A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [74]
Maud nodded and got to her feet. Still perplexed, she headed down to the water. It was another opportunity to escape. She could run away before Mrs. Lambert noticed she was gone. She turned to look over her shoulder. Mrs. Lambert was sculpting the back leg of the crocodile. Her hair was coming undone; flaxen wisps unfurled in the breeze. Maud began to search for pebbles.
By the time she found two the same size, three of the crocodile’s legs were finished. Maud held out the pebbles and the shell. “What’s the shell for?”
“Scales,” answered Mrs. Lambert. She demonstrated, sinking the edge of the shell in the sand, making a curved line. Then she handed the shell back to Maud. Maud squatted down to continue the pattern.
She went on scaling the crocodile as Mrs. Lambert nestled the pebbles into the eye sockets. Now that the beast had eyes, it looked alive. An idea came to Maud. She picked up a water-rotted stick and held it out.
“What’s that for?” asked Mrs. Lambert.
“Teeth,” mumbled Maud.
“Ohhh,” Mrs. Lambert said appreciatively. She began to break the stick into inch-long pieces, pressing them into the crocodile’s jaws. Satisfied that she was doing a good job, Maud resumed making scales. When the crocodile was scaly from nose tip to tail tip, Maud sat back on her heels and watched Mrs. Lambert. She was applying the finishing touches — poking the left nostril, which was shallower than its mate, pinching a finer claw on the left foreleg.
“Why are you following me?”
During the making of the crocodile, Mrs. Lambert had relaxed. Maud’s question caught her off-guard. “I hope I haven’t frightened you.”
Maud shook her head.
A faint flush stained Mrs. Lambert’s cheeks. She looked younger, bareheaded. She’s bashful, thought Maud. She had come to think that Mrs. Lambert was foolish, or a little mad. Now she saw that the woman was shy.
“I — noticed you.” Mrs. Lambert was almost stammering. “I used to have a little girl, so I notice little girls — especially the ones the same age as my daughter.”
“I’m eleven,” Maud said rashly.
“I wondered,” Mrs. Lambert went on, “if you were — all right. I’ve seen you playing in the water by yourself — always at night — and it’s worried me. It really isn’t safe for you to bathe by yourself. And I’ve been afraid — because you said your mother was dead — that you didn’t have any home.” The last words came in a rush. “That’s why I’ve been watching you. I’ve been worried that you had no one to look after you.”
Maud uttered an “oh” of pure surprise. She had never imagined that anyone could think she was a street child, like Oliver Twist or Ragged Dick the Bootblack. Her eyes fell to the striped dress she had sewed. It was worse than she thought if it made people think she had no home.
“There are places for children who need someone to look after them,” Mrs. Lambert continued. “Some of them aren’t very nice, but some are good places. There’s a small orphanage just outside Cape Calypso — it’s very friendly, and the children have toys and ice cream and regular outings — I know the people who run it and —”
At the word orphanage, Maud rebelled. “I don’t need an orphanage,” she flared. “I have a home. I live with — my father. So there!”
“I see,” Mrs. Lambert said. She looked unconvinced.
“Yes,” Maud said firmly, “with my father. And my little brothers — I have to look after them, because I’m the oldest and” — triumphantly — “that’s why I only come out at night. All day long I have to stay home and look after my brothers because they’re babies — and my father works all day in —” She hesitated only a second. “In a canning factory.” She did not know if there was a canning factory in Cape Calypso, but she knew about canning factories; the girls at the Barbary Asylum often ended up at the canning factory. “So he doesn’t get home until late, see, and when he does, he tells me to go out and get some fresh air. But I can’t bring my brothers with me, because they’re too little. They’d drown,” finished Maud, and grimaced at the word.
“How old are they?”
“They’re little,” Maud said recklessly, “and their