Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson Page B

longer than Amelia had. She was accustomed to arriving mornings on a motorcycle, but after two weeks her mother called one morning to say that there had been an American Legion convention in a nearby city and that Phoebe was now in Kansas City. It was terribly hot all that summer, and I kept thinking about poor old Phoebe in Kansas City on her motorcycle. Perhaps I privately envied the motorcycle, it being a species of abandoned travel with which I am respectably unfamiliar; perhaps the notion of wild noisy motion appealed to Laurie. He asked me one morning later that summer, “Why don’t we have a car?” I was stirring chocolate pudding—a talent of the late Phoebe’s—at the stove, and he was painting at the kitchen table. Jannie was laboriously dressing her doll on the floor, singing quietly to herself while she stuffed the doll’s arms brutally into one of the baby’s nightgowns.
    â€œWhy don’t we have a car?” I repeated absently. “I suppose because no one around here can drive.”
    â€œIf we had a car,” Laurie said, in the tone which I was beginning to recognize as one all seven-year-old boys use to their mothers, as of one explaining a relatively uncomplicated situation to a sort of foolish creature, apt to become sentimental and impertinent unless firmly held in check, “if we had a car, we could ride around.”
    â€œBut no one around here can drive,” I said.
    â€œAnd we could go anywhere we wanted,” Laurie said. “And we wouldn’t have to walk, or drive with other people, or take taxis.”
    â€œWho would drive us?”
    â€œI could sit in the front seat,” Laurie said, “and Jannie and Sally could sit in the back seat.” He thought. “And Daddy could ride on the running board.”
    â€œWhat would I be doing?” I asked. “Driving?”
    â€œI want to ride in the front,” Jannie said, lifting her head to scowl at her brother. “I want to ride in the front and Laurie in back with Baby.”
    â€œI’m going to ride in the front,” Laurie said. “I’m older.”
    â€œBut I’m a girl,” Jannie said, undeniably.
    â€œBut who would drive?” I said.
    â€œListen,” Laurie said to me, a thin edge of contempt in his voice, “can’t you drive a car?”
    â€œNo, I can not.”
    â€œCan Daddy?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œCan’t either of you drive?”
    â€œNo.”
    Laurie put his paint brush down and looked at me for a long minute. “Then what can you do?” he asked.
    â€œWell,” I said, “I can make chocolate pudding, and I can wash dishes, and I can . . .”
    â€œAnybody can do that,” Laurie said. “What I mean is, can’t you drive a car?”
    â€œNo,” I said sharply, “I can not drive a car. And I do not, furthermore, intend to learn. And I also do not want to hear one more—”
    â€œIf we had a car,” Jannie said, “I could ride in the front and Laurie could ride in the back with Baby.”
    â€œI’m older,” Laurie said mechanically. “You ride in back.”
    â€œI’m a girl,” Jannie said.
    â€œWhy not let Baby ride in front?” I asked in spite of myself. “She’s younger. And she’s a girl.”
    â€œBut if Laurie and I rode in back we would fight,” Jannie said.
    â€œThat’s true,” I said. ‘“So why not—” but the chocolate pudding thickened and I had to stop talking.
    Jannie began to sing one of her morning songs. “On earth, what are you doing,” she sang softly, “on earth, what are you doing? I am going splickety-splot. On earth, what are you doing, on earth, what are you doing? I am going thumpety-thump. We do dig and it does rain.” While she sang she rocked her doll, Laurie painted amiably, and I hummed to myself while I poured the pudding into dishes and