Chapter 4* - Skinny Girl

Then I broke my arm.  “Hey Shannon, wanna do a double penny drop?” asks Shellie Chandler standing on the packed red dirt by the lime green monkey bars.  We’re in PE, and it’s a free play day.  “What’s that?” I ask.  I’m game for all things playground. And I love doing penny drops. On the lowest of three staggered yellow chin up bars, I have gotten very good at them.  Hang upside down by my knees then swing, swing, swing until I’m high enough to safely flip off and land on my feet.  Susan taught me how.  Her mom lets her take gymnastics.  I’m also learning to do back hip circles thanks to Kara Linton and S.F. Griffith who don’t know my name and just call me Skinny Girl, which I only mind a little.  I walk past the tetherball pole toward the staggered chin up bars. 

“It’s really cool, but come ‘ere,” Shellie says.  “We have to do it on the monkey bars.”  “Oh. Ok,” I reply, “but, how?”  She points up over our heads.  “You hang upside down on this side, and I’ll hang upside down across from you, on that side.  We hold hands, count to three, then we flip off at the same time.”  My eyes light up.  Wow.  This is gonna be cool.  Even better than double-dutch jump roping.  ‘Cause two are always better than one.

The monkey bars are high for a penny drop.  I can cross them easily, but this seems a little riskier.  If Shellie can do it, I can, I think to myself.  I’m as good as anyone at penny drops.  “Alright,” I say as we both climb up on top of the bars and crawl on our knees to the middle.  I’m nervous.  And excited.  Carefully, I wrap my ankles under the hot metal bars all pro-like and lean back until I’m completely upside down. 

“Grab my hands,” says Shellie who is upside down in the same position on the opposite side.  I crane my neck back to look for her hands, and we get situated.  It’s a good thing my hair is in braids, or I wouldn’t be able to see her.  “Ok, are your feet ready?” Shellie asks.  They aren’t.  I unwind them from the bars and put them unhinged on top.  Whoa.  I hope this works.  I hope we don’t knock heads.  “Now we gotta swing toward each other, but not too much, for three counts.  We’ll go one, two, three, and then flip off.  Got it?  Like this.”  She gently pulls my arms back and forth to demonstrate.  “Yeah.”  Is anybody gonna to see this?   I sure hope so. 

Out the corner of my eye, I see a few girls watching us.  One, swing, two, swing, three, swing flip.  Suddenly I’m at the point of no return.  Off fly my legs, and I look up.  Our heads come within inches of each other, and it scares me.  Clomp.  Dust cloud.  Feet on the ground.  Both of us.  Standing up.  Huge smiles overtake our faces, and I look at the girls around us.  Tada!  “That was so cool,” says Julie Williamson, “I thought you were gonna kill yourself.”  “Me, too,” I say.  I feel like a circus performer, in a good way.  I can’t wait to do it again.  We start to climb back up, but the bell rings, so we scamper back down and run to line up.

“I’ve got some stuff to finish up, so why don’t y’all go play on the playground,” says Aunt Lesia after school.  I’m riding home with her.  Natalie and I are fine with that.  I’m thinking about the double penny drop.  I tell Natalie what one is and about how great it was.  “Wanna do it with me?” I ask.  She’s hesitant.  “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?” she asks,  “it sounds kinda dangerous.”  “No,” I say.  “It’s really easy.  Just like a regular penny drop.”  Natalie can do regular penny drops.  I fail to mention how scared I was or that Shellie and I almost cracked skulls.  No need to worry her, and I really want her to try it with me.  “I don’t think so,” she says apologetically.  “Maybe we can play King of the Hill.”  We both like that game.    I look toward the half-buried tire where we play it at the other end of the playground. 

The playground looks sparse.  Almost everyone has gone home.  But there’s a girl in my class named Tallie milling around by the monkey bars.  She looks bored.  Perfect.  “Hey Tallie!” I say walking up to her.  “He-ey,” she replies lackadaisically.  “Wanna do a double penny drop with me?” I ask brightly.  “Yeah, you should do it,” says Natalie relieved that I am not begging her.  “Sure.  Is it hard?” she asks.  “No, it’s fun,” I say, “come on.” 

As I explain what we’re gonna do, she looks calm and confident.  We smile at each other and climb on top of the bars just like before.  She wraps her brown lace up shoes under the bars, and I wedge my tennies in good.  “Here goes nothin’,” I say as I lean back and swing upside down.  Tracey follows my lead and carefully leans back, too.  “Here.  Take my hands,” I tell her.  All I can see is her thick brown hair in a bushy ponytail.  She finds my hands blindly, and I start to count and swing.  One.  Two.  Three.  Just as I get past the point of no return this time, something feels wrong.  Our hands come apart, one then the other.  I’m thrown off and fly off the bars sideways.  Everything’s a blur of flailing arms and material until I land hard on my arm in the dirt.  “Ow!!”  What in the world?  “Why’d you let go?” I yell as tears threaten to roll over my eyelids. 

My arm really hurts.  Tallie is still on the top of the monkey bars, sitting up, and I’m mad at her.  “My skirt came up,” she says apologetically.  She let go because her cotton white underwear was exposed in broad daylight.  For a second I feel bad for her.  “But you shouldn’t have let go,” I tell her.  “Are you ok?” she asks.  “My arm really hurts,” I tell her.  “I’ll go get my mom,” says Natalie who is not only my cousin but also my best friend in the world.  I try to move then lie back down on the cracked dirt.  Why didn’t she think of that before we did the penny drop?  I wonder as angry tears streak down my face. 

“Hey, let’s see.  I think we need to take you to the nurse,” Lesia says.  Cradling my arm, we walk across the parking lot and through the front door to the office.  “Let’s splint it up with a ruler,” the nurse says after taking a good look.  “A what?” I ask, because I have no idea what she’s talking about.  “In case it’s broken,” she explains as she calmly takes out an Ace bandage and wraps it around my arm with a cold wooden ruler that has a shiny metal edge.  The ruler is much sturdier than my blue plastic one.  After that, she puts my arm in a sling.  “I’ll take her to the emergency room,” Lesia says.  More tears well up.  Then I think of the cast.  I’ve always wanted a cast.  Doesn’t everyone?  This might not be so bad after all.  Lesia calls my mom who meets us at the emergency room with love in her eyes.  “Hey Sweetie,” she says as she comes through the fancy electric glass doors, “you’re gonna be ok.”  “I know,” I say weakly.  I’m feeling a little queasy about bein’ at the hospital. 

In the exam room, I lose it.  The nurse comes toward me with a very large looking needle, and I burst into tears.  “I don’t wanna shot,” I wail, my face red with anger.  She laughs and says, “Oh honey, this is just a thermometer.  I’m just gonna ease it here up under your arm and take your temperature.”  Embarrassed, I laugh too as a wave of relief floods my body.  The actual shot comes later and doesn’t hurt.  Much.   

When the doctor comes in, he takes my hand and clamps my fingertips into shiny metal cages so my arm can dangle to be casted.  Those are really cool.  And that stuff smells good.  It’s plaster.  I’ve wrapped my arm in toilet paper caked with baby powder countless times trying to simulate this very moment.   It’s even better than I imagined.  Around my forearm and up my elbow goes soft wispy cotton then plaster.  We look at the X-rays, and all I catch is Greenstick Fracture, which sounds pretty great.  “Six weeks,” says the doctor, “then she can probably get it off.”  That sounds like a long time, but I quickly start thinking about what markers I have that I can take to school tomorrow and who I want to do the signing.  Susan, Christy, Patrick, Julie, Stephen. Everybody. I want everybody in my class to sign it. I want it to be covered with names in lots of pretty colors. 

“Tell Aunt Lesia thank you,” Mom says.  “Thanks,” I say and wave bye to her and Natalie as we head to our car.  No scolding on the double penny drop.  Just sympathy and love.  “Kids fall down and break their arms all the time,” Mom volunteers as we walk, “it’s just part of being a kid.”  At home in the kitchen, she hands me a baby aspirin and opens the cabinet to get me a cup of water.  I put the aspirin on the top of my tongue and feel it start to dissolve.  Then I chew it up slowly, before I swallow it, because it is absolutely delicious. 

 “What happened to Tallie Brown?”  I ask pulling out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the smelly lunchroom a few days later.  It’s chicken and dumpling day, and it stinks.  “She left the school,” says Christy Freeman who is in the know.  “Why?” My eyes grow wider.  Did she leave because I yelled at her for breakin’ my arm?  Is it my fault she left?  Was I really mean to her?  Christy replies. “Nobody knows.  She just up and left.  I think something was wrong.  She seemed upset.”  I didn’t mean to yell at her.  I know it wasn’t really her fault.  Her skirt came up.  I take a bite of my sandwich and slump down in my chair wondering what I have done. 

When Tallie reappears in high school, I am tempted to ask her about it, but I don’t.  I hope she’s forgotten all about it, and if she hasn’t I really don’t wanna bring it up. 

*i can barely remember where i put my keys, so this is a work of pure fiction that just happens to based on a true story.

Chapter 3* - Honey

Sitting up on my knees at our round yellow kitchen table, I cut out orange bubble letters outlined in black magic marker to paste on my big black poster board. My long red pigtails keep falling forward, so I have to keep swishing them back behind my shoulders. I should’ve put it in a ponytail. There’s a Poster Contest going on at East Elementary, and I wanna to win. 

My mom is trying not to help too much, but I can tell she wants my poster to look as good as I do.  She cuts out some more letters that I have drawn as I use my small rounded scissors to cut around the curves of the ghosts’ pretty white skirts. It’s difficult to get a smooth pleasing edge, but I can do it with patience and some good trim work. My forehead wrinkles as I concentrate. 

This is gonna look so good. I bet I’ll be the only one with black poster board. I bet everybody else’ll use white. I rotate the orange top of my Elmer’s glue and breathe in deep. That smells so good. Squeezing it just the right amount, I squiggle it across the back of the capital cut out H. I hold it by the edges and carefully turn it over to stick it on the straight line I drew with my pencil and a ruler. As I press down, the glue squirts out from under the corners. Oh no, that doesn’t look good. It’s all messy.  I feel like giving up. Sensing my disappointment, my mom comes to the rescue. She takes her index finger and wipes the excess glue off with one clean swoop. “You won’t be able to tell when it dries,” she says, and I believe her. 

“Don’t put the glue all the way to the edge; leave room for it to spread out. Here, like this,” she shows me on the letter A.  Hers looks better, much better, and I wanna try again. I successfully do both of the L’s, and learn that less is more. Big globs of glue make it bumpy. Finally, after what feels like hours, I’m done. Feeling satisfied, I admire my finished product as I move it to the fancy dining room table, that we never use, to dry. 

My mom’s at the stove cooking spaghetti for dinner.  “Clean up your mess,” she says. “Ok.”  I put the black magic marker back in its gold and green box and close it up. Then I glance at my mom’s back. She’s not looking. So I put some Elmer’s glue on my fingers and rub it in like a glove. Because I love letting it dry and peeling it off, a thing I discovered by accident. That feels so cool. I wanna do my whole hand. It smells like it would taste good, but somehow I know it doesn’t. “What are you doin’ over there, Honey?” Mom asks, turning towards the sink from the stove. “Nothin’,” I say cheerily, but she can see exactly what I’ve done by the clear glue skeletons now lying on the table. 

“I don’t think that’s good for your skin.  Don’t do it anymore, ok?” she says. “Ok.” But I’ll do it over and over again when my mom is not around. It’ll be my childhood guilty pleasure, that and drinking Carnation Instant Breakfast straight from the package. Mom lets me drink it in the morning like my dad, but I got in trouble once for pouring the powder directly into my mouth. Yum. “Shannon, what are you doing? Hand me that,” she had said. “But Momma. . .” I replied, handing over the package. “This is a drink. It’s not good for you that way. Do you hear me?” she asks. “Yes, m’am,” I reply. But it’s yummy.  I sulk and walk back to the kitchen table to eat my Wheaties that are soggy, but that’s ok with me. Mom and I both like ‘em soggy. 

So when Mom’s downstairs doing laundry I climb up on the kitchen counter, get out a white single serving packet, tear off the corner, and take a hit. My heart beats fast the whole time, but it totally feels worth it. When I hear her coming, I roll and crinkle the top edge of the packet down and hide it behind the cherry wood buffet in the dining room. That way I can return to it any time I’m in the mood for a delicious snack. And I do. I’m mildly sneaky at the age of nine. 

That will lead to hiding concoctions that I mix up in the bathtub, with my baby brother, using Colgate Shaving Cream, Prell Shampoo, and Johnson’s Baby Powder.  I’ll sneakily transfer them to the space below my pretty white dresser, because they were so cool looking that I just couldn’t bear to pour them down the drain. “At least not yet,” I would think at the end of my bath.

Down the shiny lacquered wood floor hall I go, poster in hand, the next day at school. After I deposit my orange Snoopy lunchbox in the coat closet, I run into Christy Freeman. Christy is holding a brand new Strawberry Shortcake doll she got for her birthday and brags that she also has Blueberry Muffin. I’m jealous. My mom said no when I asked her if I could have the latest fad collection of dolls. She said I’d have to wait until Christmas and ask Santa. “You can come over and play with them at my house,” Christy says. “Ok,” I say and immediately let go of my resentment. I love playing with dolls, and hers even smell good. I don’t have any dolls that smell.

Toward the front of the room I go to turn my poster in to Mrs. Strickland, my third grade teacher.  “Nice job, Shannon.  It looks like you worked really hard on this,” she says.  “I did,” I say happily, thrilled that she noticed. 

When it’s time for break, Mrs. Strickland asks for volunteers to stay in and help rearrange the desks.  Susan and I volunteer.  We are given creative license and consider ourselves brilliant as we manage to seat Patrick Dean and Stephen Skinner next to both of us.  Patrick Dean is in love with Susan.  He has been for as long as I can remember.  I wish he were in love with me, but I pick Stephen Skinner as my runner up since Patrick is effectively taken.  “Do you think they’ll know we did it?” I ask.  “No, boys don’t notice stuff like that,” says Susan.  “They’ll think Mrs. Strickland did it.”  We break into giggles as we relish our secret.  We are giddy at the thought of sitting next to the nicest two boys in our class.  Patrick Dean is soo funny. 

“Ok, students.  Put your books away.  Tomorrow you will be tested on your times tables, so make sure you practice them tonight.  That’s your only homework.”  Books slam shut as our teacher talks and are noisily shoved into the square metal compartments under our seats.  I lift my desktop to stow my pencil and eraser inside for safekeeping.  I hear, “the winners of the poster contest,” and look up, “will see their posters on the wall by the office,” says Mrs. Strickland just as the bell rings.  I dash out of our classroom to see if I won. 

My poster is hanging over the handrail about halfway down with a big white ribbon stuck on it.  I got third place!  A huge grin breaks out across my face.  I can’t help it.  I’m proud of myself and so happy.  My poster will hang on the wall for a whole week of school and at the Halloween Carnival.  It’s right by the front door.  There’s no tellin’ how many people will see it.  A lot, that’s for sure.  My mom will be so proud. 

I head to my Aunt Lesia’s second grade classroom to tell her the good news.  “Aunt Lesia, I got third place in the poster contest,” I say as I walk through her door.  “I know.  Congratulations!  I saw your poster on the wall.  I’m proud of you,” she says with a smile.  “Thanks,” I reply.  She’s like my second mom. 

While I wait for her to finish up her work, I browse through the color-coded SRA box.  My cousin Natalie comes in and starts drawing on the chalkboard.  “Can y’all go clean those erasers?” Lesia asks.  “Ye-ah,” Natalie says.  We slide the erasers along the metal holder to wipe up as much chalk as possible. Outside the second grade entrance, behind a row of neatly squared bushes, we bang the erasers as hard as we can on the building’s red brick wall.  “I don’t think we’re supposed to do this,” I say to Natalie, but she just laughs and keeps banging because it’s fun.  The erasers leave a big white cloud of marks on the brick wall, a sign, we agree, of a job well done.

When I get home and tell my mom about my ribbon, she gives me a big hug.  “That’s great, “ she says and I can tell she means it.  “Where’s your lunchbox?” she asks.  “I forgot it,” I say matter of factly.  “Again?  Shannon, you only have two lunchboxes.  What am I going to do with you?  Now they’re both at school.”  “I didn’t mean to, Mom,” I say.  I feel bad for disappointing her.  “I know.  I know you didn’t.  It’s ok.”  She’s quiet, but I can tell she’s thinking, because she’s staring off into the distance.  “You know what?” she finally says.  “I have an idea.  How about we do a lunchbox contest?” 

“Huh?” I turn my head sideways like a puppy and look at her.  What is she talking about?  “If you can remember your lunch box for two whole weeks, you can have a spend-the-night party,” she tells me.  “Really??” I ask.  This is like a dream come true.  “Yes.  But you can’t forget your lunchbox, not even once.”  It’s so hard to remember.  It’s all the way back in the coat closet, and it’s in a cubbyhole that isn’t by my coat.  I forget my coat a lot, too. 

“Momma, I can do it.  I know I can,” I say.   “Well, I hope you’re right.  And if you do, you get a party.”  My mom is singing my song.  I have been asking to have a spend-the-night party since I knew they existed. “Mom, if I remember to bring my lunchbox home everyday, can I get a metal lunchbox?” I ask.  She purses her dark red lips and looks up and away to think about it.  She is a proponent only of plastic ones, which has been a point of contention.  “Yes, I guess so.  It’ll be worth it.  If you can do it, I’ll let you get a metal lunch box, too.”  “Yay!  I know exactly what I want.  I want a Charlie’s Angels one!  They have ‘em at Big K,” I tell her.  “Ok, well you better remember your lunchbox tomorrow,” she says with a laugh.

For two whole weeks, I bring my lunchbox home religiously and get a party as promised.  Christy Freeman comes with a present.  Her mom, Pat, has cross-stitched “Shannon Carter Never Forgets Anymore” on a white a cotton circle neatly centered in a blonde wooden butterfly.  My mom proudly hangs it up on my bedroom wall. 

And, true to her word, my mom lets me pick out and carry to school the coolest powder blue Charlie’s Angels lunchbox.  Unfortunately, I am still, by far, the most forgetful person I know, alarmingly so.  Sometimes I wonder if there is a slow growing tumor in my brain that is the root of it all.  I really hope not, but I do wonder.  People in my life have graciously put up with it for the most part, but it is not what I would call charming. 

Ooh, that’s ugly.  In the bathroom mirror I’m watching my mom smear green face paint on my forehead and down my nose.  It’s making me uglier by the minute, so  I have a serious case of trick or treater’s remorse. 

“What should I be for Halloween this year?” I had asked my mom a week ago.  “How about a witch?” she suggested with a twinkle in her eye.  She loves Halloween and is old school about it.  She likes ghosts, vampires, mummies, and witches.  She is not a fan of demons and their accompanying movies that are in vogue.  As we speak, there is a fairly impressive spook house (we could charge admission, but we don’t) in our unfinished storage room that was creepy to begin with.  It has cinder block walls that smell like wet cement and a long skinny reinforced hallway for tornadoes at the very back that my cousins and I dare each other to walk down in the dark. 

Every October, we hang enormous fake cobwebs across the front of our house, put a black light in the foyer, play scary music over the intercom, and my mom dresses up.  This year she’s wearing a black leather jumpsuit and going as Cat Woman.  Last year, she was Shirley and Susan’s mom, Rita, was Laverne.  Our dads were Lenny and Squiggy.  They all looked really good.

Mom’s Halloween goodie bags, reserved for special trick or treaters (people we know), are neighborhood-renowned.  This year, they contain vampire teeth, glow-in-the-dark stickers, clear fake fingers with long red nails, and glow-in-the-dark splat skeletons - you know, the kind you throw on the wall that sticks for a while then rolls down satisfactorily.   To the masses, Mom and I hand out generous portions of M & M’s, Double Bubble gum and the best candy of all, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  We live in Larkwood, the rich neighborhood, so we get a lot of Halloween traffic.  Frankie Sapp lives next to a cemetery.  He gets almost none. 

“Mom, can we rent the Exorcist?” I ask, because Susan has seen it and says it’s good.  “No.  I don’t want you watching that,” she says firmly.  “Why?  You love scary movies.  It’s supposed to be really scary and good,” I counter.  “I don’t like that kind of scary movie,” she says. “I don’t like anything with demons.”  Well, I guess that settles it.  End of discussion. 

When I said yes to witch, I just thought of the pointy hat.  My outfit turns out to be a boring black dress with black pants underneath it.  Ahh, my nose itches.  But if I scratch I’ll mess it up.  I have to scratch it.  It tickles too much.  I raise my right hand from under the cheap black cloth and scratch it with the tip of my pinky fingernail then I squint and lean forward to look in the mirror.  Oh good.  You can’t even tell.  “Shannon, hold still,” my mom says, coming towards me with a thick black eyeliner pencil.  I lean back, and she circles my eyes with it.  She’s making it worse.  I look so ugly.  “How’s that?” she asks admiring her work.  “Ugly!” I say.  “Good,” she says, “Witches are supposed to be ugly.”  Why didn’t I think about that?  As the corners of my mouth turn down, I walk out of the room to find my pumpkin.  I should’ve been a ballerina.  But it’s too late.  It’s almost dark out.  Halloween comes around once a year, and I have blown it.  Oh well, I think to myself, next year I’ll be somethin’ pretty.  I find my pumpkin parked at the top of the stairs. 

Mom and I are going trick or treating with Aunt Lesia, my cousin Natalie, and our baby siblings, Leslie and Steve.  We leisurely traipse around our safe, friendly neighborhood and collect as much candy as we can.  Then we drive two miles to Granny’s to show off our costumes and take pictures at her house.   We stand on the front porch and ring her doorbell instead of going around back like we normally do.  “My goodness,” she says with a good-natured laugh, “you look very scary.  I don’t know if I should let you in.”  But she holds the door open and we tromp on in.  There’s a basket of butterscotch in her hand, and she puts a handful in each of our pumpkins as we walk by.  Gran-ny, I don’t like butterscotch!  Then she follows us past the piano and into the kitchen.  “Shannon, the Sweet Tarts are on the counter,” she says.  She remembered!  Sweet Tarts are my favorite.  I take several single serving packages for later and tear open one for now.  “Natalie, Shannon, stand over here (in front of the brown shuttered doors hiding the washer), so I can get a picture,” Granny says.  “Toogie, go stand with Natalie.” She’s talking to Leslie.  Mom puts Steve down beside me in his clown costume, and I hold his baby hand.  Just as we are about to take the picture, the doorbell rings and we hear my cousin Matthew yell Trick or Treat as he comes in.  “Sharnin!” he yells the minute he sees me.  Before Steve came along, we both liked to pretend he was my little brother.  He’s dressed like a monkey and twice as active and loud.  I pick him up and give him a hug.  “Matthew, stand by Shannon, and let’s take a picture of all of you together,” Granny says.  I hold his shoulders to stop him from wiggling, and on three we all say cheese.   

At home, my mom washes off the itchy cracking makeup.  Relieved, I go to my room and sit on the gold shag carpet between my twin beds.  After rotating the black handle out of the way, I tip over my orange plastic pumpkin and dump it out on the floor.  It’s time to separate the good from the bad.  I love running around and getting candy, but I don’t really like tasting it.  I bravely put a tootsie roll in my mouth and almost gag.  Yuck.  I spit it out and set it on the wrapper next to my leg.  I will never eat one of those again.  There are tons of Tootsie Rolls in my big pile of candy.  Why does everyone give out Tootsie Rolls?  I’m gonna give ‘em all to Natalie.  They’re gross, but she says she likes ’em.  I don’t know why.

 I find a few Hershey’s kisses, some miniature Crunch bars, and some hard colorful balls in clear plastic that are good.  I stick with what I know.  I eat anything that looks orange or grape flavored.  Anything with nuts goes in the bad pile.  I wish everyone just gave out Sweet Tarts like Granny.  Those were gone by the time we got home.  I avoid the plenteous Snickers or anything caramel-colored.  And butterscotch.  Like Tootsie Rolls, butterscotch is ubiquitous, and I really wish it weren’t.  That’s such a dumb name.  They don’t taste like butter at all.  I love butter.  I eat margarine, that we call butter, on a spoon out of the plastic tub in the fridge.  I have no idea there’s a difference.  It’s so good on Captain’s crackers at the All-Steak.  Granny and Granddaddy let me eat as much of it as I want while we wait on hamburger steak and mashed potatoes, mine without gravy.  I can give these to Momma.  She loves butterscotches. They go in a pile on the right along with the tootsie rolls, snickers, and caramel cubes in clear plastic which my mom also loves.  I open up a Milky Way and take a bite.  Not bad, but it’s no Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.   

On Saturday, I dress up like a clown for the East Elementary carnival.  Mom does my makeup while I watch her in the mirror.  Aqua cotton overalls, a hot pink long sleeve shirt, white face paint that also itches, a red ball nose on elastic that I can put on for pictures then wear around my neck if it pinches too much, and a big bright yellow curly wig.  “This is more like it,” I say to my mom.  I look really cute.  “The wig is the best part.”  Mom puts big red circles on my cheeks, and I get to wear bright blue eye shadow.  “This is good.  I should’ve been a clown from the start,” I tell her.  “Live and learn,” she replies.  My mom says that a lot. 

Off we go to the school gym.  I see Natalie as soon as I walk through the door.  “Let’s do the cakewalk first,” she says.  We both love cake and the cakewalk is right next to the door.  “Sounds good to me,” I reply.  It’s fine.  We walk around in circles to music, but neither of us wins a cake.  I don’t want any of the cakes I see.  They all have strawberry icing or coconut or pecans.  Yuck.  But I do wanna win somethin’. 

We walk to the next booth where you use fake fishing poles to catch prizes over a curtain.  This will be more fun.  We both cast poorly, and volunteer parents throw our lines over the curtain into the “water.”  Natalie feels a tug and reels in a tiny plastic maze with a silver ball.  I catch a candy necklace.  Oh, great.  I don’t like candy necklaces.  I mean I don’t think I do. I’ve never tried one.  “Wanna swap?” Natalie asks.  She knows I’m picky.  “Yeah. Do you?”  She nods her head yes.  “Thanks,” I say as I smile and hand over the necklace.  “Let’s go do that,” I say pointing at a booth in front of the stage. 

We walk over to a pink plastic bathtub full of water and yellow plastic ducks.  I look at the woman in charge for instructions.  “You get a prize if the duck you pick has a number on the bottom,” she explains.  Oh, that’s easy.  Natalie and I each pick up a duck and turn them over.  Natalie’s has a number, but mine doesn’t.  She gets a pair of pink and green Chinese handcuffs.  “Thank you,” she says to be polite.  She looks at me with wide eyes as confused as my own.  What is that?  I’m instantly less disappointed.  “What are you supposed to do with those?” I ask.  “Are they some kind of decoration?”  Natalie shrugs her shoulders.  “I don’t know.  Maybe our moms know,” she replies.  “That’s a really bad prize,” I say.  “Yeah, it is,” she says and puts them in her orange plastic pumpkin.    

Our moms talk in the corner while we check out every booth.  Eventually we get back to the cakewalk by the gym door.  “Those cakes look so good,” Natalie says, “I wish Mrs. Hardeman would just give us one.”  Mrs. Hardeman is standing by the kindergarten door and smiles at us.  She really likes Natalie.  “Maybe she would.  She loves you,” I tell her with a tinge of jealousy, but there are only two cakes left and they both have nuts.  No thanks. 

Where did my mom go?  As I scan the gym with my eyes, I see Mrs. Bailey manning a booth.  I wish I had Mrs. Bailey again this year.  Mrs. Strickland’s nice, but she’s too serious.  Mrs. Bailey was funny.  “I’m gonna roll your head down the hall like a bowling ball,” she liked to say when we wouldn’t stop talking.  And, “If y’all don’t quieten down, I’m gonna get out my wet noodle out and give you twenty lashes.” Hilarious. 

“Hey, do you like cinnamon candy?” I ask Natalie.  I know she does.   She’s my younger cousin who, at this age, basically does anything I want her to.  “Mm hm,” she says.  “I know where Mrs. Bailey keeps them.  Want to go get some?” I ask.  “She doesn’t care,” I add trying to convince myself as I say it.  “Sure,” she says.  We walk down the dimly lit hall that seems ominous like Halloween.  It’s a little spooky to be in our school at night.  It feels different.  No one else is around.  The classroom door is open, but the lights are off.  There is just enough light from the hall for us to see inside.  I lead Natalie over behind the heavy gunmetal desk and squat down to open the second drawer from the bottom on the right side.  I can feel my heart beating in my chest. 

There they are, delicious cinnamon candies in translucent red wrappers with pretty white stripes.  I grab a handful and give some to Natalie.  We untwist the ends and each pop one in our mouths crouching behind the desk.  We smile back and forth, because they taste good and make our tongues tingle.  “These are so good,” Natalie says.  “I know,” I say moving the crimson disk around in my mouth, “they’re my favorite.”  We linger for a second, but I know we need to get back to the gym soon, before our moms miss us.  After checking the hallway to make sure the coast is clear, we run back to the gym sucking on heaven’s candy with a few more pieces in our pockets.  I feel gloriously happy. 

“Where did you get that candy?” my mom asks abruptly as we round the corner by the door.  I didn’t even see her coming.  My aunt Lesia, Natalie’s mom, is with her.  “Mrs. Bailey’s room,” I say and look at Mrs. Bailey standing in plain sight across the gym.  “She told us we could get it any time we want.”  I move the candy around in my mouth with my tongue. It’s starting to eat away at my cheek.  I doubt it my mom’s eyes seem to say.  “Are you telling the truth? Where was it?  In her room?  Was she in there?  Did she give it to you?”  She’s onto me.  “No, it’s in a drawer in her desk,” I say with shaky confidence.  “I don’t think Mrs. Bailey would allow children to go looking in her desk,” my mom replies.  “Well, she doesn’t care,” I say, changing tactics.  “That’s stealing, Shannon.  Is that more candy in your pocket?  You’re gonna have to give the rest back and apologize to her.”  Mild terror fills my body.  There’s nothing I wanna do less than tell Mrs. Bailey, whom I dearly love, that I have stolen candy out of her desk.  “You, too, Natalie,” Lesia says, “you both know better.”  And, she’s right.  We do. 

I hope she won’t be able to find her, but Lesia tracks down Mrs. Bailey, who is no longer at her booth, and we all head to her classroom.  She flips the light on and turns to face us.  “Go ahead,” my mom says, “tell Mrs. Bailey you’re sorry.”  There is a knot in my throat making it hard to get the words out.  “I’m sorry,” I say with tears in my eyes, my lower lip quivering.  My voice shakes as it comes out and despite trying not to I start to cry.    Mrs. Bailey says kindly, “Ok. It’s not the end of the world. Just don’t do it again.  Those candies are for me to hand out.  Do you understand?  You can’t help yourself to them.  If I let children do that, they’d all be gone by Christmas.”  “Yes, M’am,” Natalie and I say in unison nodding our heads.  I pull my hot pink sleeve down over my right hand then raise it to my face to wipe away the tears. 

*i can barely remember where my keys are, so this is a work of pure fiction, based on a true story.