Banshee

Chapter One

The princess skipped down the garden path accompanied by her court. The larger of her two attendants had thick black hair and allegedly came from Newfoundland but this was never proved. The other was a brown-haired German. Both were loyal and affectionate (though frequently inclined to ignore commands that seemed impractical or unnecessary) and both listened attentively. Newf’s fat silky belly made a soft pillow for the royal head when its owner wished to lie under the oak tree and watch the little worms twisting and turning at the tips of the leaves like high-wire performers in a circus.

Shep too was very useful. He pulled the royal roller skates around the driveway and licked dirt and blood off scraped knees and elbows so the princess wouldn’t have to go inside the house and be fussed over. Shep did just as good a job as the housekeeper, Mrs. Chisholm, with her washcloths and soap and cotton balls dipped in alcohol. Moreover, Shep’s tongue was very gentle and didn’t sting.

Mrs. Chisholm was always suspicious, of course. “Looks to me like somebody had another fall, that’s how it looks to me like.”

“I don’t hurt,” said Annamay, admitting nothing while not actually lying.

“Bet a dollar to a doughnut that’s what happened. And you let one of those creatures spit all over you again. One of these days you’ll perish from some dread disease carried by dog spit.”

Mrs. Chisholm frequently lost points by exaggeration, hitting the ball so hard it landed in another court and her opponent won by default.

“If I were your mother I’d send samples of dog spit to a laboratory to be tested for pernicious germs. Maybe I’ll do it on my own.”

“No, you won’t, Chizzy.”

“And pray, why not?”

“It might cost a lot of money. They might charge you for every single germ. And what if they found a million of them at a penny each?”

Chizzy did some quick arithmetic and retreated with dignity. “I would send the bill to your father.”

The princess continued on down through the cutting garden, past the lath house and the koi pond to the palace which had been especially built for her. The palace had seemed enormous at first but every year it shrank until now there was hardly room, when her attendants were allowed inside, for Annamay to entertain friends and look after her favorite children.

Both children required skilled care. Marietta had lost half her hair, not to some dread disease but to Newf who finally upchucked most of it in the vegetable garden along with one of Luella Lu’s glass eyes. Luella Lu’s eye, miraculously intact, was retrieved, washed and glued back in place but it remained fixed in its socket while the other eye moved, and Luella Lu ever after looked quite mysterious, as though she could see things others couldn’t. A repentant Newf often carried her around in his mouth by way of apology and there were no hard feelings within the royal circle.

Not many princesses managed without a maid but Annamay did. She cleaned and cooked, she entertained her friends and Chizzy and her mother and father and their friend Benjamin who had designed the palace. She served peanut-butter sandwiches and orange juice. On these occasions Newf and Shep had to be evicted to make room for the guests. They would stand outside peering into the windows, drooling and reproachful. Although the dogs didn’t care for peanut-butter sandwiches they were strong on principle and it seemed patently unfair for them to be excluded from the palace merely to make interlopers more comfortable.

Sometimes the princess, disguised as a commoner in shorts and T-shirt, went off adventuring. These excursions usually started down by the creek below the avocado grove. Here, while the dogs ate avocados, seeds and all, Annamay caught tadpoles and water walkers. She picked canyon sunflowers the color of her hair and periwinkles the color of her eyes, and practiced jumping from shore to shore.

In one of her storybooks a little lost boy had followed a creek downstream because he knew that eventually it would lead to civilization. And sure enough it did, not only for the little lost boy but for Annamay, who ended up at the Cunninghams’ swimming pool.

Mr. Cunningham was lying on a canvas mat stark naked. Annamay had never seen a naked man before and it was quite interesting what with one thing and another. Then Mr. Cunningham grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist.

“What do you mean creeping up on me like that, you crazy kid?”

“I wasn’t creeping,” Annamay said. “I was following the water downstream seeking civilization.”

“Well, you sure as hell came to the wrong place.”

Mr. Cunningham stretched, yawned, scratched his pink glossy scalp. Annamay wondered if he had been born with his hair in the wrong places which would make him, in Chizzy’s vocabulary, one of God’s little mistakes.

“There are,” he added, “savages lurking behind every tree.”

“I don’t see any.”

“There wouldn’t be much point in their lurking if you saw them.”

Mr. Cunningham’s mother called out from the house, “Who is it, dear?” She sounded quite drunk, not surprisingly so since Chizzy said Mrs. Cunningham had a great thirst. “Who is it, Peter dear?”

“The Hyatt girl.”

“What does she want?”

“Civilization.”

“How peculiar.”

“I don’t want civilization,” Annamay said. “I was only testing the story about the lost boy going downstream and coming across civilization.”

“Next time,” Mr. Cunningham said, “try going upstream.”

Sometimes the princess had unexpected callers, like the bearded man with the tambourine strapped to his back. He was stealing avocados but came up to the palace to see if a midget lived there.

The dogs barked at him furiously but just as furiously wagged their tails, so the man wasn’t scared until Chizzy came charging down the path waving a broom and shouting. Every living creature in the neighborhood was afraid of Chizzy with or without a broom because she had, according to Annamay’s father, Howard, a voice that would shatter glass. The prospect of such a delightful occurrence kept Annamay at Chizzy’s heels for several days after she received this information. But no glass was shattered except by Annamay herself when she helped with the dishes.

The bearded man came again later in the week, but not right into the grove or up to the palace where he could be spotted from the house. He stayed down by the creek and took off his shoes and let the water run over his feet. Since this was precisely what Annamay and Newf and Shep liked to do, it was almost inevitable that they should all meet.

Paws and feet dangled companionably in the water.

“What’s that thing on your back?”

“A tambourine.”

“Why?”

“It is a tambourine because that’s what it was destined to be.”

“I meant why do you carry it around? Does it make music? Do you have to take lessons and practice?”

“No lessons or practice. No music either. It makes a noise when you shake it. Shake it a little bit for soft, a lot for loud.”

He was almost as hairy as Newf with his long beard and moustache and thick bushy eyebrows.

“Why do you want to make a noise?”

“To attract attention.”

Annamay couldn’t understand this since she herself had all the attention she could tolerate, what with parents and relatives and Chizzy and the teachers at school. “Do you like attracting attention?”

“It’s a necessary part of my system. It brings me an audience. Then I predict something weird and they all think I’m loony and they give me money to go away because I make them uncomfortable.”

“It’s like pesting, sounds to me.”

“Similar.”

“What’s your name?”

“You can call me grandpa.”

“No, I can’t. I already have two grandpas, one here and one on Long Island. So I’d better call you something else, like your name for instance.”

“Okay, how about Mr. Cassandra?”

“Is that your really truly name?”

“Close enough. It’s my spiritual name. Everyone has many names. They come and go like the tides. On Mondays, I am called Harold.”

Annamay was beginning to feel uneasy, so she put her sneakers back on. At this signal both dogs stood up and Newf shook his head back and forth, sending spit flying several yards in each direction.

“See?” the man said. “My system even works on kids and dogs.”

The avocado grove had two seasons. In winter the Fuertes ripened, with their shiny smooth skin still green. In summer it was the Hass variety with rough black skin and fruit that spread like butter. Annamay couldn’t understand why people laughed when her father referred to the place as half Hass ranch, and when she repeated it at school the teacher bit her lower lip as though she were trying to prevent it from smiling.

Summer brought the most visitors, not only because the fruit was more luscious but because there were more hitchhikers along the freeway linking San Diego to San Francisco. The hitchhikers were often hungry and they came to pick up windfalls from the ground or even pluck the fruit right off the trees. Annamay never served avocados when she entertained because she thought they tasted like the face cream her mother kept on her dressing table.

One of the hitchhikers, a girl, must have shared Annamay’s opinion for she seemed much more interested in the palace than in the fruit. While the man with her filled his backpack and pockets, the girl walked around the palace smiling, touching. Annamay had learned about babies at school and from her cousin Dru and so she knew there was a baby growing inside the girl, who kept saying, “Oh wow, look at this, Phil. Real electric lights and an honest-to-God barbecue pit. I wonder if some child actually lives here.”

“No,” Phil said. “It’s probably a playhouse for some spoiled brat.”

Annamay stepped out the door and announced in a regal manner that she was not a spoiled brat but a princess.

“No kidding,” the man said. He was pale and very thin, probably from some dread disease Chizzy would know about. But he had a nice smile and a heart tattooed on his forearm. “So where’s your crown?”

“Princesses don’t wear crowns except on festive occasions.”

“This is festive enough for me. I’m eating.”

The girl laughed and said, “Don’t tease her, Phil. She’s a doll, simply a doll.”

In the light of Marietta’s missing hair and Luella Lu’s glued eye and tooth-marked limbs this was a dubious compliment. But the girl’s tone had been admiring and Annamay blushed modestly. “No, I’m not.”

“Hey, do you mind if we take some of your avocados?” “You already did.”

“Oh, so you’re a smart one too. All right, do you mind if we take some more?”

“I don’t mind—”

“Gee, thanks a heap.”

“—but Chizzy does. Because of the root rot.”

This warning might have had little effect on the young couple if Chizzy hadn’t suddenly appeared on cue. She came rushing around the side of the lath house carrying a hoe and screaming blue murder. Chizzy’s voice sent birds fluttering out of trees and cats slinking away from gopher holes and the young couple tearing off down the hill. The girl fell at the bottom and cried out and the young man had to pick her up and carry her across the creek. He wasn’t very big to begin with and he staggered under the load of a backpack filled with avocados and woman filled with child.

“Chizzy, are we rich?”

“Richer than some, not as rich as others.”

“Why don’t we let people come and eat the avocados?” “Because.”

“I hate becauses.”

“Becauses are necessary.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Chizzy said, looking pleased with herself.

Then she explained for about the fiftieth time about root rot and how strangers coming into the grove might carry the fungus on their shoes and all the trees would sicken and die.

“Could the girl give root rot to her baby?”

“Yes, and to you too, if you don’t stop talking to strangers. Where are the dogs? They’re supposed to be protecting you.”

“I commanded them to chase the garbage man.”

Chizzy wiped her face with her apron and made an exasperated little noise that sounded like a towhee in the underbrush. “Oh, I’ll be glad when summer’s over and you’re back in school. All this worrying and scurrying after you is too much for a woman my age.”

“How old are you?”

“Older than some and not as old as others.”

The dogs returned, doubly smug because they had obeyed a royal command and at the same time rid the neighborhood of a scoundrel who stole garbage.

“What did I tell you about talking to strangers?”

“The same as always.”

“Why, I even made up that poem. Took me the better part of two nights and I bet you don’t even remember it.”

“I do so.”

“All right then, recite it, word for word.”

It was a very bad poem with unpredictable rhythms and rhymes but Chizzy was extremely proud of it and loved to hear it recited.

Annamay recited the poem, making only two mistakes, while Chizzy listened, her eyes moist with pride. She dabbed them with a corner of her apron.

“It’s not much of a poem,” she said deprecatingly. “But it packs a wallop. Nobody who hears it will ever forget it.” Then she recited the final lines in a deep doomsday voice:

“What if I have a broken leg and can’t run away because of the heavy cast?”

“You don’t have a broken leg.”

“Or maybe a sprained ankle.”

She didn’t have a broken leg or sprained ankle, she didn’t run away, there was no stranger.

Annamay’s favorite visitor was Benjamin York. Perhaps because he had designed the palace to begin with, he played the royal game to the hilt. Calling himself the Duke of York, he always bowed deeply when he entered the palace to give the princess a token of affection from her loyal subjects. He often stayed for afternoon tea or a rousing game of old maid or snakes and ladders. His losses at these games were so frequent that eventually Annamay became suspicious.

“You’re cheating, Benjie.”

“Cheating, Your Highness? Now why would anyone cheat to lose? People cheat to win.”

“Not you.”

“Forsooth, I am deeply humiliated by the accusation and I feel I deserve an apology.”

“Oh bull.”

“You mustn’t say that.”

“My cousin Dru says it all the time.”

“Your cousin Dru hears it all the time. You don’t.”

“Well, I can’t see what’s the matter with it. It’s just like saying oh dog or oh cat.”

“Then say oh dog or oh cat.”

“I prefer bull. It sounds lighter to me.”

“It sounds wronger to everyone else,” Ben said. “So cut it out, kiddo, or Chizzy will smack the royal butt.”

“She says it too.”

A compromise was finally reached. In return for a tin of Almond Roca, Annamay crossed her heart and hoped to die that she would in the future say oh cow instead of oh bull.

She never hoped to die, Benjie was no stranger, the Almond Roca contained no razor blades.

The events of the week had, as a matter of course, to be reported to her cousin Dru. She wasn’t encouraged to spend the night at Dru’s house because Dru’s mother, according to Chizzy, carried on something fierce and was already on her third husband. But visits during the day were allowed.

The two girls swung on the glider in Dru’s patio, eating chocolate-cream wafers. Probably as a result of the fierce carrying-on, Dru was very sophisticated. She disparaged Annamay’s encounter with Mr. Cunningham in the buff as routine and boring.

“You are such a chee-ild,” Dru said. “Of course you’ll grow out of it in time. Maybe.”

Dru was more impressed by the account of the man with the tambourine and his idea that people should have a different name for every day in the week. The girls made a list of names with the first letters corresponding to those of the days, Misty for Monday, Tess for Tuesday, Wendy, Tanya, Francesca, Sandra and Sunny.

Dru was also interested in the man with the heart tattooed on his arm and the girl with the baby inside her. But she was skeptical of Annamay’s reporting.

“How do you know there was a baby inside her? Did she tell you?”

“No. But she was fat.”

“Lots of people are fat. Not all fat people go around having babies. I bet you don’t even know where babies come from.”

“I do so. The man plants a seed in the woman.”

“How?”

“Well, I guess he might hand it to her like a pill and give her a glass of water so she can swallow it.”

“Oh my God, you’re ignorant. A woman has other openings besides her mouth.”

“You mean she gets — well, like a sort of enema?”

“No, stupid. Not that opening, the other. Now do you understand?”

“Oh sure,” Annamay said, not wanting to put any further strain on Dru’s patience. Dru was inclined to pinch when she was annoyed and Annamay thought it best to change the subject entirely.

“Chizzy says we should never talk to strangers.”

“That’s a lot of bull,” Dru said brusquely. “I’m ten now. In another year or two I’ll be wanting to go steady and how am I going to meet somebody to go steady with if I don’t talk to strangers? You’re at that awkward age when I bet you’re not even thinking of going steady.”

“I don’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to marry Benjie when I grow up.”

“Holy moly, you don’t think he’ll wait for you, do you? Vicki says he’s got women stashed all over town.”

“What does that mean, stashed?”

It was uncharacteristic of Dru to admit any doubt. “It means standing in line ready to marry him. One of these days he’ll weaken and pow, it will be all over, he’ll get married like everybody else, Vicki says. Vicki’s an expert on marriage. So if you don’t want to end up an old maid you’d better start talking to strangers.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

The only adequate response to this was Chizzy’s poem. Annamay recited it with gestures.

“Do not talk to strangers.” Annamay shook an admonishing finger. “No matter whether they smile.” She smiled evilly.

Dru was annoyed. “Oh stop that stupid playacting and just recite the poem.”

Annamay began again.

“I never heard of brownies with razor blades in them,” Dru said, sounding so irritated that Annamay moved out of range of a possible pinch. “My fathers all use an electric razor. Can you imagine a brownie big enough to contain an electric razor? Chizzy is full of bull.”

“Run away fast,” Annamay repeated, imitating Chizzy’s doomsday voice. “Or this day might be your last.”

There were no brownies containing razor blades, there was no money laden with germs, no stranger in a car.