8

Bookmobile I

On Thursdays the bookmobile pulls up at the corner in front of Julia’s house. It is tan and brown with two doors and two sets of wooden steps, one for us to go in and one for us to go out. The bookmobile lady is very old and always has ink stains on her green blouse and on the tips of her fingers. She sucks on her pens and wears a scarf covering up all her hair which I bet is pure white. She doesn’t talk to me, she likes to read and she doesn’t like us to talk. Us is me and Julia.

I see a book on the top shelf with an orange and green colored cover with black letters that say SCIENCE IN YOUR OWN BACK YARD. I reach and reach and stretch so hard my blouse pulls out of my shorts and I feel a little breeze from the fan the bookmobile lady has turned on. She won’t get up to help me, I’m sure, but I ask anyway.

Excuse me please, but I can’t reach. Up she jumps, tall with bermuda shorts on and white knee high socks and a pair of old cracked loafers. Which one, she asks me. I tell her and she pulls it down. Before handing it to me, she looks through it, turns the pages fast and says, good choice. She hands me the book.

It smells new and I check my pocket to make sure I have my library card, because I definitely want this book. I open it to the first page. It says, lie down on your stomach for ten minutes and then on your back on the grass in your back yard and see what you can discover of the natural world.

The natural world, I say out loud. Julia, on the step stool above me says shush. I show her the book. She bounces a little, shakes her head and smiles down at me. Jumping off the stool quietly, she shows me the book she’s looking at of kings and queens. Her new idea is that kings and queens have all the fun because they get to dress up all the time. I should have been a princess, she whispers in my ear. Yes, I say and don’t know what else to say.

I pull out my library card and go up to the bookmobile lady and tell her I want this book. She asks me is that all I want, she’s not going to be back for another week. I say in a whisper, I’ve got a lot to do this week. She asks, What are you going to do? I say, It’s Julia’s last week before she goes away to camp and we’re going to have fun. The lady nods and I put the card and book on her little desk. She opens the cover, pulls out the borrower’s sheet, stamps it and puts a card in the pocket with next Thursday’s date.

I go down the going out steps and tell Julia, Let’s go. She is still busy looking at pictures of kings and queens. I’ll see her later. I run to my back yard. I open the book to that first page and lie on my back and read.

It tells me to close my eyes, be still and listen, smell, feel. I listen. I smell. I feel. There is the sound of the cicadas in the cottonwood tree and a lawn mower a ways away. There’s Mama’s voice yelling at Odessa about the dust she found on the sills in the living room. I smell the heat. It’s a perfume, sweet like the roses but nasty too. The ground is a hard bed for me to lie on and I’m shaded by this big old tree.

Scags, Scags, Mama calls. With all the windows open I hear her but she doesn’t see me lying on this green blanket with my legs crossed at the ankles, anyone’s lazy girl right now. She yells at Odessa that I’m nowhere to be found. She’s leaving now to run her errands and she’ll go without me. I don’t hear what Odessa says.

I turn over and look very closely at the ground. The grass is very green and spotted with bugs. Under the grass is very black ground and when I put my face in it, the blades of grass go up my nose and tickle. I see the white puffs of fluff from the cottonwood like powdered sugar. I lie on my back and stare at the sky through the branches. I fall through the blue holes between the clouds. I clutch my book to my chest.

From her yard, Julia calls me but I’m too happy here under my tree to move. Scags. Scags. She keeps saying my name but I pretend I am asleep while my name bounces off the trees and bushes, off the house, off the ground. Julia stops calling me. Silence. All the noise is gone. I could fall into the quiet but then Julia is lying next to me. She taps my shoulder. She whispers, Scags, I’m here. I put my finger to my lips. She says, Okay. The two of us lie still as two caterpillars in the same cocoon, waiting.