 end of the table. Reid was cooing, while Ace was drawing something invisible in the air. Gordie eyed me and leaned forward in his chair. “We all love you,” Tiny said. “Even me,” Polly said, “and I just met you.” “We wish you the best in life, Icy,” Dr. Conroy said. “We wish you the good parts, the leaves and stems.” She motioned me over. “Come here and sit down!” she ordered, pulling out a chair. “To the end of striped snakes,” she said, and raised her glass. I strutted over and sat down. In front of me, on the table next to my plate, was a black and white photograph, as big as piece of notebook paper, ﬁlled with the faces of the people around me. “To the end of striped snakes!” Dr. Conroy repeated. “To the end of striped snakes!” they toasted, each of them— Delbert, Maizy, Tiny, and Polly—lifting up a glass. “To the end of striped snakes!” I said, reaching for my apple cider, raising it high into the air. “To pasture roses. To going home!” As we were drinking our cider, all of us talking and laughing, I glanced around, took in all of their smiling faces, and spotted Gordie. He was standing by his chair, looking straight at me. Then, in one clean, smooth movement, he saluted, grinned widely, and unobtrusively sat down. No one else had seemed to notice.
and although I tried, I was unable to gulp down a single breath of air. Immediately I started to tremble. Every inch of my skin was shivering. “Who’d use this?” Joel McRoy snorted, appearing all of a sudden just a few feet in front of me. “Clearasil!” He laughed, holding up a tube, waving it above his head. “Only sissies use this stuff!” Right then, Irwin Leach, with a smattering of pimples across his forehead, appeared. “I don’t like my pimples!” he mocked. “Please, Mama, buy me some Clearasil!” “Matanni!” I whispered, nervously tugging at her dress. “Irwin, hush up!” came a voice. A woman in a beehive hairdo, thin as a broomstick, scurried forward. “Irwin, put that down!” She snatched the tube of Clearasil from his hand. “I’ve already warned you that I ain’t putting up with nonsense.” “Gosh darn!” Irwin whined. “We weren’t doing nothing.” “Matanni!” I repeated. But she didn’t hear me, so distracted she was by the scene ahead. “We was only funning,” Joel McRoy pouted. Alarmed, I slipped behind Matanni’s round form and hid there. “Keep your funning on the farm!” Irwin’s mother scolded. Then she stomped forward, brushing past Matanni and me. “Yes, ma’am!” both boys said, snickering, as she reached the front of the aisle and whisked around the corner. “We’ll behave ourselves!” Irwin Leach said. “And be good little boys!” Joel McRoy said, giggling. “Icy?” Matanni said, twisting around. I held up my ﬁnger, pressed it against my lips, and shushed softly. “Are you feeling poorly, child?” Matanni asked, wrinkling up her brow, bending down. Frantically, I began to shake my head. “No!” I murmured. “No! No! No!” “It’s okay, honey,” Matanni said soothingly. Her face was drawing closer to mine, her ﬁngers stroking my shoulder blade, when all at once the faces of Irwin Leach and Joel McRoy materialized. All I could see were their smirking lips and scofﬁng eyes. “Why, if it ain’t crazy ole Icy Sparks!” Joel McRoy said, pointing at me. “It sure enough is!” 
My eyes surged forward like freight trains. Joel McRoy hopped back. “I’ll be damned!” he said, standing there with his hands on his hips. “Miss Frog Eyes herself.” “Pimple on your chin!” I shouted. “Dammit!” I yelled as the jerk tore through me, wrenching my arms to the left, my legs to the right. “Pimple on your mouth!” I felt the muscles in my face twitching. “Can’t you just hush up!” I screamed as my eyes zoomed back. “Pimple on your ass!” I cried, jump-jacking upward, before slumping to the ﬂoor. Confused, I lifted my head. Matanni was muttering something I couldn’t make out and gently rubbing my arm. In front and in back of me, people had gathered. On either side of the aisle, heads and eyes were emerging. Irwin Leach stepped forward, his eyes gleaming maliciously, a drop of saliva in the corner of his mouth. “They should keep you at home,” he snarled. “Away from us normal folk.” “Shame on you, boys!” my grandmother said. “Now scat!” “The poor thing! Let’s not be witness to this,” I heard a woman say. “Mommie, why’d she do that?” a tiny voice asked. “I don’t know, baby,” came the answer. “Let her pass,” a husky male voice said. “Be glad to,” someone sneered. “Let’s go,” my grandmother whispered. “I’m so sorry, Icy,” she said. “This was a big mistake.” Gently, she wrapped her arms around me. “Come on, sugar darling,” she urged, easing me upward. “Matanni will make it okay.” In this way, with our arms cloaking each other, we walked slowly down the aisle toward the door. Their voices buzzing, their eyes stinging me, people parted slightly, moving out of our way. I looked up only once. A young mother was ﬁercely clutching her newborn against her, protecting the baby’s head with her hands.
ince I was growing up, Patanni thought I needed to see my whole self in the mirror. “When Louisa was sprouting up, she always wanted to see how this and that dress looked on her,” Patanni said.
 “That’s right,” Matanni said. “Soon you’ll be spending more time in front of this here mirror than with us.” She squeaked her tiny laugh. “The truth is you’re already taller than I am.” “That ain’t nothing new,” I said. “I’ve been taller than you for years.” I walked over to look at my reﬂection. With the exception of those acorns of mine called breasts and that peach fuzz called pubic hair, I still resembled a kid no more than ten years old. Naturally, I was a little taller, having grown about two inches, but still I was small—just under ﬁve feet. “Icy Sparks, that simply ain’t true!” my grandmother shot back. “While you been growing, I been shrinking. That’s all.” “While you been shrinking, Miss Emily’s been getting fatter,” I said. Patanni held out his arms, rounded them into a circle, looped together his hands, and puffed out his cheeks. “How much do you reckon she’s put on?” he asked. “About ﬁfty more pounds,” I said. “If she’s telling the truth.”  “Whew!” he said. “Three hundred and ﬁfty pounds!” “She’d better drop some of it,” Matanni said, “or else she’ll die young.” Angrily, I turned around and faced my grandmother. “Don’t you be talking like that!” I fussed. “Miss Emily’s gonna live a real long time. Mr. Dooley Sedge’s sister said so.” “Geneva Sedge, the janitor’s sister?” Patanni raised his eyebrows. “Why, she’s a professional palm reader!” I declared. “The next time Miss Emily comes over, take a gander at her lifeline. It crisscrosses from one side of her palm clear over to the other.” “You don’t say!” Patanni said, grinning. “And it don’t matter which hand,” I said. “Either one. Both say she’s gonna live a long time.” “Does she believe it?” Matanni asked. “Told me she did,” I said. “And I believe her. She’s fat, but her heart’s getting stronger.” “And, pray tell, how does Miss Emily know that?” Matanni asked.
sauntered toward the back screen door, and settled down into a metal chair tucked into a corner of the porch. I was sipping my Coke, slurping frozen mush through my teeth, when Lena, Miss Emily’s tiny orange tabby, slithered against my legs and began to cry.  “Yeowwwww... yeowwwww... yeowwwww.” Then, out of nowhere, in a blink of the eyes, a long-haired, gray cat appeared. “YEOWWWWW... YEOW