Helen Oyeyemi - Boy, Snow, Bird

You just hang on to that paper route.

Snow

Snow,

You don’t have to tell me anything about your job if you don’t want to, but can you please just answer me this — is it dangerous? I mean, is there a chance you could get hurt? Yes or no?

I’ve been trying to see things from your point of view. Maybe it looks to you as if a whole bunch of things are expected of you. Maybe you’re trying to live up to what you think people expect. But people really don’t expect all that much. You should see how happy it makes Gee-Ma Agnes to get a note from you, just a little sign that you’ve been thinking of her. I’m guessing you’d go pretty far to make sure you don’t disappoint anyone. But look… you don’t have to prove anything.

I’m also guessing you might not like to be hearing all this from your younger sister. Well, I read about fifty pages of advice columns before sitting down to write to you, so really this is the wisdom of Dear Abby.

Bird

PS — Speaking with spiders and other things you call unusual… there’s no special trick to it. When something catches your attention just keep your attention on it, stick with it ’til the end, and somewhere along the line there’ll be weirdness. I’ve never tried to explain it to anyone before, but what I mean to say is that a whole lot of technically impossible things are always trying to happen to us, appear to us, talk to us, show us pictures, or just say hi, and you can’t pay attention to all of it, so I just pick the nearest technically impossible thing and I let it happen. Let me know how it goes if you try it. And if you’re thinking I’m going to grow out of this, you’re wrong.

Hi, Snow,

I’m in detention again. It’s been five weeks since I last heard from you. According to Dad, you’re not only alive but getting prettier and more gracious every day, et cetera, but what I want is an answer to the question in my previous letter. One word: yes or no?

A thing you should understand about me is that I won’t keep a secret just because it’s a secret. I’ve been told that this makes me a bad friend, but I actually think it makes me a better friend than the secret-keepers. (Time will tell.)

If you don’t answer within the week, I’ll show your previous letter to Dad.

I’m sorry to have to threaten you like this. Really, I am.

Bird

Stop fretting, Bird. I’m in no more danger than you are. And right now I’m feeling embarrassed for both of us. I was a fool to write that other letter. It was too much for you — don’t try to tell me it wasn’t — and I’m sorry. Get ready for Thanksgiving… I’m coming with Aunt Clara and Uncle John and an assortment of baked goods and trinkets, and the first thing I’m going to do when I arrive is give you the biggest squeeze you ever had in your life.

Snow

—

over at the bookstore I asked Mom if she was really going to let Snow come home for Thanksgiving. That’s exactly how I asked it: “Are you gonna let her?”

Mom was deciding on prices for some books that had just come in the day before. Mrs. Fletcher had taught her to do this by smelling the paper and rubbing the corners of the pages between her fingertips.

Her hair was in her face, her eyes were closed, her nose was pressed to a coffee-brown page. “It’s been discussed,” she said.

“And you said yes?”

She wrote a number down on her notepad. Three figures, a pause, then she added another ninety-nine cents. “If you’re saying yes, then I’m saying yes.”

“Really? Well… I am saying yes, Mom.”

“That’s what I figured. Needless to say I’ll be watching her every move. Kidding, kidding…”

She wasn’t kidding. I asked her what Snow had ever done to her, and she said it was a good question.

i never knew a Thanksgiving that took so long to come around. I guess Louis Chen got tired of hearing me repeat those words, because he said: “You know, the way you’re talking is getting kind of creepy.”

Aunt Mia told me not to get my hopes up. Dad made chain mail, little scraps of knitted electrum with circles of blue crystal peeping through the links. He cut the crystals in deep Vs and the surfaces were dull until you tried to look down to the bottom of them and almost cooked your eyeballs. It wasn’t really jewelry — he couldn’t sell it, could only give it away. He handed me a piece and told me to hit my hopes right out of the ballpark.

Mom stopped going to Grammy Olivia’s coffee hours. “The gloating,” she said to Aunt Mia.

Everyone who remembered Snow seemed glad to hear she’d be back. “So pretty,” I kept hearing. “So well behaved.” No one said they’d missed her. Take Christina Morris who worked at the bakery — she’d been in Snow’s class at school, and when Dad told her Snow might look in on her, she said “Hurray!” just as if she’d been told Miss America was coming to town. It wasn’t the kind of reaction you’d give to news about someone who’d really been part of your life. I wanted to hear someone say they’d cried when they found out she wasn’t coming back to school. It would’ve been good to hear that somebody had done what I did last summer when Louis went away to summer camp. I went after him that very same afternoon, through fields and over low bridges in the direction I’d seen the bus take, running, then limping. I got as far as the fire station in Marstow, two towns over, then the sun set and I realized I didn’t know where to go next, so I walked back home with stones in my socks and was grounded for two weeks. I wanted somebody to say they’d done something like that because of Snow (who’s about a hundred times prettier than Louis, after all) but no one did.

Louis’s birthday was on the same day as Connie Ross’s, right in the middle of September, and Mom loaned me her blanket-sized U.S. flag in exchange for my promise that I’d guard it with my life. My contribution to the picnic was a few perfectly ripe Bartlett pears and some soft cheese that had a long name and came wrapped in waxy brown paper. I wound the flag around the pears and the cheese, tied the whole package to a stick, and went through the woods with lunch over my shoulder. As I went I made a deal with myself not to talk about Snow or Thanksgiving anymore. Talking wasn’t bringing either subject of conversation any closer. Also I was getting angry. Angry about the things people were saying, the way they were making Snow sound like some kind of ornament just passing by… not even passing by, but being passed around. Everybody agreed that Snow was valuable, but she was far too valuable to have around for keeps. Nice to look at for an afternoon, but we’ll all breathe easier once she’s safely back at the museum. I was beginning to hate people because of the way they talked about my sister, because of the way they didn’t really want her. Even Miss Fairfax was doing it, telling Dad to just have one afternoon when Snow would be at home to all visitors so as to get all the visiting over with in one go.

We sang “Happy Birthday” and Jerry Fallon started a food fight, running around the tree trunks whooping and throwing slices of luncheon meat. Later, once everything had been hurled or eaten, we washed the cheese and bread crumbs out of our hair and passed out in the sunshine, the six of us on Mom’s flag, which we’d spread out on the grass near Spooner’s Brook. I made everyone take their shoes off first. Jerry and Sam were back to back, and Connie and Ruth were top to toe, but we all had our arms around and over and under one another, warm skin and frosty violets (Ruth was wearing her mother’s perfume). Louis fell asleep with his head on my stomach. Once I was sure the others were asleep I laid my hand on his head. The boy was huffing and puffing the way he does when he’s having dreams; it made his hair dance. I didn’t sleep myself. I was just resting. Connie stood up and walked away — to pee, I thought. She didn’t make any effort to sneak away quietly. She walked normally, her feet crushing leaves.