Read Online Orphan of Creation by Roger MacBride Allen - Free Book Online
Authors: Roger MacBride Allen
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brought along to take a group portrait of the family. She rooted around in her oversize pocketbook until she found a serviceable notebook and pencil, feeling happy and excited, at the start of doing what she did best. Just before she left the room she looked out the window at the kids who were back playing in the yard, and suddenly found herself thinking about her first dig, so many years ago. Back when she was twelve years old . . . .
It all began one spring with her pet hamster, a rather surly brown-and-tan rodent by the name of Fuzzball. The foolish little thing escaped from its cage one day while Barbara was at school, and the cat caught it and killed it. Her mother didn’t want her child to see the broken little body, and by the time Barbara got home from school, her mother had gotten the tiny corpse away from the cat and had unceremoniously thrown it in the trash can out back.
If her mother had hoped an invisible corpse would ease Barbara’s feelings, she was mistaken. Barbara was not only heartbroken at the death of Fuzzball and shocked at the cat’s homicide, but infuriated that her own mother could just throw Fuzzball away.
Barbara insisted on giving Fuzzball a decent burial. Her mother, who had never much liked hamsters, and who had wasted the entire morning chasing a live hamster around the house and then lost the afternoon trying to pry a dead one out of the cat’s mouth, was exasperated enough to do whatever would give her some peace and quiet. She dug the hamster out of the trash, wrapped it in tissue, put it in a shoebox, and presented it to Barbara.
Barbara, with a little girl’s ghoulish delight in the theater of it all, dug a hole in the little plot of untended ground behind the back garden, put the box in it, buried it, put a cross made out of two popsicle sticks over it, and said a prayer over the tiny grave. Then she laid a few dandelions on the little hump of earth, and went inside to dinner. By the next morning she had all but forgotten Fuzzball. She didn’t think of him for months. Summer vacation came and went.
The following fall, Barbara returned to school and one fine day got a book on archeology out of the library. Its title was something like How We Know About Prehistoric Man . She picked it because of the scary-looking skull on the cover, next to the pickaxe and shovel. As soon as her father tucked her into bed that night, she dug out her flashlight, burrowed under the covers, and began reading all about the famous scientists who dug up the bones full of secrets. Lying with her head buried under the covers, she read by the weak and flickering yellow gleam of dying flashlight batteries, all about the grand, romantic discoveries the great diggers had made. Her thoughts inevitably returned to the dead hamster buried under the brown earth of her own backyard.
In her mind’s eye blossomed the image of that tiny grave, a smooth, rounded hump of earth, with no weed or blade of grass growing on it. She imagined the popsicle-stick cross still new and perfect, the pencilled inscription on it absolutely legible. She imagined the hamster’s earthly remains, and his intact, white-polished skeleton safe under the sleeping earth. She saw him there, sheltered from the elements by the shoebox, every impossibly tiny bone in place, gently pillowed in Kleenex, the minute bones of his forepaws folded on his chest, his gleaming skull grinning into the darkness of the grave. It was a perfect, compelling vision, and Barbara had to struggle with her imagination’s tendency to put in little ear-bones and whisker-bones, too.
The next morning was Saturday. She dressed and ate breakfast in a hurry and rushed to the garage for a trowel, then to the rear of the back garden to dig up her prize, just like a real archaeologist—only to discover there was not the slightest trace of the grave. By thinking very hard, Barbara could just about remember roughly how far from the back fence and the dogwood tree she had
It all began one spring with her pet hamster, a rather surly brown-and-tan rodent by the name of Fuzzball. The foolish little thing escaped from its cage one day while Barbara was at school, and the cat caught it and killed it. Her mother didn’t want her child to see the broken little body, and by the time Barbara got home from school, her mother had gotten the tiny corpse away from the cat and had unceremoniously thrown it in the trash can out back.
If her mother had hoped an invisible corpse would ease Barbara’s feelings, she was mistaken. Barbara was not only heartbroken at the death of Fuzzball and shocked at the cat’s homicide, but infuriated that her own mother could just throw Fuzzball away.
Barbara insisted on giving Fuzzball a decent burial. Her mother, who had never much liked hamsters, and who had wasted the entire morning chasing a live hamster around the house and then lost the afternoon trying to pry a dead one out of the cat’s mouth, was exasperated enough to do whatever would give her some peace and quiet. She dug the hamster out of the trash, wrapped it in tissue, put it in a shoebox, and presented it to Barbara.
Barbara, with a little girl’s ghoulish delight in the theater of it all, dug a hole in the little plot of untended ground behind the back garden, put the box in it, buried it, put a cross made out of two popsicle sticks over it, and said a prayer over the tiny grave. Then she laid a few dandelions on the little hump of earth, and went inside to dinner. By the next morning she had all but forgotten Fuzzball. She didn’t think of him for months. Summer vacation came and went.
The following fall, Barbara returned to school and one fine day got a book on archeology out of the library. Its title was something like How We Know About Prehistoric Man . She picked it because of the scary-looking skull on the cover, next to the pickaxe and shovel. As soon as her father tucked her into bed that night, she dug out her flashlight, burrowed under the covers, and began reading all about the famous scientists who dug up the bones full of secrets. Lying with her head buried under the covers, she read by the weak and flickering yellow gleam of dying flashlight batteries, all about the grand, romantic discoveries the great diggers had made. Her thoughts inevitably returned to the dead hamster buried under the brown earth of her own backyard.
In her mind’s eye blossomed the image of that tiny grave, a smooth, rounded hump of earth, with no weed or blade of grass growing on it. She imagined the popsicle-stick cross still new and perfect, the pencilled inscription on it absolutely legible. She imagined the hamster’s earthly remains, and his intact, white-polished skeleton safe under the sleeping earth. She saw him there, sheltered from the elements by the shoebox, every impossibly tiny bone in place, gently pillowed in Kleenex, the minute bones of his forepaws folded on his chest, his gleaming skull grinning into the darkness of the grave. It was a perfect, compelling vision, and Barbara had to struggle with her imagination’s tendency to put in little ear-bones and whisker-bones, too.
The next morning was Saturday. She dressed and ate breakfast in a hurry and rushed to the garage for a trowel, then to the rear of the back garden to dig up her prize, just like a real archaeologist—only to discover there was not the slightest trace of the grave. By thinking very hard, Barbara could just about remember roughly how far from the back fence and the dogwood tree she had
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