The Little Friend

Harriet had already told Hely everything that she had to tell, but she was so agitated after her conversation with Ida that she kept fidgeting and pacing and repeating herself. “She knew it was Danny Ratliff. She knew. She said herself it was him and I hadn’t even told her what your brother said. Pem said he bragged about other stuff, too, bad things—”

“Why don’t we pour sugar in his gas tank? That’ll totally destroy the engine of a car.”

She gave him a disgusted look, which offended him slightly; he had thought this an excellent idea.

“Or let’s write a letter to the police and don’t sign our names.”

“What good will that do?”

“If we tell my daddy, I bet he’ll call them.”

Harriet snorted. She didn’t share Hely’s high opinion of his father, who was a principal at the high school.

“Let’s hear your big idea then,” Hely said sarcastically.

Harriet bit her lower lip. “I want to kill him,” she said.

The sternness and remove of her expression struck a thrill at Hely’s heart. “Can I help?” he said immediately.

“No.”

“You can’t kill him by yourself!”

“Why not?”

He was taken aback by her look. For a moment he couldn’t think of a good reason. “Because he’s big,” he said at last. “He’ll kick your ass.”

“Yes, but I bet I’m smarter than him.”

“Let me help. How are you going to do it, anyway?” he said, nudging her with the toe of his sneaker. “Have you got a gun?”

“My dad does.”

“Those big old shotguns? You couldn’t even pick one of them things up.”

“I can too.”

“Maybe so, but—Look, don’t get mad,” he said, as her brow darkened. “I can’t even shoot a gun that big and I weigh ninety pounds. That shotgun would knock me down, maybe even put my eye out. If you put your eye right up to the sight, the kick will knock your eyeball right out of the socket.”

“Where did you learn all this?” said Harriet, after an attentive pause.

“In Boy Scouts.” He hadn’t really learned it in the Boy Scouts; he didn’t know exactly how he knew it, though he was pretty sure it was true.

“I wouldn’t have quit going to Brownies if they’d taught us stuff like that.”

“Well, they teach you a lot of crap in the Boy Scouts too. Traffic safety and stuff.”

“What if we used a pistol?”

“A pistol would be better,” said Hely, glancing coolly away to conceal his pleasure.

“Do you know how to shoot one?”

“Oh yeah.” Hely had never had his hands on a gun in his life—his father didn’t hunt, and didn’t allow his boys to hunt—but he did have a BB gun. He was about to volunteer that his mother kept a little black pistol in her bedside table when Harriet said: “Is it hard?”

“To shoot? Not for me, it isn’t,” said Hely. “Don’t worry, I’ll shoot him for you.”

“No, I want to do it myself.”

“Okay, so, I’ll teach you,” said Hely. “I’ll coach you. We start today.”

“Where?”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t be shooting off guns in the back yard.”

“That’s right, sweet pea, you certainly can’t,” said a merry-voiced shadow which loomed suddenly in the door of the toolshed.

Hely and Harriet—badly startled—glanced up into the white pop of a Polaroid flashbulb.

“Mother!

” screamed Hely, throwing his arms over his face and stumbling backwards over a can of gasoline.

The camera spat out the picture with a click and a whir.

“Don’t be mad, yall, I couldn’t help it,” said Hely’s mother, in a bemused voice which made it plain she didn’t give a hoot if they were mad or not. “Ida Rhew told me she thought you two were out here. Peanut—” (“Peanut” was what Hely’s mother always called him; it was a nickname he despised) “did you forget that today is Daddy’s birthday? I want both you boys to be at home when he gets back from playing golf so we can surprise him.”

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Oh, come on. I just went out and bought a bunch of film, and yall just looked so cute. I hope it comes out.…” She examined the photograph, and blew on it through pursed, pink-frosted lips. Though Hely’s mother was the same age as Harriet’s, she dressed and acted much younger. She wore blue eye shadow and had a dark, freckly tan, from parading around Hely’s back yard in a bikini (“like a teenybopper!” said Edie), and her hair was cut the same way that a lot of high-school girls wore it.

“Stop it,” whined Hely. He was embarrassed by his mother. Kids at school teased him about her skirts being too short.

Hely’s mother laughed. “I know you don’t like white cake, Hely, but it is your father’s birthday. Guess what, though?” Hely’s mother always spoke to Hely in this bright, insulting, babyish tone, like he was in kindergarten. “They had some chocolate cupcakes at the bakery, how about that? Come on, now. You need to take a bath and put on some clean clothes.… Harriet, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sweet pea, but Ida Rhew asked me to tell you to come in for supper.”

“Can’t Harriet eat with us?”

“Not today, Peanut,” she said breezily, with a wink at Harriet. “Harriet understands, don’t you, sweetie?”