When you are the eldest, at least at our house, there is
almost always a crib in your room. I
argued often with Mother over what could be wrong with this babe or that. Once, I insisted my baby sister was throwing
up. Mother said, “No she just has a
cough.” Once the lights were turned on,
she found the crib sheets covered in vomit, just as I had said. In later years, my sister and I shared a room
with day beds on opposite sides of the room, tucked neatly under the corners of
a table. We would toss a nerf ball
across the room to each other from our beds and tell each other secret things
upon catching.
But long before I ever had a sister, I shared the room with
my younger brother. There were bunk beds
in the room. Since there was little
danger that I would fall, I occupied the top bunk. The ceiling was flocked with “popcorn”, a
white lumpy spackled surface covering common to ceilings, which contained a
glitter like substance. I liked it very
much. I studied it often and wondered at
how it came to be up there and nowhere else in the house, such as walls,
carpeting, window moldings, and the like.
One particularly warm summer night, mother cranked the
window open a bit to let the breeze through the room. I had scarce slipped off to sleep when my
brother below me started to cry for Mother.
“A monster! Help! Moooommmmyyyyy!”
I leaned down to quiet him.
He said, “There is a black monster in the window, and it said ‘baby boo!’”
I sat up, squinting my eyes and stared hard at the
window. All I saw were the curtains
billowing slightly. So I jumped down and
turned on the light.
The curtains were moving!
I screamed “Daddy! Help!” The bedroom door flew open, and my Father
said, “What’s going on in here”.
“He saw a monster, and it said ‘baby boo’ to him!”, I said.
Dad grabbed the curtains and threw them back. There on the windowsill in our room was a
small black cat. “Meow”, it said. “I’ll baby boo you all right”, said Dad. “Go back to bed.” He tossed the lost cat out the window and
cranked it in a few notches.
I lay there on the top bunk contemplating the glitter in the
popcorn like tiny stars, giggling “baby boo” to myself until I reached oblivion
once again.
