A Year

I went without shoes today. It's April and you can see the grass through the limp snow now. It still feels like leprechaun spears in your toes. I got the mail in bare feet and skinny legs like sticks under my hand-me-down dress. I didn't have any clean underwear so I didn't wear any. Mama was cleaning the bathtub so she didn't know I was without shoes. And because I'm seven and a half and I dress myself she raised her eyebrows about the hand-me-down sun dress. I failed to mention the underwear. I didn't get anything in the mail.

We found a stray cat. We walked two doors down and asked the garden lady if she had lost her cat. No. She said. My cat is black and white, that cat is gray. I thought maybe her cat had been outside in the heat too long and melted a little. Maybe her colors ran together. Everyone knows black and white make gray. But still, the garden lady said this cat was too skinny. Her cat was quite fat. Mama bit her lip and I grinned triumphantly. Our landlady didn't allow cats. We named her Chloe. I gave her a periwinkle blanket and fed her a slice of vanilla pound cake and milk. I ate chocolate pound cake and milk quite seriously as I watched her curl up on her new bed. I practiced eating little delicate feline bites of my chocolate cake just like Chloe. Later she ended up puking it up on the periwinkle blanket. Mama said she really didn’t think cats were supposed to eat cake, but she had only had German Shepherds when she was a kid so heaven knows. Then the cat got frightened by all the sighing and spraying of cleaner and hid under Daddy's side of the bed, eyes glowing. We walked two doors down the other way and asked the skinny young man who lived above the bookstore if he would like a cat named Chloe. He said that his ginger cat needed a girlfriend anyway, so sure. They must have hit it off because later, Chloe had kittens, but she got scared and smothered them not-on-purpose. A month later I found her in our tilted garage exploring amongst the old tricycle training wheels. This time I fed her tuna salad and water. But when I scolded her and scorned her maternal abuse toward her babies she only licked her whiskers and showed me her little teeth.

Our scarecrow did not work. He really should have; he had a baseball cap, daddy's pants, and mama's sweatshirt. Besides, he was stuffed with plastic grocery bags and held a sign that said “No groundhogs allowed!” He was very impressive standing in between the basil and tomato stakes. But we had to borrow Mr. Schnell's big clattering trap to catch the nibbler. Perhaps he didn't read the magic marker. Or he couldn't understand Scarecrow language. When we did find him squished in the metal cage, we let him go on the side of the highway next to the wildlife reserve. He was fat, smelly, and waddled when he walked serenely away. How he waddled!

There was a car wreck in front of our house on Christmas Eve. We had 17 presents under the tree and Daddy was about to put them in the car so we could drive to Gramma's house and give them all away to cousins. Instead, there was a loud screeching sound and glass shards in the driveway. We let the lady and her daughter come in to use the telephone. My bangs were still fluffy from the curling iron when I gave the girl a Santa lollipop. She said she didn't want it. Santa wasn't real and Christmas wasn't real either. I was very shocked and a little offended. I had made the chocolate lollipops myself, so my pride was wounded. To be refused by a person who didn't believe in Christmas! I stood awkwardly with the lollipop limp in my hand and wondered if that was why she had been in a car crash on Christmas Eve. Since she didn’t believe in it anyway, it made some kind of melancholy sense.