Good morning?

SCHNOZ

 

The smell tantalizes me as soon as I open the vestibule door. Mickey Mouse follows an airy swaying snake right to the window sill of Minnie's house. It writhes in front of me, has me in its grip. Stopping only long enough to put my new third grade geography book on the table at the top of the stairs, I skip the rest of the way to Mama's kitchen 'Hi, Mama. I knew it! I knew it! You have an apple pie in the oven. Right? Are we going to have vanilla ice cream with it tonight?'

 

'No hug first?' I give and get one. 'Sherry, there are two pies baking. One is for us and the other for Aunt Mollie. She came home from the hospital yesterday with your new twin cousins. Aunt Molly is going to be busy with those two tiny tots. Will you go with me tomorrow to take the pie over and maybe we can take a peep at John and Joan? Would you like that?' 'Sure, Mama. I still have 75 cents in my piggy bank. Maybe I can buy them lollipops. Mama smirks. 'We'll have to wait a little while for that.'

 

We wait a long while. I spend my money, finish third grade and have eaten quite a few apple pies. More freckles on my nose do not stop my sniffer from being alert. Paste, I smell paste. I hear loud snip, snips coming from the third floor bedrooms. I bound up the stairs two at a time. My furniture is gone, my closet empty. All of my belongings are behind my brother's closed door.

 

 Mr. Golden, the paperhanger, has come at last. Wooden horses span the walls, holding a large clean board. Brushes, rollers, scissors rest on long nails on the horse's legs. 'Can I help you, Mr. Golden? Please, please, let me do some pasting. It's my paper you know.' 'Not now, Little One. You don't want lumps in your walls, do you?' He dips his brush in the paste can, gives it a shake and before I can see how he does it, he has put paste on a long sheet of paper, bent it over several times and is on the second step of his ladder. Carefully he pulls back the edge and tapes it to the wall, slowly lowering it to the floor, always smoothing, brushing it with wide sweeps of his arm. From his overalls he takes out a roller and goes over it again, but leaves a small piece undone near the baseboard, 'Sherry, here try it. Just roll this part smooth. I do it right and decide I might someday become a paperhangeress.

 

Before Mr. Golden cleans up for the day, he gives me part of a roll of paper to cover my school books. Mama helps me after supper and does the loose leaf and geography books. I do the arithmetic book myself. It isn't as good as Mama's but is good for me. Nobody in my class has such beautiful striped books. Daddy adds white stickers with the names on each cover.

 

When my room is finished and looks clean and pretty, Mr. Golden asks me to get him a big, clean empty mayonnaise jar. Luckily Mama has one on her pantry shelf. Mr. Golden fills it with warm, smelly paste for me. I am set forever.

 

The smell of grass being cut, of the street after a thunderstorm has washed the gutters, of roses and lilacs blooming in my grandmother's yard and my first niece's tush being dusted with baby powder are pure heaven. Soon I would smell hell.

 

'My appendix has to come out or burst? When? How?' Daddy answers. 'Yes. Friday. By surgery.' A strong, strange smell turns my stomach as soon as I get thru the revolving door at the hospital. Even the elevator stinks. Daddy and Mama have a card with a number on it and find my room, 306. I will have to share it with another girl. The place smells like a toilet that hasn't been flushed. A nurse in a stiff white dress, wearing a stiff white cap with a double black stripe around the edge, gives me a gown that doesn't close except by a short tie at the back of my neck. I feel a cold draft over my entire body.  Dr. Hyman comes in, talks to us and I just know I am going to die. Sleep comes and I forget where I am.

 

There is noise in my room even though it is still dark. I get no breakfast, not even a glass of milk. Two nurses get me onto a table, leave my bare feet hanging out from under a thin striped sheet and wheel me to an ice cold green room. No sun is needed. The lights are big, blindingly bright. Dr. Hyman,'s voice is recognizable behind his white mask. 'Don't be frightened, Sherry. You aren't going to feel a thing and will wake up in your room. Mom and Dad will be waiting for you.'

 

Without another word some rotten person puts a rotten smelling mask on my nose. I'm choking. I'm dying. I can't move! The smell burns. I want to scream but my mouth won't move. I'm in my bed, on the hard mattress I remember from yesterday. Mama and Daddy are standing near me. Mamma holds my hand. I feel her fingers softly squeeze mine.
She looks fuzzy. What is she saying? Boy, something smells terrible. I sniff and sniff and am sure it is me. 'Don't worry, Darling. You still have some ether in your nose. It will go away.'

 

It did–but has now come back. Can you smell it?