Crazy Annie’s Girl by Patricia Pease

I was daydreaming about flying like Peter Pan. Stan McClure startled me by dropping his father’s NC State ring on my classroom desk. He smiled and nodded, “Wanna go steady?”

I thought he was joking. Popular kids didn’t notice me. I hid my flushed face behind a curtain of dirty hair. But Stan’s freckled face stayed expectant. I gave a tiny nod, just in case he was kidding, but he only smiled and walked back to his desk.

I floated out to the playground at recess, as if riding an iridescent bubble. I hummed and swung my arms. His cute freckles made me want to play connect the dots on his face. Or I could impress him by tying shoelaces with my toes. We could catch lightning bugs that would hypnotize us when dusk fell and the street lights flickered on.

As he walked towards me, I bounced up and down on my toes and lifted my face to the sun. Electricity danced between us, magic charging the air on this perfect day.

“Can you whistle?” he mumbled.

I shook my head.

“That’s alright,” he beamed. “I can teach you on the way home.”

The playground tilted as my stomach twisted. I could never let him see my home — the rundown house bordered by dead grass and a dirt flowerbed, the sagging steps that led to a porch swing dangling off one chain.

But the worst was my mother. People whispered behind her back. I didn’t even want anyone to know we were related. I avoided his eyes, blurted out some shaky excuse and hurried away. Liar, liar pants on fire!

After school, I made sure nobody was around, then began the eight blocks home. I remembered a time when Mama seemed OK. She would drive me to 7-Eleven for cruller doughnuts. She told corny jokes, drank Coca-Cola, and sang off-key to Ray Charles with her head stuck out the window. I skipped, feeling lighter. Opening my arms wide, I pretended to be flying — just like Peter Pan.

I heard her before I saw her. She was singing at the top of her lungs. I stopped, then walked around the corner. There, in the front yard, my mother waltzed with her stuffed rabbit. The dust from the dry earth keeping time with her dancing feet.

The neighbors called her “Crazy Annie.” They didn’t allow their kids to play in our house.

Her nightgown dripped with vomit. I could smell Jack Daniels from ten feet away. My shoulders tensed as I covered my nose. Swaying to and fro, back and forth, she cradled her stuffed bunny.

Shivering in the cold October air, Mama stumbled around the sad, neglected yard. I tried to put my coat around her, but she jumped in a pile of dead leaves. I struggled to pull her out.

As I glanced up the road, there he was. Standing at the top of the hill. Unmoving.

Stan McClure had followed me.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I stood frozen. Stan was very still, his freckled hand hovered near his stomach as if he’d been punched. His eyes widened, darting between me and the singing figure in the withered leaves. I started toward him. He retreated a step backward. Then he turned and disappeared over the hill.

My mother reached for me as I sank into the brittle leaf pile beside her. The earthy, sweet smell of autumn surrounded us. She stroked my hair and handed me her stuffed rabbit. I whispered, “Mama.”

Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Ivan Radic