Buy the book Growing Up Itchy

Grey’s red face had healed in a few days, and the painful embarrassment faded as classmates gradually found other things to talk about. Girls stopped tittering whenever he walked by, and Grey’s social status gradually changed from “your face is still so red!” to “are you going to eat all of that popcorn?” He was immensely grateful when the spotlight stopped shining on him.

Ash had made some friends with boys his age. Most of the kids were nice, and others; presumably so. Grey could never speak to the girl that sat beside him – she kept her nose in the air and had her own elite group – but Abner sat next to his desk on the other side, and became his friend. They played together in the yard at recess.

Grey and Ash also met some friends who lived on the American side.

One day they were invited to dinner at somebody’s house. Mom scrubbed their faces, and they all climbed into the truck and drove down to town. They crossed a bridge and last winter’s memories returned to Grey – he watched out the window as they drove past the house with the burned chimney. He remembered that terrible night, but the truck continued on and he saw they were going to stop elsewhere. They pulled up to a small house at the other end of town. It huddled low, squat, and appeared very old.

“Hop out, kids!” Dad said.

Familiar dread – like heavy steel boots – dragged Grey’s feet as they went into this place. More strangers to meet. He prepared himself to awkwardly struggle through the ordeal, knowing the discomfort would subside after introductions were complete.

The Hendersons had four scroungy kids. Two boys and two girls, the boys being the scroungier. Blood rushed through Grey’s ears while they were introduced, so he did not quite catch the girl’s names. He decided it would be safest not to talk to either of them, ever. That was apparently fine with them too. The older sister was pretty much marooned with no peers of her own, and quickly disappeared into the sanctuary of her room when mandatory introductions were over.

The little house the Hendersons lived in could only be described as decrepit – even by Grey’s low standards. It was clearly at the end of its life, and some may have been surprised to know that it was occupied. If everyone were to stop and listen at the same time, mice could be heard – they played soccer with cherry pits up in the ceiling. This never bothered anyone in the daytime, because the regular din of children tends to drown out tiny sounds. No one could ever get the kids all to be quiet at the same time.

The Henderson boys showed Grey and Ash out to the back yard to play. The yard contained a carpet of mowed grass, a garden (which they weren’t allowed to enter,) and a gnarly, twisted old crab-apple tree. Grey tasted one of the tiny apples and found them to be extremely sour, but he ate the whole thing anyhow. They were good, in a way.

Michael, the oldest Henderson boy, was one year older than Grey. He showed Grey how you could cut a switch from a bush and use it to throw the tiny apples. First, you found a nice whip-like stick, and stripped its leaves. Then you skewered a crab-apple onto the tip, and whipped it into the sky with a flick of your arm. What fun that was! The apple-throwing whips made a satisfying, air-rending WHOOSH. They could fling crab-apples onto the roofs of other houses – many streets over. Sometimes an angry shout would ring out and the boys would quickly hide, but crab-apples rained down all over the tiny town that day.

As the year passed, the families grew close, as close as a thirty-minute drive could allow. Grey and Michael would often play in the hills surrounding the small town, breaking brown bottles they found along the creek which ran down from nearby foothills. They would walk along the train track and look for railroad spikes. They would catch worms and go fishing. Most of the fishing was done in the creek, because the fish down in the river had too many good places to hide. Grey’s fishing pole was a pine stick about as long as his leg. He carefully smoothed the handle by rubbing it on a rock, and Michael gave him a piece of fishing line and a hook to tie to the end. Grey was proud of this pole, and soon learned where the fish liked to hide along the banks of the creek. He and Michael caught at least one small trout each time they went fishing. They weren’t big enough to eat, but they were very fun to catch – because the boys did not have to wait long. Hungry trout simply could not resist a worm that floated past their hiding place, under the dark bushes along the edges.

On hot days in the summer, they would go swimming in the river. The river was called the Kettle River, and Dad would often joke about swimming in a kettle. Ash and Grey always chuckled at Dad’s joke, but Mom’s eyes rolled.

The old bridge ran across the river at one end of the tiny town. The bridge was rusty green-painted steel, almost the same color as the lichen that hung from the pines – and it had a roadway made of warm wood boards. The deck of the bridge was gray and dusty and crisscrossed with long shadows in the summer sun. Grey, Michael and their families would throw rocks down into the water as they walked across to the sandy beach on the other side. There they would play on the banks of the Kettle as the adults talked, watching the younger children closely.

Grey enjoyed the river. He learned about crawdads, helgermites, and other water bugs that lived at the bottom. Each rock in the river was round – smoothed over from thousands of years of moving water.

Only once was Grey frightened of the river, when a current swept Ash out into a deep pool where he couldn’t touch the bottom. Water churned as Ash gurgled and splashed frantically for help. He was just right over there, so close – so Grey reached out and easily caught his brother’s hand to pull him to safety.

Before Grey could think, or even take a breath, Ash was on top of his head, screaming and using Grey like a ladder to climb up out of the water. Both boys went thrashing under, and it was all over. Grey choked on river water, thinking that his life would end right there in the Kettle.

Dad quickly came to the rescue, heaving them up, both boys in one mighty armful. They were hauled out with a stern warning.

“Don’t go where it’s deep,” Dad ordered. “Not ’till you’re stronger swimmers!”

“OK,” Grey said. “I was just trying to grab Ash – he was sinking!”

“You’re not big enough to do that.”

Grey didn’t feel like swimming after that, and spent the rest of the day turning rocks over in the shallows. The dark, deep parts of the river made his skin crawl.

* * *

Today was quiet, and Grey carefully enjoyed a nice comfortable pastime, wood carving. It was a good deal safer than swimming, he thought. Some people called it whittling, but master carvers never called it that – it was “carving” and every book he read on the subject confirmed this. He sat on the step, prying out tiny slivers of pine from a stick. He was trying to make the stick look like a rope.

The hum of a distant vehicle was so quiet, that he didn’t notice it at first. But the sound eventually rolled up the hills and carved holes into his concentration. He paused, listening. He decided to go have a look, and put his stick aside. His knife went into his pocket.

He could tell just where the car was by sound alone. There was only one place it could be – downhill. Only the one nameless road went up past them, and no one lived higher except old Mr. Klondike, a strange, hairy old fellow who didn’t own a car.

Grey looked around for Ash, but he was inside doing something for Mom. On a whim, he decided to check it out, and trotted off through the mountain grass alone. He didn’t follow the road, that would take much too long. He angled down across the ravines, stopping only once to pick a burr from between his toes. He crossed the little creek that ran down from their spring, and walked carefully through the aspen grove.

He paused and cocked his head – he could tell by the increased engine effort that the car had reached the switchbacks.

Coiled like a ribbon, the dirt road that wound up the mountain was quite steep in places. The switchbacks were about a mile away, and Grey could picture the place in his mind with perfect clarity. He knew every inch of their road well. All cars that were forced to climb those switchbacks had to downshift, and they rattled something fierce. The mountain road worked tirelessly to loosen each bolt and remove each screw.

Grey kept on going, running now and then. He followed an old cow-path, and it occasionally opened up into small mountain meadows. His bare feet flew lightly, without pain or shoes – because Grey never wore shoes except to go to town or school. The soles of his feet were as hard as a river stone. He ran and walked and ran some more until he could see the road. Just in time too, because down below him, a small gray car struggled past. His heart soared.

The Hendersons’ car!

Running hard, he was winded by the time he got home – he had no time to walk if he were to beat the car. He did too, but just barely. The car had to drive slow, and much farther, because of all the twists and turns it had to take along the way.

“Hey Mom, the Hendersons are coming!”

He barely had time to gasp this news between breaths when their car pulled up the dirt drive, engine rattling to a stop.

He and Ash went whooping down the driveway, skipping and swinging their whacking-sticks. The car door chunked open and the Hendersons poured out, the kids running to meet them. Mom stood in the doorway, wishing she had a little more time to clean up, but such was life, and luxuries like cleanliness were not as important here on the mountain as they were elsewhere. Almost nobody cared what your house looked like, and not one child ever noticed a mess. It took an unreasonable amount of labor to clean up and wash things when your only source of water was an eight-year old boy, carrying gallon milk-jugs in a wheelbarrow.

Guests were rare and exciting, at any rate.

Grey saw that Michael had his old BB-gun with him! The day was just getting better with each passing minute. They were soon off into the woods and hills, chasing and shooting all manner of bad guys, bears, and mountain lions. Grey wanted a BB-gun of his own so bad.

They played hard, engrossed in the games, until the whispering air cooled around their ears. The sun crept unnoticed towards the western horizon. Too many things were happening for them to pay attention to what time it was; the boys did not concern themselves with trivial matters like “time of day” or “who should be home at what time.” Miners were coming after them; evil, hairy men with huge gleaming pickaxes. Grey and Michael were after their gold, and this enraged the miners greatly, as anyone would understand. Their evil mine was just up the hill, a dark lair underneath a massive protrusion of bedrock, and Michael was sneaking away from the mine with Grey in tow. They had stolen the miner’s gold, and now a hiding place was needed – some secret base where they could plan and regroup for the final offensive.

Single file, the boys followed the ancient trail. Grey took great pride in his ability to walk through the mountains without making a sound, and he felt good about his ability whenever Michael noisily kicked over a rock that was obviously right in his way. Rocks, tall pines, and bushes were everywhere, familiar things that followed the rules of the mountain. These rules were well-known to Grey. Low spots had more plants and trees, and high spots had only grass mixed with bare bedrock. Walk on large rocks when possible to make less noise; avoid walking on sticks, brush, and small stones. He knew that if you were ever thirsty, you could find water in any ravine where many trees grew, and so they never brought water along with them. Neither of them owned a canteen anyhow.

A low noise tickled his subconscious.

Grey paused, listening to Michael’s feet as they tread through the tall weeds. He heard it again – off to the west. Uphill.

“Michael!” he hissed.

Michael paused, mid-stride and turned. “What?” He said out loud.

Grey made frantic shushing motions. He cupped his ear, then pointed up to the west, up where the bushes were thick under a copse of fir trees.

Michael picked up the clue and immediately crouched down, making himself small against the landscape. Grey hunched down too, and both boys froze. They listened.

Grey was scarcely breathing when he heard it once again, a low moan – was it the wind? It had to be the wind, groaning its way across the opening of some low ravine.

No – it was a growl!

Grey saw Michael’s eyes widen, and he hunched down even farther, awkwardly waddling over to Grey’s position. They both crept behind a nearby wild rosebush, hearts banging so loudly that it made hearing difficult.

“It’s a mountain lion!” Grey whispered. There was no mistaking it.

Michael’s lip trembled a little. But he had the BB-gun and Grey was sure that Michael was as brave as he was. At that moment, he didn’t care much about who was braver. We’ve got to get out of here!

His feet were itching to fly. Michael was about to whisper something else when they heard it again. This time there was no mistaking the guttural growl of a mountain lion. It was worse than anything; worse than getting a spanking, worse than when Mom cried. It was absolutely ponderously awful, and the fact that a mere wild rosebush was between the mountain lion and the boys did not make them feel safe at all.

A muffled, heavy thud drifted down the mountain slope, followed by another. There came a pause, then another thump, like a heavy footstep. A flash-flood of adrenaline ran cold through Grey’s veins.

It’s coming closer! Michael choked back a quiet sob, eyes glazing with fear. He handed the BB-gun to Grey.

“Wave it in the air” he whispered. “They’re afraid of guns!”

Grey did not hesitate. A solitary rosebush shook, its leaves and wild rose petals rustling slightly. A skinny arm rose up from behind it. The .177 caliber air rifle was held firmly; stark against the expansive sky. The message was clear – “leave or meet your doom.”

Dad laughed and stood up.

“It’s dinnertime,” he said, as he turned to walk back across the mountain. “Time to get back home.”

He did not stop laughing as he went.

Grey was furious. It was several days before he wanted to talk to Dad again.