year…»
«I…» I said, and stopped.
«You,» said Grandma, «are a dog mad to bark but with taffy in his teeth. Have you ever given a dog taffy? It's so sad and funny, both. You laugh but hate yourself for laughing. You cry and run to help, and laugh again when his first new bark comes out.»
I barked a small laugh remembering a dog, a day, and some taffy.
Grandma turned, and there was my old kite strewn on the lawn. She recognized its problem.
«The string's broken. No. The ball of string's
She bent. We didn't: know what might happen. How could a robot grandma fly a kite for us? She raised up, the kite in her hands.
«Fly,» she said, as to a bird. And the kite flew. That is to say, with a grand flourish, she let it rip on the wind. And she and the kite were one.
For from the tip of her index finger there sprang a thin bright strand of spider web, all half- invisible gossamer fishline which, fixed to the kite, let it soar a hundred, no, three hundred, no, a thousand feet high on the summer swoons.
Timothy shouted. Agatha, torn between coming and going, let out a cry from the porch. And I, in all my maturity of thirteen years, though I tried not to look impressed, grew taller, taller, and felt a similar cry burst out my lungs, and burst it did. I gabbled and yelled lots of things about how I wished
«If you think
With a hiss, a whistle, a hum, the fishline sung out. The kite sank up another thousand feet. And again another thousand, until at last it was a speck of red confetti dancing on the very winds that took jets around the world or changed the weather in the next existence…
«It can't be!» I cried.
«It
And when the kite was no more than a specule, a vanishing mote on the peripheral vision of the gods, to quote from older wisemen, why then Grandma, without turning, without looking, without letting her gaze offend by touching, said:
«And, Abigail—?» «Agatha!» was the sharp response. O wise woman, to overcome with swift small angers.
«Agatha,» said Grandma, not too tenderly, not too lightly, somewhere poised between, «and how shall
She broke the thread and wrapped it about my fist three times so I was tethered to heaven by the longest, I repeat, longest kite string in the entire history of the world! Wait till I show my friends! I thought. Green! Sour apple green is the color they'll turn!
«Agatha?»
«No way!» said Agatha.
«No way,» said an echo.
«There must: be some—»
«We'll never be friends!» said Agatha.
«Never be friends,» said the echo.
Timothy and I jerked. Where was the echo coming from? Even Agatha, surprised, showed her eyebrows above the porch rail.
Then we looked and saw. Grandma was cupping her hands like a seashell and from within that shell the echo sounded. «Never… friends…» And again faintly dying «Friends…» We all bent to hear. That is we two boys bent to hear. «No!» cried Agatha. And ran in the house and slammed the doors. «Friends,» said the echo from the seashell hands. «No.» And far away, on the shore of some inner sea, we heard a small door shut. And that was the first day.
And there was a second day, of course, and a third and a fourth, with Grandma wheeling in a great circle, and we her planets turning about the central light, with Agatha slowly, slowly coming in to join, to walk if not run with us, to listen if not hear, to watch if not see, to itch if not touch.
But at least by the end of the first ten days, Agatha no longer fled, but stood in nearby doors, or sat in distant chairs under trees, or if we went out for hikes, followed ten paces behind.
And Grandma? She merely waited. She never tried to urge or force. She went about her cooking and baking apricot pies and left foods carelessly here aid there about the house on mousetrap plates for wiggle-nosed girls to sniff and snitch. An hour later, the plates were empty, the buns or cakes gone and without thank you's, there was Agatha sliding down the banister, a mustache of crumbs on her lip.
As for Tim and me, we were always being called up hills by our Electric Grandma, and reaching the top were called down the other side.
And the most peculiar and beautiful and strange and lovely thing was the way she seemed to give complete attention to all of us.
She listened, she really listened to all we said, she knew and remembered every syllable, word, sentence, punctuation, thought, and rambunctious idea. We knew that all our days were stored in her, and that any time we felt we might want to know what we said at X hour at X second on X afternoon, we just named that X and with amiable promptitude, in the form of an aria if we wished, sung with humor, she would deliver forth X incident.
Sometimes we were prompted to test her. In the midst of babbling one day with high fevers about nothing, I stopped. I fixed Grandma with my eye and demanded:
«What did I just say?»
«Oh, er—»
«Come on, spit it out!»
«I think—» she rummaged her purse. «I have it here.» From the deeps of her purse she drew forth and handed me:
«Boy! A Chinese fortune cookie!» «Fresh baked, still warm, open it.»
It was almost too hot to touch. I broke the cookie shell and pressed the warm curl of paper out to read:
«— bicycle Champ of the whole West! What did I just say? Come on, spit it out!»
My jaw dropped.
«How did you
«We have our little secrets. The only Chinese fortune cookie that predicts the Immediate Past. Have another?»
I cracked the second shell and read: «„How did you
And, laughing, we began to run. And that was another great thing. She could
Never beat, never win a race, but pump right along in good style, which a boy doesn't mind. A girl ahead of him or beside him is too much to bear. But a girl one or two paces back is a respectful thing, and allowed.
So Grandma and I had some great runs, me in the lead, and both talking a mile a minute. But now I must tell you the best part of Grandma.
I might not: have known at all if Timothy hadn't taken some pictures, and if I hadn't taken some also, and then compared.
When I saw the photographs developed out of our instant Brownies, I sent Agatha, against her wishes, to photograph Grandma a third time, unawares.
Then I took the three sets of pictures off alone, to keep counsel with myself. I never told Timothy and Agatha what I found. I didn't want to spoil it.
But, as I laid the pictures out in my room, here is what I thought and said: «Grandma, in each picture, looks
