The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,43
dog yard and got his face bitten off before anybody noticed he’d even slipped outside. Dogs and drowning are the two things Dumpling and Bunny are supposed to watch out for. I tighten the straps on my life jacket. Bunny is wearing one, too, but I notice Dumpling left hers back in the skiff.
“What are you looking for?” Bunny asks, running up and grabbing her hand.
Dumpling doesn’t seem to hear Bunny as she walks up to the house with blue trim. In the yard sits a statue of a woman holding a baby, wrapped in an old sheet or maybe a tablecloth. The statue is covered with bird poop. Dumpling looks like she is trying to decide whether to go up the steps, when the priest we splattered with mud comes walking up.
“I can’t imagine you’re really here to apologize,” he says.
We all look down at our muddy boots and jeans. But he surprises us and laughs.
“No harm done. You don’t think you’re the first kids to do that to me, do you?”
I glance sideways at Dumpling, but she’s still looking at her feet.
“Can I invite you in for tea?” he asks. “Or maybe a soda?”
Dumpling shrugs, and I’m surprised that he understands this means yes. Why was Dumpling looking for this place? What could she possibly want to talk to a priest about? Bunny keeps staring at the woman with the baby, so I grab her arm to steer her up the stairs while the priest holds open the screen door for us.
“I’m Father Connery,” he says, taking off his boots and sliding into a pair of gray slippers. He tells us to leave our boots in the arctic entryway and follow him into the kitchen. Dumpling tries to hide the hole in her sock as we stand in the doorway.
“Tea or soda?” he asks, pulling things out of white cupboards: a plate, cookies, pilot bread, and cheese. Dumpling gives Bunny the hairy eyeball, meaning “behave,” and it makes Bunny instantly grumpy.
Father Connery looks at us and smiles. “Scared of me?” Dumpling pushes Bunny closer to the table, where he’s put all the snacks, and I nudge in behind them. We all try to squish into the same chair.
“There’re plenty of seats,” he says as he gestures around the table. I move into an empty one, but Bunny stays with Dumpling, one butt cheek hanging off the edge. He sits down and pours tea. All of us would much rather have soda, but nobody says anything. He must be used to village kids not talking, but he tries to strike up a conversation anyway.
“So were you girls looking for someone special?”
Bunny is plopping sugar cubes into her cup, one after another, until Dumpling reaches out and grabs her wrist. Bunny can be very unpredictable if she thinks Dumpling is bossing her around, and sure enough, she pipes up and says to Father Connery, “Why does that lady in the yard not want the baby she’s holding?”
Dumpling and I exchange looks.
“What makes you think she doesn’t want her baby?” he asks, amused.
You can tell he’s trying hard not to smile. Dumpling keeps her hand on Bunny’s wrist.
Bunny shrugs and says, “Her face, I guess. It’s like when we get a spawned-out salmon in the fish wheel and nobody wants to touch it.”
I’m pretty sure Bunny is being sacrilegious.
“Well, I don’t think anyone’s ever said that before,” says Father Connery. “Maybe the sculpture just doesn’t do her justice. Do you know who that woman is?”
“A white lady?” Bunny says, as if that’s the best she can do. I roll my eyes. Would Bunny have said that if Lily had been here? Probably, I think.
But Father Connery seems to find Bunny charming. “Yes, she is a white lady. She lived a very long time ago.”
“She’s the mother of God,” says Dumpling. It’s not like Dumpling to talk around strangers. Bunny and I stare at her.
“Yes, in a way. That’s the Holy Mary,” says Father Connery.
“God is a baby?” Bunny is stunned.
“It’s a long story,” Dumpling mutters, and looks over at me as if I can somehow help steer the conversation somewhere else. We both heard Lily trying to explain this to Bunny, but obviously it didn’t stick. Lily said that Jesus was the baby and his father was God. Because he was God he could put Jesus inside of Mary and she didn’t have to do anything nasty (which is how Lily said it), and Bunny was sure that was the bit