Holly's Scarf

Holly’s Scarf

         

         Obituaries:

         R.I.P Dolly, Beautiful Teacher, Careful Traveler, Loving Wife. 

                                       Died in childbirth.

         

      The “medicine” her father gave each morning tasted like blueberry flavored sand.  It was supposed to “bring out her intelligence.”  Her dad made the medicine out of strange plants in their yard.  It did not make her feel smarter.  It did, however, make her feel sick.  She washed it down with grape soda.  The combination always made her stomach churn.  She prepared for her walk to school, sneaking some candy she had gotten at the convenient store from her secret stash.

         She couldn't tie her shoes.  "Dad!" she screamed, frightened and embarrassed.  Her father opened his bedroom door, blue smoke pouring from his room to fill the hallway.  Her father got the smoke from plants in her backyard, just like the medicine.  Magatha always thought he was looked like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland at times like this.  He had the smoke, he had the wormy neck, with a lack of chin that made his face look small and angle-less.

"Can't tie your shoes--Can't make friends.  Can't ride the bus—can’t tie your shoes." her father whispered to himself.  She could hear his words.  He didn't try very hard to whisper quietly.

"I just can't reach my feet with these jeans on-- they're new...they need to be broken in I think." Making no eye contact with her father, her face blushed, clearly embarrassed.  She was sweating as she attempted to bend down while her father watched in amusement.  He let her struggle for a while before attempting to help.

"Why did you think tight jeans were a good idea, Magatha?  Why did you think to yourself 'these are the jeans for Magatha, these are Magatha's jeans?  Where did you even get them?" He coughed from the blue smoke that began to enter Magatha's room.  His face was grim when he asked this last question.

"Mrs Valentine--the lady at the corner store.  The one with the pretty hair and the nice dresses.  The one with that calls me maggy."  She smiled up at him as she thought of Mrs. Valentine. 

He frowned. 

"But your name is not Maggy.  Your name is Magatha, and those jeans aren't yours, they belong to a small Sally or a tiny Alison, not a Magatha."  He held the smile. "You know she gives things to you because she feels bad for you.  She thinks you're fat and simple, she feels bad for you and feels bad for you having that name.  I named you Magatha, it was so fitting of you.  Those jeans are not quite as fitting."  She frowned sadly and her lip quivered.  He tied her shoes, she hugged him awkwardly and she left for school. 

         Magatha did not ride the bus.  It made her very nervous and made her stomach churn. She walked to school instead.  She did not like walking either--it made her sweat and took away her breath.  "Better than the bus, though," she always thought.  When she got to school she sat in her seat, taking out a piece of paper for their math quiz that morning.  Everyone was talking, but not to her.  She whistled to herself, but no one looked at her. She got louder and louder as people kept talking.  Eventually her classmates stopped talking and stared at her, annoyed at the whistling.  Sometimes Magatha felt that the kids in her class did not understand her.  She felt clumsy around them--perpetually louder than they were, as if she had the volume of her voice on high, while all the others were on low.  She would usually play with the third graders at recess, while her fifth grade class played team sports and board games.  The third graders' volume was on high too.  She would play imaginary games about stories like Alice in Wonderland. 

         The teacher walked in as her whistling stopped.  She put up problems on the board for the quiz.  Magatha began to look around at the kids in her class nervously, grabbing her pencil and paper from underneath her desk.  Magatha began to slowly write her name on the paper Magath-, but stopped when she  thought of her jeans and suddenly felt that they were unbearably tight around her middle. She thought of her laces, "what if they got undone. Dad isn't here, and I can’t ask the nurse to do tie them again--she hates that." Her stomach began to churn and her heart raced.  Her pulse got faster and louder--louder than her whistling.  She put her hand on her chest to feel the pulse.  Magatha told the teacher she wasn't feeling well and left the class. She hopped the fence and crossed through an abandoned lot to the corner store like she had done many days before.

         The door bells always rang and jingled when Magatha, often clumsily, opened the front door to the shop.  Magatha pretended to be looking at candies, all the while awaiting the attention of Mrs. Valentine, the store owner.

         Mrs.Valentine did not get a lot of business.  The only people Magatha ever saw in the shop were four different men that would have private conversations with the shop owner before leaving the shop elated.  Mrs. Valentine played cards, or "spirit cards."  "They tell me the future," she would say.  Magatha thought Mrs. Valentine must be a witch, and the men that come into the shop were looking for fortune and fame.  "Mrs. Valentine didn't look like a witch though, so maybe she was just bored and playing cards" Magatha thought.  "The fifth grade kids at recess played cards, but they didnt have spirit cards like Mrs. Valentine. Maybe one day I’ll have spirit cards and men will come to me to hear their futures."  She blushed at the thought. "Maybe I’ll be a witch and fly over the roof of my home and the corner store and the math class-room." she thought.

"Maggie shouldn't you be in school?" Mrs. V finally said after eyeing Magatha out of the corner of one of her beauty magazines.  She did not make eye contact with the girl, but awaited Magatha's slow happy march up to the cash register.

"I got sick--so I left.  I don't really want to be a mathematician anymore."

"Oh yeah?" Mrs. Valentine asked inattentively.  "Well what does Maggie want to be then?" Mrs. Valentine did not look up from her magazine.

" A witch maybe.." Magatha said fiddling with a toy on the counter extra-loudly, as she played her favorite game "try to catch Mrs. Valentine's attention."  She rarely won.

"Hmmm a witch eh?"  Before Mrs. V could look down from the magazine, a man with a blue suit came into the store.  His name was Martin, Magatha remembered.  She was very good with names.

"I need a telling for how my interview will go tomorrow." He said.

"Do you swear to open your heart and mind to my cards, telling them the story of your soul?" Magatha mouthed it out as Mrs. V. spoke.  She knew the words well.

"Yes yes, V, you know I always do." Martin said.  Mrs. Valentine looked down at Magatha and frowned.

"Maggie if you leave me be for a few I’ll give you a new scarf that will make you look like a knock-out."  Magatha's eyes glistened in delight as she walked outside to give Mrs. V her privacy.

         As Magatha thought of what kind of mysteries Mrs. V could be sharing with Martin, she imagined how pretty she would look in the jeans Mrs. Valentine had given her and the new "knock-out scarf."  "I won’t look like Magatha anymore.  Dad won’t even recognize me." Suddenly, Magatha became aware of a haggard woman approaching the front of the store.  She was riding an old bicycle and had a grey stained sweater on.  The old woman rode slowly on the grey sidewalk outside the shop.  She laughed hard when she made eye contact with the girl in the tight jeans and untied shoe laces.  Magatha waved and smiled.  The woman laughed again, shook her head back and forth and continued riding.

"Ok Maggie you can come in now."

Mrs. V handed Magatha the scarf.  It was blue and had snowflakes seamed into its edges.  It was August.  Magatha looked at it with wonder and amazement and loved it with all her heart.  She put it around her neck.

"You look great maggie," Mrs. Valentine said as she re-applied her makeup in the glass door of the shop, taking no time to actually look at the round awkward girl beside her.  Magatha stood next to her and admired two women in the glass. "The two witches" she thought.  "Maggie and Valentine the witches."

Magatha left the corner store, jumped over the fence again and entered the playground just in time for recess.  "How are you feeling Magatha? Good enough to take the quiz now?" asked Mrs. Holiday with a smile. 

"The nurse said I should probably rest my mind for another day.  She says I’m burnt out.  She also said I may have a disease....a bad one too—could be fatal," She lied.  Magatha flipped her scarf dramatically and walked away.  Instead of joining the third graders as she usually did, she walked over to a group of her classmates playing cards.  "What are you playing?" she said loudly. 

"Nothing, Magatha." said Nicolas, one of the boys.  He didn't look up at her, but kept his attention on the cards. 

"They don't have pretty faces like Mrs. Valentine's cards." thought Magatha.  "He probably doesn't even know how to open his heart and mind to the cards."  Magatha watched Nicolas play for a few more seconds.  Suddenly she grabbed the cards up from the mulch of the playground floor and ran as fast as her large body would take her.  Nicolas got up and chased Magatha, who was panting and breathing heavily, despite the rather slow speed she was running at.  Just as she was about to enter the woman's restroom, she tripped over her shoe laces and collapsed on the floor with a thud, her clumsy large body slightly bouncing as its momentum stopped. 

"Jeez, Magatha.....I...I didn't want you to fall. Sorry."  Nicolas said in shock.  Magatha had tears streaming down her red face.  Her jeans had ripped and her scarf's snowflakes were dirty and stained from the ground. "You can keep the cards. I want...I'm sorry I think."  Magatha noticed her untied shoes and bent down to tie them, forgetting the obvious problem her size and the jeans created.  She turned red and more tears streamed down her sweaty puffy face.  "Here.. let me tie your shoes for you " said Nicolas. He bent down and tied them.  When he finished Magatha stepped away.

"You know Nicolas, i'm a witch and I can see your future and its dark and gloomy and sad."  Said Magatha running from him in a stopping clumsy gate.  She hopped the fence once again and walked the block to the corner store.  The old haggard woman rode by her as she walked through the abandoned lot near the store.  "Whats your name?" Magatha shouted.  The woman laughed hard.

"I don't know my name." she said.  "Whats your name girl?"

"Magatha.  But most people call me Valentine." said the girl.

"You look like more like a Magatha." said the old woman.  She rode off looking back to laugh at the girl in tight jeans with the snowflake scarf.

Magatha opened the door to the corner store, hearing the familiar jingle of the old bells. Mrs. V was restocking some of the shelves of candy and sunscreen, while she listened to a talk show on the radio.

"Im Janice Weekes, and today we're talking about baby names with Dr. Rick Easter director of Linguistics at the University of Illinois."

"Magatha walked up to the Mrs. Valentine while she stocked the shelves.

"Guess what Mrs. V? I found something really interesting at recess." said Magatha

"And whats that Maggie?"

"Spirit cards.  I'm a witch like you now."  Magatha held out the deck of playing cards that belonged to Nicolas.  They had dirt on them from the fall.  Mrs. V finally looked down at them after placing a bottle of sunscreen on the shelf.

"Hmm, very nice maggie--here hand me that bottle next to you." she said.  After she placed it next to the other one she pushed back her hair back and returned behind the cash register.  Magatha followed her over to the counter and from behind it walked a girl about the same age as herself. She was wearing slim jeans and a silk scarf.  "Who are you" Magatha asked

"That’s my daughter, Holly." said Valentine, not looking away from the box of cigarette lighters she was counting.

         “Daughter?” She thought.  Magatha froze.  Her stomach began to feel tight and tingly.  Her heart pounded hard and her chest was heavy.  She began to sweat, her red face felt hot.  Magatha started to breathe heavily and loudly.  "Maggie you're breathing is throwing off my counting." said Valentine.  Magatha looked rapidly around the room.  It was spinning and she felt dizzy.  The nurse told her to count her breaths and close her eyes when she got burned out. She tried her best to do this.

         "Maggie do me a favor and take this sweater, it’s too big for Holly, and it would be a shame to throw away a perfectly good sweater." Mrs. Valentine said, handing the sweater to Magatha, all the while keeping her eye contact on the lighters.  She continued counting.  Magatha felt her nerves climax and she burst into tears, running out the door of the shop, shaking the bells on the door as she stomped out.  "Those bells give me such a headache.  Holly be a good dear and throw that big sweater out, and take those bells down while you're at it. They're a nuisance."

         School was over and the sky was losing a little of its light.  Magatha lost her breath after one hundred yards or so and sat by the side of the road to cry and catch her breath.  She took out the cards and looked at the pictures on the top card in the deck.  "Spades must mean that I will have luck--and the queen is the symbol of royalty which means maybe I'll be queen one day and rule this town.  Then I will be named Holly and she will be named Magatha, my servant girl.  She will have to make me scarves and jeans and sweaters," Thought Magatha.  It made her cry less.  She got up and continued walking until she got home.

         She opened the back door to her house and entered the living room.  Blue smoke hung loosely to the air.  She smelled the smoke--the smell of her father. 

"Magatha, how was school." he said.

"I decided I don't want to be a mathematician anymore." she responded.  Magatha looked down at her shoes and fiddled with her scarf.  She thought of Holly and felt a surge of fear run through her body.  "Guess what dad? I found magic cards today."

"What on earth is that around your neck?" he replied.

"Mrs. Valentine gave it to me.  She said it would make me a knock out." Magatha's father paused until a hard chuckled escaped his mouth and he continued to laugh for some time.  Soon the blue smoke intervened and his laugh became a cough and then a choke.  He drank the glass of water next to him to calm his throat.

"Magatha, do you know why she gave it to you?" he asked.

"She rewarded me for giving her and Martin their privacy."  Magatha responded. Her father smiled condescendingly.

"She gave it to you because that scarf doesn't fit her.  It didn't match up.  It wasn't made for people like Mrs. Valentine, skinny and tall.  It wasn't made for the rest of your fifth grade class, or your teacher or me, even.  That scarf is made for you."  He said as he fitted it properly around her neck.  "See the snowflakes, how funny they are.  It’s August, half a year away from winter yet--snowflakes.  You are like the scarf Magatha.  You are the snowflake born in August.  It looks fitting around your big neck." he said.  He then took the scarf from around her neck and took it to the counter.  Grabbing a marker from the drawer he wrote on the fringe of the scarf, "MAGATHA."

         Magatha frowned.  Her face had gotten red again and her heart was pounding.  She took the scarf from her father. "My name isn't Magatha anymore." she told him angrily.

"Hmm." was all he said with a smirk.  Magatha entered her room, closing the door.  She put the scarf on the desk in front of her and took out a pink marker.  She scratched over the name "MAGATHA" on the scarf.  Looking out the window, she thought about the haggard woman on the bicycle who had forgotten her name.  Recovering from the daydream, she took the pink marker to the scarf and wrote in clear large letters: "Holly."