It was 1967, her cousins Jim and Bobby were in Vietnam in what was called a "police action" that looked very much like a war when she'd watch the evening news with her family. Her mom spent a lot of time crying that year, many of her friends killed or missing in action. The young girl would be protesting war in her own way in a few short years. She was in the fifth grade, the oldest of four children (that would change), and she was in love with the boy next door.
It was summer and it was a hot one. Each day hazier, hotter and more humid than the last. Each night brought heat lightening, distant thunder and the promise of rain. She now had the attic bedroom for her own. Her parents thought she wa too old to be sharing a room with her baby sister. This too would change with the arrival of her baby brother.
She woke to the smell of wet blacktop and chlorine. It rained as promised overnight and her neighbor was getting the pool ready for another day of swimming. The metal box window fan rattled and shook from the wear of summers past. It brought in cooler air that held the promise of another hot day. She lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling thinking of what the day may bring. Even with the heat, she was covered completely with the sheet. At the age of ten, she knew that monsters were not real; except the one waiting to grab her foot that lived under her bed. Still in her baby doll pajamas and light summer robe, she found her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. She stares at her family, counting heads and realizes the bathroom was free. Making a 180 degree turn, she marched down the hall to the bath. As she brushes her teeth and runs a comb through her long chestnut brown hair, she looked at herself in the mirror wondering for the umpteenth time if she would ever grow up. It was taking too long.
Not a morning person, she managed to sneak past her siblings in the kitchen and headed to the parlor to sit with her mom. Asked if her room was clean, she lied, telling mom that it was. The little girl ran to her room, pulled on short and a camisole and began the chores given her. Done with the chore of cleaning her room, she made a beeline for the back door and her escape. Her mom's call to stay close almost reached her as the screen door slammed shut. Cutting across the open field and the neighbors yards, she found the end of the fence and swings herself around to the other side. Nina was standing at the door of the summer kitchen of her house. Nina's family never used the kitchen, it was just an attachment to the back of the house they rented. The two girls loved to play back there. They played in that kitchen for hours, making discoveries as their baby dolls slept or they had their tea parties. This morning, Mrs. Callatty came back and joined the tea party. Nina and the girl were startled by her, she would never some back here. The girls stared at her as she began to tell them that there will be changes made in Nina's home. Mrs. Callatty is having a baby and they will be moving to a bigger house. With tears stinging her eyes, the girl ran from the summer kitchen back toward the cliff and the end of the fence.
Swinging around the fence post, she landed between two lilac bushes. Just as the girl was ready to bolt across the lawn, she saw him. The new boy next door. He had to be the cutest boy she had ever seen. And he was between her and her house. So she waited. And there he stayed. Just as she was about to turn around and walk down the stone steps to the gully, he walked toward his house. She took the cue and bolted toward her house, BAM!
Dazed, she looked around to find Rusty, the boy who lived on the other side of her, on the ground in front of her. Fishing pole and worms everywhere. Rusty asked her daily to go fishing with him. She rolled her eyes at him as she had done every summer morning for the past two years. After this morning's news of Nina leaving, she knew she could talk to Rusty about it. He never would have bothered with her but he hated baiting the hook and she was willing to do it if he pretended to listen to her prattle on, it was a relationship of convenience. As he picked up the pole and worms, he watched her run to her house. Girls, he thought.
After running in and announcing she was going fishing, she grabbed the book she was reading and a handful of cookies for her and Rusty; slamming the screen door as her mom was yelling not to slam it. The second reason Rusty would ask her fishing was her mom's cookies. She grabbed the bait and handed him the cookies. As they walked behind his garage to the top of the drive that lead to the bottom of the gully, she talked about her morning. Rusty, thinking of the ball game on Saturday nodded at the right times of the conversation. It was a lesson he learned watching his dad when he talked to his mom. He was using it on his mom now too. She nagged too much. The girl was still talking about whatever it was that bugging her by the time they reached the creek.
They sat on the edge of the creek. The girl grabbed the hook from her friend's pole and dug into the coffee can for a nice fat worm. She held the worm to his face and he squirms. Laughing and chewing on her tongue, she concentrates on the job at hand. She folded the worm in half and stuck the worm through. She gave a sideway glance to Rusty, he looked gray. As she began to weave one half of the worm with the hook, she asked him why he's so afraid of creepy crawlies. Looking at the water and not the hook, he told her about the time his brother filled his bed with spiders. Thinking it was a good enough reason, she wrapped the other end of the worm around the hook. The girl knew he would never cast the line, his fear of the worm touching him if the line came back on him. She did it for him.
The girl got up and wandered around exploring. She found a trail she had never seen before. She called out to her companion and asked how far from the race track they were. Maybe a half mile was his best guess. The sun and the cicada's song told her it was time to go home for lunch. She grabbed her book, yelled after her friend that she was leaving and he waved her off without turning.
Her mom had everyone at the table and was making sandwiches. She asked the girl what she had been up to. She told her mom about Nina's mom having a baby and that they were moving. Mom made a noise that sounded like a humft. She went on to tell her about Rusty and fishing; mom smiled as she went on feeding and talking to her baby sister. It had occurred to her more than once that her mom really didn't pay much attention to her. There were too many distractions. The sandwich finished and the dish in the sink, she hangs around the house looking for something to do. Finally, she heard the words she had been waiting to hear..."go outside and play". As the screen door slammed shut, she almost heard her mom cry out not to slam it.
The girl climbed down the hill on makeshift dirt stairs until she reached the old smoke house. It was always a few degrees cooler in there and she discovered that it made a perfect place to read. Slipping in through the crack in the door, she made her way to the corner and began to read the latest book she took from the library, The Diary of Anne Frank. She stared at the page but her mind kept going back to the trail she found. The book in a hiding place, she made her way down the hill and to the trail.
Rusty was gone, either bored or he actually caught something. Most likely bored. Rusty had never caught a fish for as long as she knew him. She laughed to herself at the thought of him carrying his pole home with the fish still attached, coming to her back door asking for help. She shook her head as she smiled thinking of what a wimp he was. She found the trail and followed it until she found a pheasant nest in the field. It was huge and still had eggs in it. She looked up to find herself in front of large tree which wasn't odd but she'd never seen it before and it had a ladder leaning against it. Walking over there, she stood there looking up. A tree house!
As she climbed the ladder, she wondered how it was possible not to have seen it before. She could see the creek from up here. And the swimming hole by the bridge. It was perfect. The girl knew that it belonged to someone but there were no homes in the gully and it was overgrown with grass all around the tree. Until she was told she couldn't be there or saw a sign posted, she declared it her's. She sat there for awhile, thinking of things to bring down there that wouldn't be missed at home. At one point she thought her baby brother would make a perfect watchdog, but decided her mom would notice him missing.
Bored watching the swimmers, the little girl headed home. She stopped to pick up the pheasant's nest. When she reached the track, Rusty and his brothers were racing the go-carts and his sisters where pulling weeds from the garden. She walked passed and yelled over the sound of the go-carts to come get her when the potatoes were ripe. She loved to help harvest the potatoes; she loved to play in the dirt even at the advanced age of ten. As she climbed the side of the hill to the smoke house, she spotted the new boy on the roof of his garage. And then the splash. She sighed and went into the smokehouse to read before the light would be gone.
She heard her mom call for supper about the time Anne Frank and her family heard the soldiers below them. She headed for home and heard her name called. The girl looked over to the neighbor's home, the boy asked her to come swimming after supper. She yelled back and told him she would have to ask. The little girl walked on air the rest of the night, he knew her name.
The girl set the table and asked if she could swim after supper. Her mom thought about it for awhile and told the girl not tonight; she needed her help but next time she was invited she could go. She smiled to herself, the girl took each baby by the hand and went down the hall with them to get them washed up for supper, just as she did every night. She placed her baby brother in the booster seat and her sister in the highchair. It is her job to help feed her siblings at supper time so she sat between them. They all would say grace and began to tell each other about their day. She doesn't tell them about the tree house, or the trek to the swimming hole, or even the hours spent reading. She listened to her daddy talk of his day and her mom say that the old man across the street played his violin again most the afternoon. The girl began to drown them out with her own thoughts. She drifted back to reality by her daddy's voice as he asked if she would like to take a walk with him. The little girl looked at her mom. Mom nodded that she could go.
The little girl and her daddy walked on the shoulder of the road, there were no sidewalks. Both heads down, each stopping and stooping down to pick something up every few yards. They walked a couple miles and sat on the steps of the porch to examine their treasures. Daddy adds it all and they collected three dollars in change this time. He split the change with her and she hugged him around the neck.
The girl ran into the house and saw not only the back of the ever present Rusty, but also that of the boy next door. Both boys had their eyes locked to the television. The robot was telling Will Robinson there was danger ahead. She slowed her walk to a stop, looked at Rusty for an explanation then glanced at the other boy. He shrugged, grinned and whispered "you owe me one" and grabbed her hand as he pulled her down on the floor between them. Mom made popcorn and placed it on the floor in front of them. She gave the girl a wink.
The little girl, dressed in her baby doll pajamas crawled into her bed and covered herself with the sheet completely. Her arms folded behind her head, she stared at the ceiling. She drifted off to sleep as she thought of the boy next door. Rusty was truly her best friend.
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