It’s not like doing a paper route in Easton, where you just walk along and place a paper in front of everybody’s door. We’re so way out in the country here that you have to drive and drive—sometimes it’s at least three miles between houses. The houses are set pretty far back from the road, so Arvie Joe slows way down and then whips the paper out the window and up to the front porch. Boy, does he have good aim.
He did the first few houses himself, to show me how. If the house is on the left side of the road, it’s easy—he just whips the paper straight out his window. But if it’s on the right side of the road, he has to whip the newspaper up over the roof of the truck.
After he showed me how, he let me do the houses on the right side. I messed up the first few. I threw one in a birdbath, one about halfway up the lawn, and another one hit a chicken in the front yard. But Arvie Joe was real nice about it.
He said, “Don’t they teach you how to throw, up there in The City?”
I said that it wasn’t high on the list of things to teach kids, no.
“Well, it oughtta be,” he said. Then he asked me what was high on the list of things to teach kids. I had to think awhile. “I guess algebra and English and stuff.” (I didn’t think “sum and substance” would go over real well with Arvie Joe.)
“Besides school crud,” he said.
“Well, besides school crud, let’s see…swimming, maybe. Baseball, I guess. Tennis.”
“Tennis? God almighty.”
“Anything wrong with tennis?”
“Sissy game.”
“Ah.”
“What else?”
“That’s about it.”
“God almighty. What about your parents? Don’t they teach you stuff, like throwin’ and fixin’ cars and stuff?”
I had a hard time with that one. “Manners, I guess. My parents are big on manners.”
“Manners? God almighty, girl. Manners? Manners sure ain’t gonna help you when you gotta fix a car!”
He was dying laughing.
Anyway, that was the big excitement of the day, Arvie Joe’s paper route.
I’ve hardly seen Carl Ray at all since we got here. He’s always off in his car, visiting his friends. He has a ton of friends here. That surprised me, I guess. And I keep forgetting to remind him about Beth Ann. I’d better do that. Maybe he’ll want to leave if I start reminding him about his Cleopatra back in Easton.
It’s funny, but the first day we were here, Carl Ray seemed so happy and excited to be back. But the last couple days, he seems so quiet when he’s here (which, as I said, isn’t all that much). He talks to Aunt Radene a lot, and ever since he and Uncle Carl Joe had their walk in the graveyard, they seem nicer to each other. But they still don’t actually talk to each other, in front of me, anyway.
Well, I’m going to stop for now. John Roy and Sally Lynn just asked me if I wanted to climb up Booger Hill (the hill right behind the barn) with them. I have no idea why it’s called Booger Hill.
I’m sooooo homesick. I really want to go home.
So I went, this afternoon, with John Roy and Sally Lynn to climb Booger Hill. They had packed some bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid in a backpack, so we could have a picnic at the top.
John Roy was leading. He claimed we were following a path, but I couldn’t really see a path. On the way through the woods, they were telling me about a prisoner who escaped from a nearby prison two days ago. They were saying that he was armed and very dangerous. He’s killed all kinds of people, John Roy said.
“You don’t think he’d be around here, do you?” I asked.
“Naw,” John Roy said. “Why would he pick this hill? There’s millions of other hills he could hide out on.”
Sally Lynn said, “But he could have picked this hill, John Roy. He could have. Maybe he’s scared. Maybe he didn’t know which way to go. Maybe he’s starving to death.”
“Naw,” John Roy said. “If he’s such a good killer, he could kill all kinds of animals. He won’t be starvin’.”
“But he could be,” Sally Lynn said.
We climbed and climbed. I was getting a little tired, and my feet were killing me. I just had these cockamamie sandals on, but they were wearing work boots.
After we’d been walking for about an hour, John Roy said, “We’re almost to the cabin. We could eat there.”
“Cabin?”
“It’s sort of run-down and fallin’ to bits,” Sally Lynn said.
Pretty soon John Roy says, “There it is,” and he points to this pile of logs covered by some tarpaper. If you looked real hard, you could imagine that one time maybe it did look like a cabin.
We had just come up to the door (well, actually, there was no door, only a doorway) and John Roy said, “Whoa!” and Sally Lynn gasped and backed right into me, and I said, “What is it? What’s the matter?”
John Roy whispered, “Somebody’s been here. Look.” He pointed to some charred logs on the ground in front of the doorway. “That’s recent,” he whispered.
Then Sally Lynn said, “Lord Almighty, gum wrappers!” Then, before I could really see the gum wrappers, John Roy said, “Let’s get out of here,” and Sally Lynn yelped, and they took off running.
John Roy dropped the backpack with the lunch inside.
“Waittttt!” I shouted, but they didn’t even turn around; they just kept on running, so I took off after them.
John Roy shouted back, “Quit shouting! It’s the convict. He’s here.”
Once, in the fifth grade, I won first place in the hundred-yard dash at the school sports day. I ran like the wind that day. But compared to today, I bet that fifth-grade dash was a turtle crawl. I ran like crazy. I was sure that convict was going to reach out from behind any tree and grab me.
The worst part was that I couldn’t see either John Roy or Sally Lynn anymore. I could hear people running, but I couldn’t see them and I sure couldn’t see any path and I was just running and running. All I knew was that I was aiming downhill, but I had no idea where I was going other than down. Then I lost my sandal, but I kept on running. I was afraid that I was running right straight toward the convict or he was right behind me.
I ran and ran. It seemed like forever before I came to a creek at the bottom of the hill, but it wasn’t the place where we had started climbing. No sign of John Roy or Sally Lynn. I was sure the convict had already caught them. I figured I was going to have to find some help quick. I ran along the stream, thinking it had to lead somewhere, and finally I came to the swimming hole, so I knew where I was. I ran all the way up that hill, and when I saw the house, I started shouting for help and screaming my stupid lungs out.
Aunt Radene came out of the house and I was flailing my arms around, telling her about the convict and how he must have got John Roy and Sally Lynn and we had to get the police right away. I was so out of breath, I thought I was going to pass out.
The whole time I was trying to explain, Aunt Radene stood there looking at me as if I had lost all my marbles. Finally, she said, “Shh, come on inside.”
I didn’t want to go inside. I wanted her to hurry up and get some help and I wanted her to run, not poke along like she was doing. Then, all of a sudden, I see John Roy and Sally Lynn come strolling out of the house, each one drinking a glass of lemonade.
“Where you been, Mary Lou?” John Roy asked.
“Yeah, where you been?” said Sally Lynn.
I stared at them. “Where have I been? Where have I been? Where in Alpha and Omega’s name have you two been?” I thought I was going to faint dead away right there.