Where's Alice?

THE RABBIT HOLE

 

It's my brother Jerrold's duty, his job, to keep our lawn mowed all summer. He gripes every week and I feel sorry for him. Why our father is so strict that the lawn can only be cut on Thursday, we don't know. Saturday would be a lot easier for Jerrold instead of working after school. One time Jerrold was going to pay his best friend to do it for him and that was when the trouble started.

 

Mike was almost half finished, when he stepped into a hole and broke his ankle. His parents made my father pay the doctor bill and poor Jerrold had his allowance cut in half until the bill was paid. We both hated our father for being so lousy, so mean. I took up for my brother and told my father that Jerrold didn't dig the hole, a rabbit did. Dad said as the lawn cutter, he should have been aware of it. I stood against my own father and insisted we have never had a rabbit around here, aren't even sure it's a rabbit hole. Jerrold and I pitched in a few times and brought Mike a chocolate sundae, a comic book. There wasn't much else we could do.

 

I, a girl, was exempted from man's work but had to wash the kitchen floor on my hands and knees Mondays and Thursdays. There was no sense arguing. I got up extra early on those days and was finished before my father would find a spot I missed. One of the dreams I had over and over was that my father got re-married. I'd wake smiling and then think about the possibility. Who would want him? How could my poor mother have taken his abuse so long? My friend, Erma, suggested I leave music on when I go to bed. 'It will relax you,' she said. It did, really did, until about the fifth night, when I heard a noise and my ceiling light came on. My father was standing near the door and gave me the devil.  'Don't you know you are wasting electricity? Want to see the  gas & electric bill I get every month? No? Well, it's a lot and I don't want it to be higher. Turn off the radio and go to sleep.'
Finally Dad nagged Jerrold enough that on a Saturday, he borrowed a wheel barrow from our next door neighbor, bought with his own money, a large bag of dirt from the hardware store. He shoveled it all into the hole. It didn't nearly fill it. He asked our father for another few dollars so he could fill the hole and surprise, surprise, Dad gave him three bucks.  That was like throwing his money down the sewer because bag two didn't fill the hole either. 'Here, get one more bag,' and  haughtily told my brother that he would handle the rest of the job himself.

 

Would my brother turn down that order? No way. He brought the last bag over, cut the top of the bag off and walked away. Dad finished the meal I had made, as usual didn't thank me, and headed for the back yard.   We all watched from the porch while shovel of dirt followed shovel of dirt. As night fell fast, we heard our father breathing loud, thought he might have over done the shoveling and went out to the hole to tell him to let Jerrold finish...but father wasn't there.

 

He had disappeared. One of his shoes, the old one that needed new heels, was sticking out of the dirt.