YOU CAN’T CATCH ME

It’s almost Christmas. Ma is baking and I’m her #1 ace helper. She tells me to get the cookie cutters and doesn’t have to tell me twice. I know exactly where they are, in the tall white kitchen cabinet next to the hall door. It’s knobs last week were orange for fall but now are green for holly. My Ma is not only a good cookie maker she paints, too. In spring the knobs are yellow. The porch chair is yellow all over so daisies aren’t lonely. When Ma sets her mind to do anything, especially paint, look out house, look out me! Daddy and I need an okay before we can open or close anything when work is in progress.

Ma knew where the cookie cutters were, too. She took me with her to buy them last week and I made all the choices. First we went to Woolworth’s. They were already out of some of the ones I want so Ma took me down the street to McCrory’s. I picked out 2 Christmas trees, a star, cane, heart, puppy, 2 bells, 2 Santas , 1 reindeer and 1 gingerbread man. Mama and the saleslady made me count them over and over just to learn that 12 is a dozen, a dozen is made up of 12. At the open market we bought little bags of jimmies in all colors, red buttons, silver balls, cherries. Ma already has a 5 lb. bag of flour and a dozen brown eggs in the kitchen. She says they are just the same as the white ones but cheaper so that is the kind we use. When my friend, Shirley, sometimes has lunch with me and sees the brown eggs in the ice box, she wrinkles her face, holds her nose and says, ‘Ich.’

‘Zelley, wash your hands real good and dry them until they hurt. Then flour the rolling pin and be careful. Always remember that my pin belonged to my mother and her mother before that. It will be yours too one day.’ While I’m doing those things, Ma has spread large sheets of wax paper almost over the kitchen table. She has sifted the flour with the salt, cut in the Crisco, added some sugar and water and kneads them together into one big, blob. Then she cuts that in half and starts to roll the dough. I watch her carefully. Before the dough gets a chance to stick on the rolling pin, she flours it again. It gets flat, flatter and flatter, rounder and rounder. I get breathless watching her.

We have 4 large cookie sheets greased and ready. ‘Zelly, it’s your show. Start cutting.’ Ma examines the sheets to make sure there are no dry spots, none that are too greasy and with a large spatula picks up the stars, the Santas and fills two trays. I keep cutting. ‘Zelly, when I tell you, look carefully at the clock and tell me exactly what it says and I’ll tell you what it will say 10 minutes later. Do it right or the cookies will burn.’

I cut every kind of cookie we bought. Something doesn’t look right. ‘Ma, I only see 11 kinds of cookies on the trays that are finished. We are supposed to have 12, a dozen. I figure out which is missing before Ma can. ‘The Gingerbread Man’ isn’t here.’ We look and we look. Ma goes out to the trash can to see if it was left in a bag by mistake. No, it wasn’t. While she is out there, I hear a strange, tiny, squeaky sound coming out of the kitchen cabinet. ‘Ma, I think we have another mouse in the kitchen. Does Daddy have another trap?’ The noise moves around. ‘Ma, the mouse is in the kitchen drawer.’ She screams and runs out.

I am not afraid and open the drawer. There is the Gingerbread Man. He’s crying. ‘Please don’t put me in that hot over, Little Girl. Last Christmas my mommie and daddy went in and never came out.’ I lift the little Gingerbread Man by his green knob, stand him on the floor and he runs, runs, singing all the way, ‘Run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.’ I chase him out onto the porch. He jumps down the steps, one at a time and keeps on running. ‘Run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.’He’s right. I couldn’t catch him. He disappeared into last nite’s snow.

‘Zelly, what are you doing on the porch? Come right in or you’ll catch your death of cold. Did you find the Gingerbread Man cutter?’ ‘No, Ma, maybe McCrory’s didn’t put it in our package.’ ‘What a shame, Darling. I was going to give him little licorice eyes and red cherry buttons.’

‘That’s okay, Ma. We have plenty Santas. May I have one now?’