Joan Hess - Madness In Maggody

"I can't argue that one," Estelle said with a morose sigh. "We may have to call those little children and tell them they can't play after all."

"I am not a quitter, Estelle Oppers. Jim Bob is going to be called to explain hisself on Judgment Day just like everybody else, but when he lifts up his squinty yellow eyes, he's going to find Rubella Belinda Hanks standing before him."

"Holding a baseball bat," Estelle added, taken with the image. "Looking at him hard enough to split his britches."

"You can be beside me," Ruby Bee said in a spurt of generosity. "And you know what? When his britches split, it turns out his drawers are red and white striped, and everybody sees it and starts laughing to beat the band. Can you picture the look on his face then?"

That rocked them back and forth until both of them had tears rolling down their cheeks and Estelle nearly wet her pants but managed to hold it. The near-miss sobered her up enough for an idea to pop into her head.

"Stop, Ruby Bee," she said. "An idea just popped into my head. It was exactly like when a light bulb goes on over a character's head in a cartoon."

Ruby Bee wiped her eyes on the hem of her apron and tried to look impressed with all this upcoming illumination. "So what is it, Estelle?"

"It has to do with Arly. We can call-"

"Don't waste your breath. Arly made it real plain that she wasn't going to have one thing to do with any baseball team. She'll have a fit if we so much as throw out a hint in her direction. She may be fond of making jokes and saying smart-alecky things, but there's something about her that I can't rightly put my finger on but I try my best to avoid."

"We're not throwing a single hint in her direction, or not yet, anyways. Remember Hammet, Robin Buchanon's bush colt that stayed with Arly after Robin was killed? How old do you reckon he was at the time?"

"Lordy, Estelle, he was such a wild creature that I didn't want to get close enough to look. He was runty, that's for sure. Runty and filthy and smelly. And blessed with his ma's nasty language. Did I tell you what he had the audacity to say right to my face?"

"More than once. Now what we need to do is find out where Hammet's pa lives. Why don't you pour me a glass of beer and scoot the pretzels down this way. This is one fine idea, if I say so myself."

And she always did, Ruby Bee thought as she pushed the pretzel basket down the smooth expanse of the bar.

Alex had takenJackie outside to play catch, which was somewhat interesting in that Alex couldn't catch a cold, much less a ball. Neither could Jackie, for that matter, but he was a docile sort and trudged along rather than argue.

Ivy was reading a book that would have caused the good folks at Organic Gardening to faint in their compost piles. "Organophosphate," she read aloud with difficulty. "Tetraethyl pyrophosphate." She repeated the words until they had a pleasant rhythm to them and seemed to roll off her tongue.

Alex wouldn't hear them, because once he understood what they meant, he'd be as panicky and upset as a bronco with a burr in its tail. Alex preferred ladybugs and praying mantises to control the insects that savaged the gardens every summer. He planted marigolds to fight the slugs. He constructed quaint scarecrows when a shotgun would have been much more effective.

Alex was in harmony with his environment, Ivy told herself as she put aside the book. He genuinely liked the rabbits that gnawed the lettuce, the groundhogs that wallowed in the squash, the deer that nibbled everything they could reach over the fence, or everything in sight when they'd knocked the fence down, which they did once a month or so. For all she knew, he had affection for the bugs and slugs and other foul things.

Ivy was more in harmony with the real world of dwindling bank accounts, bills, mortgage payments, supplies, the increase in the electric rate, and all the basically nonorganic aspects of their life.

There wasn't much she could do about the animals that trampled the gardens and enjoyed a well-balanced diet at her expense, but she could do something quite lethal to the ones that traveled on six legs. The insecticide wasn't cheap, but the increase in productivity per acre would more than cover the cost. There was a possibility they could lower prices just a bit, and perhaps keep a few customers.

Alex would protest and perhaps go so far as to forbid it-if he knew, of course. Ivy figured she could send him and Jackie into town on some errand, then waltz out to the garden and orchards to take care of the insects all by herself. Alex could continue to be as organic as he wished, and she could use enough of the organophosphate to at least attempt to be competitive with the supermarket. Or she could sprinkle it on the salads in the deli department and ensure there would be no more supermarket with which to be competitive.

Geraldo Mandozes slammed down the checkbook and leaned back in the metal chair. If business got any slower, he figured he'd have to call it quits and try to sell the damn building and equipment to someone else. But there would be no buyers beating down the door. He'd used all his savings to buy the business and bring his family to this godforsaken place. Geraldo's anger grew hotter than a peck of jalapeño peppers as he remembered how long he'd cooked for other people to save the money.

His tamales really were the best, the very best. It was not fair that this supermarket deli would destroy the Dairee Dee-Lishus as if it were a dry twig to be stepped on.

A mouse darted out from under a stack of dry goods, then froze. "Vaya!" Geraldo snarled. The mouse vaya-ed back from whence it had come. "This is too much. I got bills, I got payments, I got less customers every day, and now I got mice. I got enough trouble without goddamn mice."

He took the box of poison off the shelf and began to sprinkle it along the baseboards, being careful not to inhale the whitishgray powder.

Lillith Smew stared in horror at the brown bug scuttling across the kitchen counter. She put her hand on her heart, which wasn't at all strong, and held back a shriek. It was one thing to risk her health, which wasn't at all good, to come live with Buzz and the children and take care of them, but she hadn't bargained on roaches in the kitchen. Why, she was having one of her palpitations right there; she could feel it under her hand.

She forced herself to sit down and try to calm herself so she wouldn't have another heart attack. She'd already had two, even though the snooty young doctor had said they were bouts of indigestion. Lillith Smew figured she knew more than he did, anyway, because she'd spent a goodly amount of time in various doctors' offices, hoping one of them would acknowledge the gravity of her heart condition.

Martin poked his head in the kitchen. "What's the matter, Gran? Are you sick?"

"I saw a roach, Martin. It caused a severe palpitation, and I had to sit down to catch my breath."

"They get to be a problem in the summer," Martin said agreeably. He had big brown eyes, but they never widened in surprise these days, nor did much of any expression ever cross his face. "There's a box of powder under the sink. You want I should sprinkle some around?"

"Oh, Martin, you are such a good little boy. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you and sweet little Lissie. You'll be my only grandchildren now that your poor mama has gone to heaven." Lillith made a sad face and spread out her arms, looking somewhat like the crucifix at the Assembly Hall. "Come here so I can give you a big hug."

Martin dutifully crossed the room and allowed himself to be crushed. She smelled like medicine, he thought without much interest. She had enough little boxes and bottles to stock a drugstore, and she was always going on about her heart or her blood pressure or her veins or her waves of dizziness or something.