robin Culpepper’s idea.”

“Well, it shows a lot of character on your part. Robin’s smart. She sounds like a good friend, too. You’d better get going now.” Mrs. Montisano began scribbling on a piece of her yellow notepaper. “Give this to Mr. Henderson.”

“Okay.” It’d be too sappy to tell her I was going to miss her, besides, I was getting a lump in my throat. “Thanks,” I said.

She gave me a sad sort of smile. “Will you stop by if you have any art questions?” I nodded. “Tuck your supplies away somewhere safe,” she said. “I know you’ll use’em again.” I was just about out the door when Mrs. Montisano called out, right in front of all those big kids, “I’ll miss you in my class, Carmen. You were my best artist!”

The trees got prettier as October went by and school got better as I was able to get my homework done, but home? In a way, it was getting worse. My dad was making me more worried than usual. Mostly he was his regular self, except he never sang anymore. And it wasn’t just that he looked extra tired when he came dragging in from work or that he punched his bedroom wall and hurt his hand. Or that sometimes he drank a little bit more beer than a normal thirsty person oughta drink. It was all that stuff put together. I wouldn’t dare remind him of that crazy thing he said, about us moving again, but I could tell from his gloomy ways that he was still thinking about it. Jimmy was worried too. He was good at noticing.

“We gotta cheer Dad up,” he said, turning around from his sinkful of supper dishes to look at all of us.

“How?” Larry asked. Georgie thought we should get him some candy.

“He needs to make some friends,” said Clark.

Having a party was Harry’s idea.

“Hey!” I patted the little squirt on the back. “That’s a perfect idea! It could be a combination party: part Robin’s birthday, part thank you for our neighbors being so nice to us here lately.”

“And,” said Jimmy, “the other third to cheer up Dad.” He’d been studying fractions.

It wasn’t hard to get the boys to print and color invitations once I told’em they could use up my leftover tempera paints. “But don’t you guys bother any of my other art supplies,” I said, giving Georgie the skunk eye. They were put away, safe under my socks, like Mrs. Montisano told me. “Harry, you and Larry and Clark decorate the front room, okay?”

“For Halloween or for birthday?”

“Both,” I told them.

A grin split Clark’s pointy face. “Neat!”

I baked Robin a cake, chocolate, with extra frosting.

“Could you buy some orange candles?” I asked Dad. “But what about a present?”

“Hmmm....,” he said. He was chopping onions for the stew he was making for supper. Then he looked up at me. “Oh, I got me a good idea for that.”

“What?”

“You’ll see.” He just wiggled his eyebrows at me and began prying the lid off of a jar of Mama’s tomatoes. “You better go check on the baby and see what Georgie’s getting into.”

I asked him again, but he didn’t tell me his neat idea until right when it was time for him and me to begin on it. Now, he only talked about us straightening up the house for company.

My little brothers taped a bunch of black paper bats to the soda straw castle and made a banner of cut-out letters: HAPPY SPOOKDAY ROBIN. All this swayed over and surrounded Robin’s family, us Cathcarts, the Monroe ladies and old Mr. Herman. We filled up our old couch and every single chair we had. Mr. Beeler sat on the floor by Aunt Bevy, but I guessed he wanted to anyway, so they could hold hands and look lovey-dovey at each other.

“Happy birthday, there, Robin,” Dad said. He beamed a rusty smile at everybody. “Gosh, it’s nice to have you all here.”

I was pretty sure he’d realize now that it’d be horrible to ever move away from all these people.

Mama and any other spirits who might be listening heard about Mr. Herman’s young manhood in Philadelphia “when I was a shoe salesman and had to wear a suit every day! Different suspenders for every day of the week!” Mr. Herman, who held baby Velvet in his lap, used his free hand to snap the stripey suspenders that were holding his old-man pants up under his armpits. Robin got her dad to tell about his barbershop quartet.

“And,” she said proudly, “he sings in the choir at church too.”

“You all ought to come hear us on Sunday,” said Mr. Culpepper. “I should’ve invited you before now.”

“Oh yes,” said Miss Effie. “You Cathcarts need you a church home.”

“We go to that church over on College Street sometimes,” Jimmy offered.

I told Mr. Culpepper, “We’d like to come hear you sing though,” in case Jimmy had accidentally hurt his feelings.

“My, Carmen,” Miss Effie went on, “did you bake this cake?” Then she told us how she almost got married to a baker in North Carolina. “Oh my, he was a good looker in his white coat.”

“But he was like a rug: he lied all over the place,” put in Miss Lillian.

Miss Effie snorted. “He was a charmer, even so.”

Before they retired, the Monroe ladies were schoolteachers, like Mrs. Culpepper.

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Lillian, “up in Des Moines, Iowa. I taught high school. Effie there taught the little ones.”

Harry smiled up at Robin’s mom, displaying his new front teeth. “I think you’re the best teacher, Mrs. Culpepper.”

Robin and I stole glances at each other, but the smile her mom gave Harry didn’t have a smidge of crankiness in it. “It’s good of you to say so, Harry,” she said. “Thank you.”

Darren tugged on Dad’s sleeve. “Clark said you used to be a hobo. Is that true?”

“Is that so?” Miss Effie exclaimed. Everybody looked at Dad, especially Mrs. Culpepper, whose eyebrows lifted like she didn’t much approve of how Dad spent the good old days.

Dad jutted out his jaw and sucked on his teeth like he does when he’s thinking. Then he said, “Well, that was bad times when there were plenty of fellers, some as young as Jimmy here, out ridin’ the rails, looking for work to do. We weren’t bums, I can tell you.” Daddy glanced at Mrs. Culpepper. “I can tell you all a tale from those days, son, a Halloween tale, as a matter of fact. A lot of good stories come out of bad times. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Herman?”

“That’s a fact,” said the old man.

“Oh, that’s true,” said Miss Lillian.

Dad rubbed his eyes and began telling us about the Halloween night “back in ‘39 out in Tennessee” when he crawled into a boxcar and met an old man named Sam. “He told me a tall tale ‘bout -- well, you all know the statue of General Andy Jackson on his horse up on the Square, right there by the courthouse?” The little boys nodded, open-mouthed.

“Well, there’s statues like that all over the country. All over the world, in fact. That old Sam told me that every hundred years, all those horses and riders of metal and stone come alive!” Daddy strengthened his voice a notch on the last word. Velvet stirred in his arms. “Those horses go leapin’ off their pedestals down into the streets. You can hear them clip-cloppin’ and clatterin’ ‘round town carrying their ghostly riders on a search and quest for each other to make an army. Fight their old battles and smell the gunsmoke one more time. Sam told me they go gallopin’ all Halloween night. ‘I seen ‘em wid me own eyes,’ he said, ‘back in 18 and 63, in the time of the turr’ble war. I was nought but five year old,‘ Sam told me, but...“ Daddy paused for effect and Mr. Beeler squeezed Aunt Bevy’s hand. “Came the dawn,” he whispered, “the statues were back on their blocks of stone, each and every one, nothin’ to show for the gallivantin’ but the mud on the horses’ hooves.”

Jimmy broke the stillness after the story. “Say, Dad, this is 1963.”

“Oh gracious,” said Miss Lillian.

“This is the year they ride.” Robin’s voice was creepy.

“Halloween,” said Dad. He glanced at the wall calendar then slid a sly gaze over to me and said, “Thursday night.”

“Now that I’d like to see,” said Mr. Culpepper as my dad got up and hurried off to the kitchen. Robin’s mom’s eyes smiled over the rim of her coffee cup at the sight of the little kids’ ooglie-booglies.

“Hey Buddy!” Dad hollered from the kitchen. “Turn off all the lights in there!” Which I did, of course and Miss Lillian said, “Oh my!” as a glowing face floated towards us. “Robin,” said my dad, kind of panting, “here’s your present. Sorry we didn’t wrap it -- man, this thing is heavy!”

“Jeepers!” she exclaimed like she’d never gotten a giant jack o’ lantern for a birthday present.

Right then, I was so glad Dad was my dad, even when, later on, he and I had to go calm Larry’s nightmares. On the morning after Halloween, Dad got us all up out of bed before school so he could pile us into the stationwagon and take us over to where I did all my crying. He showed us the hooves of General Jackson’s horse. It was impressive even though I pretty much guessed that he’d driven by the courthouse in the middle of the night after he got off work just so he could muddy up the statue. I put my hand in my dad’s rough hand. I felt sure that he was himself again.

A couple weeks later, right after Clark’s eighth birthday, when Jimmy and I came home from school, Dad told us we’d both gotten mail. The person I would be two weeks in the future might have told the person I was right then that the scrawled postcard and the letter were warning bells, but of course, she couldn’t do that.

November 15, 1963,

Fort Hood, Texas

Dear Jimmy, I bet you’re surprised to hear from me. I went and joined the Army. It was real tough at first, but no tougher than my old man. I hope you aren’t too lonesome without your mom. I know about that. I gotta go, but maybe you’d like to write me sometime? No one else does. Did you hear that the president’s coming here to Texas next week? Yours truly,

Private Richard D. Scudder,

United States Army

The smeared-pencil return address on my letter said it was from – Janice? From my old school in the country? She wrote it on notebook paper and she drew an angel in the corner. A pretty crummy one, too.

November 16, 1963

Dear Carmen,

How are you? I am fine. Some of us read in the Kansas City paper that a lady named Dorothy Cathcart died last summer. A bunch of kids didn’t remember you but I did. I wanted to tell you that’s really awful about your mom and I hope you’re okay.

Me and my folks, we drive by the house where you used to live sometimes and there’s a mean, wild goat there eating the weeds. It won’t let anyone catch it, my dad says. Write me sometime.

Your friend,

Janice McFarland

(I sat behind you in Mrs. Cameron’s class, remember?)

Sure, I remembered. It was kind of a nice surprise that she remembered me. I figured that Dad would want to know about Blue Top, so I read him Janice’s letter. Maybe later, I’d get out the pink stationery and tell her about our first Thanksgiving without Mama.

Aunt Bevy had already called me two times to talk about our plans. “I’ll be over there bright and early Thursday morning, me and a fat bird and all the other fixin’s. We’ll stick him in your oven, Carmen, then we’ll work on everything else. I’ll bring a couple of pumpkin pies from the bakery and just not tell anyone they’re storebought, okay?”

“I can make pumpkin pie,” I blurted into the phone. “I watched Mama do it a hundred times. She used to let me roll out the crust.”

“Are you sure?” Aunt Bevy sounded doubtful.

“Sure I’m sure.” Kind of a little white lie, but it was important, wasn’t it, to have homemade pies for Thanksgiving?

Now it was five days away and the entire idea of Thanksgiving, along with the worst, most horrible cold ever made me homesick for Mama and sick enough to be home. Or else I would have been at school on that Friday afternoon, on the 22nd of November, when the words SPECIAL BULLETIN flashed white on the dark television screen. Then Walter Cronkite said, so it had to be true, “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died...”

Daddy stood watching, slump-shouldered in the center of the room. “I swear, if that ain’t the last blasted

straw that broke the camel,” he said, “I don’t know what.”

Aunt Bevy and Mr. Beeler came to our house on Monday to watch President Kennedy’s funeral. I blew my nose and studied the way her black veil made shadow-slashes across the First Lady’s face.

“There’s General Ike,” said Daddy, pointing at one of the sad old men on the television, come to the President Kennedy’s funeral.

“You mean President Eisenhower?” asked Jimmy.

“Yup,” said Daddy. “And that there’s Harry Truman. I was out in the South Pacific, I remember clear as day, when he became president, when ol’ Frank Roosevelt passed on in 1945. Shoot, Jimmy, he’d been president since I was a kid your age. Truman was his V. P. so he had to take over. Told everybody he felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen down on him.”

Huh? I leaned in closer to the screen.

“I’ll bet,” said Mr. Beeler, “that President Johnson feels just like that right now.”

Oh my goodness. “That’s him!” I cried.

“Didn’t I just say?” Daddy took a swig of his Dr. Pepper.

“No – I mean, yes. He talked to me!”

“Nuh UH!” said Clark.

“Who?” asked Jimmy. “President Truman? In person?”

“Just a few weeks ago, up by the statue on the Square. He was real nice to me.” I told them a little bit about the bad day I had that day. “He told me not to give up and to do my best.” Dad bit his lip and shook his head at me.

I’d met a genuine president and didn’t even know it. His hankie was folded up in my underwear drawer this very minute. The corners of my mouth curved up a bit when I imagined Mr. Truman cheering up Mrs. Kennedy like he did me.

“There’s a story to tell your grandchildren,” said Aunt Bevy.

“Not havin’ any,” I told her. “Oh, look at John-John!” Mrs. Kennedy had her little son salute his dad’s casket passing by. Poor baby.

Mr. Beeler pulled a hankie out of his pocket, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. “It’s his third birthday today,” he said. “Just imagine.”

Was President Kennedy just now joining the beginners’ class up there? Seeing his little baby who died and greeting the Alabama Sunday School girls? Meeting Mama? She wouldn’t even be bashful because, after all, this was heaven. I could imagine her meeting Cleopatra or comforting the president. ‘Look down there in Independence. I used to live with those people. I suppose they’re going to be getting ready for Thanksgiving now.”

***

By Thanksgiving Eve, I was seriously pooped. Even baby Velvet, in her basket, in the kitchen, had flour in her fuzzy hair and eyelashes. “Velvet’s finally asleep and the boys are watching TV. I’m gonna run over to Robin’s and see if I can borrow some, uh, celery,” I told Jimmy. “Keep an eye on things, will ya?”

“Okay,” he said, without looking at me.

“I got those stupid pumpkin pies in the oven, but I’ll be back way before they’re done, okay? Are you hearing me?”

Mr. Nose-in-his-Book gave me an exasperated look. “I said okay.”

Really, I wanted to get out of our kitchen and go tell Robin about almost putting chili powder instead of cinnamon into the pie batter. Hardly any time at all had gone be, it seemed like to me. I was just helping Robin polish her mom’s drinking glasses while we talked about the next book Mr. Fisher wanted us to read: The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Just the title made lonely, windy-looking pictures in my head. “It sounds even better than A Tale of Two Cities.”

“I hope the ending won’t be as sad,” said Robin.

Her mom came into the kitchen just then. “Carmen? I didn’t know you were here. Who’s --?”she was asking me when we heard Clark and Jimmy shouting. “Carmie! Where are you! Come home quick! Car - men! The house is burning!”

Just For You to Know: Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

In which I fall apart in front of Andrew Jackson and Robin has a good idea. I look for matches.

I didn’t stop walking until I found myself looking up at the statue of Andrew Jackson and his dainty-footed horse in the shadow of the courthouse clock tower. They looked off to the far West, right through the Jones store across the street and all the modern jumble of city and everything between them and the Pacific Ocean. They weren’t startled at all by the sudden appearance of a Kansas City-bound bus, pulling up to the curb behind me.

The door whooshed open.

A sleepy-looking old lady was looking at me out of one of the dirty windows. I imagined going West and west-er all the way to California, like on “Wagon Train” on television, only on one stinky bus after another, away, really AWAY, from home, from tests and trouble and our stupid house full of sad, complicated relatives, further and further away with every passing street sign. I could be like Daddy when he was young, hopping a hobo train.

The beak-nosed driver drawled, “You gettin’ on?’

I didn’t, of course. I was too much of a sissypants. Besides, when Daddy took to the road, he was alone in the world. No one was counting on him like they were on me.

I pitied the family that was counting on me. Drawing and daydreaming were what I was cut out to do. Suddenly, my knees gave way and I plopped down on the curb in front of Andrew Jackson. All of the tears I’d been holding onto burst through the door in my head. I couldn’t stop them.

I missed my mom. Almost as bad as Mama being dead was having my own life so messed up. This was like that place in the Bible, that “valley of the shadow of death.” That’s where I was now.

I don’t know how long I’d sat there crying when a man’s voice said, ”Here now! Say there, young lady, what’s the matter here? Are you in trouble? Do you need some help?”

“No one can,” I sobbed as he patted me on the shoulder.

“There now,” he said. “There now, what’s happened? Can you tell me?”

My sorry life story spilled out of me along with a fresh wave of ugly sobs. “My mom died and we still got all these little kids I don’t know how to take care of. I can’t get my homework done and everything’s so -- so mean and sad...the whole world’s so hopeless.”

The old man offered me a handkerchief, so very starched and folded that it was a shame to blow a nose into it, but I did and calmed myself down a little before I looked up at the old guy. No, he was more like an old gentleman, in his gleaming, polished shoes, his light gray suit and hat. He straightened up and pressed his hands together on the top of his cane.

“That is about the worst thing that can happen. I surely remember when my own mother died. And plenty of other terrible times. I can think of when it did indeed feel like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen right square on my shoulders.”

He paused and I squinted up at his face, which was a shadow against the early morning sunshine. “Is that how it feels to you?” he asked.

That was just how it felt. “I guess so.”

“Well, young lady, you’re dead wrong about one thing.”

“What?”

He offered his arm as I struggled to my feet. “The world’s anything but hopeless.”

I dusted off the seat of my skirt, wiped my eyes, and picked up my books. Now I was ashamed and too aware that I’d been bawling in front of a nice old stranger.

“Do you want your hankie back?” It was pretty soggy and wadded up.

“No, I reckon not. Hadn’t you best be getting to school?” he asked in a kind voice. He looked around and, seeing a police car over on Maple Street, beckoned it to come over.

The policeman inside greeted the old man, “Good morning, sir.”

“Officer, would you mind giving this young lady a ride to school?”

“No problem, sir.”

Robin and Jimmy would never believe this. I stared at the gun in the policeman’s holster, his radio, handcuffs, and everything else that bristled all over the inside of his car. The gentleman in gray touched his hat brim with his index finger and told me not to give up and always do my best. “That’s all anyone can do, young lady. You’ll see that time has a way of fixing things.” The morning sun glinting off of his glasses was the last I saw of him.

Almost.

It was just as well that the policeman was too busy listening to and yacking on his radio because I was still upset, too bashful, and had too much to think about to talk to him. All the way to school, I gripped my books tight in my fists. If ever there was a time to get control of yourself it’d be when you were sitting in a cop car and facing a science test after all. I sighed a shaky sigh, honked my nose as delicately as possible into the soggy handkerchief, and tried to feel better. Even if it killed me, I had to figure out how to survive without Mama and prove to her, that I wasn’t a crybaby. I had to figure out how to get through school and not be dumb, and how to be a good help to Dad. It would be just like him to load us up and move us down the road. That’d be the last straw. Anyway, wherever we went, we’d still be us. Didn’t he know that?

I only needed one glance to tell that kids were watching out the windows of their classes when I got out of the police car. The policeman tipped his cap, winked at me, and said, “Good luck, kid.” After I stopped by the office, I washed my face and wiped the tear-spots off my glasses and smoothed my hair. I leaned forward to press my head against my reflection in the cool, hard glass. Aunt Bevy would have said I’d had a good cry. I just felt...still. It was like after a big storm when everything’s calm and nice. But there are busted branches all around.

My heel-clicks echoed off the lockers on my way to Social Studies. Later, I did the best I could on Miss Spurgeon’s test and later, in the cafeteria, my morning was almost worth how rotten it was, getting to tell Robin and a bunch of other kids the details about my ride to school. I saved the sad, embarrassing parts for when Robin and I were walking home.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were having so much trouble?” Robin asked me.

I shrugged one of my shoulders. Saying would take too many words.

Probably because she’s so smart plus being a teachers’ kid, Robin had a good idea for part of my problem. “Why don’t you see if you can drop one of your classes, and take study hall instead? That would give you time to do your reading and your homework at school, wouldn’t it?”

We stood on the sidewalk with our heads bent over a much-folded-and-unfolded piece of paper from the pocket in my wallet with a snapshot of Mama and the ticket stub from Cleopatra. Robin smiled at my penciled-in teacher reviews.

1st Hour room 204 English Mr.Fisher neat

2nd Hour room 237 Social Studies Mrs.Kirk funny

3rd Hour room 312 Math Mr.Morris serious

4th Hour room129 Science

Miss Spurgeon hard!

5th Hour gym Phys. Ed. Miss Riley noisy

6th Hour room 216 Art

Mrs. Montisano nice

7th Hour room 117 Health Mr.Henderson goony

“What about Mr. Henderson’s class?” I asked, hopefully.

Robin frowned. “That’s one you gotta take.”

“I know.” Sure, I’d been having a rotten time in school lately, but I was smart enough to know what class I’d have to give up. I chewed the inside of my cheek, imagining myself not drawing Mrs. Montisano’s collections of bottles and things, or making mobiles or swirling fresh paints together to see what color they’d make.

We went on walking while I folded up the paper and put it away and while Robin fished her yo-yo out of her pocket and slipped its string loop on her finger. She went on talking as a snap of red flashed down and up and into the palm of her hand. “I could help you, maybe, with your math and science.”

I bumped my shoulder against hers as we walked along to show her how nice I thought she was for saying that. But partly, I felt embarrassed: it was gross, having to have help. Another part of my mind remembered about castles in the air, where people keep all the big things they hope they’ll be or do someday, like being a real artist. Giving up art class might help fix my school problem, but it was as if my dream castle was disappearing behind thick, cold clouds.

“Carmie!” Daddy, in his coveralls, holding the baby in one arm, stood by our door. “Step on it, will ya? I’m gonna be late!”

“I’m comin’!”

“Hey, there, Robin.”

“Hey, Mr. Cathcart,” she called.

Georgie came step-together, step-together, down the porch steps, then running toward me, his arms in the air. He was hollering, “Carmie, Carmie, Carmie!” instead of watching where he was going or else he wouldn’t have fallen down and gotten all hurt and scuffed-up. “Shhhh....it’s okay. Don’t cry,” I told him, scooping him up and hurrying into the house. “We’ll fix it...you want Daddy to kiss it and make it better?”

“At least he doesn’t need any stitches, thank goodness, “ Dad said. “Can you get him cleaned up? Get him a Band-Aid?”

“Sure. Just go,” I told him, wringing out a washcloth..

“Carmie, no!” Georgie sobbed. “It stings!”

“I’ll put the baby in her basket,” said Dad, on his way out the door. Velvet screamed and I didn’t even notice that Robin had picked up my school books where I’d dropped them. She set them on the porch and probably went home to practice her piano and study volcanoes while I was calming down Georgie and Velvet.

The twins stomped up the front steps and came banging through the door. “We raced Clark and Darren home from school,” Larry panted.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “and we beat ’em!”

The twins scrambled back outside to cram themselves onto the porch swing with Darren and Clark, then Georgie too, as soon I got his owie patched up and kissed.

All the time, while I gave Velvet her bottle, part of me was thinking about not being in Art Class anymore. It felt a whole lot more serious than just signing up for stupid study hall. It felt like my castle in the air, my artist dream, was lost in the clouds and about two thousand miles higher up in the sky. A nice, brave, unselfish person wouldn’t mind having to give up her dream of being a famous artist someday, because she loved her brothers and baby sister so

much. I had to prove to myself that I was good and had some backbone, but how? That’s what I asked myself, back inside my head while I dished up chicken and noodles and wiped up spilled Kool-Ade.

“You know, that Wally Williams kid is nicer than I thought he was. He makes model airplanes,” Jimmy said. “Hey, I’m talking to you, Carmen. You’re not paying any attention.”

“I am too,” I lied.

Aunt Bevy came to see us after supper. “I brought you kids a pie. It’s apple!”

“Did you make it?” Clark asked her.

“No, kiddo, I won’t go so far as to say that.” She handed me a paper sack from her department store. “Here Carmen. It’s just some little somethin’.”

She sat down in Mama’s chair and, after making sure he wasn’t wet or sticky, lifted Georgie onto her lap.

“Thanks,” I said. All soft in its tissue paper wrapping was a dark green cardigan. I held the sweater up. “It’s beautiful.”

Aunt Bevy tilted her head to one side. “You feelin’ all right, honey? You look kind of puny. Did you have a bad day? You want me to watch these kids a little bit while you go take a bubble bath or something?”

Should I tell her about running away from school and all my other troubles? She’d listen, but so would all of the boys and anyway, what could Aunt Bevy do? I just said, “Wouldja?” and smiled at her, kind of. “I got some math problems to do.”

“Well, if you’d rather do arithmetic than take a bath.” One corner of her ruby red lips curved up. “Try that on anyway and let me see how it looks.”

Up in my room, just as I’d pulled the new sweater over my head, my eyes lit on all of my lady drawings all around me. Just like that, the idea came to me, what I needed to do. Sure it was what a brave, serious, smart person would do, but could I? I gave up trying to concentrate on my homework. “Heck,” I muttered to myself, “I guess I can do it in study hall from now on.”

On a fresh piece of notebook paper, I began writing down all I had to do and be from now on. I’d just

finished the sixth thing on the list when Clark came up to tell me that Aunt Bevy was leaving. “She was gonna holler at you up the stairs, but that’d wake up Georgie and the baby.”

I came down to tell her so long and good night and thanks again.

Aunt Bevy bragged on how nice I looked in the new sweater. “But, Carmie, you look awful pale. You wanna talk? You seem like you’re a million miles away.“

I shrugged my shoulders. “No, I’m right here.”

Way after Aunt Bevy was gone and everyone was in bed, even Dad, it was like the mice and I had crummy old Cathcart Castle to ourselves at last. I read over my list.

1. Tell Mrs. Montisano that you’re going to take study hall instead of study Art. (Oh man, what was I going to say?)

2. Be dependable. Don’t let Mama down.

3. Be brave or at least act like you are, like Miss Effie said.

3. Pay attention to real life, like when Ann Landers in the newspaper tells people they have to wake up and smell the coffee. (I liked the sound of those words and spoke them, real soft:

“wake up and smell the coffee.”) That’s what you have to do now.

4. Don’t daydream all the time.

5. Do your best, like that old man said.

6. Don’t think anymore about being a real artist and maybe being famous someday. It’s dumb.

Okay.

Fine.

I took a deep breath and blew it out hard. At the bottom of the paper I wrote, Carmen L. Cathcart, October 10, 1963, then changed the date to the 11th because it was after midnight, and tore the page out of my notebook. I folded it and tucked it into my pocket, and took one last look at all of my pictures as Mama spoke in my head.

I’m counting on you, Carmie.

I snatched a pen-and-inked, long-gowned lady off the wall. Real quick, in case I chickened out or changed my mind, I yanked down every single dumb princess-in-a-castle, flowing-robed-goddess, and long-haired, bird-winged angel. I swallowed hard and my shaky fingers froze when they got to the angel with the headlight-eyes from Sarah Somebody’s tombstone, from the day we were at the cemetery when Mama was still alive. In the corner of the rubbing was the pencil drawing of my imagined Sarah. I couldn’t tear them up, the way her and her angel stared at me, but I wadded up all of the other drawings and shoved them into the paper sack the new sweater came in.

Tap, tap, tap, then Jimmy’s voice: “What are you doing over there?”

“Nothing,” I said, leaning in close to the bedroom wall. “Go to sleep.”

I gathered an armload of drawn-in, filled-up sketchbooks plus the sack of crunched-up pictures, then I tiptoed down the stairs, stepping soft, breathing quiet, down and through the house. Except for the ticking clock and the mice skittering through the walls, everything was quiet.

I found a box of matches by the back door.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and crushed my artwork into the backyard incinerator. A chilly wind blew out more than one match as I held the flames to the crumpled papers, then they flared up bright. I swallowed hard as one of the mythological ladies looked at me, as the brown-burning edge got closer to her face. My own face felt the heat as she glowed, turned black, and vanished into red sparks.

I pursed my lips, gritted my teeth, and felt like a murderer, killing the beautiful ladies I’d imagined, and, maybe, burning up a giant part of myself. The smoke drifted up past the black treetops up to where Mama and the angels were watching.

I picked up a stick and poked it into the fire. I watched the flames crackle and spark, feeling grim and sort of hypnotized, not hearing or seeing anything – or anyone – beyond the brightness so a little scream got startled out of me when, all of a sudden, someone was talking to me!

“I looked out my bedroom window and saw the fire,” Robin whispered loudly. “I thought stupid Darren snuck out to play with matches or something.”

“Jeepers, you scared me to death!”

But Robin didn’t care. She was looking all shocked and mad at smoke curling out from under a spiral-bound sketchbook. “What the heck –!” She plucked the drawing pad out of the fire, threw it on the ground and stomped it with her bedroom slipper. “Carmen Cathcart, you are so weird!” She frowned, like I was as exasperating as her goony little brother. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I hunched up my shoulders and cupped my elbows in my hands. “They’re just my pictures and junk,” I said.

“Your drawings? You burned up all your artwork?” Robin put her hands on her hips. “So what gave you the big idea to come out here in the middle of the night and set fire to your pictures?”

I didn’t -- couldn’t say anything for a minute. She stepped closer to me. “Tell me, you nut, and make it snappy, will ya? It’s kind of cold out here and I’m ---”

“They don’t go with my life anymore,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Not the way it is now anyway.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you deciding to quit art class, does it?

Golly, Carmen, just because you’re not drawing milkweed pods in eighth grade art class doesn’t mean you’re not going to be a great artist someday. So snap out of it, why doncha, and try not to be so sad all the time.”

I felt sort of shocked. This was a whole different way to size up my situation. It was like Robin was pointing me to look at a teeny, hopeful bit of sunlight at the end of a long, smelly, black tunnel. Like she was telling me to wake up and smell the coffee.