The Secret Hum of a Daisy (14 page)

Tangled

I walked
into the Spoons Souperie, the cowbell ringing above my head, and when lots of people turned from their soup-slurping to look at me, I felt like a gunslinger coming to town. If Mama had been wiping one of the tables, or busy at the condiment station, I would have twitched my hand above my hip and grabbed something like a banana or a coat hanger and drawn it. She would have clutched her chest and spun around, and we would have laughed to pieces.

Instead, Grandma smiled and took her giant black purse off the seat next to her, Sheriff Bergum winked and went back to his berry pie, and Archer scurried away from the table he'd been busing, disappearing into the kitchen, where there was a loud and long clattering, as if he'd launched himself into a mountain of silverware.

I sat down on the red stool next to Grandma and laid out my spoons on the counter. “For Mama's crane,” I said.

Grandma smiled again. “When it's done, we'll hang it wherever you like.”

I nodded, wondering if she'd let me hang it in my shed.

Lou hurried over. “Please tell me you aren't going to be stealing my spoons too!” She and Grandma laughed.

“I don't think Miss Grace here wants to overfamiliarize herself with my jail cell,” Sheriff Bergum said, laughing along.

Even I smiled at that. But I came here for a reason. “Did Mama leave anything here?”

“What do you mean, sweetie?” Lou said as she wiped her crepe-paper hands on a white towel.

“I don't know. Did you ever find anything in the lost and found that might have belonged to her, or . . .” I was grasping. I had no idea what I was looking for. “Did she make anything for your restaurant? A piece of junk art, maybe? Did she paint or draw something?”

The elusive Mel came out from the kitchen with his famous ladle and pointed toward the room where the comfy chairs were. He had a very large, round, and red nose. There wasn't much hair on top of his head, just a thin covering, like he'd spread what little was left with a butter knife.

“There is one thing, I guess,” Lou said, following Mel's ladle. “But your mama didn't take the photograph.”

I jumped up from the stool. “Where?”

Lou slung her towel over one shoulder as she came from behind the counter. Her shoes squeaked as she walked across the floor.

I followed her into the cozy room, and she pointed to a fancy-looking black-and-white photograph of Mama's fountain in Bear River Park. Hanging beside it were three framed sketches of different bird and wing designs, signed in Mama's curly handwriting.

“Your mama was so talented,” Lou said, beaming at the photo and sketches.

Mama never made her clues easy. I always had to use imagination and craftiness to figure out where to go next. The good thing about her treasure hunts from Before, though, was that everyone was in on it, so when I'd get stuck, someone was around to give me a nudge.

This time, I had to rely on my gut, this flimsy little thing that didn't seem to know up from down anymore. I almost wanted to tell Lou or Margery or Grandma. But how do you tell someone that you believed your mama, who had passed along, was still near, like that wavy heat coming off the asphalt on a hot summer day? My own best friend didn't even believe me.

Nope, I was alone in all this.

Lou dusted the glass of the photograph with her white towel. “We were so glad to have a place for Billy's tree house. He helped Mel build it in our yard when he was ten years old and we thought to keep it for the grandkids when they came. When he died, it was too hard to look at it right outside the windows. But it would have been harder to take it down.” She smiled a sad smile. “When your grandma designed the park, with all those different projects in mind, it was the perfect answer for us. So Mel took down the tree house, one plank at a time, and rebuilt it. Now we can visit when we need to. Mel has been known to nap up there on a warm summer day, even went as far as to build a wooden sign that lets people know when it's occupied.”

She pointed to the photograph of Mama's fountain. “Your grandma tends to that fountain and her park like they were actual blood and bone family.”

“So I've heard,” I said.

She looked at me, took the curve of my cheek in her hand. “We've been waiting for you.”

I was so caught off guard by what she said that all I could do was thank her and ask for a minute to myself, where I slumped down in a soft leather chair. It never occurred to me that other people besides Grandma had wondered about me and Mama, hoping we'd come back.

After a little while, Archer came around the corner with a glass of something and sat in the chair next to me. “Here, I made you my favorite,” he said. “It's called an Arnold Palmer. Half lemonade, half iced tea.”

“No way,” I said. “That's my favorite too.”

“Really? I took you for the Shirley Temple type.”

“Ha.”

We sat there for a second, looking at everything but each other.

“How do you work here, anyway? You're not old enough to have a job.”

“Lou is my grandfather's sister.” He shrugged. “They like having me around.”

I noticed he had one dark freckle on his earlobe and one close to it on his jaw. I had the urge to take a pen and draw a line from one to the other.

“I was worried you might not come back,” he said.

I liked the way he could be flustered one minute and direct the next. It made me see I wasn't by myself with my own tangled feelings.

The sun was setting in a burst of orange with rain-cloud slivers. It took up the whole sky.

“Are there lights in the park?” I said.

If he thought that was a strange question, he didn't look it. “Nope.”

So I'd have to wait until tomorrow to go to the fountain.

“Archer Lee Hamilton!” Lou shrieked from the restaurant side.

“Gotta go,” Archer said, and zoomed around the corner.

I stood up and looked again at the photograph of Mama's fountain, the sketches beside it, thinking about Grandma's hard work. How she probably would have traded it all, the park, the fountain, maybe even her own garden, to have us back. I didn't know for sure if that was true. But it felt true. “I'm counting on you to show me the way,” I whispered. I touched my lips and then touched the cold glass of the photograph, missing Mama so much, my bones ached.

A Home

of My Own

My feelings scooted
from one side of things to the other and then back again. Over and over until finally, they crashed so hard to one side, I felt sure they might just knock me flat. Grandma wasn't this horrible person I'd made her out to be. But that didn't mean I could trust her. She couldn't erase what she'd done with all the good deeds in the world because, in the end, what if I made a bad decision? Would she put me on a bus to Texas? I didn't want to go to Texas. It's hot, and there are cows everywhere.

Thinking can steal the magic right out of a thing,
Mama's voice echoed in my head.

So I tried really hard not to think as Grandma drove me to school on Tuesday. Mama had been gone a month and it still felt like I could turn around and she'd be there, arms wide, telling me it had all been a mistake.

Grandma walked me in to excuse my absence and then went into Mr. Flinch's office and closed the door, leaving me to wait for Mrs. Turner to give me a pass. Grandma would have to make it fast, though, since first period was about to start, and Mr. Flinch had to get to class.

Mrs. Turner's nails were long and white-tipped and they clicked extra loud on the computer keys. She wore her dyed brown hair in a short bob, frozen in place with hairspray so that it looked like a helmet. I was mesmerized by how she whisked herself from one end of the desk to the other, dug through drawers and printed things, answered the phone and leaned down to pick up a dropped pencil, all without that hair moving one square inch.

She slid a small pink absence form onto the counter, phone between her shoulder and ear, and as she filled it out, I noticed an origami crane sitting next to the pencil holder. Just sitting there plain as day. This one was bright pink and the paper was crumpled as though someone had fished it out of the trash before folding it. It seemed Mr. Flinch's cranes had a way of getting around.

I waited until she hung up. “Where did you get that?”

“It showed up a couple of days ago, like so many things do. You would not believe what has come into this office. Retainers, a fake tarantula, a tiny red box of baby teeth.” She slapped her hand on the counter. “One morning, there was a bag of dirt sitting right here on my counter. Dirt, I tell you.”

I touched the crane. It was another signpost. Mama was telling me I was on the right track even though I had no idea what I might be looking for at the fountain. Instead of feeling excited, though, it made me tired.

“You look like you could use some toast,” Mrs. Turner said. She took a bag of bread from a deep drawer and set a piece into a toaster sitting right there between her computer and printer. “Toast can fix most things.”

As Mrs. Turner answered another phone call, I watched through the glass of Mr. Flinch's door and tried to read lips as best I could.
Banana charger in the pig sink wind.
That was the best I came up with. I smiled at my own weird thoughts.

The toast popped and Mrs. Turner slathered on something chocolaty. Then she cut a banana in half lengthwise, careful with her long nails, and wrapped the bread around it like a burrito. She pointed to the little crane.

“I bet this is from Mr. Flinch's class project. But isn't it fun to think maybe it's from a secret admirer? Or that it floated in here, all by itself, to remind me to have a good day? So many possibilities.”

She stuck her pencil behind her ear and stared off into the distance, looking dreamy.

“I like your possibilities,” I said, and took a bite. “Yum.”

“I don't know much, but I do know that if people ate more toast, there might just be world peace.” She licked her fingers. “World peace, I tell you.”

• • •

As I opened my locker, I saw Max in the hall, head down, feet dragging.

“What's up, Max? Did you forget your lunch again?”

He walked toward me and swung his suitcase around so he could lean his elbow on the handle. “No. I'm thinking too much about kittens.”

“Kittens?”

“Because I won't choose anything but an entombment party for my birthday, Mom and Jo are threatening to make it a kitten party. Do you know what the guys will do to me if there are kittens at my party?”

He seemed so serious for someone who was eight years old. I liked that about him. “I'm sorry, Max,” I offered.

“It's not your fault.”

He walked me to class. When we stopped at the door, I looked at him, really saw him. The way he didn't go anywhere without his red suitcase or bandages on his hands. How he was completely obsessed with mummies and entombment and no one was listening. He seemed so sad and desperate and it reminded me of me.

“Maybe I could talk to Jo?”

“Really?” Max looked hopeful.

“Sure. But I'm not promising anything. Don't give up,” I said, just as much for myself as for Max.

He gave me a tight squeeze around my waist. The bandages on his hands were getting dirty around the edges.

“Never,” he said.

• • •

Jo and Beth still weren't speaking, and their pesky anger went with us from class to class. Beth and Ginger had taken to wearing matching T-shirts that said things like
FORGIVENESS IS THE ANSWER
or
HOME IS WHERE THE SPLEEN IS
. It seemed like a dig at Jo, them not including her in their T-shirt plans, and Jo was sulky all morning, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her until art.

“Your grandma told me you got in a fight when I came by on Saturday,” Jo said as I sat down at our table. She was writing notes in her documentary binder. “Then she came over on Sunday for coffee and said you were at your old house for a couple of days.”

“I'm sorry I didn't call or anything.”

She fidgeted in her seat and then looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. Beth and Ginger's table was fairly close. She whispered, “I know Sheriff Bergum put you in a jail cell.”

I expected to be angry. It was my business. Not hers or anyone else's. But I wasn't. I just didn't want to talk about it.

“I'll never tell,” she went on. “I only heard bits and pieces anyway because they sent me out of the room and kept their voices low. I put a glass to the wall, but I guess that only works in movies.”

Beth and Ginger were practically leaning sideways, they were listening so hard.

I whispered as quietly as I could, “Does anyone else know?”

“I don't think so. But Ginger's mom is the worst gossip in town.” She glared over my shoulder at Ginger but didn't raise her voice. “I honestly think she's a witch or something because she always knows things she shouldn't.”

Just then, Beth got up from her table and went over to her box frame on the wall. She took out the
PEACE
stone and set her label maker inside.

As Beth came back toward us, Jo said, “How will you ever survive without it?”

Instead of answering, Beth set the
PEACE
stone in front of Jo. Before Jo had a chance to react, Beth went back to her own stool and sat down.

“For how can friends be torn asunder while peace is at their beck and call?” Ginger said, one arm reaching toward the ceiling as though asking the question of God himself.

Archer and Stubbie clapped. Ginger stood up and took a bow, her peanut hair falling in a cascade to the floor. She swept it back in a flourish.

Jo flicked Beth's
PEACE
rock across the table, where it tumbled to a stop in front of me.

“I think she's trying to apologize,” I whispered.

“Yeah. But it won't change anything,” Jo said, looking even gloomier than before.

“Can I ask you a favor?” I said to Jo, whispering again, thinking I could distract her from her misery.

“Sure.”

“Do you think I could look over your research on the Bear River Park and my mom's fountain?”

She lit up. “I can bring it by today after school.”

“How about we meet at the fountain?” I said.

“How about we take the horses out? I've been wanting to take you riding. There are some horse trails in the park.”

Just then, a spitball landed right between us. Jo and I both looked over at Stubbie and Archer's table. Stubbie was busy pretending to be innocent while Archer took his artist's mannequin—one of those weird little wooden doll things that you could bend into different positions—and waved its hand at us. I smiled and he turned pink.

“Okay, class, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. The other half of the self-portrait.”

Mrs. Snickels plopped a brown grocery bag filled with goodies on our table, then she set down a couple of empty paper lunch sacks beside it. Once she was finished distributing bags at each table, she went to her desk and clipped her newly fashioned portrait to the whiteboard. Her fingers were covered with smears of blue and green paint.

“It's called a split-faced self-portrait. For obvious reasons, I hope,” Mrs. Snickels said.

I recognized her portrait from my first day of school. Only now, the other half was filled with collage. She'd painted a tree with a swing, drawn in different shapes and colors, and glued down words from magazines and newspapers, scattering them around like confetti. It made me think about how my own brain must look, with words floating around all the time. How my father's and grandfather's brains must have looked the same way. It made me smile to think of it.

“These will be due next week, so over the next couple of days, I want you to consider what you might put on the abstract side. Really consider it. And then start to compile. Phrases that your dad always says. A snatch of fabric. Hopes for the future. When you're done compiling, compose your abstract, and . . . ?”

“Don't glue it down!” everyone said.

“Why not?”

“Because we aren't perfect!”

“Right. So don't glue down the mistakes. Give yourself room to change your mind. To reevaluate. Inside the bag you'll find items that might give you inspiration. But I want you to work on these at home, and don't show anyone. That's what the smaller bags are for. Load them up with whatever you like. I have a contest in mind for the finished product.”

Jo blurted, “Is this the Observation of the Month?”

“Yes!”

The class broke out in a case of murmurs, and Jo told me that every month, Mrs. Snickels put together some kind of contest to see if they'd been paying attention to the world. There were prizes.

When the bell rang, she came by our table. “Grace. Before you go, can I have a word? I'll give you a pass.”

As the kids filed out, Mrs. Snickels sat on Jo's stool and I looked at her across the pockmarked and paint-stained table, her black hair pulled up into a short, messy ponytail. She had a file folder and a brown paper package.

“So how are you doing on the year-end project? Any ideas?”

“I'm a little lost, but I'm sure I'll think of something.”

She nodded and pushed the package toward me.

“It's a sketchpad. I noticed you didn't have one. For your sketching. And your poetry.”

I shook my head. There was no way she could know about my words. I'd never showed anyone but Mama, Mrs. Greene, and Lacey. Plus they'd only been living in my head for the last few weeks.

“Th-thank you,” I finally stuttered. “How did you know?”

She didn't answer. Instead, she took a paper-sized piece of poster board out of the file and set it in front of me, my bumpy ten-year-old's signature scrawled on the bottom left corner. My breath caught. The last time I'd seen the collage was in fifth grade for an art contest, two moves before Mrs. Greene. There was a blue ribbon taped to the back. First place.

“How did you get this?”

“It was tucked into a big envelope with some other stuff when you transferred here, so it must have gotten overlooked before now.”

I picked it up, my fourth-grade friend Pippy flashing to mind. How she'd collect everyone's plastic bags at lunch and then cut them up with these tiny blunt-ended scissors she brought each day. Said she was afraid some bird would find their way into the plastic and not find their way out again. She was working for a good cause, so I joined her with my own pair of scissors. We'd see who could make the most interesting shape out of the cut-up plastic. One day she made a profile of Abraham Lincoln and ended up giving it to the assistant principal because everyone knew about Mr. Hobbs and how he liked to reenact the Civil War. He hung it in his office, where it was probably still hanging today.

When Mama and I moved on from Stockton to Lodi, I sat alone at lunch, again, saving my plastic bags, missing Pippy. After I had a pile, I cut them into strips, braided them into ropes and hot-glued them into the shape of a fanciful house. Then I glued all manner of things to the house: sequins, buttons, Easter basket grass, bottle caps, peacock feathers sprouting from the roof. The finishing touch was a poem I'd written inside the front door.

I am like the little avocado seed

Mama likes to settle

into a shallow bowl of water

on the windowsill

in the sunlight.

The roots grow and grow,

down and around

and up along the underside of the pit,

safe from the world.

You'd think after moving fourteen times, I'd have it down by then. But once in a while, my roots would sneak into the ground without my noticing. It wasn't until we left that I'd feel the ripping sadness as they pulled free.

Mrs. Snickels pointed to the poem on the collage. “There you are. Tucked right inside this poem.”

I didn't even realize until right then that I'd been lost. Not just since Mama died, but before then too. If I was honest, I left a little piece of myself behind in every place we'd ever lived, felt so much pressure that I had to worry about things when Mama didn't. I should have said something a long time before I did instead of keeping myself wrapped up in my little glass bowl. Maybe things would have turned out different if I had.