TWO SECRETS

Four children were left behind when their mother died suddenly. Now, four years later, Matilda was ten and a half, Donald and Derek, twins, were nine, and Danny who was almost six. There father was a carpenter and worked long hours during the summer time. It was Tilda’s job to be housekeeper and cook at home. No easy task.

The problem was the twins. They were big and rough and undisciplined. And they were never still when they were awake - forever leaping around and punching each other and yelling and running. Danny feared them and tried to please them, while Tilda resented them because they behaved like animals and ignored her protests and pleas for help. She was no match for them, but she was responsible for them. It wasn’t fair.

Summer was the worst time because they were alone all day. They lived in a remote area and in previous years, a bus from the school had picked up the twins for sports camp. They excelled at sports. This year, they had been banned from camp because of unnecessary roughness and bad language. They pretended they didn’t care. Sometimes they walked all the way to town and back, which took the better part of the day. It was while they were gone that Tilda and Danny found their first secret.

It was an old graveyard right across from their road but hidden by thick shrubbery and trees and weeds. Tilda had been in the attic one morning and had been able to see it tucked neatly behind a low fence. It looked shady and cool and wonderfully quiet and calm. She and Danny walked along the road until they found a place to burrow through the bushes and arrived at the beginning oif the fence.

“We could plant some flower seeds, maybe,” she said. “There are bare spots here and there……and then, look! One of the graves has pink roses growing around it. If somebody doesn’t pull out all those weeds, the roses will stop blooming.”

“I could bring some of my little cars and make trails for them to drive in.”

“We could take our lunch and eat it under one of those trees. And isn’t it wonderful – the quiet, I mean.”

“It won’t be wonderful and quiet if they find out about it.”

“You’re right, Danny. Let’s promise to keep this a secret from everybody. Oh see what is written on this marker – Loving, Loveable, and Loved! - I wonder who she was. I wish we could put that on Mother’s marker – because she was like that.”

“I wonder who cuts the grass,” Danny said. “We’ve never heard a mower.”

“That’s true. How clever of you to think of that.”

“Do you think he’d mind us being here?”

“We are doing no harm. In fact, I’m weeding and you’re just lying there looking almost too lazy and comfortable.” She pulled a handful of grass and threw it at him.

He laughed. It was good to hear him laugh. Tilda realized it didn’t happen often.

* * * * *

“I think this place is what keeps me sane,” Tilda told Danny after several more visits.”

“Me too. But I wonder why the twins are going away so often. Where do they go? What do they do?”

“That bothers me too. I have asked but they say they mostly go to the camp and watch the others. That makes me feel bad for them. And I found some candy wrappers in their pockets when I did the laundry. I don’t think they have any money. They said they found fifty cents on the sidewalk. I guess I should mention it to Dad, but…..”

“Yeah, I know. He gets upset and then he goes out to…..”

“A bar to have a beer or two. It helps him relax. I can understand that.” She paused. “I think I hear someone coming.”

An old man walked from a hidden pathway. He was bow-legged and carried a big roundish knife on a stick. He stopped and smiled at them. “So now I’ve found out who’s been pulling weeds and helping me keep this place tidy! I’m Jim.”

“What’s that?” Danny pointed to the stick.

“It’s a scythe – an old-fashioned way to cut grass or hay or weeds or almost anything. Nice and quiet too. Graveyards should be nice and quiet. Want to tell me your names?”

“I’m Tilda, and this is my brother, Danny. We live on Hawk Road. We love to come here because it’s cool and quiet and pretty.”

“You’re welcome to come any time. I told my wife that you were weeding the pink roses around her mother’s grave and she liked that a lot.”

“Why doesn’t she come here and help us,” Danny asked.

“Well…..there is a reason, and it’s something I want to explain to you. You see, she’s scared of snakes and there’s a big, black snake that lives here. He’s not poisonous and he doesn’t want to scare you, but if you see him – sudden like – it might be upsetting.”

“My brothers are always catching snakes,” Danny said. “They throw them at each other.”

“I don’t think they’d want to throw this one. He’s very long and he would bite if they tried to hurt him. Most of the time, you don’t see him because he hides. One of the things he likes to do is climb up in a tree, go out on a limb, and sometimes let his head hang down. That can give you a scare if you’re not expecting it. His home, I think, is down in that old compost pile, where the land goes down-hill toward the stream. I just want you to know about him. He’s a good snake, won’t bother you unless you bother him.

Tilda thought for a moment. “Are you sure he wouldn’t come after us?”

“Never has bothered me. I go slashing around in the grass and sometimes see the back of him going in the other direction –always away from me.”

Danny said, “I would not want to be near him. But I’d like to see him if he was up in a tree.”

“Okay,” Jim smiled. “Make yourselves at home here.”

“We will. And we’ll keep it a secret, won’t we, Danny. A second secret.”

Danny, whose eyes were searching all the trees, said, “Yeah. We won’t tell the twins about this.”

Jim asked suddenly, “Your brothers are twins? I think I’ve seen them playing at the school grounds and walking – or rather, -- running around in town.”

“That’s them,” Danny replied. “They are banned from the schoolyard this year for bein’ rough and cussin’.

“How do your parents feel about that?”

“Our Dad tries to make ‘em stops.” Tilda added softly, “Our Mom died four years ago. Things were different then.”

“I’m sorry,” Jim said quietly and began to work on the grass.

Afterwards, they always looked all around whenever they came to the graveyard but never found the secret snake. Then, one day, Tilly stopped weeding around the fence and whispered to Danny, “Get up and walk over here slowly.” When he reached her, she said, “Look in the tree just above where you were sitting.” And there he was, wrapped around a branch.

“He’s big…….” Danny whispered. “His belly is white. Do you think he knows we see him?”

“I don’t know, but I think most animals can sense that.someone is watching. As long as we stay right here, I don’t think he’ll come near.”

“If he ever comes this way, I’ gonna run, Tilda.”

“Me too.”

* * * * *

On a hot, sticky morning, Tilda carried the laundry upstairs and put it away. It had been a terrible morning, with the twins rushing around eating oranges and throwing the peels and seeds at each other. When she was trying to take the wash off the lines, they swooped around her and got tangled up in the clean sheets. What a mess! She wasn’t going to wash them again; they could go on the beds with mud stains as far as she was concerned.

She sat down in her room and saw her reflection in the mirror over the dresser – tear strained flushed cheeks with her t-shirt sticking to her body. She took a fresh shirt from the drawer and while she was putting it on, heard her door slam and the key turn in the lock. The fiends! They had locked her in!

There was only a small window in the room and so hot it felt like 90 degrees.

The window only opened half way up. Already she felt panicky. She could suffocate in here! “Let me out!” she yelled and heard them giggle. She shook the door knob hard to no avail, and heard them going down the steps. They were going to leave her!

She heard Derek call her name and looked out the window to see him and Donald tossing the key between them. “Please! Come right up here and let me out!”

“We’re playing catch!”

“Give the key to Danny and play catch with something else.”

“Hey,” Donald laughed. “This will be a good game. We’ll throw the key to Danny and if he can catch it, we’ll let him bring it up to you.” He threw the key high over Danny’s head. Derek caught it and began running. The “game” persisted until Danny was lying in the grass sobbing.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Tilda screamed, and something in her voice made them stop.

“O.K.,” Donald said to Derek. “Give Danny the key.”

“I don’t have it. You had it last.”

“I thought you had it.” Danny began to cry louder. “They’ve lost the key!” he moaned, starting to search in the grass and weeds.

And LOST the key seemed to be. Tilda began to cry. “I can’t breathe up here. You’ll have to call Dad!”

“No!” the twins said in unison. “He’ll kill us!”

“Call him,” Danny begged. “Or call 911!”

Donald looked at Derek and said, “We don’t want 911. I’ll call Dad.”

It took another hour before their father arrived. He was too angry to speak. He told each of the boys to go to their rooms and then hurried to take Tilda’s door off its hinges. She threw herself in his arms and cried. Her father cried too.

“I don’t know what to do with them, Til. They won’t listen to anything I say!”

“But you’ve got to do something. They won’t listen to me either…..and you’re much bigger than I am.”

After a silent dinner, he talked to them. They were quiet. They nodded their heads and said they were sorry. He assigned new jobs to them, that might have been a help to Tilda, if they did them. But Tilda sensed that in a few days, things would be back to normal or worse. There were three more weeks of July and all of August to live through until school started again.

And she was right. The old patterns returned. They were away from home most of the time and she and Danny did not know where they went, nor did they care. It seemed useless to bother their father again.

The one bright spot was when Jim and his wife invited them to a picnic lunch at the graveyard. His wife, whose name was Amy, wanted to thank them for weeding the roses. There was chicken and lemonade and homemade ice cream sandwiches. The snake was not invited, nor did he appear.

* * * * *

At last it was August l! Didn’t feel much different than July, but the stores have back-to-school supplies. During their Saturday trips to grocery shop with their father, Tilda and Danny always looked around in the general store. Tilda met two of her school friends who told her about their vacations. She looked forward to being with them every day and planned to participate in after-school activities as much as possible. Donald and Derek had stopped coming grocery shopping with them, even though their father treated to lunch at the diner. This seemed strange to Tilda, but she did not speak of it.

On the following Sunday, everyone was more restless than usual. They always stayed home on Sunday because that was the only time their Dad had off. Usually he made pancakes from Mother’s old recipe, but it was too hot for pancakes, so they had cereal and puttered around, getting in each other’s way. The twins were especially edgy. Just before noon, Dad got up and said he was going out for a while and would bring something home for dinner – subs or pizza. The twins announced that they were going to take Danny outside and teach him to throw and catch “like a boy” using Derek’s outgrown mitt. Danny was surprised and thrilled. Tilda went upstairs to her room to read, advising the boys to “Be careful. Don’t throw it too hard.”

“We know what we’re doin’,” Donald sneered. “Don’t need your advice!”

The book was interesting but Tilda began to nod off and decided to lie across her bed and have a short nap. There was a breeze………..and then there was Danny’s voice, screaming and crying.

They met on the stairs. “I didn’t mean it. I know I promised but they made me tell. I’m sorry, Til!” He hid his face against her chest. And added, “They’re both gonna die!”

“What? Why?”

“The snake, he was in the tree, and Donald climbed up after him with a long knife. And Derek had a big stick and was trying to hit him from the ground….”

“Did it bite them?”

“I think so. Mr. Jim came and he thinks both of them got bit ‘cause the limb broke off and now Donald can’t stand up and Derek can’t move his arm. Jim wants to know where Dad is.”

“I don’t know.”

“I told him that. He called 911. Amy’s comin’ over here to stay with us while he……deals with it, is what he said. This is all my fault.” The tears started again in earnest.

“It’s allright. I understand,” Tilda said, stroking his back.

“They were bein’ real nice to me and then the ball went into some weeds and Derek found a little snake there and threw it at me instead of the ball. I almost caught it. So I said I wouldn’t be scared of a little snake like that because I knew…….”

“I really do understand. It’s allright.”

“We won’t have any place to go now and……Oh, here’s Amy….”

“No place to go! You’re both always welcome at Jim’s and my place and in the graveyard too. Don’t cry, son. Things will all work out. I promise.”

“What happened to the twins,” Tilda asked anxiously.

“One of them, the one in the tree, broke his leg and the other, his wrist, I think. They were both biten and are being treated for that at the hospital. Jim went with them in the ambulance.”

“Our Dad….we don’t know….”

“Jim will find him. Don’t worry. I think the twins will probably stay over night in the hospital, maybe longer to have casts put on.”

“Did the snake die?” Danny asked.

“I don’t think so. Jim saw him heading down to the stream.” She smiled. “I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry!”

“It was me!” Danny choked. “At first I wouldn’t tell ‘em where he was but then they started hurtin’ me, and I……”

Amy grabbed him and held him hard. “Not your fault! They made you tell by hurting you and now they’re the ones who are hurting. You should drink something hot and sweet….like tea.”

“Or cocoa,” Danny suggested. “We got packets.”

“Yes! We’ll each have a packet. That’s just what we need.”

* * * * *

They talked quietly until it began to get dark outside. It was hard to wait but Amy was easy to talk with. “I hope Dad remembers to bring us something for supper.”

“Danny said, “I think he said subs or pizza.

“I think I hear a car door.” Amy got up and looked outside. “Your Dad’s here and Jim’s with him,” she called. “Looks like we’ll have both subs AND pizza.” She went up to Jim, who introduced her to their father. As their father came into the door, Jim said something to Amy that made her smile and nod vigorously.

They all ate hungrily. The grown-ups talked together, pausing to answer questions from Tilda and Danny. Their father seemed calmer than usual and somehow different. He looked seriously at his children and said, “I didn’t know what to do or where to start after your Mom left us. The twins needed attention and affection and I didn’t realize it until it was too late.” He looked at Jim. “Almost too late. I understand what I have to do now and how to get help. Jim and I talked at the hospital about counseling for the boys and for me. I can take a month off from my job – I’ve got lots of vacation days piled up – and the twins and I are going to REALLY get acquainted and organized. I didn’t know that to be a twin causes special problems -- special advantages too. They always seemed to have each other and not need much else.

I figured out that all the food they’ve been asking me to buy for them can produce a sugar high and excess energy. Who knew? And I have to change my own habits too before I become an alcoholic. So…..the boys and I are going to get this place cleaned up and our lives too, I hope. All alone here. Together.”

“What about us,” Danny asked.

Everyone smiled. Amy said to Jim, “You tell them. It was your great idea and I’m delighted!”

“You two are going to camp with us and the kids from our church.”

Tilda jumped out of her chair. “I have a good friend who goes to that camp. Janice Barton!”

“Maybe you two can be roommates for the whole month of August.”

“And Janice told me the camp is near the ocean and some days they get to go to the ocean.”

“Now it was Danny’s turn to leap out of his chair. “I never thought I’d get to see the ocean! When do we leave?”

“On Tuesday. Get a good night’s sleep tonight. Your Dad will get your supplies together tomorrow, and then off we go. Early on Tuesday.”

Both children looked at their father.

“Don’t say a word. If ever two kids deserve a vacation, it’s you! I can manage here and we’ll talk on the phone often.” He held out is arms and hugged them close. To Tilda, he said, “I gave you an almost impossible task and you have been splendid. I thank you. Your mother would have been so proud……of both of you.”

Danny asked suddenly, “Do you think that maybe….next year….we can ALL go to the Ocean?”

Everyone smiled. “Let’s count on it!” Who said it? Everyone!

Copyright © 2008 by Marjorie Schlitz

Marjorie is a published short story writer. Her stories are published in various literary magazines online and printed anthologies. One of her short stories won first place in FRESH! Literary Magazine.