Outside the Lines

Everything is spinning. The trees are a blur, green gashes twirling past. The ropes creak as the swing slows down. I twist it up again. Summer in Greenwood is sticky and hot, but on the swing there's a cool breeze. Those kids are playing baseball down the street again. This stupid dress, this stiff, green, polka-dot thing will not cover my metal leg. I pick at it and pull it down over the brace. Dr. Malloy says I'll have beautiful legs after the operations. I'll be a ballerina. I'll be a model. Ma laughs when I ask to take dance lessons. She laughs and smokes and coughs.

Ma says I didn't learn to walk like other babies: I learned to drag and clump. They stacked me up with a high shoe and a metal brace to make my legs even. I'm very popular with doctors. They crowd around to discuss my condition and sometimes they pat my head. They want to cut up my leg bones so I'll be normal. Girls in books are normal. Nancy  Drew is clever and drives a blue car. She has beautiful legs. I'm going to drive a blue car when I'm a ballerina.

I push the accelerator and my blue car spurts forward, faster than I can believe.

My brown bear Herbie has a bad leg. It got all twisted and crooked in a tragic accident. He is a very bad bear. The other toys don't like him, and Herbie has to stay under the bed, where they can't see him. But I know he's there, and I bring him cheerios at night, and read to him with a flashlight.

Everything is spinning. I hear a lawnmower somewhere far away. Eddie spins past, first in one direction, then the other. I dig my heel in the grass to stop. He's tall and skinny, walking through the weeds with grasshoppers flying out. He stops to look at things on the ground. His dirty tee shirt is too small and his eyes look funny.

Eddie moves slowly up the street, poking at things with a stick. The baseball players see him. They stop the game and run up to him. They call him Eddie Spaghetti and push him hard in the shoulder. He tries to get away but they come after him. They knock him down and take his stick. They punch and kick him. Dust flies up. His hands cover his face but he doesn't hit back. He pushes out from under the boys and runs toward me. I'm off the swing now, jumping up and down, my metal leg clanking. I'm yelling at the boys to stop it, cut it out. When they see me, they stop running after Eddie, stare for a moment then go back to their game.

I'm a kindergarten teacher. When my students color they sometimes go outside the lines. Sometimes they don't get the colors right, and I have to correct them. When they get it wrong, I tear the page up and give them a new one, selecting the right crayon and helping them hold it steady.

Eddie walks with his head down, watching me sideways.

I'm still jumping and clanking. "Are you hurt?"

His head hangs lower. "I'm not supposed to go there."

"Why not?"

He shrugs. "I like bugs." He wipes blood and dirt from his nose onto his tee shirt and pulls a Japanese beetle out of his pocket. He stoops down and helps it crawl onto a blade of grass.

"I like some bugs," I say. "What's your name?"

He looks at my metal leg. "Eddie Picetti."

"I just turned eleven last week," I say, "and my cat Martha is going to have kittens."

"I'm fourteen - um - fifteen." He's smiling a little now, still looking at my leg. Most people pretend not to look.

"My name is on my butt," he says.

I say nothing.

"I gotta go home now," he says, and stumbles in the tall grass as he goes past. He laughs, and I laugh too.

Ma works at the Greenwood Shoe Factory. She sometimes works extra shifts to pay the doctor's bills. Soon I will be old enough to let them cut up my leg bones, and it will take a lot of extra shoes to pay for the operations. Ma is tired most nights, and I cook dinner. Macaroni and cheese is my specialty. My secret ingredient is onion powder.

After dinner I tell Ma about Eddie.

"Why can't you have some normal girl friends?" Ma smiles. She smiles a lot, but it's not really like smiling.

"I don't need girl friends. Eddie is good enough."

"When I was your age, all us kids were running like a pack of wolf cubs, having fun all summer, baseball, kick-the-can, not moping around the house like you. You let that leg brace ruin your life."

"The normal girls don't want to play with me," I say.

"That's because nobody likes a moper." Ma takes a drag on her cigarette.

"It's because of my metal leg."

"Nobody cares about that." She exhales a plume of smoke, coughs, and turns on the television.

I go to my room and take Herbie out from under the bed. Good bear, I say, and tuck him in with me. We read The Velveteen Rabbit together and go to sleep.

I'm in my blue car, but I don't know where I'm going. There's something wrapped in white gauze beside me on the passenger seat, but I don't want to remember what it is.

Eddie comes over a lot. I'm helping him to read better. I'm going to be a ballerina and a model and a teacher when I grow up. I fish out my old school readers: Dick and Jane, Alice and Jerry. I bring them to the pine woods, to the clearing where Eddie and I meet. He tries to read, but he only knows a few words. He can't learn any more.

Eddie brings bugs and frogs to the clearing, carrying them in his big hands. We watch them. He never hurts them.

Eddie is beaten up again and again by the smaller boys. He's bruised and cut. I ask Eddie why the boys fight with him. He shrugs. He touches my metal leg.

"I'm going to have an operation," I say, "and then I'm going to be a ballerina."

He twirls in the pine needles. He takes my hand and twirls with me, laughing. We're on stage, and I am beautiful. He has on a crown, and I'm wearing a pink velvet dress. I have beautiful legs. People are clapping, asking for autographs. Everyone loves me, even the normal girls.

My blue car goes fast. The trees are a blur, green gashes twirling past. The white bundle on the seat beside me tumbles a little. I must go around the corners more carefully. I must try to stay within the lines.   

Martha has kittens in the cellar, and Eddie and I are on the cold cement floor, watching them come out. Eddie has never seen kittens born before. He stares at Martha licking off the milky sacks.

"I am going to have six children," I say. "Three boys and three girls. I will marry Doctor Malloy and we will take them to Disneyland and give them the biggest birthday parties. We will read them stories every night. I will name them John and Amanda and Peter and Cynthia..."

Eddie is only interested in the kittens. The other kittens are quiet, but the orange tiger, a tough guy even at twenty minutes old, squirms and opens his mouth. Eddie picks him up and examines him all over.

"You can have him," I say.

Eddie smiles like the sun.

"When he's old enough," I add.

Eddie puts him back on Martha's stomach.

"Having babies hurts Martha," he says, and pats her head. "You won't have babies."

"Yes I will, too. I will have a happy family."

Ma does laundry behind us. She snaps wet sheets. My father left when I was a baby. Ma says I was too much for him. Ma says men are nothing but nothing.

"My name is on my butt," Eddie says.

"It is not," I say.

He turns over the elastic in the back of his pants and shows me a yellowed label with Edward S. Picetti spelled out in red thread.

"I'll always be safe," he says, looking at the label.

"Why does that make you safe?" I ask.

He lies back down on the cold floor and watches the kittens.

"I'll always be safe," he says again.

Ma snaps wet sheets louder.

In the clearing, Eddie is coloring outside the lines, and I must teach him to stay inside, to use the right colors. Never, ever use red for horses and lime green for clouds.

"Try to color this way," I say.

"Read Tip and Mitten," he says.

"We read that yesterday."

"Please?"

"Read 'Where the Wild Things Are'," say my students, age six. Our classroom hamster, Snowball, had babies and we watched them being born. Some of the babies were tough, right from the start, but some will be too weak to survive, and the kids will be sad. I will explain it to them, and then they will understand. They will not cry if they understand.

My leg hurts today. They do some tests. X-rays, blood tests. No results yet. Dr. Malloy takes some bone samples and the brace scrapes against the wound, so I can't use it. I have to stay in bed with Herbie under the covers so the other toys won't see him.

Eddie brings me buttercups. They're wilted because he gets beat up on the way over. I hear them yelling Eddie Spaghetti from my bedroom. He's dirty and scraped.

"You should punch those creeps," I say.

"No," he says. "It doesn't hurt. My name is on my butt."

"Yeah I know, you're safe. But you should hit back."

"Is your name on your butt?" he asks.

I still have the flowers, dry and fragile, pressed inside 'Little Women' right where Jo sells her hair. I have no husband, I have no children. I'm fond of my students, but I don't need to be close to anyone. Luckily I happen to be independent. I drive a blue car very fast and I am a dancer.

Martha's kittens are getting big. They walk like tiny drunken men, wheeling around on the cement floor bumping into each other, rushing to get Martha's milk. Eddie can't think of a name for his orange tiger. He says he's not smart enough. You don't have to be smart, I tell him. I name Martha's other kittens Smudge, Dusty and Petunia. Ma says don't get attached, they'll be leaving soon.

Eddie must learn. He must defend himself and color inside the lines. My six children will have coloring lessons every day. Green for trees and blue for sky and yellow for sun and brown for horses.

I'm still in bed, almost better. Eddie brings me a salamander, and it runs under the covers. Eddie reaches under to get it. We are both laughing. Ma walks in and screams get out, and Eddie leaves. Ma says no more Eddie. He's too old for me. He's too stupid to have for a friend.

Herbie doesn't understand. He hides under the covers. Later, Ma is smoking and playing solitaire in the kitchen. I'm hungry but there's no macaroni and cheese for me tonight. I read Tales of Peter Rabbit to Herbie and he goes right to sleep.

I sneak off to meet Eddie in the clearing after I'm better, and I tell him my first operation will be soon. They will cut my bones. Then I'll be a dancer in the movies. Eddie plays with the elastic on his pants. He flips it over and it snaps back. Eddie jumps up and twirls. He tries to twirl me but it hurts my sore leg. I fall and he catches me.

"I'm ok. I'm fine," I say.

"Do you have your name on your butt?" he asks.

"You know I don't."

The surgery on my leg took years, all through high school. I didn't get rid of the brace until senior year, about the time Ma started to get sick. She died slowly: cancer, still smoking. I was a sophomore at State Teachers' College when she finally died for good, and then there was no one left to remember my metal leg. I could finally be normal. My legs are not beautiful. I have scars and I limp a little, but no one notices. No one ever looks that closely. I live in the city now, alone in a small apartment. I go folk dancing at the community center on Sunday nights and I'm not the worst one there.

One rainy night after folk dancing a wet orange tiger kitten, scrawny and bitten, yowled at my window. I didn't want him, but he stayed. I didn't feed him, but he kept coming back. Finally, I took him in. He played with a ring from a plastic milk carton, and ignored all store-bought toys I dangled. He slept in the green chair by my bed, and  nowhere else. Eventually, I began to think about him when I was at school. Is he getting into fights? Will he run away? I named him Macaroni, because it is my favorite food.

I sneak Eddie into the cellar while Ma is at the factory. The kittens are eating and drinking now, climbing the curtains and knocking things over. The orange tiger is old enough to leave Martha now. I've decided I won't let Eddie take the kitten until he names him.

"Name him after somebody famous," I say.

Eddie looks blank.

"Who's your favorite baseball player?"

"Don't like baseball."

"Who's your favorite movie star?"

"Don't know."

"What about books? Someone in the books we read."

"You do it."

"You can name him anything you want, Eddie. What about Cat?"

"Cat isn't a real name."

I do everything. I read the stories. I teach Eddie to color. I tell him to defend himself. I won't do this too.

"Come on, it's just a stupid name." I punch his shoulder, hard.

Eddie looks at me.

"Call him Eddie Spaghetti," I say.

Eddie bangs out of the cellar, up through the bulkhead door, his big hands and feet flapping as he runs away. I go clanking after him, but he is gone off deep into the woods.

Macaroni's jaw seemed to be hurting. He'd been in another fight, I thought. He wouldn't eat. I got some tests. X-rays. Blood tests. No results yet. He got better. It was nothing to worry about. He was tough.

Eddie comes back to my house the next day. Ma is due home, and I'm worried she'll see him. We go to the basement.

"Your kitten's name will be Rex," I tell him.

"When you're a ballerina in the movies, you won't be my friend."

"Yes I will."

"Is your name on your butt?"

"You know it isn't."

"I'll put it there, and then you'll be safe."

We go to the clearing in the woods. Eddie takes a pencil from his pocket and tells me to lie down across his lap. The woods are quiet. The damp pine needles smell good.

"Do you know how to write?" I ask.

"Sure I do," he says.

He lifts up my green polka dot dress. He presses the pencil against my underpants. Birds squawk somewhere deep in the woods. Leaves flutter high up in the treetops.

"It's not working," he says. He pulls down my underpants. He puts the warm pencil lead against my flesh. I smell mushrooms. Eddie is breathing, working hard to write my name. I hear a lawnmower somewhere far away.

Eddie presses harder.

Dry leaves crackle behind us.

Ma is in the clearing, pulling him off me, slapping, shouting.

"What are you doing to her?" She screams.

Eddie pulls at the back of his pants, flipping over the elastic. His name label appears and disappears.

Ma slaps his face hard, like a gun shot. Birds fly up out of the trees. Eddie runs off into the woods.

"He's making me safe!" I shout. I punch Ma with my fists and she drags me back home.

There are whispers behind closed doors. Men with briefcases come over. Angry whispers, telephone calls, then Eddie is gone. Ma says good riddance. Eddie has been sent away to a special school, and I am never to mention him again.

Herbie is a very bad bear. He is so bad he must be locked away in the toy box. His leg is so ugly that no other toys can ever look. He will never be a dancing bear. Herbie always colors outside the lines. Herbie must learn. I hate Herbie. I'm glad he's locked away.

The test results are in. Macaroni has a tumor in his skull. There it is - a dense white lump on the x-ray. The Doctor says it's benign. Benign means good doesn't it? Snowball's kittens are very fluffy. They aren't kittens; they're hamsters, of course. Some of them are bound to die. They just can't all live, it is not possible. Some will be independent, they'll survive, and then we'll find them good homes. All of the children will understand.

Macaroni is losing weight. I call the vet but he's not there. He will return my call during office hours, says the machine. I leave three messages.

"Will you please try to stay within the lines?" I say to Jason, who starts to cry.

I come home from school and Martha's kittens are not in the basement. Ma says they are all gone to good homes. Ma says one cat is enough. That winter, a speeding car hits Martha, then she is hit again by the police car chasing it. Men scoop her up and take the pieces away in a garbage truck. Ma says no more cats, they're too much trouble.

The vet calls back and says that sometimes even benign tumors can be fatal.

"No they're not," I say. "That's what benign means. Safe."

"No, he says, "this one is in a bad location, and it's growing. Macaroni will eventually have to be put to sleep."

Macaroni stops eating. One day, two days. No more. I carry him to the vet, and stay with him. It's peaceful the way they help him go. No coughing, no screaming, no closed doors, no angry whispers. Afterwards, they hand him to me, a mummy wrapped in white gauze. When I leave, there are other people in the waiting room. They are with their brown dog. The little girl is laughing. The dog is chasing its tail. The receptionist smiles at me when I pay. She says thank you, come again.

Summer in Greenwood is sticky and hot, and I'm driving to the only place that makes sense. There's my old house - children are playing outside in the yard. I go to the clearing in the woods. I smell the pine sap. It's the same as before, quiet and damp. I sweep away pine needles and dig a hole with my fingers. The earth is black and smells like mushrooms.

I wonder if I'll see Eddie again, mopping a floor, or pushing a little girl, his daughter, on a swing in the park. He will smile at me. We will dance and laugh. He'll wear a crown, and I'll wear a pink velvet dress.

I write our names on the white cloth. The gauze is rough and I have to press the pencil hard. Macaroni is so small down there. I fill in the hole and cover the mound with pine needles. Black moons are under my fingernails. Lime green clouds float over blue horses. I hear a lawnmower somewhere far away, and everything stops spinning.