Tuesday Three Vengeange

We were planning a mutiny, but the hedgehogs just wanted to retire back to their respective piles of leaves and kick back with a few beers, and the flowers were unable to get out of china.

Marlena played her usual dismissal dance with me, and just when I figured she couldn’t be any meaner she stopped acknowledging my presence altogether.

The worst part of it was that all the other girls gradually went along with it. Instead of me beefing with only Marlena, they all began acting the exact same way. Not making eye contact, monosyllabic answers, dismissing my questions completely, turning their backs when I was talking, never, even for a second, letting a smile escape on their faces when forced to talk to me during class.

I grew to hate Marlena and despise her little flock of mocking birds. You can all go to hell, I thought, you despicable lemmings. But being totally ignored and never looked at started leaving their mark on me, and after a year, I retaliated.

I started leaving tiny imprints, paw prints, on the path where she walked home from school so that she would lose her way or become disoriented. It was simple enough, Grandfather had shown me how to emulate animal prints when I was small, for fun.

I mixed belladonna and green peppers in her afternoon tea to make her drowsy and sick.

I tied her shoelaces together and hid her handkerchiefs.

One day, I found one of her ribbons on the outskirts of the school yard. She only wore light blue ribbons so I knew at once that it was hers, and I took it home with me and cut it into tiny pieces, using Grandmother’s garden shears while whispering a chant, Marlena, Marlena bull-shit liar, bull-shit ribbon lead you to quagmire, shocked and exhilarated at my own daring and use of swear words, and just as I was collecting the now ragged and dirty pieces of blue ribbon from the floor of the shed, Grandmother walked in on me. I blushed violently, stammering that I needed the pieces for working on some spells, which technically was not a lie at all, and it took almost an hour to convince her I had just happened upon the ribbon in the woods on my way home. Grandmother was beside herself and scolded me heavily for taking something that wasn’t mine in the first place, and especially for destroying it without even trying to find its true owner, for surely a nice ribbon like that must belong to somebody, and finally for cutting it up in such an aggressive, crude fashion.

With tears in my eyes, I went inside to get started on making dinner, but they were not tears of remorse, and secretly I was immensely proud of not having cracked under pressure.

All evening long the pieces of ribbon seemed to burn in my pocket, hot and malevolent and deliciously evil, but it wasn’t until when I went to bed that I realized they really had burnt completely. Gone, in cinders, seared through the soft cotton lining of my jeans pocket, and there was no way I could mend the hole without arousing suspicion in the house, so from now on I would just have to remember to not put anything in the left front pocket. I was already half asleep when suddenly I sat up with a start and a thought came to me in a hot flash. I had lied to Grandmother for the first time ever.

Äkkiä häpesin niin, että kuiskaten pyysin siilejä perääntymään, ja aamulla tiskatessani aamiaisastioita pidin huolta että kuivasin jokaisen kukkalautasen erityisen rakastavasti ja hellästi.

Kun Marlena ei sinä päivänä tullutkaan kouluun, olin varma että se johtui siitä että juoneni oli onnistunut, mutta sen sijaan että olisin katunut, sisälläni kupli nöyryytyksen ja julmuuden ja koston jumalatarten viekkaasti ja huomaamatta alkuun panema ja pitkään hautunut mausteinen liemi, samanlainen musta mönjä jota tapasin jynssätä teräsvillalla lieden reunoilta ja kattiloiden pohjalta isosisän makaabereiden tomaattikastiketalkoiden jälkeen, ja kun opettajatar ilmoitti Marlenan olevan kotona sairaana, olin iloinen ja ylpeä, enkä välittänyt vähääkään, etteivät hänen hovineitonsa edelleenkään ottaneet minua mukaan naruhyppyyn tai tervapataan. Ilman Marlenaa he päinvastoin näyttivät minusta pikkuruiselta säälittävältä näätälaumalta.

Tanssahdellessani kotiin isoäiti odotti minua keittiön pöydän ääressä istuen, ja koska hän ei koskaan istunut vaan oli jatkuvasti työn touhussa, käsitin heti että hän tiesi. Hänen kasvonsa olivat vakavat, ja niistä paistoi tunne, jonka tunnistin pettymykseksi. Kurkkuani alkoi äkkiä kuristaa, tunsin jotakin paisuvan sisälläni, sen samaisen sopan, jota olin huolella keittänyt ja jonka valmistumista innolla odottanut, kiehuvan nyt yli, ja kun juoksin isoäidin syliin, ihoani poltti, maistoin suussa veren koska olin purrut kieleeni, ja hiukseni ja ihokarvani nousivat pystyyn merkkinä syyllisyydestä.

Sinä päivänä, itkien katkerasti paistuvan muhennoksen ja kuivatun salvian ja rakuunan turvallisissa ja kodikkaissa tuoksuissa, isoäidin silittäessä märkää tukkaani ja kuiskaten korvaani että hän rakasti minua, ymmärsin ensi kertaa selvästi ja kirkkaasti mitä pahuus on.