Dead Forest (or: A Babe in the Woods)

I did my best, but Pam had made up her mind. We kept walking towards
the bayou, away from the trail of hard dirt and dead grass.

First I said, "There's bugs down there. Maybe mean dogs."

Then I tried, "There's a sticker in my foot. I might have to go back,
maybe get it looked at."

That last wasn't entirely true. My foot was all right, but Pam kept
walking down the hill anyway, over a thin part of the bayou and towards
some woods. The woods looked like big green pencils from far away. And
the closer we got the more I thought that maybe the woods were the
crazy hair-do of some giant lady who'd sunk herself into the ground,
waiting for little children to walk onto her head so she could wake up
screaming. I may be too old to think like that, but I do.

At the edge of the woods, though, it was just a bunch of trees, with
thin little branches way up high and no leaves. They were taller than
our house and standing in rows, like carrots in a garden. Pam walked
into the trees but I waited. That's how I saw that the trees stopped in
a straight line, like somebody had picked them off one by one, real
neat like.

"Come on, sissy," Pam said, because I wasn't moving. I was close enough
to one of the trees that I could see something green and wet all over
it, something that looked like it would make me itch.

I said, "I itch," which was almost true. I wanted to get Pam out of the
trees. Sometimes, if I hold my ground, she makes an effort, but only
because she knows I'll go home if she doesn't. She likes company, but
also I think she wants somebody to boss. And our plan was to catch
crawdads for the glass tank in my room, not go into these woods. When I
looked down, the ground was coming up between my toes, making my feet
itch. We don't wear shoes all the time, even on the hot sidewalks and
streets, but right then I wished I had.

"I'm in here, and I don't itch," Pam said. "Quit being a baby and come
on. Maybe there's something in here?treasure or goats or
something."

"Or one of those bulls like last time." This was the truth, a secret I
could say out loud away from the grownups. Once, on a walk just like
this one, we crawled under a fence with metal stickers all over it and
then ran over a hill with a big black bull standing at the bottom. The
bull had yellow horns and shiny black eyes and he looked like he'd been
waiting for us all day. When he snorted and kicked up some dirt, we ran
as fast as we could back to the metal fence. I still have a scratch on
the back of my leg from crawling under so fast and it itches when I
take my Saturday bath. We don't talk about that walk very much. Mostly
it's me who brings it up.

"There's no bulls in here," Pam told me, but I wasn't so sure. The
trees were far apart but way back they were closer together and it was
dark. Anything could've been in there. And how would Pam know what was
in there, anyway? She gets crazy sometimes and has tiny little scars
all over her legs to prove it. The scars look like pebbles in the mud
and never get dark. I stayed put.

"Chubs is a baby, Chubs is a baby," Pam sang, wiggling her bottom. This
was supposed to make me mad, but Pam was wearing her short-shorts and
the sight of her skinny legs trying to keep up with her dancing made me
put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing, even though she called
me Chubs instead of John. Calling me Chubs can make me mad, but Pam
looked so funny moving around like that.

"What?" she asked. She stopped wiggling and crossed both arms over her
chest, where those two little tents were starting to pop up.

"Nothing," I said, but she knew. She kept looking at me until I said,
"Nothing," again, and stomped my foot. Mud hit my leg.

"I didn't think so." Pam pointed her chin at me with her nose up in the
air. If she'd sniffed she'd have been just like the lady on the
television who goes to live on a farm with her rich husband and wears
diamonds while she's feeding the pig. I see why the lady wears her
diamonds but the pig looks dangerous and if it was me, I'd sit in the
car until somebody took me back to the city.

"There's mosquitoes," Pam said, slapping at her leg. The slap left a
tiny red spot and what looked like bug parts. I didn't get close enough
to see, but I've smashed enough bugs to know what it looks like. A big
boy mosquito flew around Pam's head, bobbing up and down like he was
hanging from a rubber band. I ignore boy mosquitoes because they don't
bite, but Pam can't take any bug getting near her face. She started to
duck and wave her hands all over the place, trying to get rid of it.
Finally she looked ready to scream when she backed into one of the
trees, and I thought to myself, "Oh God, she's going to itch tonight."
But then the tree fell over. It made a paper-tearing noise and landed
in the mud. I couldn't believe it. One whole tree and Pam knocked it
over. I got ready to run.

I could tell Pam was ready to run, too, but for some reason we didn't.
A frog croaked nearby and no crazy hillbilly came bursting through the
woods with a gun. Nothing happened. If somebody had stepped out of the
trees and looked at us, all he would've seen is two children with their
mouths hanging open and their arms up like they were fixing to box
somebody. And maybe our dirty feet, which for some reason were in the
back of my mind, bothering me.

After a little bit Pam closed her mouth and then turned to a tree next
to her and gave it a shove. It fell over just like the first one, so
she did it to another tree, and then another. The last one hit its
neighbor and they both fell at the same time like dominoes, which made
me nervous. Pam looked ready to push the whole forest down.

"Stop, stop!" I yelled, and found myself in the trees, my legs taking
me where I didn't want to go so I could get to Pam and make her stop.
They do that sometimes, my legs. I have found myself pulling Pam out of
the bayou when the water's so high and dark that all I can see are her
teeth smiling away like she's playing shark at the city pool. Or
stepping between her and the lady at the U-Totem while Pam sticks
banana taffy in her pockets. My legs act like they know where they're
going, even if I'm thinking it might be best to just go home, see
what's for dinner.

"Stop!" I yelled again. This time I pulled on Pam's shirt and felt a
pinch of skin in my fingers. She looked so crazy that I already knew I
wasn't going to like what came out of her mouth next, but at least she
did stop. She looked like Daddy, when he built the lopsided clubhouse
in the backyard. Mama and I sat on the grass, drinking iced tea and
watching. I thought I would burst from not going to the bathroom. Pam
handed Daddy the nails and brought him one beer after another, wiping
the bottles down like he liked. I am allowed to get him beers too, but
I don't wipe them down enough. I don't like that wet spot on my shirt,
making me feel like I need to change my clothes.

"We should have a plan," Pam said, turning her last circle. "We can do
something with these trees. Build a fort maybe." The little points on
her chest were moving up and down, so I looked at my toes. They had
green mud and gnats all over them. The gnats made my toenails look
alive, like they were getting ready to take off.

"Or a bridge," I offered, thinking it might be nice to step on
something besides the green mud.

"We'll need help, though." Pam was thinking hard, her chin in one hand
and her elbow on the other. Her eyes looked like she was watching the
television, and I thought to myself that Pam would be prettier if her
hair didn't fall all over her face like that. She also had mosquitoes
sitting all over her arms and shoulders, which reminded me to run my
own hands up and down my arms and legs. I slapped at the back of my
neck just to be safe.

"Let's go," Pam said. She started walking back the way we came, not
saying anything. She had a plan, but getting it out of her would've
been a lot of work. And I didn't want to beg while I hopped around the
sticker bushes and moved back and forth to miss the bugs, my hands all
over the place until I felt like the bugs were all over me. I was lucky
because Pam didn't turn around. She's got a mean mouth and I didn't
want everybody to know I did a jig all the way out of there.

We got to the bayou and everything turned familiar. Pam kept hurrying,
so I was sweating like crazy and I knew Pam was, too, because I could
see the water on the back of her neck and her hair getting curly
because of it. We ran back to our house, even though I could feel a
burr in my foot. It was on the side so I stayed on my toes, moving down
the sidewalk as fast as I could. It's hard to keep your balance while
you're running like that.

The house was empty because Daddy was out back with his lawn mower,
which is powerful enough to send a rock through the window. I've seen
it happen. Mama was at work, where she always is, typing up reports for
the doctors at the hospital. Mama won't get on the elevator with the
doctors unless somebody else is there, too. Once she said to her
friend, "Those doctors. Always wanting to do an examination," and then
they laughed and laughed, which made no sense to me. I've been to the
doctor and that's all they do, examining.

I found my sneakers under the kitchen table and put them on, dirty feet
and all. I considered washing my feet off in the tub but Pam was in
such a hurry and I didn't want to miss anything. My sneakers are old
and torn up. They make a sound like laying your head on a plastic
pillow when I walk in them. But they'll keep the burrs off.

Pam came running into the living room with the can of bug spray in one
hand and her shoes in the other, and I followed her out to the front
porch. She ran across the street, and I was guessing she was looking
for Roseanne, her sometimes friend, depending on whether or not they're
fighting. Roseanne looks just like her mother, with big glasses and
brown hair that's short and kept off her face with a piece of cloth
across her forehead. Roseanne takes care of her baby brother while her
mama and daddy work. She carries him around on her hip and knows how to
change his diapers. Where I stood on the porch I could see Pam talking
to Roseanne and I could see Roseanne shaking her head and Pam begging.
Roseanne looked at the baby and then back at Pam and I knew the baby
would be coming with us. The baby's name is Stevie, but mostly he is
called "Baby" or "Sugar" or something you'd call a pony. At the Kiddie
Fair we sometimes go to, that's what the ponies are called and if
you're not careful they will rub up against their wooden pens and
scrape your leg.

We started walking back to the dead trees, Pam in front, me in the
middle, and Roseanne bringing up the rear. Roseanne made little noises
at the baby, but mostly we were quiet. I could tell Pam wanted to keep
everything a secret, so I didn't talk too much. Also, Roseanne's tricky
to keep around. Sometimes she will just stand up and say she is going
on home, for no reason. She does it a lot since the new baby.

We got back to the trees fast, all of us sweating and trying to breath
the hot air. Pam sprayed all of us with the bug spray. The smell of it
hid the swampy smell for a while, but before long it started stinking
like those parts of the bayou where the big concrete pipes stick out.
Roseanne filled up one hand with the bug spray, and then patted it on
the baby's face and arms. She bundled up the baby in his blanket until
he looked like one of those cocoons hanging from the bushes in front of
our house, wrapping the blanket around his head so much that all I
could see were his eyes and nose. Then she put him up against a
tree.

"We are going to build a log cabin," Pam told us, "Like the ones we
build with Lincoln Logs. Only bigger."

"But there aren't any notches in the trees," I said. I've found messed
up Lincoln Logs in my set before, where the notch is just partly cut
out or not at all. It's always a log I need, and using it makes your
house lopsided.

"So?" Pam says so a lot lately. I have discovered there's not much to
say in the face of a so.

"Start pushing the trees down over here," she said, pointing to a flat
spot, "Then drag them over there."

Roseanne jumped right into it, pushing down trees and laughing and
telling us to watch when she got to a really big one. Pam and I knocked
down some, but it took the two of us to keep up with Roseanne, who kept
wandering off and pretending she was the woman on the television with
machines for legs and arms. Pam put a stop to that when Roseanne
knocked over a tree that fell close to the baby. Pam was all business,
but it was kind of amazing how light the trees were. I could drag one
behind me with one hand, and even pick them up, as long as I could find
a spot on the tree without the green stuff growing on it.

Soon we had a neat pile of logs. Roseanne checked on the baby, who was
still up against the tree where she left him. The mosquitoes didn't
seem to be bothering him. All he did was sit there watching us, his
eyes moving back and forth like he was trying to see in the dark. He
didn't cry, either, like most babies do.

"There's bugs in those trees," I said, looking down at the end of one
of the logs. Pam came up to look at the little worms that were
squirming in and out of the tiny holes in the wood. Some of them looked
dead. I thought they looked mad. Pam got up and then came back with the
bug spray, letting the worms have it. It must have worked because the
worms went back into the wood. I checked my hands but there wasn't
anything on them except a lot of dirt.

Roseanne picked up the baby while Pam figured out the cabin. She drug
four of the logs into the clearing we'd made, and then put together a
square. "That's the base," she said.

"But that's only one room." I was picturing a big cabin, maybe like as
big as our house.

"There's only enough logs for one room," Pam answered. She was probably
right, and I didn't want to push any more trees down after finding the
worms.

We started stacking the logs. Two of us to held a log in place while
somebody else got a new one to put on top. We took turns carrying the
logs over to the cabin, while the other two used our hand and feet to
keep it all from falling over. Pretty soon we had what looked like a
fence, almost as high as my belly button.

"There's big holes in the walls," I said, "And there's no door."

"We'll use mud to fill in the spaces," Pam said. She didn't say
anything about the door. I knew that if we tried to cut one out, the
entire thing would fall over. I stayed quiet, though, thinking Pam had
a plan.

We needed more trees after all. The baby was next to a set of trees we
wanted to knock down, so Roseanne picked him up. She walked him around
a bit and then crawled over one of the cabin walls, so slow and careful
that it made me hold my breath. She put the baby in the middle of what
Pam called the floor, even though it was the same green mud we'd been
walking on the whole time.

"You sure you want him in there?" Pam asked, and for once I was glad
she was being bossy.

"I can see him in there," Roseanne said, "He'll probably just go to
sleep." She sounded like a grownup.

We kept working, and the cabin got taller, almost as tall as me. It
also leaned to one side, and creaked with every new log we put on it.
We all looked through the gaps at the baby from time to time. Nobody
said anything about getting him out once we were finished. Not even
Roseanne looked worried.

"I'm tired," I said, after we'd put some logs across the top of the
cabin. The top logs were supposed to be some sort of roof, but it
wasn't a roof I'd sleep under. Pam wanted to put leaves up there, but
when we went to look for something big enough, all we found were some
skinny twigs with no leaves. Pam even stuck her hand into the ground
and all she came up with was some mud and more twigs.

"Should we make a door?" I asked, right when the baby started to cry
inside the cabin. He'd been sniffling a little for a while, but got a
lot louder. Pam and Roseanne looked at each other and didn't answer my
question.

Roseanne walked up to the cabin and grabbed hold of one of the logs on
the wall, jiggling it back and forth. The whole cabin moved to the side
and Roseanne let out a tiny sound, like she'd been scared in her sleep.
"Oh God," she said, "We need to get the baby out." Roseanne wasn't
crying yet but it was only a matter of time before she did.

"I told you we needed a door." I could've said, "I told you so," but
Pam yelled at me to shut up anyway so it didn't matter how I said
it.

Pam walked over to where Roseanne was standing and said, "I bet we
could lift it. It can't be that heavy. Look." She got down next to a
corner of the cabin and put both of her hands under a log. I could see
the muscles through her shirt while she got a good grip. Roseanne let
out her tiny cry when the cabin tilted some more, but Pam did get it a
little bit off the ground, at least on one side. She let it fall back
down.

"See?" she said, standing back up.

"Let's just take it apart. Like we put it together, only backwards."
Roseanne had both her arms wrapped around herself. She looked a little
sick.

"That would take too long. All we have to do is lift it while John goes
in and gets the baby."

When I heard my name I considered turning around and running home. But
I was pretty sure Pam would've caught me, sooner or later. And even
with the mud and bugs and little log worms, I liked the cabin, the way
it stood up by itself. I wanted to keep it where it was.

Roseanne looked from Pam to me. She looked back at the cabin and then
said, "All right, how do we do it?"

Pam walked around to the side of the cabin that had already shifted
from Roseanne pushing on it. She said, "Okay. What we'll do is this.
You and me will lift it up at the same time, and then John can crawl
underneath. John, stand over here," she told me, pointing at the
ground, "And when I say so, you go in and get the baby."

I got down by the wall while Roseanne and Pam got ready. I could see
their legs through the spaces in the logs, but I couldn't see their
faces. I waited for the cabin to start going up, and when it did I got
down even lower, so I could look inside. The baby stopped crying.

"Higher," I yelled, "I can't get in yet."

When I could see Pam and Roseanne's knees, I put my head down and
squeezed inside. Roseanne's feet were all over the place, like she was
doing a dance, and I could tell the cabin was heavy. I sneaked up to
the baby so I wouldn't scare him, wondering how I could get him out.
There was enough light for me to see the baby's face. He stared up at
me and blinked.

The crack, loud and serious, came right when somebody started yelling.
My knees and hands sank into the ground, getting ready for whatever it
was coming at me. Pam and Roseanne's crazy screaming was almost louder
than the logs falling on top of me. One hit the side of my head,
tugging at my ear as it went along, and another one fell across the
back of my legs. I stayed still, and thought about those tiny worms in
the logs.

My ear buzzed, and I knew there would be blood, and questions, when we
got home later. I didn't look up while the logs were pulled off of me.
It was dark, and then I remembered my eyes were closed.

When I opened them the first thing I saw was the baby, still looking up
at me. He sneezed twice in a row, the sound like small twigs breaking
under your feet.