The Floatplane Notebooks Read Free Page B

about Mark’s father cheating. Thatcher said nobody ever talked about it but it had to do with “another woman” overseas during the war. That’s all he knew. I wondered about it, but also recalled the wisdom of that old saying, “Let bygones be bygones.”
    We finally arrived home without event. My mother said she was relieved the trip was over. She said it with an attitude which led me to believe she didn’t grasp the force with which Thatcher and I were in love.

MARK
    When we were driving back from Florida, Aunt Mildred told Bliss about finding the drowned kitten that time. That was back when me and Meredith were little. She pulled up the kitten out of the well in the water bucket. Meredith done it—drowned a whole litter. Me and him were playing marbles when she pulled it up. She screams, “Oh, my God,” looks down into the well and says, ‘Are they all down there?” She unhooks the bucket from the well rope—it’s got water and the kitten in it—and walks to the tool shed. Meredith and me follow her. She gets a shovel, goes behind the tool shed, sets the water bucket on the ground, digs a hole, and pours the water and the kitten into the hole. The kitten floats, then the water seeps down in the ground, leaving him in the hole, sopping wet, with white skin where his fur is parted. Meredith and me stand there watching. Aunt Mildred covers him up and steps on top of the dirt, which sinks down with her footprints in it over and over. “Where’s Thatcher?”she says. “He was supposed to drown those kittens in the pond.”
    Then when Uncle Albert comes home, and Thatcher says he didn’t do it, that he gave them to Meredith to do it, Uncle Albert finds us.
    â€œDid you drop them kittens down that well, Meredith?”
    â€œNo sir.”
    â€œWell, who did?”
    â€œMark.”
    â€œI did not! That’s a story!
You
did! You held them by the neck and dropped them!”
    â€œSit down on that root,” says Uncle Albert. “Both of you. Thatcher, Noralee, come sit on this root right this minute.”
    We all sit. Uncle Albert walks back and forth. He is short and always wears loose overalls. He talks, walking back and forth. Finally he says, “Mark, you go home and tell your mama I’m going to whip you and Meredith and Thatcher. I’ll be waiting right here.”
    When I get home I can’t get my breath to talk because I’m crying so hard. Mother’s looking in the refrigerator when I walk in, and then I am holding onto her, crying. I can look through the window and see that they are standing there waiting for me.
    Mother walks with me outside to the tree. “What happened?” she says.
    â€œThese boys drowned some cats in the wrong place—in the damn well—and I aim to whip mine and I’ll whip yourn if you’re a mind.”
    â€œI ain’t a mind,” says Mother. “I’ll tend to Mark.”
    We walk back home. Mother walks with her hand on myhead. Meredith hollers that he is going to beat me up. Uncle Albert tells him to be quiet.
    I stand at the window and see Uncle Albert talk to them some more and then send them after switches. Then I see him whip them with their pants down, bending over.
    Mother sees me looking and tells me to get away from the window. Then she tells me it’s wrong to drop kittens down the well, but that she knows I didn’t do it, and for me not to ever tell a story.
    The other worse time when Meredith lied was when he started the welldigger and got me to lie too. It was all his fault. I just thought we were going to camp out, that’s all.
    Mother was out on the back porch potting a plant. There was a big, flat black cloud, churning up into itself, but below it you could see the sun setting like a full moon.
    â€œMother, can I still camp out?” I say. “Uncle Albert says the rain’s all blowed