Ask Anybody (2 page)

That took courage. If you could've seen Tad's face, you'd know what I mean. Tad's big and strong for his age. But Sidney just stood his ground with his feet planted wide and a fierce look on his white face. His face was so white I thought he was going to keel over. He was scared but he stayed put, and Tad came at him with his fists clenched, ready to punch the stuffing out of him. My father held on to Tad so he couldn't do Sidney any damage.

“Why'd you do that?” Tad shouted over and over. “Why'd you steal my tooth? You're jealous, that's why. You're too little to lose a tooth. You're jealous!” All the while he was flailing his arms, trying to get loose from my father's grip so he could pound Sidney's head into the rug.

At last, tears streaming down his face, Sidney said, “I didn't want that old tooth fairy coming into my room. I didn't want any old tooth fairy sneaking in while I was asleep and reaching under the pillow. I'm scared of the tooth fairy. I didn't want him coming in while I wasn't looking.” Sidney always calls the tooth fairy Him. I don't know why.

Everybody knows it's a Her.

Poor little Sidney. He doesn't like to know about fairies or leprechauns. He imagines little men moving stealthily around the house, darting from tree to tree like Indians on the warpath, ready to shoot their arrows through the windows and maybe through his head. He looks in the closet, too, before he goes to bed, to make sure there's no one there. He also checks under his bed. And, if you want to be really mean, hide in the dark at the top of the stairs and pounce out at him. That scares him silly.

Dad says he'll grow out of it. In the meantime he's a gentle little boy. I wish he'd get tougher, for his sake. But if he did, he wouldn't be Sidney.

Dad gave Tad a quarter to make up for the stolen tooth. But Tad said it wasn't the same thing, although I notice he didn't give the quarter back. But I know what he means. The night after it happened, I read a story to Sidney before his bedtime. Tad's nose was still out of joint. He said he didn't want to hear any old story so it was just me and Sidney. Halfway through the story, Sidney put his thumb in his mouth and made little sucking noises. He hadn't sucked his thumb in weeks.

“I can't help it,” he told me. “I'm sorry I did what I did. But tonight I need my thumb. It comforts me.”

I'm glad my mother and father didn't give up after they had me.

3

Rowena Hastings says I've been getting very prickly of late. She says I never used to be prickly but now I am. I don't think she's right. If she doesn't quit saying things like that, Rowena and I may no longer be best friends. Rowena has beautiful long brown hair, which she rinses in vinegar to bring out its red highlights. She uses about a quart of vinegar a month. Whenever the strong scent of vinegar is in the air, you may be sure Rowena is in the neighborhood.

I have a second-best friend whose name is Betty Binns. Betty's mother sells cosmetics from door to door. She's a large woman with a wide, smooth face and dark hair, which she scrapes back and ties with a rubber band or a bit of yarn. Some have been known to pull their shades and hide in the closet when Betty's mother approaches, as she's famous for not taking no for an answer. Betty takes after her mother, in both looks and temperament. Betty's father is a TV repairman. Their garage is chock-full of broken-down TV sets. Betty's father has the reputation of being slow but sure. Boys don't stuff notes down Betty's shirt any more than they do mine. Betty is very intelligent. She reads best-sellers. Only best-sellers. Then she tells you the plot. Betty can get quite boring when she tells the plots of all the books she reads, but so far I haven't told her she's boring. I think that would be mean. Even for me.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “When you come right down to it, I'm a pretty boring person”? I bet you haven't. Nobody thinks of themselves as a boring person. Ask anybody. Say, “Do you think you're a boring person?” and they'll probably look very surprised and say, “Well, now that you mention it, no, not really.” Most people think they're fairly interesting. Not outrageously interesting, just moderately so. Very few people actually say to themselves, Boy, am I ever a bore! It goes against the grain, so to speak.

I'm a fairly interesting person. Not always but sometimes. I try to ask intelligent questions and be interested in other people. Like I always find out how many brothers and sisters kids have and what their favorite food is and what television programs they watch. Where their mothers and fathers were born and all. I took a magazine quiz last week to find out how interesting I really am. I scored between seventy-five and eighty, which means I'm fairly interesting. I'd like to raise my score so that I'm classified as a Very Interesting Person rather than just a Fairly. Which is why I'm making an effort to listen intently and ask good questions instead of talking about myself all the time. I won't mention the names of some people who are guilty of talking about themselves. Their initials, however, are R. H. and, sometimes, B. B.

I think it's good to be curious. I don't mean nosy, I mean curious. I like to know about people: where they come from, what they do for a living, what they think about. How old they are. Once a friend of my mother's came over and we were chatting and she said to me, “How old are you?” So I told her. Then I said, “How old are
you
?” back to her. She froze. I mean, I could feel her freezing right in front of me. Her face got very cold, and she left soon afterward without telling me how old she was. When I told my mother, she fell on the floor, laughing.

“Even her own mother doesn't know how old she is!” my mother howled, tears streaming down her face, she was laughing so hard.

Betty Binns just founded the Chum Club. She sent out notices saying membership dues were ten cents a month. Each member, Betty said, had to have a yard sale in her yard. All members of the Chum Club would contribute items to be sold. Proceeds would go to various charitable institutions. Betty sat by her telephone, picking her cuticle, waiting for her phone to ring. She received a blow to her solar plexus, never mind her pride, when no one called. Not a single person. So then she got on the horn and asked everyone in her famous huffy voice why they were sitting on their hands and not calling her.

“I thought perhaps you were out of town,” she said. If any of us goes as far as Bangor once a year, it's a big deal. “Maybe your father forgot to pay his phone bill,” was another thing she said, earning her no friends and a few enemies. No one wanted to join her Chum Club, it seemed.

“Such a dumb name for a club,” Rowena hissed. “I never heard of such a dumb name for a club.” Still, if Rowena hadn't received an invitation, rest assured the fur would've flown. We said if we were expected to contribute items to the yard sale, and go to the trouble of lettering signs and tacking them up on the school bulletin board and putting them in the window of the general store and outside the post office and all, and hanging signs on trees giving directions on how to get there, we wanted the proceeds for ourselves.

Some hard feelings resulted. Betty said she felt sorry for people who were so grasping. But, after a little thought, like about three minutes, she called us up and said O.K., scratch the charitable contributions. Three people signed up for Betty's Chum Club. Me and her and Rowena. Then things came to a grinding halt. Our membership roster fell on its face. I suggested Sidney and Tad as back-up members. After making considerable derogatory remarks as to the suitability of accepting boys, Betty and Rowena finally agreed. But when I mentioned the Chum Club to the boys, they made vomit noises and ran and hid. So for the time being it'll be just the three of us. If you ask me, three members aren't enough for a club. But that's where it stands now. Our first yard sale is scheduled to be the last weekend in April. If it's not snowing. In Maine you never know. Our snow date is the first weekend in May, to be on the safe side. We want to beat the mayflies. They arrive later on in May. No one is safe from them. They have a ferocious bite that lasts for days and raises huge welts.

My mother gave me a couple of ashtrays for the sale. She and my father both quit smoking, so they have all these ashtrays nobody uses. One says, “Old doctors never die, they just lose their patients.” That's my favorite.

I went through my jewelry box and chose a necklace I found last year in the movies. It was tucked down in my seat and I thought at first it might be real diamonds. It turned out not to be real anything. Rowena said her mother said we could have her old fur coat We got all excited and raced over to have a look. After we inspected Rowena's mother's coat, we decided to put a price of two dollars on it, so as to leave room for bargaining. People who go to yard sales expect to bargain. It's no fun if something is marked $1.50 and you pay $1.50 and that's that. Bargaining's half the fun. So you should price items accordingly. I learned that from an article I read in a magazine telling you how to go about organizing a yard sale.

I smell a fight coming up with Betty. So far, she hasn't contributed anything. She claims the Chum Club was her idea so she thinks that should let her off the hook and that she doesn't have to contribute anything. Rowena and I are furious.

I think there's more than meets the eye with a yard sale. It looks as if some personality conflicts were cropping up. Tact may be required to resolve these conflicts. I think we should take a vote on who has the most tact and let that person handle the matter.

One thing sure, it won't be Rowena.

4

We're in luck. A new family moved into the house on the end of our road yesterday. There are a lot of kids, Rowena's mother says. Five or six, maybe. Rowena's mother usually knows. When she isn't being a housewife, she scours the surrounding countryside looking for newcomers. She has appointed herself the official newcomer welcomer. When she sights the moving van on the outskirts of town, Rowena's mother hotfoots it for home and gets all doozied up in her print dress and her black shoes with heels and stuffs a scented hanky down her bosom and marches out with a loaf of her freshly baked bread tucked under her arm to welcome the newcomers. There can never be enough newcomers for her, she says.

My father says that bread is enough to head them off at the pass. He says if the newcomers knew what was waiting for them, they'd turn and run. He says that bread would give an orangutan indigestion. He says if Rowena's mother ever gives us another loaf of her freshly baked bread, he's going to drop it on her foot. He says he'll be very interested to see what happens to Rowena's mother's foot when her bread falls on it.

Anyway, this family has a crowd of kids. They range from little to fairly big, Rowena's mother says. She says she caught a glimpse inside the moving van and counted at least four beds. Maybe more.

“Where do they hail from?” Mrs. Sykes asked Rowena's mother. Mrs. Sykes has a little beard, sort of like a goat, and is hard-of-hearing. She lives alone and takes a bath in the spring and in the fall. When she was a girl, her grandmother told her that too much water dries out the complexion. People tend to avoid Mrs. Sykes. She shouts so people will be sure to hear her.

“I said, ‘Where do they hail from?'” Mrs. Sykes asked again, at the top of her voice, when Rowena's mother didn't answer her right off.

“They're outa staters!” Rowena's mother shouted back. In Maine anyone who isn't born and bred in Maine is an outa stater.

“‘That so?” Mrs. Sykes shook her head despairingly. “Well, might's well try to pretend they're good as you and me. Might's well close our eyes to the fact they're different and just smile and say, ‘Howdy.' God moves in mysterious ways. Maybe He's testing us, wants to see how charitable we can be. Wants to sit back and watch us love our fellowman.” Mrs. Sykes pulled at her little beard the way she does when she's puzzled.

“Can't say as I see why He wants to push us like that, though. I put a dollar in the plate last Sunday. Didn't expect any thanks. Didn't expect a load of foreigners in my front yard, neither!” she said. Then she waddled over to her 1949 Chevvy that has its original tires, and drove home. Everybody in town knows Mrs. Sykes. They try to stay out of her way as much as possible. She drives smack in the middle of the road, to avoid accidents, sounding her horn all the way. Her horn makes a funny little bleating noise that also sounds like a goat. Mrs. Sykes raises goats, which may account for her resembling one. They say people begin to look like their dogs after a while. So that would explain Mrs. Sykes and her beard. Anyway, she was born and raised in Maine.

“Never been outa state but the once,” she brags. “Didn't want to go then, but it was our honeymoon and my husband had relatives over in New Hampshire owed him money. So we went. Didn't stay but the one night, though. Left right after they paid up. He charged 'em interest too. Oh, you shoulda heard 'em when he charged 'em interest.” Then she'd shake her head, and her little beard would tremble with admiration at her husband's cunning.

Rowena couldn't wait to fill Betty and me in on the details of the newcomers.

“There's a girl about our age,” Rowena said. “Got this real cute figure, from what I could see, and she's got curly hair. Permed, most likely.” Rowena rolled her eyes around in her head so vigorously I was fearful they might fly out of their sockets and land in the road.

“Maybe this new girl would be good for our club,” I suggested. “Lord knows we got room.”

Betty said, “She's from outa state,” as if that disqualified the new girl from joining.

“So what?” I said. “I think we should go over there and say hi. How would you feel if you were new in town and nobody even came over and said hi? Wouldn't you feel rotten?”

“I guess,” Rowena said doubtfully. We don't get too many strangers moving in around here, and most folks get clutched at the very idea.