Images: Old Woman by Mali Desha – Weasel by James Armes – Rabbits by Bunly Hort

My Real Memoir

I loved Momandad and my “daymom” Frieda and all of her animals. But it was the spring of my fifth year, and I was starting to feel the need for something, or rather someone, different. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to make my first real human friend.

Apart from a few orange trees and a trash incinerator, our back yard was barren. Our trees were toddlers, too young to climb, and I’d already checked the incinerator for buried treasure. Now what?

Then I Spotted a Weasel!

It was the sleekest thing I’d ever seen. If other animals were sedans, it was a sports car! “Hi!” I shouted. It instantly took off like the furry roadster it was. An offer to play? Maybe. I chased after it. Past the side of our house and across the street, into an overgrown lot. Through the weeds it raced, and then into a tunnel of wooden arches thickly choked with dead vines. 

The weasel was gone by the time I climbed out the end. But instead, I found something better: a human who needed a friend as much as I did. “Tea?” she said in a tiny voice.

Crazy Old Alice

That was what the humans on our side of the street called her. Dressed in a raggedy frock, and as skinny as that weasel, she led me to her cottage. No, there was no furnace for cooking wayward children. She didn’t want to eat me. Alice simply wanted to serve me watery tea, and show me the big bronze soldier statue that dominated her little living room. She spoke very little and mumbled when she did, so it remained a mystery. There was almost no furniture other than the statue.

Then we went outside, and Alice showed me her rabbits. “Easter Bunnies!” I thought. They lived in hutches and loved attention, so I began visiting Alice and her bunnies almost every day. Only gradually did I realize: I was Alice’s only friend.

I always brought carrots for the rabbits, and one day I caught Alice taking their carrots! I told her it was wrong to steal, especially from Easter bunnies. But she continued to do it.

And Then…

A few weeks later, I was climbing through the overgrown arches, when a tall, scary man suddenly lifted me up by my shirt collar. He shouted, using all kinds of bad words, and told me he’d kill me if he ever caught me there again!

That night, I dreamed I was climbing through the vine-choked arches. Only now the vines were electrical wires, and the scary man was at the end of the tunnel, laughing gleefully. Then I accidentally touched a wire, and instantly fell to the ground…and died! The people I loved circled over me, weeping, their tears striking my face as I released my final breath.

The next day, I told my parents about Alice and the Easter bunnies, and about the man who’d used bad words and threatened to kill me. They were stunned, and went straight over to Crazy Old Alice’s cottage.

What They Discovered Was Horrendous

Alice, the widow of a decorated war hero (the soldier statue), was only in her late 40s, but she’d had a stroke. She lived on a hero’s pension, but it was regularly cashed and pocketed by her son, the tall scary man. As her legal guardian, he provided her with tea, a few meager canned goods, and an occasional cheap smock. She was starving and alone.

But no more. The neighbors had Alice’s son arrested, cleaned up her house, and showered her with food and clothing.

I was no longer her only human friend.