Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

Ding went the bell: time for today’s tiebreaker! The contestants—eyes darting—stood gulping before the Big Board: what did they have to worry about? Hely thought bitterly. He hadn’t spoken to Harriet after his escape—wasn’t even sure she’d made it home, something else that was starting to worry him. As soon as he’d ducked out of the yard, he’d darted to the opposite side of the street and run home, over fences and through back yards, dogs barking at him from what seemed like all directions in the dark.

When he’d crept in the back door, red-faced and panting, he saw by the clock on the stove that it was still early, only nine. He could hear his parents watching television in the family room. Now, this morning, he wished he had stuck his head into the family room and said something to them, called out “Goodnight” from the stairs, anything; but he had not had the nerve to face them and had scurried cravenly to bed without a word to anyone.

He had no desire to see Harriet. Her very name made him think about things which he would rather not. The family room—tan rug, corduroy sofa, tennis trophies in a case behind the wet bar: all seemed alien, unsafe. Rigidly, as if some hostile observer were glowering at his back from the doorway, he stared at the carefree celebrities conferring over their riddle and tried to forget his troubles: no Harriet, no snakes, no punishment imminent from his dad. No big scary rednecks who had recognized him, he was certain of it…. What if they went to his father? Or, worse: came after him? Who could say what a nut like Farish Ratliff might do?

A car pulled up in the driveway. Hely nearly screamed. But when he looked out the window, he saw it wasn’t the Ratliffs; it was only his dad. Quickly, spasmodically, he attempted to slouch down and spread out and generally arrange himself in a more casual posture, but he could not make himself comfortable, cringing in expectation of the slammed door, his father’s footsteps clipping fast down the hallway the way they always did when he was angry, and meant business….

Hely—trembling with the effort—tried hard not to hold himself too stiffly; but he could not contain his curiosity and he sneaked a terrified glance to see that his father, with maddening leisure, was just climbing out of the car. He seemed unconcerned—even bored, though his expression was hard to read through the gray sunshades which were clipped over his glasses.

Unable to tear his eyes away, Hely watched him as he circled to the back of the car, opened the trunk. One by one he unloaded his purchases in the empty sunlight and set them down on the concrete: a gallon of paint. Plastic buckets. A coil of green garden hose.

Hely got up very quietly and took his cereal bowl to the kitchen and rinsed it out, then went up to his room and shut the door. He lay on the bottom bunk, staring at the slats above and trying not to hyperventilate or pay too much attention to his own heartbeat. Presently he heard footsteps. Outside the door, his father said: “Hely?”

“Sir?” Why is my voice so squeaky?

“I thought I told you to turn off that television when you were finished watching it.”

“Yes sir.”

“I want you to come out and help me water your mother’s garden. I thought it was going to rain this morning but it looks like it’s blown over.”

Hely was afraid to argue. He detested his mother’s flower garden. Ruby, the maid before Essie Lee, would not go anywhere near the dense perennials his mother grew for cutting. “Snakes like flowers,” she always said.

Hely put on his tennis shoes and went outside. The sun was already high and hot. Glare in his eyes, woozy with heat, he stood seven or eight feet back on the crisped yellow grass as he swept the hose over the flower bed, holding it as far away from his body as he could.

“Where’s your bicycle?” said his father, returning from the garage.

“I—” Hely’s heart sank. His bike was right where he’d left it: on the median in front of the frame house.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t come back in this house until it’s in the garage. I’m sick and tired of telling you not to leave it out in the yard.”

Something was wrong when Harriet went downstairs. Her mother was dressed in one of the cotton shirt-waist dresses she wore to church, and was whisking around the kitchen. “Here,” she said, presenting Harriet with some cold toast and a glass of milk. Ida—her back to Harriet—was sweeping the floor in front of the stove.

“Are we going somewhere?” said Harriet.

“No, darling …” Though her mother’s voice was cheerful, her mouth was slightly tense and the waxy coral lipstick she wore made her face look white. “I just thought I’d get up and make your breakfast for you this morning, is that all right?”

Harriet glanced over her shoulder, at Ida, who did not turn around. The set of her shoulders was peculiar. Something’s happened to Edie , thought Harriet, stunned, Edie’s in the hospital …. Before she had time for this to sink in, Ida—without looking at Harriet—stooped with the dust-pan and Harriet saw with a shock that she’d been crying.

All the fear of the past twenty-four hours came thundering down upon her, and along with it was a fear that she could not name. Timidly, she asked: “Where’s Edie?”

Harriet’s mother looked puzzled. “At home,” she said. “Why?”

The toast was cold, but Harriet ate it anyway. Her mother sat down at the table with her and watched her, with her elbows on the table and her chin propped in her hands. “Is it good?” she said presently.

“Yes, ma'am.” Because she did not know what was wrong, or how to act, Harriet concentrated all her attention upon her toast. Then her mother sighed; Harriet glanced up, just in time to see her rise from the table in a rather dispirited manner and drift from the room.

“Ida?” whispered Harriet, as soon as they were alone.

Ida shook her head and said nothing. Her face was expressionless, but big glassy tears swelled at the bottom lid of her eyes. Then, pointedly, she turned away.

Harriet was stricken. She stared at Ida’s back, at the apron straps criss-crossed over her cotton dress. She could hear all sorts of tiny noises, crystal-clear and dangerous: the hum of the refrigerator, a fly buzzing over the kitchen sink.

Ida dumped the dust-pan into the pail beneath the sink, then shut the cabinet. “What for you told on me?” she said, without turning around.

“ Tell on you?” “I’m always good to you.” Ida brushed past her, returned the dust-pan to its home on the floor by the hot-water heater, next to the mop and broom. “Why you want to get me in trouble?”

“Tell on you for what? I didn’t!”

“You sure did. And you know what else?” Harriet quailed at her steady, bloodshot gaze. “Y'all got that poor woman fired over at Mr. Claude Hull’s house. Yes you did , ” she said, over Harriet’s stutters of astonishment. “Mr. Claude drove over there last night and you should have heard how he talk to that poor woman, like she’s a dog. I heard the whole thing and so did Charley T.”

“I didn’t! I—”

“Listen at you!” Ida hissed. “You ought to be ashamed. Telling Mr. Claude that woman try to set the house on fire. And what you do then , but priss yourself on home and tell your mama that I don’t feed you right.”

“I didn’t tell on her! It was Hely!”

“I ain’t talking about him. I’m talking about you . ”

“But I told him not to tell! We were in his room, and she banged on the door and started yelling—”