Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth

  Mrs. Stuyvestant looked at Jennifer. Mrs. Stuyvestant looked at Cynthia. Of course, Jennifer’s conversation had been just one shade on the safe side of fresh. But Cynthia’s conversation had been just one shade on the safe side of lying. Mrs. Stuyvestant looked from Jennifer to Cynthia and then back again. She threw her arms in the air, turned around and walked out of the room. Cynthia glared at Jennifer. Jennifer kept shaking the spray paint and kept looking up at the ceiling.

  “Oh, Jennifer,” I thought to myself, “how strong you are. Nerves of steel and the heart of a witch!”

  No one noticed when Jennifer passed me a note later in the period. I was painting hinges on one of the oven doors. The note had only one word on it. It said:

  I knew what Jennifer meant, and I put my head inside the oven and laughed and laughed.

  • • •

  We got through the two performances of the play. They seemed short. Like standing over a stove all day long cooking up some very elegant soup, adding hundreds of special ingredients, stirring and stirring, and then having everyone gulp it down in five minutes.

  The performance in front of the school wasn’t as glamorous as the one for the Parent and Teachers Association at night. For one thing, the auditorium wouldn’t get dark. For another thing, some of the kindergarten kids and the first graders who had sisters or brothers in the play would yell out, “Hi, Johnny,” or “Hello, Sis.” Only Richard yelled back. He was a cook in the kitchen scene; he stood on stage and shook a wooden spoon at his little brother in the audience and yelled, “Mom told you not to call me.” Mrs. Stuyvestant talked to all of us after this performance. She told us about how in the theater one never lets the audience know how one feels. One always acts as if the world begins and ends at the edge of the stage. She talked on some more about one and the theater, but Richard just sat there and bit his nails. He didn’t know which one she meant.

  The evening performance for the P. and T.A. went much better. Richard’s little brother stayed home. I saw Jennifer’s mother sitting in the audience. I knew it was Jennifer’s mother because she was the only Black mother there. She looked as normal as mine. Maybe she wasn’t a witch.

  Maybe witchery skipped generations as blue eyes do. All of a sudden blue eyes can pop up. That is like my brown-eyed uncle who married my browneyed aunt and who had a blue-eyed daughter named Emma. Maybe a normal mother and a normal father can give birth to a witch daughter named Jennifer. Of course, I didn’t see her father since fathers almost never come to P. and T.A. meetings. Maybe Jennifer inherited being a witch from her father. Maybe Jennifer’s father was a wizard, which is a boy witch.

  6

  THIS WAS MY FIRST CHRISTMAS vacation living in our apartment; it was pretty dull. No fireplace. No chimney. A lot of relatives came visiting and pinching. They always pinched my cheek and hugged me and kissed me and asked, “Don’t you have a kiss for your Aunt Buzzie? You remember how you used to always call me Aunt Buzzie because you couldn’t pronounce Beatrice?” They thought that I was still small because I was still little. They didn’t realize that although my size hadn’t caught up with my age, my brain had. Still I always had a kiss for Aunt So and So who asked. And I always stayed still for the hugging, but I escaped a lot of cheek pinching that year. Just as they would lift their hands to pinch me, I’d blow my cheeks up with air, and their fingers would slip.

  Jennifer and I still met on Saturdays. We always walked to the magic circle. Sometimes it was snowing and sometimes it was slushy, but Jennifer always brought her wagon. Sometimes now we talked about nonwitch stuff. Jennifer knew a lot about a lot of things. Partly her being a witch and partly her reading so much. For example, one week my apprentice food was five uncooked spaghettis every day. She told me all about how spaghetti was really Chinese but Marco Polo brought it home to Italy where it was a real success. She told me about how it was manufactured and how much it cost to buy stock in some famous macaroni company on the New York Stock Exchange.

  We were really working on the flying ointment. Some of the ingredients were going to take a long time to collect, so Jennifer decided that we had to start immediately. For example, she decided that we needed about two teaspoonfuls of fingernail parings —one teaspoon from each of us. It takes a lot of parings to fill a spoon. I had to quit biting my nails, which made my mother the happiest woman in the whole U.S. of A. I figured that toenails and fingernails were all pretty much the same, so I also saved toenail cuttings. I saved them all in an old band-aid box, which I kept in my underwear drawer along with the key and Jennifer’s notes. I wore the key only on Saturdays.

  Jennifer said that Christmas was a dangerous time of year for witches because everyone acted happy and tried to be good; Christmas week required special precautions. She said that instead of eating a special food, we were to give up a special food, and it wouldn’t count to give up any old food. It had be a food you especially loved. I thought a long time, trying to make up my mind whether to give up candy or give up cake. I loved candy more, and so to prove myself absolutely honest, I said to Jennifer, “I’ll give up candy.”

  Jennifer said, “I’ll give up watermelon.”

  “For how long?” I asked.

  “Until New Year’s Day, January the 1st, at 7:00 P.M. o’clock of the evening,” she answered.

  “I know P.M. is the evening, Jennifer,” I answered.

  “Agreed?” she asked.

  “I even know that A.M. is of the morning, Jennifer,” I answered.

  “Agreed?” she asked.

  “I even know that New Year’s Day is January the 1st, Jennifer.” I was getting tired of her telling me everything twice. Like New Year’s Day and January the 1st; like P.M. and of the evening. But she still wouldn’t argue.

  “Agreed?” she asked.

  “Agreed,” I answered.

  Then we hooked our fingers together and marched around the magic circle. Jennifer said that our chants must be especially powerful this time. We had to be careful to face inward in the circle so that our heels and not our toes made prints in the outer rim of the circle. Like when your mother makes a pie crust, and she presses the crust around the rim of the pan with a fork. Always in the same direction.

  As we marched around, toes always pointing inward, Jennifer kept repeating this chant:

  “Hecate, Hecate, Dock,

  Around this circle we walk.

  Within one hour make candy sour

  And melon hard as a rock.”

  Then she carefully stepped out of the magic circle and motioned for me to do the same. I did. She sat down on the park bench closest to the circle and removed her boots. She motioned for me to do the same. I did. She put her socks inside her shoes, which were inside her boots, and stood up. She motioned for me to do the same. I did. She started walking toward the magic circle. She motioned for me to do the same. I didn’t. My feet were frozen. She turned around and motioned for me again. She looked cross. I followed.

  We walked around the magic circle again making certain that we never stepped out of the footprints we made the first time. As we walked around, we both chanted:

  “Hecate, Hecate, Dock,

  Around this circle we walk.

  Within one hour make candy sour

  And melon hard as a rock.”

  Then we both stepped out of the circle being careful to not make any new footprints. Jennifer walked, but I ran. My feet were numb from the cold. We dried our feet with our socks and put on our shoes without socks, then put on our boots. I stuffed my socks into my jacket pocket, and Jennifer dumped hers into the wagon. We walked back and looked at the beautiful pattern we had made in the snow. Our circle looked extra magical then.

  Jennifer reached down and dug the snow out of two of the footprints. It was pressed down and a little bit dirty. She rolled two snowballs and gave one to me.

  “We’ll need this for our flying ointment,” she said. “Save it in your deep freezer.”

  Jennifer dumped her snowball into her wagon. I
held mine in my hands. I had forgotten my mittens. My hands were freezing; my feet were freezing. I took my socks out of my pocket and put them on my hands. That helped a little.

  Then Jennifer said, “On New Year’s Day at 7:00 P.M. o’clock of the evening, you’ll find a note pinned to the tree. Read the note. Do as it says. No F.F. until then. The note will tell when we’ll meet again.”

  “F.F.?” I asked.

  “Forbidden Food,” she answered.

  Without another word she tilted her head upward, her eyes upward, and started home. I didn’t dare wish her a Merry Christmas. That would not have been witching.

  I walked home. Rather fast. I thought as I walked that I really loved watermelon, too. Maybe I should have made that my F.F. instead of candy. I was almost at our apartment door before I realized that I had never, absolutely never, heard of anyone having watermelon for Christmas. Maybe they did in Australia or New Zealand where they were below the equator and where everything was upside down, but I never heard of watermelon at Christmas in the whole U.S. of A.

  • • •

  That week we had staying guests: Aunt Drusilla and Uncle Frank. They are really my father’s aunt and uncle, which makes them my great-aunt and great-uncle. The only thing great about them I could see was their ages. Together they were 133 years old. They had never had any children, and they thought that kids were pets who talked. I never sat near them. If I did, they would stroke my hair and pat my arm all the time. They were great cheekpinchers. They would smile at me and say, “Does our Lizzie want an ice cream?” Everything they said turned out to be a question. Instead of “Good morning” they always said, “Isn’t it a good morning?” They said things like, “My, isn’t she a handsome girlie?” Something else about them was that they had the most peculiar food habits I have ever seen.

  They ate something called Health Foods, which they brought with them in big cardboard boxes from a special Health Food store in Manhattan. They had boxes called Lion’s Milk and all kinds of seeds and several kinds of honey and strange juices like sauerkraut juice and celery syrup. My mother would put our supper on the table and then spread out all these crazy seeds and stuff for the Greats. You can imagine how my mother looked when they first came and my father carried in all that stuff. She waited until they were in the bedroom unpacking their clothes. Then she came over to me. She bent to my ear and said in a low, slow voice, “If - you -dare - to - ask - for - one - crazy - food - this - week -I’m - moving - into - a - hotel - and - no - one - will -hear - from - me - until - after - the - 4th - of - July.”

  So I had been relieved when Jennifer said that for my apprenticeship this week, I had to give up something special instead of eat something special.

  • • •

  I walked in with my socks on my hands, dripping this dirty snowball across the rug, trying to get to the freezer. The Greats spotted me. Great-aunt Drusilla got up from the couch and said, “What are we doing, dearie?”

  I knew that I had time to think of an answer because Great-uncle Frank always repeated what Great-aunt Drusilla said. She always returned the courtesy; she repeated what he said.

  Great-uncle Frank did not disappoint me; he asked, “What are we doing, dearie?”

  I said, “Putting this in the freezer.”

  Great-uncle Frank said, “And why are we doing that?”

  Great-aunt Drusilla said, “And why are we doing that?”

  I said, “To keep it frozen.”

  Great-aunt Drusilla said, “And why are we keeping it frozen?”

  Great-uncle Frank said, “And why are we keeping it frozen?”

  I said, “For an experiment.”

  G.A. Drusilla said, “And is this for school, sweetie?”

  G.U. Frank said, “And is this for school, sweetie?”

  I said, “Science class.”

  G.A. Drusilla said, “Oh?”

  G.U. Frank said, “Oh?”

  I said, “Yes?” and marched to the freezer. The puddle on the living room rug wasn’t too big.

  My mother came out of the bedroom just as I was closing the freezer. She took only a quick look at me and only a quick look at the puddle and said, “Take off those boots.” I sat down on a kitchen chair and did. I forgot that my socks were on my hands and not on my feet. My mother noticed. When I had removed only the left shoe, she didn’t quite believe that I had actually put on shoes and boots without socks. She waited until I took off the right shoe, too, to make sure. Then she said, “Do you really believe that you’re not going to catch a cold all winter because of that onion business weeks ago?”

  I shook my head, “Yes.”

  She said, “Have you ever thought that most people wear their socks on their feet, not on their hands?”

  I shook my head, “Yes.”

  She said, “Will you repeat after me: socks are for feet; mittens are for hands.”

  I said, “Socks are for feet; mittens are for hands.”

  She said, “Say it again.”

  I said, “Socks are for feet; mittens are for hands.”

  She said, “Now please tell me, where are your mittens?”

  I said, “In my sock drawer.”

  She threw up her hands, “Just get those socks off your hands and set the table.”

  As usual the Greats helped me set the table. They were very accurate about where the fork and knife went. Everything about food except how it tasted interested them. They cared about the vitamins it had in it and about what order it was served in and how fast it was eaten. They ate very slowly. They believed in chewing. “Proper mastication is essential to proper digestion,” they said. Each said it for each meal. That makes two Greats times three meals a day or six times a day I heard it. On the third day, I looked up mastication. It means chewing. I thought that after they left, I’d send their slogan in for a toothpaste commercial.

  The Greats nibbled their seeds and sipped their sauerkraut juice. I couldn’t decide whether they loved to eat or hated to eat. Maybe they ate slowly so that the meal wouldn’t end. Maybe they ate slowly because everything tasted so bad that they had to eat slowly to get it down.

  I began to snitch samples of all their foods. I wrapped them in waxed paper and pinned a label on them. After all, I figured, not many apprentice witches could get Lion’s Milk for their flying ointment. Even in Africa where there are plenty of witches called witch doctors and plenty of lions, not many witches get lion’s milk. I thought it would be a useful ingredient; lions can leap great distances. Lion’s Milk, I thought, could be lift-off juice. Except that Lion’s Milk was a powder. I kept all these little packages in my underwear drawer near the key and the notes and the fingernails. My underwear drawer was getting lumpy.

  On New Year’s Eve my mother and father went to a party. It was the first party they had gone to in a long time. My mother was anxious to go, but she worried about it for a week. My mother worried about manners. Since the Greats were our house guests, she thought that it wouldn’t be polite to go to the party without them. Since she didn’t know the hostess very well, she didn’t want to ask her to ask the Greats. She thought that it would be impolite to not go to the party after she had already said yes.

  One night my mother was telling her politeness worries to my father. She was saying, “Maybe I should tell them that this invitation came at the very last minute and that it is important to your work to accept, and then ask them to please help out in this emergency/’

  The reason I know all this is because I had to sleep on a cot in their room while the Greats were visiting. My father was dozing. I guess when he heard emergency, he became wide awake.

  “Emergency!” he said.

  “Sh, sh, sh,” my mother said.

  “What is this? A quiet emergency?” my father asked.

  “No, no, no,” my mother answered. “I just thought that if we tell Aunt Drusilla and Uncle Frank that this emergency invitation came, and we just have to accept, they won’t mind sitting with Elizabeth on New Year’s
Eve.”

  “Are you still worrying about that?” my father asked. “Why don’t you tell them the truth?”

  “The truth! The truth!” my mother answered. “How can I tell them the truth?”

  “Is the truth so bad?” my father asked. I could tell he was sleepy. “Maybe I don’t understand the facts. What is the truth?”

  “Simply that we were invited and they weren’t,” my mother answered.

  My father gave a tiny laugh and said, “Sounds terrible. I’ll handle it in the morning.”

  I started to laugh, too, but quickly buried my head in my pillow. My mother realized for the first time that I was awake.

  “Elizabeth,” she called.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Elizabeth,” she called. “I know you’re awake, and if you utter one word of this to your aunt and uncle, you’ll sleep in the bath tub for the rest of their visit.” I didn’t utter a sound.

  My father “handled” it in the morning. He simply told his aunt and uncle that he and mother would be going out on New Year’s Eve.

  Great-aunt Drusilla said, “Isn’t it wonderful to be young and to go out to parties?”

  Great-uncle Frank said, “Isn’t it wonderful to be young and to go out to parties?”

  I don’t know why they said that Mom and Dad were young. I know for a fact that each was well over twice my age.

  Father then said, “I know you’ll enjoy staying with Elizabeth.”

  Great-uncle Frank said, “Will we be baby-sitters?”

  Great-aunt Drusilla said, “Will we be babysitters?”

  Father said, “Yes.”

  Great-aunt Drusilla said, “Isn’t that wonderful, Frankie?”

  Great-uncle Frank said, “Isn’t that wonderful Frankie . . . er . . . ah . . . I mean, Drusie?”

  They could hardly wait for Mom and Dad to go to the party. My parents got all dressed up. I could tell that my mother was excited about going out. She combed her hair front and back. She usually didn’t check the back of her hair by holding up a small mirror in front of the big mirror, but she did for New Year’s Eve. Actually, they didn’t look too old when they were all dressed up; they just looked mature.