Chapter 7
When school’s done I might get to go stay with my Bigmama and Bigdaddy. Mama said maybe, if I’m a good girl. I’ve been prayin’ to God all the time, askin’ Him to help me be good because it’s so much fun to go to their house.
They live on a mountain in Marietta and there are lots of trees and good places to play. There’s an Indian graveyard across the road from their house and Jason one time found an arrowhead.
You have to go miles and miles up a dirt road to get to their house and you better hope it ain’t rainin’ because you have to go up this gigantic hill called the Bigdaddy hill. If it’s rainin’ then you’ll probably end up in a ditch.
It happens all the time and even though the big people don’t much like it, I do think it’s excitin’ when we all have to pile outta the car and walk. We end up so muddy that we have to leave our shoes on the front porch when we finally get up to my Bigmama’s house.
You would really like my Bigmama. She’s got these warm sparkly eyes and she’s real soft to hug. She’s also the greatest cook in the whole wide world! She makes these tiny little biscuits that are so yummy for your tummy.
She has a garden and grows lots of different kinds of vegetables. There are these long purple beans that turn into regular ol’ green beans when she cooks ‘em. I keep wishin’ they would stay purple though because it’s a real pretty color and I’m thinkin’ it might be my new favorite when I grow up.
All my cousin’s get to go up to my Bigmama’s house, too. Most of my life I wished I was born a boy because all my family is boys but when I go to my Bigmama’s house I am so happy that I was born a girl because that means I’m the one who gets to sleep in the bed with Bigmama.
At night we lay together listenin’ to Bigdaddy snorin’ in his bed beside ours and we always get to laughin’. She tells me funny stories and sings little rhymin’ songs like how a whistlin’ woman and a crowin’ hen will someday come to some bad end.
I love my Bigmama’s eyes. They’re like melted chocolate after you’ve stirred a spoon around the pot and there are different colors of brown sittin’ swirled up right beside each other. I can tell that she used to be pretty way back when she was young like me. Eyeballs tell you that kinda stuff. That’s probably back when my Bigdaddy fell into love with her.
Bigdaddy’s not my real grandpa. My real one lives somewhere else and I ain’t never even seen him. Mama said that he was a mean ol’ drunk who used to smack my Bigmama around. I’m glad she got my Bigdaddy because he wouldn’t never smack Bigmama around. He don’t never drink but at Christmas time anyways.
Mama drank beer before and she was dancin’ all around the room. First, she was moving her arms up and backwards over her head like she was swimmin’ on her back, then she held her nose, stuck her arm up in the air and went down at the floor like she was drownin’. She looked so funny like that!
We all laughed that day and danced around the room like Mama. We had a real good time and I think beer drinkin’ made Mama happy because she didn’t smack on us at all that day.
It’s really kinda hard to imagine somebody smackin’ on my Bigmama. She’s so strong. Not with muscles like Jason wants but kinda like, brave instead. I one time saw her throw a bowl out the kitchen window and it went whack! Right up side my Bigdaddy’s head. He chewed on his finger and said a lot of bad words that I could get smacked sideways for sayin’, but he didn’t say nothing to my Bigmama.
One time he took me to the flea market with him and bought me a teeny tiny little tea set made outta real glass. I like goin’ places with him because he always stops for a candy bar and buys me one, too. He has a tummy just like Santa Claus. I told you my Bigmama is the greatest cook.
Sometimes she lets me go out to her garden and pick vegetables for supper. I pick okrey the most because I love it when she fries it up real crispy and it crunches between my teeth. Sometimes she puts it in soup and it gets all slimy like snot. Yuk! I hate it like that.
We have the most food you will ever see on Mother’s Day. Bigmama has eight kids and sixteen grandkids and we all get together at her house for a big ol’ celebration. She gets the most presents I have ever seen in my whole life. I’m thinkin’ that when I grow up I’m gonna have like, twelve or twenty kids.
The last time we was all up at my Bigmama’s house she told us that her brother had heard a panther in the woods around her house and I got so scared. I asked her if she was scared and she said no because God will only take you when it’s your time to go, and if it’s not your time then He will protect you. She said she knows it’s not her time yet so she don’t never worry about it. I don’t know if it’s my time or not so I still felt scared. I keep prayin’ and askin’ God but He ain’t never answered me yet.
My Mama’s cousin’s daughter, Sandra, lives with my Bigmama and we always play together when I’m there. So that night when we had heard about the panther, we was in the bathroom takin’ a bath when we heard some scary whoo whoo sounds and we got so scared that there was still soap in my hair when we both jumped outta that bathtub, yanked on our pajamas and took off outta there.
There’s a bedroom off to the side of the bathroom and as I went by the door I heard some laughy giggly kinda noises comin’ from inside so I peeked around the doorway and there was my brothers and my mean ol’ cousin Billy rollin’ around on the bed, laughin’ and havin’ a good time makin’ fun of how fast we had run outta that bathroom. My whole body got shakin’ mad!
Bigmama was in the kitchen wrappin’ up all the leftovers when I told her how they had scared us by makin’ us think that panther was outside. She laughed and said that a panther don’t make no whoo whoo sound. She said it sounds more like a woman screamin’.
I was gonna go in the livin’ room and tell Mama and Billy’s mama and daddy what those hateful boys had done, but then Bigmama said something about what’s good for a goose bein’ good enough for a gander. I didn’t know what in the world no gander was but I felt it had something to do with gettin’ even and I was just mad enough to give it a try. Then Sandra came through the kitchen and I grabbed her by the arm and told her what I had in mind. She was just as mad as I was so it wasn’t like I had to talk her into anything.
It was a little while later when all the boys went in the bathroom to get their bath. We waited a bit, just so they wouldn’t be expectin’ nothing, then we went in the same bedroom where they had been when they had tried to scare the life outta us.
We stood up at the window that faced over to the bathroom window and we opened up our mouths lettin’ out the most loudest screams we could. I wasn’t sure it would even work since we scream like girls, not women, but we hurried up and ran into the livin’ room where all the big people was sittin’ around the television. Well no sooner had we got in the room, the bathroom door flung wide open and out run my cousin Billy, butt naked and cryin’ his eyeballs out. He was so scared even his little hangy-thing was shakin’!
Sandra and me just about near died, we was laughin’ so hard. My Aint Nadine’s face turned red and she was yellin’ at him to go get his clothes on but he just kept on cryin’ and sayin’, the panther, the panther ‘til his daddy finally had to get up and take him back to the bathroom to get dressed while Aint Nadine glared over at me and Sandra.
She asked what all the screamin’ had been about and I started stutterin’, sayin’ I thought I had seen a panther, or something. I glanced up at Mama as she looked at me and I knew that she knew that I was sure ‘nough tellin’ a whopper. When she said for me to come outside with her because she wanted to talk to me I got real scared because I just knew that I was gonna get it bad and suddenly none of it was funny anymore.
When I walked past my Aint Nadine she was lookin’ like she wanted to step on me or something and I felt like stickin’ my tongue out at her but I knew that Mama would slap it right outta my mouth because Mama don’t tolerate no smart-alecky ways in her kids.
When we got outside Mama looked down on me, askin’ if I had screamed on purpose just to scare the boys and even though I wanted to lie so bad I couldn’t stand it, I looked her right smack in the face and told her yes.
Well, first she started laughin’ a little and then the next thing I knew she was laughin’ so hard she had to take her glasses off to wipe away the wetness runnin’ down her face. I was kinda confused and I stared at her for a minute with my mouth hangin’ open but then I thought about his hangy-thing shakin’ like a fish on a hook and I got to laughin’ like crazy, too.
Mama sat down in one of Bigmama’s outside chairs and reached in her pocket for some paper to wipe her nose. It was like, she would stop for a minute but then another little giggle would come and we would both be laughin’ like crazy all over again. She finally said we had to stop because her tummy was startin’ to hurt from all the giggles.
She kept sittin’ there so I put my head back, lookin’ up at the sky. It was a real pretty night, like when the stars light up the sky like a Christmas tree all lit up and waitin’ for Santa. I looked over at Mama and she was lookin’ up, same as me. She wasn’t laughin’ anymore and it made me start feelin’ kinda scared so I asked her if she was mad at me. She said no, she wasn’t mad at me at all. She said she was real glad I did it because it was exactly what he deserved and then she laughed some more.
She reached out for my hand and I scrunched down in the chair beside her, holdin’ on tight to hers. We sat together like that for a long time, each of us lookin’ up at the sky. Ever once in a while we’d start laughin’ all over again. That night, it felt real good bein’ me.
