The Kingdom of Childhood

formed beside her, and she thought of the illustrations in the story about the girl who played with matches, the cats’ tears pouring like an open spigot beside the little volcano of ash that had once been Pauline.

But there was no concern for that. Pauline jumped for joy and ran about, while Judy sat still. When she dropped her last match onto the ground, she fed the small flame with a leaf from the hedgehogs’ nest. It fluttered and rose to a high peak, and the effect pleased her enough that she sprinkled it with a bit of grass from the nest; next, a broken bit of twig from a basket. Now she had a very small campfire, a doll-sized one, suitable for her imaginary journeys into the land of the cavechildren. Onto it she dropped another tuft of grass, then looked around for steadier fuel. The bag of fertilizer gaped beside the door; she took a handful of the gray granules and fed one to the little campfire. Snap: but instead of a flame, it popped and gave off a flash of light. She fed it a second one, then a third.

The shed door creaked open, and Judy swung her head around in alarm. She quickly dropped the fertilizer onto the ground and stood, setting the basket like a cap over both the fuel and the small fire. Standing at the door was Kirsten, her blond braids crossed demurely over the part in her hair, her green flowered apron neat at her waist and Rudi’s big boots on her feet. She took a step inside and said, “Oh. Hallo, Judy. Was machst du?”

“Playing,” she replied in English. She saw the incomprehension in Kirsten’s eyes, and she stood taller and straightened her skirt. The girl looked nervous, as though she meant to inquire further but lacked both the nerve and the English skills to do so. Judy moved toward the door, and Kirsten’s gaze followed her. There was that look again: the one of a girl with her pockets turned inside out. The mute plea. When Judy reached the doorway, Kirsten squeezed past her and headed toward the milk pans at the back of the shed. She stopped halfway and looked around, raising her face as though detecting, now, that whatever she had suspected was wrong was indeed very wrong. Observing this, Judy felt a twist of fear. She did not want to be caught and reported, banned from Rudi’s property. And she did not want to see her father and Kirsten taking sides together against her. That could not be borne.

And so she did a simple thing. She banged down the latch, and she backed slowly away.

A chicken behind her heel squawked and fluttered. She turned, then hurried back toward her house. Closing her eyes, she tucked her hands into the small pockets of her skirt and walked into the burgeoning wind, to where the house awaited, calm and empty, to where the thistles were beginning to bloom.

22

Zach caught up with Scott at the side door to the multipurpose room. The bazaar was in full swing, with kids running rampant on the playground and drivers with “Visualize World Peace” bumper stickers flipping each other off in the parking lot.

“Dude, it is crammed in there,” said Scott. “And about four hundred degrees.”

“Is anybody else here?” asked Zach. Scott, he knew, would understand this to mean any of their friends, since otherwise the question was profoundly stupid.

“Everyone. Even Tally’ll be here in a while.” They made their way into the hallway, where Zach got jabbed with the stick end of a little girl’s ribbon wand. To the left, a teacher’s demonstration of wool felting was attracting a huge crowd.

“Do you know who won the auctions yet?” Zach shouted over the noise.

“No. They don’t start until four.”

They squeezed into the multipurpose room. The fifth-grade teacher was guiding a group of enthralled children in making beeswax gnomes. Zach guessed they were kids from the larger community and not the school, since by the time he was seven he had made enough beeswax gnomes to populate Middle-earth. At another table, the first- grade teacher was selling handmade soap. The smell of calendula oil drifted out gently from her stand, and Zach felt a wave of nostalgia. His mother’s remedy for nearly every scraped knee or boo-boo: calendula cream and a Band-Aid. It was the scent of a mother’s healing.

Across the room, Fairen and Kaitlyn jumped up and down and waved. They were directly behind the bake sale booth, working with Judy. Temple grinned beside them and held up a hand in greeting. Zach restrained the urge to roll his eyes. There was nothing more singularly uncomfortable than being in the company of both Fairen and Judy at the same time. At the moment he didn’t feel like dealing with Judy at all, but it looked like Fairen would be there for a while, and he wanted even less to make her feel slighted. Scott had walked ahead and was already beside the table speaking to Temple. As Zach approached the group from the side he made his entry by executing a judo hold on Scott, who, with his pathetic green belt karate skills, disengaged himself and whipped around into a fighting stance.

“No karate in the bazaar,” called a teacher.

“Busted,” said Temple.

Fairen held both her arms high in the air and beamed at Zach. “You’re finally here. We’ve been waiting all day for you.”

He stepped into her hug, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him lift her. Over her shoulder, Judy caught his eye with a glance that held a shimmer of reprimand. He scowled at her.

Fairen handed Zach a chocolate chip cookie. “Try these. Mrs. McFarland baked them.”

He held up a hand. “I’m good.”

“Eat.” She prodded the cookie toward him, and when he took it, poked him in the stomach with her index finger. “You don’t need to be turning down cookies, trust me.”

Judy lifted a metal tray and tapped it against Fairen’s arm. “Fairen and Scott, could you run to the kitchen and get the other two trays?”

Son of a bitch, thought Zach. As his friends walked off he narrowed his eyes at Judy and tried to wander away, but Judy grabbed the hem of his T-shirt.

“What are you doing tonight?” she whispered.

“I need to work on my history project. What the hell was that about? Don’t act so goddamn jealous. She’s just being friendly.”

Her laugh scoffed at him. “Oh, please. I’m not being jealous, not of that girl. I’m just making her do the job she signed up for.”