Burying her by the mailbox was Clifton’s idea, because he remembered how much Mr. Prism, our mailman, hated to wait while she crossed the road, taking dainty steps and her good old time while he shuffled bills and revved the engine till dust devils finally chased her back into our yard. And, because she was his cat, Jem insisted she have a “proper funeral,” disappearing to write it up himself that morning, tear stained and self-important.

It took us till noon to eulogize Annabelle’s motorous purrs and deft mousing paws, the way she tilted her head when licking butter from our fingers and rubbed her damp speckled nose against our legs when making conversation. We laid her in a small box lined with an old blue towel, and Jem insisted she take all her favorite toys with her: the brown bean-bag mouse with yarn whiskers mother had made for her last Christmas, a bell-ball, and, curiously enough, a pair of Jem’s socks she had loved to curl up in.

That afternoon after the funeral, I hid in the rock garden, waiting for old Prism to drive over the tacks I’d scattered over the road. But, instead of stuffing the big ball he usually made of our paper and bills into the mailbox, he climbed down from his rickety US Mail vehicle and hobbled toward the house, the ball under his arm. When Pop answered the door, surprised, Mr. Prism handed it to him and said something, I couldn’t hear what, though the words themselves must have itched him; he kept scratching at his left ear, like Annabelle did when a flea or something bit her, and took turns leaning his weight first on one ratty denim leg, then the other.

“Accidents happen…” Pop’s first words were clear, but they trailed off real quick, as if he’d been cut off mid-stream. From where I lay, belly-down in stones, it was sure a lackluster show. The least Pop could’ve done was yell a little, for Jem’s sake. Instead, after talking for five minutes or so, Prism simply drove away just as quietly as he had come, without any of his tires exploding or even popping a little. When I checked the road later, I saw that my tacks had been crushed into the asphalt, as harmless to anyone’s tires as pins to an elephant.

Jem refused to come down from his tree house all that week, even when I went out with a box of fudge sickles and tried to persuade him that Pop had given Prism a bloody nose when he tried to deliver the mail. Every night Mother took a plate of warm food out to the tree house, and every morning she brought it back in, empty. We were glad at least that Jem wasn’t starving himself. But he refused the change of clothes she left him, and we knew it was because some of Annabelle’s white hair clung to the ones he wore.

By Friday things had gotten so quiet and lonely with both Annabelle and Jem gone, Cliff and I got cross and revengeful.

“Maybe if we punish Prism for real,” he began…

“Jem’ll come down again,” I finished for him.

“But it has to be big. So Jem sees,” Cliff added. We began to plot. Mother thought we were doing a nice mechanical project, with all the wire and old wheels we hauled out of the storage shed. We had to sneak her gallon of spare honey out of the cellar when she went across the street to say hey to Glenda.

By 3:00 in the afternoon we had hidden ourselves and were ready. Now it was only a matter of Prism showing up and letting us avenge the loss of our brother’s best friend. When 3:46 had come and gone, our elbows grew itchy from the horsetail grasses that filled our ditch.

“He’s late,” Cliff grumbled.

“It’s Friday. Sometimes he fishes Friday between deliveries,” I reminded him, pinching an earwig off my arm.

“Shhsh! Here he is. I think.”

These days we hardly recognized our mail carrier’s noiseless arrivals. There was no furious honking of the horn or spinning of gravel like before.

“What’s he got, anyway? Special delivery?” For the moment we forgot our elaborate trap as the old man jerked himself out of the car, fighting with a large box. And, by the time we remembered our clever levers and pulleys, he was halfway up the hill to the pear tree and Jem, and it was too late.

“Wonder what he’s got?” I shoved my nose up out of the ditch to get a better view.

“He’s bringing Jem a present I’ll bet,” Cliff said, disgusted. We watched as Prism stopped under Jem’s tree, puffing. He set down the box and untied it rather slowly, fumbling as he went, glancing at the house from time to time as if afraid someone would come out at any moment and shoo him away. The box jiggled. Jem’s head emerged from the door of the tree house, his eyes bugged and blue. The box jumped a little. Cliff and I forgot we were hiding and sat up in the ditch, open-mouthed.

“Is that some sort of fancy jump-rope?” Cliff muttered, sounding a bit weak. We watched as a beautifully striped black and yellow coil uncurled itself from inside the box and began to wriggle towards Jem’s tree. From a distance it looked a lot like –

“A snake! Cliff, it’s a fancy snake, not a jump rope!” I yelled, jumping in the air like a buttered frog and taking off to join the action. I didn’t realize till I was half way there that Clifton wasn’t with me. Looking back, I saw his face had turned the color of clay putty, and he was tilting funny to one side.

“Should I call Mother? You’re passing out,” I informed him.

“N-n-n-no I’m not,” he chattered, righting himself and standing.

“You sure?”

Instead of answering he pointed past me up the hill. Turning, I saw that Jem had broken his self-imposed exile and was standing at the base of the old pear, gazing in wonder and delight at the snake as it slid its smooth belly up the rough-barked trunk.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” We heard Prism remark, sounding strangely tender.

“It’s a beauty,” Jem chirped, seeming to forget that he was addressing the enemy.

“It’s a Jungle Carpet Python,” he informed Jem.

“All the way from Africa?”

“Nope. I raise ‘em for the Georgetown zoo.”

“Can I keep him—her?”

Cliff was helplessly retching into the azalea bushes by the front porch. Pop and Mother had come out to observe the goings on and Mother rushed to help him, her face a giant wrinkle of concern.

“I don’t know. Looks like your brother’s pretty sick from her already,” Prism observed, the hint of a taunt in his voice.

Jem turned without speaking and gave Cliff’s backside a sad, pleading look. Cliff felt it all right. He raised two fingers over his head to single, ‘it’s okay.’

“Is it possible that you’re allergic to snakes as well as cats, rubber, turtles and…what did the doctor last add to the list? Mold?” Mother counted the list on her fingers. “Anyway, I think we should check first,” she said, looking pale herself.

The two fingers obscured in the bushes became a whole hand, waving frantically.

“It looks like he’s saying Jem should keep the thing,” Pop said, his gritty voice hiding a laugh. “What do you think?” He turned to me with a wink. “Can you live with a snake around, a Python at that?”

I hesitated. What I wanted to say was that a snake-present from anyone but Prism was flat-out fine, python or garter. But since it was Prism’s gift…"Will he run over it too?" I finally blurted.

Pop gave me a keen look, and knelt till we were eye-level. “That’s not a bad question. Shall we ask him?” I opened my mouth to do so, but before I could, Jem chimed in.

“Mr. Prism, if you accidentally on purpose kill our snake, will you bring us a wallaby next time?”

Prism looked as if a dandelion seed had suddenly gone up his nose. He turned red and began to sneeze. When he could speak again he said, “How about if I make it a kangaroo instead, kid? That way you can teach it to look both ways before crossing the road.”

“Okay. But can we keep Angelica and have the walla—kangaroo too?”

Pop stood and began to laugh a deep laugh that came from the middle of his belly. “Jem, let’s be happy with Angelica for now, shall we? And what do you say Prism? Can you stand some lemonade while you give us some snake-care tips?”

Prism finished blowing his nose and seemed to be reaching to pat Jem on the head, but instead snapped his broad red suspender emphatically. He didn’t answer out loud, but headed toward the porch and took a seat on the bottom step.

While Pop filled the glasses and Cliff finished losing his lunch, we listened to Jem insist that no matter how much ‘Angelica’ liked frogs, he would not feed them to her; she would have to learn to like other kinds of food and make friends with frogs instead.

 

Author’s postscript: This story was written with kids in mind. However, as more adults read the final product, the point was made that it need not be considered a kid’s story exclusively. If any readers have children between the ages of approximately 8-12, and have the time to share with them this story, I would love to hear any feedback about how it was received by this younger audience. Thank you in advance!

Copyright © 2008 by Charity Gingerich Share

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