The Fireflies and Pike

On those days when the thunderclouds gathered and the porch door creaked, my bed smelled clean. I could feel the sheets and hold them over my face and imagine my mother pegging them out, flirting with the weather. She would lift and drop on her toes, her waist turning just like my ballet dance teacher. I could hear her singing but the words flew off with the wind and what was left was the melody.

That morning I rubbed the sleepy dust from my eyes and wiggled my toes under the sheets. I stretched my arms above my head, finding a warm patch on the pillow where the sun had touched it. I moved one arm across the pillow from warm to cold and back again. Kicking off the sheets I went to the open window and knelt on the floor, my elbows on the sill. There was Mum, in the backyard, pegging out the laundry. The breeze caught her crayon blue dress and rippled it against her knees. The waves of the lake washed lazy against the beach. Pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, I ran out of the house and into the back yard.

The line, the laundry line, was nailed to a birch tree. The sap dripped sticky where the nail nailed it. I poked it with my finger and dragged the sap along the bark. I looked up to where the branches reached into the sky. The line swooped from the birch and was held fast, silver- hooked into the wooden slats of the house.

“Hi there sleepy-head. I didn’t see you come out.” Mum had turned to me. She was reaching into the plastic clothes basket. “You had breakfast? I put you out some cereal.” She lifted out a pair of trousers and gave them a flap.

“I’ll have some later, Mum. Not hungry right now.” She tippy-toed up, her fingers folding one cuff of the trousers over the line. She pegged it tight to the line. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me.

“Okay, Mags,” she said. I watched as she did the laundry dance.

I was busy poking the tree when Beth, my big sister, shouted over to me.

“Maggie! I’ve made a den. Come take a look.”

Beth, crusted with sand, waved to me from the beach. I ran, barefoot, across the sun burnt grass onto the flattened beach that hugged the lake. I looked towards the boat shed from the corner of my eye. I was still a bit scared because of what had happened yesterday. I’ll tell you about that later.

“Come look. It’s made of bricks and wood and stuff.” Beth was fidgeting her feet, her fingers pointing like winter hedge sticks. When I followed her pointing all I saw was a hole in the sand. As I got closer Beth started shoving at me.

“You’ve got to get in. I mean on your bum and down. I mean …oh, just follow me.”

Then she just, well, just slipped into the hole in the sand and all I could hear was “Come on you dork!” The hole that looked big at first now looked small. A thin layer of sand covered the wood that made the roof. It wasn’t really a roof. From outside it was more like a floor but the hole sloped down under it so I guessed it probably was a sort of a roof. I sat on my bum and slipped my legs into the hole. It took just a little push with my hands to send me sliding down into the den.

I looked around. I had to squint my eyes. The only light came from the hole. The den was squished small. You couldn’t stand up in it because the roof was so low and the hole kept trickling in sand even after I had slid through it. The wet sand walls were mustard yellow. Patches of drying sand flaked off. There was a line of bricks around the bottom edge of the walls, bits of driftwood on top of the bricks and pushed into the sand. It didn’t feel very safe. I felt like a whole load of sand was going to fall in and smother us to death. Beth was sat with her back against one wall, a smile as big as a pumpkin lantern.

“I haven’t finished it yet.” Beth looked at me and then around the den. “Don’t be a wimp. It’ll be fine when it’s done.” I didn’t believe her. “It’ll be our safe place, Mags.” She took out a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. She threw me a look. “Don’t you go telling Mum, now.”

“Oh look!” I said, pointing to a fat yellow and black spider that was webbing a tightrope between bricks. The spider’s back legs were busy knitting and pulling threads from one brick to another.

Beth had struck a match and lit her cigarette, the plumes of smoke hanging breezeless in the tight space. The sulphur of the match tingled my nose. Beth puffed until the cigarette glowed red, reached over and placed the tip on the body of the spider. The spider popped like a corn kernel in a kettle.

“This place sucks!” I hated Beth right then. I scrabbled my way up and out of the den. I heard her as I got up off my knees.

“I don’t like spiders,” she shouted up to me from the den.