The Little Friend

“Well why don’t we just ride over there and see? Because if we go now—come on, stop it,” she said, irritably turning her head as Hely began to tick an imaginary hypnotist’s watch back and forth in front of her face.

“You are growing vairy vairy sleepy,” said Hely, in a thick Transylvanian accent. “Vairy … vairy …”

Harriet shoved him away; he circled to the other side, waggling his fingers in her face. “Vairy … vairy …”

Harriet turned her head. Still he kept hovering, and finally she punched him as hard as she could. “Jesus!” screamed Hely. He clutched his arm and fell back on the bunk.

“I said stop.”

“Jeez, Harriet!” He sat up, rubbing his arm and making faces. “You hit me on the funny bone!”

“Well, quit pestering me!”

Suddenly, there was a furious flurry of fist-thumping on the closed door of Hely’s room. “Hely? Yo company in there with you? Yall open the do’ this minute.”

“Essie!” screamed Hely, falling backwards in exasperation onto his bed. “We’re not doing anything.”

“Open this do’. Open it.”

“Open it yourself!”

In burst Essie Lee, the new housekeeper, who was so new that she didn’t even know Harriet’s name—though Harriet suspected that she only pretended not to know. She was about forty-five, much younger than Ida, with chubby cheeks and artificially straightened hair which was broken and wispy at the ends.

“What yall doing in here, screaming out the Lord’s name in vain? Yalls ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she cried. “Playing in here with the do’ shut. Yall aint shutting it no more, you hear?”

“Pem keeps his door shut.”

“And he aint got no girl company in there with him, either.” Essie swung round and glared at Harriet as if she were a puddle of cat-sick on the rug. “Screaming and cussing and carrying on.”

“You better not talk to my company like that,” shrilled Hely. “You can’t do that. I’m going to tell my mother.”

“I’m gonna tell my mama,” said Essie Lee, mimicking his whine, screwing her face up. “Run on and tell her. You tells on me all the time for stuff I aint even did, like you told yo mama I was the one ate those chocolate chips when you know you eat them yourself? Yes, you know you did it.”

“Get out!”

Harriet, uneasily, studied the carpet. Never had she got used to the flagrant dramas which erupted in Hely’s household when his parents were at work: Hely and Pem against each other (locks picked, posters torn from walls, homework stolen and ripped to pieces) or, more frequently, Hely and Pem against an ever-changing housekeeper: Ruby, who ate slices of white bread folded in half, and would not let them watch anything that came on television at the same time as General Hospital; Sister Bell, the Jehovah’s Witness; Shirley, with brown lipstick and lots of rings, always on the telephone; Mrs. Doane, a gloomy old woman terrified of break-ins who sat watching by the window with a butcher knife in her lap; Ramona, who went berserk and chased Hely with a hairbrush. None of them were very friendly or nice, but it was hard to blame them since they had to put up with Hely and Pemberton all the time.

“Listen at you,” said Essie, with contempt; “ugly thing.” She gestured, vaguely, at the hideous curtains, the stickers darkening his windows. “I’d like to take and burn down this whole ugly—”

“She threatened to burn down our house!” shrieked Hely, red in the face. “You heard her, Harriet. I have a witness. She just threatened to burn down—”

“I aint say one word about yo house. You better not—”

“Yes, you did. Didn’t she, Harriet? I’m going to tell my mother,” he cried—without waiting for a reply from Harriet, who was too stunned by all this to speak, “and she’s going to call the employment office, and tell them you’re crazy, and not to send you out to anybody else’s house—”

Behind Essie, Pem’s head appeared in the doorway. He stuck his lower lip out at Hely, in a babyish, tremulous pout. “Wook who’s in twouble,” he piped, with fraudulent tenderness.

It was the wrong thing to say, at exactly the wrong moment. Essie Lee wheeled, eyes bulging. “What for you talk to me like that!” she screamed.

Pemberton—brows knit—blinked at her foggily.

“Sorry thing! Lay up in the bed all day, aint work a day in your life! I got to earn money. My child—”

“What’s eating her?” said Pemberton to Hely.

“Essie threatened to burn the house down,” said Hely, smugly. “Harriet’s my witness.”

“I aint done no such thing!” Essie’s plump cheeks quivered with emotion. “That’s a lie!”

Pemberton—in the hall, but out of view—cleared his throat. Behind Essie’s heaving shoulder, his hand popped up, then beckoned: all clear. With a jerk of his thumb, he indicated the stairs.