Cloven Hooves by Megan Lindholm

Author:Megan Lindholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-06-07T17:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

* * *

The Farm

July 1976

It starts on Ellie’s birthday.

Ellie’s birthday is no big deal. All it means is all of us having dinner together at the big house. Ellie cleans up the house, puts a cloth on the table, makes a nice meal of roast beef and mashed potatoes and green beans, and lots of coffee. She bakes herself a nice cake, chocolate cake with white frosting. We sing “Happy Birthday” and she blows out the candles. She opens presents. Nice presents. An apron with a big white goose appliqued on it from Steffie. A cookbook from Mother Maurie. A dozen little canning jars, with special decorated labels that say, “From the Kitchen of Ellie Bishop,” from Bix. I wonder if the labels are to help her remember her last name is the same as his. From Tom’s father, a bottle of special spray solvent. “New kinda stuff,” he tells us when Ellie unwraps it. “Guy at the store says it’ll cut through the crud on range hood fans, barbecue grills, oven spills, baked-on greasy stuff, just like lightning! Gotta wear rubber gloves to use it, though. Should make things a lot easier for Ellie.”

He is obviously proud of his gift, of his practicality and thoughtfulness. Ellie beams at him. “Thanks, Daddy. I didn’t think anyone had noticed what a time I have with that of range hood.”

The last present is from Tom. He has picked it up in town that afternoon. I have no idea what it is. Ellie opens a white box, unwraps tissue paper endlessly. A ship in a bottle. She holds it up and we all look at it. Then we all look at Tom. Except Ellie. She looks at the ship inside the bottle.

“What the hell?” says Tom’s father.

“Remember,” Tom says, his voice ineffectual in the quiet. “When Steffie and I had measles, and Ellie read Treasure Island to us? We’d never heard anything like that before. And remember, Ellie said that when she grew up, she was going to get a pirate ship of her own. So, well, I saw that in Ardinger’s window, and I got it for her.” He tries a laugh. No one joins in. “Her own pirate ship,” he explains. He laughs again. Alone.

“Oh, yeah,” Steffie says belatedly. I can almost see the light bulb go on over her head. “I remember that. Long John Silver and Tom Hawkins, or something. Yeah, the kid in the book was named Tom, like you, wasn’t he?”

“Jim,” I mutter, but no one notices. Tom is getting pink around the ears. His father looks confused.

“Ellie can always keep it on her dresser,” Mother Maurie announces brightly. “It’s amazing how one unusual thing can liven up a room’s decor.”

I giggle into my coffee, turn it into a choking fit, which everyone politely ignores. This room couldn’t get much livelier, then, I want to say, but I don’t.

Tom’s father is still miffed, offended somehow by a gift he cannot understand. “Well, that’s a peculiar thing to

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