Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson

condition of her face, and from where I stood it looked very much as though she had gotten a lollipop from somewhere, because there was a lollipop stick wound in one curl. “Where have you been?” I asked again.
    â€œOut,” she said inconclusively. “I been visiting, visiting.” Her odd jangling manner of speech had never annoyed me more, and I said sharply, “Visiting where?”
    She waved. “Around,” she said.
    â€œWhere is Jannie? Laurie?”
    â€œLaurie is on his bike. Jannie got eaten by a bear, eaten.”
    This was so close to my guilty expectations that I went nervously to the kitchen door and looked out; there were no bears but at least part of Sally’s general appearance was explained by the impressive line of mudpies on the back step. Following a reasonable train of thought, I asked, “Did you have breakfast?”
    â€œI had it at Amy’s house, Amy’s.”
    Amy’s mother was one of the sweetest people I had met that summer. Her children were always spotless, and they were fed at correct times in an immaculate kitchen. I had never heard Amy’s mother raise her voice to her children and she always seemed to have time to make her own clothes. “You
would
go to Amy’s,” I said.
    â€œWell, I told Amy’s mother that I did not have any breakfast, breakfast, because my mommy did not wake up and give it to me, mommy. And Amy’s mother said I was a poor baby, baby, and she gave me cereal and fruit, cereal, and she said there, dear, and she gave me chocolate milk and I
did
remember to say thank you, remember.”
    I made a mental note to stop over later and tell Amy’s mother laughingly that Sally had certainly fooled us, hadn’t she, because I was right here making breakfast and Sally had just run out and I had spent
hours
looking for her and . . . “I told Amy’s mother you were gone away to Fornicalia,” Sally said, seating herself at the table before her half-finished bowl of cereal. “Laurie got me this cereal but he put on too much milk and I went to Amy’s.”
    She seemed satisfied that she had given me a reasonable account of her morning, and I said “California” absently as I began to clear dishes out of the sink and stack them. “Hickory Dockery Dick,” Sally said musically. “Why did they come home wagging their tails behind them, tails?”
    By half-past eleven I had coffee making and had located Jannie (breakfast at Laura’s house, scrambled eggs and orange juice and toast because Jannie’s mother was still asleep because Jannie’s mother had not come home until way, way late last night) and had had word of Laurie, who called to say that he was at the stables helping water the horses and would be back in a little while for lunch. “I see you finally got up,” he remarked over the phone. “Yeah,” I said.
    I had fed Barry and put him in his playpen, and was feeling a little bit less like the delinquent mother whose children are found begging in the streets. Sally told me a long story about an elephant she and Amy had encountered, which asked them civilly the way to the zoo, zoo, and gave them each a piece of bubble gum, a delicacy ordinarily forbidden Sally, but I had to let her keep it because it was a present from an elephant. By the time my husband came stomping downstairs I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and smiling maternally at Sally; I gave my husband another smile of patient, tolerant understanding, and asked him sweetly if he would care for coffee? He nodded, and sat down at the table, but he jumped when I lifted the frying pan. “Eggs?” I asked him, and he shook his head no.
    â€œDockery Hickory Dick,” Sally said. “Later will you take us swimming, Daddy, swimming?”
    â€œOf course he will, dear,” I said largely, and my husband turned his head and looked at me for a