Dumbo Ears
"Cereal or pancakes?" came the disembodied voice down the narrow hall that never seemed to find the light of day.
I struggled with my anklet socks; why would the heel never stay where it was suppose to? It was clear down to my instep, exposing the back of my dry feet to the harsh leather of new sandals.
"Pancakes!" I called. It was unseasonably warm. October was usually the month of crisp mornings and the faintly musty smell of the heater’s first light, but even as Halloween approached, my classmates and I still found ourselves in gingham shorts and eyelet blouses, our new-school-year Keds and Sears-Roebuck sweaters packed away in our closets.
I dropped my Brownie project book bag on the table, but slid it quickly beneath my chair when the swift-eyed glance of my meticulous mother came my way.
She looked me over as she poured the warm syrup, then took a brush from her robe pocket and started on my hair. Barrettes appeared from no where, and I bit my lip and squinched my eyes tight under the fierce rhythmic tug of the brush. Would my lips stretch to a permanent grin under this pressure?
My little sister toddled into the kitchen with the tapping hush of footed pajamas and pointed her chubby finger towards my face.
"Dumbo!" she grinned, burying her head in my lap as she tried to wipe the crusty sleep from her eyes.
"Mom!"
" Don’t be silly. Your ears look fine. She’s just a baby."
I stared with growing horror at my reflection in the stainless steel flour cannister on the counter. Hair parted like an arrow’s trail and gripped in the iron clasp of Minnie Mouse barrettes and Wonder Bread rubber bands, I was a hopeless freak of nature.
Why did I have to get Grandpa’s ears, outstretched like a bird in flight? My fine, straight hair looked painted to my temples, accentuated by the fluffy pin-curled bangs my mother insisted upon.
It was useless to protest. I finished my breakfast in silence, kissed my sister’s head that was now bobbing in her pink Malomac cereal bowl to capture "the Cheerio people", and raced out the door with my book bag and lunch, only to be stopped with a hands-on-hip call to retreat from my forgotten mother. The daughter of a police chief, my mother knew how to get someone’s attention and make them listen.
But her voice was gentle.
"You look sweet, hon," she whispered, slipping a cookie into my hand. (It was a lesson I was to learn well in life: sugar can cure any hurt. More pain? More cookies!)
I started walking down Selby Lane, a dividing street between wealth and the struggling in our town that took me to the back side of my elementary school . It would take 30 minutes to walk there; plenty of time to reflect upon the injustices of my world.
I was the third poorest kid in class (don’t get me started on how I found that out), I had no pets, and my mom refused to buy me a Barbie, buying instead a used Midge, her ugly friend that currently dangled from my battered Deputy Dog lunchbox. My bike was a spray-painted jalopy from the police auction and we had been forced to rent the master bedroom of our home to any oddball who could pay, despite the fact that my dad worked two jobs. The ever-changing cast of characters within that room had at first been entertaining, particularly those who liked to buy small toys for little girls, but the constant need to "Hush!" during the day for these people, most of whom were nocturnal workers my dad met while bartending, was getting tiresome. It was impossible to entice friends to come over and read books on a Saturday.
I dragged my feet through the summer-dry dirt, knowing I’d be in for it when I got home later with these ugly scuffs and dirty toes. My teacher, Mr. Short, had shown us pictures last week of the ancient Roman army in sandals. It was beyond me how they could fight the Egyptians in such footwear and still have such white feet. And didn’t they get rocks under their toes like the one I was yanking free now?
Mr. Short was the best teacher in the school because he was the only man. He was very young and tall but had very little hair, and he knew everything about everything that was interesting. He was also very nice. When we had made a bulletin board of African animals and my silhouette of a giraffe had come out more like a duck, he hadn’t even laughed like everyone else. He had pinned it up with the others and explained to the class that there were several unusual sub-species that had unique traits among giraffes, and I was very astute to have researched my subject so well.
I looked up at my half-way point landmark: Heidi’s house. Heidi. Now there was a girl I could be. She had a Shirley Temple name and a chalet house just like in the movie. Her mom was from another country, tall and blonde with high heels and a suit worn every day, and Heidi wore dresses with smocking and embroidery. My mom wore a pink robe most of the day until Daddy got home, and my dresses were three-for-ten-dollars at Montgomery Ward. That didn’t buy smocking and embroidery.
Peeking through a knot-hole in the fence, I sighed and scratched at the Bandaids on my ankles. I tried to imagine what life would be like in Heidi’s brown house under the trees, where impatiens and ferns sprouted among little fountains and a pebble-stone walkway led to a little playhouse shaped like a boat. Everything was so beautiful.
Not a place for Dumbo ears and scabby ankles.
Suddenly several boys ran past me, swinging their book bags with abandon. A mental alarm went off in my head as I realized that I would once again be late to school. It would mean another pink note, another talk with Mr. Ferguson, our principal, about the merit of punctuality.
But it was hard to leave the knot-holed kingdom of Heidi’s home. I walked backwards, slowly, wanting to keep it in my sight as long as possible. Mary, an older girl who sometimes babysat my sister and I, breezed by me on her bike.
"Eight-thirty, Sheree!" she called back to me, pumping hard on her Schwin.
I reluctantly picked up my pace. Within minutes I was nearing the outskirts of the school yard with its grey cyclone fence hedging in the tanbark and oak trees of our outdoor amphitheater. My friend, Linda, and I had sung the chimney sweep song from Mary Poppins there last spring in Mrs. Anderson’s first grade class. No one in class thought we were very good, but it had been fun to swing our brooms and top hats as we sang off-key to the record her dad had received as a premium at the Richfield gas station.
"Hello!"
In my innocence I looked up from the dusty path, sure of what Sister Berta had said last Saturday: God was speaking to me! CCD class was finally paying off!
But it was a man in a convertible, driving slowly toward the school. In fact, he was practically stopped in the road.
You’re gonna get in trouble, I thought.
"Hello, little girl," he said with a thin smile. "Wanna ride to school?"
But I’m already here, I remember thinking.
I’ll never forget that moment. I can see him today as if he were still leaning out of his red and white convertible Chevrolet. All his movements are like frames in a film that endlessly repeat in slow motion.
His face is long, and he has straight blonde hair like mine, but it’s greased and smooth. His eyes are too small for his face, and are very light blue like the cups they sell those Icy drinks in at the Seven-Eleven. His ears are pressed to his head; he’s wearing a striped Izod-like shirt with navy blue in it, but it doesn’t have the little gator. His fingers are long as he waves me in. I almost laugh at the way his head keeps bobbing from me to the road to his rear-view mirror…like a small bird.
"You must be hot; get in the car, pretty girl, and I’ll buy you an ice cream," he says, dropping his voice so I can barely hear him from where I’m standing. I want to step off into the street to catch what he says, but my sister’s little face is suddenly before me, her small voice echoing in my mind.
"Dumbo!"
My mother’s image joins her, hands on hips.
My foot hangs in the air for one eternal moment. There are no other cars on the street. No other children within sight.
Pretty girl.
My foot retreats from the asphalt. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t know why.
Pretty girl.
And then I run, dropping my lunch and show-and-tell Midge in the dirt. From the corner of my eye I see the man quickly pull his car to the side of the road, but he doesn’t get out. All I can think of is getting inside the school’s gate. I don’t even know why I’m running so fast. My breath comes sharp and painful, the way it feels when I’ve swallowed chlorine water from a pool.
I make the gate and still I run. Past the bicycle racks. Down the green concrete walkways lined with classroom doors. We’re suppose to knock before we open the door if we're late, but my mind isn’t thinking.
It’s running.
I still don’t remember entering the classroom. I don’t remember Mr. Short talking to me or the other kids whispering or even our walk to the nurse’s office and then to the principal.
I do remember the blue uniformed officer, taking notes about the man they would never find, quietly telling me about another girl I had never met who had gotten lost on the way to school. A girl no one would ever find again.
I remember my mother coming in the door, my wide-eyed sister in tow…and Daddy.
Daddy never came to the school.
"How’s my pretty girl?" he said, picking me up and setting me on his lap with a too-tight grip. My mother started to cry.
"I didn’t cross the street," I said, fearing trouble.
But I had run clear of trouble that day, despite my too-new sandals.
Thank God for Dumbo ears and all that goes with them.
Sheree Shown
OWP Narrative #1
6/22/03