The Glass Castle_ A Memoir - Jeannette Walls [41]
“Are we going to be sent away?” Brian asked the officer.
“That’s up to the magistrate,” he said.
That night Mom and Dad spent a long time upstairs talking in low voices while we kids lay in our boxes. Finally, late in the evening, they came down, their faces still grave.
“We’re going to Phoenix,” Dad said.
“When?” I asked.
“Tonight.”
Dad allowed each of us to bring only one thing. I ran outside with a paper bag to gather up my favorite rocks. When I returned, holding the heavy bag at the bottom so it wouldn’t split, Dad and Brian were arguing over the plastic jack-o’-lantern filled with green plastic army soldiers that Brian wanted to bring.
“You’re bringing toys?” Dad asked.
“You said I could take one thing, and this is my thing,” Brian said.
“This is my one thing,” I said, holding up the bag. Lori, who was bringing The Wizard of Oz, objected, saying that a rock collection wasn’t one thing but several things. It would be like her bringing her entire book collection. I pointed out that Brian’s army soldiers were a collection. “And anyway, it’s not the entire rock collection. Just the best ones.”
Dad, who usually liked debates on questions such as whether a bag of things is one thing, was not in the mood and told me the rocks were too heavy. “You can bring one,” he said.
“There are plenty of rocks in Phoenix,” Mom added.
I picked out a single geode, its insides coated with tiny white crystals, and held it in both hands. As we pulled out, I looked through the rear window for one last glimpse of the depot. Dad had left the upstairs light on, and the small window glowed. I thought of all those other families of miners and prospectors who had come to Battle Mountain hoping to find gold and who had to leave town like us when their luck ran out. Dad said he didn’t believe in luck, but I did. We’d had a streak of it in Battle Mountain, and I wished it had held.
We passed the Green Lantern, with the Christmas lights twinkling over its door, and the Owl Club, with the winking neon owl in a chef’s hat, and then we were out in the desert, the lights of Battle Mountain disappearing behind us. In the pitch-black night, there was nothing to look at but the road ahead, lit by the car’s headlights.
G RANDMA S MITH’S BIG white house had green shutters and was surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Inside were tall French doors and Persian carpets and a huge grand piano that would practically dance when Grandma played her honky-tonk music. Whenever we stayed with Grandma Smith, she brought me into her bedroom and sat me down at the vanity table, which was covered with little pastel-colored bottles of perfumes and powders. While I opened the bottles and sniffed them, she’d try to run her long metal comb through my hair, cursing out of the corner of her mouth because it was so tangled. “Doesn’t that goddamn lazy-ass mother of yours ever comb your hair?” she once said. I explained that Mom believed children should be responsible for their own grooming. Grandma told me my hair was too long anyway. She put a bowl on my head, cut off all the hair beneath it, and told me I looked like a flapper.
That was what Grandma used to be. But after she had her two children, Mom and our uncle Jim, she became a teacher because she didn’t trust anyone else to educate them. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in a town called Yampi. Mom hated being the teacher’s daughter. She also hated the way her mother constantly corrected her both at home and at school. Grandma Smith had strong opinions about the way things ought to be