The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody (10 page)

‘She almost blew up the kitchen yesterday trying to get things ready,’ says Mrs Potter, grinning.

I go over to the stove. It is just like the stove we used at the travelling show, except bigger. There are knobs to turn and a box of matches on top. I light a match and turn the knob and in an instant a yellow flame flickers. ‘Well, will you look at that,’ Mrs Potter says, watching. I put the kettle on to boil.

‘You said that yesterday you were getting things ready. What were you getting ready for?’

‘Oh, we were getting ready for you, Beatrice,’ says Mrs Potter, offering me another tea biscuit.

I watch the two of them. I wonder if they will disappear again. ‘But how did you know I was coming?’

Mrs Potter looks at Mrs Swift and very slowly Mrs Swift shakes her head at Mrs Potter.

‘Another biscuit?’ Mrs Swift holds a biscuit for Peabody and when the water boils, she pours tea into my cup. There is no milk in the creamer and the sugar is hard as tar, from before the rationing, and when I sip at the tea, it tastes very much like water with a little colour added to it.

‘I’m afraid it may be a little stale,’ says Mrs Swift, watching Peabody gobble down another biscuit. He couldn’t care less about tea.

I take another sip. Mrs Potter tries to scrape some sugar off the bottom of the bowl. Finally, she puts the bowl on the floor for Peabody. It turns out Peabody likes sugar very much.

They both watch me. I feel a little awkward as I chew another biscuit. I wipe the crumbs off my face.

‘She looks just like Bernadette, don’t you think?’ Mrs Potter says.

Mrs Swift shakes her head at Mrs Potter and clears her throat.

I sit up straight. Bernadette was my mother’s name.

‘We knew your mama very well,’ Mrs Potter says when she sees me staring.

‘How?’ I ask, leaning forward, spilling my tea. ‘How did you know my mama?’

‘Later,’ interrupts Mrs Swift, looking sternly at Mrs Potter. ‘It’s time to show you your bedroom.’

Peabody sits up and perks his ears. He is very excited about the idea of a bed, and I have never slept in a real bed, ever.

‘We expect a bath every night before bed,’ Mrs Swift is saying as we all follow her upstairs.

‘We do not need to be so particular about everything all the time,’ says Mrs Potter, ‘particularly when it comes to raising a child.’ Her limp is quite pronounced on the stairs. She has to stop to rest several times. I wonder if I should offer her my arm.

‘Now, you hush. I know what I’m talking about. I know all about raising children. A child needs a bath before bed.’ She reaches the top stair and rounds a corner and continues up.

‘When’s the last time you raised a child?’ Mrs Potter has stopped again. I turn just in time to see her rolling her eyes at Mrs Swift. I giggle. Mrs Swift looks back to see what we are finding so funny.

‘And the dog sleeps outside. He can sleep with the pig.’

I pull Peabody closer, but already his ears are flopped down. I squeeze him tight.

‘Mrs Swift,’ says Mrs Potter, ‘the dog is used to the girl. He’ll bark and bother the neighbours and you know we don’t want that.’

Mrs Swift pauses for a moment on the top step. ‘Yes, I guess you’re right,’ she says slowly, thinking things through. ‘Just make sure he does his business out of doors.’

Peabody is humphing. I am humphing. Of course he does his business outdoors.

Mrs Swift turns left and walks to a room where the last bit of sun is shining in, and already Peabody is wagging his stumpy tail like it is Christmas.

A big bed sits at one end of the room with four high posts and a canopy. The quilt is fresh as new cream and there are four fat pillows wrapped in lace.

‘Oh golly,’ I say out loud, untying and kicking off my work boots, jumping onto the bed and bouncing around, feeling like things are starting to finally go a little right in my life. ‘For sweet Pete’s sake, Peabody, get up here.’

Mrs Potter has to lift Peabody up and put him next to me, because the bed is so high, and Mrs Swift is
tsktsking
in the corner. I myself am jumping. The bed creaks loudly with each bounce, bounce, bounce. It is very old. Peabody flops over each time I leap, so I make myself stop even though I could jump like this forever.

‘This is a different time,’ Mrs Potter is telling Mrs Swift. ‘Dogs sleep on beds nowadays.’ She scratches Peabody behind the ears. He thumps his stumpy tail against the bed now that I am not jumping.

If I had a stumpy tail, I would wag it, too. I breathe in the wonder all around me: the little red berries and
tiny sprigs of ivy skipping up the walls, the lace billowing from the four tall windows that are so big they begin at the ceiling and end at the floor, the tall dresser with no mirror on top (thank goodness), a table with a little pitcher and bowl for washing up, even towels to mop my face. The last of the sun jumps into the room and rushes all over the wood floor, which is polished. Everything smells like lemon wax.

Mrs Swift looks at everything. ‘I did well, didn’t I?’

‘And just who was it who carried all those buckets of hot water? And who rubbed all that lemon oil?’ Mrs Potter is grinning.

‘Now, you get in your bedgown, dear.’ Mrs Potter tells Mrs Swift they should leave the room so I can get undressed.

When they close the door, I look at Peabody. I do not have a bedgown. I don’t know what a bedgown looks like, since Pauline and I slept in our shirts, although I can imagine.

I pull off my overalls and take Pauline’s little notebook out of my top pocket. I stuff it at the bottom of the top drawer of the dresser, under some clothes so lacy I would look like a cupcake if I wore them. Then I jump up onto the bed and climb under the sheets. They smell like new soap and rose water and are very crisp and tucked in so tight I cannot even wiggle and I would not want to move, even if I could. That is what it feels like to sleep in a real
bed; you want to stay put for a while.

The peepers chirp, Peabody snores, and I am drifting off when Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter come back in. They stand near the bed and watch me and I pretend I am sleeping, which isn’t hard because I am so tired, and then Mrs Potter is saying, ‘I told you she was the one,’ and then I smile and say to myself, yes I am, good golly, yes I am, and then I must be sleeping, because the ladies are disappearing right before my eyes.

‘All healthy children need a sunbath,’ Mrs Swift tells me the next morning while Mrs Potter tries to get the stove to work so we can all have tea and maybe something to eat besides stale tea biscuits.

She shoos me out to the porch.

‘What exactly is a sunbath?’ I ask Peabody. Already the sun is climbing and the morning is one of the most beautiful I have seen. The smell of roses is everywhere. I lean back in the swing. Peabody jumps up onto my lap and I push off. Back and forth, back and forth. I am feeling very lazy. Ellis is water under the bridge to me now. Peabody is watching a couple of honeybees around the potted geraniums. He is feeling lazy, too.

‘Young lady!’

A harsh voice is so out of place here that Peabody and I both jump at the same time and Peabody’s head hits my chin. Quick as a wink, I pull my hair tight over my diamond.

A woman stands out by the gate, a small black-
and-white
chicken in her arms. ‘Yes, you! I’m talking to you.’

The woman is tall, with a thin neck and hair twisted
high and tight. She has more grey hair than Ellis but not nearly as much as Mrs Swift or Mrs Potter, and not half as many wrinkles.

The chicken clucks and struggles in her arms. ‘Don’t you think you’re getting away again, you naughty little hen,’ says the woman, squeezing the hen tighter. This makes it squawk louder. I look at Peabody. He is looking at the chicken.

One thing I learned from Ellis is you don’t take up with just anybody who comes asking questions. I head for the door.

‘Can’t you hear me talking to you? Are you deaf or something? I said what are you doing up there?’

The warning light inside me is going on and off, on and off. I check my hair. I want Pauline.

The lady fiddles with the latch on the gate while she is holding the chicken. This crushes the chicken and it squawks and gets a wing loose. The lady stuffs the wing back under her arm.

The chicken thrashes, screaming, ‘Brawk-ack.’

This is more than Peabody can take. He barrels to the very edge of the porch and yips and yaps. He gets himself in such a lather about the chicken he jumps into the air, slips, flips over, struggles and jumps up again, never for a second stopping his yapping.

The woman takes a step back. ‘Well,’ she says to her chicken. ‘He’s not very friendly, is he?’

‘Brawk-ack!’ the chicken shrieks, struggling to get its wing loose.

‘Shush,’ I tell Peabody, rushing over and picking him up. He won’t stop barking, even when he is in my arms, and he just about tips me over, he is so excited about the chicken. It is very hard to hold him and my hair at the same time. While I try to get my hair to cover my diamond, Peabody breaks free and jumps out of my arms and barks furiously.

‘What a racket,’ the lady says, trying to hold on to her bird.

‘Peabody, knock it off.’ I have to let go of my hair for a minute to pick him up. When I look up, the woman is staring at my face. I brace myself for what is coming, for the look I get when somebody has seen something they did not know they would get to see.

‘Well,’ she says, eyeing me and taking a step closer. She opens her mouth and shuts it. Peabody is still barking. I back toward the door.

‘I was out looking for my missing chicken here when I saw you on the porch. I live at the farm down the road. I am Mrs Theodore Marsh. I keep an eye on the place for the old gentleman who owns this house. He lives in Florida now in a rest home. This porch is not for just anybody who feels like coming up and sitting here.’

Peabody squirms and I squeeze him tighter. ‘I am waiting for my aunts,’ I say finally, not sure how to describe
Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter. I look behind me, wondering where they are.

‘Well, you can just do your waiting someplace else.’

‘I mean I am waiting for my aunts who live here.’ I look back toward the house.

‘Nonsense, nobody lives here. You have the wrong house.’

Peabody has gotten very quiet. He is watching the chicken to see what it will do next. I breathe out deeply, just like Pauline taught me for when things get troubled, then in again, then out. I am getting a little dizzy from all the breathing. I am also getting a little worried about the things the lady is saying.

A bee buzzes around the chicken and it clucks and squawks and
brawk-acks
and the lady has to stop paying attention to me so she can get her chicken calmed down again.

Finally, she says, ‘I didn’t know any aunts had moved in and I didn’t know there was a child visiting, or a
funny-looking
dog.’

I want to cover Peabody’s ears so he won’t hear the awful things the lady is saying, but I am still holding my hair tight. She steps closer and I know she is trying to see the diamond on my cheek.

I want Pauline. I want her to come and look into my eyes and tell me I am beautiful and how I don’t need to pay any attention to a lady who is looking at me like I am
the heel end of a loaf of bread.

‘My aunts must be napping but I am sure they will be pleased to make your acquaintance when they are rested, ma’am.’

The chicken pokes its head up from under the lady’s arm. This is more than Peabody can stand. He wiggles out of my grasp and jumps onto the porch and rushes toward the hen. It squawks and gets a wing loose and in an instant is free and flutters to the ground. Peabody pounces on the chicken and the two of them roll around in the dirt, looking like a mess of fur and feathers. The woman screams and I fly down and pull Peabody off, but not before he gets a mouthful of white feathers.

‘Brawk-ack!’ the chicken squawks.

‘Bad dog,’ I roar, ‘bad, bad dog.’

‘Oh, my Daphne, my Daphne,’ whimpers the lady, scooping her chicken back into her arms and patting it all over to see if a wing is broken. ‘I have never met a more disagreeable dog. Make sure it never comes near my chickens again.’ Then she turns for the road. ‘And tell your aunts I will be back to meet them. And I will be writing a letter to the man who owns this property.’

Then she flips open the gate and hurries through. Peabody barks as she marches away.

‘That woman sure puts a bee in my bonnet,’ chuckles Mrs Potter, who all of a sudden is standing by the swing, straightening her orange flappy hat.

‘I could have used your help,’ I say, looking out to where Mrs Marsh is hurrying down the road.

But Mrs Potter ignores me. ‘Come on, Beatrice. We need to go to the market. I understand you like cake.’ Then she is limping past me and Peabody is right behind.

Ralph’s Market is a small grocery on Main Street between the post office and Sam’s Drugs. Across the street is Roberta’s Dress Shoppe and beside that is a Woolworths. Paper signs hang from all the grocery windows:

The street bustles with folks. I cover my face with my hair. There’s a new hole in the bottom of my work boots and the stones on the side of the road cut at my feet.

Mrs Potter hands me a black leather envelope held together with a thick rubber band. It is worn through in some places and is very heavy with bills. ‘Make sure you count the money exactly. Don’t let them take it from you before you count everything twice. Or three times would be even better.’ She raises an eyebrow to make sure I am listening.

I look up at her quickly. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

Mrs Potter shakes her head. ‘I’ll stay out here with Peabody. Lie down,’ she tells him, and he stands there wagging his stumpy tail. She pulls a tea biscuit from her pocket and holds it up. He flops down. ‘Get more biscuits,’ she tells me.

Three teenage boys in white T-shirts walk out of the store and light their cigarettes. I pull my hair tight. I’ve never been in a store without Pauline.

The boys in the white T-shirts lean against the side of the building. One blows little smoke rings in the air. All three are watching me.

‘But why can’t you come in?’ I glance back at Mrs Potter and Peabody. Mrs Potter waves me on. ‘They don’t let dogs in markets, Bee.’

I hold my hair tight as a bedsheet. I count my steps – fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
Don’t look at them, don’t look at them, don’t look at them.
When I have counted twenty-two steps, I am past the boys and I grab the door and hurry inside.

There are plump oranges on the shelf and peaches so ripe I know they will melt in my mouth as soon as they meet my tongue. I load some of each into my cart, along with three fat lemons for my face. There are
emerald-coloured
green beans and romaine lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers and green peppers and Swiss chard. I take a bunch of each. I pass the turnips, zucchini and collard
greens because when you are in charge of the grocery shopping, you get to buy what you like.

Sometimes Bobby would pull the truck over at a diner because French toast made Pauline’s eyes glisten, and we ordered big stacks with strawberries on top, so I pick up all the ingredients: bread, milk, eggs, butter, cinnamon and strawberries. Since I have no ration stamps and folks at the Ration Board would ask too many questions about why I don’t have a mama or a papa, I take honey, but not sugar. I get new tea for Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter, a bag of dog food for Peabody and new tea biscuits.

Pauline taught me to make tomato sandwiches, and I like those very much. You need ripe tomatoes and thick heavy bread and also some mayonnaise and some mustard.

And you need salt. I go back three aisles for salt because if Mrs Potter and Mrs Swift have any, it is sure to be hard as brick.

And that’s the aisle where all the makings for a cake are staring me in the face. So, I do what any girl who loves cake would do: I pick up flour and a little bottle of vanilla, and while I am there I pick up a
Rumford Sugarless Recipes
pamphlet and flip through it: special cake, honey cake, cupcakes with sugarless frosting, apple corn muffins, banana cake, honey spice cake.

I put the pamphlet into my cart and go back for corn syrup because all the cakes use that instead of sugar. I
pick up a chicken and a few other supper things and some rice, since I like rice very much. Then I wheel my cart to the cash register.

I used to have Pauline to help me do this, but now I have to put the groceries on the counter myself. This is not easy when you are trying to keep your hair pulled tight. Pick up the flour, put it on the counter, reach for the eggs. Pick up the vanilla, put it on the counter, reach for the milk.

Two ladies are behind me now, with full carts. I feel them getting frustrated with how slow I am going. I know they are rolling their eyes. The boys in the T-shirts walk back into the store. That’s when I reach for the eggs and drop them.

‘Oh, heavens,’ says the lady behind me, and I start cleaning up a dozen broken eggs with my hands, my hair no longer covering my diamond, my eyes full. I do not look at the boys.

When I get the broken eggs back in the carton and up on the counter, the cashier looks at my face like it is a painting on a wall to be looked at. I keep blinking my eyes to clear my tears as I reach in the envelope for a pile of money and hand it to her, without counting.

I try to be brave but as soon as I get outside, Mrs Potter pulls me close. Her shawl smells very old with my nose crushed against it.

‘Don’t give heed to those who stare, Bee,’ she says,
lifting my chin and looking in my eyes. ‘Be proud of who you are.’

The tears really start tumbling then, and Peabody jumps so he can sniff at the shopping bags, and Mrs Potter turns us toward home. I wipe my eyes with my shirt and carry the groceries. Peabody skips at my feet and Mrs Potter shuffles behind, muttering to herself.

I do wonder about all the folks we pass on the sidewalk who are in such a hurry they cannot give extra room to an old lady who limps so.