Meanwhile Cindy had recovered enough to scramble from the pool, and she tottered off naked toward the house, howling at the top of her lungs.
/> "Wicked sinful girl!" I screamed. "All this is her fault! Her fault!"
From the back door Emma came on the run, her white apron fluttering, her hands covered with flour. She was closely followed by Momma, who had put on a skimpy blue bikini. "Bart, what have you done?" screamed Momma. She swept Cindy up in her arms, then swooped to pick up a towel Emma had dropped.
"Mommy," sobbed Cindy. "Big snake came . . . big snake!"
Why, imagine that. She'd known what I was. Not so dumb after all. Momma wrapped the towel about Cindy and stood her on the ground. She glared at me just as I had my foot raised to kick Jory, who was panting with pain. "Bart . . . if you dare to kick Jory again, you will regret it!"
Emma glared at me with hatred. I looked from one to the other. Everybody hated me, would be glad to see me in my grave.
Sore and full of pain, Jory tried to rise, not so graceful now. Just as awkward as me. He wasn't so handsome now. Still he could shout: "You're crazy, Bart! Crazy as a loon!"
"Bart, don't you dare throw that stone at your brother!" cried Momma when she saw me swoop to pick up one.
"You dreadful boy! Don't you throw that!" screamed Emma.
I whipped around and ran to pound on Emma with my fists. "You stop calling me names!" I yelled. "I'm not dreadful! I'm not bad!"
Momma raced toward me and grabbed me and threw me down. "Don't you ever throw another stone as long as you live, or use your fists on another woman!" Momma shouted as she pinned my shoulders to the ground.
Red rage entered my mind, making me see her as all women with "beguiling" curves and wiles. Malcolm knew about them all, told everything about how he'd wanted to pound all their breasts flat. I filled my eyes with Malcolm's malicious hatred, and it worked. Momma trembled as she held me down. "Bart, what's wrong with you? You don't know what you're saying or doing. You don't even look like yourself."
I bared my teeth as if to bite her--then I tried to. She slapped me, hard, repeatedly, until I began to cry.
"You go up into the attic and stay there, Bart Sheffield, until I come up and see what has to be done to set you straight!"
Scary in the attic. I sat on the edge of, one of those little beds and waited for her to come in. She'd never spanked me. A few slaps besides the ones on my face today were all the punishment I'd had up until now . . and now she was doing to me just what had been done to Malcolm. I was just like Malcolm.
The door into the attic opened and I heard her climbing the steep, narrow stairs. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she towered above me, staring downward, as if forcing herself to look at me. I never thought she could look so mean.
"Pull down your pants, Bart."
"No!"
"Do as I say or your punishment will be much worse."
"No! You can't hurt me. You lay one hand on me and I'll wait until you're in your ole ballet class and then I'll get Cindy--and Emma won't be able to stop me! I can be in a thousand places before she can move to one--and the police won't put me in jail because I'm a minor!"
"Bart, I'm losing patience with you."
"That won't be all you'll lose if you hit me!" I bellowed.
She paused three feet from where I sat on the bed. Her small pale hands rose to her throat and she said quietly, "Oh, God . ." and it was just a hoarse whisper. "I should have known a child conceived under such circumstances would turn out like this. Bart, I'm so sorry your son is a monster."
A monster? Was I a monster?
No--she was the monster! She was doing to me just what Malcolm's mother had done, the cause of him being put in the attic and punished. I hated her then, just as much as I'd loved her before.
I screamed it out: "I hate you, Momma! I hope you drop dead!"
That's when she backed away, tears in her eyes. Then she turned and ran. But before she went down the stairs she locked the door to keep me up in that miserable dry attic that I hated and feared. She was gonna make me strong like Malcolm, and mean too. Someday she'd pay. I'd make her pay for doing this to me, when I wanted to be good, and wanted her to love me just a little more than Cindy or Jory. I began to cry. Nothing ever worked out the way I wanted it to.
It was Daddy who spanked my bare bottom after he came home and heard all they had to tell him about me. I admired him for ignoring the way I pleaded and apologized.
"Did you feel any of that?" he asked when he was finished, and I pulled up my pants.
I smiled. "No. To hurt me you gotta break my bones, and then the police would throw you in jail for child abuse." He studied me with those stern blue eyes. "You think you have the best of us, don't you?" he asked in his calm, rational way. "You think because you are a minor there is no law that can touch you, but you are wrong, Bart. We live in a civilized society where people are expected to conform to the rules. No one is ever beyond the control of the law, even the President. And one of the worst punishments for a child to endure is being locked away so he cannot come and go at his own free will." He looked sad then. "That can be a very traumatic experience."