dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair,
coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited
except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds;
and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr. Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and
Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom. «It
was one stormy night in Canada that I saw the snow,» he said, though the farthest north he’d ever set foot
was Richmond, Virginia. «We were lost in the mountains, Mother and me, and snow, tons and tons of it,
was piling up all around us. And we lived in an ice-cold cave for a solid week, and we kept slapping
each other to stay awake: if you fall asleep in snow, chances are you’ll never see the light of day again.»
«Then what happened?» said Missouri, disbelief subtly narrowing her eyes.
«Well, things got worse and worse. Mama cried, and the tears froze on her face like little BB
bullets, and she was always cold. . .» Nothing had warmed her, not the fine wool blankets, not the mugs
of hot toddy Ellen fixed. «Each night hungry wolves howled in the mountains, and I prayed. . .» In the
darkness of the garage he’d prayed, and in the lavatory at school, and in the first row of the Nemo
Theatre while duelling gangsters went unnoticed on the magic screen. «The snow kept falling, and heavy
drifts blocked the entrance to the cave, but uh. . .» Stuck. It was the end of a Saturday serial that leaves
the hero locked in a slowly filling gas chamber.
«And?»
«And a man in a red coat, a Canadian Mountie, rescued us. . . only me, really: Mama had already
frozen to death.»
Missouri denounced him with considerable disgust. «You is a gret big story.»
«Honest, cross my heart,» and he ex-ed his chest.
«Uh uh. You Mama die in the sick bed. Mister Randolph say so.»
Somehow, spinning the tale, Joel had believed every word; the cave, the howling wolves, these
had seemed more real than Missouri and her long neck, or Miss Amy, or the shadowy kitchen. «You
won’t tattle, will you, Missouri? About what a liar I am.»
She patted his arm gently. «Course not, honey. Come to think, I wish I had me a two-bit piece
for every story I done told. Sides, you tell good lies, the kind I likes to hear. We gonna get along just
elegant: me, I ain’t but eight years older’n you, and you been to the school.» Her voice, which was like
melted chocolate, was warm and tender. «Les us be friends.»
«O.K.,» said Joel, toasting her with his coffee cup, «friends.»
«And somethin else is, you call me Zoo. Zoo’s my rightful name, and I always been called by that
till Papadaddy let on it stood for Missouri, which is the state where is located the city of St. Louis.Then,
Miss Amy ‘n Mister Randolph, they so proper: Missouri this ‘n Missouri t’other, day in, day out. Huh!
You call me Zoo.»
Joel saw an opening. «Does my father call you Zoo?»
She dipped down into the blouse of her gingham dress, and withdrew a silver compact. Opening
it, she took a pinch of snuff, and sniffed it up her wide nose. «Happy Dip, that’s the bestest brand.»
«Is he awful sick — Mister Sansom?» Joel persisted.
«Take a pinch,» she said, extending her compact.
And he accepted, anxious not to offend her. The ginger-colored powder had a scalding,
miserable taste, like devil’s pepper; he sneezed, and when water sprang up in his eyes he covered his
face ashamedly with his hands.
«You laughin or cryin, boy?»
«Cryin,» he whimpered, and this came close to truth. «Everybody in the house is stone deaf.»
«I ain’t deaf, honey,» said Zoo, sounding sincerely concerned. «Have the backache and stomach
jitters, but I ain’t deaf.»
«Then why does everybody act so queer? Gee whiz, every time I mention Mister Sansom you’d
think. . . you’d think. . . and in the town. . .» He rubbed his eyes and peeked at Zoo. «Like just now,
when I asked if he was really ill. . .»
Zoo glanced worriedly at the window where fig leaves pressed against the glass like green
listening ears. «Miss Amy done tol you he ain’t the healthiest man.»
The flies buzzed back to the sugar jar, and the ticktuck of the defective clock was loud. «Is he
going to die?» said Joel.
The scrape of a chair. Zoo was up and rinsing pans in a tub with water from a well-bucket. «We
friends, that’s fine,» she said, talking over her shoulder. «Only don’t never ax me nothin bout Mister
Sansom. Miss Amy the one take care of him. Ax her. Ax Mister Randolph. I ain’t in noways messed up
with Mister Sansom; don’t even fix him his vittels. Me and Papadaddy, us got our own troubles.»
Joel snapped shut the snuff compact, and revolved it in his hands, examining the unique design. It
was round and the silver was cut like a turtle’s shell; a real butterfly, arranged under a film of lime glass,
figured the lid; the butterfly wings were the luminously misty orange of a full moon. So elegant a case, he
reasoned, was never meant for ordinary snuff, but rare golden powders, precious witch potions, love
sand.
«Yessir, us got our own troubles.»
«Zoo,» he said, «where’d you get this?»
She was kneeling on the floor cursing quietly as she shoveled ashes out of the stove. The firelight
rippled over her black face and danced a yellow light in her foxgrape eyes which now cut sideways
questioningly. «My box?» she said. «Mister Randolph gimme it one Christmas way long ago. He make it
hisself, makes lotsa pretty dodads long that line.»
Joel studied the compact with awed respect; he would’ve sworn it was store-bought.
Distastefully he recalled his own attempts at hand-made gifts: necktie racks, tool kits, and the like; they
were mighty sorry by comparison. He comforted himself with the thought that Cousin Randolph must be
older than he’d supposed.
«I usta been usin it for cheek-red,» said Zoo, advancing to claim her treasure. She dipped more
snuff before redepositing it down her dress-front. «But seein as I don’t go over to Noon City no more
(ain’t been in two years), I reckoned it’d do to keep my Happy Dip good ‘n dry. Sides, no sense paintin
up less there’s mens round a lady is innerested in. . . which there ain’t.» A mean expression pinched her
face as she gazed at the sunspots freckling the linoleum. «That Keg Brown, the one what landed on the
chain gang cause he did me a bad turn, I hope they got him out swingin a ninety-pound pick under this
hot sun.» And, as if it were sore, she touched her long neck lightly. «Well,» she sighed, «spec I best get to
tendin Papadaddy: I’m gonna take him some hoecake and molasses: he must be powerful hungry.»
Joel watched apathetically while she broke off a cold slab of cornbread, and poured a preserve
jar half-full of thick molasses. «How come you don’t fix yourself a slingshot, and go out and kill a mess of
birds?» she suggested.
«Dad will probably want me in a minute,» he told her. «Miss Amy said she’d see, so I guess I’d
better stick around here.»
«Mister Randolph likes the dead birds, the kinds with pretty feathers. Won’t do you no good
squattin in this dark ol kitchen.» Her naked feet were soundless as she moved away. «You be at the
Service, you hear?»
The fire had waned to ashes, and, while the old broken clock ticked like an invalid heart, the
sunspots on the floor spread and darkened; the shadows of the fig leaves trellising the walls swelled to an
enormous quivering shape, like the crystal flesh of a jellyfish. Flies skittered along the table, rubbing their
restless hair-feet, and zoomed and sang round Joel’s ears. When, two hours later, two that seemed five,
he raised the clock off its battered face it promptly stopped beating and all sense of life faded from the
kitchen; three-twenty its bent hands recorded: three, the empty, middle hour of an endless afternoon. She
was not coming. Joel plowed his fingers through his hair. She was not coming, and it was all some crazy
trick.
His leg had gone numb from resting so long in one position, and it tingled bloodlessly as he got up
and limped out of the kitchen, and down the hall, calling plaintively: «Miss Amy. Miss Amy.»
He swished the lavender curtains apart, and moved into the bleak light filling the barren, polished
chamber towards his image floating on the watery-surfaced looking glass; his formless reflected face was
wide-lipped and one-eyed, as if it were a heat-softened wax effigy; the lips were a gauzy line, the eyes a
glaring bubble. «Miss Amy. . . anybody!»
Somewhere in a school textbook of Joel’s was a statement contending that the earth at one time
was probably a white hot sphere, like the sun; now, standing in the scorched garden, he remembered it.
He had reached the garden by following a path which led round from the front of the house through the
rampart of interlacing trees. And here, in the overgrown confusion, were some plants taller than his head,
and others razor-sharp with thorns; brittle sun-curled leaves crackled under his cautious step. The dry,
tangled weeds grew waist high. The sultry smells of summer and sweet shrub and dark earth were heavy,
and the itchy whirr of bumblebees stung the silence. He could hardly raise his eyes upward, for the sky
was pure blue fire. The wall of the house rising above the garden was like a great yellow cliff, and
patches of Virginia creeper greenly framed all its eight overlooking windows.
Joel tramped down the tough undergrowth till he came up flat against the house. He was bored,
and figured he
