Sneaky

Mom used to call me sneaky. Said I was the sneakiest. 

Margooo, she'd croon. You should use it for good, she used to say. You should be a private eye, a detective. Join the CIA.

You can do all the sneaking around you want in the CIA, I thought.

But, I was just sneaky.

Mary went to her classes much earlier than I hopped into mom’s van for school. She was the oldest girl. She never wore family hand-me-downs, like me. I loved to creep into her room once she was gone.

I poked my nose in her jewelry box. Pulled out the Tiffany earrings snuggled in that iconic soft blue pull string bag. I fingered them jealously, rolling the rounded pearls through my fingertips, aching to wear them. She won’t be home until after cross country practice, I thought, she won’t know I ever took them to school today. I eyed my ears in the mirror. They shouted at me, burning with a desire I could not control. I slipped the backings from one, poking the needled silver through my dainty young ear, dropping the velvet stringed fabric and holding onto the other pearl so tightly it hurt. I pushed it into the remaining ear. I was thrilled. I knew I’d get away with it.

And I think I did.

Dad sometimes left his wallet out. Either on his dresser upstairs or on the kitchen counter or on one of the side tables in the family room. I wanted money. I wanted to be just like the kids at school who went out to the movies and the mall every weekend. Bought the hot lunch at school and the candy bars to follow. I craved George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Mr A. Hamilton. But, especially, Andrew Jackson.

I was just sneaky.

One time, Dad caught me. Well, more so that he noticed there were a few gentlemen missing from his well-packed wallet, a wallet browned and cracked from use, yet endowed.

A household alert went out.

Whoever took my money, he bellowed, Whoever took my money must place it in this envelope in the kitchen before tomorrow morning. THEN there will be no punishments. His hot, angry breath powered through the walls, into the surrounding rooms, hitting my now naked ears like a dulled punch against a padded wall.

Shoot.

I never put the two Andrews into the envelope in the kitchen before the next morning. Rather, I dropped them beneath the table where his wallet plumply sat. Victims of a misfortunate fall— that was my reasoning.

I never took a dime from my father again.

And sadly, I never joined the CIA. I must have lacked the qualifications. 

A Summer Saturday

A Summer Saturday

A sweaty summer Saturday. A faint breath of wind on the grass. The looping chase of sparrows as they tease each other against the brilliant blue canvas. The sun arching its back, stretching out atop it's pillowed sky, arms of sleepy light raised in every direction. The side lawn lazily drinking the yellowed rays as the lilacs smiled drowsily on the side. 

The front steps, cracked and wise from the last century of steps and bounds, stomps and skips and leaps. Braces himself.

We tumbled down them, a shower of crab apples pattering our blonde heads. Shrieks. Giggles. 

Resounding faintly as I now reminisce. 

The old, dear friend of the steps, a peeling white farmhouse, sighs with a happy creak, watching the children stream out toward her blankets of grass. Her cherry door rubs its knobbed nose, trembling still from the hurried excitement.   

Crunch crunch crunch. Barefoot over the gravel driveway. Toughened feet of farmtown youth. The cool green grass, soothing. 

Around and around we spin, twirling about with our heads swung back, gasping from laughter, bumping into one another from dizziness. Collapsing in heaps. The farmhouse looks over the children, her windows agape, their happiness flitting through. 

A car passes unknowingly, a soft put and whir. Slow Children reads the sign.

We used to argue that we were quite fast. 

Collections of treasures. Dandelions for mother. A clover. A butterfly sighting followed by a squealing chase--no capture. And luck! A praying mantis-- the ultimate possession. A June bug's shell shed against the elm tree. It crackles as we pry it from the bark.

A sweaty summer Saturday. The windowed eyes of the aged Farmhouse, the gapped stone steps, watching the children at play.