Stick

by Thomas Styles

tstyles1@nycap.rr.com

“Wow,” Peter whispered in total amazement upon finding a unique yet scrawny stick in his backyard. It was long, smooth, and slender with branches sprouting out in every direction.  In truth, though, it didn’t appear much different than any other stick one might find lying about, but Peter got stuck on certain things. He tended to view life with a different eye than most.  At six he begged his mother to allow him to “adopt” a highway so he could take care of it. At eight he attempted to free the lobsters from a holding container at the supermarket, and at ten he made a necklace out of an ugly yellow shell he found on the beach. He never removed it from around his neck except when he went to bed. “There were a ton of other shells that were much nicer than that one,” his sister chided. “That one makes you look like a dork.”

            “This one is the one for me,” Peter said. He then invented a song about his shell that went along with My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean. “My seashell looks good on my necklace. My seashell is special to me. My seashell is yellow and friendly, oh please will you never leave me. Seashell, seashell—”

            “Shut up,” his sister yelled. “No wonder you have no friends.”

            Anyway, this time he decided he would dote on the cool new stick. He wondered which tree it had fallen from. There were several trees that loomed over his backyard. He stared up at them in wild amazement, almost falling from dizziness. His sister, Nelly, interrupted his quiet moment with the trees.

            “I know you melted my crayons!” she screamed. She thrust a rather colorful solid ball of melted plastic into his face.  It was hard to see that the hardened ball of wax used to be individual crayons. “You left them next to the heater when you were done, didn’t you?”

            Peter regarded the waxed mass in the palm of her hand. “No, actually I used them in an experiment. I wanted to see if the weight of ten individual crayons would be equal to those same crayons all melted—”

            “Science!” she blasted. “You used my crayons in one of your crazy experiments?”

Didn’t he just say that?

            Nelly crinkled her nose and pointed a finger in Peter’s face. “I’m going to get even with you, freako. Maybe it’ll be when you’re in the shower singing one of your little made up jingles, or when you are asleep. One thing is for sure, you won’t see it coming!”

            Peter often found it hard to believe they were twins. He was quite sure Nelly felt the same way. Their seventeen year old brother, Billy, often remarked that Peter in some ways acted half his age while Nelly acted twice her age. “They balance each other out perfectly,” he concluded.

            Peter shrugged the all too familiar rage display off and followed Nelly back into the house where his mother was cooking dinner. “Look at my new stick!”

            She turned from the stove and smiled. “Lovely, Peter. You can add it to your collection of nature objects.”

            Nelly stopped in her tracks and turned around in place. “Nature collection,” she said. “Boys your age are out skateboarding and playing video games, not collecting sticks for a nature collection.” She put her hands on her hips. “So, tell me. What did you name this one?”

            “Taco,” Peter said without hesitation as he started a new song to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. “Taco, taco, is my friend, he’s my friend to the end. He’s so cute he’s brown and hard, I found him in my yard . . . I’ll have to make up more later.” 

            Nelly’s jaw dropped. “Mom, do something about this kid, will you.”

            “Peter, honey, do you think you need to be making songs up about a pet stick? Your sister may have a point. Anyway, what is so special about that stick? There are a million others in the woods out back.”

            Peter held it close to his chest and gasped “It’s special because I chose it. It’s smoother than all the others and has a weird shape. It could be a magical wand, you know.”

            His mother shook her head lovingly. “Okay, Peter. You win.”

            Peter adjourned to the living room with his stick in hand, throwing his arm out as if the stick were a magical wand. “Zap!” he said. “Bing, bang, belly, make Nelly smelly.” He laughed thinking of Nelly smelling like raw sewage and not being able to get rid of it.

            As he entered the living room his father put down the paper. He was sitting in his favorite chair. “What have you got your sister so upset about this time, Peter?”

            “You know her, Dad, she’s too uptight.”

            He snickered. “Well, it goes with the girl territory.”

            “Look at my new stick,” he said.  Peter held up his skinny stick with a big grin. “I named it Taco. Do you want to hear the song I made up about him?”

“No, thanks, Peter. I’ve heard enough of your crazy songs. If you’re going to be a songwriter you’ll need to start coming up with your own melodies. For all the practicing you do on that electric guitar you would think you’d have your own ideas by now.”

            “I do,” he said with pride. “But the popular melodies are easier to remember. Oh, and they annoy Nelly.”

            His father wagged a slender finger at him. “There is more than meets the eye with you, Peter, that’s for sure.” He regarded the stick. “Hey, you know something, that stick would make perfect kindling for the fireplace.” He leaned forward on the chair. “What do you think?”

            Peter pulled back his arm. “Are you crazy?” he said. “Kill a living thing just so we can bask in a heated home, the spoiled rotten humans we are.”

            His father raised an eyebrow. “I hate to tell you, sharpshooter, but that stick ceased to be alive when it broke off the tree or shrub.”

            “Never!” he said.

            Peter left the room and put the stick on his nightstand. When he turned in that night there it lay, prim and proper beside a piece of quartz stone, an egg-shaped pebble, a cup of soil, a three-leaf clover dried and shriveled, and two hardened kernels of corn that he had named Bert and Kernie.

            The next morning was a Saturday so Peter slept later than usual. As soon as he popped open his eyes he searched the nightstand for his stick. In truth, he shouldn’t have had to search at all because the stick had been the closest object to him on the nightstand. The next thing after had been the quartz stone, which was still in its place only this time it was the first thing in the organized row of objects.

            Peter jumped up spasmodically. “Taco?” He sat on the edge of his bed and ran his hands through his hair. “Think, Peter,” he said. He lowered his head until a single thought crossed his mind. “Nelly.”

            He darted out into the hallway, through the dining room, down another hallway and into Nelly’s room. She was still asleep. “Wake up, thief.”

            Nelly sprang from her bed. “What are you doing in here, you dingbat? Get out!”

            “As soon as you give me Taco,” he said, holding out his hand.

            She crinkled her nose and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t have your nerdy little twig, now beat it before I beat you.”

            “Oh, sure,” he said. “What was it you said yesterday about getting even with me? Who else would have taken Taco?”

            “Maybe the tree it fell from came and took it back.”

            Peter thought that was the closest Nelly had ever come to using her imagination. He was impressed. “That would be a cool story. Hey, listen…do you have a bad smell that you’re not able to get rid of?”

            “Get out!” she yelled and threw a pillow at him.

            As he backed out the door, he caught sight of his mother coming around the corner. “What is all the noise, Peter?”

            “Taco…my stick is gone. I think Nelly…wait a minute.” He eyed his mother suspiciously. “Look at you in your little housecoat acting all innocent.” He pointed a finger at her. “You took it. After I fell asleep you sneaked in and grabbed it like a cat burglar.”

            She half laughed, wondering if he was serious. “You think I waited until you fell asleep then came in and took your stick?”

            “You wanted me to stop making up songs about him. You disapproved of me having a stick as a friend.”

            “Peter, if I wanted to take anything from your bureau it would be those ugly brown kernels.”

            Peter took in a deep breath. “You wouldn’t think of laying a hand on Bert or Kernie.”

            “Oh, Peter,” she said. “Stop being foolish. I mean, your normal foolish is fine, but this is too much. Come help your father get the fire going. It’s chilly this morning.”

“FIRE!” Peter screamed. “Not the fire!”

            Peter tore past his mother and dashed into the living room where his father was stoking the flames of a small fire.  “Taco!” He ran to the hearth and fell to his knees. “You didn’t, Dad. You couldn’t have. You wouldn’t have?”

            “What in the blazes are you talking about?”

            “You put taco in the fireplace. I know you did. I just know it.”

            “Why on earth would I put a taco in the fireplace, and why are you acting like a complete raving lunatic?”

            Peter ran his hands through his hair. “Not a taco. Taco. My stick. You said you were going to put him into the fire for kindling.”

            His father shook his head in protest. “Peter, I used the morning newspaper for kindling. How far do you think one little fragile twig would go toward sparking a fire?”

            Peter took a deep breath. “You didn’t take Taco?”

            His father eyed him strangely. “For someone so bright, you surely can be…weird.”

            Peter stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Well, someone is telling fibs around this house. Fibs, fibs baby bibs. My stick is gone and when I fell asleep last night it was on my bureau.”

            “Well, it didn’t get up and walk away, so double check your room. You probably knocked it off with your quilt. You have that bureau so close to your bed you may as well just put it under the covers with you.”

            Peter glowered at his father with downcast eyes. “How silly would that be to have a nightstand under the covers with you?”

            “For me it would be strange…for you, I’m not so sure.”

            “Thanks, Dad.”

            Peter turned and headed back toward his room, and as he did so, he happened to glance into the kitchen and noticed something quite peculiar. At first, he didn’t believe his eyes, but as he approached the kitchen, indeed it was exactly what he thought it was. Taco was making a run for it. At the far end of the kitchen, close to the back door Taco was creeping along. Peter eyed it curiously, awed by how unordinary this ordinary stick was after all. It was a walking stick. An amazingly clever phasmid.

“Taco?” Peter said. “Hey, guys, come and see this.”

            Mother, Father, and even Nelly barreled into the kitchen at Peter’s request. All of them hovered around the little walking stick as it continued to tiptoe along toward the back door.

            “My God,” his father said. “The little bugger did get up and walk away after all.”

            “That is a unique stick,” said mother. “Your eye for such things is amazing, Peter.”

            Nelly shrugged. “I thought it was a walking stick from the start. I’ve never actually seen a real walking stick. It’s ugly.”

            “Shhh,” Peter said. “He’ll hear you.”

            As they watched it close the gap to the door, Mother sniffed the air around Nelly. “What is that smell?”

“Raw sewage?” Father acknowledged without much thought. “I’ve been smelling it all morning.”

            “Can you believe it’s headed straight for the door,” Peter said. “I wish it would stick around.”

            “Ha ha,” said Nelly with a sarcastic sneer.

            “Quit being silly, Peter and go open the door,” Mother said.

            Peter darted to the door and opened it wide. The chilly autumn air filled the kitchen. Together the three watched and waited for Taco to get through the door and out into the backyard whence he came. Nelly suggested at one point that they should simply pick it up and bring it out to save time. Of course, Peter rejected this idea, as it wasn’t nearly as fascinating.

            They decided he was right, because if there was one thing they all understood about Peter it was that he was right about things like this.

            As the little creature shimmied at the gate of the door an unexpected thing happened. Billy wheeled around the corner carrying a box of donuts. Nobody saw him coming. Least of all Taco. When one of his size elevens landed on top of poor Taco the trio froze, the wind ceased, and time seemed to stand still. Billy stopped and his eyes widened.

            “Taco,” Peter uttered with hardly any voice at all.

            Billy took a step backward and inspected the area where his foot had been, prompted by the forlorn stares, which happened to be focused on the floor. He squinted to see what had interrupted his passage into the house.

            “Is that a stick?” he asked, seeing the broken body on the white linoleum.

            Nobody answered.

            “Well, I have some donuts,” he said. “For some reason I woke up early today and figured I would surprise you all with a little breakfast. There’s a whole dozen here, and there’s not going to be one lucky one in the box given my appetite.”

            Peter was more than depressed in thinking about the string of events that had led to Taco’s demise.  And so a new song came to be, which he put to the melody of Taps. “Taco’s gone. Gone for good. No more trees, no more sun, no more fun. Little stick, I love you. Rest in peace.” This was the only song Peter ever sang that Nelly didn’t make fun of him for.

            That night Peter went over the rest of his bureau objects with a hand lens to make sure he wasn’t missing anything important. A fourth leaf on his clover, a popped kernel, a sprout springing from the soil, or an extra sparkle in the quartz. He saw nothing unusual, and so rested easy.

©2009 Thomas Styles

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