the toothless black snake cowering and ashamed somewhere, jealous of our heat.
8
PERLEY
After the snakebite is when I began to live alone and that’s when the real me starts. I lived in my own house and it was just my size with all the best furniture that I made myself. It was a round tin house with wheels. It was painted to look like it was the woods, real tree. My house had a label. THE MCCANN’S: STEP AWA, it said, and no one knew what that meant it was a secret and I made a secret password so no one would bother me. No one knew the password except Mama K. She was proud of me again and we did things together like we used to do. She taught me to use all her tools, the chisel the bevel the drill the Japanese saw, the tree-shaping sheep knife. Mama K was my elfin chief and I was an elf. She was the wise old wolf Nightrunner and I was Choplicker the wolf pup. We were steadfast and resolute and every night I gave her my report while she and Mama L held hands which they never used to do but now they did.
Mama L acted like any day they’d make me move back into the main house but I knew it was good that I moved into my own house because after that my women laughed at one another’s jokes or when one of them said something the other two would nod their heads instead of start telling her why she was wrong. Sometimes they would smile at one another which at first I thought their faces would fall off if they did that. So even though I would always have a scar, I knew it was good that I got bit by a snake and I knew it was good that I lived alone and one day I was ready.
On the day that I was ready I knelt down at the campfire. I knelt down before my elfin chief Mama K. I said, I’m ready to go back, and Mama L was like, Oh, Piglet, not to school, and I said, Yes, to school, and the Mean Aunt was like, School, I thought you’d forgotten about school. Mama L was like, You don’t have to go back to school if you don’t want to, Piglet.
I want to, I said.
But Mama K didn’t say anything she had her knife out and she was whittling the last leg of the chair we were building.
Then Mama L said, I called them and told them you were sick and I can call and tell them you aren’t coming back.
I am coming back, I said, I have to go back.
He’ll fall behind if he doesn’t go back soon, said the Mean Aunt.
Then Mama K finally said something she said, Fall behind what, fall behind the regimented brainwashing schedule? I could tell she didn’t think I was honorable and that all the time we had sawed with the Japanese saw and countersunk with the quarter-inch paddle bit didn’t matter to her. It didn’t matter to her that we were almost done whittling the legs for the chair. It didn’t matter to her that she knew the password. It didn’t even matter to her that I was her wolf pup and she was my wolf.
I could tell the Mean Aunt liked it a lot better now that Mama K and her were getting along because she looked at Mama K and she looked at me and then she said, You know, Perley, you do seem a lot happier not being in school.
I said, I have more training now and my power has only increased.
What I thought about was that I finally had my trick which was my new toxic face. And what I thought about was Rudy saying, Now you’ll finally get some respect.
Mama K still wouldn’t look at me and I could tell Mama L was worried because she kept looking at Mama K and waiting for Mama K to say something but Mama K just whittled and frowned at the campfire and didn’t take Mama L’s hand so Mama L started talking.
Mama L said, We respect you here, my Piglet. We respect your skills we admire you we love everything that you do. How can you prefer to go back to a windowless room instead of roaming in the woods?
But I said, Of course you respect my skills, of course you admire me, of