Old Enough; Surviving Summer

Pearl's house has different rules than me and Paw-Paw's, we must try our best to sit still and not bother Pearl's in and out family unless they say something to us first. Cousins, uncles, old feeble looking blood family strolled through like ants on watermelon. Clara and I sip our cold sweet tea on the living room floor and gobble up vanilla wafers pretending to like playing Old Maids while whispering about stuff we overhear.

Clara points to the right toward the oldest woman I ever seen; her skin looks like burnt waffles and she mumbles to herself while patting her knees over and over. She has on a gingham house dress and red flip-flops.

"That's Aunt Pearl's grandma, my great-grandma. She smacks her lips all the time and can only eat soft food like drippy mashed potatoes and jello." She sometimes cries but I don't know why; Aunt Pearl says she has old memories, old as she is there must be a million things to cry about." Clara pokes me when I stare at her droopy lipped great-grandma. "Don't stare, just listen May." I pick up another card and flip it over; I have a scarecrow and am paying attention to the game. I'm just soaking in faces and stories like biscuits and gravy.

Pearl walks in and gives us both a tender pat on the head, "Ya'll play nice together. Clara, go show May your room shuga." Shuga? Pearl never called me shuga; I feel a bit jealous of Clara getting a room at Pearl's and sweet little names like shuga. I will tell you why Clara lives with Pearl later; it's something Clara and I have in common and I try not to think about it.

Clara opens her old squeaky door that has a hand painted sign on it that reads, "Clara's Room". I feel jealous of that, too. It's a very small bedroom, much smaller than mine but she has bunk beds with brightly colored quilts on both. A big red and brown braided rug covers most of the dull planked floor. In a big basket is bunch of toys which I am eager to get my hands on to inspect. She tells me she sleeps on the top bunk and should I sleep over I get the bottom. Sleep over? My brain starts going wild again with imaginings and I wonder how long it takes for some of Clara's blood from our earlier ritual to reach my head. I begin to think my just-in-case bag was a plot all along; Paw-Paw has sent me to the one place I had always dreamed of seeing but now that I am here I just wanna run all the way home. Tears whelp up again.

"May! What is it now? We are blood-sisters, why you always whining? Have you ever had a whooping?" She pats a spot on the rug where she has plopped down motioning me to sit, too.

"I don't think so; what's a whooping?" Clara rolls around the floor holding her belly laughing so hard she can't breathe; I start to smile again even though I don't know why. When she winds down she tells me that once I have a whooping I won't cry. She mimics a grown-up saying something like, "I'll give you somethin' to cry about child." then adds, "it's time you learned, c'mon."

She hops out her window and by now I know to follow her. "Do you know how to pick a switch?" I shake my head no. "Lordy, lordy May; how you be so green I'll never know." She tells me the best thing to do is pick a thin one, like a soft tip of a young tree. She pulls down a limb and twists it until it releases from the rest of the branch. She instructs me, "Now, pull all those leaves off and then give it back to me." I do what Clara says as she is way more not-green than me. I hand her the "switch" as she calls it.

Clara does her imitation of a mad grown-up again, "Stop that whining or I'll give you something to cry 'bout!" She has one hand on her hip and makes a mean face. I am laughing now. "Stop that laughing cause you about to get a whooping. Bend over and stick your scrawny butt up toward the sun. You'll be seeing stars when I'm done with you smarty-pants." I still don't get it but I do as told laughing all the while.

I put my hands on my knees and stick my behind up toward the sky; mind you I am in my favorite blue peddle pushers, not in my birthday suit. Clara asks if I am ready. "Well, I guess so." After cutting our wrists and mixing our blood earlier today I know whatever a whooping is I probably need some.

All of a sudden I feel a sting on my bottom, not too bad yet enough to make me scream, "why are you hitting me?" I stand up and turn around then Clara starts swatting at me with the switch hollering for me to stay still. I start running toward the shady spot where we made our sisterly vows and she stays right on my tail, literally.

"This is called a whooping, May!" Then in her deeper grown-up voice she tries not to giggle, "about time you shaped up!" We fall into the dry dirt laughing and I forget all about my reasons for feeling sad. Clara grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. "I'm just playin' with ya sister."