I wanted to scratch my shins. It was humid here, heat pushing from the attic. It was hot. The squirrel sniffed and glanced my way.
Caught.
He bit the air with his teeth. He tried to bluster me, to bully my eyes, to keep me from looking.
We were gazing at each other now, waiting for one another to bolt. It’d be finished soon; Classique would know I was in the bathroom and bellow. These were the final seconds of just me and the squirrel. Next thing, he was scampering toward the vent. He was squeezing between the slants, gone again.
"The wig needs help! It’s in trouble! Where are you?"
It was Classique.
"Don’t rush me,” I said, pushing the night latch. "I’m in here minding my own business.”
And as I exited the bathroom, my right foot landed on the wig and I almost slipped.
"See there," said Classique. "That wig is trouble."
"That’s not what you said,” I told her.
"That’s exactly what I said."
I put the wig on. Then Classique.
"I’m hungry,” I said. "Are you?”
"Silly,” she said, "I don’t have a stomach. It goes in my mouth and drops on the floor like pooh.”
"Gross.” I laughed. "You’re gross. Now I’m not hungry."
But I was lying; nothing could prevent me from eating. Not even army ants. They were in the kitchen, raiding the saltines. They crawled around the rim of the peanut butter jar, explored the water jug. They’d stolen chunks from a Wonder Bread slice. It bothered me. But I should’ve sealed everything up the night before. Then all the ants could scavenge were crumbs, and the peanut butter smeared on the counter -- I’d been sloppy -- and the bread crust I’d removed like a scab, tossing it aside. They were welcome to the crust. I hated it more than them.
So I ate without destroying any ants. I just thumped them from the jar, from the cracker box.
"Pulverize them," said Classique. "Make them die."
She was annoyed. She was pouting. She’d got peanut butter in her hair when I’d scooped some with a finger. I was always getting junk in her hair, glue or toothpaste. She worried her hair would fall out. Aside from her rooted eyelashes, it was all she had, and she had lots of it -- but baldness still tormented her. I was concerned too, so at home I bathed her and washed her hair. I never used a lot of shampoo and I always combed it afterwards. Every time. Her red hair was thick. If I didn’t comb it, she’d go frizzy and look stupid.
"These ants are evil,” said Classique. "They’re poisoning everything. It isn’t funny.”
"But it’s my fault." I’d finished my peanut butter crackers and was licking my finger-knife. "They’d go somewhere else if l didn’t make messes."
It was dumb, not putting the food away. Bread slices left out overnight were hard and withering; I sprinkled water on them but it didn’t help. Now I was going to have to let the ants finish them. Dozens of pincers clamping and ripping. Piranhas. They’d get so fat they’d pop.
Wonder Bread bombs, I thought. Ants exploding on the porch.
Serves them right, thought Classique.
We could suddenly read each other’s minds. We were psychic. Like those people on TV.
In the 1500’s, Nostradamus predicted the rise of Hitler and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He was a physician and an astrologer. He was also French. The Loch Ness monster, via extrasensory perception, communicated with an elderly Scottish woman every Friday. She refused to say what it told her. The Bible foretold the disaster in Chernobyl. Dion Warwick relied on psychic friends for picking her hit singles. Ghosts appreciated receiving gifts, like cookies or toys; it was a way of acknowledging their presence, of befriending them. Six out of ten twins could read each other’s minds. It was all true. It was on TV.
The ghost is sending us a message.
What is it?
I’rn not sure.
If we go upstairs we can see her, I think.
We can look out the window and see her.
Yes. Come on-
We raced upstairs, vaulting every other step. And going to my bedroom window, short of breath, we looked hopefully for the ghost -- but even if she was haunting the field, the Johnsongrass and bus blocked our view.
I sighed. There were moth bodies outside, near the window ledge, dotting the roof. I didn’t feel like being psychic anymore; my brain hurt.
"I don’t see her."
"She wanted something. Ghosts appreciate gifts."
I nodded and sucked the peanut butter from Classique’s hair. Then I asked, "What can we give her?”
"Not just anything," she told me. "It’s got to be useful. A good gift."
"Like cookies."
"Except we don’t have cookies anyway."
I would have killed for some cookies, Oreos or Nutter Butters. I loved them almost as much as Crunch bars.
"It doesn’t need to be food,” she said.
"I could draw a picture of you and me.”
"Or give her Cut ’N Style."
"Or Magic Curl.”
I imagined Magic Curl squirming in the ghost’s palm and blubbering like a baby; she’d wet herself, if she could.
"Something else."
There was lipstick on Classique’s hair. I closed my eyes. On TV, a little boy in Germany shut his eyes and foresaw the future. He predicted that dark clouds would gather above his village and rain toads. The next day, after a violent thunderstorm, thousands of dying toads flopped on the village streets.
"What can only a dead person use?” she said. "Think."
"I can’t think. Crackers?”
"Or the radio. It’s dead too."
I opened my eyes. "Yes. She can listen to ghost voices then.”
"And ghost music.”
"But Daddy likes it.”
"He’s not a ghost yet. He doesn’t need it.”
"That’s right. I forgot."
In the living room, I reached for the radio without glimpsing my father’s face. I lifted it from his lap. I knew he was staring behind the sunglasses. And as Classique and I ran outside, I fiddled with the dial. I listened; no music, no static. KVRP, eclectic music for eclectic minds. That was the station I wanted. But it wouldn’t come in. I couldn’t hear anything, where one station ended and another began.
"It’s the perfect gift," I concluded. "It really is.”
"I think so too."
The ghost was nowhere to be seen, so we struggled through the high weeds, up the rise, across the railroad tracks, but not before I made certain a train wasn’t approaching. Then we slinked down the embankment, and crept into the field -- a portion of which had been cleared, the earth brown and bumpy from uprooting. Pulled nettles were discarded in a pile.
"She’s not making soup."
"Not even for potions.”
She’d trampled foxtails to the ground, yanked and tossed nettles. She’d stacked stones and rocks -- just to save bluebonnets. That’s what her mittens had been tending. The field was littered with the spring flowers, and the ghost was protecting them.
"She doesn’t like us here," Classique said. "Be quick.”
So I set the radio on the ground and began encircling it with the biggest of the stacked rocks, careful not to disturb any flowers. I told myself that the ghost would welcome the courtesy, but I wasn’t sure. After all, I was returning rocks to the field, creating a jagged circle among her flowers.
"That’s good."
"Let’s go.”
As we clamored up the embankment, Classique sent me a thought -- she’ll know what to do with the radio.
I saw it on TV. A man in New Mexico could turn his radio dial and tune in the raspy voices of deceased loved ones. Sometimes his television broadcast his dead son playing soccer in a foggy meadow; he had proof, he had a videotape.