Six

August 1^st greeted us with a summery swelter of heat.  I heard on the radio that it was a record-breaking temperature.  Mom didn’t even cook breakfast it was so hot, she just gave us cold cereal. 

“It’s time we got you registered for school.”  My sisters and I were informed while we chewed on the sweet flakes in milk.  “I want you ready to go by 10:00.  No dilly-dallying.” 

I groaned dreading the idea of the new kids and new teachers.  We had moved so many times in my life that I was always asked the same thing. ‘Army brats?’  ‘No’ I’d tell them, ‘Dad just can’t sit still.’  Then I’d get a look of confusion and pity.  It never felt good.  No matter what school we went to, we never seemed to fit in.  Our clothes were always the wrong style, our hair had a strange cut to it, our way of speech was made fun of.  The teasing usually started right away and didn’t stop till we had moved.  I was in plenty of fights with the other kids defending my sisters.  We were close enough in age that there was only one school year between each of us.  This year it was sixth, fifth, and fourth.  As I have told you before, I am the oldest, after me is Deanna, then Betty.  That meant next year my sisters would be without my defense.  I worried sometimes about them being alone without me.  Neither of them knew how to defend themselves. 

During the few weeks we had lived in our house we hadn’t spent much time looking for friends, not that we’d had any time to.  Mom and dad kept us busy most of the time.  While we were getting into our car I noticed a couple of kids playing on the porch across the street from us; a boy and a girl.  The boy looked like he was about my age, and the girl looked much younger.  He looked up at us as mom started the engine.  I waved at him, I think he smiled, but we were driving away at that point so I couldn’t see for sure.

The registration process was fairly quick and easy.  I found out I had Mr. D’Angelou this year.  I had never had a male teacher before so this surprised me a bit.  Mom assured me that he was a nice teacher as we were leaving. 

After we were done mom surprised us by taking us out for hamburgers for lunch.  This was a big deal for us because we almost never went out.  They had a patio with a play ground to eat on and mom let us sit there.  She let us play on the equipment for almost an hour and bought us ice cream to eat in the car on the way home.  Over all, it had been a nice day considering the events that reminded us that summer was almost over and school just around the corner.  How I longed for the summer to never end.

When we drove up the brick street to our home I didn’t see the kids on their porch any longer.  I wondered who they were, and hoped they were friendly.   Mom parked the car in front of our house and we all got out.  Walking up the front walk I looked up to my room and saw both Sarah and her mother standing in the window.  Her mom had her arm around her shoulder.  Even though it looked like it was supposed to be a loving gesture, I didn’t get any feelings of joy from either of them.  In fact, it felt like their eyes were piercing through me.  I tugged at mom’s arm and asked her if she saw them.  She looked up to my window and asked “What?”  It was apparent that she couldn’t see them.  Just before we got into the porch a little old lady came out of her house next door to us.  She was on the side farther away from Gus’ house, to the right.  She waved at mom to go talk to her. 

“Go inside and change into your play clothes and you can watch TV till I come back.”  Mom told us as she went to the fence to chat with the lady.  I hesitated at the door watching the lady point at me, my room, and wondered what she was saying.  Mom turned to look at me and glared.  I hurried inside and went up to my room to change.

I was a little nervous to go inside my room since I knew that Sarah and her mother were there.  Since the last event it had been a bit more quiet, the doors still opened and closed a lot, and mom kept insisting she heard us crying at night; but the dreams had ceased and nothing major had happened - plus I hadn’t seen them again until today.

When I opened my door, like usual the closet door shut hard.  I had pointed this out to my dad, even got him to witness it, but he said it was only the air pressure making that happen.  I knew he was wrong, the windows were not even open a little.  Still, to argue with him would get me in trouble so I just left it alone. 

I was starting to think mom believed me.  I overheard her defending me to my dad.  She must have noticed me walking up because she stopped talking about it so I wasn’t sure exactly what she was saying to him.  The look on her face made me think of the fear in her eyes when I told her about the night I was locked in my closet. 

The uneasy feeling I had in my room made me stay out of it more and more.  In fact I didn’t enjoy being upstairs most of the time, luckily mom let us play in the yard frequently because of the summer.  I had even talked her into letting us sleep on the deck one night, only to wake up to a huge mosquito bite on my eye.  She said ‘Not again.’ after that.  She never said anything to me about how I was avoiding the upper floor though.

“What do you need, Sam?”  My father was asking me.

“I just wanted to go outside.”  I told him meekly.

“Go on then.”  He replied, “your mother and I are discussing something, we’ll call you when we are done.  Please do not interrupt us again.”  He seemed irritated, but that was normal to me.  I wondered what they were talking about, I was even tempted to spy on them, but I thought I had better not to keep from punishment.

I went out to the back yard and skipped around our pond.  I picked some of the daisies and wove them into a wreath to wear.  I used some old burnt wood to draw a hopscotch and found a rock to play.  As I was jumping through the path a snake slithered right past me and startled me.  It glided itself into our pond and went under the water.  I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of a snake in our pond so I went to investigate.  Peering into the water I noticed there were a couple of much smaller snakes swimming around as well.  My dad had told me that we had Garter snakes earlier in the summer, but I had yet to see one till now.  It had a yellow stripe down it’s body from what I could see.  It looked exotic to me even though dad had told me that they are common.  He also said that I shouldn’t worry about them biting me because their venom isn’t dangerous to humans.  I was a little disappointed to see that there were so many, I wasn’t frightened by any means, I just didn’t like them much.

After investigating the snakes to my satisfaction I decided to play a hopping game I had invented where I hopped on my cement toadstools back and forth in different variations and styles of hopping.  First one foot then the other, then the closest toadstool, then the farthest, and so on.  It was when I was hopping to the farthest toadstool a voice startled me.

“Little girl!”  I couldn’t tell from where and looked around.  “Young lady!”  I heard it again and turned towards the direction it came from, missed my footing and fell into the grass.

When I got up I saw that it was the old lady from next door calling me.  She was waving at me to come closer to her.  I was a little nervous to talk to her, but she seemed very serious about my obeying her. 

I neared her at the side of my fence, still keeping some distance.

“Come here child!”  She told me, her voice cracking a little with her words.

“Yes ma’am?”  I got as near the fence as I dared.

“You’re the one at the top of the house aren’t you.”  It was more of a statement than a question.  I nodded.

“You see them?” she asked me.

“Who?” I responded, even though I was anticipating the answer.

“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you.”  She looked me in the eye very closely.  “Don’t let them get to you.  They can trap your soul!” 

I was getting a little more afraid of her by the way she was speaking to me, but a part of me was glad someone knew what I was going through and believed me.

“What do you mean?”  I asked her.

“They come to your dreams.  They’ll get you lost inside their hell, but don’t let them, here.” She put a small star on a black cord into my hands. “Keep that with you at all times.  It will protect you from their curse.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to her.  I wanted to tell her all about everything that had happened to me, but I held it in for some reason and just thanked her.

“Put it on now, little one.  You can resist them, you are not alone.  If you need something just call on me.  I’m Vera.  I’ve been putting my spells out for you.  Just hold onto that charm.”  She turned and went back into her house leaving me stunned.  I put the necklace on, it was a pretty silver star that rested right near my heart.  The cool metal felt good against my hot skin. 

I went back to playing on the toadstools for a bit, until I saw Gus in his yard raking up some debris.  I thought it would be nice to offer some help to him, so I ran down the alleyway to his back yard and asked him if he’d like my help.

“Sure I would”  He told me when I got there.  “There’s a second rake in the shed over there.”  He pointed to a small building off the alley.  I went to the doorway and found the rake in corner right off.  He had a lot of tools in the shed, it looked like many of them were very old and used.

I raked with him for some time, Gus told me about the birds that came to call on his garden and I was lost in time until I heard my mother calling for me.

“I gotta go.”  I said to him.

“Thanks for your help.”  He reached into his pocket. “Let me give you something for it.”

“No thanks” I shrugged it off, mom always said that when you help a neighbor the service is the reward, not money.  I ran home to see what my mom was calling about.

“It’s dinner time.” She said when I got there.  “where have you been?  I’ve been calling you for several minutes.”  Without giving me a chance to answer she continued, “How did you get so filthy?  Never mind, just go wash up before coming to the table.”