7.31 The Witchling Shama
“So,” Officer Krugle said, his eyes skimming my naked feet, as if that was the most important thing to take note of. “So,” he said again, as his gaze circumnavigated my appearance, then fixated on my wet hair. Feeling my steady glare, perhaps, he shifted, then rotated his long legs into a different position. “Has this been a pleasant stay for you, Shama?” he asked. I shot a glance at Mrs. Penn. Had I done something wrong? Were the two of them about to kick me out of both the house and town? How long would I have to prepare for my departure? How could I say goodbye to the boys? I sank into the nearest chair. Had Mrs. Penn decided to assume my job of taking care of the boys? I hadn’t found time to teach Frances yet. I was going to do so after dinner, but Mrs. Penn and Officer Krugle didn’t know that. I closed my eyes and thought back over the last two days. Yes, I’d been negligent. I should have done the cooking. I should have cleaned the house. I’d been as lazy as Mr. Brown’s fat marmalade cat when she was lying in the path of a sunbeam. “I’ll do better. I promise,” I said, hoping to redeem the situation. “I’m going to work with Frances on his reading after we eat, and I was just thinking about doing some heavy house cleaning. The porch probably needs sweeping, too.” I thought a moment, wondering what else I should add. Should I propose preparing the next meal? I crossed my fingers, although I really didn’t believe in such superstitions. Still, anything was worth trying if it allowed me more time with Frances and Carlo. “Stop that, Frank. Can’t you see that you’re scaring her?” Mrs. Penn said, her voice sharp with irritation. “Why do you do that?” she exclaimed, frowning at him. He looked surprised by her attack, glanced at me again, his eyes once more examining my hair as if having wet hair was a crime. I drew in a shallow breath, but the suspense of not knowing my fate had taken all the air out of the room. I tried to inhale again, as I searched Mrs. Penn’s face for explanation. Better to get it over with, I decided. If they were going to cut me off, it was best I knew right now. I’d already gotten so attached to the boys that leaving them was going to tear me in two. Better to know immediately so I could rip out the graft and move on. The idea reminded me of a honeybee. Once it stung, its barbed stinger stuck. Nature told the poor insect to fly away, but doing so meant that its body was torn apart from the inside. The stinger remained, and the bee died. Luckily that wasn’t me. Frey and I would survive. It would only feel like my heart was being ripped away when I rode off, heading back into aloneness. “No one is taking your place, Shama. We made an excellent decision in hiring you for the job,” Mrs. Penn told me with a reassuring nod and a smile that warmed her face. “Breathe, young lady. Everything’s fine. We want you to stay. The boys need you, and so do Frank and I. You’re a cool draft of water that has made our days fresh and exciting. Please, don’t even think of leaving us.”
7.30 The Witchling Shama
I was no longer the pristine clean young woman I’d been at the start of the day when the boys and I entered the house. I told them we must all head upstairs and get cleaned up, because, like me, they were no longer looking that fresh either. I started their bathwater, then followed them to Carlo’s bedroom. Frances went off to choose some casual clothes, as I’d called them, and Carlo picked out the tee shirt and pants he wanted to wear. Then, I marched them down the hall, checked the bath’s water temperature, and told them I’d stay outside the bathroom while they bathed, if they promised to take care of each other. “No water play. Mrs. Penn will have a meal ready soon.” They nodded and sped into the room. I could hear them discussing how hungry they were, so I figured it would be a quick bath. When they came out about ten minutes later, it was doubtful how much scrubbing they’d done, but although I’d bathed younger boys, I’d never had to do much with the older ones. Their mothers had usually supervised them, while I was off getting a meal ready or cleaning something. I sent the boys downstairs to sit at the table with Mrs. Penn, then I slithered into the still warm water. I was even quicker than Carlo and Frances and was dressed and ready to join them except for my hair. I’d been forced to wash it again since it was full of dust and horsehair, but I didn’t want to braid it. I toweled it as dry as I could, then left it down with a small towel across my shoulders to absorb the wet. I could have worn my new shoes, but, like the boys, I just headed down the stairs shoeless. Mrs. Penn hadn’t seemed upset before. Perhaps she’d allow me such freedom when no one else was present. “Simple plans never lay flat,” Mrs. Orthra had once said. “I’d never quite understood how plans could be flat or what she’d meant by that, but as I walked into the room with the boys, I saw that Mrs. Penn, and Officer Krugel were both sitting in the kitchen, I suddenly understood the concept. Plans were apparently always full of wrinkles, wrinkles that were as restless as a group of maggots exposed to the light.
7.29 The Witchling Shama
And Frey? He stopped munching and paused to watch them. He seemed fascinated by the two little boys, and his ears did a dance, while his head swung so he could keep an eye on them as they darted around the yard. Of course, I cautioned the boys not to get close to the stallion’s rear end. Everyone needs to know that horses don’t see well, and when something comes up behind them, their instincts tell them to kick out because it might be a cougar (or a goat nibbling at his tail.) But Frey didn’t seem skittish about their activity. I think he enjoyed watching them. I put elbow grease into my brushing of the stallion. He really, really needed it. Dirt and old hair went flying every which way. Soon, I’d have a pile on the ground. The boys stopped to watch me for a few minutes, but then they resumed their chasing each other around the yard. Had I once had that much energy? Sometimes, watching the two younglings made me feel old. After the two of them tired of playing tag, Frances started tossing the gray ball the officer had given them, while Carlo tried to catch it, but the little guy missed every time. He didn’t seem to have much of an eye for hand awareness, but I figured that was only due to his age. Were other four years old able to catch a ball? Carlo was a good sport about not catching the ball, though. He just laughed and ran to fetch i each time. I tried to remember if the children I’d worked with back in the village could do such things at his age. I was pretty sure, as I thought back to how we’d played ball games in the town’s grassy strip of the village circle that they could. I thought I remembered even the three-year-olds being able to catch a ball as big as this one. But maybe Carlo had just never had the opportunity to practice such things? Had the boys ever played toss with a ball before coming here?
7.28 The Witchling Shama
I’d already emptied the small basin and placed it in the shed. The basin might come in handy for other things. When Frey had drunk his fill, he started one of his favorite sports — muzzle splashing. That was something he loved to do. If he could splash me with water, that seemed to be a special bonus for him. Of course, before I could back away fast enough, my dress got water splotched. That made the boys roar with laughter. Only Mrs. Penn kept them from rushing forward to get into the fun. I’m sure Frey would have enjoyed that, too. I figured that my horse probably wasn’t overly hungry, having grazed all day on weeds, but I brought out a flake of hay to give him, so he’d stay in one spot, and I could let Carlo and Frances groom his coat. It needed it badly, and the boys had asked if they could brush him. With Frances, I demonstrated how to use the currycomb on a horse’s lower parts, the ones that he could reach, like Frey’s lower shoulder, chest, and belly. Then I showed Carlo how to brush a horse’s legs, always moving downward in the direction that his hair grew. I thought about getting the step stool from the basement. That would be helpful for the boys if they wanted to brush Frey often. But Carlo was finished with his task in a couple of minutes, already bored with it. Frances lasted a bit longer, but both boys apparently decided that grooming a horse wasn’t as much fun as it had sounded. Mrs. Penn had headed inside after the boys stopped their horse grooming. She’d said she was going to start cooking. I think that was part of what I was supposed to be doing, and I felt guilty for basically “playing” with Frey instead of helping her prepare a meal, but I was still watching the boys, so I didn’t argue over it. As long as Mrs. Penn was offering, it was a good deal for everyone.
7.27 The Witchling Shama
When we reached the house, the feed store cart was just pulling up. I could hear Frey making a huge commotion. Everyone in the whole neighborhood could probably hear him blasting warnings at the poor cart horse. Luckily the delivery man’s sway-backed gelding wasn’t reacting at all. I wondered if the old fellow was half deaf, or just far beyond such foolishness. I ran forward to get the gate for the driver. He tipped his hat at me, then started backing into the yard. “Wait,” I called out. “I should go quiet my horse. He’s pretty excited by all this.” The man nodded, then halted the cart, as I ran into the backyard. “Frey,” I cried out as the stallion practically climbed into my lap. I secured his neck, like I’d often done before, then led him out of the way. While I was holding onto Frey, the man was able to deliver a tub for Frey’s water and two big bags of food. The latter went into the shed. I thanked Mr. Beanie and watched as he headed out through the gate, his horse pulling the cart forward slowly, completely ignoring Frey who was still bugling and pawing the ground. I released my stallion and started to lock the gate, but the boys and presumably, Mrs. Penn, wanted to come into the yard as well. “Mrs. Penn said you got carrots. Can we feed Frey some? Please?” Frances pleaded. After the carrot feeding, I filled the new tub with water and told Frey to drink. I know that a horse will drink if he’s thirsty and hold back if he’s not, but Frey wasn’t just any horse. As if he’d been waiting for my permission, he immediately dropped his head into the tub and started swallowing. I always found it intriguing how with a horse, you can actually see the gulps of water being channeled down into their stomach. A horse’s neck displays that, if you look carefully. The others crowded around Frey, watching the lumps traveling up his neck and down into his belly. Even Mrs. Penn found that riveting.
7.26 The Witchling Shama
Someone had given the boys a ball to play with, and Officer Krugle was part of the disorder, tossing it to Frances and telling him to run to the other desk. Frances handed the ball to Carlo, who dropped it, but Frances didn’t scold. He just picked it up and handed it back to Carlo. “Boys, calm down,” Mrs. Penn said again, more briskly. They all turned to look at us, then the two small ones ran over to hug me. “We thought you were never coming back,” Frances said. “Yeah,” Carlo said, wiping a tear. “You were gone a long, long time.” “I’m sorry,” I said, stooping down into a crouch position so I could give them both a big hug. “We were shopping, just like you did. Then we went to the feed store, and I got a couple of brushes for Frey. Do you know anyone who’d be willing to help me brush him?” “Me. Me!” the boys yelled. “My goodness, one would think you were an experienced school teacher. How did you learn so much about dealing with children?” I smiled up at her, but I didn’t say anything. “I bet you did a lot of babysitting, right?” Mrs. Penn continued to probe. I nodded, not wanting to continue that conversation. Mrs. Penn and the officer had already gotten too much information out of me to make me feel safely invisible. “Are you ready to go, boys?” I asked. “You better give the ball back to Officer Krugle, so we can . . .” “He gave it to us,” Carlo said. “We get to keep it.” Frances was nodding energetically. His eyes were lit up, and he was smiling a grasshopper smile, as Granny Bestle used to call it. Why that name, I had no idea. I’d never seen a smiling grasshopper. Officer Krugel tore his eyes away from what the three of us were doing and glanced over at Mrs. Penn. “I counted the money, wrote down the amount, and placed the box in the vault for safe keeping,” he said. “We can share the total amount with the town council when we meet next.” “Perfect. Thanks for watching the boys, Frank.” “Anytime. You need me to escort you all back to the house?” I kept my eyes down on the boys. No sense getting another scorch of a glare. I’m sure the man could find something to visually scold me for if offered half a chance.
7.25 The Witchling Shama
As we were walking back to the station, Mrs. Penn asked me why I bristled up whenever the officer was around. ”Don’t you like him?” she asked. “He’s single and well-thought of. No vices that I know of. And he’s taken with you.” I put on my brakes and stopped. “What?” I practically shouted. “He hates me. He glares at me and growls at me if I move too quickly. He makes me feel like I’m guilty of something, even though I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever done that would make a policeman think I committed a crime, unless he treats me like that just because I’m a stranger.” Mrs. Penn laughed. “You are completely oblivious, aren’t you? That man is eyeing you like you’re a chocolate sundae with nuts. He certainly doesn’t hate you.” She took my arm and led me forward. “I gather that you haven’t had much experience with men, have you?” I shook my head. “Only with the village mayor. He was married, but he kept trying to get me alone so he could . . .” I stopped. There I was blabbing again. I needed to burn the edge of my tongue quiet. “He propositioned you?” Mrs. Penn said quietly in case anyone was close enough to hear our conversation. I nodded, embarrassed. “I tried never to be anywhere near him, especially when no one else was around, but he kept slipping up behind me, and then he’d say things he shouldn’t. That’s why I left. Well, part of the reason. It was time, anyway. I needed to see the world and find someplace new.” Mrs. Penn nodded. “Very wise,” she said. “Perhaps Tinkle Town might have been your destination all along, and you just didn’t know it.” That was a strange thing to say, but we’d reached the police station, and she was already opening the door, so I couldn’t ask her to explain. The moment we walked in, we saw that the boys were rough housing with the belly laughing Officer Krugle — right inside the station’s main room. They’d pushed back the chairs and desks and were playing some kind of touch football. “Boys, calm down,” Mrs. Penn said briskly, and I think she was including the man she called Frank in that forceful command.
7.24 The Witchling Shama
The officer finally went on his way, leaving us to go into shops by ourselves. It was a relief not to feel his eyes watching me as if he thought I’d suddenly turn into a bad person who made scenes in the street and cursed like a drunkard. Or something worse, although I really couldn’t figure out what he thought I might do. Mrs. Penn picked out a week’s worth of clothing for the boys, including socks and the under clothes, even jackets and sweaters. No secondhand stuff, either. The boys were in high plateaus with all their new clothes. They each got two pairs of shoes, in addition. One pair was for dress up, as Mrs. Penn called it, and the other pair was for playing in. After they were suitably attired in a new outfit, we dropped them off at the police station for Officer Krugle to watch, and I got to go shopping with Mrs. Penn for me. I had to try on a lot of dresses. That wasn’t the bad part. It was kind of fun, in fact, but then she chose, with my approval, five stylish and new dresses! I was thrilled, of course, and yet I didn’t like feeling beholden again. I really, really wanted to earn some money, despite what Mrs. Penn had said before. I’d spent my whole life being a beggar, and I didn’t want to do it again. But she accepted no pleas about spending too much on my clothing. She bought me undergarments, too. I’d planned just to wear the contents of my bedroom drawer, but Mrs. Penn said those had belonged to the old lady, Mrs. Smith, and she wanted me to have pretty things that matched my age. Wow. It felt like Mrs. Penn was adopting me. (I wish.) I also got a jacket and a sweater for when the air cooled, as Mrs. Penn put it. We left the lady’s wear shop and went to another store where they had heavy pants and shirts that I could ride in. There, I got a second jacket for riding Fray in. And also, there were shoes and boots to pick out. Another pile of cash got laid down for me there. It would take me the rest of my life to pay off all the stuff that Mrs. Penn said I needed. Everywhere, the clerks were super nice to me, treating me as if I were an honored customer. I knew that was actually more for Mrs. Penn, who was obviously well liked by everyone, but it was still a treat not being treated like the village trash. We even stopped later at the feed shop where Fray’s hay had come from. Once the owner saw me, I was handed a package with a curry comb, a brush, and some fly spray. He told us that the other things: the tub, grain and carrots would be delivered later that day. It was like I’d wished on a rainbow and gotten a whole pot of wants.
7.23 The Witchling Shama
“I found this in the rags box,” I told them, my eyes on Mrs. Penn. I unwrapped the box again and opened it up. The boys, who a minute ago had backed away, were once more crowded around the table, staring down at the box, their eyes round with excitement. “That’s a lot of money!” Frances said. “More than anyone else in the whole world has.” “Yeah, that’s a lot,” Carlo echoed. “A big lot.” Mrs. Penn looked at me, her eyes almost as wide as the boys’. “Thank you for bringing this to us, but you could have taken this money, Shama, and we’d never have known about it. Why didn’t you?” I was stunned by her words. “But it wasn’t mine,” I said. What was she implying? Had she thought I might do something like that? Mrs. Penn smiled at me, touched her hand to my face, then glared at the officer. “I told you, so,” she said. I looked from Mrs. Penn to the Officer Krugel. Was it true that they thought I might be a thief? Was that the explanation they’d come up with for why I’d left my former village? For the first time, I wondered if I should tell them the truth, explain what had happened. Was being a witch less evil in their eyes than being a criminal? Mrs. Penn carefully rewrapped the box and pushed it over to the officer. “Frank, would you take this money, count it, and then put it in the vault at the station, please? We’ll have to discuss with the Council exactly what we should do with it. Maybe house maintenance or orphanage salaries? Or savings for a rainy day? Are we sure that Mrs. Smith had no heirs? Officer Krugel looked completely stunned, his jaw firmed into tightness as if cast in iron. What had caused such rigidity? Was he afraid someone would steal the money before he could put it in the station’s safe? He glanced at me, then looked away, but in that moment, his eyes seemed softer, as if he was no longer bound to glare at me in constant disapproval mode. Had I earned some breathing space from his constant inquisitions? Turning her head to look my way again, Mrs. Penn gave me a fond smile. “Thank you, Shama. Thank you for your honesty. It bodes well for your upbringing.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. Had one or more of my house parents instilled morals in my childhood? It was hard to recall any such teachings, but maybe there had been. Old Mother was the only one I remembered having such talks with. But it was nice to think that the village had given me positive scruples. I really didn’t want to think that everything there had been a vile negative. Perhaps there’d been some good spots along the way, I mean, before they decided to kill me.
7.22 The Witchling Shama
I didn’t argue. Despite having a police officer always around, I considered Mrs. Penn the main boss. I headed for the basement, determined to get a couple of rags, not only for cleaning my boots, but also for making a fly mask, using a strip to lengthen Frey’s tail, and making some kind of rag doll he could entertain himself with. When I reached the wooden box I’d seen before, I decided just to take the whole thing upstairs to my room. I wouldn’t use all of rags, but I could return what I didn’t need later. The boys crowded around as I climbed up the stairs. “What’s in there?” they wanted to know, but when I told them, they quickly lost interest. Boot cleaning didn’t sound nearly as exciting as getting ready for a shopping trip. They didn’t follow me to my room, but, instead, obediently went to clean their teeth and wash up from the stickiness of pancake syrup. I heard them running down the stairs a minute later. I took my boots into the bathroom and began my labors. I didn’t do a very good job. I was too worried about getting my new dress dirty, but I managed to make the boots look cleaner than before. Mrs. Penn had taken the socks I’d been wearing, and I had no replacements. I used a rag in each shoe to make up for it. That seemed to work well, but it wasn’t very comfortable. But as I was taking a quick look at the rags, I discovered that Mrs. Smith had hidden a package at the bottom. Curious, even though I knew everyone was waiting for me, I unwrapped the heavy object and found a box full of coins. The secret stash made me so nervous, I almost dropped it, because inside that box was more money than I’d ever seen. My hands were shaking when I covered the box back up inside its oil cloth wrapping. I didn’t bother to put the twine back on. Mrs. Penn and the others would probably want to see inside. I paused a moment to use the restroom, then made my way down the stairs, carrying the extraordinary find. All eyes turned toward me. The boys ran to my side. “What do you have there?” they wanted to know, tugging at my dress to make me pause to show them. “It’s something for Mrs. Penn,” I told them. That was enough to make the boys less curious. But then, Mrs. Penn and the officer suddenly looked as intrigued as the boys had been a minute before.