“What?” she said.
“We’re not going to the school,” Grace said.
“But you said we were.”
“And if Mama or Papa asks you if that’s where we went, you just nod and say, ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and nothing else, you hear me?”
Jane looked at her, not comprehending.
“Why?” she said.
“Because I said so,” Grace said. “This is real important.”
She went over to the side of the road, reached behind a tree there, and came out with her school satchel.
“So, see? We went to school and I got my homework.” Jane looked at the satchel, then at her sister.
“See?”
Jane nodded. They went on. A little farther, they cut off onto a trail. When Jane lagged behind, distracted, Grace caught her up again. When they reached a little clearing, Grace took her by the hand and guided her to a spot about thirty feet away just behind a thick dewberry bush.
“You stay here at the edge of this where you can see through but not be seen. Don’t make a sound and stay real still, okay? Whatever you see going on with me and this boy, you just watch and be quiet.”
“What boy?”
“Never mind that. Don’t get scared, I know what I’m doing and you don’t have to be afraid. I just need you to watch it so you can say you’ve seen it if I ask you. I won’t have to, though, all right?”
Jane just looked at her from where she sat on her rump. She put her arms around her knees and looked off into the woods, then back at her sister.
“Okay, but why?” she said.
“Just hush and do what I say. And you listen here.” She knelt down and got her face close to Jane’s. “You don’t say a word about this to anybody unless I tell you to. Do you understand me, Jane?”
Jane was a little scared — it was really more of a thrill than a scare — but nodded.
“Don’t be scared. It’s like I said.”
“What are you going to do with the boy?”
“You’ll see. I’ll explain it to you later. Now, can you do this?”
Jane nodded.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded again. Grace’s eyes looked positively wild. It was thrilling.
Grace looked long and quietly at her, then ruffed her hair with a hand and said again, in a whisper, “Be real still and real quiet. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go.”
Grace walked away and into the clearing and stood there as if she had turned into some kind of picture of herself, and it would have or could have become just that if not for the birds that began to move again, inside the bush and from tree limb to tree limb, fluttering and alighting, hopping to the ground to peck and then flying up again to a branch in the bush or a tree. Jane could see through a little seam in the thickly leaved shrub. She knew it was a dewberry because of her mother’s teaching, and knew the root was good for an upset stomach. The berries made a good jelly, too. A couple of squirrels played a game of chase around a big pine tree nearby, their claws scrabbling on the soft bark, and chittering. It was hard for Jane not to laugh out loud at them. But she stayed still and quiet. She became part of the bush, her feet and bottom rooted down with its roots. Her hair its leaves, her eyes its berries. Then she saw something and the boy came into the clearing and she went still in her mind as well. Grace didn’t move as the boy came up to her. He was a tall boy with coal-black hair, and skin browned from the sun, and bright brown eyes. The two of them stood there like that for a little bit, looking at each other. She could see them breathing hard, their chests moving out and in, up and down. Then they took off their clothes, Grace just lifting her dress above her head and dropping it to one side and unhooking her bra and dropping that, too. She wasn’t wearing any underpants. She didn’t take off her walking shoes. The boy took off his shirt, which was just a dirty T-shirt, the same way Grace had taken off her dress, and his overalls fell to his feet. He was like a stinkhorn there. They grabbed each other and kissed for a minute, the longest kiss Jane had ever seen, as if they’d fallen asleep kissing except they were moving their hands over each other like they were looking for something in different places on their bodies. Then Grace’s hand stopped and Jane saw she had ahold of him and she thought, Don’t break it off. It didn’t break off. They knelt down to the ground and he got on top of her. She helped him put it in her and they started pushing against each other. It was a little more like the dogs than the pigs but face-to-face, and she realized, later, that she hadn’t thought people would do it differently. The boy’s black-haired head was buried into Grace’s shoulder and she saw Grace look over and make eye contact with her. She soiled her diaper, it took her so by surprise, Grace looking at her with this look on her face, her mouth just barely open, like to say, You see and you keep quiet. And then the boy raised his head and she thought he was going to look at her but he was just arching his head back and closing his eyes, and he pushed harder at Grace, who seemed to be looking over at her again but now it was like her eyes weren’t focused, and she heard the boy kind of grunt-groaning and then heard him heave a sigh. They lay there like that, him on top of her, for a little while, Grace stroking the boy’s back with her hands. Then they got up, him shiny and floppy now. They put on their clothes without saying anything. The boy looked at Grace for a second, then nodded like he was embarrassed, and trotted away from where he’d come. Grace had put her bra back on and slipped into her dress and was adjusting and smoothing it. She took a rag from her pocket and raised her dress and stood there a minute with it pressed to herself where she peed from, then rubbed with it vigorously, took the rag over to the opposite edge of the clearing, and tossed it into the woods there. She went over and picked up her satchel where she’d set it down. Then she looked back at Jane, and crooked her head as if to say, Come on, and Jane got up and went to her and together they headed back home, hurrying, Jane struggling to keep up, until they got to the bend in their driveway, where they stopped to catch their breath. Grace wiped perspiration from her face with the hem of her dress, checked herself down there for something, crooked out her thighs in a funny way like she was monkey-walking, felt of the insides of her legs, and, seeming satisfied, said, “Come on,” and together they walked up to the house. Grace tossed her satchel onto the porch and Jane followed her through the pecan grove to the barn, where Grace pulled a loose brick from a foundation post, came out with a packet of cigarettes, shook one, kind of flattened and crooked, into her hand, lit it with a match she took from a box in her dress pocket, and leaned back against the barn wall, smoking it like she was finally able to take an easy breath. She pushed her thick blond hair away from her forehead and blew out a big plume of blue smoke. “You all right now, little sister?” she said. Jane nodded. Grace kind of laughed and looked away, shook her head. “What a body will do just to get a little something she wants,” she said. She looked at Jane again. “We just went to the schoolhouse and got my books, you remember now?” Jane nodded. “But don’t you forget what you saw.” Jane nodded again. It was the most curious arrangement. But also it was simple enough. Grace smoked, in silence, and Jane watched her as if there might be some significance in that, too, somehow.
“Why were you doing that with him?” she said then.
“You’ll find out,” Grace said. “Maybe.”
She whispered, “Were you trying to make a baby with him?”
Grace gave her a sharp look, then ground out the cigarette with the sole of her shoe. She picked up the butt and stripped the paper from it, tossing the tobacco into the grass and rolling the paper into a little ball she flicked farther away.