SEVEN
The Pittiest Pit of Your Stomach

The following Monday morning at breakfast, Mama looked more tired than ever. I was real glad that Daddy let Ian slide on the farmwork some more so Isabel’s hubby could wait on her instead of my very own mother. For the most part, even though she didn’t look like her usual self, Mama acted like nothing was any different than usual, except she was kinda snappish and impatient one minute, and all sorry and sweet the next.

I went to school feeling confused and scared about her.

That week I did my best not to worry, but I didn’t do very well. I just kept thinking about Mama and how she was changing day by day. Then, once the very terrifying idea that she might be dying came roaring into my mind, all normal brain actions stopped. No matter how many times my parents reassured me everything was fine, that thought was like a smothering dark blanket that blocked out everything else.

Somehow I got through those days, but I hardly remember any of it, except more homework assignments than should be allowed by law for kids our age. Those Lotties roamed around, laughing at everyone and being a pain, but I barely even noticed them. I hoped things would get better as time went on, but I had an awful feeling down in the pittiest pit of my stomach that nothing would ever be right again.

That next Saturday, I couldn’t even talk to ole Myra Sue because she had gone to spend the night with Jessica and Jennifer. Not that I minded. In fact, I was overjoyed that our house was free of her for a while. I tried to talk to Grandma, but she refused to discuss Mama other than to say, “If your mama says she’s all right, then she’s all right.”

I thought about talking with Ian or Isabel, but I didn’t do it for two good reasons. Number one: Isabel still slept a lot, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she was complaining, and I had enough problems without listening to her gripe about her chipped teeth and where in the world would she find a “first-class orthodontist in this deplorable pit of the world.” Number two: Ole Ian was still plumb worn-out, and I didn’t have the heart to tire him even more.

Saturday afternoon, I just got to feeling so bad that I asked Mama if Melissa Kay Carlyle could come spend the night.

Mama was in the recliner with her head against the back and her feet up on the footrest. I had to stop and stare at her a minute ’cause seeing her relaxing like that is something I have not seen very often in my life. I felt kinda bad asking if I could have company, but I tell you, I needed another pair of eyes and someone of equal smarts who would listen and talk to me straight.

“You okay, Mama?” I asked.

Without lifting her head, she turned it and gave me a tired smile. She reached out and took my hand. “I’m fine, honey. Just taking a rest.”

Hmm. Grandma looked up from where she sat in her rocker, sewing a button on one of Daddy’s shirts. She didn’t say anything, but she pinned a gaze on Mama for a bit.

“Mama, since Myra Sue’s spending the night with Jessica and Jennifer, can Melissa spend the night here?”

She did not look as if the idea pleased her very much.

“Oh, honey, I don’t know.”

“She’s not been here since early in the summer. And we’ll be really quiet, I promise. We want to help each other with that awful, terrible math homework.” I pulled a face that I was pretty sure looked ugly as all get-out, but it demonstrated how I truly felt about junior high math.

“Well . . .”

Good ole Grandma spoke up. “Let her have Melissa over. I’ll be here, and it will give April some company. I want to use your sewing machine, Lily, so I’ll be in hollerin’ distance if they need something.”

“We’ll be really, really quiet,” I repeated.

Mama thought about it a little longer. Then she smiled. “Okay then,” she said. “You go ask if she wants to come over.”

“Thanks, Mama! Thanks, Grandma!” I gave them both quick kisses on the cheeks, then galloped to the telephone and called up Melissa Kay Carlyle.

“Hey, whatcha doin’?” I asked as soon as she answered.

“Nothin’. Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothin’. Listen, Melissa Kay,” I said. “You know how I’ve been doin’ all this worrying over Mama? Well, I have a good idea. You think you could come spend the night tonight? Maybe you’ll see something I’ve missed.”

“I’d like to, but Mom probably won’t let me. I haven’t done my math homework yet.”

Just the thought of math and nasty ole homework gave me a severe pain where the sun don’t shine.

“Me either,” I told her. “Maybe we can help each other.”

There was a small silence in which I heard something rattle that sounded suspiciously like a bag of chips or cookies, then I heard that Melissa nibbling like a mouse on something. She crunched those chips or cookies right into my hearing waves, and I like to have come unglued, but I didn’t, because what good would that do?

So I said, all nice and calm, “Why don’t you go ask your mom right now?”

“Okay. Hang on.” Half a second later, she screamed, “Mom!”, hollering as if my eardrums were not hanging around right there. “MOOOOOOMMMMM! ”

So, all right. This sort of behavior is probably why Melissa’s mother is cranky so often.

“Hang on,” she said again after a little bit. This time you could hear the clatter of the telephone as she clunked it down on the floor or the table or wherever she had clunked it. In a minute she was back and asked, “She wants to know if it’s okay with your mom.”

“Of course!”

“Hang on.” In a minute she came back. “Mom says it’s okay as long as I get my homework done.”

That settled, I ran upstairs to be sure my room was completely tidy. I hung up all ole Myra Sue’s clothes and emptied her overflowing trash can. I made good progress, and I felt pretty relaxed until Grandma walked into the room with her purse strap over one shoulder and her car keys in her hand. That could only mean one thing.

“C’mon, baby girl,” she said, smiling. “Let’s go get Melissa.”

I gulped so hard, I nearly swallowed my tongue and adenoids and all my molars. Grandma drives either slow, like she’s taking a tour of the whole entire countryside, or all crazy, like she’s wearing a paper bag over her whole entire head. One time we drove halfway to Cedar Ridge on the wrong side of the road because the highway department had just patched the highway cracks with hot-mix on our side. I reckon she’d rather we got blood and guts all over her white car instead of a little bit of tar around the wheel wells.

“Are you gonna drive?”

“Yep,” she said, grinning.

Well, just when you think the world might be tipping a little bit more in the right direction, it flops over like an old, one-eyed rag doll with the stuffing hanging out.

“We’ll even stop at Ruby’s Place, and you girls can get yourselves a Pepsi slush.”

Even the promise of a Pepsi slush didn’t make me feel as good as it usually does, especially as I knew I had to risk life and limb to get it.

When we got back home, safe and sound with Melissa and her purple overnight case, I was finally able to breathe easy again. The worst thing on that trip was when Grandma blasted the car horn, stuck her left arm out the window, and waved at someone she knew like she’d never see them again. She ran right off the road, and we went bumping along the shoulder for a while. She like to have scared me and Melissa white-headed. I did not know who she was waving at, and I did not care, but when we finally got back on the road, I nearly offered to drive us the rest of the way.

Here’s the deal. After all that wheedling I did, and after taking my life in my own hands by riding to town with Grandma, I was bumfuzzled to see Mama act like her regular self that night when Melissa was over. She did not act cranky or seem dragged-out tired or anything.

While Grandma whirred away at the sewing machine on the service porch, Melissa and I followed Mama around like two puppies. She didn’t seem to notice that we eyeballed her sharply every minute or two.

At one point, she looked up from peeling potatoes for supper and said, “Before it gets dark, you girls ought to play outside and get some fresh air.”

Melissa and I were sitting at the kitchen table, where I was skunking my ole pal pretty good at Yahtzee.

“We aren’t in the mood for outdoor activities,” I told Mama.

“Yeah,” Melissa agreed. “We like being in here. With you.” She gave me a sneaky look that said we were in on this together.

“Seems to me you’d want to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. On Monday you’ll be back in school, wishing you were outdoors.”

Mama was right. Boy, oh boy, I would’ve loved to take a walk through the woods with my two best friends, Daisy— our white Great Pyrenees dog who is older than Methuselah’s grandfather—and Melissa. We always loved to do that except for the time we got into the seed ticks. But that’s a whole ’nother story, and I won’t gross you out with the details. I did not want to leave Mama unattended, so we just kept playing Yahtzee.

Pretty soon Grandma finished sewing her new curtains and came into the kitchen. She started helping Mama put supper together.

“You girls were going to do some math homework, I believe,” Mama reminded us.

Melissa and me exchanged looks of severe torture.

“Let’s get it over with,” I said bravely.

“Yeah.”

We picked up the Yahtzee cup, the dice, the nubby little pencils, and the score pads, put them all back in the box, and dragged our pitiful selves upstairs to sit in the middle of the floor of my bedroom and work on that awful, horrible homework assignment.

“April Grace,” she said before we started, “your mom does not seem one little bit different than usual.”

“I know she doesn’t right now, but she has been.” And I told her about Mama being cranky then sweet, and about her being tired and sleeping a lot.

“You know something?” Melissa said, staring thoughtfully into space. “They say kids go through phases, but I think mothers do, too. Mine sure seems to. Like right now she’s in a knitting phase, and she’s bought more yarn than you can shake a stick at.” She looked at me. “I think your mom is just going through a phase.”

There was a little flicker of hope in that statement.

“I sincerely hope you are right and she gets over it soon.”

We settled down then and got to work on that math.

“You want to know what I think?” I said at one point.

“What?”

“I think anything that says 5(x+2) = 25 should be illegal,”

I told her. “What is wrong with two plus two equals four, I’d like to know? Junior high is bad enough, but why do they have to make it worse by torturing us with this stuff?”

“I don’t know. But going to school in that rotten old building with only one restroom for all us girls is bad enough. It should be illegal. And I think gym class should be outlawed, too.”

“Me, too. Especially when Coach Frizell is our teacher. Of course, next semester Isabel is going to be teaching physical education. At least that’s what they’re calling her dance class.”

“That doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs,” Melissa said, “but it’ll be better than relay races and sit-ups for the whole period like it is now.”

“Yeah.”

Neither one of us said anything for a minute. Then I came up with something else.

“I tell you what else ought to be outlawed in our school. J.H. Henry and his hair. He looks like he has been severely beaten with the wrong end of an ugly stick.”

She giggled. “Yeah. And what about him wearing shoes with no socks?” she added.

“And him calling me ‘babe’ and ‘foxy baby’ and ‘sweet red’ and trying to sit next to me in every class and making those awful goo-goo eyes.”

“I think he’s in love with you, April Grace.”

Now, right then I think I saw spots in front of my own eyes at the mere mention of such an awful thing. “Do not ever say that again, Melissa Kay Carlyle.”

“But it’s true. If it wasn’t, he’d not always be winking and grinning at you.”

“He makes me sick!” I hollered. “One of these times, when he points his finger at me and says, ‘Hiya, hot stuff,’ I’m gonna urp on his sockless feet.”

I thought Melissa was gonna have hysterics right there in my room. “If you did that, I bet he’d stop bothering you,” she said.

“Then I’m gonna do it!” I declared, not really meaning it, but I figured it might just be worth the mess to make that boy leave me alone.

Pretty soon, Melissa looked up from that stupid math book and asked me, “Does 5(x+2) = 25 make a lick of sense to you yet?”

“Not a single lick.”

I have to say, my friend and I would probably have had more fun if we’d had our teeth extracted by the dog dentist.