The Anything Box

them a lot of leftover odds and ends of canned goods and a box to put them in
and they spent hours packing and unpacking. I had dismissed them from my mind
and submerged myself in the perennial problem of how to get back into the
suitcases what they had originally contained. So I was startled to feel a cold
hand on my elbow. I looked around into Liesle's worried face.
'What if they don't know the way back?' she asked.
'Of course they know the way back,' I said. 'They've driven it a dozen
times.'
'No, I mean the beasts.' She clutched me again. 'They'll die in the
winter.'
'Winter's a long way off,' I said. 'They'll be all right.'
'They don't count like we do,' said Liesle. 'Winter's awful close.'
'Oh, Liesle, child,' I said, exasperated. 'Let's not play that now. I'm
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much too busy.'
'I'm not playing,' she said, her cheeks flushing faintly, her eyes refusing
to leave mine. 'The beasts—'
'Please, honey lamb,' I said. 'You finish your packing and let me finish
mine.' And I slammed the suitcase on my hand.
'But the beasts—'
'Beasts!' I said indistinctly as I tried to suck the pain out of my
fingers. 'They're big enough to take care of themselves.'
'They're just baby ones!' she cried. 'And they're lost, 'relse'n they'd
have gone home when it was open.'
'Then go tell them the way,' I said, surveying dismally the sweat shirt and
slacks that should have been in the case I had just closed. She was out of
sight by the time I got to the tent door. I shook my head. That should teach
me to stick to Little Red Riding Hood or the Gingerbread Boy. Beasts, indeed!
Late that evening came a whopper of a storm. It began with a sprinkle so
light that it was almost a mist. And then, as though a lever were being
steadily depressed, the downpour increased, minute by minute. In direct
proportion, the light drained out of the world. Everyone was snugly under
canvas by the time the rain had become a downpour—except Liesle.
'I know where she is,' I said with a sigh, and snatched my fleece-lined
jacket and ducked out into the rain. I'd taken about two steps before my shoes
were squelching water and the rain was flooding my face like a hose. I had
sploshed just beyond the tents when a dripping wet object launched itself
against me and knocked me staggering back against a pine tree.
'They won't come!' sobbed Liesle, her hair straight and lank, streaming
water down her neck. 'I kept talking to them and talking to them, but they
won't come. They say it isn't open and if it was they wouldn't know the way!'
She was shaking with sobs and cold.
'Come in out of the wet,' I said, patting her back soggily. 'Everything
will be okay.' I stuck my head into the cook tent. 'I got 'er. Have to wring
her out first' And we ducked into the sleep tent.
'I told them right over this way and across the creek—' her voice was
muffled as I stripped her T-shirt over her head. 'They can't see right over
this way and they don't know what a creek is. They see on top of us.'
'On top?' I asked, fumbling for a dry towel.
'Yes!' sobbed Liesle. 'We're in the middle. They see mostly on top of us
and then there's us and then there's an underneath. They're afraid they might
fall into us or the underneath. We're all full of holes around here.'
'They're already in us,' I said, guiding her icy feet into the flannel
pajama legs. 'We can see them.'
'Only part,' she said. 'Only the Here part. The There part is so'st we
can't see it.' I took her on my lap and surrounded her with my arms and she
leaned against me, slowly warming, but with the chill still shaking her at
intervals.
'Oh, Gramma!' Her eyes were big and dark. 'I saw some of the There part.
It's like—like—like a Roman candle.'
'Those big heavy hills like Roman candles?' I asked.
'Sure.' Her voice was confident. 'Roman candles have sticks on them, don't
they?'
'Look, Liesle.' I sat her up and looked deep into her eyes. 'I know you
think this is all for true, but it really isn't. It's fun to pretend as long
as you know it's pretend, but when you begin to believe it, it isn't good.
Look at you, all wet and cold and unhappy because of this pretend.'
'But it isn't pretend!' protested Liesle. 'When it was open—' She caught
her breath and clutched me. I paused, feeling as though I had stepped off an
unexpected curb, then swiftly I tucked that memory away with others, such as
the rusty beer cap, the slow ingestion of Liesle by the hills—
'Forget about that,' I said. 'Believe me, Liesle, it's all pretend. You
don't have to worry.'
For a long rain-loud moment, Liesle searched my face, and then she relaxed.
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'Okay, Gramma.' She became a heavy, sleepy weight in my lap. 'If you say so.'
We went to sleep that last night to the sound of rain. By then it hadbecome a heavy, all-pervading roar on the tent roof that made conversationalmost impossible. 'Well,' I thought drowsily, 'this is a big, wet,close-quotes to our summer.' Then, just as I slipped over into sleep, I wassurprised to hear myself think, 'Swim well, little beasts, swim well.'
It may have been the silence that woke me, because I was suddenly wideawake in a rainless hush. It wasn't just an awakening, but an urgent push intoawareness. I raised up on one elbow. Liesle cried out and then was silent. Ilay back down again, but tensed as Liesle muttered and moved in the darkness.Then I heard her catch her breath and whimper a little. She crawled cautiouslyout of her sleeping bag and was fumbling at the tent flap. A pale watery lightcame through the opening. The sky must have partially cleared. Lieslewhispered something, then groped back across the tent. I heard a series ofrustles and whispers, then she was hesitating at the opening, jacket over herpajamas, her feet in lace-trailing sneakers.
'It's open!' she whimpered, peering out. 'It's open!' And was gone.
I caught my foot in the sleeping bag, tried to put my jacket on upsidedown,and got the wrong foot in the right shoe, before I finally got straightened upand staggered out through an ankle-deep puddle to follow Liesle. I groped myway in the wet grayness halfway to the Little House before I realized therewas no one ahead of me in the path. I nearly died. Had she already been suckedinto that treacherous gray rock! And inside me a voice mockingly chanted, 'Notfor true, only pretend—'
'Shut up!' I muttered fiercely, then, turning, I sploshed at fullstaggering speed back past the tents. I leaned against my breathing tree tostop my frantic gulping of the cold wet air, and, for the dozenteenth time inmy life,