Miss Lamp. Christopher Ewart

      Miss Lamp craves peaches for dessert.

      §

      The Polka-Dot Door.

      After the wooden porch door smacked shut, Young Young Miss Lamp listened to her mother cry in the kitchen. Looking at her cold, dirty toes, Young Young Miss Lamp wondered if Abby would cry if she had lost a toenail instead. Probably not. No one pays as much attention to toes as fingers. Except for the scab that turned green when her finger got wet in the tub, it worked fine. It pointed and scratched, poked and picked her nose as always. Young Young Miss Lamp relished the couple of weeks when she substituted other, less tender fingers for the picking. Definitely not worth crying over.

      She felt sorry for the stupid chocolate Lab losing the magpie every day. ‘Magpies sure are smart,’ she whispered as her wee flipflops joined the row of runners, dress-up shoes and grandma shoes. ‘Magpies can get away with whatever they like and I’m going to write a story about one,’ she said.

      Young Young Miss Lamp, with gnats in her hair and dirty toes not so cold anymore, listened to stories without potatoes in her ears. Grandma told her potatoes don’t belong in a young girl’s ears. Before bed, Abby read her tales about stolen rings or a crooked shoe on the wrong princess’s foot. She read her tales of characters with happy names like Pippi and Snoopy in places as far away as Solla Sollew. She even knew about Peach Boy, a miniature samurai born from the pit of a peach and just as tough.

      Young Young Miss Lamp loved Abby’s stories, but Grandma’s stories scared the hell out of her. Scared her enough to wet the bed. Grim tales about children who get eaten if they lie, children who get eaten if they tell the truth too much. Vinegar-voiced stories of dark caves, ovens, closets and dogs that won’t stop barking. Grandma’s song about a magpie scared her most of all. It scared potatoes up out of the earth and back into her ears.

      ‘I’ll bake you up in a pie, wee girly. I’ll bake you up in a pie,’ Grandma sang. ‘I’ll use my sharp teeth to grind your bones and bake you up in a pie. My pot is packed with children who lie. I’ll bake you up in a pie.’

      Grandma grew noises under the bed, made Young Young Miss Lamp see little black dots when she opened her eyes in the sunshine.

      §

      Mmm, Mmm, Good.

      Young Young Miss Lamp leaned into the kitchen. Her dirty toes pushed into the linoleum. Abby raised her left hand high above her head. Her pointer finger shook and twitched almost an inch each way as she held her wrist tight. The magpie chattered to the window ledge. Abby didn’t trust magpies. She grabbed a tea towel, wrapping her convulsing finger together with the rest of her hand, and pressed the bundle hard to her stomach. Creased in stress.

      The magpie didn’t flinch.

      ‘Get away, stupid bird! Shoo! I don’t have anything for you.’

      The magpie didn’t flinch at all.

      ‘I have nothing for you, magpie, go away. You frightened me.’

      Young Young Miss Lamp huffed. Quietly. ‘Maybe he wants to help, Mom. To check if you’re okay. Magpies are very smart.’ She thought about Grandma’s pie story and the taste of ground bones.

      Abby crumpled the tea towel behind her back and dropped it in the sink. With right hand over left, she squeezed her knuckles white. A strand of red hair hung down her cheek, tickling eyelashes in front of jade-green eyes. ‘When did you come in? I thought you were on the porch swing.’

      ‘I was.’

      ‘Are you hungry?’

      ‘My feets was cold.’ Young Young Miss Lamp covered dirty toes with more dirty toes.

      ‘My feet were cold, dear, were cold – ’

      ‘And my toes too.’

      Young Young Miss Lamp enjoyed saying words incorrectly, blinking at her mom’s corrections, especially if the correct part sounded higher than it really should be. She sat up straight at the kitchen table. She giggled when the paper towel got folded into a triangle – more exciting than a square, she reckoned. Her mom always put a bit of spit on it, wiping harder than she needed to at those tomato-soup spots around the mouth and chin.

      Warm as a soda cracker.

      ‘Why were you crying, Mom?’

      ‘Would you like grilled cheese and tomato soup?’ Abby knew when her daughter was hungry.

      ‘Golden brown. Cut in triangles. And if it’s Campbell’s with moomoo.’ Young Young Miss Lamp stood up on her tippy-toes, peering into the cupboard with no doors.

      ‘Yes, dear. I haven’t poisoned you yet, have I?’