Playing With Matches by Carolyn Wall Page B

Birmingham. On the other hand, what if one day the foster care system unloaded itself, and had all kinds of room. Then what would happen to Finn—and to me?
    Later, we all went down to the Oatys’ place, including Finn and the sheriff, who had so far said nothing, and we lookedaround. The Oaty brothers acted sorely put out, claiming they had seen “no kid, no pale wheezing boy,” and they knew nothing about it. They got downright huffy and, while the older Mr. Oaty sat on the porch, drinking from a straw and dribbling on his baby bib, we all took turns crouching down for a look under the house. There wasn’t a sign that anybody’d been under there.
    My stomach turned over, and I cried out, insisting that was where we’d found him. My voice rose to a caterwaul, until Finn came up and took hold of my hand. “She’s right. That kid was livin’ in there.”
    After the sheriff grunted and sucked in his belly fat and crawled under there, he came out saying the earth was packed hard and warm, and there were chicken bones and other garbage scattered around. The Oatys lied and said they’d gotten real bad about throwing trash beneath the house.
    The sheriff said he could also tell by the smell that somebody had regularly urinated and defecated under the place.
    The Oatys looked at each other and then at their pa. It was possible, they said, he had done that too.

    That night, I went out to sit under the tree and talk to Finn. The night was full of cricket sounds. I could not think what they’d witnessed that was good enough to sing about. This world was unfair, and people were sick and stupid and unkind to one another.
    “Sometimes they are,” Finn agreed from above.
    “It’s a waste of being alive!”
    “Ain’t always so,” he said. “Sometimes people are downright funny.”
    “Wasn’t nothing amusing about that kid.” I was indignant tothe soul. “And that damned Miss Pilcher—I hate her, Finn. She ever comes back here, I swear I’ll …”
    Over my head, Finn’s branch was bouncing something awful, and when I looked up, his eyes were alight, and he was laughing.
    “There wasn’t one thing funny today, Finn,” I said.
    But he laughed some more and pointed toward the house.
    The light was on in my attic room. The window was raised and there, between the pulled-back curtains, stood my wide Cousin Bitsy. She lifted her shirt and presented her great bosoms for Finn and all the world to see. They were big as watermelons. Her broad, flat nipples were the color of creamed coffee.
    Finn rattled and roared and couldn’t tear his eyes away.
    I went into the house and said no more.

16
    I t was a strangely warm fall, with nothing happening that was near as exciting as the finding of that kid at the Oatys’. Nights, we lay awake on top of the covers, while below us the False River was a green sludgy wallow. It stank mightily.
    Our side of the big Pearl was Mississippi; the western bank was Louisiana. Occasionally, but not often, a sigh of wind might drift upriver from the Gulf of Mexico and cool off both sides. The Pearl itself was a wide and rolling body of water that did a mysterious thing. In no hurry to join the Intracoastal Waterway, it appeared to spread out into a lazy swamp. All along the Pearl River, dead trees stuck up like pointy fingers, and thick green scum settled on its surface. It smelled like vinegar and dirty socks but was still good for pulling a catfish or two. But the miles and miles of marsh were deceiving. The currents underneath both False River and the Pearl were amazingly strong.
    Autumn was our regular season for bad weather, most of which came up from the Gulf. With landfall, every storm seemed to sprout arms and legs that groped their way up first the Pearl, then its elbow, the False River, with whirling black clouds and rain that blew east to west. Wind ripped off shingles and shutters,and carried away lawn chairs and plastic swimming pools. It brought down thick branches of trees