The kids snapped and fought at 5:30 because they were just so hungry and tired when they got out of school. Despite what it felt like to Noelle that afternoon, they were always sort of like that. Even when your mom isn’t wrestling with suicide and psychotic depression, kids are really not always happy.
Getting out of the dog puke and old lunch bag-smelling gray civic, it was dark when the family headed inside. Vish looked more and more agitated with hunger and exhaustion and maybe having Noelle back, I don’t know. She gave him a banana and some chips and he sat at the table leaning on one elbow, his forehead pressed against his hand.
Holle kicked open the screen door behind them, and dragged her backpack up the step by one strap. Their screen door was broken so it was only attached by one of the three hinges and bent sideways when opened and shut. Noelle could not figure out why it didn’t just break off. Two years with one hinge. A miracle in a house where breaking is more common than not breaking.
Shedding her coat and backpack, Holle sighed dramatically while looking in the cabinet. As she was pulling out the cookies, there was a frantic knocking at the door. Noelle glanced over at the window to see who it was.
“Oh Holle,” she sighed, turning back to the kitchen, “It’s a kid with a dead animal. For you.”
Noelle walked over to the table and sat next to Vish and stroked his soft and tangled nest of hair while Holle opened the door. In came a stout preschool-aged child about four-years-old with long dark hair, and a faced splattered with food, tears and what looked like mud. He was wailing.
“My dint Mean too, Hollie! I wuz jus pettin’ am and pettin’ am and Hooty started squeakin’ n bit me and I said NO! T’teach him better, yaknow? So I spanked her and then I pat Walter s’more n they jus stopped sniffing and now my sister says they’re pretty Dead!” and the kid starting bawling. He held two mangled Guinea pigs in his hands. They were so saturated with tears and snot, it looked as if he’d actually been wiping his nose with the pigs. Giving the kid a piece of cheese and some apple juice, Noelle looked around for something else for him to wipe his snotty face on.
In her element, Holle listened carefully to the boy’s whole story. She looked at Noelle as if to say, “Don’t you talk, you.” She had her own style of mystical processes, and her mother’s was momentarily unwanted.
Walking to the napkin and rag drawer Holle took out a clean dishcloth. She smoothed the cloth on the table until there were no wrinkles in it and solemnly held out one hand. The kid looked shy for a moment, squeezing the bodies to his chest, then handed her Hootie. Hollie continued looking at the kid, her other hand out and the boy handed her Walter.
Laid out on the cloth, the pigs were a real sad sight to behold. After they died, they had obviously been dragged around for a while before it was determined that Holle was the only option. Noelle felt she should object to having the dead rodents on the kitchen table, but couldn’t remember why this was something to which many people objected. She shut up, rather than giving away her ignorance. How important could it be?
Holle reached out and patted the kid on the head for which he looked grateful, lined the pigs up parallel facing her, and stroked each rodent confidently with a grubby index finger. The kid pushed two quarters at her across the table and she shoved them in her jeans pocket. “All right,” she said, “I’ll do both of them for fifty cents.”
The kid nodded, deal made.
With an enormous lungful of air, Holle screamed “WAKE UP YA DAMN ASS GUINEA PIGS! OR TOBY’LL GIT ANOTHER ONE AN NOT LOVE YOU ANYMORE AT ALL. YA WANT THAT?? Do YA? TO BE NOTHING? YOU CARE IF NO ONE LOVES YOU AT ALL? WAKE UP!! JESUS CHRIST DAMN IT!!”
Noelle’s ears were ringing. “Holle. Do you have to swear?”
“Yes, I do.” Holle replied, sassy on the point of laughter.
“Jesus” Noelle sighed. “Do you have to be so damn loud?” she asked.
“Yes, I do.” Hollie smiled, a little more shyly this time. Hootie was the first to give a little shake, then Walter.
“Walter! Hootie! M’babies!” The boy whispered with true paternal adoration.
The Guinea pigs licked the dried blood off of their noses and seemed none the worse for wear.
“Ya don’t spank Guinea pigs, you idiot.” Holle informed the kid. “How would you like it if some huge, dumb, ugly baby hit you?”
The kid nodded, still teary and made a pouch with his shirt sticking the Guinea pigs in tenderly.
“Kay, Hollie.” he sniffled. And went home.
“Go play out in the yard, you two,” said Noelle
“No!” yelled Vish. “Yuck. I hate this house!”
“Listen,” said Noelle, “The pus-filled frogs stay in the garden bed and it’s less haunted not more haunted outside the house”. The kids looked away as if she wasn’t there and each grabbed another cookie in a robotic fashion.
“Will you remember me in an hour?” babbled Vish to himself, settled and happy now that he was eating. Holle looked up, she knew this one.
“Yes!” she said gleefully.
“Will you remember me in a day?” giggled Vish.
“Yes!”
“Will you remember me in a week?”
“Yes!”
“Will you remember me in a month?”
“Yes!”
“Will you remember me in a year?”
“Yes...” said Holle, getting a bit bored.
“I think you won't.” said Vish.
“Yes, I will.” said Holle.
“Knock knock” said Vish.
“Who's there?”
“See?” he said triumphantly, “You've forgotten me already!”
If only it were that easy.