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heaven help me! And she came back, heaven help us all! She came back and put
three little rocks or the corner of my desk.
"I guess these is them," she said. "Two of them are, any way. I couldn't
remember exactly which ones they was, so I brought an extra one." We looked at
the rocks.
"They're scared," she said. "I turned them into scared rocks."
"Do rocks know?" I asked. "Can rocks be scared?"
Dismey considered, head tilted. "I don't know." The small smile came back.
"But if they can-they are."
And there they lie, on my green blotter, in the middle of my battered old
desk, in front of my crowded room-three rocks, roughly the size of marbles-and
two of them are Michael and Bannie.
And time is running out fast-fast! I can't say the magic word. Nobody can say
the magic word except Dismey and her mother.
Of course I could take them to Mr. Beasley in the office and say, "Here are
two of my boys. Remember? They're the ones that kept picking on the little
girl in my room. She turned them into rocks because they were mean. What
shall we do?"
Or I could take them to the boys' parents and say, "One of these is your boy.
Which one resembles Bannie the most? Take your choice."
I've been looking down at my quiet hands for fifteen minutes now, but the
rising murmur in the room and the rustle of movement tell me that it's past
time to change activities. I've got to do something-and soon.
Looking back over the whole affair, I see only one possible course of action.
I'm going to take a page from Dismey's own book. I'm going to be the
believingest teacher there ever was. I believe-I believe implicitly that
Dismey will mind me-she'll do as she is told. I believe, I believe, I believe
"Dismey, come here, please." Here comes the obedient child, up to my desk.
"It's almost time to go home, Dismey," I tell her. "Here, take the rocks and
go outside by the door. Turn them back into Michael and Bannie. "
"I don't want to." It's not refusal! It's not refusal! It's just a statement.
"I know you don't. But the bell will be ringing soon, and we don't want to
make them miss the bus. Mr. Beasley gets very annoyed when we miss the bus."
"But they were awfully mean." Her eyes are hurt and angry.
"Yes, I know they were, and I'm going to use the paddle on them. But they've
been rocks a long time-scared rocks. They know now that you can be mean back
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at them, so they'll probably let you alone and not bother you any more. Go on,
take them outside." She's looking at me intently.
"Remember, your mama said mind the teacher." Her jaws tighten.
The three rocks click together in her hand. She is going out the door. It
swings shut jerkily behind her.
Now I am waiting for the doorknob to turn again. I believe, I believe, I
believe--
THROUGH A GLASS - DARKLY
I FINALLY GOT SO FRIGHTENED that I decided to go to Dr. Barstow and have my
eyes checked.
Dr. Barstow has been my eye doctor for years-all the way from when a monkey
bit and broke one lens of my first glasses, up to the current encouraging me
through getting used to bifocals. Although I still take them off to thread a
needle and put them back on to see across the room, I take his word for it
that someday I'll hardly notice the vast no-vision slash across the middle of
every where I look.
But it wasn't the bifocals that took me to Dr. Barstow. And he knew it. He
didn't know that the real reason I went to him was the cactus I saw in my
front room. And I could have adjusted to a cactus-even in the front room, but
not to the roadrunner darting from my fireplace to my hall door and
disappearing with the last, limp two inches of a swallowed snake flapping from
his smirking beak.
So Dr. Barstow finished his most thorough investigation of my eyes. Then he
sat straddling his little stool and looked at me mildly. "It takes time," he
said, "to make the adjustment. Some people take longer-"
"It's not that, Doctor," I said miserably, "even though I could smash the
things happily some times. No, it's-it's-" Well, there was no helping it. I'd
come purposely to tell him. "It's what I see. It's that cactus in my front
room."
His eyes flicked up quickly to mine. "And right now I'm seeing a prickly pear
cactus with fruit on it where your desk is." I swallowed rackingly and he
looked at his desk.
For a moment he twiddled with whatever ophthalmologists twiddle with and then
he said, "Have you had a physical check-up recently?" His eyes were a little
amused.
"Yes," I replied. "For exactly this reason. And I truly don't think I'm going
mad." I paused and mentally rapped a few spots that might have gone soft, but
they rang reassuringly sound
"Unless I'm just starting and this is one of the symptoms."
"So it's all visual," he said, briskly.
"So far," I said, feeling a flood of relief that he was listening without
laughter. It had been frightening, being alone. How can you tell your husband
casually that he is relaxing into a cholla cactus with his newspaper? Even a
husband like Peter. "All visual except sometimes I think I hear the wind
through the cactus."
Dr. Barstow blinked. "You say there's a cactus where my desk is?"
I checked. "Yes, a prickly pear. But your desk is there, too. It's-it's-"
"Superimposed?" he suggested.
"Yes," I said, checking again. "And if you sat down there, it'd be your desk,
but-but there's the cactus-' I spread my hands helplessly, "With a blue
tarantula hawk flying around over it."
"Tarantula hawk?" he asked.
"Yes, you know, those waspy looking things. Some are bright blue and some are
orangy-"
"Then you see movement, too," he said.
"Oh yes," I smiled feebly. Now that I was discussing it, it wasn't even
remotely a funny story any more. I hadn't realized how frightened I had been.
To go blind! Or mad!
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"That's one reason I asked for an emergency appointment. Things began to move.
Saturday it was a horny toad on the mantel which is a ledge along a sand wash.
But yesterday it was a roadrunner with a snake in his beak, coming out of the
fireplace. The hearth is a clump of chaparral!"
"Where is the wasp now?" asked Dr. Barstow.
I checked briefly. "It's gone." And I sat and looked at him forlornly.
He twiddled some more and seemed to be reading his diploma on the wall behind
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