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By Marie Huston Miss Boo lived in a cave. She had a pet spider and a broom and she dressed totally in black, with a pointedy hat. Every afternoon, she would come out of her cave and host cartoons. My little brother preferred Officer Don, who hosted cartoons on a different channel. Office Don had a studio audience filled with children and played stupid games. You got more cartoons for your money from Miss Boo, but try explaining that to a bratty brother. Once in a while, Miss Boo would say something entirely unmemorable to introduce a cartoon and occasionally, she would try to scare you with a dumb trick, but I mainly remember the black outfit and the spider. I knew, deep in my heart, that she was a safe witch who was just pretending to be scary. Of course, we were lucky cause we had a real life Miss Boo. We were also lucky in that she didn't live near us. We had enough crazy people in our neighborhood so we let our cousins have Miss Boo. Renee and David weren't really our cousins but we thought they were because their grandparents treated us all the same. (In fact, I was sure I was their favorite grandchild, but I was too polite to ever tell Renee. She could argue the tail off a mule and I didn't see the need to get into it with her.) We had a passel of cousins and grandparents of our own, but they lived three hours away, so we adopted locally. In the way of children, we never thought of this older couple as babysitters. It didn't occur to us that our parents might be off somewhere having a good time without us. In our minds, they were back home weeding the garden and we were getting a treat. I used this trick on my kids when they were little and nowadays my daughter uses it on her little darlings. The difference is that these days, I'm the treat instead of the treatee. Mama Rinza and Papa Wilson lived in one of those old neighborhoods where nobody ever moved away. A huge oak shaded the screened-in porch. If one of my brothers was hogging the rope swing hanging from its thick limb, I'd wipe the thin layer of red dust off the green metal furniture on the porch and make it creak by swinging too high. Sooner or later, he'd want to prove he could make it screech louder and come push me out of my spot. We'd get into a little tussle and I'd threaten to tell on him and then wander over to plop down in the rope swing and pout. It worked every time. The door chime was a knob that we'd twist and a little song would play in the back room, announcing our arrival before our "Yoo hoo, is anybody home?" could be heard. The front room was the Parlor. We were only allowed to walk through the Parlor on our way to the den because it was the company room and we might break something. It was always darkened. Mama Rinza kept the thick drapes pulled tightly so the sunlight wouldn't fade the velvet divan and the plastic flower arrangements. When she had real company, Mama Rinza would turn on the globe lamp so the pink roses would glow against the pale green background. The light would catch the prisms falling from the bottom of the shade. Just watching the light twinkle on the walls made sitting there behaving worth the trouble and I'd pretend I was Pollyanna. Every tabletop in the Parlor was covered with a crocheted doily and crowded by china birds or framed photographs of old-fashioned people. One wall held an oil portrait of a son who hadn't come home from war. My brothers and I would hurry through the Parlor into the den, with its venetian shades and cold linoleum floors, to surreptitiously glance at the oak buffet. We'd see little white bags lined up in a row atop the buffet. That was the first thing we checked and we were never disappointed. It meant we were expected and we were going to get to stay a while. Sugared orange slices and candy corn filled the white bags and we were always on our best behavior so we could take a little white bag home with us. Papa Wilson always thought we were well-behaved, no matter what we did while we were there, but it wasn't worth taking a chance that Mama Rinza might outvote him. A doorway near the buffet opened into a long, narrow room that led to the back door. The ceiling here was sloped and crooked as if it were sinking and the room was lit by a single light bulb hanging from a cord. I was too short to reach the kite string tied onto the end of the cord, so I generally just aimed for the sunlight framed by the door. As long as you went straight to it, you wouldn't trip over anything. There was a pathway to the door between piles of chairs and boxes and who-knew-what-all. I smile with fond memories of this dark room as I stumble through my garage today. Out in the back was a pile of coal and Papa Wilson's workshop, filled with sawhorses and the sound of hammering. We'd speak to the chickens as we passed their coop and head for the apple trees. Horseapples are huge, sweet green apples. I'm sure they have a proper name but I don't know what it is. Crabapples are small apples that are bitter until they get ripe and it's a good idea to check with a grownup before you eat too many and get sick enough to die. They're both good climbing trees, even if you're short. We left most of the plums behind the workshop for Mama Rinza to cook up into jelly but I don't think she baked many blackberry cobblers. There was a big stand of blackberries in the field next-door and she'd send us over to gather them, but not many made it home. It was hard work standing out there in the hot sun, keeping an eye out for snakes and gathering as many chiggers as you got berries. You had to reward yourself cause you knew Mama Rinza was going to make you take a bath in that rough Octagon soap to get rid of the chiggers before you itched yourself to death. One day she taught us the Blackberry Rule -- one for the mouth, two for the pot. It seemed to help some. Mama Rinza was strict with us but Papa Wilson was pretty easy. He was a fireman and on special days, he'd treat us with a trip to the stationhouse. We'd slide down the pole and wash the fire truck. Sliding down that pole was a lot of fun unless you had on shorts and you'd been playing hard enough to get hot and sticky. Then Mama Rinza would get out the talcum powder when you got home and rub it on your raw legs and you'd walk around smelling like a baby the rest of the day. I'd get on my knees behind the big steering wheel and drive while my brothers hung on for dear life to the back of the fire truck, waving and swaying as we headed off to save the town. We saved many a burning building parked right there in the station, while the smell of fresh bread floated across the street from the bakery. Mama Rinza and Papa Wilson lived at the top of a hill that was too steep to ride bikes on. Well, you could ride down the hill but you'd get to going so fast, you'd end up in the Oconee River. If you didn't drown, you'd have to push your bike back up that mountain barefoot on the broiling pavement and it just wasn't worth it. The river ran under an old covered bridge that'd been there at the base of the hill since time began. They moved the bridge to Stone Mountain when somebody important decided to fancy Stone Mountain up and make it a tourist attraction, but you can't watch the Oconee ripple through the holes in the creaky boards any more. They thought they were saving it, but without the river, it's just a bridge with a lid. At the base of the hill was a run-down grocery store that Norman Rockwell would have killed for. Old men in dirty overalls and worn-out hats would sit outside on the benches and spit tobacco, yard dogs covered in horseflies asleep at their feet. Inside were your normal grocery items that people'd run out of easily like cornmeal, buttermilk and worms. Well, the river was right there. They also had the important things in life -- a huge metal chest with Nehi oranges in the bottle, nestled in hunks of ice chipped from huge blocks which came straight from the ice house; tremendous glass belljars crammed with stick candy, fireballs, and Bazooka Joe bubble gum; boxes preening with Butterfingers and Baby Ruths. Renee and I'd get us a moonpie and an RC Cola, or maybe we'd buy some peanuts and pour 'em into our Co-Cola so the Coke would fizz up. Then we'd race to suck up the fizz before it spilled out of the bottle. If Mama sent us to the store, it was "Bring back the change." If Mama Rinza sent us to the store, it was "Get yourself a little something with the change." That's the main difference between mothers and grandmothers, then and today. So you'd'a thought if Mama Rinza wanted to send us down to the store for something, we'd'a jumped right up and raced on down the hill. The problem was, to get to the store, you had to pass the real Miss Boo's house. Since the South is full of crazy people, we also have rules for dealing with crazy people. Oh, I'm not talking today's kind of crazy where they'd hurt you. Just crazy enough to scare the daylights out of you if you were a kid and had to talk to them by yourself. They weren't crazy enough to be put in the state hospital down at Milledgeville, but sometimes you wondered when the hospital was gonna add another wing. The real Miss Boo had a real name but we never used it. Like the TV Miss Boo, she always dressed in solid black dresses that came down to her solid black shoes -- this, in modern times when skirt lengths were a mandatory two inches below the knee. Even when it was hot as blazes outside, she'd roam the neighborhood looking like a real witch, except I never saw her wear a pointedy hat. While the TV Miss Boo lived in a cave, the real Miss Boo's house looked abandoned and haunted. Most of the windows were coated with cracked panes or covered in cardboard. The only glass left intact was a large frosted pane with squiggly designs in the front door. You didn't have to get all the way up to the broken steps to get the creeps. The tall oaks were full of heavy wisteria vines that drooped in tangles to the ground, mixing with the honeysuckle to create a thick undergrowth which shrouded the unpainted house in deep shadows. There was a small yard -- well, a place where the yard would have been if any grass had ever been planted. It was a wide spot of red clay right in front of the porch steps and there was a path through the jungle to the street. Miss Boo swept that dirt path with a broom every day like it was a real concrete sidewalk. It was a spooky place and Miss Boo lived alone. Except for her black cat. I would not kid you. If it weren't true, I wouldn't have dared to give her a black cat cause it'd sound made-up. Even Mama understood why we called her Miss Boo once we explained about the black cat. Anyway, the Number One Rule for dealing with crazy people is to not let on that you think they're crazy. You have to be polite and act normal, especially if they're grownups. You don't want to hurt their feelings for anything in the world because you don't know what they might do to you (or tell your mama) if they get upset. When you get stuck talking to crazy people, you're pretty much stuck until you come up with an excuse to get away. And when you do escape, you wait till you're out of their sight before you run like the dickens to safety. The problem is that most crazy people don't know how to end a conversation and you have to help them out. You can always hear your mama calling you, or have ice cream in the bag and have to get it home quick. They don't understand even these basic things at times, but at least you've done your duty and been polite. So walking past Miss Boo's house, even with the lure of moonpies and an RC Cola, could be a dangerous proposition. You knew good and well that if she saw you go past, she'd be there waiting to talk to you on the way back. Even if you ran as fast as you could down the hill and crossed to the other side of the street on your way back, she was gonna get you. In fact, she'd be out there on the curb, stroking that black cat, no matter how long you took. She always was. She was a scary old witch who would drool all over you if she caught you and sic that black cat on you if you ran away from her. So we would stop and talk to her and be polite, itching to get away the whole time but not wanting to make her mad enough to put a spell on us. She always had some important message for us to take to Mama Rinza. We'd stand there nicely and nod our heads up and down, saying "Yes, ma'am" every few words. We never understood a word she said to us. She slurred her words and mumbled in a low, hoarse tone. The main thing was to try to stand out of spitting distance or you'd get the heebie-jeebies when she got you with a direct hit. One day she gave us an apple pie to take to Mama Rinza and Mama Rinza got a little upset with us when we refused to eat any of it, but we'd read Hansel and Gretel and we knew the score. We'd stand and be polite for a few minutes whenever Miss Boo stopped us, but as soon as we could get a word in edgewise between the drooling and the spitting, we'd promise to tell Mama Rinza what she'd said and skeedattle on out of there. We'd start yelling to warn Mama Rinza the minute we hit the porch cause Miss Boo always followed us home. A glance over our shoulders and, yep, there she came. We'd make sure Mama Rinza knew she was coming, throw the groceries on the buffet and race through the dark room to the safety of the horseapple tree. Mama Rinza would pass us, taking her apron off and turning on the globe lamp, muttering something that sounded like, "poor old soul." She'd head toward the front porch and lead Miss Boo into the Parlor like she was regular company. Sooner or later, Mama Rinza would open the screen door and tell us the coast was clear and we'd be safe again. We'd climb down out of the tree and go see what Papa Wilson was hammering on in his shop and see could we help. And then Miss Boo died. Mama told me about it one Saturday morning when she was cooking up a storm and I asked her were we having company. She had okra frying and green beans simmering in fatback. She handed me some eggs to devil while she rolled out a pie crust. She looked at me a long time and then said, "I think you're old enough to go with me to the visitation. You've never been to a funeral and it's time you learned how these things are done." I almost choked on the green bean I had snitched and said, "Well, if it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon not." Mama gave me a sharp look to see if I was being sassy, so I kept an innocent look on my face and stayed quiet while she talked about what we should wear to Miss Boo's visitation. I asked her, "But if Miss Boo's dead, why are we taking her food?" She flipped the crust into the pan and started tweaking the rim. "Well, her children are coming, of course, and I didn't want Mama Rinza to have to feed the entire crowd by herself." My mouth dropped open. "Miss Boo had children?" Lord love a duck! "How could she have children? I never saw any children over there. Heck, I never saw anybody at all over there." Mama poured the cherries into the pie crust and started cutting strips for the top. "Well, her children are grown up and live out of town." I could understand why they never came to see her. Imagine growing up with Miss Boo as your mama. I'd've left town, too. "But, Mama, you didn't even know her." She stopped and looked at me in surprise. "Why, of course I knew her. When I first started teaching, her classroom was right next to mine. She would have been your kindergarten teacher if she hadn't had a stroke and retired before you got there." I watched her sprinkle sugar over the criss-crossed pie crust in horror. I couldn't think of a word to say. I pictured my first day of kindergarten and kindly Miss Smith leading me to the cloakroom where I would hang my new raincoat. I wondered how many children Miss Boo had eaten in that same cloakroom before she had her stroke. Once my mama got a notion in her head, there was no going back on it. So off we went that afternoon, over to Miss Boo's house. I had on my Sunday dress and my new black patent leather shoes. I didn't think it was fair that my brothers didn't have to go, especially since Jimmy was two years older than me and hadn't ever been to a funeral either, but Mama acted like she thought she was giving me a treat by letting me go with her and help out. We parked over at Mama Rinza's house and Mama sent me in to see could I help Mama Rinza carry the fried chicken. Mama Rinza met me on the porch with a large plate. Papa Wilson was sitting in the green metal swing and he gave me a wink as we set off toward Miss Boo's house. I could hear the creak of his swing following us down the street and wished I could've stayed there safely with him. Now, I still had the scar on my knee from my one trip to the front steps, but that was as close to Miss Boo's house as I had ever been. Jimmy had bet me a half a pack of Juicy Fruit that I wouldn't touch her steps. I won the bet, but I had tripped on an overgrown root on my way back and by the time Mama Rinza found the Band-Aids, Jimmy had eaten the gum. That afternoon in the broad daylight, following my mother and Mama Rinza, I wasn't too scared. After all, Miss Boo was dead. I kept trying to remember that. But in the back of my head, I was hearing Jimmy whispering in my ear as I got in the car, "You know, Miss Boo'll probably come back as a zombie today." We walked up the crooked steps, across the broad porch, right up to the front door with its frosted window pane. It opened with a jerk! I jumped cause I just knew it was Miss Boo coming to get us. But it wasn't. It was a short fat lady with a big smile. She hugged my mama and Mama Rinza and invited us in, taking a tray out of Mama's hands. I followed Mama on through the house, back to the kitchen where there were a lot of women laughing and talking and placing food on the table. I was stunned. The house was full of people. My principal was there, and Miss Smith, who came over to give me a pat on the back and tell me how pretty I looked. Mrs. Finch, from down the street, was checking something in the oven. I recognized people from Mama Rinza's church and there were lots of the old people who lived on that street and some complete strangers who everybody was hugging. Mama talked a while to the ladies and then I shadowed her as she made her way back to the living room. I looked around in amazement. There was a glass cabinet filled with painted china. I saw a huge silver tea service on a little table, with lots of matching silver pieces. Paintings covered every space on every wall. Gorgeous paintings that looked like somebody real had painted them instead of cutting them out of a book -- bright flowers and fields of poppies. And the books. My goodness at the books. Tall oak cases reached to the ceiling, lined in leather-bound books. Miss Boo had more books than my daddy! The sofas and chairs looked old, but new. You know, old timey shapes but new, soft material that left a streak if you ran your finger through it. And the house -- this old ratty house -- was spotless. I wondered if the fairies had come and fixed up the house special for today. Lots of grownups stood around talking to each other and I heard somebody say, "Well, you know, living alone and all. She thought burglars wouldn't bother her if it looked rundown. And as far as I know, she never had any trouble." Mama went up to the fat lady who had let us in the door. The fat lady turned to me and grabbed my hand and said, "Well, now, honey. You haven't seen her, have you? Let's go let you say goodbye. Mama always talked about how sweet you were. You were one of her favorites." I wasn't sure where she was taking me or who she was talking about until we got across the hall. The huge dining room table had been pushed against a wall and there were a couple of people sitting in some chairs around a long box. Well, excuse the heck out of me, but I had watched enough Dracula movies to recognize a casket when I saw one. The fat lady dragged me right up to the box and picked me up so I could see in it. I felt my mama's hand on my shoulder. I squinched up my eyes so I wouldn't have to look and felt Mama's hand applying a gentle pressure -- the kind of touch she uses when she's reminding me to be polite. So I looked. And then I smiled. It wasn't Miss Boo in the casket at all. There was a pretty little gray-haired lady in a bright blue flowerdy dress laying there. She had rouge on her cheeks and pink lipstick to match her fingernails. On her collar, somebody had pinned a white corsage with a ribbon to match her dress. All I could think was how nice that she had died coming straight from the beauty parlor. I felt better. The fat lady groaned and plopped me down. She and Mama were standing there talking to an old man when I felt something bump against my leg. I looked down and it was Miss Boo's cat! I jumped away. Yuck! The old man looked at me and then looked down at the cat. The cat was rubbing up against my leg and I was pinned up against the fat lady. The old man reached down and lifted the cat into his arms. "Well, now, Bubbles," he said. "What are we going to do with you? Maybe this little lady would like to take you home with her." He looked at me and smiled. My sole claim to fame as a child was the ability to think fast when I needed an emergency excuse. I looked straight back at the old man and said, "I'm sorry, sir. I've got a dog." It did cross my mind that Shorty would chew this cat up in a heartbeat, but it'd take all the fun out of it if the cat put a curse on Shorty. I didn't think I wanted to take that chance. Mama must've heard us talking because she told the old man she was allergic to cats. I looked up at her. I'd heard her say a million times how much she hated cats, but I'd never heard anything in my life about her being allergic to them. But I wasn't stupid, so I kept quiet until we were on the way home later. Once we were back in the privacy of our car, Mama surprised me. "Lord-have-mercy! I would never have taken you with me if I'd known it was a home viewing. I didn't think anybody took the body home these days unless they lived way out in the country. At least, we were spared any snake-handlers." I looked at Mama with interest, but she didn't follow that last thought any further and I was afraid to ask. My mind was churning with a new thought. The pretty little lady in the blue flowerdy dress was Miss Boo. Miss Boo had children and was a school teacher. When we got home and I had changed into my play clothes, I headed off down to the woods to think about it all. I settled into the highest limb of my favorite tree where I did most of my finest thinking. My mind boggled with wonder and it took me the rest of the afternoon to figure everything out. We had pineapple sandwiches and Vienna sausage for supper that night because Mama had taken all the food over to Miss Boo's house. As we ate, Mama told Daddy about the visitation and my brothers snickered at me under their breath and giggled. So I didn't tell the boys that Miss Boo really had been just an old teacher lady who'd gone a little bit off the deep end. Later on, I was glad I hadn't. A week or so after Miss Boo died, Daddy picked us up at the swimming pool on his way home from work. We piled into the back of his old truck, anxious to get out to the country roads when we would be allowed to ride on the tailgate. But we didn't go straight home. We found ourselves crossing the covered bridge and going up the hill toward Mama Rinza's house. This was an unexpected surprise and we were getting excited when the truck started slowing down and stopped too soon. We parked right in front of Miss Boo's house. Daddy got out and told us, "You kids stay put. I'll be back in a minute." We watched him walk up and speak to a man in overalls who was painting the gingerbread trim on Miss Boo's front porch. Two men were using machetes to cut the wisteria and honeysuckle back from the oak trees. The house, now that you could see it from the street, looked much larger than it ever had before. We watched Daddy turn to talk to another man who was fixing the front steps. He followed the carpenter into the house and we could see them standing inside the front window while they talked. That's when Jimmy pointed out that somebody had replaced the cardboard and the windows had brand new glass in them. If you didn't know Miss Boo had lived there, you'd'a thought it was just a normal old house. After a little bit, Daddy came back to the truck and Jimmy asked, "Who's fixing up Miss Boo's house?" Daddy stood looking at us for a minute or two. "Well, we weren't going to tell you children yet, but your mother and I have bought Miss Boo's house. As soon as the repairs are finished, we'll be moving in there to live." He smiled as if he were Michael Anthony on The Millionaire and he had just offered us the incredible amount of one million dollars. "Won't y'all enjoy being so close to Mama Rinza and Papa Wilson? In about another week, you'll be able to visit them any time you want." Then he turned, climbed into the cab and started the truck. I was the first to recover. I looked at my brothers' open-jawed faces and bugged-out eyes. I put a serious look on my face. I leaned toward them and whispered, "You know, I never told y'all this, but when I was at the visitation -- you know, when I was standing over Miss Boo's casket looking at her dead body, I heard something swish in the air near my head and it felt like a giant spiderweb was grabbing my arm. Y'all don't think Miss Boo's come back to haunt her house, do you?"
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