“There. Right there. Don’t you see it?”
Cherry peered closer, trying hard to pick out what the neighbor was saying. She’d forgotten her name already. Only five minutes had passed and yet all she could think of was that she looked like a Barbara, but was fairly certain her name started with a D.
“Again! Again! It’s right there!”
A deep sigh lifted Cherry’s chest silently and just as silently escaped through her nose. There was a list the length of her pant legs in the kitchen for her to do.
“I saw it,” a gruff voice said behind them. The older lady who’s named started most likely with a D sighed loudly. She clearly never went to Madame Rocher’s manner classes. But then, who did go except for her, Cherry, and the other fifteen daughters of the women who went there twenty years before?
“You didn’t see anything, Pat,” argued old lady D.
Cherry smiled at the name. She’d have to be careful not to actually say it out loud though.
“Did, too. It was yellow with green feathers.”
Cherry looked up at the sky and closed her eyes. The trick to recentering yourself according to Madame Rocher. There had certainly not been something yellow with green feathers anywhere near them.
“I told you that you never see anything right, Pat.”
“Name’s not Pat. It’s Martin. You’ve been here for twenty years and you still don’t know my name.”
“What’s in a name?” shrugged the old lady.
“What’s your name, young’un?”
Cherry smiled and stuck out her hand.
“Cherry,” she said.
“Well, I could just dip you in sugar and eat you up,” grinned Martin, taking her hand to pump up and down. “My mother used to mix sugar and sour cream together and we would dip our cherries in it.”
He swiped his tongue around his grin in an effort to convince her how delicious the memory was. Usually, these types of comments made her want to run away, but something about Martin brought a bubble of laughter out of her. Old lady D was not happy with that.
“It was yellow, MARTIN,” she repeated. “The flying snake is orange, and he doesn’t have feathers.”
Martin laughed, then placed his leathery hand against his face and spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Cherry.
“She’s been trying to catch this “snake” for about fifteen years,” he said loud enough for Old Lady D to hear. Cherry was too busy noticing how very large Martin’s ears were and was caught being off timing in her answer.
“See? Even she doesn’t want to hear your lies,” Old Lady D said, her sagging chest heaving in triumph. “And of course, I want to catch it. It’s probably poisonous.”
“You’re poisonous,” Martin spit back before laughing again.
“Well, I really must be getting inside,” Cherry said.
“I’ll head on,” said Martin, already moving away. “But be on the lookout for that yellow bird. He took such big shits that the other people moved out.”
“There he is!” shrieked Old Lady D so close to Cherry’s ear that her first instinct was to clock her and watch her head fling backward like a bobble-head doll. Madame Rocher took care of her first instincts so well that all Cherry felt was a tingle in her pinkie finger and she smile never flinched as she stepped to the side. “He’s gone into your house!”
Old Lady D backed away from the door Cherry had been eyeing for the past twenty minutes. Nothing had come in or out.
“I’m very sorry, but I must be going.”
Martin laughed out loud as the old lady scrambled across the street, muttering to herself and periodically looking back at Cherry with a look of despondency and desperation. She paused for a second at her door, but then ushered herself and closed it firmly.
Martin saluted Cherry and gave her a wink before hobbling off down the road, his large ears bare and sticking out for all to see. Cherry wondered if he’d always had ears that big and if they had been cause for bullying in school. But she didn’t dwell on the question very long. She had things to do.
With relief she unlocked her front door and looked around the house that had been hers for only three weeks now. Everything was familiar and yet strange, but that was probably due to the never-ending number of boxes that needed to be unpacked.
Taking off her jacket there was a squeak down the hallway. Then a hiss. Then silence. Cherry peeked around the corner but saw nothing.
“Their insanity will drive me insane if I’m not careful,” she said, never noticing the eyes peeking out from under the closet door.