The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel Read online

  “Well, don’t you?” I asked, and Sukey said, “Yeah, don’t you?”

  “Well,” she said, “yes, I do like him. But I can’t let him know it.”

  I couldn’t even picture liking a boy, let alone liking him special, watermelon candy or not.

  We were all a gang, a La Luna, Louisiana, gang. Oh, how we played! How we practiced dives! We did cannonballs, over and over and over again, and spitfires, with one leg held up so that the water kind of swished out to the side. Cannonballs were considered a boy’s sport and Sonny Boy was the best. But I decided that I could join the competition myself, and so I did. None of the boys really knew how to swim. They’d flail those arms up and over, splashing and making a mess. They could kick hard, I’ll give them that much. But the whole time I could keep up with them because I knew how to breathe, and to match it to my strokes as I cut my hands into the water. Papa’s the one who taught us how to swim. And because I’m the one who stuck with it, he taught me how to turn my head from side to side when I breathed and to kick hard, using my leg muscles and keeping my ankles low as I kicked, but hardly splashing at all. Papa had to learn to swim real good when he was in the war. He was lucky. M’Dear says the Moon Lady was with him to get him home safe.

  I was known for being able to hold my breath the longest underwater. Just as Sonny Boy was the king of cannonballs, I was the queen of holding my breath. And I was the queen of cannonballs, even if no one would admit it. Papa always said, “If you’re good at something, don’t be afraid to say it.” “I’m the cannonball queen!” I’d call out. But they would only grant me queen of breath-holding, and I guess that was good enough.

  I’d dive in and swim till I was out a ways. Then I’d take a deep breath. Just as I began to exhale, I would put my head down under so that no one could see me. I’d let my breath out in little bursts, very, very slowly. And at the same time I’d be kicking as hard as I could, so that by the time anyone would look for me, I’d already be a far ways off, underneath. No one could see me. And when I’d finally raise my head, everyone would clap and cheer. “Oh, God, Calla! You had us really stumped that time!” everybody would say.

  Besides doing cannonballs off the pier, there were also three rope swings on trees that you could climb to swing out over the river. First, there was the little kid’s rope swing. Then there was the intermediate rope swing, which I was just starting to use. And then there was the high, high rope swing farther down the riverbank that only the adult men used. Papa was always warning that he better not catch any of us down there, because there were snakes down around the overgrown bushes and logs. That was all I needed to hear to stay clear! We called that area “The Scary Swamp.”

  So all of us were just sitting around on our beach, a wonderful little beach that the La Luna River gave us. Renée, Sukey, and I laid out our towels and rubbed Coppertone on each other. Eddie had brought his father’s cooler, the one he used on his fishing trips, and that’s where we stored our bottles of Coke and 7-Up and ham and cheese sandwiches. And there we spent our afternoons, just playing and swimming—especially me, because I wanted to become a very strong swimmer. I swam all over every single area that we were allowed to go.

  While I was straightening my towel, I looked up and saw that boy who got off the bus. “Hey!” I said. “Hey, I’m the one that tried to be nice to you this morning.”

  He just ignored me, standing there in front of us. I said, “I’d introduce you, but I don’t really know your name.”

  “Well, you don’t really have to know my name,” he said. “I’m here to swim.” Boy, talk about snooty!

  “Do your grandparents know you’re down here at the river?” I asked him.

  The new boy answered, “Nobody needs to know what I do. I do what I want.”

  I decided to be polite anyway. That is just the way I was raised. “Let me introduce you to my brothers and our friends.”

  “I don’t want to meet anybody related to you or who you know.”

  Well, I was ready to hit him with a fishing pole when Sonny Boy walked up and put out his hand and didn’t drop it. Just looked him in the eye until the new boy couldn’t help but shake hands. He said, “My name is Tucker LeBlanc.” And I thought, Way to go, Sonny Boy. And then Sonny Boy began to explain where you could swim and where you couldn’t. He said, “All those are good places. But don’t go over there. Don’t do it. Every single one of our fathers—”

  “And our mothers too,” I chimed in.

  “Anyway, don’t swim over there in the La Luna Swamp,” he said, and pointed to a part of the river near us where some logs had fallen and stopped up the flow a little bit. “That’s what we call it. They got snakes down there and ever since we were little, everyone has warned us not to swim down there. And not a one of us has. Right?”

  And everybody went, “Right.” And Eddie nodded his head. You could tell that Eddie wished he was the one talking to this new boy. And already Sukey was trying out her flirting skills.

  So this new boy got in the water and swam. I could tell he had a strong flutter kick, but he didn’t know how to dig his arms into the water or turn his head to breathe either. He was not a strong swimmer. He wasn’t even what I’d call a real swimmer. Just like my brothers, he lifted his neck straight up out of the water like a turtle and gasped for air. He stopped and was just floating for a minute. Then he said, “Is that y’all’s rope swing way down there?”

  And Sonny Boy said, “Yeah.”

  “Y’all jump off that?” that boy Tucker said.

  “That’s for adults only—the old Danger Swing. And Papa says it needs a new rope this year. It can land you right in a snake pit if you’re not careful; you can fall where the snakes are,” Sonny Boy said.

  “You’re just scared to do it,” Tucker LeBlanc said.

  “I am not scared to do it,” Sonny told him.

  “Well, I’m gonna go do it. And I dare you to—unless you’re chicken.”

  Suddenly everything was silent as we all turned and stared at Sonny Boy.

  After a long minute, Sonny Boy said, “All right, new boy, I’ll do it. I’ll go first, to show you how, so you don’t get yourself killed.”

  Just as he was getting up, Sonny Boy leaned over and whispered to Will and me, “Keep your eyes peeled out for M’Dear, will you?”

  “Sonny Boy,” I said, “are you crazy? You’re the one who’s gonna get killed if M’Dear sees you out there.”

  “Just give me the whistle if you see any sign of her, okay?”

  “No, I’m not giving y’all any whistle,” I said. “I’m coming with y’all.”

  So we all started our adventure.

  Eddie started talking. “Many times grown men have been bit by snakes there. Oh yeah. Many times it has happened.”

  You could see that Eddie was trying to scare this new boy Tucker.

  Next thing I knew, Sonny Boy was leading us through the bushes over to the rope swing, and Eddie kept on talking.

  “Once, during World War II, a soldier from Fort Polk was messing around down there and died from multiple snake bites. They couldn’t even recover the body. All they ever found was one boot and his helmet. My father was part of the search party. I heard the story myself.”

  “You’re making that up,” Tucker said, trying to laugh it off. But you could tell Eddie’s story was getting to him a little.

  Then that Tucker said, “Somebody told me something like that, I wouldn’t believe him for jack-shit.”

  Well, all of us were kind of taken aback when he said “jack-shit.” Not that we are goody-goody, but we just don’t go around saying “jack-shit.” We know the expression, but it has to be saved for special occasions.

  Sonny Boy tried to strut down the trail, but all the vines and thorns that had grown in over the trail kept slowing him down. I looked back once or twice to see if anybody was watching us, while the rest of the gang trailed behind us. The last part of the trail you had to hang back a little, because it’s a little
steep to climb up on an old root, and then you have to reach up and grab the rope.

  There it was. That big old thick brown rope with four knots tied in it so you could climb up. The riverbank was about six feet high there. Tucker leaned over and looked at the tangle of roots and grasses at the bottom. Still acting tough, he asked Sonny Boy, “I don’t guess y’all have any alligators in this part of the woods, do you?”

  “About five of them,” Sonny Boy said. “Right down there. One is blind and especially dangerous.”

  “Well, we’ve got them up where I came from,” Tucker turned to all of us and said. “Where I used to swim we had seventeen of them. And they don’t bother me at all.”

  I looked at him and thought to myself, He is lying through his teeth. But I didn’t say anything. Seventeen alligators. Brother.

  Sonny Boy grabbed the rope first and showed Tucker how to get on. Sonny Boy was kind of showing off, hanging on to the rope with only one arm.

  He said, “You climb up to the second knot, then you push off from the tree with your feet to get going. If you don’t push out far enough, you could land in those roots and you’d be a mess, man. You’d be cut up and have a big old snake and a blind alligator over you in two seconds.” Sonny Boy winked over at me when he said the blind alligator part.

  Then my brother pushed off the tree like he’d done it a thousand times and swung out over the water. At the last moment he let go, and everybody clapped and hollered. He made a big splash and then he swam out a few feet and yelled back, “You have to swim out here far enough to be away from the bushes and then swim back over to the sandy beach.” He started to swim back himself, but then he stopped and dog-paddled out to the middle of the river to watch and see if Tucker would really do it.

  So Tucker climbed up there, and he grabbed the rope. He swung back to the tree, kicked his feet, and pushed off. Then he let go and did a big cannonball that made a huge splash, a much bigger splash than Sonny Boy, even though he was smaller. Then he started swimming out to the river, and they swam back together.

  Everybody said, “That was really great.” And Sonny said, “I can do better than that.” So he climbed up there again—this time to the third knot—and said, “I’m going backwards this time.” And he did a big old cannonball backwards!

  And so Tucker went up there too, grabbed the rope, and he climbed up to the third knot and he pushed off. He went out there over the water, but he didn’t let go. He swung back again and pushed off even higher—but just as he was swinging out, the rope broke! He went straight down and glanced off the roots and fell into the water right under the roots!

  Dear Lord, there must’ve been a moccasin nest right where he fell, because suddenly there were ten or so little light-colored baby water moccasins all around him! And I couldn’t believe it, he was hollering and we were all screaming and then, quick as lightning, he grabbed up onto a root and pulled himself up halfway and—I swear to God—this new boy walked on water. I mean it. He walked on water about four feet to climb a log, and he just climbed and scrambled up those roots and brambles and crawled up the bank. He had trouble right at the top when the big root he was holding onto started to break. I ran over and grabbed his arm that was reaching up and pulled as hard as I could. I could feel him kicking and scrambling to get back on the top of the bank. I kept pulling for all I was worth and then suddenly he was over and I tumbled backwards and he kind of landed on top of me and then rolled over on his back. He was breathing hard and I thought, he’s got to be snake-bit. I didn’t know if I should help him or run back to the house and find M’Dear so we could get a doctor. Tucker LeBlanc was pale as a ghost and his eyes were kind of wild-looking. But he was cool as a cucumber. When he could finally catch his breath, he looked at me and mumbled, “Thanks.” Then he started checking over his body.

  All the others were still frozen in their tracks with their mouths hanging wide open. None of us could believe how he had pulled himself up and got out of there.

  “You better sit back down while we go get help,” I told him.

  “Nah, these are just scratches,” he replied in between breaths. “I didn’t get bit.”

  Not a single snake bit him!

  In half an hour the whole town had heard the story about the new boy Tucker, and of course, every time the story got told it grew bigger and bigger. How he had grabbed three of the snakes and threw them into the bushes. And how he had walked on water for about twelve feet to get up out of the river.

  The next morning I actually heard somebody say he took one snake in his hand and just flung it around above his head like a lasso. Just threw it out through the trees, out into the water. He banged it up against the tree itself and said, “I’ll show you.” Can you imagine?

  Sonny Boy and Tucker got punished big-time. But when I asked Sonny Boy if it was worth it, he just smiled his wide smile and said, “Oh yeah.” But then he quickly added, “Don’t tell Papa I said that, though.”

  For all our growing up, Tucker was known as Snake Boy. And that’s how people thought of him until he became a football star in high school, and then people kind of forgot about the snake business. But even on the football team his nickname was Snake, just to intimidate the other teams. We made sure all the other schools heard the story of Snake Boy, who killed thirty water moccasins with his bare hands and wrestled an old blind alligator to his death.

  You’d think that after I had saved his life, Tucker would act like a decent human being. But no. He went and picked a fight.

  I went over to the Tuckers’ the next day, and there he was, just lording it around the stables like he was king of the universe. So I ignored him and went in the stable to get the Shetland pony, Ricko, that I always rode. Uncle Tucker had been letting us use his stables and ride his ponies forever. I was putting the bridle on him when Tucker walked in and said, “What are you doing?”

  “Well, what does it look like I’m doing? I’m putting the bridle on Ricko.”

  “Who told you you could do that?”

  “What do you mean, who told me I could do it? I don’t have to ask anybody. Uncle Tucker lets me ride Ricko any time I want.”

  “Who gave you the right to call him Uncle Tucker?”

  “Because that’s what I have called him ever since I was born! It’s what you grow up calling someone who is very close to your family. I bet we even knew him before you did.”

  That’s when he hit me, hard, on the shoulder! What could I do? I hit him back. I was so mad that I couldn’t finish bridling Ricko. So I walked outside, and Tucker followed me.

  “Where do you come from,” I turned around and asked him, “that you think you can just start off hitting a girl, a girl you hardly even know? I’m sorry, but that’s not the way we act around here.”

  He said, “What do you mean, where do I come from? And what do you mean, you knew my grandfather before I did?”

  “Well, it’s true!” I said. “You’ve hardly ever been out here. You weren’t even born here.”

  Then he hit me again—in the leg! I couldn’t believe it.

  So I just went over to him and grabbed his blond hair, pulling it as hard as I could. I’m as tall as Tucker. In fact, I’m taller, by about four and a half inches.

  Then he grabbed my hair back. Well, I don’t like people grabbing my hair. So I just pushed him till he fell on the ground.

  “Ha, ha-ha-ha!” I said. “I don’t know where you come from, but I bet girls there can’t beat you up like this, can they?”

  He got up real quick and shoved me right down on the ground. Before I knew it, we were wrestling like crazy.

  Then I heard Miz Lizbeth saying, “Tucker! Tucker LeBlanc! Don’t you dare! Get in here—get in here right now!”

  We turned to see Miz Lizbeth and Olivia standing on the porch. Though she is Miz Lizbeth’s maid, Olivia is at our house enough to know what M’Dear and Papa’s rules are. Whenever any of us did something bad, it seemed like Olivia was the one to catch us. She said M’D
ear had eyes in the back of her head, and so did she.

  I gave Tucker’s hair one last pull. “Ouch!” he said. As far as I was concerned, getting an “ouch” is as good as winning the fight. So I burst out laughing. “Hah!” I laughed. “Hah! Hah! Hah!”

  “Calla? Stop that laughing,” Miz Lizbeth said. “Now you get up, both of you, and come over here. Y’all are filthy dirty!”

  As Olivia picked us up by the collar, Miz Lizbeth told her, “Olivia, take these two children into the house and wash them up right now.”

  Olivia made us stand in the kitchen while she cleaned us both up. I tried to kick Tucker one more time, but Olivia stopped me. When we were presentable, she marched us into the parlor, where Miz Lizbeth was standing.

  Miz Lizbeth told us, “Calla and Tucker, you look at me. I want the two of you, right now, to say you’re sorry and then shake hands with each other.”

  Tucker said, “Are you kidding? She’s so ugly with that long pigtail! And that’s what she is—a pig! She’s a pig!”

  “Tucker! Don’t you dare talk about Calla that way.”

  I said, “Huh.” Just kind of giving a little laugh and a smile so Tucker could see that I had not only won—hands down—by getting the “ouch,” but also by getting a little laugh in while Miz Lizbeth was facing him.

  Miz Lizbeth then turned around and said, “Calla, don’t think you can get away with that little laugh and that smile. I can feel it behind my back—I’m like your mama. Now shake hands.”

  Neither one of us put our hands up.

  “I will not repeat myself one more time.”

  Well, I had never heard Miz Lizbeth talk like this. But she was just so nice, with all her soft white curls, and I had loved her since forever. And she was one of M’Dear’s best friends. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  Besides, if I put my hand out, that would make it look even more like I won the fight. Because who puts their hand out first? Certainly not the loser. Even I know that’s how the game is played.