Excavate

Maisie shrieked, shrinking helplessly from the decayed femur dangled inches from her face. Her brother’s laughter rang like a kettle, hissing and muddling her wails. He swung it past her chin, soil untangling in clumps that fell to Maisie’s chest. Her screams bubbled into sobs, the dirt crumbling more with each taunting shake, sprinkled from the tangle of roots. In the dim light of the barn, it looked like spiderwebs, thin and sticky with pests.

“Don't be such a wuss,” Bo teased. He pulled the bone to his chest, gripping it at its base like a bat, swinging it playfully in mimic of a homerun. “Oh, stop cryin’, you ugly thing,” he said, her whimpers persisting. Maisie lunged, her fists balled tightly in knock of his chest and ribs.

“You stupid, ugly, fatass--” she yelled, teeth clenched. “--idiot!”

“Geez, Lazy-Maisie, can’t you take a joke?” He dodged a slap. “Quit it!”

“You nearly shoved that thing up my nose!"

Swiftly, Bo lifted himself into the barn’s rafters, the old wood groaning beneath his climb, unused to more than a pigeon’s weight.

“Psh,” he said, feet dangling high above her head. He lifted the bone into the light, examining it closely. “You're such a baby. Ain’t nothin’ but a horse leg.”

“Mama’s gonna whoop you.”

“She ain’t gonna do jack,” he yelled, his voice suddenly less playful. His nose was scrunched, his feet kicking the air Maisie jumped at in reach of his legs. “Quit it, Mais, go ‘way!”

“Ass!” she yelled, her shoulders sagging in release of her final jump. She could already hear her mother: ‘Teasing’s what boys do best, quit your whinin’, Maisie Mae’.

She huffed. She wanted to spit in his face, throw a few punches at the very least. Maybe she’d spit in his dinner when Mama wasn’t looking.

The plotting calmed her.

“I’m tellin’ Mama you swore,” Bo baited, shattering her calm.

“No one likes a tattletale, Bo.”

Maisie jumped, startled, her father’s stern heckle dissolving her fury.

“Pa! Bo’s gotta bone!” she cried.

“A bone?” he asked, surprised but seemingly amused.

“And this ain’t a tattle, but he chased me and was slappin’ me with it!”

“Don’t lie!” Bo hissed, hanging from the monkey bar rafters, the wood squeaking as he swung and landed gracefully.

“You were!”

“No the hell I wasn--”

“Enough-- enough,” their father said, his voice serious, but friendly, his eyes searching Bo's hands. “Let’s see it, then.”

Maisie’s cheeks reddened.

“It’s a horse femur Pa, found it diggin’ out back near the old stables.” He handed him the bone and his father examined it closely.

“That's... a horse femur alright,” their father said finally, tapping it with his knuckles.

“Can I keep it, Pa?” Bo asked, reaching for it. His father recoiled the bone.

“Don’t think your Ma would appreciate that much.”

Maisie resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.

“Oh, c’mon, she won’t care.”

“Bo, I said n--”

“Here, give it, I’ll go ask her now!”

Their father’s smile hardened into a line, drooping into a frown.

“Hey, drop it,” he said firmly, his voice raised. Maisie smirked into her shoulder.

“But Pa--”

“What did I just say, Bo? Christ, am I talkin’ to a wall?” he yelled. “Your mother’s not gonna want you keepin’ a dirty old horse bone in the house!”

Bo scowled, mumbling profanities. Dropping his head to his chest, he kicked at the hay and animal droppings scattered across the barn floor.

“You know what," their father said. “Fine. Go show it to her. See what she says.” He pressed the bone to Bo’s chest, his son’s pout immediately replaced with a boastful smile.

Chest puffed, he shot his sister an ugly look that she mirrored, with the addition of a protruding tongue.

Father and daughter stood across one another, motionless, listening to his eagar run for the farmhouse. The rocks popped beneath his shoes, otherwise silenced by the patches of grass and dirt. At the sound of their screen door pulling shut with a heavy clank, they finally turned their attention to each other.

“This ain’t good,” her father said.

“No shit.”

“Hey, language.”

“Well pardon my language, but Mama’s gonna have a cow.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Jesus Christ Pa, are you crazy? Why would you tell him to bring it to her?”

“Language, Maisie Mae!”

Her father rubbed his chin, the scrape of stubble similar to the sound of her fingernails run over the bristles of a steel hairbrush. Maisie clenched her teeth, her frustration rising.

“She’s gonna find a way to blame me, I just know it,” she spat, breaking her stance to pace the barn.

“Cool it Mais. I’ll be takin’ the blame for this one.” He pulled a cigarette from his chest pocket, flicking the tarnished metal lighter open, its flame nearly invisible. He sucked the cigarette, encouraging the small flame to light its tip.

“No, she'll...” She paused, her eyes widenening. “Oh. Oh!”

“Mhm.”

“I was in charge of everything above the legs! Hah!” She laughed, pointing at him, her other hand clasped to stomach.

“Spare me the taunting, Mais.”

“Oh, she’s gonna kill you,” she said, cackling.

“You better hope not. You’d be next".

Maisie shrugged, kicking at the floor as her brother had. She looked to the house, watching the door in wait of her mother’s entrance.

“What’s it been now-- three years?” he father asked, filling the silence.

“About that.”

“Think I could somehow convince ‘er it’s actually a horse?”

Maisie scoffed.

“Yeah Pa, why don’t you--”

They both whipped their heads at the squeal of metal door, its hinges wailing.

“Maisie!” her mother yelled, the bone dangled under her armpit, her arms crossed at her chest. Maisie’s shoulders tensed, the taste of metallic filling her tongue in her instinct to bite down.

“Yes, Mama?”

“Tell that father o’ yours,” she called, pointing the bone at them in warning, “he’s on the chesterfield tonight.” Maisie exhaled with her father, their eyes darting to each other in relief.

“And Maisie-baby?” her mother called, her voice tired. “The long handled ones this time. And don’t forget the garden spades-- the soil’s been extra hard this year.”