The Assignment that Ferreted me out:
I bet I know more than you do. I used to overturn big flat rocks, looking for the Devil. Satan Himself, Grandma Matchie always called him, and always with a shiver jippling all along her skinny shoulders. And her eyes spizzled, like she was showing me what Hades looked like, as if she’d been down there herself and arm-wrassled Satan Himself down to the ground (she did too, but that’s another story). He was hiding, she told me, always hiding. So I overturned rocks, the big flat ones, but all I ever found were ants, carrying eggs back and forth, and getting on my shoes so I had to stimp and stamp and stromp.
I don’t look under rocks anymore, and that’s why I know more than you do.
And I’ll tell you this too. I’ve seen him. I’ve seen Satan Himself. It was easy. All I had to do was follow that fishing line right to the end, and there he was! It was the third and last week in my summer vacation, but before I tell you about that, I have to tell you about the first and second weeks, because, you see, that’s the only way to unravel fishing line.
And that’s not the only reason. Sometimes the Bigness of Things is so big that you’ve just got to be prepared before you run into it. Which means you should take a look at smaller Bigness before you see the Biggest Bigness.
I’m doing this because Old Ladies say I’m nice, and since they got to be so old I figure they know the difference between nice and not-nice.
One last thing. Those Titles are Grandma Matchie’s, one for each of the three weeks. She says Titles are important, and that’s the way they’ve done things since Adam first broke the Egg. I’m not sure what that means, unless it’s that all those Titles fell out when Adam broke the Egg. Personally, I don’t think there’s an Egg in existence that could hold all the world’s Titles. Because if there was, who laid it and where does she live and what does she eat and does she ever visit Sudbury and if she did then why?
So, here’s the first week, and Grandma Matchie’s first Title. The rest of the stuff, and all those smaller headings, is mine and no one’s Legally Responsible but me.
One thing worries me, though. What happens if all those people I talk about come after me?
NO REST FOR THE WICKED
Girls. My face is scrinching up already, but I’m forcing myself because it’s Important to start here. I like pretending they’re not there most of the time, even though they wear pants with zippers and I’m pretty sure they don’t need zippers. They’re funny like that and don’t ask me why because I don’t know why.
So I usually pretend they don’t exist, and that makes them mad for some reason, and then there’s this funny chase thing during recess, where you run after them until your chest hurts. And something Serious and Grim pushes the insides of your head all over the place, as if the chase was More Important than Anything Else on Earth.
It’s sickening. And the girl you’re chasing after looks Different from all the other girls. Stranger, uglier maybe, like she’s always twitching her nose and pulling at her hair.
The fascination of ugliness:
But then you catch her. You force her into a red bricked corner behind the school, and suddenly she looks mad. I can’t figure that. She glares at you and she’s breathing hard and her cheeks are red and her eyes are wild in a way that makes you think of stupid things, like wrestling.
It’s that corner stuff all over again. The Bigness of Things that can make your face scranch up while you’re thinking of more stupid things, like mint-sucking piano teachers and little violins wearing flowery dresses. I know it’s stupid!
And it gets worse and worse. You plant a grin on your face like the ones you’ve seen in horror movies just before the blonde woman throws up her hands and screeks, and she stares at it, those eyes going big, because you’ve grown fangs. It makes you even sicker when you suddenize how dumb you look. But in spite of all that, in spite of everything, you close in.
What do you do then? Maybe you punch her, maybe she punches you. And you ask yourself in horror: Whose arm is going to be sore? It’s the most Awful Decision of your life, that one.
Or, worst of all, nothing happens! And no matter what, you feel luzzy for days afterwards. Ignoring her giggling friends you follow her next recess, trying to make her run away so you can splurt after her, so maybe something’ll happen this time. But it’s awful, because now she’s ignoring you!
So I hate her and that’s all there is to it. And my face scrunches up when someone says her name, and that Grim and Serious thing in me makes me want to barf.
The Secret of Wanting to Barf:
Oh, I know all about it now. I’ve studied the way those bumps on my sister’s chest gromered all bigger underneath her shirt, until she had to tie them up so she could see where she was stepping, so there wouldn’t always be dog-do on her runners.
Only girls and fat men have those things. And only girls tie them up, which is why fat men sag and slumple and I get out of their way so I don’t get brolled on and skirbled flat.
I also know why girls exist. It all started that first week of summer vacation at Rat Portage Lake, when, feeling Grim and Serious, I threw a dead frog in Sis’s hair and it came back to life. Up until then nothing I had ever thrown in her hair had come back to life. Not worms all liddlelimply gray, not minnows all bladed white, not even big black flies from the windowsill which are never really dead anyway! And the live things I threw in her hair all died instantly. It’s true! The garter snake up and died! Went stuckled as a stick and stuck out its tongue and rolled up its eyes!
But the frog came back to life, all because Sis had grown those Infernal Bumps. I stood back in amazement and watched the poor thing struggle in the torngle of her long hair, while Sis blawed and screamed and clabbed at her pointy head. Then she managed to grab one of its kicking legs and she threw it high into the air. Limbs Splayed, it hung up there against the sky, then down it went hitting the lake with a batralp.
I’ll never forget those Splayed Limbs in all my life. And now, when I chase a girl into a corner behind school, I know that those Splayed Limbs will be just another one of those stupid thoughts. The whole thing makes me sick.
And that’s how it all started, as we stood by the dock with the tigerflies brazzling over our heads and the water purbling up on the little beach and the pine trees hisspering behind the cabin, the whole family every one of us waiting for Grandma Matchie to arrive.
Even normal families like mine got Secrets:
Grandma Matchie is that Secret. I’m not supposed to talk about her. I think it’s because she embarrasses Dad alot, even though she’s Mom’s Mom. So I won’t talk about the times she embarrassed Dad and I’ll keep it to the Plain Facts nobody would argue about.
Grandma Matchie lives in a two-story wooden lodge that has been under water since 1899. That was the year the dam was opened. Fifty feet down, she says, all lit up so that the astronauts can see it whenever they pass overhead. She sleeps down there and comes up most mornings after breakfast, but sometimes earlier.
But it was already our second day at the cabin. And the sun was hot, making us all clampy while we tuddled around the cabin, or skiddled up on the Precambrian Rock skirmelling blueberries into our mouths and collecting deer antlers and putting them in trees and throwing pinecones at wasp nests and running away when all the wasps come stungling out. Our second day away from the city, away from Appalled Neighbors and Urban Miscreants who want to recycle everything in our house or at least bottles. Our second day at Rat Portage Lake, and Grandma Matchie hadn’t come up yet.
So we stood there waiting, and waiting some more. Everyone figured she wasn’t going to show. Mom and Dad kept arguing about it, and Sis sat down on a stump and tried to loosen the knots I’d tied in her hair earlier that morning.
Dad told her not to sleep in!
I kept my eyes peeled on the waves, because I knew better. I knew she was coming, just like she did every summer. And just like all the other summers everybody figured she wasn’t going to s
how. Grown-ups have real short memories, if you ask me.
And sure enough there she was, her head bobbening to the surface in the middle of the bay. She gave a wave and we all waved back.
“See!” I said to Mom. “I told you I saw lights down there last night! I knew she was home!”
“Well,” she sneffed, tightening her grip on the broom handle. “Could’ve been lectric eels.”
Grandma Matchie swam towards us, her long skinny neck making a giant V through the water. Minnows leapt in little silver florshes in front of her, like she was chasing them, but I could’ve told them not to worry. Grandma Matchie didn’t give a rizzling hoot for small fry.
“Ain’t no lectric eels in Rat Portage Lake!” Dad gruzzled, scratching the thick black hair on his chest until the buttons on his shirt popped off. He turned to Mom with his big red-bearded face all scowllered up. “Semper fey, woman! What’ve ya got for brains, anyway? Turnips?”
“That’s a root crop,” Sis said. She was taking Agriculture in school and I hated everything she said, so I started looking around for something to throw at her. But then I remembered the frog and got scared.
“Lectric eels, Zeus!” Dad shook his shuggy head, making the fishing lures in his hat jample. He’d hung the biggest ones on the brim of the hat. For balance, he said. And so he had Red Devils in front of his eyes, and he looked out from the tiny holes where you tie the line. “Lectric eels!”
Mom scowllered too, hefting the broom in her skinny hands. She looked down at her high heels again and tried feebly to pull them out from between the planks in the dock, but she was stuck fast, which made her scowller even more. It was just like every summer. “Well, lamp rays, then.”
“Lamp rays!”
I left them binickering and ran down to the end of the dock to meet Grandma Matchie. Grinning, she clambered up on the weathered boards and began wringing the water from her bright red dress. She was taller even than Dad and skinnier even than Mom, and her gray hair sat on top of her head like a giant ball of torngled-up fishing line with only a little seaweed in it, and you could see she’d been lying on the rock all the bass like to hide under because her wrunkled skin was all tanned and anyway summer’s when her Indian blood shows through, because Grandma Matchie’s One Part Everything.
“How ya bin doin, Tyke?” Her hiking boots sloshed as, taking my hand, we walked up the dock. “You ain’t seen the Major lately, have ya?”
I looked across the bay at the Major’s tiny island, but all I could see was his dock and his Blarny Boat and the flagpole with its Union Jack hanging there all lank and tired. “I seen him out trobbling around, that’s all. Yesterday. Whenever he comes near shore he just shakes his fist at us. I think he’s mad at us or something.”
Tossing back her head Grandma Matchie laughed. “He’s mad, all right! Hah!”
Dad scowllered and said: “We bin here since yesterday and you ain’t been up once!”
“Aren’t you ashamed?” Mom demanded, poking the air with her broom.
Making a rude noise at both of them Grandma Matchie turned and crucked an eyebrow at Sis. “That hair sure looks funny, lass. In fashion nowadays, eh? Well, don’t let the bees see you or you’ll get stungled for sure!” And she laughed again.
Sis’s face scrinched up and I could tell she was going to cry. And sure enough she let out a browl and raced away towards the cabin.
Mom scowllered even scowllier than Dad. “Now look at what you done, Mother!”
Well, it didn’t surprise me, that’s for sure. Sis was older than me and I hated her. The way she made faces at dinner, and the way she started crying every time I kicked her under the table, and once she hit me when Mom wasn’t looking, and nobody’d believe me, so I hated her, and that’s why.
And she had purple hair too. It used to be brown, even when it wasn’t dirty, but now it was purple. And she wore shiny shirts that made her chest look funny. Once, I saw her in the bathroom, miggling her hips so that her fat bum moved funnily. She was crazy, and if you don’t believe me you just wait!
Grandma Matchie frowned. “She bin cryin alot, Ester?”
Mom’s face reddened for some Mysterious Reason, but she nodded anyway.
Dad caught my eye and winked. “Woman talk, son. Don’t you pay it no mind.” His eyes looked small as a gerbil’s inside those holes in the Red Devils, but not just any old gerbil unless all gerbils are like the one that used to be in my classroom but got away when a Child with an Overwrought Imagination Assisted it to Escape. Eyes like that gerbil’s, which were mostly suspicious even when I showed it the Plans. And all those flies snigged in Dad’s hat made me think of when you accidentally drop a ten-pound jar of chocolate pudding on a rock and it breaks and there’s a pile of ucky pudding just sitting there for hours before you tell anyone, and by then it’s fly pudding and you can watch them sinking and disappearing until the sun goes down when there’s none left and it’s time for Sis to have a snack.
We were all getting ready to go up to the cabin when Grandma Matchie hissped “Shhh!” and crouched, looking around. Everyone froze. Her eyes narrowed to slits and she sniffed the air. “He’s here, he is!” she hisspered. “Somewhere!”
All at once we heard fladapping overhead and we all looked up.
“There he is!” Grandma Matchie screeked. “Spyin!”
The Major hovered over us, wearing his usual navy blues and polished boots. You could see the fire gleamering in his eyes and he grinned crazzerly, his big red nose purlsing and his giant mustache bristlering. The two gulls holding him up screewled loudly and beat their wings madly, and feathers floated down all around us.
Water spraying from the eyelets of her hiking boots, Grandma Matchie splomped back and forth in a rage. “Where’s my duck gun!” She shook her fist skyward. “I’ll turn those gulls into paperweights! Hah!” Then she swirjerked around and tore off up the trail and prashed down the cabin door with both feet at once.
She disappeared inside. “She’s getting a gun!” Dad shouted at the Major, who shrieked. And the gulls shrieked too. Legs pumping the air, the Major tried to run home. The seagulls ducked their heads and drummed their wings, hurrying him towards his island. By the time Grandma Matchie arrived with her shotgun, the Major had shrunk to a speck. Looking miserable, she pumped a couple rounds after him anyway, then sniffed, her wrinkled lips pouping.
“Damn spyin! Did you see his beady eyes? Just aglowin!”
“How come?” I asked.
“He’s fishin, that’s what he’s doin. An he’s got it bad, sure enough if you ask me.”
“Got what bad?”
“The itch.” Grandma Matchie surplied.
I didn’t know what on earth she was talking about, but I saw Dad grinning and Mom’s face turning red. And for some reason I could feel my face starting to scranch, though it had no reason to that I could figure. It does that sometimes.
That night, in the cabin, Grandma Matchie cooked us up a whole pot full of crayfish, but said they had to cool till morning before we could eat them. Then she sat herself down by the fireplace, streetching out her glongly legs and watching her boots steam.
Mom took over the kitchen and said no one was allowed to come in while she Baked Bread.
“Crazy woman!” Dad snargled, crushelling his beer can and throwing it into a corner, his eyes streaming in the smoke from the pipe in his mouth. Smoking a pipe’s an important part of being a fisherman, he’d said between coughs. He had on his fishing hat with the thousand hundred fifty-two million lures snegged in it, and he stood in the center of the living room, wearing hip-waders and a fish basket clipped to his leg. Bing Crosby was on the tape deck and the sound of turckling water came from the bathroom where Dad had turned on the tap. “Gotta have the sound of turckling water,” he’d said. “It’s a parta fishin. An important part.”
Whipping the air, Dad’s fly rod swung back and forth, and fishing line torngled everything. It hung from the rafters of the A-frame like spiderwebs; it snarve
lled the furniture and lay in twingled coils on the wooden floor. Sis was all wrapped up in it and hadn’t moved in an hour. She just lay there, groaming every now and then.
I sat with Grandma Matchie, my feet growing hot as Hades in front of the mackling spunkering pafting fire.
“Crazy woman!” Dad repeated in a voice loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. Snapping open another beer can with his left hand he tugged the rod. “Damn! Snaggered again! It’s the worst parta fishin! If I lose another leader I’ll scream!” He pulled and pulled and the moose head on the wall waggled and nodded.
The kitchen door swung open and a white-powdered figure stepped out and screaked: “Didn’t I tell you to do your fishin outside?” Clouds burst from her lips. “Didn’t I!?”
“I ain’t goin out there!” Dad belbowed. “There’s dangerous beasts out there! A man could get himself killed!” He yanked savagely and the moose head jampled straight out from the wall all brown and blurthy like it was attacking him. Yimping, Dad ducked and the head sailed over and crashed down on a table. “See!”
“Fishin’s dangerous, Tyke.” Grandma Matchie nodded.
Dad straightened and glawered at Mom. “Not only that! It’s gothic fulla bugs and stuff!” He beared his teeth at her and snargled, “Why don’t you go out there if y’like it so much! Do your gothic bakin in the bush!”
“Look at your daughter!”
“Ahh, she’s all right. Just sleepin, is all.”
“She’s all tied up!”
“Bah!”
Crossing her arms, Mom whirled about. “Well!” She slammed the door and flour gusted out around it.
Bing Crosby began dreaming of a white Christmas and I hissped, “Shhh!” to Grandma Matchie and began wormening toward the kitchen, crawpelling from shadow to shadow like the Indians must have done, until I crouched up against the door. Reaching up, I grasped and turned the knob ever so slowly. I opened it a crack and peeked in.
It was white woman’s territory for sure. In fact, the whole kitchen was white, and loaves of bread were stacked everywhere, a million thousand seventy-two of them. And there was Mom, her fancy black dress all covered in flour and butter and dough, and there was more dough clinging to her fingers and arms and wrapped around her neck as she strubbled and pulled and pulled and strubbled, muttering and whimpering all the while.