The Last Jeskey - Chapter 37

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 37

 

(Day 8 – Thursday)

 

Freaky

 

What’s the big deal about money?  Why is it that that’s all everybody seems to think about?  It’s useless!  It’s just little pieces of paper with drawings on it.  It doesn’t do anything!  You can’t use it for anything.  Money doesn’t make sense!  At least that’s the way I felt about it.

While we waited for someone to come back to take us shopping, Shantel and Lisa went through every cupboard I had and discussed what they should get.  But that led directly to trouble…for me.

Lisa opened one of the bottom kitchen cabinets and found the dog food and my bowl.  “Freaky,” she said.  “Did you used to have a dog?”

“No.  Never.  We have some chickens sometimes and some pigs once in a while, but we’ve never had a dog.”

“Then why do you have dog food in here?”

“For me of course.”

“You!”

“Leese!” Shantel said.  “She told us they made her eat dog food sometimes.”

“I didn’t want to believe it,” Lisa said as she pulled the bag and my bowl out and set them on the table.”

“When was the last time you had to eat this?” she asked me.

“This morning.  That’s what I had for breakfast.”

“You what?” both Lisa and Shantel yelled.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Shantel asked.

“Because Gary said I’m supposed to be eating nothing but dog food until he says I can stop.  But he’s got to kill me first.”

“Kill you is right!  As in murder.  Freaky, he’s not coming back to tell you to stop eating.  He’s coming back to murder you like someone did to those other uncles of yours.  You’re going to be dead!”

“But I owe them my life.  Without them, I would have been dead a long time ago.  They’ve told me that all my life.”

“Freaky,” Lisa said.  “No more dog food!  Ever!  You’re better than that.”  She grabbed the bag and the bowl and carried them over to the trash barrel next to the beer refrigerator, and dumped them in.

All I could see was Gary yelling at me for not doing what I was told and burying me alive for it again.  If I didn’t eat nothing but the dog food, I wouldn’t be a good girl!  What was I going to do?  And I knew both Lisa and Shantel weren’t going to understand.  Yeah, Gary was definitely going to kill me.

It was getting toward lunchtime when Natalie came back.  She was only in the house a minute before we all walked out, Shantel and Lisa both carried bags with them.  Nice looking bags with handles that went over their shoulders.  I had seen them carrying them yesterday when they came home from the shelter with me.  They even took them into that place where we had gotten the burgers.  But why did they take them?  I never once saw either of them opening them.  And now they were carrying them again.  I was never going to figure out this world.  There was one other thing I was trying to figure out.  Why was there a cop car following us?  Nobody had talked to him or even said hi.

“Why am I going?” I asked as Natalie drove away from the house.  “They never take me to get food or anything else.  I’m supposed to stay home.”

I expected Natalie to answer, but Lisa answered instead.  “You’re going because it’s good for you.  We’re supposed to be teaching you about the world away from your house, and we can’t do that if you stay home.”

Nobody else seemed to have any opinions about that.  I had one, but I didn’t say it.  As far as I was concerned, I was better off staying home, where I understood everything.  I just looked out the windows and watched the woods and then the fields, and then I started seeing all those weird buildings and places again.  I just knew they were going to take me to another weird place that I didn’t understand.

Natalie stopped the car at what she called a restaurant.  I noticed that cop car that followed us parked next to us.

“Looks kinda nice,” Shantel said as she got out of the car.

“It does,” Lisa agreed.

I just thought the building looked weird.  It had huge windows all across the font so you could see all the people inside eating.  We all went inside, but I had to wonder why that cop in that car went to all that trouble to follow us, and now he wasn’t coming in with us.  Natalie led us to an empty table, and we sat down.  There were these book things sticking up between some stuff on the table and Natalie grabbed them and passed one to each of us.  I looked at it.  It was full of pictures of food…I think.  It took me a moment to figure out that I was looking at it upside down.  Why have a book full of food pictures?  At least I didn’t have to worry about reading it.

“Freaky,” Natalie said as I looked at the pictures.  “Do you know what you want?”

“Something to eat,” I replied.

“Yes, but what would you like?”

“I don’t know.”

But Lisa suddenly moved her chair around next to me and started pointing at each of the pictures.  “This is chicken, this is a different kind if chicken, this is a salad….”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“That’s what the words with each picture mean.  Those words tell us all about the picture.”

“They do?”

“Yes!  That’s why you need to learn to read.”

I considered that.  “But I’m a girl.”

“And so am I!” Lisa said firmly.  “So is every woman in this place, every woman in the world.  And they all can read…except you.”

“They can?”

“Yes!”

“But I can’t.”

“I know.  But that’s what I’m going to start teaching you.  Tonight!”

“Tonight?  You will?”

“Yes!”

I looked at the pictures again and the word things that were with them.  It would be nice to be able to figure things out for myself once in a while.  “Okay,” I told her.  “Maybe that would be good.”

“I got a surprisingly nice hug from her.  She showed me a few more pictures and then asked what I wanted to eat.  I pointed at a picture that she said was chicken, although it didn’t look anything like the fried chicken I cooked.  “Good choice,” Lisa said before she moved her chair back around to her place at the table.

A lady came over to the table and asked something about drinks.  Everybody said something, but after Lisa told her what she wanted, she pointed at me and told the lady that I would have the same thing.  And then Natalie told the lady what she wanted to eat.  After Shantel and Lisa had told her what they wanted, Lisa told her what kind of chicken food I wanted.  The lady finished writing something then went away.  I wondered what was supposed to happen now.  Last night at that burger place, the sheriff had gone to a counter where some other people were to get the food.  This time I didn’t see a food counter like that.

“Miss Natalie,” Shantel suddenly said.  “I really hate to ask this but…well, I want to.”

“What?” Natalie asked.

“Is there any chance in the world we can buy a guitar?  Just a cheap one.”

“A guitar?” Natalie asked, sounding surprised.  “Do you play guitar?”

“Since I was little.  But I ain’t had one now since I left home.  That house we’s in has no TV, no nothin’ and I just thought that maybe a bit of music would be nice.”

“I love hearing you sing,” I told her.

“Thank you Baby Doll,” Shantel said.  “I appreciate that.  I love singin’.”

Natalie shook her head.  “I’m sorry Shantel, but right now we’re not too sure about how the money situation is going to work.  I can buy some groceries and things right now to help get you going, but then Pam and I need to sit down and work on the details of it all…including paying you two.  Maybe another time when the money situation is a bit more clear.  When I got up this morning, we had no money to work with at all.  Besides, I don’t even know where you could buy something like that around here.”

“Okay, thanks,” Shantel replied.  “I just thought I’d ask.”

When the lady brought the food to the table, it was really, really good.  I had to wonder how they made it taste like that.

When we all finished eating, that lady came back again and I watched as Natalie pulled some money out of the bag she was carrying.  I saw her count some, then give it to the lady.  Why?  As we were getting up from our chairs, I whispered to Lisa, “Why did she do that?”

“Do what?” Lisa asked.

“Give the lady some of that money stuff.”

Lisa looked at me.  “You’ve never seen anyone buy anything before, have you.”

“I never left the house before.  But what was the money for?”

“To pay for our meals,” Lisa said.

“Why?”  I asked as we walked away from the table.

I didn’t get an answer until we were back in the car.  “Freaky,” Lisa said softly.  “If you had a dozen eggs and you wanted to sell some…”

“What’s a dozen?” I asked.

“Twelve.”

“What’s twelve?”

“Oh boy!” I heard Shantel say from the front seat.

Lisa was still trying to explain it to me when Natalie stopped the car at what she called a grocery store.  I had heard Bo and the others talk about the grocery store, and groceries, which I knew was food of all kinds, so I had some idea as to what would be in the store.  But why did the building have to be so big?  My head was already confused and spinning from Lisa trying to explain money and numbers to me, when we all walked inside and I saw so much stuff.  Wow!  “This is all groceries?” I asked Shantel.

“Every bit of it,” Honey Pie,” Shantel said.

“Lisa,” Natalie said, “Why don’t you and Freaky grab a cart.  Shantel and I will take another one.”

“Have they got coffee pots in here?” Shantel asked Natalie.

“Yes,” Natalie replied.  “And we’ll get you one.”

“Thank the lord!”

While the others pushed the carts and kept putting things in them, I stared in wonder at all the stuff the place had.  So many things.  So many colors, so much…stuff!  And all of it was different.  I don’t think they picked up anything I recognized, including the coffee making machine.  Oh, there was some things that Lisa put in the cart that I did recognize, but I didn’t know why she picked them up.  I saw her take some paper, some pencils, and later she picked up a book.  Why?  And why did both Shantel and Natalie tell her that was a good idea?

When we were done picking stuff up, Natalie led us to this weird table where the entire top of it moved, and Natalie started putting the things from her cart on that moving tabletop.  There was another lady there who kept grabbing things and I kept hearing this beeping sound from somewhere.  Another lady was taking everything she had grabbed and was stuffing it in bags.  Why didn’t the first lady simply grab the things and stick them in bags?  Or for that matter, why didn’t we do it ourselves?  Why did they even need bags?  We could put it all right into the trunk of Natalie’s car.

When the lady was done grabbing things, instead of leaving, Natalie did that thing with the money stuff again.  Lisa had spent some time trying to explain it to me, so I had a vague idea, but it was too vague.  I still couldn’t figure out what the money did.  But we left that weird huge building and went back to the car, where Shantel and Lisa put all those groceries into the trunk of Natalie’s car.

When we left, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to think about more, what Lisa was trying to tell me about the money, or all the stuff they had in that place.  The store stuff won out, until Natalie said, “Shantel, you said you wanted to see a church.  There’s one just ahead that I think you might like.  We’ve got groceries in the car, but if we don’t take too long, maybe we can stop so you can take a quick look inside.”

“Miss Natalie!” Shantel said, suddenly very excited.  It looked like she wanted to hug Natalie, but she was afraid to because Natalie was driving.