The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (128 page)

“Two days before my birthday we’re heading for Disneyland. A week there and we fly to where the graves are. Gotta visit cemeteries, buy flowers, put the flowers in the sun where they can die. Hate graves. Hate Jory’s grandmother, who don’t like me ’cause I can’t dance.”

Again she kissed me. “Bart . . . tell your parents there have been too many graves in your life. Tell them again how unhappy it makes you feel.”

“Won’t listen,” I said dully. “They don’t ask what I want like you do. They just tell me I have to do.”

“I’m sure they’ll listen if you tell them about your dreams of being dead. They’ll know then they have taken you too many times into cemeteries. Just tell them the truth.”

“But . . . but . . . ,” I sputtered unhappily. “I want Disneyland!”

“You tell them like I said, and I’ll take care of Apple.”

Felt frantic. Once I turned the care of Apple over to anyone, he’d never be all mine again. I sobbed because life was so impossible. And my plan to escape had to work, it would, had to . . .

We rocked on and on, and she said we were on a sailing ship riding choppy waters to a beautiful island called peace. I lost my land legs, so when I reached there I couldn’t stand or find my balance. She disappeared. Alone, all alone. Like on Mars—and way back on Earth Apple was waiting for me to show up. Poor Apple. In the end he’d have to die.

I woke up, I think—where was I? Why was everyone so old? Momma . . . why have you got your face covered with black?

“Wake up, sweetheart. I think you’d better hurry home before your parents become alarmed. You’ve had a nice nap, so you must feel better.”

*  *  *

Next morning I was in the yard trying to finish up that doghouse I was building for Clover. Poor Clover should have had his own house all along, and then he wouldn’t have run away looking for one. From Daddy’s toolshed I took a hammer, nails, saw, wood, and lugged it out into the yard. I set to. Dratted saw didn’t know how to cut straight. Gonna have a crooked house. If Clover complained I’d give him a kick. I picked up my jaggedly sliced board and put it on the roof. Dratted nail! Didn’t stand still, made the hammer hit my thumb. Stupid hammer didn’t see my fingers! I went right on hammering. Good thing I couldn’t feel little pains or I’d be crying. Then I smashed my thumb good and it hurt. Gosh, I was feeling pain like any normal boy.

Jory dashed out of the house yelling at me: “Why are you
building a house for Clover when he’s been gone two weeks? Nobody has answered our ads. He’s no doubt dead by now, and if he does come home he will sleep on the foot of my bed, remember?” Dumb. Dumb, that’s what he meant, and Clover might come back. Poor Clover.

I sneaked a glance and saw Jory swipe at the tears in his eyes. “Day after tomorrow we’re leaving for Disneyland, and that should make you happy,” he said hoarsely. Did it make me happy? My swollen thumb began to ache a little. Apple was gonna die from loneliness.

Then I had an idea. John Amos had told me that prayers brought about miracles, and God was up there in his heaven looking out for dumb animals down here and people too. Momma and Daddy had always told me not to ask for things in my prayers, only blessings for other people, not myself. So, as soon as Jory was gone I threw down my hammer and raced to where I could kneel and pray for my puppy-pony and for Clover. Next I went to Apple, rolling with him on the golden grass, me laughing, him trying to whinny-bark. His tongue slurped my face with wet kisses. I kissed him back. When he lifted his leg and aimed at the roses—I took off my pants and let go too. We did everything together.

It came to me then just what to do. “Don’t you worry none, Apple I’ll only spend one week in Disneyland before I come back to you. I’ll hide your puppy-pony biscuits under the hay and leave the water tap dripping in your pail. But don’t you dare eat or drink anything John Amos gives you, or my grandmother either. Don’t you let anybody bribe you with goodies.”

He wagged his tail, telling me he’d be good and obey my orders. He’d made a big pile of do-do. I picked it up and squashed it through my fingers, letting him know I was a part of him now and he was really mine. I wiped my hands on the grass and saw ants come running and flies going to work. No wonder nothing lasted, no wonder.

“Time for your lessons, Bart,” called John Amos from the
barn, his bald head gleaming in the sunlight. I felt captured as I lay on the hay and stared at him towering over me. He smelled old and stale.

“Are you reading Malcolm’s journal faithfully?” he asked.

“Yes sir.”

“Are you teaching yourself the ways of the Lord and saying your prayers dutifully?”

“Yes sir.”

“Those who follow in his footsteps will be judged accordingly, as will those who don’t. Let me give you an example. Once there was a beautiful young girl who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and she had everything money could buy—but did she appreciate all she had?
No, she didn’t!
When she grew older she began to tempt men with her beauty. She’d flaunt her half-nakedness before their eyes. She was high and mighty, but the Lord saw and He punished her, though it took Him some time. The Lord, through Malcolm, made her crawl and cry and pray for release, and Malcolm bested her in the end. Malcolm always bested everyone in the end—
and
so must you.”

Boy, he sure could tell boring stories. We had naked people in our garden and I wasn’t tempted. I sighed, wishing he had more subjects to talk about than God and Malcolm . . . and some darn beautiful girl.

“Beware of beauty in women, Bart. Beware of the woman who shows you her body without clothes. Beware of all those women who lie in wait to do you in and be like Malcolm,
clever!”

Finally he let me go. I was glad to be done with pretending I was like Malcolm. All I had to do to feel really good was to crawl sneakily on the ground, listening to the jungle noises in the dense foliage where wild animals lurked. Dangerous animals ready to gobble me down. I jerked. Bolted upright.
No!
That couldn’t be what I thought it was. Just wasn’t fair for God to send a dinosaur. Taller than a skyscraper. Longer than a train. I had to jump up and run off to find Jory and
tell him what we had hangin around our backyard.

A noise in the jungle ahead! I stopped short, gasping for breath.

Voices. Talking snakes?

“Chris, I don’t care what you say. It is not necessary for you to visit her again this summer. Enough is enough. You’ve done what you can to help her and you can’t. So forget her and concentrate on us, your family.”

I peeked around a bush. Both my parents were in the prettiest part of the garden, where the larger trees grew. Momma was on her knees, mulching the ground around the roses. Green thumb she had, and he did too.

“Cathy, must you stay a child forever?” he asked. “Can’t you ever learn to forgive and forget? Perhaps you can pretend she doesn’t exist, but I can’t. I keep thinking we are the only family she has left.” He pulled her to her feet, then put his hand over her mouth when it opened to interrupt. “All right, hold on to your hatred, but I’m a doctor sworn to do what I can for those in distress. Mental illnesses can be more devastating than physical ailments. I want to see her recover. I want her to leave that place—so don’t glare at me and tell me again that she was never insane, that she was only pretending. She’d have to be crazy to do what she did. And for all we know the twins might never have grown tall anyway. Like Bart. He’s not of normal height for a boy his age.”

Oh, wasn’t I?

“Cathy, how can I feel good about myself, or anything, if I neglect my own mother?”

“All right!” stormed Momma. “Go on and visit her! Jory, Bart, Cindy, and I will stay on with Madame Marisha. Or we could fly on to New York so I can visit with some old friends until you’re ready to join us again.” She gave him a crooked smile. “That is, if you still want to join us.”

“Where else would I go but to you? Who cares if I live or die but you and our children? Cathy, think about this—the
day I turn my back on my mother will also be the day I turn my back on all women, including you.”

She fell into his arms then and did all that mushy loving stuff I hated to see. I backed away, still on my hands and knees, wondering about what Momma had said, and why she hated his mother so much. I felt a little sick in my stomach. What if my grandmother next door really was my stepfather’s mother, truly crazy, loving me only because she had to. What if John Amos was telling the truth?

It was so hard to figure out. Was Corrine Malcolm’s real daughter like John Amos had told me?—was she the one who had “tempted” John Amos? Or was that Malcolm who hated someone pretty and half-naked. Sometimes I got confused after reading Malcolm’s book; he’d skip back to his childhood and write about his memories even after he was grown up, like his childhood was more important than his adult life. How odd. I couldn’t wait to grow up.

I heard them again, coming at me. Quickly I crawled under the nearest hedges.

“I love you, Chris, as much as you love me. Sometimes I think we both love too much. I wake up at night if you’re not there. I want you to not be a doctor, but a man who stays home every night. I want my sons to grow up, but each day brings them nearer to learning our secret, and I’m so afraid they’ll hate us and won’t understand.”

“They’ll understand,” he said. How could he know I would understand when I wasn’t good at understanding even simple things, much less something so bad it woke Momma up at night.

“Cathy, have we been bad parents? Haven’t we done the best we could? After living with us from their childhood, how can they help but understand? We’ll tell them how it was, give them all the facts, so they will see it as we lived it. In so doing, they’ll wonder, as I often wonder, how we survived without losing our minds.”

John Amos was right. They had to be sinning or they wouldn’t be so afraid we wouldn’t understand. And what secret? Whatever were they hiding?

I stayed under the hedges long after my parents went into the house. I had favorite caves I’d made deep in the hedges, and when I was inside them I felt like some small woody animal, scared of everything human that would kill me if possible.

Malcolm was on my mind, him and his brain that was so wise and cunning. I thought of John Amos, who was teaching me about God, the Bible, and sinning. It wasn’t until I thought of Apple and my grandmother that I felt good. Not real good, only a little good.

Fell on the ground and began to sniff around, trying to find something I’d buried last week, or a month ago. Looked in the little fish pond Daddy wanted us to have so we could watch how baby fish were born. I’d seen itty-bitty fish come out of eggs, and the parents swam like crazy to gobble down their children!

“Jory! Bart!” called Momma from the open kitchen door, “Dinnertime!”

I peered into the water. There was my face, all funny-looking, with jagged edges, hair up in points, not curly and pretty like Jory’s. Something dark red was on my face—ugly face that didn’t belong in a pretty gardens where the little birds came to bathe in a fancy bath. I was bleeding tears. I dipped my hands in the fish water and washed my face. Then sat back to think. That’s when I saw the blood on my leg—lots of blood that was drying in a big dark clot on my knee. Didn’t really matter because it didn’t hurt too much.

Wonder how it got there? I retraced my crawl with my eyes. That board with the rusty nail—had I driven that in my knee? I crawled over to the board and felt the blood sticky on its end. Daddy called nail holes in skin “punctures,” and I guess I had one. “Now, it’s very important that a puncture
bleeds freely,” he explained. Mine wasn’t bleeding freely.

I put my finger in the puncture and stirred up the blood so it would run. Freaky people like me could do awful things like that, while sissy people like Momma would look sick. Blood in my wound felt hot and thick, just like that pudding stuff Apple had made and I had squeezed through my fingers because it not only made him more mine, but it felt good too.

Maybe I wasn’t so freaky after all, for all of a sudden I was beginning to feel real pain. Mean pain.

“BART!” bellowed Daddy from the back veranda. “You get in this house instantly! Unless you want a spanking!”

When they were in the dining room they couldn’t see me sneak in the family room sliding door, and that’s just what I did. In the bathroom I washed my hands, put on my pj’s to hide my bad knee, and, quiet and meek, joined my family at the table.

“Well, it’s about time,” said Momma, who looked pretty.

“Bart, why do you insist on causing trouble every time we sit down to eat?” asked Daddy. I hung my head, not feeling sorry, just not feeling well. Knee was really throbbing with pain, and what John Amos said about God punishing those who disobeyed must be right. I was being judged, and a knee puncture was my own hellfire.

Next day I was back in the garden, hiding in one of my special places. All day I sat there and enjoyed my pain, which meant I was normal, not a freak. I was being punished like all other sinners who’d always felt pain. Wanted to miss dinner. Had to go and see Apple. Couldn’t remember if I’d been over there or not. Drank a little from the fishpond. Lap, lap, lap, like a cat.

Momma had been packing all day, smiling even early this morning when she put my clothes in a suitcase first. “Bart, try to be a good boy today for a change. Come to your meals on time and then Daddy won’t have to spank you before bedtime. He doesn’t like punishing you, but he does have a way
to discipline you. And do try to eat more. You won’t enjoy Disneyland if you feel sick.”

Sunset changed the blue sky to pretty colors. Jory ran outdoors to watch the colors he said were like music. Jory could also “feel” colors; they made him glad, sad, lonely, and “mystical.” Momma was another one who could “feel” colors. Now that I was getting the knack of feeling pain, maybe soon I’d learn to feel colors too.

Real night started coming. Darkness could bring out the ghosts. Emma tinkled her little crystal bell to call me in to dinner. Wanted so badly to go, but couldn’t do it.