Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth (3 page)

Shirley comes back to her seat.

"Whereat in the Bible does it say we ain't allowed to dig?" I ask her.

"Mama says the Lord don't mind us digging, long as we're just planting seeds. But we go digging for things that ain't in the Bible and we're asking for trouble."

***

Miss Sizemore hands out goggles so we don't get our eyes hurt. We look like scuba divers. Whole class walks down the steps and into where the old primary playground was. They had a ditch digger come and chew right through the blacktop. Got a big pile of dirt up by the street. You can walk into the hole from one side, so we go in and kneel by some big slabs of rock. Miss Sizemore says they's shale and limestone. And they's just a-teeming with all kinds of shells.

***

Shirley Whirly sets on the edge of a rock, her shoes banging against the side.

I know Mama would be proud of me if I set with Shirley, but truth to tell, I can't wait to see what I can turn up. It's like a treasure hunt.

Me and Herschel's chipping away on one of them slabs. You got to chip real careful to get a piece out. Everyone's excited. Our whole class, we's spread out over the hole like a bunch of carpenter ants. One group chips a whole bunch of crinoids loose—them's little sea plants with dots like goose bumps—and another group brings out some clams and a starfish. Me and Herschel chip out some coral, and I find a long, fat point that Miss Sizemore says come from a squid. We give them to Shirley. She puts our names on them. When we go back into the building, we clean all them fossils up with some old toothbrushes and put them on a table for display.

But every time I walk by that window, I want to get out and dig. Can't wait to see what I can turn up.

Herschel, too. We go out after school. Don't even need a shovel. Just our hammers and chisels. We find a good slab, and Herschel's working to bring up a starfish. I got this little round animal with ridges I'm working on. Want to bring it up whole. Dust is flying up, and my fingernails is getting dirty. Herschel gets himself all but one point of the starfish. "Wow!" he says. "I'm putting this in my collection."

"Collection?" I say. "What kind of collection?"

"Things I find. Daddy got me a cabinet with glass doors. Every time I find something, I put it in there—arrowheads, fossils, bird feathers. I love collecting things."

"Me, too," I say. And I'm thinking, I'll get me a box. Something to keep all my fossils in. I'll have a
collection.

I'm cracking all around these ridges, and pieces is falling away, and what do you know, I find this funny-looking animal. "Look at this," I say to Herschel. Looks sort of like a pill bug, all rolled up. It's an inch and a half, just like one of them pictures Miss Sizemore give us.

"Wow," he says, "you got a trilobite."

"Think so?" I'd love it to be a trilobite. I wrap it up in notebook paper and put it in my backpack.

***

Granny's wondering where I've been.

"Digging," I say, and I show her my fossil.

"Lordy, look at that," she says. She picks it up. "Looks like a little crab. Look at them eyes."

"Little bitty eyes," I say. They's sticking out of each side of his head. "Me and Herschel think he's a trilobite."

"Ohhh," says Granny. I told her all about them yesterday.

I take a pen with an old-time point to pick off all the grit, and an old toothbrush to clean him up good. I wrap him in an old sock so I can show him to Miss Sizemore.

Then I find a cigar box down in the cellar. Whenever I find new fossils, I'll put them in here. This will be my collection. I take it up to my room and set it on my dressing table. It's an old wood dressing table with arms that pull out and a drawer inside.

***

Next day I show that little animal to Miss Sizemore. Herschel comes in early with me.

"Oh my," she says. She puts down her cinnamon crisp and wipes her hands. "Mary Mae, you've found a trilobite."

"See, I told you," says Herschel.

And when the whole class is in, she has them gather around.

My trilobite ain't got no legs, only just the shell that was made from the limestone. But it looks just like a real animal to me.

After school, me and Herschel go out and dig some more. He finds some horned coral, and I find some crinoids and a giant snail.

***

When I get home, I show them to Granny. "And you know what, Granny, that little animal I found yesterday really was a trilobite." She starts picking out a tune on her guitar.

"
Trilobite crab, trilobite crab,
He don't need no taxicab.
Critter and a swimmer from another age.
Don't need a tank and he don't need a cage.
"

Then she hands me her guitar—she's been showing me how to do chords—and I pick out some more words:

"
Trilobite crab, trilobite crab,
Little bitty eyes and a nose like a scab.
Rolls in a ball like a little pill bug.
Swims in the water and he sings, 'Glub, glub.'
"

"Hey, we just made up a song," I say.

"That's how you do it," says Granny. "If you work too hard at it, it won't work. You just gotta let it bubble up."

Mama drops me off at Brother Lucas's Wednesday night. He's got a swing on his porch and a big old knocker on the front door. His wife gives us some Hi Ho crackers with grape jelly and fruit punch. Everybody's here but Jonathan Safer. He's got a cold. We go downstairs to Brother Lucas's cellar and all take turns standing next to one of the plywood boards so we can figure out where to cut the hole—not too high for some, not too low for others. Him and Orlin measure down six inches and draw a big rectangle, then we each take turns putting on goggles and cutting the hole with Brother Lucas's jigsaw.

Feels like it could rattle right out of my hand.

We put the three pieces flat out on the floor and hinge them together. Then Brother Lucas gives us some old draw drapes we can use on the opening, and we screw them on.

Jed Bean and Chester Morley don't help much, just go riding around the cellar on Brother Lucas's son's kiddie car. It's me, Orlin Coates, and Chloe doing all the work.

"All right, next we got to list the parts for the play," says Brother Lucas. He writes on a piece of cardboard.

God
Adam & Eve
The Devil

"I'm God," says Orlin. Him being the tallest and the pastor's son, we don't argue.

"I get to be Eve," says Chloe, fluffing out her hair.

"Hey, wait a minute," I say. "There ain't no more girl's parts."

"You could be the Devil," says Chester Morley.

"Maybe I will," I say.

"No, I'm the Devil," says Jed Bean.

"Settle down," says Brother Lucas. He writes two more parts on the board.

Noah
Mrs. Noah

"I think Mary Mae should be Mrs. Noah," says Brother Lucas.

"She didn't do nothing," I say.

"Yes, she did," says Brother Lucas. "She was in charge of the animals."

I'm thinking he's making this up, just to give me something to do, but I always did like Noah's ark. I had me a cardboard one with little plastic animals I used to march around in the dirt. "But how are we doing all them animals?" I say. "I don't want to be in charge of a hundred puppets."

"You draw them on the backdrop," says Brother Lucas.

Oh yes, backdrop. All them animals marching into the ark.

And then Brother Lucas says, "Chester Morley, I want you to be Noah."

Oh no. I'm Chester Morley's wife. Him and his penguin walk. I'd lock myself in a closet before I'd marry Chester.

Brother Lucas writes all our names on the cardboard, then gets a paper bag and pulls out some big old blocks of wood with the ends all narrowed down. "This here's balsa wood," he says. "Nice and light. They's got a finger hole drilled." He sticks his finger up one. "You can carve out a face—or just paint one on if you can't carve—glue on some yarn for hair, attach a body. Get your mama or daddy to help you."

Since Orlin, being God, don't have to make a puppet, Brother Lucas says he can help Jonathan Safer make Adam.

"You boys and girls bring these puppets in next Sunday," says Brother Lucas.

Orlin Coates takes Brother Lucas's empty bag and pulls it over his head. "God here. I think I'll make me a universe."

And then, I don't know why, I just can't stop myself, I say, "Is this really the way God done it?" I'm the only one in my Sunday school class that goes to DeSailles North, the only one that has Miss Sizemore.

"What do you mean, Mary Mae?" says Brother Lucas.

"Did God really make the world the way it says in the Bible?"

Orlin Coates pulls the bag off his head, crosses his arms like a school principal. "Mary Mae, I'm surprised at you."

"The Bible is God's holy word," says Chloe, and she's glancing from me to Brother Lucas, shaking her hair all over her shoulders, looking at me like I'm lost to Hell.

Jed Bean and Chester Morley ain't paying no attention, just pretend fighting with yardsticks.

"Mary Mae, this puppet show has a purpose," says Brother Lucas.

Orlin's folding the paper bag up all perfect, like he never had it on his head. "It's to show us the true Creation," he says.

***

Mama picks me up and wants to hear all about the making of the puppet stage. "We didn't do nothing like that when I was in Sunday school," she says.

We get home, and she finds an old yellow and white checked apron, says I can use it for Mrs. Noah.

"They didn't have checks in them days," I say.

"How do you know?" says Mama.

"Because I seen the pictures. They weared stripes, like Joseph's coat of many colors."

"We don't have no stripes," says Mama, "so you're just going to have to use this." Mama don't like buying things she don't have to. She runs up a yellow checked puppet's body on her portable sewing machine.

"Looks like a housewife," I say.

"That's exactly what she was," says Mama. "Now get you some hair and paint on a face, and you'll have you a real nice puppet."

Only color yarn I can find up in the attic is blue, so I glue it on, but I don't know how to carve, so I just paint on a face with poster paint. I do a pink mouth, orange cheeks, and purple eyes.

And I set Mrs. Noah on a pop bottle on my dressing table.

Sunday, Brother Lucas brings the puppet stage to church in the back of his pickup. The boys go out and carry it in, and we set it up in the junior corner.

Chloe pulls Eve out of a shopping bag, holds her up. She's got two big red titties with sparkles in the middle.

"Got these off my mama's coat," says Chloe.

Chester Morley whistles.

"Shut up," says Chloe.

Then he looks at Mrs. Noah. "Ew, blue hair."

"Looks better than yours," I say.

Chester's glued on some carpet padding for Noah's hair, looks like a thatched roof, and his coat's made from a dirty dishtowel.

Jonathan Safer don't have Adam done yet, since he wasn't there Wednesday. And Orlin Coates didn't help him none by working on it at home. Just hands him the block of wood. But Jed Bean done up the Devil like a real artist. Carved out a snake's head with its mouth open and glued in a long red tongue. Had to add him another finger hole, too, since the snake's head needs to set sideways, not straight up and down. He done it with his daddy's drill. Then the rest of the snake's body is made from old pajamas with a red and blue diamond pattern.

Brother Lucas brings in a box of permanent Magic Markers and an old sheet ripped up so we can do the backdrops.

"We'll just draw what God done," says Brother Lucas, "except for Day One. We don't need to draw nothing, since God just separated the light from the dark. We'll use a flashlight and this here backdrop." He takes out a bamboo pole with some black cheesecloth stapled onto it and puts it across the back of the puppet theatre.

Orlin and Jed, they draw Day Two, where God separates the water from the sky. Chester Morley, him and Jonathan Safer do Day Three, making plants and trees. Me and Chloe, we're doing Day Four, where God makes the sun, moon, and stars. But I start thinking, How did God separate the light from the dark on Day One if he didn't make the sun, moon, and stars till Day Four?

I ask Brother Lucas.

"Mary Mae, if God wants to separate something before he makes it, that's his privilege. Don't go asking questions. This is the
Bible,
Mary Mae."

"Maybe it was a different kind of light God made on Day One," says Orlin, trying to play Brother Lucas.

"You mean he made some infrared rays?" I say.

"Maybe there was glow-in-the-dark rocks," says Chester Morley.

"There wasn't no rocks till Day Three," I say.

"Mary Mae, you got to have faith," says Chloe. She looks at Brother Lucas to make sure he heard, then fluffs out her angel hair.

Jed Bean moves on to Day Five, making sea monsters and fish and birds. He's good at that. The rest of us color them in. Orlin's doing Day Six, drawing a lot of animals.

Them Magic Markers is making the junior corner smell like a paint factory.

We attach each of them pictures to a bamboo stick with a staple gun, and then we roll them up and rest them across the top of the puppet stage. Orlin hammers in some nails between each stick to keep them separate. So we got Days One to Six all lined up. Don't need no Day Seven, since God didn't do nothing but rest. Brother Lucas asks who would like to be in charge of the backdrops.

Ain't nobody wants to do it, so I say I will. All you got to do is pull down each day.

Meantimes, Chester and me's supposed to draw the ark, but we ain't good at animals. Jed Bean helps us out by copying a picture Brother Lucas give us. It's got all them animals marching into the ark, but while he's outlining the elephant, I start thinking again. "What about dinosaurs?" I say. "They got to be on the ark."

"Mary Mae, the Bible don't have no dinosaurs," says Chloe, real loud so Brother Lucas can pat her on the head.