Witch Clan: Matriarchs, John Stormm [great reads txt] 📗

out hunting lions or somethin’.”

It wasn’t a very hard kick, but Johnny’s nose smarted a little. However, hitting Buddy back would only get him into trouble. It seemed like a good idea to take Duchess and leave for the jungle a while. He found Duchess laying in the shade by her water dish. The big dog was ready for the big hunt at an instant’s notice. Passing the tent on the way out, Diana cried out.

“You keep your hands off of me,” she insisted.

“Then you pull them down and let me look.” .

“I don’t know,” she replied, “We’re not supposed to be doing stuff like this.

“I said pull ’em down or I’ll hit you good,” Buddy snarled. Johnny looked inside at Buddy standing over Diana as she lay in the grass frightened.

“No,” Johnny commanded.

“Are you going to stop me?” Buddy sneered.

“Yes,” Johnny said, as he fought down the rumbling thunder in his soul.

Buddy advanced on him with his fists balled and ready to fight. As he got within arm's reach, Johnny balled his little fist and planted it, stoutly on the end of the larger boy’s nose. Buddy fell backwards, holding his nose and howling for all he was worth. In short order, the parents came out to investigate the ruckus.

Deacon Green tried vainly to console his son, whose nose was bleeding profusely. Diana's mom brought Buddy a towel with some ice wrapped inside, and Buddy's dad whisked him away home, all the time threatening to sue if his son’s face was damaged. Patty grabbed Diana aside, who seemed confused at all that happened.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Diana insisted. “The boys were fighting.”

Johnny’s mom looked at him fearfully, as his dad tried to console everybody else that it was just boys being boys. He couldn’t bear the look on his mother’s face and stared down at his feet until his father snatched him away. Daddy was very angry and dragged him by the arm, marching him to his room faster than his little legs could follow. He received three sound licks on his fanny with the belt and was scolded for fighting.

"You can just stay here in your room," his father said, "and forget about supper, young man." He had committed the unforgivable sin of embarrassing his parents in front of the deacon of his church.

He sat sobbing, hating himself for the trouble he caused. At the time, it all seemed like the right thing to do, but the circumstances proved him wrong. He was no hero. He was a bad boy, and a worse one than Buddy. Brother George came by and tried to cheer him for saving his friend’s virtue. But Johnny didn’t know what a ‘virtue’ was, and evidently, it was nothing that grown ups cared for very much either. Like faeries. Johnny was very upset.

“Will you just go away,” he shouted. “I’ve been trying to be a good boy, and all your stupid ideas just get me spankings. Just leave me alone. I don’t want to get into any more trouble over pesky faeries, or dumb old ‘virtues’ either.”

The party at the Kraft’s broke up early as a sudden summer thunderstorm caused everyone to run inside. Johnny sat scowling on the edge of his bed as his father looked in on him and just shook his head in disgust and staggered a little on his way to the bathroom. His mom looked in and came and gave him a hug and slipped him an oatmeal cookie.

“I’m sorry, Son,” she said. “You just can’t go around hurting people you don’t like. That’s bad. You should learn to talk to people about things nicely. Your grandma says you’re a smart boy. Smart boys use their heads and not their fists. You think about that, and don’t let your dad see that cookie, sweetheart.”

Johnny hid the cookie in his sock drawer. He didn’t think he deserved any treats after the terrible way he had behaved. He still didn’t like Buddy, but then Buddy didn’t get a spanking, and he did. Who was worse? He was not allowed to go to Sunday school when the bus came by for him the next morning. Was that an indication that maybe Jesus didn’t like him very much either? He cried bitter tears into his pillow and promised he would be better behaved.

California Apple Banger

"It must have been the booze," Lorry told herself again and again.

She and Patty Kraft had gotten together and put on the Halloween party to end all parties. They put up loads of decorations and a huge, paper mache, witches' cauldron full of candy for the itinerant ghouls and goblins. The neighborhood adults came in costume and the party moved between the Kraft's spacious living room and the ever popular, backyard patio, strung with Tiki torches and paper lanterns. Being a Friday night, the kids were all up much later than usual and everyone had a good time bobbing for apples, playing games and spooking all the trick-or-treaters that came to the front door. There was a party nearly every weekend since she had moved out here. She loved to socialize but Dave had taken to drinking more and more. Dragging him home early and drunk out of his mind was becoming a weekly ritual. If he wasn't crying over some long past social slight, then he was getting belligerent over some presently perceived insult. He doted on his lovely daughter, but he was becoming less and less enamored with Johnny.

Johnny's fight with the Deacon's boy hadn't helped things at all, as Dave bemoaned that the social embarrassment and disapproval this engendered had probably cost him his promotion at the plant. Deacon Green was a floor supervisor in another section of the factory. The deacon had been persuaded not to sue them by Ted Kraft, who had a little conversation of his own to add to the story of what happened in his front yard with his daughter. The Krafts thought Johnny was a perfect little gentleman. But really... fighting with other boys, over girls at only seven years old? What was he going to be like when he was actually old enough to date? He could be such a charmer, like his father was. She didn't like to think about that. She had dressed up Linda as a little clown and Johnny as a little devil and they played well with the other kids until eight-thirty when she took them back to the house and had her niece, Beatrice, baby-sit for the remainder of the party. With the kids home, in their pajamas and Beatrice pouring over her homework at the kitchen table, Lorry returned to the party next door. Ted, dressed as a pirate, and Dave, dressed as a cowboy, were arguing over by the barbeque the merits of gentlemanliness in today's society. Most of the discussion was the liquor talking through both of them.

"You're too hard on the boy," Ted insisted, punctuating his point with a stentorian belch. "S’far as I’m concerned, he did the right thing by my Diana. You should be proud of him ‘stead of bein’ all upset over what stinkin' Dinkin Green's gonna think about you. Your problem is that you are too thin skinned about the damnedest things, Dave."

"I'm not thin skinned," Dave slurred. "That kid could give Bela Lugosi the heebie jeebies. I don't even trust him ‘round my little girl, and you shouldn't either. But I'll tell you what," he said, hitching up his pants and trying to stand a little straighter. "If you want the little bastard, you can have ‘im. 'Cause I'm not gonna be the guy they blame when he ends up in a instatit...institooter... a goddamn boy's home." He waved an imperious finger and stormed out of the yard for home in a zigzag sort of way.

“Sheesh,” Ted exclaimed with a burp. “What a grouch!”

"The older boys, behaving like much younger boys," Patty sagely observed, waving her highball at the retreating cowboy.

"Maybe he'll get home under his own power this time and sleep it off," Lorry replied. Twenty minutes later, a very worried Beatrice crashed the party to see her.

“Aunt Lorry,” Beatrice said sobbing. “Uncle Dave is out of control. He came in all drunk and angry and started taking it out on me and Johnny. He started yelling bad things at Johnny and kicked him hard. Then he picked up the baby from her crib. He’s so drunk, I was afraid he might drop her, but he yelled and told me to get out of his house.”

“You want any help, Lorry?” Patty asked, glancing dubiously at her inebriated husband.

“No thanks,” she said. “I can usually manage his tantrums. Beebee, you stay here and I‘ll go look in on things. It‘ll be alright, sweetie.” Lorry dashed for home, the front door was still ajar from Beatrice’s flight. Inside, the baby was crying and David was roaring at Johnny.

“See that, ya little bastard,” he yelled. “You made my little girl cry.”

Something thudded and crashed, as Lorry neared the front room.

“See, baby,” Dave crooned to the squalling infant. “Daddy chased away that little bastard.”

For a moment, it looked like there