Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

Because Hely kept looking at the telephone, and because she had no idea what else to do, Harriet pulled the telephone over to her and punched in Edie’s number.

“Hello?” said Edie sharply, after two rings.

“Edie,” said Harriet, into the football helmet, “do the Mormons believe anything about snakes?”

“Harriet?”

“Like for example, do they keep snakes as pets, or … I don’t know, have a lot of snakes and things living up in the house with them?”

“Where on earth did you get such an idea? Harriet?”

After an uncomfortable pause, Harriet said: “From TV.”

“Television?” said Edie, incredulously. “What program?”

“National Geographic .”

“I didn’t know you liked snakes, Harriet. I thought you used to scream and holler Save me! Save me ! whenever you saw a little grass snake out in the yard.”

Harriet was silent, letting this low dig pass unremarked.

“When we were girls, we used to hear stories about preachers handling snakes out in the woods. But they weren’t Mormons, just Tennessee hillbillies. By the way, Harriet, have you read A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Now, that has a lot of very good information about the Mormon faith.”

“Yes, I know,” said Harriet. Edie had brought this story up with her Mormon visitors.

“I think that old set of Sherlock Holmes is over at your aunt Tat’s house. She may even have a copy of the Book of Mormon, in that boxed set my father used to have—you know with Confucius and the Koran and religious texts of the—”

“Yes, but where can I read about these snake people?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. What’s that echo? Where are you calling from?”

“Hely’s.”

“It sounds like you’re calling from the toilet.”

“No, this phone is just a funny shape…. Listen, Edie,” she said—for Hely was waving his arms back and forth and trying to get her attention—”what about these snake-handling people? Where are they?”

“In the backwoods and mountains and the desolate places of the earth, that’s all I know,” said Edie grandly.

The instant Harriet hung up, Hely said, in a rush: “You know, there used to be a trophy showroom in the upstairs of that house. I just remembered. I think the Mormons are only downstairs.”

“Who rents it now?”

Hely—excited—stabbed his finger at the telephone but Harriet shook her head; she was not about to call Edie back.

“What about the truck? Did you get the license number?”

“Gosh,” said Harriet. “No.” She hadn’t thought about it before, but the Mormons didn’t drive.

“Did you notice if it wasAlexandria County or not? Think, Harriet, think!” he said melodramatically. “You’ve got to remember!”

“Well why don’t we just ride over there and see? Because if we go now—come on, stop it,” she said, irritably turning her head as Hely began to tick an imaginary hypnotist’s watch back and forth in front of her face.

“You are growing vairy vairy sleepy,” said Hely, in a thick Transylvanian accent. “Vairy … vairy …”

Harriet shoved him away; he circled to the other side, waggling his fingers in her face. “Vairy … vairy …”

Harriet turned her head. Still he kept hovering, and finally she punched him as hard as she could. “Jesus!” screamed Hely. He clutched his arm and fell back on the bunk.

“I said stop.”

“Jeez, Harriet!” He sat up, rubbing his arm and making faces. “You hit me on the funny bone!”

“Well, quit pestering me!”

Suddenly, there was a furious flurry of fist-thumping on the closed door of Hely’s room. “Hely? Yo company in there with you? Y'all open the do’ this minute.”

“Essie!” screamed Hely, falling backwards in exasperation onto his bed. “We’re not doing anything.”

“Open this do’. Open it.”

“Open it yourself!”

In burst Essie Lee, the new housekeeper, who was so new that she didn’t even know Harriet’s name—though Harriet suspected that she only pretended not to know. She was about forty-five, much younger than Ida, with chubby cheeks and artificially straightened hair which was broken and wispy at the ends.

“What y'all doing in here, screaming out the Lord’s name in vain? Y'alls ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she cried. “Playing in here with the do’ shut. Y'all ain’t shutting it no more, you hear?”

“ Pem keeps his door shut.”

“And he ain’t got no girl company in there with him, either.” Essie swung round and glared at Harriet as if she were a puddle of cat-sick on the rug. “Screaming and cussing and carrying on.”

“You better not talk to my company like that,” shrilled Hely. “You can’t do that. I’m going to tell my mother.”

“ I’m gonna tell my mama ,” said Essie Lee, mimicking his whine, screwing her face up. “Run on and tell her. You tells on me all the time for stuff I ain’t even did, like you told yo mama I was the one ate those chocolate chips when you know you eat them yourself? Yes, you know you did it.”

“Get out!”

Harriet, uneasily, studied the carpet. Never had she got used to the flagrant dramas which erupted in Hely’s household when his parents were at work: Hely and Pem against each other (locks picked, posters torn from walls, homework stolen and ripped to pieces) or, more frequently, Hely and Pem against an everchanging housekeeper: Ruby, who ate slices of white bread folded in half, and would not let them watch anything that came on television at the same time as General Hospital ; Sister Bell, the Jehovah’s Witness; Shirley, with brown lipstick and lots of rings, always on the telephone; Mrs. Doane, a gloomy old woman terrified of break-ins who sat watching by the window with a butcher knife in her lap; Ramona, who went berserk and chased Hely with a hairbrush. None of them were very friendly or nice, but it was hard to blame them since they had to put up with Hely and Pemberton all the time.

“Listen at you,” said Essie, with contempt; “ugly thing.” She gestured, vaguely, at the hideous curtains, the stickers darkening his windows. “I’d like to take and burn down this whole ugly—”

“ She threatened to burn down our house ! “ shrieked Hely, red in the face. “You heard her, Harriet. I have a witness. She just threatened to burn down—”

“I ain’t say one word about yo house. You better not—”

“Yes, you did. Didn’t she, Harriet? I’m going to tell my mother,” he cried—without waiting for a reply from Harriet, who was too stunned by all this to speak, “and she’s going to call the employment office, and tell them you’re crazy, and not to send you out to anybody else’s house—”

Behind Essie, Pem’s head appeared in the doorway. He stuck his lower lip out at Hely, in a babyish, tremulous pout. “ Wook who’s in twouble ,” he piped, with fraudulent tenderness.

It was the wrong thing to say, at exactly the wrong moment. Essie Lee wheeled, eyes bulging. “What for you talk to me like that!” she screamed.

Pemberton—brows knit—blinked at her foggily.

“Sorry thing! Lay up in the bed all day, ain’t work a day in your life! I got to earn money. My child—”

“What’s eating her ?” said Pemberton to Hely.

“Essie threatened to burn the house down,” said Hely, smugly. “Harriet’s my witness.”

“I ain’t done no such thing!” Essie’s plump cheeks quivered with emotion. “That’s a lie!”

Pemberton—in the hall, but out of view—cleared his throat. Behind Essie’s heaving shoulder, his hand popped up, then beckoned: all clear . With a jerk of his thumb, he indicated the stairs.