Of Mice and Nutcrackers: A Peeler Christmas (7 page)

The scariest thing happens to me that evening.

My favorite thing to wear in the universe is a fluffy oversize vest I bought on sale for fifteen dollars. Under the vest I like to wear a dark green button-down shirt from the Goodwill and what they call end-user pants – the kind with lots of ties and zippers. I can’t find my vest or my end-users in my closet or dresser, or in the pile of dirty clothes that grows on the floor beside my bed. I haven’t worn them in a few days. Did Dad wash them? I go down to the laundry room to check.

When I’m at the bottom of the basement stairs, I hear whispering behind and above me. The basement door shuts, leaving me in the dark.

“Very funny, Bill!” I call.

This isn’t the scary bit. I can hear him and Bernie giggling, and I know the basement light is two steps in front of me. There’s a long pull chain, dangling from the bare bulb in the ceiling. I walk forward in the dark
and wave my arms about until I make contact with the string. I pull it, and everything jumps into focus.

Our basement is unfinished. There’s a lot of exposed bricks and insulation and wires strung near the ceiling. A crib in the middle is filled with all kinds of junk we’ve outgrown. Washer, dryer, and laundry tub against one wall, with a pile of dirty laundry in front of them. Dresser against another wall – filled with more junk. Our old furnace crouches in the far corner, like a giant hunkered down for the winter, wheezing and grumbling. That’s about all there is in the basement, except dust and spiders, and I don’t mind either of them. And the single bulb with the pull chain.

I find my end-users in the pile of dirty clothes, and they’re clean enough to wear. Good. I put them off to the side. I’m bent over again, hunting for my vest, when there’s a flash, and the light goes out.

I freeze. It’s really dark. And quiet.

Something moves away from me, rustling against things in the dark. “Bill, I can hear you!” I say.

The rustling stops.

“Hey!” I shout. No reply. “Hey!”

I turn around and reach for the pull chain, but I can’t seem to find it. I flail around and lose a sense of where I am. You know how it is in the dark.

There’s Bill again. I can hear him rustling ahead of me. Wait until I get my hands on him. I edge forward. And edge some more. And some more. And ….

It’s taking me longer than I expect. I keep my hands out in front of me so I don’t bump into anything.

Spiderwebs! Drat. I don’t mind them when I can see them, but I hate brushing against them in the dark. I wipe my face, and keep going, slowly, slowly….

Ah! The pull chain. What a relief. I pull it and – nothing happens. Maybe Bill didn’t turn the light out. Does that mean I’m alone down here? “Bill?” I call, moving forward.

I bump into something with my knee. Ouch! I reach out and touch the laundry tub. I thought I was by the staircase, but I’m nowhere near it. I’m in the wrong part of the basement.

The rustling comes back. I freeze solid. In front of me is a wall. On the other side of the wall is Cisco’s house. No way could Bill be there. In front of me is just a wall.

The noise is coming from there. From
inside
the wall. I scream.

Screaming is like pouring ketchup from a full bottle. It may be hard to start, but once you’ve started screaming, it all comes out in a rush. You usually end up with too much, noise covering everything, pooling in the middle of the plate, running off the sides, and you wish you’d kept your mouth shut.

I stagger backwards, screaming. I bump against something, trip, and end up by the stairs. I keep screaming and screaming.

*

A shaft of light, shining down on my dark world. Light from the kitchen. The door is open. Mom calls my name. I can’t stop screaming. Mom runs downstairs.

I spend the rest of the evening in the family room. I try to tell Mom about the rustling noise, and she says
there, there,
and strokes my hair. That feels nice. Then she wraps a blanket around me and turns on the TV. She has work to do upstairs. Bernie bounces on the couch beside me. Ordinarily this would bother me, but tonight it’s soothing. He’s company.

I can’t help wondering if it was Bill down in the basement all the time, scaring me. If it was, I’ll kill him.

During a commercial I wander into the kitchen for a glass of juice. The basement door is open. I go over. I hear noise coming from the dark below.

“Hello?” I call. If it’s Bill downstairs, I’ll close the door and see how he likes it.

The basement light comes on. “Hello, yourself,” calls Grandma.

I go down a couple of steps and peer into the basement. Grandma is standing on a chair, screwing in the lightbulb. “Can you hear a rustling noise down there?” I ask.

“You know, missy, I think I can.” She steps down off the chair, pulls the chain so that the basement disappears in darkness.

I should do homework, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I watch
TV
shows I don’t care about, following images across the screen, not paying attention to the dialogue. Bernie stops bouncing, trots off. I hear him talking to Grandma. “Do you want to –”

“No,” says Grandma.

I dream about going camping, which is strange because we don’t camp. Not since the time two years ago when Bill, pretending to be a pioneer, insisted on chopping firewood. He swung hard, smashing the container of spaghetti sauce instead of the log he was aiming at. Then he swung again, knocking down the tent; and again, slicing a big hole in the canoe. Three strokes and we were out – no dinner, nowhere to sleep, and no way to move on. That incident ended Bill’s attempt to live the pioneer life.

I wake up. There’s the smell of smoke in my nostrils. Cigarette smoke. Strange, because no one in the household smokes – no, wait. I’m forgetting Grandma. I frown, and go back to sleep. I dream some more, this time about an outdoor bowling alley. There’s a shoe rental, a vending machine selling potato chips, and a campfire. Someone a few lanes over is crying for help. There’s a witch sitting around the campfire, roasting marshmallows. She cackles when the pins go down.

“Help!”

I sit up. It’s Dad’s voice. “Hey! Help!”

I get out of bed. I don’t hear anyone bowling. I look out in the hall. “Help!”

I run to the stairs and peer up. “Oh, Dad!” He’s in the corner of the stairs, where they turn on the way down from the third floor.

He’s crouched in a ball. “I’m lost!” he says, in a small voice.

I run up the stairs and grab him by the hand. “Dad!”

“Helen?”

His hand is so hot, but he’s shivering. It’s very strange. “It’s me, Dad. Jane.” “Jane?”

“Your daughter.”

“I don’t know where I am,” he says.

“But you’re home.”

“I’m lost.”

“No, you’re not. You’re found.” I lead him up the steep stairs to the third floor, my poor lost dad. His face is covered in sweat. He can’t stop shivering.

Mom is asleep in a chair beside the couch. The upstairs office is not like I remember it a few days ago. The computer table is pushed into the far corner, out of the way. The couch has sheets and blankets on it. They’re all rumpled now. The desk is covered in pill
bottles and thermometers and washcloths. Mom startles awake as we come in.

“Alex,” she says. A tone I’m not used to hearing. “Oh, dear, Alex, what are you doing?”

“I got lost,” Dad whispers. His eyes are bright as stars. He lets Mom take charge of him, pushing him onto the couch, covering him up with blankets.

“What’s wrong with Dad?” I ask.

“He’s feverish. He isn’t making a lot of sense,” says Mom. She puts her hand on Dad’s forehead, shakes her own head, and checks the clock on the desk. “Still two hours until his next pill,” she says.

“Is he going to be all right?” As I’m talking, he falls back on the pillow and starts to snore.

Mom turns and smiles. Her lip trembles, though. “Course he is, honey. Course he is.”

“Good.”

“Now, get back to bed. It’s really late.” “Night, Mom.” “Night, Jane.”

On the second floor I can smell cigarette smoke. The lights are off in the family room and downstairs hall. Grandma’s coming up to bed. I see the glowing red coal of the cigarette bobbing up the stairs ahead of her, like one of those guttering old candles that Ebenezer Scrooge would light himself to bed with. I don’t know why Grandma makes me think of Ebenezer Scrooge – they’ve got nothing in common except that they
both stay up late at night. And they’re both grouchy old people with no one to care about them. Hardly anything in common.

“Humbug!” growls Grandma, when she sees me.

“What?”

“I said humbug. Do you have any humbugs? You know, those little striped mints. I usually keep some in my purse, but I’m all out of them.”

“Sorry,” I say.

She coughs a couple of times. “What are you staring at?” she rasps at me. “Nothing.”

“So I have a cigarette before bed. So what?”

She wears a pointy nightcap on her head. And her slippers are down at heel. And her nightie is big and wraps around her body. All she needs to complete the picture is the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Tiny Tim.

There’s something moving in her hair. I peer at it in the glow of her cigarette.

“Why do you have a spider on you?” I ask.

“Where?” She swipes at it. I worry for the spider. I reach and take it off her. She shudders, looking at the spider in my hand. “Must have picked it up in the basement,” she says.

“Quiet down there!” Mom calls from upstairs. “I have to leave early tomorrow.”

“Sorry, Mom.” I go to bed.

“Hmph,”
says Grandma. But she goes to bed too. The cigarette stays in her mouth.

“Where’s the nearest hardware store?” Grandma asks at breakfast. She’s dressed in a shapeless Grandma skirt and a big sweater with buttons.

“There’s the Dominion Hardware store on Copernicus Street,” I say. “Two blocks or so, next to the fruit store.”

“That’s where we get our Christmas tree,” says Bernie.

“Uh-huh,” says Grandma.

“When are we getting our Christmas tree?”

Grandma shrugs. “Soon, I guess, Bernard,” she says.

“That’s what Daddy always says.”

I wonder what Grandma wants at the hardware store. Probably not humbugs.

Before leaving for school, I run upstairs to see how Dad is doing. He’s sitting up, propped against a bunch of pillows. His eyes are open to slits. There’s a cool cloth on his forehead. He looks weak.

“You were wandering around the house last night,” I tell him. “You got lost on the stairs. Do you remember?”

He shakes his head.

“How are you feeling now?”

He shrugs. “Not too bad,” he says.

I can hear footsteps on the stairs. Slow-moving footsteps, and labored breathing.

Dad’s hand is still hot. I pat it. “Will you get better?”

He tries to smile. “Course I will,” he says.

Grandma enters, breathing heavily. “Ham stairs,” she says. “Three floors and no elevator. My hip feels like the
Hindenburg.
Time for your medicine,” she says. She flops down in the chair to rest.

“Okay, Mother-in-law,” says Dad.

Grandma takes a pill bottle from the desk, holds it a long way away from her and peers at the writing. “Two pills, with water,” she mutters. She removes the lid and shakes out the pills. One of them drops on the floor. Grandma swears quietly. She stares at me. I go down on my hands and knees and hunt around on the floor under the couch. I find the pill, and hand it to her.

Getting my lunch from the fridge, I notice that the shelves are pretty empty. A single slice of baloney in the meat keeper. A wilting head of lettuce in the crisper. Some dried-up cheese. Three pickles floating belly-up in a jar of brine. “What’s for lunch today, Grandma?” I ask cautiously.

“Cheese, lettuce, and ketchup sandwiches,” says Grandma.

Bill and I laugh. “No, really,” says Bill.

Grandma just looks at him.