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Worm Bidding
by Ruth Berman It was a dark day, spilling over into drizzle now and again. After many days of perfect blue skies with too much heat, hearts leaped at a weekend closing with clouds and cool air. Nan summoned up the energy to fill out checks to pay bills and to write letters to assorted friends and relatives. She looked for a nice card-for-a-Bat-Mitzvah, but she seemed to have run out of anything except some gooey pastels of overly angelic children in pink. Perhaps the drugstore would have something more vivid — gold, for preference, she thought. She thumped her fist on the each of the stamps, to encourage them to stay stamped, and started for the door. "Like to go for a walk and mail some letters?" she said on the way. "Yes," said Shelley, although she was stretched out on the sofa with a thumb in her mouth and her B'nai Bagels book in the opposite hand. She started to wriggle to amass enough momentum to stand up without using either hand. "I want to come with!" said Gabe. "Okay," said Nan. "In that case I won't," said Shelley, and stopped wriggling. "Okay," said Nan, and turned her attention to Gabe's feet. As usual, his shoes were off them. "Can you find his shoes, Ben? — and I'll take him to the potty." Ben had been day-dreaming, watching the clouds out the window. He blinked, and she asked again. He nodded, and set about scanning. She tugged Gabe away, despite his promise that he didn't have to go. When they returned, Ben had located the shoes, one in the toy garage, and one in a heap of toy cars, not too far off. They shook the cars off and put the shoes on Gabe, one to a lacing. Nan aimed herself at the door. "We'll start," she told Shelley, "and if you want to come, you catch us up." "No, wait!" said Shelley. Nan waited. "Daddy, can I take some money?" "Here's a dollar," said Ben, digging in a pocket. "Can I have a dollar for Gabie?" "Here's a five," said Ben. "Don't spend more than two, and bring me the change." "Can I spend three?" "Yes." That seemed to close the negotiations, or at least it was a good place to shut them down. Nan headed for the door, and the two youngsters both scrambled after. Shelley could read walking, if not quite as easily as lying down, and at first she went along as if inside and outside were all the same, barring the shift from horizontal to vertical — thumb in mouth and head in book, with only peripheral vision to keep her pointed straight ahead. But Gabe's noises at such points of interest as joggers, bikers, dogs, squirrels, and gardens drew her attention at last, and they ran ahead and back, covering twice the ground that Nan did in the same space, under the cloudy sky. At the mailbox, Nan tossed the letters in, and followed the youngsters into the drugstore. Shelley snatched up a pack of bubblegum. 30¢. Gabe admired an orange truck. $8.45. "No," said Shelley. He accepted this judgment and reached for a Frisbie. $3.75. "No," said Shelley. She haunched down by the stack and found other Frisbies at the bottom of it marked $1.98. But Gabe had abandoned that shelf and found his heart's desire, a blue car, $1.98, and the only one on the rack. He turned up a face of woe, awaiting judgment. "Yes," said Shelley adding generously, "You can have some candy, too." He picked out a bar of something with nuts. 50¢. Nan found a gold-rimmed garden-of-Eden with deer, rabbits, peacocks, and a rather small dragon gathered peacefully by a river of life with swans out for a swim in it. This particular cousin, as she recalled, had always liked dragons, and would probably not object to the more probable animals, either. She grabbed it. Shelley still had nothing but the bubblegum. "Don't you like anything?" said Nan. "Yes, but I want a lightstick." Shelley hopped up and down, kangarooing to see what was on the top shelves. "Do you have lightsticks?" Nan asked the cashier. "Down that aisle near the end." $1.49. Shelley looked at her assortment of pricetags, trying to work out decimal points and ¢ signs, and gave it up. "How much is it?" Nan decided she did not need to know what a lightstick was and answered, "Close enough for jazz. Pay up, and we'll go." Outside it was drizzling again, so lightly that the shade trees along the boulevard kept them dry, except when they had to cross streets. Even then they collected only a polkadot spattering of damp spots. They ignored it and walked as idly as before. At the turning on to their street, Gabe stopped and pointed at a tiny heap of glop squirming on the sidewalk. "What's that?" "An angleworm," said Nan. "Ooh!" Gabe picked it up and walked on. The worm alternately dangled and coiled from between his thumb and forefinger. "Yuck!" said Shelley. "My darling worm," Gabe crooned to it, "my darling worm." At intervals the darling worm escaped his clutch and dropped to the pavement. Each time he swept it up again. "It wants to run away. You should let it go," said Nan. "Worms belong in the garden." "If you run away, I'll chop you in two," Gabe admonished, and went back to crooning over it. "We don't have a garden," Shelley said, practically. "Any garden," said Nan. At the front door, Ben started to let them in, but before he could unlatch the screen, Nan said, "Wait! Your son is holding an angleworm." "Yuck!" said Shelley. "You can't bring that in the house," said Ben. Gabe, seeing that they were all agreed, opened his hand. The worm fell on the porch. "Wait!" said both parents, but too late. Already Gabe's foot had gone up and come down, squishing the worm. "Yuck!" said Shelley, and went by him with the dignity of seniority, to head for the sofa. He looked up at them, surprised that they seemed to want to express disapproval, just when he had been so good and biddable a boy. Nan looked at Ben and saw that he did not have words to communicate the scruple to the kid, either. Maybe some seeds next time at the drugstore, and see what might come of that. Gabe smiled at them angelically, bright with the joys of nature, and obedience, and a blue car. He skipped in the door and headed vrooming for the paradise of his garage. |
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