Free Rebel McKenzie by Candice Ransom Page B

amused.
    The mother of my biggest rival in the beauty pageant was now my enemy.

The Marriage Turtle of Terrapin Thicket
    T he card game broke up at exactly four o’clock. Mrs. Lovering opened the door, turning to tell the others good-bye. Rudy, dirty from one end to the other, tried to squeeze inside past her, but stumbled.
    â€œSorry,” he said, slapping grubby handprints on her white dress. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”
    â€œDidn’t I tell you to stay in the yard?” I said. “You listen real good.”
    Bambi’s mother sniffed. “Were these children raised by cougars?”
    At last the company left. Miss Odenia sagged against the wall as Rudy hurled himself into the living room. The hand he’d washed held a tan object.
    â€œLook what I dug out of the ground, Rebel! An old tool from the Cool Age!”
    â€œIt’s Ice Age, not Cool Age.” I examined the pointy object. “Rude, they didn’t have plastic knives in the Ice Age with ‘Made in China’ stamped on them.”
    â€œAw! I thought for sure I found something.” He passed it to Lacey Jane. “Want to see?”
    She backed away. “Keep your filthy mitts off my brand-clean dress.”
    â€œMarch back into the bathroom,” Miss Odenia said to Rudy. “Wash your face and both hands. Don’t use the little pink towel. That’s for good.”
    Miss Odenia turned on the kitchen faucet, squirted dish soap in the sink, and snapped on a pair of yellow rubber gloves.
    â€œYou look like you’re in a TV commercial,” I told her.
    â€œI was in a TV commercial once,” she said. “I used to be a hand model.”
    â€œSay again?”
    â€œHand model. That was my job.”
    â€œSo that’s why you have all these pictures of hands around,” Lacey Jane said.
    Miss Odenia dropped silverware into the soapy water. “Those were ads for magazines and newspapers. The statues were cast from my hands. At one time, my hands were kind of famous.” She sighed. “But I never got to be an Avon hand model.”
    Rudy staggered in carrying Doublewide, who was as heavy as a Christmas ham. “Three guesses what I found on the toilet and the first two don’t count.”
    â€œThat cat better not be using my toilet!”
    â€œBe still,” I ordered Rudy. “Miz Odenia’s about to tell us her life story.”
    â€œY’all don’t want to hear about stuff that happened way before you were born.”
    â€œYes, we do!” Lacey Jane and I said at the same time.
    Lacey Jane took Miss Odenia’s place at the sink. “Rebel and me will clean up.”
    I didn’t sign on to be waitress and busboy, but I didn’t want to miss this story.
    Miss Odenia sank down on the sofa beside Rudy. Doublewide plunked his big self onto her lap, thinking he was forgiven.
    â€œI grew up in Terrapin Thicket. When I was little, I’d sit on the porch with the Sears, Roebuck catalog. I cut out ladies in their evening gowns and day suits and pasted them on corn flakes boxes to make stand-up paper dolls.” She rested her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes.
    â€œSoon as I could thread a needle, I was sewing my own clothes on Mama’s knee-press Singer. I bought material with money I earned working in the garden. No bleached feed sacks for me. Sometimes Ercel Grady—he lived on the next farm—he’d come over and visit. Once he brought me a box turtle he’d found in the garden. I was painting my toenails with Revlon’s Cherries in the Snow polish.”
    I began to wish I hadn’t made Miss Odenia tell her life story. Turtles and sewing and paper dolls. Yawn.
    â€œErcel took the little brush and painted ‘EG + OM’ on the turtle’s back. He liked me and I liked him, but only as a friend. That summer, the Simplicity Pattern Company sent their new spring fashions to our 4-H