When Gran-Gran’s Pearl Necklace Goes Missing
she narrows her eyes at my brother, Dusty. He’s forever misplacing stuff: LEGOs, socks, mouth guards.
“What would I—” He stabs at his chest with his forefinger. “Do with your pearl necklace?” Throwing his chin in the air, he points to Gran-Gran.
Arms folded, Gran-Gran stares at Dusty over her tortoiseshell glasses. Then at me. Then at Dusty again, and harrumphs.
“Maybe you misplaced it,” I offer.
Gran-Gran sucks in her lips, then peers at her mint-green parakeet, Jo Jo. She runs her wooden cane across his cage. Rat-a-tat-tat. “Damn bird eats anything. Ain’t that right, Jo Jo?”
“Ain’t that right, Jo Jo?” her parakeet says.
“No way,” I say.
“Jose,” Dusty adds.
Jo Jo flaps his wings and squawks.
Moments later, Gran-Gran stabs her gnarled finger into the front window. “Now there’s the thief!”
Dusty and I turn to see a doe trot onto the front lawn. It stops, lifts its head, then looks our way as if it knows we’re staring.
“Let’s go,” Gran-Gran says, ushering Dusty toward the front door. “Get a wiggle on.”
It’s wet out from last night’s downpour, so I want to argue, but something in her voice stirs up memories of when Pa-Pa used to take me geocaching as a kid—memories that’d lodged themselves deep in the back of my brain after he passed away. So instead, I help Dusty with his Superman rain boots and we head outside where we find ourselves trudging through the mud, brown muck flecking the backs of our legs.
Gran-Gran shields her eyes from the sun and scans the area. “Use your x-ray vision, Dusty-boy. My pearls are here somewhere.”
Dusty grabs my hand, and we roam the yard.
Before long, he points to a bulge in the ground and bounces his legs up and down. “Here! Here! Here!”
With our hands, we rake the mud and unearth a pile of LEGOs, ping-pong balls, and mouth guards.
I clear my throat loudly as he stuffs as many of the items as he can into his pockets, flashing me a dimpled grin.
“Ah-ha!” Gran-Gran exclaims from a few feet away.
Arriving by her side, we find a collection of brown pellets on a small patch of grass.
“It’s scat,” I say.
“Yeah, scat,” Dusty says.
She hunches for a closer look. “But they’re so round. Why are they so round? Deer scat isn’t round. Are they round?”
Dusty and I bend over and place our hands on our thighs. Gran-Gran’s right. The pellets are unnaturally round. Their unusual shape reminds me of square Wombat poop, something I learned in class last semester. I’m in the middle of telling Dusty this when I hear Gran-Gran squelching through the mud. Garden hose in hand, she offers me the spray nozzle then raises her eyebrows.
“Seriously?” I say.
“Seriously?” Dusty says.
She gives me a laser look that says I-am-so-so-serious.
As the water washes off the mud, shiny spherical objects appear.
I hmm.
Dusty hmms.
“Ah-ha!” Gran-Gran laughs hysterically.
I shake my head, bending to gather the objects. “Uh-uh, Gran-Gran. They’re marbles.”
“Marbles?” Gran-Gran grabs one and studies it like a jeweler, peering at the white cat’s eye design inside. A few seconds pass before her lips creep into a smile. Wrinkles emerge from the corners of her mouth like a dry lakebed and tears gather in her eyes. “Your Pa-Pa gave me these before he died. He used to collect them as a boy. I thought I lost them.”
I let out a sigh. “Me, too.”
Dusty wipes imaginary sweat off his forehead. “Phew! Me, too.”
Gran-Gran gives me a once over, then beckons me with her hand.
I raise an eyebrow as she wraps her bony arms around my waist. Dusty grabs the back of my thighs. My arms lift, ready to embrace, when I feel her tug at the waistband of my denim shorts.
“You need to wear a belt,” she says. “I can see your underwear.”
She shoves me away with the strength of a superhero, and Dusty and I fall onto our haunches. Marbles and LEGOs spill into the mud.
I side-eye Dusty, who’s side-eyeing me.
I shrug.
He shrugs.
Gran-Gran stands akimbo in her purple flowered muumuu and looks off into the distance. “Now, where are my pearls?”
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