When a generous clearing was made, Sula traced intricate patterns in it with her twig. At first Nel was content to do the same. But soon she grew impatient and poked her twig rhythmically and intensely into the earth, making a small neat hole that grew deeper and wider with the least manipulation of her twig. Sula copied her, and soon each had a hole the size of a cup. Nel began a more strenuous digging and, rising to her knee, was careful to scoop out the dirt as she made her hole deeper. Together they worked until the two holes were one and the same. When the depression was the size of a small dishpan, Nel’s twig broke. With a gesture of disgust she threw the pieces into the hole they had made. Sula threw hers in too. Nel saw a bottle cap and tossed it in as well. Each then looked around for more debris to throw into the hole: paper, bits of glass, butts of cigarettes, until all of the small defiling things they could find were collected there. Carefully they replaced the soil and covered the entire grave with uprooted grass.
Neither one had spoken a word.
They stood up, stretched, then gazed out over the swift dull water as an unspeakable restlessness and agitation held them. At the same instant each girl heard footsteps in the grass. A little boy in too big knickers was coming up from the lower bank of the river. He stopped when he saw them and picked his nose.
“Your mamma tole you to stop eatin’ snot, Chicken,” Nel hollered at him through cupped hands.
“Shut up,” he said, still picking.
“Come up here and say that.”
“Leave him ’lone, Nel. Come here, Chicken. Lemme show you something.”
“Naw.”
“You scared we gone take your bugger away?”
“Leave him ’lone, I said. Come on, Chicken. Look. I’ll help you climb a tree.”
Chicken looked at the tree Sula was pointing to—a big double beech with low branches and lots of bends for sitting.
He moved slowly toward her.
“Come on, Chicken, I’ll help you up.”
Still picking his nose, his eyes wide, he came to where they were standing. Sula took him by the hand and coaxed him along. When they reached the base of the beech, she lifted him to the first branch, saying, “Go on. Go on. I got you.” She followed the boy, steadying him, when he needed it, with her hand and her reassuring voice. When they were as high as they could go, Sula pointed to the far side of the river.
“See? Bet you never saw that far before, did you?”
“Uh uh.”
“Now look down there.” They both leaned a little and peered through the leaves at Nel standing below, squinting up at them. From their height she looked small and foreshortened.
Chicken Little laughed.
“Y’all better come on down before you break your neck,” Nel hollered.
“I ain’t never coming down,” the boy hollered back.
“Yeah. We better. Come on, Chicken.”
“Naw. Lemme go.”
“Yeah, Chicken. Come on, now.”
Sula pulled his leg gently.
“Lemme go.”
“OK, I’m leavin’ you.” She started on.
“Wait!” he screamed.
Sula stopped and together they slowly worked their way down.
Chicken was still elated. “I was way up there, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I? I’m a tell my brovver.”
Sula and Nel began to mimic him: “I’m a tell my brovver; I’m a tell my brovver.”
Sula picked him up by his hands and swung him outward then around and around. His knickers ballooned and his shrieks of frightened joy startled the birds and the fat grasshoppers. When he slipped from her hands and sailed away out over the water they could still hear his bubbly laughter.
The water darkened and closed quickly over the place where Chicken Little sank. The pressure of his hard and tight little fingers was still in Sula’s palms as she stood looking at the closed place in the water. They expected him to come back up, laughing. Both girls stared at the water.
Nel spoke first. “Somebody saw.” A figure appeared briefly on the opposite shore.
The only house over there was Shadrack’s. Sula glanced at Nel. Terror widened her nostrils. Had he seen?
The water was so peaceful now. There was nothing but the baking sun and something newly missing. Sula cupped her face for an instant, then turned and ran up to the little plank bridge that crossed the river to Shadrack’s house. There was no path. It was as though neither Shadrack nor anyone else ever came this way.
Her running was swift and determined, but when she was close to the three little steps that led to his porch, fear crawled into her stomach and only the something newly missing back there in the river made it possible for her to walk up the three steps and knock at the door.
No one answered. She started back, but thought again of the peace of the river. Shadrack would be inside, just behind the door ready to pounce on her. Still she could not go back. Ever so gently she pushed the door with the tips of her fingers and heard only the hinges weep. More. And then she was inside. Alone. The neatness, the order
