Mama is going to kill me. I’ve lost a sock and the hem of my dress is wet and muddy in places, but at least
it isn’t torn. I didn’t mean to go that far into the woods; but I just couldn’t help it. There was a huge barred owl in the tree by the fork in the road where
I should have gone right, but he flew to the left. You could tell by the way he
looked over his shoulder at me that he wanted me to follow him. I was just
going to see where he landed, but then I saw the mother deer and her twin fawns
in the clearing past the pines, which took me to the creek bank where I saw a
fat raccoon washing his supper in the water. At least I was smart enough to
take off my shoes before I chased him through the creek. I don’t always remember to take them off because most of the time I am barefoot
already.
My mama scolds me and frets about my clothes and hair something awful. Sometimes
she even whips me because I get dirty or take down my pigtails, but it is never
as bad as it sounds. She is not as mean as John Randall’s mama. I see my mama’s mouth try to smile when I come in the door—I am quick to notice things like that. My daddy knows it too, if I am quick
enough, I can catch a wink from him before my mama sets in. I tell her if she
would let me have my overalls back she wouldn’t have to worry about my dresses, but she just ignores me.
See, I am not allowed to wear overalls anymore. Mama says that there are too
many pockets and that I carry too much around in them. She’d fuss a little every washday, but never too much, about a lucky rock, shell or
feather I’d left behind. I’d always go by the washtub to collect whatever trinkets she’d found stuck down in my pockets when she was hanging the wash on the line. But
the snake, well that was the end of my overall wearing days.
See, once I forgot that I had put a snake in the front one. You know the big
pocket at your chest? Well, it was the perfect spot. He was scared so I
pretended to be his mother and we magically turned into kangaroos. I had just
learned about them at school and thought they were one of the most interesting
animals ever, until daddy told me about possums and how they carry their babies
in a pouch, too. But that’s another story. Anyway, he – the snake—must have liked the idea because he curled right down in the corner and went to
sleep. He was just a little garter snake; no bigger around than my pointer
finger. I think that was the day I threw the rock.
Well anyway, I forgot he was there and she found him. My mama is scared to death
of snakes. Whew, she was so mad that day! Now I am forced to wear dresses with
no pockets. Not even one!
At night I hear her and daddy laughing about me, so I know it’s not too bad. Mama tells daddy that she is scared I’ll turn out like Crazy Nell who lives up on the mountain in a cave with one
hundred goats. They say that she runs around naked and howls when there is a
full moon. Someone said that she gave birth to a litter of wolves and that she
is married to a bear.
Well, that will never happen to me. I think goats stink.
The day I threw the rock, I had been playing with my best friend Lucas, but he
didn’t want to be a kangaroo and he had to get home in time to chop some kindling for
his father. I should have left with him, but I didn’t. I walked on past our usual spot, looking for a good place for a kangaroo’s house. I wasn’t sure where it would be. I didn’t think that Australia looked like Kentucky.
There was a big old tree that had fallen down in the woods. I thought this would
be a good spot for a kangaroo den so I got down on my knees and started
clearing out a place beside the old oak. That’s when I heard some weird noises and looked up over the tree. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
There, by the water, was Sara Rose Jamison. I knew her from church and sometimes
she helped Ms. Burroughs at my school. She was about five years older than me.
Everyone knew her; she was beautiful and sweet. She looked like a living china
doll. My mama would have loved a daughter like her. Sara Rose had beautiful
thick black hair and bright blue eyes framed with long, shiny black lashes.
My hair is bright red, like my father’s side of the family, I’m told. I have green eyes and light eyelashes that you can hardly see. I also
have freckles. John Randall, who I hate, says it looks like a cow farted in my
face. Lucas blacked his eye the day he said it, even though I could have done
it myself, so he got a whipping instead of me. Lucas is always doing stuff like
that for me.
Anyway, it took me a minute to recognize that she was Sara Rose. She was crying.
I wondered why she was here, and then I noticed a basket at her feet. She had
been hunting mushrooms; there were a couple of fat morels beside her basket (my
daddy’s favorite). She must have gotten sidetracked like me and walked farther than
she meant to.
Then I smelled him. I smelled him before I saw him. He smelled mean, like the
stagnant water where I find the leeches I threaten to put on Lucas when he won’t play with me. But worse. He smelled like a bad dream. I had never seen this
man before, but Sara Rose acted like she knew him or at least she
didn’t seem surprised to see him way out here. I thought that maybe he had been
fishing in the creek or checking on a still. Daddy had told me about the stills
that were out in the woods. If I ever saw one I was to get away as fast as I
could. Rule number one for playing in the woods—if it ain’t yours, don’t touch it. That covers anything from fishing poles to moonshine stills.
I started to walk over and help her pick up her mushrooms, thinking that was why
she was crying, and then I noticed that the front of her dress was torn. I bet
she was worried that her mother would scold her. I wanted to tell her not to
worry, mine never got too mad. Then something happened.
The man walked up to her and slapped her across her face. Then, with his left
hand he grabbed her hair and with his right hand he reached up and tore the
rest of her dress open. The top half of her was naked in broad daylight! She
just stood there crying silently. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell him that
if Lucas was here, he’d be sorry.
I wanted to yell, “Kick him!! Hit him in the eye!” but something odd had happened and I couldn’t talk. So I did the first thing that came to my mind without even thinking. I
picked up a rock and threw it.
I have a great arm. If I had been born a boy—which I should have (then I could wear overalls every day)—I would play baseball like the men do in Louisville and win every game, I just
know it. I know because I can throw apples twice as far as and faster than
Lucas and John Randall, and they are the best two boys on the baseball team at
school. I’m not allowed to play anymore because I’m a girl.
The rock flew through the air, a perfect curve that I didn’t even know I could throw, and hit the man in the head. (I had been aiming for
his shoulder.) It was a good sized rock, almost as big as one of our apples. It
struck his right temple so fast and hard that he never knew what hit him. He
never even turned around. He just fell to the ground still holding Sara Rose’s hair, her small breasts exposed.
Sara Rose screamed then. Boy did she scream! I stood up all the way, but I still
couldn’t speak. She was screaming as she pulled her hair loose from his hand. Then she
stood up from where she had fallen and looked at me. We both ran. She ran one
way and I ran the other. We never said a word to each other. We just ran.
I ran as fast as I could. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even stop to turn over the big rock at the beginning of our path. I always
checked there on my way home for fat night crawlers. If there were some good
ones, I would pick them up (which is another reason I need pockets) and drop
them in the mulch pile by our hen house. Daddy and I would use them when we
went fishing.
Anyway, like I said, I was in a hurry. I just wanted to be home, safe and snug
in my own bed that my daddy had built with his two hands and under the quilt
that my mother had sewn for me. I wanted my mama and daddy, wanted them sitting
at the table—even if my mama scolded me for being late and barefoot. She hated it when I went
barefoot, even though most everyone I knew at school did. She said that young
ladies should wear shoes—another reason I should have been born a boy (I hate shoes).
I wanted to forget the look in Sara’s eyes. It was a look of complete helplessness. I wanted to forget those tears
running down her face and the sound, which wasn’t really any sound at all, of her crying.
But most of all, I wanted to forget the look of embarrassment she had on her
face. It made me ashamed, like I had been spying on her.
