he ended up going to Springfield because the winner busted his collarbone at the last minute. That’s the kind of luck Matt has. On the way home May said one thing. She turned around to me at the stop sign and said, “I’m never going to give you nothin’ valuable again.”
Later that night I went out to the plateau and stared into the sky, thinking how I didn’t care about the gems. I didn’t care about the cassette recorder Aunt Sid had placed on my lap, including five full tapes. I was going to pin stars on my chest, real ones. I’d walk into the house with a huge shining star on me, it’d blind May, and she would fall to her knees saying how sorry she was.
One Saturday, a year after the spelling bee, I was over at Miss Finch’s house, even though I didn’t have to visit her on the weekends. There was something about her, with no eyes to see, that made it seem all right to tell her thoughts. We were listening to
Emma.
I started telling Miss Finch I wished I could be in that book; the people were so funny and even the bad characters weren’t too terrible. We were talking about their faults a little and I told her that compared to May, with the sharp flat back of her hand, and Elmer, who was about as emotional as a corpse, the English people didn’t do anything very terrible. It seemed like having pride was the biggest sin back then, and not knowing yourself through and through. Miss Finch said she wanted to hold my hand so I let her. Hers was all scaly like a fish’s back.
She said she could tell I had good thoughts—good thoughts, she said—and that I shouldn’t ever let people put me down, that I had to try and rise above any meanness I saw. She asked me if I told my Aunt Sid the things I told her, and I said, “Sure,” even though I was lying. She put her fingers on my face and she said that she knew I was beautiful. I felt something far down inside me the size of a pin point flicker and then glow for a minute.
Six
I HAVE to go backwards one more time, to a certain Sunday when the Rev called upon us in church. It was one of the children’s Sundays when Matt and I were small. We had to go up to the pulpit to hear the words from our Rev. I watched his brown shoes tapping the green carpet while he sat there with us discussing how great it is for people to have friends. Better yet, Best Friends. He had a mustache that didn’t amount to anything and places on his cheeks where it looked like he hurt himself shaving. He said that sometimes a good friend surprised a person, with their generosity and kindness. He told us about Lazarus, in the Holy Bible, and how Lazarus was just a bag of dry bones, and then bingo, Jesus comes along and puts him back together: puts skin on him, restores his beard and the creases in his wrists, and makes him breathe. The Rev said Lazarus was lucky to have such a good friend in Jesus. He mentioned that the Lord could be our friend also. For a while after that story I tried to get in touch with Jesus, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. You have to create him in your mind’s eye, and I already had my mind’s eye cluttered with owls flapping their quiet wings and frogs calling through mud. Still, when I saw bones of sheep out in the pasture, a whole skeleton picked clean, I imagined it all of a sudden covered back up with wool and eyeballs and nostrils, and I ached for the Son of God to come on over and do his magic. That old skeleton was Gloria, one of my favorite sheep. Now I’d have to say that the Lazarus story is about the craziest section in the book.
I remember when the Rev was talking about friends, how he looked at Matt and me sitting together like we belonged, like we were supposed to be playmates. The Rev didn’t know that my brother lived in an entirely different landscape, that Matt thought he was a handsome oak tree vigorously climbing up toward the light, while May and I were scrawny mulberry bushes.
By the time we were in high school
Later that night I went out to the plateau and stared into the sky, thinking how I didn’t care about the gems. I didn’t care about the cassette recorder Aunt Sid had placed on my lap, including five full tapes. I was going to pin stars on my chest, real ones. I’d walk into the house with a huge shining star on me, it’d blind May, and she would fall to her knees saying how sorry she was.
One Saturday, a year after the spelling bee, I was over at Miss Finch’s house, even though I didn’t have to visit her on the weekends. There was something about her, with no eyes to see, that made it seem all right to tell her thoughts. We were listening to
Emma.
I started telling Miss Finch I wished I could be in that book; the people were so funny and even the bad characters weren’t too terrible. We were talking about their faults a little and I told her that compared to May, with the sharp flat back of her hand, and Elmer, who was about as emotional as a corpse, the English people didn’t do anything very terrible. It seemed like having pride was the biggest sin back then, and not knowing yourself through and through. Miss Finch said she wanted to hold my hand so I let her. Hers was all scaly like a fish’s back.
She said she could tell I had good thoughts—good thoughts, she said—and that I shouldn’t ever let people put me down, that I had to try and rise above any meanness I saw. She asked me if I told my Aunt Sid the things I told her, and I said, “Sure,” even though I was lying. She put her fingers on my face and she said that she knew I was beautiful. I felt something far down inside me the size of a pin point flicker and then glow for a minute.
Six
I HAVE to go backwards one more time, to a certain Sunday when the Rev called upon us in church. It was one of the children’s Sundays when Matt and I were small. We had to go up to the pulpit to hear the words from our Rev. I watched his brown shoes tapping the green carpet while he sat there with us discussing how great it is for people to have friends. Better yet, Best Friends. He had a mustache that didn’t amount to anything and places on his cheeks where it looked like he hurt himself shaving. He said that sometimes a good friend surprised a person, with their generosity and kindness. He told us about Lazarus, in the Holy Bible, and how Lazarus was just a bag of dry bones, and then bingo, Jesus comes along and puts him back together: puts skin on him, restores his beard and the creases in his wrists, and makes him breathe. The Rev said Lazarus was lucky to have such a good friend in Jesus. He mentioned that the Lord could be our friend also. For a while after that story I tried to get in touch with Jesus, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. You have to create him in your mind’s eye, and I already had my mind’s eye cluttered with owls flapping their quiet wings and frogs calling through mud. Still, when I saw bones of sheep out in the pasture, a whole skeleton picked clean, I imagined it all of a sudden covered back up with wool and eyeballs and nostrils, and I ached for the Son of God to come on over and do his magic. That old skeleton was Gloria, one of my favorite sheep. Now I’d have to say that the Lazarus story is about the craziest section in the book.
I remember when the Rev was talking about friends, how he looked at Matt and me sitting together like we belonged, like we were supposed to be playmates. The Rev didn’t know that my brother lived in an entirely different landscape, that Matt thought he was a handsome oak tree vigorously climbing up toward the light, while May and I were scrawny mulberry bushes.
By the time we were in high school
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