~ “THE WORST VACATION”~

There is one summer vacation I don’t even like remembering.

Mama still visits the people who adopted her. If anyone asks her why, she answers, “You can’t hold grudges all your life. You learn to forgive, even if you don’t forget.”

The old couple still lived on the same farm, near Cooperstown, where lots of Irish people settled. I never like going there, remembering Mama’s stories about living in that dreadful house.

Her stepfather had died, but the stepmother—the “old lady” (that’s what Mama calls her) is still there. She’s all wrinkled up, and never smiles.

Her nephew lives with her now. Mama calls him Big John. He’s a State Senator and he’s gone away to Madison most of the time, so we hardly ever see him when we visit.

Big John never smiles either. But there’s a huge grinning photo of him on the front room wall.

“His fake election pose,” Mama comments, wrinkling her nose.

Anyway, in spring, Big John writes Mama that the old lady is going to need help in summer, because of some injury, and would Catherine be able to come and work there as a hired girl?

Mama doesn’t like the idea of Catherine hiring out, but I hear her tell Daddy, “Well, the old lady really needs help, and we sure can use some extra money.”

Catherine’s all excited about going, and I help her pack the family suitcase. She hugs me so hard before getting into the car, then drives off with Mama and Daddy. I just keep waving and crying.

Mama gets a letter from Catherine the very first week, saying she’s homesick and doesn’t like being there alone. That’s the only part Mama reads to me before saying, “I think you should go to the farm and stay with Catherine. It’ll be a nice vacation for you too.”

I really miss my sister. Surely we can have all kinds of new adventures together in this different place.

So I pack my few things in a cardboard box and drive off with Mama and Daddy to the old lady’s farm. It isn’t the same happy feeling I have when I’m going to Uncle Steven’s, and once the place comes into view, scary feelings begin to jump around in my stomach.

The house looks like it’s falling apart. Mama’s stories are extra loud in my head today. And now I’m going to have to live in the very same place she did.

How will I be able to get through the coming days—especially without Mama?

Catherine’s so glad to see me. Her big hug quiets my worries. Catherine will be my Mama while I live here, making everything better.

The old lady sits in her rocker, talking only to Mama. Daddy’s anxious to go fishing, so Mama repeats instructions to me, kisses me goodbye, and she’s out the door.

What if they never come back to get us?

Soon as the car’s gone, Catherine takes me upstairs to the attic room. It’s an empty space with a rusty iron bed and raggedy quilts. The ceiling is made of rough wood rafters with big nails showing through. There’s a small grimy window. Right away I know I don’t want to sleep in that bed, but there’s nothing I can do about it anymore.

I cry myself to sleep that night, thinking so many disturbing thoughts. Am I in the same bed Mama slept in when she was a little girl? Did her Christmas morning story take place in this room? Everything keeps repeating in my head, making me cry more.

Thus begins my worst summer vacation.

So many things are dreadful. Especially the food. There is no ice box, so we have to go down into the dark musty basement where the awful edibles, with strange tangled names, are stored.

Breakfast is mush, which Catherine cooks in a big iron pot. After breakfast, what’s left hardens in the pot. Catherine cuts it into thick slices and fries it in bacon fat for supper. She cuts pieces of moldy bacon from an old bacon slab hanging in the stinky smokehouse that has lots of bugs crawling in it. I think there are rats, too.

I eat very little. But Mama left me some bags of special candies, which I’ve hidden under my pillow. At night I suck on them before saying prayers. Both help.

Some farmer brings over milk, butter, and eggs. Sometimes Catherine makes pancakes, muffins, or bread, which I look forward to, especially when I sniff the savory aromas circulating amidst the ever-present foul ones. In the pantry is a tin pail with thick gooey syrup we use on the pancakes. It tastes funny, but still has a sweet taste.

Catherine has to feed the old lady each meal, which I don’t like watching, so I keep my eyes focused on the holes and cracks in the old wooden floor, thinking up stories, trying not to listen to the slobbering sounds the old lady makes as she slurps food into her mouth. Catherine’s jobs are to make the meals, clean, wash the clothes, and get the old lady ready for bed, which she tries to do as early as possible. She also has to take care of the chickens and weed the scrappy garden. I help when I can, sweeping the kitchen’s rickety floor, washing dishes in cold water from the outside pump, using a bar of hard gray soap.

I follow Catherine around so I can help her and to never be too far away from her.

“It’s break time,” Catherine announces after lunch and supper each day. And we get away from the house quick as we can. Mostly we go down to the pond and sit on torn blankets and talk, or watch the ducks paddling around. I take my pencil and tablet along and write stories. That way I can escape into my imaginary self, and forget all the troubling things at the house above. But if the big bell clangs, Catherine has to go quick and see what the old lady wants.

There’s this large bull running around loose in the unfenced yard, bellowing and snorting. He has a large ring in his nose and a clunky chain dragging from it. He’s really scary. When he comes close to the house, I can hear his chain rattling as he paws the ground. I’m always afraid to go outside if he’s near, but I have to when I need to use the outhouse.

I hate being inside that little place. It’s smelly and hot. Flies and bees buzz around. But if I hear that bull, I stay inside, peeking out to make sure he’s gone, then quick dash for the house.

Mama never did tell me how long I’d have to stay. Catherine doesn’t know either. “Don’t worry, you’ll get back home in time to go to school.”

School and home—they seem to be in another country now, with no way to get there.

When the moon and stars begin shining, and the crickets start chirping, we take the kerosene lamp and go up the creaking stairs into the dark attic. I’m mostly glad when night comes, because then I can cross off another day. I try to get to sleep quick as I can, and try not to remember the bad dreams.

Catherine says there’s mice in the attic, so she sets traps. Every once in awhile during the night, we hear the trap snap and a big squeak. I can’t move after that, waiting for daylight to see what’s in the trap. But Catherine’s already removed whatever it was.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” is all she’ll say. But I’m sure it was a big rat, and pull the covers over my head nightly.

There are two bachelor brothers who live down the road in an old gray farmhouse that has all the paint worn off, and a long front porch with rickety stuff piled around on it. Catherine and I walk down there to visit them one day. Mama said we should.

“They’re kind men, and were good to me when I was little.”

They’re very glad to see us, and tell us lots of stories about Mama as we sit on the porch.

“She was such a nice little girl,” Patrick comments with a smile.

“Yes, she was,” Mike adds, spitting tobacco juice off the porch.

“But those two what took her in—well, they weren’t nice at all.”

They give us some funny tasting cookies, also fresh corn from their garden to take back, and find me an old broken doll from inside a big hinged wooden box.

Patrick takes Catherine aside, but I can still hear, cause his voice is pretty loud. “You make sure you lock that door to the attic when you sleep at night. The girl they had last summer, well, Big John—he got her in trouble.” There’s silence for a bit. “That’s all I’m saying. Don’t want to get you too scared. Just be careful of him.”

What kind of trouble did Big John get a girl into?

“If you two ever need any help up there, you be sure to come down by us,” Mike says as we leave. “Day or night, you come down here.” How would we find our way down there in the dark? What if they were sleeping? When I ask what Patrick said to her, Catherine dismisses his words as “just old man talk.”

But she double locks the attic door each night after that.

I want to go back to see the bachelors again, but Catherine says, “The old lady was really mad when she heard we went there, yelling at me, ‘Your job is to work here and listen for my bell, not go visiting others.’”

I try not to complain too much, keeping most hurts inside so Catherine won’t be sadder. Even when my stomach feels sick, I don’t tell her. Or when the bee stings me. Or the strange dog chases me. Or the night I hear wolves howling right outside the window.

There’s always something unexpected happening, and none of it is good.

One night we hear this loud hollering coming from inside the big barn, as if someone’s yelling for help.

Catherine quick sits up in bed. “You stay here. I’m going to see what’s going on out there.”

I know the bull’s sleeping, so I put on my shoes real fast and follow her in the dark, not wanting to stay alone.

The shouting’s even louder now. Slowly Catherine squeaks open the big barn door. All of a sudden a thundering voice screams at us. “What are you two doing out here at this time of night!” A dark figure that had been moving back and forth comes nearer.

“You have no business being in this barn! I’m practicing my speeches for the Senate and do not want to be disturbed! Get out! Now!”

He says other things too—big swear words. We both run back to the house fast as we can.

“I didn’t even know he came home.” Catherine’s out of breath. “And I never heard him practicing his speeches in the barn before, just in the house.”

Once upstairs, she holds my shaking body, trying to comfort me.

“He’s just a mean man, so stay out of his way. He thinks because he’s a State Senator he’s so important, and everyone has to bow down to him. Well, Mama and I know things about him other people don’t.”

Now I have new fears about staying here. They just keep adding up and up. Big John hollers at me for lots of things after that. But he doesn’t yell at Catherine too much.

“That’s because he’s afraid of Mama,” Catherine tells me. “She knows stuff he’s done that wouldn’t be good for his elections.”

Mama has so many secrets and I know she won’t tell me thi s one either. I don’t even try to think what it might be. I don’t understand elections, nor do I understand Big John.

Sometimes I sit on the rock outside the house, under the kitchen window, watching the sun go down, waiting for fireflies, always wishing I were home. But I don’t want to leave Catherine here alone. She needs me. Mama said so.

This one night, I hear the old lady and the Senator talking by the open kitchen window. I can’t hear it all, but catch some.

“I don’t know why Lizzie sent two girls here. We only asked for one. Expecting us to feed them, and pay them besides.” Big John is talking.

The old lady mutters, “I think it’s because Lizzie’s family has no money. Felix isn’t working, you know. So, they thought they could get free room and board here for the summer for those two lazy girls.”

“Well, I don’t like leaving you here alone when I have to be gone away on business.”

“I’m better off alone than having to watch those two. See that they don’t steal our food, or go into your office and snoop through your important files.”

“She went through my files!”

“Yes, Catherine did. I caught her snooping in there one day.” I can’t hear the rest, hard as I try.

That night in bed, I tell Catherine all I heard.

“Snooping! All I was doing was cleaning up his filthy place.” She’s really mad and even forgets to set the mouse trap, and I hear mice scampering all night. I even hear someone rattling on the attic door knob.

Could Big John break through the door lock?

I sleep very little that night, and my dreams are worse than ever.

When Mama and Daddy come two days later, on Sunday, to check up on how we’re doing and see if we need anything, I begin crying and tell Mama what I heard by the window. How Big John screamed at us in the barn. About the big bull. The terrible food. I’m crying too hard to continue.

Mama questions Catherine in the next room afterwards. I listen around the corner. “What Lulu says is true, Mama. Only, she didn’t tell you what Patrick told me—about the girl that worked here last summer. . .” Catherine whispers the rest.

A few minutes later, Mama announces, “You two pack your clothes, you’re both going back with us. Today!”

Then she talks with the old lady. I don’t listen, because I’m already scrambling up the attic stairs, quickly throwing my things into my cardboard box.

Catherine’s soon up there too. I can’t tell if she’s happy or mad. She doesn’t say anything, just throws her things into her suitcase. She doesn’t even make the bed.

We rush down the stairs with all our belongings.

“Don’t worry about your pay,” Mama tells Catherine, “I’ll make sure you get it.” In next to no time, I’m in the car with Mama and Daddy, driving away from that terrible place. Finally, I’m going home. The bad story has reached “The End,” and I don’t ever want to read it again.