Thanksgiving for Pilgrimette

by K.D. McCrite on December 20, 2011

in April's Confessions

This story was originally published in Christian Fiction Online Magazine

The whole business started back in the spring when Mr. Brett, our hired hand, came back from a trip into the farm supply store in Cedar Ridge. He brought back a baby turkey, gave it to me in a little cage and said, “Happy Easter.”

Now I have to tell you I have had more thrilling presents in my life. In fact, a gawky baby turkey was about number 2,963 on my list of favorite things to get for a gift.

“Thank you,” I said to Mr. Brett. I eyeballed that funny-looking bird, wondering if it was gonna bite. I am not a big scaredy-cat about most things like my sister, Myra Sue, who is afraid of ants, granddaddy long-legs, earthworms, cows, and goldfish. I’m afraid of mice and that’s it. Well, and snakes give me the willies. And Grandma’s cat, Queenie, makes me want to run screaming, but not because I’m afraid.

But anyway, I want to tell you about last Thanksgiving. Daddy and Mama laughed when they saw Mr. Brett’s present and Daddy said, “We’ll build you a pen for it.”

Mama asked, “Does it have a name?”

I looked at that bird and it looked back at me, sideways like birds do, with its eyes all bright and beady.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked, because that’s something you need to know when you’re naming someone.

“Time will tell,” Mr. Brett said. “In a couple of months, we’ll know by size and how many feathers.”

“I guess I can call it Spot or Fluffy,” I said, wrinkling my nose. I did not like those names.

“How about Pilgrim?” Mr. Brett suggested. “Because of turkeys and Thanksgiving and all that.”

Pilgrim, eh? That sounded good to me. Pilgrims came in all sizes and genders. I figured some were pretty and some weren’t, but I’ll bet none of them were as ugly as that turkey. Considering its homely looks, I decided he must be a boy. By the time Pilgrim was two weeks old, he had a long stringy neck, a half-bald head, and he walked all jerky and goofy, which did nothing to improve his looks.

Daddy had bought a special feed mix for him, and I made sure he had fresh water. Because he was mine, I made sure I spent time with him every day. But now here’s the thing: What was I supposed to do with a pet turkey? He wasn’t huggable and sweet like Daisy, our big ol’ Great Pyrenees or Taz, Mr. Brett’s black chow. He wasn’t even fluffy like Queenie, Grandma’s cat, who is not lovable or huggable, but gives that impression. You have to watch out for ol’ Queenie, by the way. Do not attempt to pet her. Pilgrim made his funny turkey noises whenever I went outside.

“Let him out of his pen when you’re outside,” Daddy said. “Just be sure to pen him again before you go back in. We don’t want him wondering off into the woods where something might get him.”

I want you to know that goofy bird followed me around like a dog. He got all uppity when Daisy came around, but good ol’ Daisy just sniffed him from top to bottom and side to side, wagging her tail. She didn’t care if Pilgrim was ugly as sin and made noises. Pretty soon, the two of them got along like apple pie and cheese. If I walked through woods and down to the creek, Daisy ambled along and Pilgrim waddled right along behind me.

Boy, oh boy, did that crazy bird grow fast. He never was much to look at and as he got bigger that did not change. I thought I might make him look better if I dressed him up, sort of like how Isabel St. James made-over my grandma from an old lady into some kind of old lady glamor girl. But that’s another story and I won’t get into it now. In a box of old toys and stuff in the attic, I found a yellow and white polka dotted doll dress and bonnet. I thought it might look pretty good on ol’ Pilgrim.

Daddy saw my intent, and he stopped working on the tractor to come where I was fixin’ to dress up that turkey.

“April Grace,” he said, frowning at me,“you can’t put clothes on a turkey.”

“We’ll see,” I said with all the confidence in the world. I looked at the bonnet, then I looked at Pilgrim’s dinky little head. There was no way he could wear the bonnet, but you gotta admit he would’ve looked better with his head covered.

Mr. Brett ambled over to us, grinning.

“Now this is too good to miss,” he said.

So I went into Pilgrim’s pen. He came right up to me and pecked some corn out my hand.
Then he stood still as pond water while I slipped that silly, frilly dress over his pointy head. He sorta flicked out his wings, stretched up his neck, then turkey-walked a couple of times around the pen. Finally he came right back to me and just stood there, staring at us all sideways like he thought we were gonna take his picture or something.

“Well, look at that!” Daddy said. He and Mr. Brett just stood there, gawking at Pilgrim and grinning.

I put my hands on my hips and stared down at the turkey.

“Too bad I didn’t have something more manly for him to wear. I hope trotting around in a dress doesn’t embarrass him.”

Mr. Brett cleared his throat.

“Actually, April Grace, Pilgrim is a girl.”

I nearly broke my own personal neck, snapping my head around fast to look at Mr. Brett.

“Really?”

He nodded. “If she was a tom, you’d see the beginnings of a large wattle there. And hen clucks and clicks, but a tom will make a lot of noise, gobbling and the like.” We all eyeballed the clucking, clicking Pilgrim.

“Well, then.” I said, sighing. “I have to change his, er, her name.”

“What are you going to change it to, punkin?” Daddy asked.

I thought about it a minute.

“He’s used to ‘Pilgrim’ so I guess I’ll call him, er, her ‘Pilgrimette.’”

Those two men laughed right out loud, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t often dress Pilgrimette. She tolerated it, but I don’t think she liked it. When the weather started getting cold, Daddy let her stay in the hay barn where it was warm. Nothing could get her in the hay barn.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, I overheard Daddy say to Mama, “At least you don’t have to thaw out a frozen turkey for dinner this year. We’ll have fresh!”

Well, I nearly swallowed my tongue in shock. You know as well as I do the only fresh turkey around our house was Pilgrimette. There was No Way Jose we were having Pilgrimette with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

I put on my coat and went right out to the barn where I stuffed my pockets full of feed. Then I grabbed up an old pan and Pilgrimette.

“Hang on, Pilgrimette,” I told her when she squirmed. “This is an emergency for which you can thank me on Friday.”

I guess you could say we were on the lam. We took off down the slope, Pilgrimette safely in my arms. We went through the woods, across the creek, beyond the back hayfield and down another hill where a little cave was tucked away. That cave wasn’t very big, but it would be good place for Pilgrimette to hide out until the heat was off.

Let me tell you something. That bird was heavy. I had to lie down for a bit to get my strength back before I could finish what I planned. I brought her up a pan of water from the creek then pulled feed out of my pockets to scatter around on the cave floor. Pilgrimette just looked at me sideways like she thought I was nuts.

It took me most of that day, dragging broken branches and limbs from out of the woods to the mouth of that cave. I piled them up so Pilgrimette would not get out, and so no hungry coyote would find her.

“None of that clucking and clicking, you silly bird,” I hollered through the wall of branches and limbs. “We don’t want bears or wolves or coyotes to find you. I’ll be back in the morning.”

I felt real bad about leaving her all alone.

I got home kinda late. In fact, it was almost black dark. I could hear my folks calling for me. They sounded scared.

“I’m coming!” I yelled as loud as I could and hurried along. All the lights were on, inside and out. I shouted, “Here I am!”

Mama, Daddy, Grandma, Mr. Brett and our friends the St. Jameses and the Freebirds all hugged me, ever last one of ‘em, except my prissy sister who stood back and watched. Everyone talked at once, asked if I was OK, and was I hurt and stuff like that.

I was dirtier than all get out, thirsty like you couldn’t believe, and felt half-starved to boot.

“What happened? Where have you been?” Mama hugged me again then looked me up and down.

Hungry, thirsty, tired and dirty as I was, I declared loudly, “We are not eating Pilgrimette for Thanksgiving. We can just have hot dogs or scrambled eggs instead.” Then I folded my arms to make sure they knew I meant it.

“As if!” Myra Sue yelled.

Every one of those grown-ups looked at me like I had lost my ever-lovin’ mind. But you know what? I did not care.

“April Grace,” Daddy said in a Tone of Voice that means business, “where have you been?”

I sucked in a deep breath, and said, calm as anything, “I hid Pilgrimette.” Then I clammed up.

Those adults exchanged glances.

“Where?” Daddy asked.

I bit my lips to prove I wasn’t saying another word, even if I got sent to my room without supper, a drink, a bath or clean clothes.

“Honey,” Mama said, “why did you think we’re having Pilgrimette for Thanksgiving?”

“Because you and Daddy said ‘fresh turkey not frozen this year.’ Pilgrimette is fresh, and she’s gonna stay that way.”

Mama covered her mouth with both hands but not before I heard her laugh. Then all the rest of ‘em busted out laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

“April Grace,” Mr. Brett said, “that fresh turkey for Thanksgiving is over in my refrigerator right now. I got it from the Johnson Turkey Farm where I got Pilgrimette for you. Did you think I’d give you a present we were going to eat?”

I stared at him, all grateful and relieved.

“Pilgrimette won’t be stuffed and sliced and covered with gravy?”

“Not at all!” Mama said. She pulled me to her and hugged me again. “And now, you better tell your daddy where you hid her so he can bring her back to the barn.”

Boy, oh boy. I guess I felt kinda silly that I thought we’d eat one of my best friends, but more than anything, I was purely thankful that my family and friends would never have let such a thing happen in the first place.

{ 3 comments }

When Sisters and Cellars Collide

by K.D. McCrite on April 2, 2011

in April's Confessions,Sisters

April GraceI hate the cellar in our backyard. It’s dark and creepy. And to tell the honest truth, I’m none too fond of my smart-alecky sister, Myra Sue. I admit what I did wasn’t nice, but since I did it to Myra Sue and she dearly deserved it, I’m not real sorry.

Mama was making pickles that day and our house stunk like hot vinegar. I was getting some fresh air when Mama hollered out the back door for me to bring up the box of Mason jars from the cellar.

Now my mama knows I hate that cellar worse than almost anything, even a booster shot. She knows I hate the cracked old steps where snakes sometimes hide. And those old walls on either side of the steps look like they might collapse any minute. What if I was on those steps, and an earthquake came, and the walls fell in, and then I was buried alive? Myra Sue says when you get buried the worms come for you, and they eat your eyeballs the very first thing. Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want worms munching on my corneas.

I heard Mama clattering utensils in the kitchen where a big basket of nice green cucumbers waited to be stuffed in the jars and made into pickles.

I wondered right out loud why ol’ Myra Sue couldn’t get those jars. Just because she’s older and prettier than me, she thinks she’s so smart. Which she is not, believe me. That girl never does her chores without acting like she’s going to her own execution. She doesn’t do her work the right way most of the time, so Mama makes her do it over. It seems to me if she was so smart, she’d know enough not to have to go through the agony of washing supper dishes three times every night. Well, as far as her getting the jars out of the cellar, I bet she was hiding so she wouldn’t have to.

Mama called my name again, so I shot toward the cellar and down those awful steps, looking neither right nor left. I’m telling you, if they were there any snakes lying there, I did not want to see them.

To tell the honest truth, though, it wasn’t the thoughts of snakes that worried me as much as the thought of mice, which I dearly hate. They are nasty creatures, with beady little eyes and skinny, hairless tails and scritchy toenails.

Myra Sue had swept out the cellar the day before and announced right at the supper table over our tapioca pudding that she had swept a whole big handful of mouse pills down there. I very politely did not gag, which is what I felt like doing.

“How’d you know it was a handful?” I asked her. “You scoop ’em up in your hand?”

“Enough of that at the supper table,” Daddy said.

I noticed Mama looked at her tapioca as if it had turned wormy. Like me, she kinda has a weak stomach sometimes.

It didn’t matter to me if it was a handful or a boxful. A mouse pill is a mouse pill, and the only way it got on the cellar floor was if a mouse had pooped it there, excuse my French. I figured Myra Sue mentioned it just because she likes to scare me.

Well, I remembered what she said while I stared at the cellar door. It was the only thing between me and the mice—and Mama’s Mason jars.

That door is old, let me tell you. It’s gray and splintery, and I’ll bet it’s older than Mama, who’s almost thirty-eight. As I stared at the door it occurred to me that it probably was an antique.

I thought, “I’ll bet we could sell it and get a lot of money. We could probably buy a new car and some—”

“April Grace Reilly!”

Well, I about jumped three miles when Mama hollered. She had the screen door open and was looking right at me. I could see she was getting ticked off. Her dark red hair was damp and curly around her face. Mama’s pretty even when she’s mad.

“Get those jars. Now!”

“Yes’m. Mama? What if I see a mouse in the cellar?”

I could hear her sigh clear across the back yard.

“You won’t see a mouse.” Her voice is usually quiet and soft, but I heard irritation in it. “And even if you do, it’ll be more afraid of you than you are of it. You quit your dillydallying and bring me those jars.”

The screen door banged shut. The sound made me think of an exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

I sucked in a breath so big it hurt my chest hurt and made me dizzy. I studied that rusty old door handle that was kinda shaped like a butter knife. It was all icky and gritty and would probably leave a smelly, rusty-orange smear on my palm. Oh, well. I just had to do it. I wrapped my fingers around that handle and held on.

Then I bowed my head right out there in the middle of the day and prayed, “Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any mice or rats or snakes in the cellar, thank you forever ’n’ ever, amen.”

I flung open that door and yelled, “Okay!”

Inside was black as night. I couldn’t see anything, but at least mouse toenails didn’t scritch across the floor or up the walls. When my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw the shelves where Mama stored her canned stuff. The white-wash on the walls looked spooky, like ghosts hung around in the cellar with the mice.

I closed my eyes real tight.

“Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any ghosts in there, either. Amen again.”

I scrooched through the doorway a couple of steps and saw that box of jars in the corner. The far corner. Unfortunately, right about then I remembered the time Mama went down to the cellar and opened up a box to see a big ol’ black snake curled up inside, happy as an ice cream sundae, taking himself a snooze. I woulda died right there but Mama just calmly got the snow shovel, scooped him up and carried him out to the field where she let him go on his merry way.

Mama and Daddy say snakes serve a purpose by keeping the mice population down. Well, what I’d like to know is why God invented mice in the first place. If he hadn’t, then we would need snakes, and the whole world would be a lot better off, in my personal opinion. Sometimes I lay away at night and think about stuff like that then I can’t hardly get to sleep for all the thinking.

Well, I sure didn’t want to open a box with a snake in it.

“Please Jesus God, don’t there be any snakes in that box. Amen, again.”

I tiptoed across the floor when, “’Fraidy cat!”

I nearly left my skin right there, let me tell you. I whirled around, ready to run for the hills, and there sat that snotty Myra Sue on the very top step in the sun, grinning down at me like the big ape she is. She smoothed the skirt of her pink sundress then stretched out her legs and admired her new white sandals.

“Did I tell you I saw mouse pills down there yesterday?”

She wiggled one foot and looked at the sunshine hitting the gold buckle on the side of her sandal.

“You already said that. But I don’t believe you. Besides,” I added, “you’re afraid of spiders and granddaddy longlegs.”

“Am not.”

“Are, too. You blubbered like a big fat baby last month when a teeny little spider was on the back of your hairbrush, and I had to squash the poor thing. You were scared like a big fat chicken.”

Myra Sue did not seem impressed with my remembered bravery. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees and swayed her body back and forth.

“Well, it’s smart to be afraid of spiders because they’re poisonous.”

“Ha. You can stomp a spider real easy. But if you try to stomp a mouse, it will run up your leg and get in your underwear.”

For a second she looked startled and spooked, but then she sniffed, as uppity as all get-out.

“Don’t be dumb,” she said. “One time I saw Daddy stomp a mouse barefooted. He got guts all over his feet. Blood squished up between his toes and mouse eyeballs popped out and rolled across the floor. I saw it.”

“You’re lying like a rug, Myra Sue. You’re just trying to make me sick.”

She shrugged and sighed as though she was as old as Mama.

“Believe what you want. But there are mice in that cellar, and Mama wants those jars this minute, or else!”

She stood up and smoothed her skirt. She fluffed her blonde curls as if she was getting her picture taken. Then, before I knew what was happening, she lunged down the steps and, laughing like a hyena, slammed the door shut.

It was so dark in that cellar I could feel it pressing against my eyes. I was sure I heard scritchy toenails running along the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling, but I could not move. Not one little muscle. I screamed loud and long, but I knew no one could hear me. I was down under the ground, like in a grave.

Then my feet worked, and I ran headlong into the door, and like to have knocked myself out cold. I shook my head hard to clear away the stars, then groped for the door handle like a crazy person. My palms and fingers got all full of splinters.

When I was able jerk the door open, I fell outside. My whole body shook. I lay on the steps because I wasn’t able to go further. I thought I heard that nasty Myra Sue giggling but there was such a noise of thunder in my head, I wasn’t sure.

I laid there and waited for my chest to explode.

I thought, “I’m gonna die of a heart attack right here on the cellar steps. When they have my funeral and everybody looks at me laying in my casket with my hand folded across my chest, the preacher will say—”

“April Grace Reilly! Bring me those jars this very minute, or you know what is going to happen to you!’

Uh oh. Mama was downright mad, let me tell you, but right then I was shaking so hard I couldn’t move, or even whimper like a new pup.

After a minute or two, when I was sure I had survived, I dragged open my eyes. I took a slow, deep breath and decided all that screaming I let loose would have scared away any remaining mouse.

I forced myself to get up and go back into the cellar. I inched toward the box, and real carefully I dragged into the center of the room. Nothing came scampering out. I bent over to peek inside it, ready to skedaddle, should the need arise.

No snake. Whew.

I straightened, and that’s when my gaze fell on a big, fat nest of granddaddy longlegs on the wall near the door. I knew good and well my sister had not swept out the cellar yesterday, ‘cause if she had, her body would still be laying right there in the middle of the floor.

“You guys stay right there,” I told the granddaddies and hurried to take the box to Mama.

Before she could scold me I said, “Mama, Myra Sue didn’t sweep out the cellar yesterday. There’s a bunch of dirt and stuff on the floor.”

Myra Sue walked in just as I said it and her smirk slid right off her face.

Mama’s face got redder.

“You girls. One of you daydreams all the time and the other won’t work. Myra, get the broom and sweep out that cellar.”

Myra Sue pooched out her lower lip and glared at me.

“Tattling little brat!”

She thrust her hips sideways as she walked past and knocked me into the cabinet. I didn’t care. Getting even was pretty fun, even though I knew I’d probably be grounded for the next twenty years.

-the end-

 

 

 

 

 

The Day of the Cellar

By

K.D. McCrite

I hate the cellar in our backyard. It’s dark and creepy. And to tell the honest truth, I ain’t too fond of my smart-alecky sister, Myra Sue. Now I admit what I did wasn’t nice, but since I did it to Myra Sue and she dearly deserved it, I’m not real sorry.

Mama was making pickles that day and our house smelled like hot vinegar. Pickles usually stink up the place pretty good so I was in the back yard sucking in some fresh air when Mama hollered out the back door for me to bring up the box of Mason jars from the cellar.

Now my mama knows I hate that cellar worse than almost anything, like a booster shot. She knows I hate those old cracked steps where snakes sometimes hide. And those old walls on either side of the steps look like they might fall in any minute. What if I was on those ole steps and there came an earthquake and the walls fell in and I was buried alive?

Myra Sue says when you get buried the worms come for you and they eat your eyeballs the very first thing. Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t want worms munching on my corneas.

I heard Mama clattering utensils in the kitchen where a big basket of nice green cucumbers waited to be stuffed in the jars and made into pickles.

I wondered right out loud why ol’ Myra Sue couldn’t get those jars. Just because she’s older and prettier than me and is growing bumps on her chest, she thinks she’s so smart. But she never does her chores without acting like she’s going to her own execution. She doesn’t do her work right most of the time, and has to do it over. It seems to me if she was so smart, she’d know enough not to have to go through the agony of washing supper dishes three times every night. Well, as far as her getting the jars, I bet she was hiding so she wouldn’t have to.

Mama called my name again, so I shot toward the cellar and down those awful steps, trying my best not to look to see if any snakes sunned themselves along the wide cracks. I’m telling you, if they were there I did not want to see them.

To tell the honest truth, though, it wasn’t the thoughts of snakes that worried me as much as the thought of mice, which I dearly hate. They are nasty, with beady eyes and skinny, hairless tails and scritchy toenails.

Myra Sue had swept out the cellar the day before and announced right at the supper table over our tapioca pudding that she had swept a whole big handful of mouse pills down there. I very politely did not gag, which is what I felt like doing.

“How’d you know it was a handful?” I asked her. “You scoop ’em up in your hand?”

“Enough of that at the supper table,” Daddy said.

I noticed Mama looked at her tapioca as if it had turned wormy. Like me, she kinda has a weak stomach sometimes.

It didn’t matter to me if it was a handful or a boxful. A mouse pill is a mouse pill, and the only way it got on the cellar floor was if a mouse had pooped it there, excuse my French. I figured Myra Sue mentioned it just because she likes to scare me.

Well, I remembered what she said while I stared at the cellar door. It was the only thing between me and the mice—and Mama’s Mason jars.

That door is old, let me tell you. It’s gray and splintery, and I’ll bet it’s older than Mama, who’s almost thirty-eight. As I stared at the door it occurred to me that it probably was an antique.

I thought, “I’ll bet we could sell it and get a lot of money. We could probably buy a new car and some—”

“April Grace Reilly!”

Well, I about jumped three miles when Mama hollered. She had the screen door open and was looking right at me. I could see she was getting ticked off. Her dark red hair was damp and curly around her face. Mama’s pretty even when she’s mad.

“Get those jars. Now!”

“Yes’m. Mama? What if I see a mouse in the cellar?”

I could hear her sigh clear across the back yard.

“You won’t see a mouse.” Her voice is usually quiet and soft, but I heard irritation in it. “And even if you do, it’ll be more afraid of you than you are of it. You quit your dillydallying and bring me those jars.”

The screen door banged shut. The sound made me think of an exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

I sucked in a breath so big it hurt my chest hurt and made me dizzy. I studied that rusty old door handle that was kinda shaped like a butter knife. It was all icky and gritty and would probably leave a smelly, rusty-orange smear on my palm. Oh, well. I just had to do it. I wrapped my fingers around that handle and held on.

Then I bowed my head right out there in the middle of the day and prayed, “Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any mice or rats or snakes in the cellar, thank you forever ’n’ ever, amen.”

I flung open that door and yelled, “Okay!”

Inside was black as night. I couldn’t see anything, but at least mouse toenails didn’t scritch across the floor or up the walls. When my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw the shelves where Mama stored her canned stuff. The white-wash on the walls looked spooky, like ghosts hung around in the cellar with the mice.

I closed my eyes real tight.

“Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any ghosts in there, either. Amen again.”

I scrooched through the doorway a couple of steps and saw that box of jars in the corner. The far corner. Unfortunately, right about then I remembered the time Mama went down to the cellar and opened up a box to see a big ol’ black snake curled up inside, happy as an ice cream sundae, taking himself a snooze. I woulda died right there but Mama just calmly got the snow shovel, scooped him up and carried him out to the field where she let him go on his merry way.

Mama and Daddy say snakes serve a purpose by keeping the mice population down. Well, what I’d like to know is why God invented mice in the first place. If he hadn’t, then we would need snakes, and the whole world would be a lot better off, in my personal opinion. Sometimes I lay away at night and think about stuff like that then I can’t hardly get to sleep for all the thinking.

Well, I sure didn’t want to open a box with a snake in it.

“Please Jesus God, don’t there be any snakes in that box. Amen, again.”

I tiptoed across the floor when, “’Fraidy cat!”

I nearly left my skin right there, let me tell you. I whirled around, ready to run for the hills, and there sat that snotty Myra Sue on the very top step in the sun, grinning down at me like the big ape she is. She smoothed the skirt of her pink sundress then stretched out her legs and admired her new white sandals.

“Did I tell you I saw mouse pills down there yesterday?”

She wiggled one foot and looked at the sunshine hitting the gold buckle on the side of her sandal.

“You already said that. But I don’t believe you. Besides,” I added, “you’re afraid of spiders and granddaddy longlegs.”

“Am not.”

“Are, too. You blubbered like a big fat baby last month when a teeny little spider was on the back of your hairbrush, and I had to squash the poor thing. You were scared like a big fat chicken.”

Myra Sue did not seem impressed with my remembered bravery. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees and swayed her body back and forth.

“Well, it’s smart to be afraid of spiders because they’re poisonous.”

“Ha. You can stomp a spider real easy. But if you try to stomp a mouse, it will run up your leg and get in your underwear.”

For a second she looked startled and spooked, but then she sniffed, as uppity as all get-out.

“Don’t be dumb,” she said. “One time I saw Daddy stomp a mouse barefooted. He got guts all over his feet. Blood squished up between his toes and mouse eyeballs popped out and rolled across the floor. I saw it.”

“You’re lying like a rug, Myra Sue. You’re just trying to make me sick.”

She shrugged and sighed as though she was as old as Mama.

“Believe what you want. But there are mice in that cellar, and Mama wants those jars this minute, or else!”

She stood up and smoothed her skirt. She fluffed her blonde curls as if she was getting her picture taken. Then, before I knew what was happening, she lunged down the steps and, laughing like a hyena, slammed the door shut.

It was so dark in that cellar I could feel it pressing against my eyes. I was sure I heard scritchy toenails running along the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling, but I could not move. Not one little muscle. I screamed loud and long, but I knew no one could hear me. I was down under the ground, like in a grave.

Then my feet worked, and I ran headlong into the door, and like to have knocked myself out cold. I shook my head hard to clear away the stars, then groped for the door handle like a crazy person. My palms and fingers got all full of splinters.

When I was able jerk the door open, I fell outside. My whole body shook. I lay on the steps because I wasn’t able to go further. I thought I heard that nasty Myra Sue giggling but there was such a noise of thunder in my head, I wasn’t sure.

I laid there and waited for my chest to explode.

I thought, “I’m gonna die of a heart attack right here on the cellar steps. When they have my funeral and everybody looks at me laying in my casket with my hand folded across my chest, the preacher will say—”

“April Grace Reilly! Bring me those jars this very minute, or you know what is going to happen to you!’

Uh oh. Mama was downright mad, let me tell you, but right then I was shaking so hard I couldn’t move, or even whimper like a new pup.

After a minute or two, when I was sure I had survived, I dragged open my eyes. I took a slow, deep breath and decided all that screaming I let loose would have scared away any remaining mouse.

I forced myself to get up and go back into the cellar. I inched toward the box, and real carefully I dragged into the center of the room. Nothing came scampering out. I bent over to peek inside it, ready to skedaddle, should the need arise.

No snake. Whew.

I straightened, and that’s when my gaze fell on a big, fat nest of granddaddy longlegs on the wall near the door. I knew good and well my sister had not swept out the cellar yesterday, ‘cause if she had, her body would still be laying right there in the middle of the floor.

“You guys stay right there,” I told the granddaddies and hurried to take the box to Mama.

Before she could scold me I said, “Mama, Myra Sue didn’t sweep out the cellar yesterday. There’s a bunch of dirt and stuff on the floor.”

Myra Sue walked in just as I said it and her smirk slid right off her face.

Mama’s face got redder.

“You girls. One of you daydreams all the time and the other won’t work. Myra, get the broom and sweep out that cellar.”

Myra Sue pooched out her lower lip and glared at me.

“Tattling little brat!”

She thrust her hips sideways as she walked past and knocked me into the cabinet. I didn’t care. Getting even was pretty fun, even though I knew I’d probably be grounded for the next twenty years.

-the end-

 

 

 

 

 

The Day of the Cellar

By

K.D. McCrite

I hate the cellar in our backyard. It’s dark and creepy. And to tell the honest truth, I ain’t too fond of my smart-alecky sister, Myra Sue. Now I admit what I did wasn’t nice, but since I did it to Myra Sue and she dearly deserved it, I’m not real sorry.

Mama was making pickles that day and our house smelled like hot vinegar. Pickles usually stink up the place pretty good so I was in the back yard sucking in some fresh air when Mama hollered out the back door for me to bring up the box of Mason jars from the cellar.

Now my mama knows I hate that cellar worse than almost anything, like a booster shot. She knows I hate those old cracked steps where snakes sometimes hide. And those old walls on either side of the steps look like they might fall in any minute. What if I was on those ole steps and there came an earthquake and the walls fell in and I was buried alive?

Myra Sue says when you get buried the worms come for you and they eat your eyeballs the very first thing. Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t want worms munching on my corneas.

I heard Mama clattering utensils in the kitchen where a big basket of nice green cucumbers waited to be stuffed in the jars and made into pickles.

I wondered right out loud why ol’ Myra Sue couldn’t get those jars. Just because she’s older and prettier than me and is growing bumps on her chest, she thinks she’s so smart. But she never does her chores without acting like she’s going to her own execution. She doesn’t do her work right most of the time, and has to do it over. It seems to me if she was so smart, she’d know enough not to have to go through the agony of washing supper dishes three times every night. Well, as far as her getting the jars, I bet she was hiding so she wouldn’t have to.

Mama called my name again, so I shot toward the cellar and down those awful steps, trying my best not to look to see if any snakes sunned themselves along the wide cracks. I’m telling you, if they were there I did not want to see them.

To tell the honest truth, though, it wasn’t the thoughts of snakes that worried me as much as the thought of mice, which I dearly hate. They are nasty, with beady eyes and skinny, hairless tails and scritchy toenails.

Myra Sue had swept out the cellar the day before and announced right at the supper table over our tapioca pudding that she had swept a whole big handful of mouse pills down there. I very politely did not gag, which is what I felt like doing.

“How’d you know it was a handful?” I asked her. “You scoop ’em up in your hand?”

“Enough of that at the supper table,” Daddy said.

I noticed Mama looked at her tapioca as if it had turned wormy. Like me, she kinda has a weak stomach sometimes.

It didn’t matter to me if it was a handful or a boxful. A mouse pill is a mouse pill, and the only way it got on the cellar floor was if a mouse had pooped it there, excuse my French. I figured Myra Sue mentioned it just because she likes to scare me.

Well, I remembered what she said while I stared at the cellar door. It was the only thing between me and the mice—and Mama’s Mason jars.

That door is old, let me tell you. It’s gray and splintery, and I’ll bet it’s older than Mama, who’s almost thirty-eight. As I stared at the door it occurred to me that it probably was an antique.

I thought, “I’ll bet we could sell it and get a lot of money. We could probably buy a new car and some—”

“April Grace Reilly!”

Well, I about jumped three miles when Mama hollered. She had the screen door open and was looking right at me. I could see she was getting ticked off. Her dark red hair was damp and curly around her face. Mama’s pretty even when she’s mad.

“Get those jars. Now!”

“Yes’m. Mama? What if I see a mouse in the cellar?”

I could hear her sigh clear across the back yard.

“You won’t see a mouse.” Her voice is usually quiet and soft, but I heard irritation in it. “And even if you do, it’ll be more afraid of you than you are of it. You quit your dillydallying and bring me those jars.”

The screen door banged shut. The sound made me think of an exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

I sucked in a breath so big it hurt my chest hurt and made me dizzy. I studied that rusty old door handle that was kinda shaped like a butter knife. It was all icky and gritty and would probably leave a smelly, rusty-orange smear on my palm. Oh, well. I just had to do it. I wrapped my fingers around that handle and held on.

Then I bowed my head right out there in the middle of the day and prayed, “Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any mice or rats or snakes in the cellar, thank you forever ’n’ ever, amen.”

I flung open that door and yelled, “Okay!”

Inside was black as night. I couldn’t see anything, but at least mouse toenails didn’t scritch across the floor or up the walls. When my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw the shelves where Mama stored her canned stuff. The white-wash on the walls looked spooky, like ghosts hung around in the cellar with the mice.

I closed my eyes real tight.

“Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any ghosts in there, either. Amen again.”

I scrooched through the doorway a couple of steps and saw that box of jars in the corner. The far corner. Unfortunately, right about then I remembered the time Mama went down to the cellar and opened up a box to see a big ol’ black snake curled up inside, happy as an ice cream sundae, taking himself a snooze. I woulda died right there but Mama just calmly got the snow shovel, scooped him up and carried him out to the field where she let him go on his merry way.

Mama and Daddy say snakes serve a purpose by keeping the mice population down. Well, what I’d like to know is why God invented mice in the first place. If he hadn’t, then we would need snakes, and the whole world would be a lot better off, in my personal opinion. Sometimes I lay away at night and think about stuff like that then I can’t hardly get to sleep for all the thinking.

Well, I sure didn’t want to open a box with a snake in it.

“Please Jesus God, don’t there be any snakes in that box. Amen, again.”

I tiptoed across the floor when, “’Fraidy cat!”

I nearly left my skin right there, let me tell you. I whirled around, ready to run for the hills, and there sat that snotty Myra Sue on the very top step in the sun, grinning down at me like the big ape she is. She smoothed the skirt of her pink sundress then stretched out her legs and admired her new white sandals.

“Did I tell you I saw mouse pills down there yesterday?”

She wiggled one foot and looked at the sunshine hitting the gold buckle on the side of her sandal.

“You already said that. But I don’t believe you. Besides,” I added, “you’re afraid of spiders and granddaddy longlegs.”

“Am not.”

“Are, too. You blubbered like a big fat baby last month when a teeny little spider was on the back of your hairbrush, and I had to squash the poor thing. You were scared like a big fat chicken.”

Myra Sue did not seem impressed with my remembered bravery. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees and swayed her body back and forth.

“Well, it’s smart to be afraid of spiders because they’re poisonous.”

“Ha. You can stomp a spider real easy. But if you try to stomp a mouse, it will run up your leg and get in your underwear.”

For a second she looked startled and spooked, but then she sniffed, as uppity as all get-out.

“Don’t be dumb,” she said. “One time I saw Daddy stomp a mouse barefooted. He got guts all over his feet. Blood squished up between his toes and mouse eyeballs popped out and rolled across the floor. I saw it.”

“You’re lying like a rug, Myra Sue. You’re just trying to make me sick.”

She shrugged and sighed as though she was as old as Mama.

“Believe what you want. But there are mice in that cellar, and Mama wants those jars this minute, or else!”

She stood up and smoothed her skirt. She fluffed her blonde curls as if she was getting her picture taken. Then, before I knew what was happening, she lunged down the steps and, laughing like a hyena, slammed the door shut.

It was so dark in that cellar I could feel it pressing against my eyes. I was sure I heard scritchy toenails running along the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling, but I could not move. Not one little muscle. I screamed loud and long, but I knew no one could hear me. I was down under the ground, like in a grave.

Then my feet worked, and I ran headlong into the door, and like to have knocked myself out cold. I shook my head hard to clear away the stars, then groped for the door handle like a crazy person. My palms and fingers got all full of splinters.

When I was able jerk the door open, I fell outside. My whole body shook. I lay on the steps because I wasn’t able to go further. I thought I heard that nasty Myra Sue giggling but there was such a noise of thunder in my head, I wasn’t sure.

I laid there and waited for my chest to explode.

I thought, “I’m gonna die of a heart attack right here on the cellar steps. When they have my funeral and everybody looks at me laying in my casket with my hand folded across my chest, the preacher will say—”

“April Grace Reilly! Bring me those jars this very minute, or you know what is going to happen to you!’

Uh oh. Mama was downright mad, let me tell you, but right then I was shaking so hard I couldn’t move, or even whimper like a new pup.

After a minute or two, when I was sure I had survived, I dragged open my eyes. I took a slow, deep breath and decided all that screaming I let loose would have scared away any remaining mouse.

I forced myself to get up and go back into the cellar. I inched toward the box, and real carefully I dragged into the center of the room. Nothing came scampering out. I bent over to peek inside it, ready to skedaddle, should the need arise.

No snake. Whew.

I straightened, and that’s when my gaze fell on a big, fat nest of granddaddy longlegs on the wall near the door. I knew good and well my sister had not swept out the cellar yesterday, ‘cause if she had, her body would still be laying right there in the middle of the floor.

“You guys stay right there,” I told the granddaddies and hurried to take the box to Mama.

Before she could scold me I said, “Mama, Myra Sue didn’t sweep out the cellar yesterday. There’s a bunch of dirt and stuff on the floor.”

Myra Sue walked in just as I said it and her smirk slid right off her face.

Mama’s face got redder.

“You girls. One of you daydreams all the time and the other won’t work. Myra, get the broom and sweep out that cellar.”

Myra Sue pooched out her lower lip and glared at me.

“Tattling little brat!”

She thrust her hips sideways as she walked past and knocked me into the cabinet. I didn’t care. Getting even was pretty fun, even though I knew I’d probably be grounded for the next twenty years.

-the end-

 

 

 

 

 

The Day of the Cellar

By

K.D. McCrite

I hate the cellar in our backyard. It’s dark and creepy. And to tell the honest truth, I ain’t too fond of my smart-alecky sister, Myra Sue. Now I admit what I did wasn’t nice, but since I did it to Myra Sue and she dearly deserved it, I’m not real sorry.

Mama was making pickles that day and our house smelled like hot vinegar. Pickles usually stink up the place pretty good so I was in the back yard sucking in some fresh air when Mama hollered out the back door for me to bring up the box of Mason jars from the cellar.

Now my mama knows I hate that cellar worse than almost anything, like a booster shot. She knows I hate those old cracked steps where snakes sometimes hide. And those old walls on either side of the steps look like they might fall in any minute. What if I was on those ole steps and there came an earthquake and the walls fell in and I was buried alive?

Myra Sue says when you get buried the worms come for you and they eat your eyeballs the very first thing. Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t want worms munching on my corneas.

I heard Mama clattering utensils in the kitchen where a big basket of nice green cucumbers waited to be stuffed in the jars and made into pickles.

I wondered right out loud why ol’ Myra Sue couldn’t get those jars. Just because she’s older and prettier than me and is growing bumps on her chest, she thinks she’s so smart. But she never does her chores without acting like she’s going to her own execution. She doesn’t do her work right most of the time, and has to do it over. It seems to me if she was so smart, she’d know enough not to have to go through the agony of washing supper dishes three times every night. Well, as far as her getting the jars, I bet she was hiding so she wouldn’t have to.

Mama called my name again, so I shot toward the cellar and down those awful steps, trying my best not to look to see if any snakes sunned themselves along the wide cracks. I’m telling you, if they were there I did not want to see them.

To tell the honest truth, though, it wasn’t the thoughts of snakes that worried me as much as the thought of mice, which I dearly hate. They are nasty, with beady eyes and skinny, hairless tails and scritchy toenails.

Myra Sue had swept out the cellar the day before and announced right at the supper table over our tapioca pudding that she had swept a whole big handful of mouse pills down there. I very politely did not gag, which is what I felt like doing.

“How’d you know it was a handful?” I asked her. “You scoop ’em up in your hand?”

“Enough of that at the supper table,” Daddy said.

I noticed Mama looked at her tapioca as if it had turned wormy. Like me, she kinda has a weak stomach sometimes.

It didn’t matter to me if it was a handful or a boxful. A mouse pill is a mouse pill, and the only way it got on the cellar floor was if a mouse had pooped it there, excuse my French. I figured Myra Sue mentioned it just because she likes to scare me.

Well, I remembered what she said while I stared at the cellar door. It was the only thing between me and the mice—and Mama’s Mason jars.

That door is old, let me tell you. It’s gray and splintery, and I’ll bet it’s older than Mama, who’s almost thirty-eight. As I stared at the door it occurred to me that it probably was an antique.

I thought, “I’ll bet we could sell it and get a lot of money. We could probably buy a new car and some—”

“April Grace Reilly!”

Well, I about jumped three miles when Mama hollered. She had the screen door open and was looking right at me. I could see she was getting ticked off. Her dark red hair was damp and curly around her face. Mama’s pretty even when she’s mad.

“Get those jars. Now!”

“Yes’m. Mama? What if I see a mouse in the cellar?”

I could hear her sigh clear across the back yard.

“You won’t see a mouse.” Her voice is usually quiet and soft, but I heard irritation in it. “And even if you do, it’ll be more afraid of you than you are of it. You quit your dillydallying and bring me those jars.”

The screen door banged shut. The sound made me think of an exclamation point at the end of a sentence.

I sucked in a breath so big it hurt my chest hurt and made me dizzy. I studied that rusty old door handle that was kinda shaped like a butter knife. It was all icky and gritty and would probably leave a smelly, rusty-orange smear on my palm. Oh, well. I just had to do it. I wrapped my fingers around that handle and held on.

Then I bowed my head right out there in the middle of the day and prayed, “Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any mice or rats or snakes in the cellar, thank you forever ’n’ ever, amen.”

I flung open that door and yelled, “Okay!”

Inside was black as night. I couldn’t see anything, but at least mouse toenails didn’t scritch across the floor or up the walls. When my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw the shelves where Mama stored her canned stuff. The white-wash on the walls looked spooky, like ghosts hung around in the cellar with the mice.

I closed my eyes real tight.

“Please, Jesus God, don’t let there be any ghosts in there, either. Amen again.”

I scrooched through the doorway a couple of steps and saw that box of jars in the corner. The far corner. Unfortunately, right about then I remembered the time Mama went down to the cellar and opened up a box to see a big ol’ black snake curled up inside, happy as an ice cream sundae, taking himself a snooze. I woulda died right there but Mama just calmly got the snow shovel, scooped him up and carried him out to the field where she let him go on his merry way.

Mama and Daddy say snakes serve a purpose by keeping the mice population down. Well, what I’d like to know is why God invented mice in the first place. If he hadn’t, then we would need snakes, and the whole world would be a lot better off, in my personal opinion. Sometimes I lay away at night and think about stuff like that then I can’t hardly get to sleep for all the thinking.

Well, I sure didn’t want to open a box with a snake in it.

“Please Jesus God, don’t there be any snakes in that box. Amen, again.”

I tiptoed across the floor when, “’Fraidy cat!”

I nearly left my skin right there, let me tell you. I whirled around, ready to run for the hills, and there sat that snotty Myra Sue on the very top step in the sun, grinning down at me like the big ape she is. She smoothed the skirt of her pink sundress then stretched out her legs and admired her new white sandals.

“Did I tell you I saw mouse pills down there yesterday?”

She wiggled one foot and looked at the sunshine hitting the gold buckle on the side of her sandal.

“You already said that. But I don’t believe you. Besides,” I added, “you’re afraid of spiders and granddaddy longlegs.”

“Am not.”

“Are, too. You blubbered like a big fat baby last month when a teeny little spider was on the back of your hairbrush, and I had to squash the poor thing. You were scared like a big fat chicken.”

Myra Sue did not seem impressed with my remembered bravery. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees and swayed her body back and forth.

“Well, it’s smart to be afraid of spiders because they’re poisonous.”

“Ha. You can stomp a spider real easy. But if you try to stomp a mouse, it will run up your leg and get in your underwear.”

For a second she looked startled and spooked, but then she sniffed, as uppity as all get-out.

“Don’t be dumb,” she said. “One time I saw Daddy stomp a mouse barefooted. He got guts all over his feet. Blood squished up between his toes and mouse eyeballs popped out and rolled across the floor. I saw it.”

“You’re lying like a rug, Myra Sue. You’re just trying to make me sick.”

She shrugged and sighed as though she was as old as Mama.

“Believe what you want. But there are mice in that cellar, and Mama wants those jars this minute, or else!”

She stood up and smoothed her skirt. She fluffed her blonde curls as if she was getting her picture taken. Then, before I knew what was happening, she lunged down the steps and, laughing like a hyena, slammed the door shut.

It was so dark in that cellar I could feel it pressing against my eyes. I was sure I heard scritchy toenails running along the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling, but I could not move. Not one little muscle. I screamed loud and long, but I knew no one could hear me. I was down under the ground, like in a grave.

Then my feet worked, and I ran headlong into the door, and like to have knocked myself out cold. I shook my head hard to clear away the stars, then groped for the door handle like a crazy person. My palms and fingers got all full of splinters.

When I was able jerk the door open, I fell outside. My whole body shook. I lay on the steps because I wasn’t able to go further. I thought I heard that nasty Myra Sue giggling but there was such a noise of thunder in my head, I wasn’t sure.

I laid there and waited for my chest to explode.

I thought, “I’m gonna die of a heart attack right here on the cellar steps. When they have my funeral and everybody looks at me laying in my casket with my hand folded across my chest, the preacher will say—”

“April Grace Reilly! Bring me those jars this very minute, or you know what is going to happen to you!’

Uh oh. Mama was downright mad, let me tell you, but right then I was shaking so hard I couldn’t move, or even whimper like a new pup.

After a minute or two, when I was sure I had survived, I dragged open my eyes. I took a slow, deep breath and decided all that screaming I let loose would have scared away any remaining mouse.

I forced myself to get up and go back into the cellar. I inched toward the box, and real carefully I dragged into the center of the room. Nothing came scampering out. I bent over to peek inside it, ready to skedaddle, should the need arise.

No snake. Whew.

I straightened, and that’s when my gaze fell on a big, fat nest of granddaddy longlegs on the wall near the door. I knew good and well my sister had not swept out the cellar yesterday, ‘cause if she had, her body would still be laying right there in the middle of the floor.

“You guys stay right there,” I told the granddaddies and hurried to take the box to Mama.

Before she could scold me I said, “Mama, Myra Sue didn’t sweep out the cellar yesterday. There’s a bunch of dirt and stuff on the floor.”

Myra Sue walked in just as I said it and her smirk slid right off her face.

Mama’s face got redder.

“You girls. One of you daydreams all the time and the other won’t work. Myra, get the broom and sweep out that cellar.”

Myra Sue pooched out her lower lip and glared at me.

“Tattling little brat!”

She thrust her hips sideways as she walked past and knocked me into the cabinet. I didn’t care. Getting even was pretty fun, even though I knew I’d probably be grounded for the next twenty years.

-the end-

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