February 9, 1966
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Did you ever dream of being a ballet dancer? Or maybe any kind of dancer? I don't know how they can stand on their toes that way. I can't. And wonder why they started wearing those stiff little circle? Was it so they might look like a spinning top?
I'm no dancer. I can't stand on my toes. I can barely spin once without falling flat. I look like a clumsy clown trying to dance. But in my imagination I can dance.
You know how Aunt Love is most always not too happy with me, but then sometimes she surprises me. Take the time she told me this in one of those books, Scent of Lilacs, written about my Hollyhill adventures last year. This is a talk we had right after she told me about the man she loved getting killed in the First World War. Sometimes what you don't know about people can matter a lot. Anyway if you read this you'll know why I'm thinking about dancing.
After Aunt Love told me about her lost love, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't hug Aunt Love. I never hugged Aunt Love. It might give her a real heart attack if I did. So I just put my hand on her shoulder and said, "I'm sorry."
Aunt Love covered my hand with her own. Her skin felt dry and scratchy like oak leaves in the fall. "You should give thanks every day for the blessing of a kind and good father. You and Tabitha both."
"I do," I said.
Aunt Love pushed my hand away and picked up her teacup. "Now get on with your chores."
As I went out the door, I looked back at Aunt Love. Imagining her young and in love was almost impossible. But just because I couldn't imagine it didn't mean it wasn't true. Or that the memory of it didn't still make Aunt Love sad. I wanted to say something make her feel better, but I didn't know what. I couldn't very well say maybe Aunt Love would forget about it the way she forgot other things and then she wouldn't have to be sad. She hadn't forgotten it in fifty years. That memory was probably stuck in there with the Bible verses.
A Bible verse might help, but all I could think of was one of the Beatitudes. I decided to try it. "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."
Aunt Love looked around at me. ""To every thing there is a season. A time to mourn, and a time to dance.' It's your time to dance, Jocelyn."
"I can't dance," I said.
And this is where Aunt Love said something really nice to me. She said, "You dance every day to the tune of life."
And so I've been thinking about what she said and how she said I was dancing to the tune of life. Sometimes like an awkward camel. Sometimes like a sleek gazelle. Sometimes the steps are easy and sometimes they are way too hard. But the dance of life goes on and that's the way it's supposed to.
I didn't get any of Bailey's Bug written this week. I'll be sure to add a scene next Monday if I'm not too busy dancing.
Do you like thinking about life as a dance?
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December 29, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky for the last time in 1965. In a couple of days I'll have to start trying to remember to put 1966 on all my papers. I can hardly believe it's almost a new year. I'll be 15 next year. 15! That's a while away since my birthday isn't for months and months, but still, 15. That sounds so much better than 14, don't you think?
Christmas was last week. I love Christmas. I told you that last week. And guess what I got under the tree? Books! I love books. And a new ink pen. I loved that too. Now if I could just get a new typewriter, but Dad says I'll have to just keep using the one I have. That I don't need one that plugs in. I can hit the typewriter keys. It'll be good for my finger muscles. Zella says, yes, indeed, if anybody gets a new typewriter, it will be her!
But I'm the one writing a book. Of course, Zella is the one working for Dad at the paper. And my book is just for fun. So I guess I'll be happy with the typewriter I have.
See those book covers up top. That's my story. Not the one I'm writing, but the one I lived. It's free right now if you've got some kind of modern something or other that lets you download, whatever that means. I feel like somebody is visiting me from the future. (http://amzn.to/1hVVRDc) But I've been told it might not be free after a few days, so if you want to read about what happened to me last year, this is a really good chance.
By the way, which front of the book do you like best? You can probably guess the one I like best. Right. The one I got to be on. Same book. Different front.
Gee, I can't wait to have a book published with my name on it too. That would be even better than my picture on it. I'll have to think up a good cover for Bailey's Bug. I guess it's time to see what they're up to. Last time, they'd just crossed the road and were heading into the dark beyond.
BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke
(Continued from a couple of weeks ago. See the whole story under the Bailey's Bug link up top.)
Once Bailey was away from the road, the dark stopped being so black. He didn't have any trouble picking his way through the trees. He hurried up in front of Lucinda to lead the way. After all, it was his hum that was telling which way to go. Even so, it was nice having Lucinda and Skelley close behind him.
"Hoo. Hoo."
Bailey stopped in his tracks and Lucinda and Skelley caught up with him.
"What's that?" Skelley lifted his head and cocked up one of his ears.
"An owl," Lucinda said.
"Are they very big?" Bailey couldn't imagine what sort of animal might go with that noise. "They sound like they could be very big."
"Big enough." Lucinda peered up toward the tree tops.
Bailey heard the owl again. The sound made him shiver. "What do they eat?"
"Mice." Lucinda kept walking. "Maybe even cats if they could catch one which they couldn't. Never a dog as big as you so stop walking on my tail." Lucinda jumped to the side to keep Bailey from stumbling over her. "What would eat a dog?"
"My master used to warm me that lions and tigers would." Skelley spoke up. "Boa constrictors too."
"Boa constrictors?" Bailey's voice came out in a squeak. He had no idea what boa constrictors were, but they sounded scary.
"Snakes big as tree trunks." Skelley lowered his voice as though one of the snakes might be listening from up in the trees. "They swallow whatever they eat without chewing and squeeze it to death inside them. Awful things, they are."
A bush rattled and Bailey almost jumped out of his skin. He looked around. "Are they here in the dark?"
"Oh no, they live in zoos," Skelley said. "Nothing out here but owls and such. Right, Miss Lucinda?"
The cat muttered under her breath. Skelley, not knowing Lucinda as well as Bailey did, took that as encouragement to keep talking.
"Owls and mice and raccoon and skunks," he said. "I crossed paths with a skunk once. Looked a bit like a black and white cat, but begging your pardon, Miss Lucinda, it had a horrible odor. Worse than anything ye can imagine and he turned tail and squirted his nasty stink all over me. Me master dunked me in tomato juice before he'd let me back in his tent. A nasty business, it was."
Bailey stared around him. The moon had come up to make shadows that shifted and swayed under the trees. Horrible things could be hiding out there in the night.
Owls that hooted. Skunks that stunk. Raccoon. Bailey was afraid to ask what raccoon did, but whatever they did, he wanted to wait until the sun came up to face them.
"I think we better rest here until morning. It might be better to cross rivers of cars at night, but we need light here in the woods."
Lucinda was more than ready to stop. She jumped up on a fallen tree trunk and curled into a ball in a spot of moonlight. Skelley and Bailey scratched out a hole beside the log and snuggled down together.
Bailey had no more than closed his eyes when howls brought him to his feet. "What's that? Dogs?"
"No dog that I've ever heard." Skelley was on his feet beside him.
The hair on Bailey's spine inched up as the yips and yowls went on.
Even Lucinda was on her feet, her tail straight up. "Coyotes."
She sounded really scared for the first time since they left the Robinsons' house.
That scared Bailey more than the howling. "What are coyotes?"
"Something like dogs." Lucinda stretched her head up to listen. "Only wild and smart. My mother warned me about coyotes. Told me to get right up in a tree or the top of the barn if I ever saw one."
All at once, as if on cue, the howling completely stopped, and the night around them went silent. It was almost as if everything in the woods was holding its breath to listen the same as Lucinda was listening.
"Don't worry, Miss Lucinda." Skelley edged over to stand in front of her. "We won't let the varmints get close to you."
"That's gallant of you, but I think it will be safer for all of us if I do what my mother said and climb a tree."
She was on the bottom limbs of the nearest tree before all the words were out of her mouth. As she climbed higher, there was a crash of wings. A bird that seemed almost as big as the bulldozer monster had that morning, swooped down out of the tree. It fixed its great shining saucer eyes on Bailey and dived straight at him.
(To be continued)
April 14, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Not much to report this week. Dad says that's good because it means nothing bad has happened. And I say why can't something good happen that we can report.
But in the newspaper business, bad sells more papers. Like the wind blowing the roof off of Mr. Dexter's barn last week. Everybody wanted to buy a paper to see that picture. Of course, plenty of people had already driven out there to see the barn roof sitting over in the field instead of on the barn with their own eyes. I took the picture Dad put in the paper. I like taking pictures, but Dad says I have to be careful about using too much film. He's been thinking up ways to pinch pennies ever since he filled out those tax forms last week. So I can't take a picture of every flower I see even if they are signs of spring. And that's good news! But not the kind that sells newspapers.
But I think spring is good. That means summer is not too far away and school will be out!! Yay!! This time of the year, school just gets too long. Way too long. They start wanting you to take tests every other day and by now, your poor old brain is so tired you can't squeeze one good answer out of it. But you have to anyway because you sure don't want to fail and have to do it all over again next year. I'd run away to Jupiter if that happened.
Trouble is, Wes tells me they have school all summer up there. That's why they know how to build space ships that run on bug juice. Jupiter bug juice. I think even Wes has spring fever, not coming up with anything but rerun Jupiter stories. You want to know about that one just check back a few issues to the story he told me in February about Jupiterian Fropples.
Since we're talking about stories, how about those two book covers up top? That's the book where you can come visit us here in Hollyhill and find out about all our secrets. That writer didn't keep anything back. The book cover on the right is the first cover the book had back when it was published in 2005. But now it's back out with the new cover, the one where I'm reading on the steps. Both covers have lilacs. Guess that had to be since the title talks about smelling lilacs. I like lilacs, so that's okay. They budding out here, but haven't bloomed yet. We're supposed to get some cold weather. Redbud winter, Miss Sally says. I'm going to cry if it freezes the lilac blooms. Really, I am. Loud, so Mother Nature can hear and feel sorry.
Anyway, back to those book covers. Which one do you like best? I like the bike, but I guess I have to like the new one best since that's me on it. It's not every day you get to have your picture on a book, now is it?
Oh, and if you have some newfangled way of reading that I can't even imagine, you can get it for free. I thought you had to go to a bookstore to buy a book or order one from a book catalog and then it came in the mail. But Wes says in those science fiction books he reads that they send books right through the air sort of like t.v. shows. I don't know if they have antennas or what. Sounds crazy to me, but if you are way out there in the future and know what he's talking about and you have one of those futuristic gizmos, you can read all about my adventures in Hollyhill without paying a dime. It costs nada, nothing. At least for a while. That's better than the books in the dimestore.
So, till next week when maybe the lilacs will be blooming, happy reading.
April 1, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. It's April Fools Day. That means I've got to be on the lookout all day for people ready to pull pranks. Especially Wes.
Wes says they invented April Fools Day up on Jupiter and the first Jupiterian who visited earth started it up here back in the 14th Century by issuing a warning about these creepy looking Jupiter bugs that were invading from outer space. Wes said nobody expected this fellow of being one of those outer space invaders himself but that they went around examining bugs all day, especially weird ones like that one in the picture. People started thinking they'd never seen that particular bug before and that it was going to poison the water and eat up all the plants. A lot of bugs that didn't scurry under a rock got stepped on as April Fool panic broke out. That Jupiter prankster had to make a fast exit out of there. But he forgot to take his Jupiter bug and so its antennae have grown really long as it tries to find the spaceship to go home.
Wes says not to worry. The bug lives on air so the earth is not really in danger or anything, but then he'll tell me I have one of them in my hair. I know I don't. I know he's pulling a joke, but I always feel little feet walking around on my head. Wes thinks it's extra funny when I start hitting at my head. I always have to laugh too. That's the fun of April Fools Day. As long as the joke isn't mean. I don't like mean jokes, do you?
Dad hunted one of the pranks from the past years up to report on in the Banner. I helped him look through old newspapers and magazines. We found this one about the Yenom Tree in the VIEW magazine from a couple of years ago, 1963. The story reveals the existence of the Yenom Tree, a "rare perennial" owned by Mrs. Loo Flirpa (better check that out backwards) of Appleton, Wisconsin, which sprouted "Bright, green one-dollar bills with uniformly high serial numbers." In an unusual mutation, this year the Yenom Tree had also sprouted a "flawless five-dollar bill." Mrs. Flirpa had entered into "an exclusive arrangement with the United States Mint to sell Yenom tree seedlings through a system of greenhouses to be operated through local offices of the Federal Reserve System."
Dad said that sounded like a handy tree to have around and so he's running the story today in the Banner. He says nobody in Hollyhill will believe it, but Zella says we'll get a ton of telephone calls of people wanting to know how to get their own Yenom Tree. She says she's not answering the phone all day and that if Dad thinks that's an April Fools joke, he'd better think again.
Do you know any good April Fools gags? Have you ever had any pulled on you? Well, watch out for that Jupiter bug crawling around on your head.
Oh, and by the way, somebody says Scent of Lilacs is free if you have an e-reader. I have no idea what that means. I think it must be a message from the future. But they say it's no April Fools joke. Whatever they're talking about, free sound good!
Jocie Brooke here - reporting from Hollyhill. I'm not exactly on Main Street tonight. I'm at our house where I live with Dad and Aunt Love. I haven't told you all about Aunt Love yet, but I will. I did tell you about her cat, Jezebel. Right, I know Aunt Love says the cat's name is Sugar, but I think my name fits her better. You'll understand that if you read my book, Scent of Lilacs. What a cat! But she suits Aunt Love. You have to know my Aunt Love to understand. I don't know who named her Love, but sometimes names don't tell the story. Then again, I don't always know the whole story. I'm not telling you that here, because that would mess up the fun of reading my book. Here I'm just reporting extra stuff. I need practice writing if I'm going to be a writer when I grow up. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to write books or newspaper pieces. Or maybe I'll learn to take great pictures too and go on fabulous adventure writing stories for National Geographic. Wouldn't that be neat?
But tonight, since we're having that grandmother contest to celebrate my book, I'm talking about tulips and my grandmother. I had the very best grandmother in all the world. I know you may think yours is best, but mine was best for me. She loved flowers. As soon as it started getting warm in the spring she'd be out there digging in the dirt. After my mother took off, she moved right in with me and Dad and loved me even when I made messes or was too loud or didn't listen. I have trouble with that listening sometimes, but I was always ready to listen to my grandmother when she was telling me stories. Or telling me about her flowers. She especially loved tulips. She said there was something extra cheerful about tulips popping up out of the ground in the Spring and adding color to the world. Red tulips were Mama Mae's favorite. And then one day when I was nine, the Lord decided he needed her up in heaven to plant flowers up there. I didn't know why he needed her more than me. I can't imagine how that could have been, and I'm not sure if Dad understood either. That day when Mama Mae died out in her tulip bed, I had to go get Wes to get Dad back on his feet. Some things are just too hard even if you are a preacher. But after Dad prayed about it and we cried a bunch we somehow came through on the other side of that dark valley. Dad said Jesus was walking right alongside us, crying with us.
I still want to cry sometimes when I see red tulips, but Dad says I shouldn't feel that way. That I should look at the tulips and see Mama Mae smiling down on me, wanting me to have a great life. Dad says everybody has troubles and while we've had plenty, that we can always look around and see other folks with more. Dad and I, we were doing okay by ourselves. That's why I wasn't real excited about Aunt Love moving in with us after Mama Mae died, but Dad said she needed us and we needed her. Maybe so. But I sure didn't need that cat!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. One of the winners turned in her book, so Pam from Kansas is getting to read all about Hollyhill now. People have been giving away copies of my book everywhere. I think that's loads of fun. If you haven't already entered, you've still got plenty of time to enter the Scent of Lilacs Celebration giveaway. Check it out at Ann's website.
See you next week. I'll try to think of something funny after I felt a little like crying this week. It's all those grandmother stories I've been reading over on Ann's blog, One Writer's Journal. You know she's the one that wrote those books all about me and Hollyhill.
February 17, 1964
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill. Strange goings on in the newspaper office this week.
Valentine's Day was last Friday. The day when everybody goes bonkers for love. At least everybody but Wes and me. He says folks are just having "heart" trouble and it's trouble he intends to stay out of. I wouldn't mind having a box of chocolates but not if I have to put up with a boy to get them. Wes says I'll change my mind any day now about boys since I'm thirteen, but I'm doubting it.
But somebody in Hollyhill must be having "head" trouble. Zella got flowers. On Valentine's Day. Zella! You know Zella. She's the woman who has been working at the newspaper office since forever. Dad says he couldn't get out the paper without her, but sometimes I think he should try. I admit that Zella is a whiz on the typewriter. Not only that, she can tell from the sound of the coins people drop in the dish on the counter when they come in to pick up a paper if they're paying the full twenty-five cents. It's on the honor system, but Zella's stares have a way of keeping everybody honorable.
I'd have thought Zella gave herself those flowers, but I was there when the flower shop owner brought them in. She was as flustered as I've seen her since a mouse made a nest in her bottom desk drawer. She blamed that on Wes. Said he left the back door open too much. And she didn't care how hot it got in the press room. Doors should be shut. I don't think she'll be blaming these flowers on Wes. She must have a secret admirer in Hollyhill. So I guess this proves Wes was right. There are strange things in Hollyhill. Zella having an admirer of any kind, secret or otherwise, is more than strange.
Maybe this is a mystery I need to get to the bottom of. Maybe you can help me out. Have you ever been surprised by something from a secret admirer?
Oh, and remember to leave a comment so you can get your name in the drawing to win a copy of Scent of Lilacs. If you read that you'll understand why I'm so surprised Zella got flowers. On Valentine's Day!
Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. ~Max Eastman
February 10, 1964. Jocie Brooke here still on the outlook for strange on Main Street, Hollyhill. It's been a quiet week. That's how weeks in February are if we don't get a big snowstorm. Then if the snow falls deep enough, things can really get slow in Hollyhill. Everybody stays home and drinks hot chocolate. Sounds good to me. No school. But no snow and no strange this week. Even old Zella has acted almost normal. In case you don't know, Zella works for my dad. Well, Zella would probably say everybody works for her. She thinks she owns the newspaper office.
That's where my Dad works. He's the editor of our weekly paper, and he's always saying that if no news happens like now in Hollyhill, the pages of the paper have to be filled anyway. He doesn't mean you should make stuff up. Now that might be more fun. But he's meaning you have to dig around until you find something to write about that won't bore the socks of your readers. So since I can't find strange this week and it's not snowing, I'm going to hope you want to hear about Zebedee. Who's that you ask? Well for one, he was James and John's father in the Bible. The sons of thunder. If you ever hear Zebedee bark you'll know why I picked that name.
I've wanted a dog since forever. Every chance I got I prayed for the Lord to send me a dog. It was my dog prayer. Dad says it's okay to pray about everything. And he also says the Lord wants to give us the desires of our hearts. A dog just happened to be the desire of my heart. I WANTED A DOG!! I had dog hunger. I wasn't asking for a poodle or a beagle or any particular kind. As long as it had four feet, a cold nose and a wagging tail, I was going to be happy. No sense making prayers complicated. And somewhere in the Bible doesn't it say God already knows what we need before we ask him? At least I think it does. So if that's true, there wasn't any reason for me to draw a picture for the Lord. He knows what a dog looks like. He created them, you know.
I prayed and prayed. Sometimes out loud just in case Dad was around. After all, Dad's always saying that the Lord can use his people to answer prayers. So if the Lord wanted to use Dad, I wasn't going to mind. But then I found Zebedee or maybe it would be truer to say he found me. You can read all about how that happened if you read the book, Scent of Lilacs. I've heard it's out there for sale now. On something called the internet, whatever that is. And in bookstores too. We don't have a bookstore in Hollyhill, but thank goodness and this rich man named Carnegie we have a library.
But back to Zebedee. He likes to follow me everywhere I go, even down Main Street. Most folks like dogs, except Zella who yells at me if Zeb follows me into the newspaper office. But Wes lets me sneak him in the back door of the press room sometimes. Zella hardly ever comes back there.
Everybody does pretty much agree that Zeb is not a pretty dog. Most folks come right out and say "That dog is the ugliest dog I've ever seen." Doesn't really matter to me or Zebedee. I guess maybe that's the strange for this week. How a dog as ugly as Zebedee can look so pretty to me.
Did you have a dog when you were fourteen like me? What was his or her name and was your dog pretty?
Remember, if you leave a comment you can have a chance to win a copy of that book, Scent of Lilacs, and find out all about how Zebedee found me and how he taught that Jezebel cat of Aunt Love's a thing or two. I'll be announcing three winners here on March 4.
And come back over to the Hollyhill Book of the Strange next week. Maybe something strange will happen in Hollyhill before then that I can write about. But I wouldn't count on it if I were you. In spite of what Wes says and that story about Mr. Wilson last week, Hollyhill is a pretty ordinary town with one extra-ordinary dog named Zebedee. A dog that does do a lot of laughing with his tail.
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