The Anything Box

falling for everyone because it fell for us. Andwhen the Fox promised help and hope and strength, we followed him and let ourbones be splintered in the noisome darkness of fear and ignorance.
And, as the Fox, we crunched with unholy glee the bones of little fools whoshut themselves in their own tiny prisons and followed fear into death ratherthan take a larger look at the sky. And we found them delicious and insidious.
Mrs. Thompson came down to see Miss Ebo after Chicken Little. There must besome reason why Jackie was having nightmares—maybe something at school? AndMiss Ebo had to soothe her with all sorts of little Educational Psychologyplatitudes because she couldn't tell her that Jackie just wouldn't come out ofthe Fox's den even after his bones were scrunched to powder. He was afraid ofa wide sky and always would be.
So the next day we all went into the darkness of caves and were littleblind fish. We were bats that used their ears for eyes. We were small shiningthings that seemed to have no life but grew into beauty and had the wisdom tostop when they reached the angles of perfection. So Jackie chose to be one ofthose and he didn't learn with us any more except on our shallow days. Heloved shallow days. The other times he grew to limited perfection in hisdarkness.
And there was one of us who longed to follow the Fox forever. Every day hiseyes would hesitate on Miss Ebo's face, but every day the quietness of hermouth told him that the Fox should not come back into our learning. And hiseyes would drop and his fingers would pluck anxiously at one another.
The year went on and we were princesses leaning from towers drawing love tous on shining extensions of ourselves, feeling the weight and pain of lovealong with its shiningness as the prince climbed Rapunzel's golden hair. We,as Rapunzel, betrayed ourselves to evil. We were cast into the wilderness, webought our way back into happiness by our tears of mingled joy and sorrow.And—as the witch—we were evil, hoarding treasures to ourselves, trying to holdunchanged things that had to change. We were the one who destroyed lovelinesswhen it had to be shared, who blinded maliciously, only to find that allloveliness, all delight, went with the sight we destroyed.
And then we learned more. We were the greedy woman. We wanted a house, acastle, a palace—power beyond power, beyond power, until we wanted to meddlewith the workings of the universe. And then we had to huddle back on thedilapidated steps of the old shack with nothing again, nothing in our laxhands, because we reached for too much.
But then we were her husband, too, who gave in and gave in against hisbetter judgment, against his desires, but always backing away from a no untilhe sat there, too, with empty hands, staring at the nothing he must share. Andhe had never had anything at all because he had never asked for it. It was astrange, hard lesson and we studied it again and again until one of us wasstranded in greed, another in apathy, and one of us almost knew the right answer.
But magic can't last. That was our final, and my hardest, bitterest,lesson. One day Miss Ebo wasn't there. She'd gone away, they said. Shewouldn't be back. I remember how my heart tightened and burned coldly insideme when I heard. And shallow day followed shallow day and I watched,terrified, the memory of Miss Ebo dying out of the other kids' eyes.
Then one afternoon I saw her again, thin and white, blown against theplayground fence Like a forgotten leaf of last autumn. Her russety dressfluttered in the cold wind and the flick of her pale fingers called me fromclear across the playground. I pressed my face close against the wire mesh,trying to cry against her waist, my fingers reaching hungrily through to her.
My voice was hardly louder than the whisper of dry leaves across a path.
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'Miss Ebo! Miss Ebo! Come back!'
'You haven't forgotten.' Her answer lost itself on the wind. 'Remember.Always remember. Remember the whole of the truth. Truth has so many sides,evil and good, that if you cling to just one, it may make it a lie.' The windfreshened and she fluttered with it, clinging to the wire. 'Remember, turn thepage. Everyone will finally live happily ever after, because that's the wayit’s written!'
My eyes blurred with tears and before I could knuckle them dry, she was gone.
'Crybaby!' The taunt stung me as we lined up to go back indoors.
'I saw her!' I cried. 'I saw Miss Ebo!'
'Miss Ebo?' Blank eyes stared into mine. There was a sudden flicker wayback behind seeing, but it died. 'Crybaby!'
Oh, I know that no one believes in fairy tales any more. They're forchildren. Well, who better to teach than children that good must ultimatelytriumph? Fairy tale ending—they lived happily ever after! But it is writtenthat way! The marriage of bravery and beauty—tasks accomplished, perilsurmounted, evil put down, captives freed, enchantments broken, humanityemerging from the forms of beasts, giants slain, wrongs righted, joy coming inthe morning after the night of weeping. The lessons are all there. They'retold over and over and over, but we let them slip and we sigh for ourchildhood days, not seeing that we shed the truth as we shed our deciduousteeth.
I never saw Miss Ebo again, but I saw my first grade again, those whosurvived to our twenty-fifth anniversary. At first I thought I wouldn't go,but most sorrow can be set aside for an evening, even the sorrow attendant onfinding how easily happiness is lost when it depends on a single factor. Ilooked around at those who had come, but I saw in them only the tatteredremnants of Miss Ebo's teachings.
Here was the girl who so delighted in the terror of being pursued that shestill fled along dark paths, though no danger followed. Here was our wingedone still beating his wings against the invisible glass. Here was our pursuer,the blood lust in his eyes altered to a lust for power that was just ascompulsive, just as inevitably fatal as the old pursuing evil.
Here was our terror-stricken Chicken Little, his drawn face, his restless,bitten nails, betraying his eternal running away from the terror he sowedbehind himself, looking for the Fox, any Fox, with glib, comforting promises.And there, serene, was the one who learned to balance between asking too muchand too little—who controlled his desires instead of letting them control him.There was the one, too, who had sorrowed and wept but who was now coming intoher kingdom of children.
But these last two were strangers—as I was—in this wistful gathering ofpeople who were trying to turn back twenty-five years. I sat through theevening, trying to trace in the masks around me the bright spirits that hadrun with me into Miss Ebo's enchantment. I looked for Jackie. I asked for Jackie. He was hidden away in some protected place, eternally being his darkshining things, afraid—too afraid—of even shallowness ever to walk in thelight again.
There were speeches. There was laughter. There was clowning. But always theunderlying strain, the rebellion, the silent crying out, the fear and mistrustThey asked me to talk.I stood, leaning against the teacher's desk, and looked down into the
carefully empty faces.
'You have forgotten,' I said. 'You have all forgotten Miss Ebo.'
'Miss Ebo?' The name was a pursing on all the lips, a furrow on the brows.Only one or two smiled even tentatively. 'Remember Miss Ebo?'
'If you have forgotten,' I said, 'it's a long time ago. If you remember, itwas only yesterday. But even if you have forgotten her, I can see that youhaven't forgotten the lessons she taught you. Only you have remembered the
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wrong part. You only half learned the lessons. You've eaten the husks andthrown the grain away. She tried to tell you. She tried to teach you. Butyou've all forgotten. Not a one of you remembers that if you turn the pageeveryone will live happily ever after, because it was written that way. You'reall stranded in the introduction to the story. You work yourselves all up tothe climax of terror or fear or imminent disaster, but you never turn thepage. You go back and live it again and again and again.
'Turn the page! Believe again! You have forgotten how to believe inanything beyond your chosen treadmill. You have grown out of the fairy taleage, you say. But what have you grown into? Do you like it?' I leaned