I glance around, absorb the mess, the clothes strewn about, the plates dribblin’ crumbs or caked with dried bean glue, and begin to pack Ness’s bag first. She sits on the cot, unmovin’, not even jumpin’ when I grab the nearest book, one of her Winnie-the-Poohs, and slam it down on a cockroach scuttlin’ across the tiny stainless-steel sink; without runnin’ water, it was as useless as a dollhouse sink, until I’d turned it into a place to store plates and cups. Mama never hooked the camper up to water because water sources meant campgrounds, sites out in the open, and judgmental strangers with pr-yin’ eyes.
Almost everythin’ of Nessa’s is some shade of pink. I pack a pair of Mary Janes and her pale pink sneakers, her neon pink long-sleeve T-shirt, a dark pink-and-red-striped T-shirt, and another T-shirt with a peelin’-off Cinderella iron-on on the front. I pack her spare undershirt and underpants; “one on and one off,” as Mama says when we complain. Ness’s two pairs of jeans look small and vulnerable stretched between my hands, and my heart wrenches.
When her bag is full, I use mine to gather up her rag doll, her onearmed teddy bear, and her stuffed dog. Her Pooh books. The brush and elastics. On top, I place my own pair ofjeans (one on, one off), a newer T-shirt, two tank tops, my spare underpants, and the only shoes I own besides the ratty sneakers on my feet: a scuffed pair of cowboy boots from a garage sale in town, the toes stuffed with tissue paper to force a fit.
Not much fits me clotheswise, after a growth spurt last year. Now I’m glad, because it means more room for Jenessa’s stuff. I don’t need much anyhow. I don’t have toys from childhood or any stuffed animals. I left my childhood behind when Mama dragged us off in the middle of the night. My belongin’s consist of a sketch pad I place on top of the pile, while I make a mental note not to forget my most prized possession: the violin that Mama taught me to play the year we moved to the Hundred Acre Wood.
Mama played in a symphony before she met my father. I grab the scrapbook crammed with clippin’s from her performances and place it on top of the sketch pad, then draw the yellow plastic strings tight. The bag looks close to burstin’ by the time I’m through. But it’s good, because I bet the bag holds more than any suitcase would, if we had one.
Before I can call for her, Mrs. Haskell appears, and I hand her down the bag, which she struggles beneath. The man gets up to help, lockin’ on my eyes while takin’ the bag from her and slingin’ it over his back. He does the same with the second bag.
“May I have one more bag, ma’am?”
Mrs. Haskell obliges. I fill it with our schoolbooks, with my Emily Dickinson, my Tagore, my Tennyson and Wordsworth, making the bag impossibly heavy. Lookin’ at the man, I’d have giggled in different circumstances. He looks like a reverse sort of Santa Claus. A Santa Claus of garbage.
No one speaks as the man plunks the lightest bag down in front of Mrs. Haskell.
I go back inside and gather Ness from the bed. Reachin’ out, I pluck her thumb gently from her mouth. Her lips remain in an O shape, and the thumb pops right back in.
“You’re gonna make your teeth crooked, you know it.”
She stares right through me, droolin’ a little, and I give her a hug before helpin’ her stand up and walk to the door.
“How about a piggyback?”
I squat in front of her, and she slowly climbs on.
“Hold on tight, ’k?”
The sun is meltin’, poolin’ behind the trees, and still Mama don’t come. I scan the Hundred Acre Wood, somehow expectin’ her to show up with a greasy brown bag and save the day, but she don’t.
The man takes the lead, with Mrs. Haskell strugglin’ behind him, trippin’ over roots and sinkin’ into the mud, cursin’ under her breath as Ness and I follow. It’s a long ways to the road, and if we go the way they’re headin’, it’ll be twice as long.
“This way, ma’am,” I say, poppin’ Nessa farther up my back and takin’ the lead, refusin’ to meet the man’s eyes as he steps aside so we can pass.
I focus on the endless treetops scrapin’ the sunset into gooey colors, the birds trillin’ and fussin’ at our departure. I close my eyes for a second, breathin’ in deep to make serious memories, the kind that stick forever. I’d locked up the camper on my way out, but I don’t know who has a key, since Ness and I don’t, and we’d only ever locked up when we were inside.
Mama has a key, and the least she could’ve done, if she wasn’t comin’ back, would’ve been to leave it for us. And then I remember: the old hollow hickory, the one a few hundred feet past the clearin’. I’m eight years old, watchin’ Mama slide a sweaty white string off her neck with a brass key danglin’ from it, glintin’ in the sunlight.
“This is our spare, and if you ever need it, it’ll be right here in the tree. See?”
She places it into the hollow, where it disappears like a magic trick.
I feel safer, somehow, knowin’ the key is there.
My secret.
If I ever need it, if Ness and I come back, it’ll be right there waitin’ for us.
2
My head buzzes like bees around Pooh’s honey pot, the farther we get from the camper.
I know they think we look funny. Talk funny. Mama’s right: I have to remember my g’s.