The Smell of Other People's Hou - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Page 0,45
dry, dusty cheek. It reminds me of the river that we should be skiffing up right now, going to fish camp, where everything makes sense and smells of laughter and smoke, and where Dumpling will stop being sad about some promise she made to Ruth, who she is barely friends with anyway. The shock of seeing that tear has turned to anger.
“Come on, Bunny, let’s get back to the skiff,” I say as I grab her arm.
But now Bunny is staring at the woman, too. “If you’re Ruth’s mother, then you must be Lily’s mother, too,” she says. “Do you remember Lily?”
The woman stares at Bunny as if she’s staring at a ghost. “Lily?”
And then without warning she lets out a loud piercing howl, as if she just stuck her finger in an electric socket, and lunges at Dumpling. I grab Bunny’s arm and pull her away as both nuns now throw their arms around the woman, trying to calm her. Dumpling shoves the note into my hand and says, “Go; take Bunny to the skiff.”
As she says it her head is jerked backward, because the woman has grabbed her braid, and Father Connery comes running down the steps to help.
Just when I think it can’t get any worse, Bunny starts kicking the woman in the shins, yelling at her to let go of her sister.
“Get Bunny out of here!” Dumpling yells at me. I drag a flailing Bunny to the three-wheeler and have a hell of a time trying to hold on to her while starting it up. I have to leave Bunny’s three-wheeler behind, because I can’t trust her to follow me on her own.
When I turn to look, I can see Father Connery and the nuns pulling the woman up the stairs of the little white house. Dumpling is running toward her three-wheeler, so I know she’s safe. Part of me hopes she got scratched herself. Since when did she make promises to Ruth?
“Here she comes, Bunny,” I say, and she stops screaming and flopping around like a fish on a hook. “You didn’t help,” I add, but there’s no point lecturing at her now; the three-wheeler is too loud. Making sure to hold Bunny’s arms tight around my waist, we fly full throttle back to where the skiff is docked and Dumpling’s father is waiting for us.
“Dumpling’s right behind us,” I tell him breathlessly as he lifts Bunny onto the skiff and she starts wailing again. I let her try to explain what just happened, and it’s even more unintelligible than the truth.
“She didn’t even remember Lily,” Bunny says, as if this mattered most. Her face is streaked with mud and tears and there is a fresh scratch on her arm.
Her father looks thoroughly confused, so I say, “Dumpling will just have to tell you when she gets here.”
But Dumpling never shows up.
—
Now Bunny and I are sitting behind her father as he drives the three-wheeler back over the fresh, weaving tracks we made just minutes before. Something is pressing hard into my chest, and every minute that Dumpling does not appear makes it harder and harder for me to breathe. In the distance we see it—the upside-down three-wheeler looking so strangely out of place. My mind refuses to believe it. Maybe it’s just a rock, or perhaps a bear rolling around on its back? The front wheel is still spinning in the air. Something is terribly wrong. Bunny is strangely silent while her father spurs our three-wheeler forward, everyone’s hearts beating so loud we can almost hear them over the roar of the engine.
Dumpling’s braid pokes out from under the metal body of the three-wheeler. Her arms and legs are pinned, her eyes are closed, and she is not moving.
“Dumpling!” Bunny yells, but her father says, “Stay back, Bunny,” and is off the three-wheeler before we’re even fully stopped. I’m paralyzed by fear, watching him bend down over Dumpling, the handlebar of the three-wheeler blooming out of her chest like a strange plant. For the second time in less than half an hour, I am left alone with a wildly out-of-control Bunny. But this time I just let her wail because I am powerless to move.
Other three-wheelers appear out of nowhere. The village has its own version of telephones: silent messages waft through the air and hang over every house during a crisis, and every able-bodied person comes to help.
The engines compete with Bunny’s cries, as more and more people arrive on the scene. They