Ariel Wall is a writer from Pennsylvania. She enjoys reading, writing poetry and fiction, and crafting.

Know How, Why Not (May-ish, 2011. Issue 28.)

I am five. My eyelids open and close like the shutter of a window. I was never aware, before this day, that blinking existed. I see my mother peering out of the front living room window. I blink, darkness, but she is still there. Thin thin thin. Her telephone wire arms draw back the curtain a bit further. She is watching to make sure I don't throw up again.

This morning I chewed up Life cereal and consciously spit it out next to an army of snails I had accumulated.

"I'm sick," I said, and pointed. She told me to wash my hands, and she went inside.

I blink and the dark shelled snails are crawling toward my Life. "Not so fast."

I separate them by color; the darker shells usually go on the left, because that is where I like them to go. Sometimes they are the boys, and the lighter shelled ones are the girls. One time I separated them into Dads and Moms. But today the Mom and girl snails are viruses, and the others, the Dads and boys, are the antibodies. Doctor Dan told me all about sickness and how antibodies are soldiers that fight to conquer the evil viruses attacking my body. Now I am very knowledgeable about this subject.

I take an invisible bottle of cough syrup out of the front pocket of my overalls. I love to wear this pair because they are red and corduroy and stunning. I turn the bottle upside down, and the medicine flows over the entire driveway. I blink. Nobody moves.

One brave antibody creeps towards his enemies. He must be the Captain. The others leave trails of syrup behind them. But the lighter ones are not moving. The closer the armies get to each other, the less I want to blink, but I can't control it now. The antibodies are crazy with medicine in their brains and my heart hurts.

I quickly place my arm between them like a karate chop. The Moms all cheer and thank me for saving their lives. They tell me that they were just so tired from making dinner that they could not bring themselves to crawl away. I blink and remember that the lighter shelled snails are not Moms. They are viruses, remember?

I am five and a half. My family is on vacation in Las Vegas. My father is the camera man because he hates to see himself on tape. Grandma and my brother, Greggy, are each holding my hands, while my mother attempts to pick up every piece of paper on the ground.

"Dirty dirty dirty," she says.

Greggy is eight years old and the sneakiest boy I have ever seen.

"Your shoe is untied, Margot," he says loud enough for Grandma to hear (very loud). I look down at my white velcros, but Greggy is already bending to the ground.

"What the." He grabs a flyer and sticks it in his pocket before anybody except me sees.

My father is running ahead of everybody, turning around backwards every so often to catch us on camera.

"Arthur, you are so annoying," says my mother.

"But I'm not even recording." He continues to point the camera at us with the bright red light steadily glowing.

"I am hot hot hot," complains Greggy. His hand is sticky and uncomfortable, but I love him so I hold it tight.

"Drink your water," says Grandma.

Greggy and I look at his hands—the one holding my own and the other swinging at his side. We stop to stare at them to be sure they are empty. They are.

My father is standing ahead of us. His feet are spread apart and he looks like a goalie with a camera.

"Where are we, Grandma?" he asks.

"Mexico!" she yells excitedly.

"What the," says Greggy, "Grandma, do you have Old Timer's?"

"Mexico!" she yells again.

I am five years old. My mother and I are in the grocery store. We are walking towards the bakery, which we always do when she wants to get my hopes up.

There is a giant man behind the counter, with a face like a meatball. He lifts his white muffin hat at my mother and she throws her head back to laugh out loud. She keeps laughing and laughing, but still pushes the cart. I realize how glad I am that she would not let me sit in the kid's seat, because she is becoming a very scary woman. Louder and louder. Ladies are staring with their mouths wide open.

"Let's do something fun," she says, reaching for her purse. She is taking things out to look for something hidden, and fun. A tube of lipstick. She pouts her lips and glides the red along them. She extends the tube to me. I pout and apply.

"Let's call Daddy and pretend we are on a game show," she says. "He is our only lifeline and if he gets the answer right we will win…I don't know. How much money will we win, Margot?" She is clutching her cell phone, and her knuckles are becoming increasingly bonier.

I feel my shoulders straighten and I know my eyes are wild.

"One. million. dollars!" I yell. I am immediately so proud of my answer that a squeal escapes from my throat and I jump a little bit.

"That's not believable," she says, bringing her phone to her ear. I hear a ringing and then my father answers the phone.

My mother's face is the most serious I have ever seen it.

"Arthur, Arthur!" she is yelling. We are no longer by the bakery. My mother is frantically pushing the cart along the isles. We are by the chips.

"You will never believe it, but Margot and I are being filmed right this minute! Listen. You have to help us answer this question, Arthur! You are the only person I could think of that would know this answer!"

We are by the milk. Exclamation marks are jumping from my mother's mouth. A stock boy with a sharp object in his hand looks right into my eyes, and for a moment I feel calm.

"Okay, are you ready, Arthur? Oh, I know that you'll know it! Who is that very adorable actress in that overseas movie about that woman and the leaves? The one who married that very famous actor in the same film."

We are by the bakery again. A wheel on our cart has come loose and is dragging on the ground obnoxiously. The meat face with the muffin hat is gone.

"Yes, Arthur, that is the question. Oh, I don't know. They showed me a picture. I know that you have seen it."

We are by the checkout.

"No, Arthur. That is not who it is. Time is up. You had the opportunity to win your family ten thousand dollars. Margot could have gone to college."

My mother hangs up the phone and tells me to sit in the empty cart.

I am six years old. I am in my shared bedroom, but Grandma is not home. I push all of my dolls and my matching teacups and Grandma's dirty clothes to the corners of the room. I am completely naked besides my pink underwear. I wiggle the handle of the door to make sure it is locked.

From under my pillow, I pull a cassette tape. I stole it from the radio in the kitchen when my mother was in the bathroom. I put the tape in Grandma's cassette player, turn the volume knob to the very quietest it will go, and press play.

It is romantic music. A woman's deep voice gives me goose bumps. I dance my most provocative moves.

I am four. Greggy and I are in my room with the door closed. He is wearing thick socks and the plastic shoes of my life-size Barbie doll on his feet. I am lying on the floor, with my ear by the space under the door. Our parents are yelling things at opposite ends of the hallway. My mother's words slip under the door more easily than I've ever heard my father's.

I look at Greggy observing himself in the mirror. My mother lets him pick out his own outfits lately, and he chooses to be classy. He wears fancy pants and a button up shirt.

We talk to each other's reflections. He has been speaking in a Southern accent and I think it compliments him very well.

"Would you like me less if I was your sister?" he asks, his head craned round to check out his backside.

"I would never like you less than anything."

I am six and a few months. Greggy and I are taking Grandma for a walk. Greggy is holding me on the handles of his mountain bike. It is getting dark outside. Before we left, my mother put a hat on Grandma that has flashing reflectors on the front and back. She looks like a lightning bug.

We ride far ahead of Grandma. The few cars that pass us on the street turn their headlights on and off at us. Greggy pushes my back bones and cues me to yell, "Honk honk!" at every one of them. We circle back to check on Grandma when she doesn't run to keep up.

Greggy rides up behind her to see how close we can get without touching her. She doesn't notice. She is barely moving her legs forward at all anymore.

"Come on, firefly," says Greggy, speaking to Grandma. He is slowing down. "Do the signal," he says in my ear. I stick out my left arm very officially and he pulls the bike over.

"Look at those people!" yells Grandma. Our eyes follow her finger to a cluster of three squirrels. One has an acorn up to his mouth and I think he sticks his pinky out. Grandma laughs out loud and shakes her head. "They look so funny!"

My mother's been telling me that Grandma's going to leave us soon. Who knows where she's going, but I can't wait to have my room back. Sometimes I find Grandma's socks under my covers and I know that she has been secretly sleeping in my bed. My blankets slip the socks from her feet, one at a time, to let me know she's been sneaking.

I look down at Grandma's velcros that look just like mine. Her pants don't cover her whole legs. Sometimes she shows off how many purple spots she has, and my mother yells at her to stop. I look below her bruises and I can see that she only has one sock on her foot. I can't wait to have my own room.

"All aboard!" yells Grandma, her head still blinking.

I am almost six years old. My mother is somewhere with Grandma. My father and I are spending the day together. There is a list on the 'frigerator labeled "Fun Things to Do with Each Other." We are not doing any of them.

My father is leaning against the counter. I am sitting on the tile floor. We stare at the list, and I don't know why I do, because I cannot even read.

Mostly, I am looking at the family Polaroids that Grandma insisted be displayed on the 'fridge. She was given the old camera with the photographs that show up in an instant so that she wouldn't get too confused. Well, my mother only ever gave her one roll of film because of the type of pictures that Grandma took.

There are ten pictures to a roll. The first photograph was an accident. Grandma's fragile fingers were not thinking about holding the camera. She dropped it and the flash went off at her feet. It is a photograph of the living room floor.

The next nine pictures were accidents, too, but some are more terrible than others. The second is a close-up of Grandma's face. The camera was backwards when she tried to take a picture of the sun. Her eyes are closed tight and her brittle lips are parted. This picture makes me feel very uncomfortable inside.

But my favorite accident photograph is the one of my father. Grandma had gotten up in the middle of the night for some odd reason, maybe to use the restroom, but she took her camera with her. This was during the month that my father had picked up the habit of stripping his clothes and sleepwalking around the house. Grandma heard his footsteps in the dark and knew that the camera would flash when she pressed the button. The next day, she insisted that we display the naked polaroid on the 'fridge.

But now I am looking back and forth at these photographs and at my father. He is sitting on the counter making music with his mouth. He is the best whistler that there is, I think. I want to tell him this, but I remember my mother's words and I say, "Not today, Arthur," instead.

He stops, and his eyebrows move in a strange way. I think that he is going to yell at me but he hops off the counter. He does not look at me. He goes into the living room and I hear the television turn on.

I am six. I am eating carrots for every meal until I turn orange.

I am six. I come out of my shared bedroom and the garbage can is sideways on the floor. There is trash everywhere. I yell, "Hello!" I am the only person in the house.

I look out of the living room window. My mother and father are on the front lawn and they are shouting at each other. But mostly my mother. It is raining and her hair looks thinner than ever.

I open the front door and stand on the porch. Nobody notices me.

"You are crazy," my father says.

At this, my mother goes wild. "Crazy? Oh, I can be a crazy person if you want me to be, Arthur!" I step off the porch.

The world is melting around us. My mother's clothes are completely wet and she is not wearing a bra. She looks beautiful.

She puts her hands over her eyes and drags her mascara down her face. She is screaming things that are not words. She takes off her slippers, throws them at my father, and does a handstand. She is completely parallel with the rain. When she returns to her feet, my father is almost to the car.

"You will not take my car!" she screams, running in her bare feet towards him.

He is in the driver's seat and I hear the car start. My mother is on the back bumper. She is holding onto the bars on top of the car. We used to put our bikes up there.

The car is reversing down the driveway and my mother sees me.

"Go get Grandma!" she yells, as the car moves away. My father does not even pause at the stop sign.

I turn and run down the street to Mr. and Mrs. Smithers' house. I cannot take in enough air. My fingers are dirty and slippery and nervous. I ring the doorbell with my thumb. I leave a dirt mark.

Mrs. Smithers answers and smiles, showing me her false teeth. I am very polite. I ask for Grandma just like a calm grown up.

Forever later, Grandma and I are walking back towards home. I am walking my slowest fast-walk. Come on, fire fly. I am speaking loudly and frantically, telling her everything that I saw. She doesn't appear to be listening to me.

We are in the driveway. "Where is the car?" Grandma asks. She is calling my mother's name. I hold her hand and lead her inside through the front door.

Now she is calling for my father. She is opening every door in the house. She peeks in our shared room. "Arthur?" She looks under her bed, which is crammed with dirty clothes and Grandma's unused diapers.

I am following her, wondering and hoping. The bedrooms are all empty but Grandma does not stop. She looks in the dark garage. Though all of the lights are out, she calls my mother's name. There is an echo. Empty.

She opens the kitchen pantry and questions the bread. She opens every one of the kitchen cabinets, asking, "Arthur, where are you?"

I am five. I am dreaming. There is a lion cub in my bed. He is licking my face and he purrs that he wants to kiss me. I have seen him in the movies. He is very handsome, and all of the girl lions adore him. But he loves me. I wake up to Greggy suffocating me under a pillow mountain.

I am four years old. Greggy and I are at the park with Grandma. She is on the swing set. Greggy and I are by the woods, where we are not allowed to play. We are trying to catch the lightening bugs.

"If you put one in your mouth, they will make your teeth glow," he says. I have never wanted to try anything as much as I do this. I don't know how, but Greggy does. We run in wild circles, losing every bug we see.

"Don't move. No kidding. Stay still, Margot," he says. I am mid-reach for a glitter bug but I stop. I am a statue holding my breath. Greggy's fingers creep toward my shoulder. I keep my head frozen but my eyes follow his fingers to the lightening bug on my shoulder.

Greggy makes a cup with one hand, scoops it up, and quick covers it with his other hand. I am the most jealous.

"See if your mouth glows!" I yell.

He sticks the lightening bug right into his mouth as if it were a piece of candy. His lips part but his teeth are clenched shut. Nothing is happening.

"Nothing is happen…" I start to say. And then all of a sudden Greggy's mouth lights up! It is the most brilliant thing to ever happen. There is a glow shining through and between every one of his teeth. I am jumping up and down, reaching toward all the other glitter bugs in the sky.

"Did it work?" Greggy attempts to say, a permanent smile on his face. His mouth goes dark and lights up again.

I fall on the grass and pound on the ground. "Yes! Yes!" I scream. Everything about this moment is beautiful.


I am six and a lot of months. Greggy is teaching me about clocks and the gorgeous way in which time goes round and comes back again. The "little hand" is my favorite. I keep forgetting what he does, but he is just so charming and petite, like me. I am sprawled on the floor imagining that my limbs are the seconds and minutes and hours on a clock.

My mother comes in the room and asks if Greggy or I have seen Grandma. We have not. She tells us to get in the car.

For the next hour and a half, we drive around the entire town. Greggy has his window down and is yelling at any woman whose hair looks like a wig. He is shouting, "Grandma?" Some of the women are grandmas, but they are not Grandma.

We go home. My mother makes phone calls while Greggy and I lay on the kitchen floor. My head is on his belly. "I can hear the ocean," I say. He takes a deep breath, moving my head up and down.

"Let me try." We switch around so that Greggy's ear is on my belly. I feel his cheek bones and my ribs rubbing against each other, but I love him so I don't adjust a thing. "You ate breakfast," he says, "I can't hear anything."

We lay like that for a while, Greggy's head resting on my stomach. I am imagining things with my eyelids closed when my mother comes in. I hear her feet on the tile but I do not want to move. I feel her staring at us. Greggy pokes my belly, meaning Wake up.

My mother's face is blotchy and sad-looking. She tells us that Grandma is dead.

Grandma had been taking a walk, which she is not allowed to do by herself, and her brain stopped telling her lungs to breathe. She stopped breathing; she stopped walking. The police department got a phone call from a family a couple of miles away from our house. The family reported an elderly woman trespassing on their property. Grandma died in the family's flower garden.

I feel strange and heavy, like Greggy is still on my stomach. I feel like I am still lying on the floor being a clock, spinning my arms around my head.

We are at the place to view Grandma's body. I don't want to, but my mother insists. Greggy holds my hand and my mother walks in front of us. I've never seen a dead person before. All I can think about is Grandma's socks in the bottom of my bed and I wonder if I will still find them there.

We get closer and closer to where they say Grandma is, but I am afraid. I do not want to see her face and then go home and live in our shared bedroom. I let go of Greggy's hand and I sit on the floor. My mother doesn't look back; she just keeps walking and Greggy hurries to catch up.

Time is circling and I am aware of every minute that passes. Finally, my mother and Greggy are walking towards me. My mother looks tired, while Greggy's eyes are wild. His feet are moving quickly beneath him.

"You'll never believe it, Margot," he says. I stand up. "Beneath Grandma's Velcro shoes, she only wore one sock."

I do not want my own room.

I am four years old. I want glasses because I think that they are beautiful. Greggy says that people who wear them have bad eyes, so I pretend. I pour orange juice in my cereal and I put my clothes on inside out. I squint my eyes to see the television, or sometimes I sit very close with my nose almost touching it. My mother notices. She takes me to see a doctor.

Each day for a week, I try a new prescription. On Friday, I cannot see.

I am seven years old. My father is inviting Greggy and me to his apartment for dinner.

"Do I have to go?" I ask my mother. She smiles just the tiniest bit and says no.