Sadie McCann (17)
The Tortoise Under My House
There is a tortoise and he lives under my house. It has been ten years and one day. Yesterday was my birthday. Today is his birthday.
Mama tells me I was born during a rainstorm. She says the wind shook the trees and the thunder grumbled in the sky and I think it must have sounded like the men that were in the living room at night, muttering under their breath. I asked her if she was scared and she said she was not, because even though she and Papa came home to a tree in the roof and water sinking into the floorboards, and her knuckles were white as she clutched Papa’s hand on the way to and from the hospital, I was there. I slept in her arms the entire way home, not disturbed by the rain or the swerving of the car. Mama says it’s a miracle the old red car didn’t crash into a tree or sink into the mud.
In the morning, it was still raining but the tree branches didn’t whip through the air and Mama didn’t have to be scared for Papa when he went to fix the roof. Mama says I was crying in the morning, but in the afternoon, the rain clouds faded and the sun shone on my face and I stopped. I think that was when the tortoise came, because when Mama took me outside, she says I pointed at the circular footprints in the mud and smiled. I know I wouldn’t have smiled at anything else.
He was a rock at first, one that sat underneath the porch. I was three when Mama complained that the boulder was pushing up the boards and Papa said he would move it, but when he tried, it wouldn’t budge. And when Papa left in the old red car, I decided I would move it myself. I peered underneath the porch only to see the boulder was alive and it was eating the weeds in the mud. So I took the lettuce from Mama’s garden and laughed when the boulder ate it out of my palm.
Mama didn’t believe me when I said the boulder was alive. She said it might feel that way, but rocks lost their lives long ago when they curled up to go to sleep. I asked if maybe one of them forgot and woke up, but Mama said the rocks would not abandon their own and if one woke up, the others would have been awake too. And she pointed outside to the river in the distance, where the water ran fast and cold over the boulders, and who, despite the rush of the blue water, were silent and still.
Every day after that, I tried to wake up the rocks, to no avail. I whispered where I suspected their ears might be, murmuring to them, telling them to wake up finally and tickled their backs, begging them to uncurl and see the world again. But not one of them stirred, except the boulder, who I soon learned was a tortoise after Papa brought an empty tortoise shell home one day and hung it on the wall.
He didn’t stay under the porch for long. He dug, at night I’m sure, a hole, and pushed himself underneath the foundation of the house. Papa found the hole in the morning and said the earth was swallowing itself, as it should have done years ago. I asked him why, and he shook his head, mumbling something about the world dying, and blew smoke into the chilled morning air. When he left, I crawled into the hole, getting mud all over my knees, and felt around in the dark until my fingers brushed the roughness of a shell.
The tortoise awoke when I came down and his rough lips tickled the lettuce out of my hand. He gazed at me with soft, baleful eyes and I wondered why he was all alone.
Mama got mad when she saw me climb out from under the porch. She warned me that someday, I could be swallowed up by the earth too and she yanked my arm away when I tried to go back down.
It rained that night, a good heavy rain, and Mama smiled. She said that we were blessed, that the world needed it, and that the plants would love it. I wasn’t allowed to stay up late that night like I usually did, and Mama put me to bed early even though Papa wasn’t home and I didn’t get to say goodnight. I ran to the door to greet him when I heard tires crunching the dirt in the driveway, but Mama pulled me away, and pushed me in my room and shut the door.
I listened for Papa after I was supposed to be asleep, but all I heard was the sound of heavy footsteps and deep gruff voices covering up his. He was talking, but his voice shook, and I could hear Mama holding back a whimpering cry. I wanted to tell her that it was okay, that the rain would heal us, which is what she told me, but I didn’t, because Mama locked the door. But even a locked door couldn’t keep the smoke from seeping into the room from the crack under the door. I looked out the window and could only watch as the tortoise pulled himself from under the house and walked calmly through the rain, his feet making bowls in the grass, and when he bellowed, the thunder boomed in the sky and it almost covered up the angry voices in the house and for a moment I wasn't scared anymore.
In the morning, the tortoise was gone, the clouds had cleared, and Mama’s shoulder was the deep purple of the plums that weighed down the branches of the fruit trees. But she smiled anyway, hugged me and sang under her breath, as if she were worried any louder would turn the rest of her purple. I didn’t worry because she was smiling, and when I told her that the tortoise took a walk last night, she told me she thought she saw it too.
The first time I snuck out of the house, I was eight years old, almost nine, but not quite, and there was a light rain. Mama had locked my door as she did every night, and the air was thick with the smoke that Papa's breath smelled like when he came home at night and the voices of the men were noisy. I wasn’t scared, because I was used to it, but when I heard Mama screaming when someone slammed their weight against my door, I threw myself out the window and landed in the grass below. The tortoise and I walked around all night, the rain clinging to my hair and the tortoise bellowing peacefully into the dark to make the rainclouds talk back.
I fell asleep outside underneath the grove of fruit trees and the tortoise was sitting next to me, but he was gone in the morning and so was the rain. I was dripping with morning dew and my clothes were damp from the rain. Papa was furious, but I was happy. I was safe, and I told that to Papa, but he didn’t listen. I pretended not to see the scabs on his knuckles, the fading wine color on his cheek or the smell of the smoke that tucked itself into the folds of his coat.
There were always footprints in the mud, usually my bare feet or Mama’s slippers, but sometimes they were Papa’s boots, and in the mornings, they were the thousands of heavy boot prints that tracked from the house and into the driveway. The men had come every night with their boots and their smoke, and their loud voices, which filled the house with dread. They smoked and laughed well into the night, even after I fell asleep. I could hear them talking and sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I used to picture them hunched over the old table, playing cards, their money and cigars changing hands, blowing smoke into my parents' faces well into the night until just before the sun rose once more over the hills.
One night, the men were louder and Mama locked herself in her room. I didn’t sleep and wandered with the tortoise all night, even though there was no rain. I tried to ignore the crashing sounds inside and the sound of screams. In the morning, the men were gone, the old red car which had stood so faithfully in front of the house had vanished, the tortoise was under the house again and Papa was lying in the mud with the footprints around him and bright crimson blood dripping down his face. Curls of smoke were drifting through the windows. Mama didn’t stop wailing for three days.
I was nine when Papa was gone. Then the men came back and refused to leave. The men laughed and the smoke burned my lungs. Mama and I slept in my room for days but she was not really there. She wouldn't look at me, she wouldn’t make the men leave, and she cried in the dark. She spent her days sleeping, waiting for someone who would never come home. I didn’t sleep and instead wished all night that Papa would wake up and come back to us. But much like the rocks, he never did.
The worst thunderstorm happened one night when the men were so loud. It had been five days since Papa died. The thunder shook the skies and rain drowned out my sobs. The wind threw the trees through the sky and the branches shattered my window, the glass pieces cutting my arms and sinking into the mud outside. Mama carried me away, holding me as she leapt out of the window, tears streaming down her cheeks. They might have been raindrops, though I’d never know. We walked all night, mud staining our feet.
I am ten now. I live in a new house, one that is not next to a river. It has a metal roof that the trees can’t break through, with new painted walls that are the color of Mama’s best dress and Papa’s cheeks when he smiled. Papa is still asleep, underneath the earth and the rocks in our backyard, just below the mango tree, with heavy fruits whose juices drip down my chin and make my hands sticky. Mama smiles more, my room isn’t locked at night, and there is no more smoke and, most importantly, no more men.
Our neighbor from the old house says that the men are still there. They laugh too loudly at night and smoke pours but not from the chimney. The window is still broken, glass pieces already sunk deep into the mud. She says it’s not mud anymore though, and she can no longer hear the river rushing. The neighborhood dried up after we left and the smoke mixes with the dust of the ground at night. She told me the earth and the rocks drank up the water and she told Mama it’s a drought. The neighbor thinks the rain won’t ever come back and we’ll all shrivel up. But I don’t believe that because it still rains at my new house. The water makes melodies on the metal roof and my feet sink into the mud after it rains. If it were a drought, then the rain wouldn’t be here.
Besides, maybe the rain will come back. It came to us. Two days after we left our old house for the new one, the lightning cracked the sky and the thunder rumbled and filled my ears. This time, I wasn’t scared because in our new house, I was always safe. In the morning, the mud was full of round footprints, the floorboards of the porch were pushed up, and something had eaten all of Mama’s lettuce.
Sadie McCann is a senior in high school from Los Angeles, California. She is a student within the Creative Writing conservatory at the California School of the Arts - San Gabriel Valley. Her writing has been previously published in Sugar Pine. In addition, she interns as a writer for Citizen Film and is a staff member and fiction/prose editor of her school’s literary magazine.
The Tortoise Under My House
There is a tortoise and he lives under my house. It has been ten years and one day. Yesterday was my birthday. Today is his birthday.
Mama tells me I was born during a rainstorm. She says the wind shook the trees and the thunder grumbled in the sky and I think it must have sounded like the men that were in the living room at night, muttering under their breath. I asked her if she was scared and she said she was not, because even though she and Papa came home to a tree in the roof and water sinking into the floorboards, and her knuckles were white as she clutched Papa’s hand on the way to and from the hospital, I was there. I slept in her arms the entire way home, not disturbed by the rain or the swerving of the car. Mama says it’s a miracle the old red car didn’t crash into a tree or sink into the mud.
In the morning, it was still raining but the tree branches didn’t whip through the air and Mama didn’t have to be scared for Papa when he went to fix the roof. Mama says I was crying in the morning, but in the afternoon, the rain clouds faded and the sun shone on my face and I stopped. I think that was when the tortoise came, because when Mama took me outside, she says I pointed at the circular footprints in the mud and smiled. I know I wouldn’t have smiled at anything else.
He was a rock at first, one that sat underneath the porch. I was three when Mama complained that the boulder was pushing up the boards and Papa said he would move it, but when he tried, it wouldn’t budge. And when Papa left in the old red car, I decided I would move it myself. I peered underneath the porch only to see the boulder was alive and it was eating the weeds in the mud. So I took the lettuce from Mama’s garden and laughed when the boulder ate it out of my palm.
Mama didn’t believe me when I said the boulder was alive. She said it might feel that way, but rocks lost their lives long ago when they curled up to go to sleep. I asked if maybe one of them forgot and woke up, but Mama said the rocks would not abandon their own and if one woke up, the others would have been awake too. And she pointed outside to the river in the distance, where the water ran fast and cold over the boulders, and who, despite the rush of the blue water, were silent and still.
Every day after that, I tried to wake up the rocks, to no avail. I whispered where I suspected their ears might be, murmuring to them, telling them to wake up finally and tickled their backs, begging them to uncurl and see the world again. But not one of them stirred, except the boulder, who I soon learned was a tortoise after Papa brought an empty tortoise shell home one day and hung it on the wall.
He didn’t stay under the porch for long. He dug, at night I’m sure, a hole, and pushed himself underneath the foundation of the house. Papa found the hole in the morning and said the earth was swallowing itself, as it should have done years ago. I asked him why, and he shook his head, mumbling something about the world dying, and blew smoke into the chilled morning air. When he left, I crawled into the hole, getting mud all over my knees, and felt around in the dark until my fingers brushed the roughness of a shell.
The tortoise awoke when I came down and his rough lips tickled the lettuce out of my hand. He gazed at me with soft, baleful eyes and I wondered why he was all alone.
Mama got mad when she saw me climb out from under the porch. She warned me that someday, I could be swallowed up by the earth too and she yanked my arm away when I tried to go back down.
It rained that night, a good heavy rain, and Mama smiled. She said that we were blessed, that the world needed it, and that the plants would love it. I wasn’t allowed to stay up late that night like I usually did, and Mama put me to bed early even though Papa wasn’t home and I didn’t get to say goodnight. I ran to the door to greet him when I heard tires crunching the dirt in the driveway, but Mama pulled me away, and pushed me in my room and shut the door.
I listened for Papa after I was supposed to be asleep, but all I heard was the sound of heavy footsteps and deep gruff voices covering up his. He was talking, but his voice shook, and I could hear Mama holding back a whimpering cry. I wanted to tell her that it was okay, that the rain would heal us, which is what she told me, but I didn’t, because Mama locked the door. But even a locked door couldn’t keep the smoke from seeping into the room from the crack under the door. I looked out the window and could only watch as the tortoise pulled himself from under the house and walked calmly through the rain, his feet making bowls in the grass, and when he bellowed, the thunder boomed in the sky and it almost covered up the angry voices in the house and for a moment I wasn't scared anymore.
In the morning, the tortoise was gone, the clouds had cleared, and Mama’s shoulder was the deep purple of the plums that weighed down the branches of the fruit trees. But she smiled anyway, hugged me and sang under her breath, as if she were worried any louder would turn the rest of her purple. I didn’t worry because she was smiling, and when I told her that the tortoise took a walk last night, she told me she thought she saw it too.
The first time I snuck out of the house, I was eight years old, almost nine, but not quite, and there was a light rain. Mama had locked my door as she did every night, and the air was thick with the smoke that Papa's breath smelled like when he came home at night and the voices of the men were noisy. I wasn’t scared, because I was used to it, but when I heard Mama screaming when someone slammed their weight against my door, I threw myself out the window and landed in the grass below. The tortoise and I walked around all night, the rain clinging to my hair and the tortoise bellowing peacefully into the dark to make the rainclouds talk back.
I fell asleep outside underneath the grove of fruit trees and the tortoise was sitting next to me, but he was gone in the morning and so was the rain. I was dripping with morning dew and my clothes were damp from the rain. Papa was furious, but I was happy. I was safe, and I told that to Papa, but he didn’t listen. I pretended not to see the scabs on his knuckles, the fading wine color on his cheek or the smell of the smoke that tucked itself into the folds of his coat.
There were always footprints in the mud, usually my bare feet or Mama’s slippers, but sometimes they were Papa’s boots, and in the mornings, they were the thousands of heavy boot prints that tracked from the house and into the driveway. The men had come every night with their boots and their smoke, and their loud voices, which filled the house with dread. They smoked and laughed well into the night, even after I fell asleep. I could hear them talking and sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I used to picture them hunched over the old table, playing cards, their money and cigars changing hands, blowing smoke into my parents' faces well into the night until just before the sun rose once more over the hills.
One night, the men were louder and Mama locked herself in her room. I didn’t sleep and wandered with the tortoise all night, even though there was no rain. I tried to ignore the crashing sounds inside and the sound of screams. In the morning, the men were gone, the old red car which had stood so faithfully in front of the house had vanished, the tortoise was under the house again and Papa was lying in the mud with the footprints around him and bright crimson blood dripping down his face. Curls of smoke were drifting through the windows. Mama didn’t stop wailing for three days.
I was nine when Papa was gone. Then the men came back and refused to leave. The men laughed and the smoke burned my lungs. Mama and I slept in my room for days but she was not really there. She wouldn't look at me, she wouldn’t make the men leave, and she cried in the dark. She spent her days sleeping, waiting for someone who would never come home. I didn’t sleep and instead wished all night that Papa would wake up and come back to us. But much like the rocks, he never did.
The worst thunderstorm happened one night when the men were so loud. It had been five days since Papa died. The thunder shook the skies and rain drowned out my sobs. The wind threw the trees through the sky and the branches shattered my window, the glass pieces cutting my arms and sinking into the mud outside. Mama carried me away, holding me as she leapt out of the window, tears streaming down her cheeks. They might have been raindrops, though I’d never know. We walked all night, mud staining our feet.
I am ten now. I live in a new house, one that is not next to a river. It has a metal roof that the trees can’t break through, with new painted walls that are the color of Mama’s best dress and Papa’s cheeks when he smiled. Papa is still asleep, underneath the earth and the rocks in our backyard, just below the mango tree, with heavy fruits whose juices drip down my chin and make my hands sticky. Mama smiles more, my room isn’t locked at night, and there is no more smoke and, most importantly, no more men.
Our neighbor from the old house says that the men are still there. They laugh too loudly at night and smoke pours but not from the chimney. The window is still broken, glass pieces already sunk deep into the mud. She says it’s not mud anymore though, and she can no longer hear the river rushing. The neighborhood dried up after we left and the smoke mixes with the dust of the ground at night. She told me the earth and the rocks drank up the water and she told Mama it’s a drought. The neighbor thinks the rain won’t ever come back and we’ll all shrivel up. But I don’t believe that because it still rains at my new house. The water makes melodies on the metal roof and my feet sink into the mud after it rains. If it were a drought, then the rain wouldn’t be here.
Besides, maybe the rain will come back. It came to us. Two days after we left our old house for the new one, the lightning cracked the sky and the thunder rumbled and filled my ears. This time, I wasn’t scared because in our new house, I was always safe. In the morning, the mud was full of round footprints, the floorboards of the porch were pushed up, and something had eaten all of Mama’s lettuce.
Sadie McCann is a senior in high school from Los Angeles, California. She is a student within the Creative Writing conservatory at the California School of the Arts - San Gabriel Valley. Her writing has been previously published in Sugar Pine. In addition, she interns as a writer for Citizen Film and is a staff member and fiction/prose editor of her school’s literary magazine.