The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

The laboratory was dark. There were several empty jars and a carafe of drinking water on the counter. I filled a jar with water and put the vetch into it, thinking, Please let this be the right one. If it’s not, I’ll have to kill myself. Either that, or run away from home. I walked to the back door, trying to remember how much money was in the tin box hidden under my bed. At last count, I’d saved twenty-seven cents for the Fentress Fair. I couldn’t run very far on twenty-seven cents. Best not to be pessimistic, Calpurnia. It has to be the one.

I got through the back door just as Viola pulled the roast from the oven. SanJuanna stood ready to take it into the dining room.

“You late,” Viola said. “Warsh up in here.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Is Mother mad?”

“Plenty.”

I pumped water at the kitchen sink and attacked my hands with the nail brush.

“Sorry.”

“You said that already.”

I looked down at my torn, dirt-stained pinafore.

“Take that off,” Viola said. “Nothing you can do. Go get in there.”

I took it off and hung it on the hook by the sink and hobbled into the dining room hiding behind SanJuanna and the roast. I may have exaggerated my lameness a tad. Conversation stopped. I ducked my head and murmured “pardon me” as I took my place. My brothers looked expectantly back and forth between me and our mother.

“Calpurnia,” said Mother, “you are late. And why are you walking like that?”

“I stepped in the world’s biggest badger hole, and I think I hurt myself. I’m sorry I’m so late, Mother, I truly am. It took me ages to get back, what with being so injured and all.”

“See me after dinner, please,” said Mother.

The older boys went back to eating, disappointed by the lack of a public scourging, but the baby, Jim Bowie, said, “Hi, Callie. I missed you. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been collecting plants, J.B.,” I said in a loud, exuberant voice. Both my mother and my grandfather looked up. “And then I stepped in the badger hole,” I added. “Maybe my ankle’s broken.”

“Really?” said J.B. “Can I see? I never saw a broke ankle.”

“Later,” I muttered.

Mother turned her attention back to her plate, but Granddaddy continued staring at me. I was about to bust a gut.

I turned to Jim Bowie and said, “J.B., I might have found something special, a special plant. Yes, indeedy. I left it out in the laboratory. I’ll show it to you later, if you want. Best not to play with your peas like that.”

I peeked at Granddaddy, He was still staring at me with intense concentration. We started the meat course. The port bottle was still a good thirty minutes away, but then Granddaddy did something unprecedented in the entire History of Dinner: He left before the port. Rising from the table, he patted his beard with his napkin, bowed to my mother, and said, “Another fine dinner as usual, Margaret. Kindly excuse me.” He walked out through the kitchen, leaving us all gaping in his wake. I heard the back door close behind him and his boots on the steps. None of us had ever seen anything like it. My mother collected her wits and glared at me.

“Do you have anything to do with this?” she said.

“Not I.” I kept my eyes on my plate.

“Alfred,” Mother said, turning to Father for information, “is Grandfather Walter feeling all right?”

“I believe so,” Father said, looking perplexed.

Seeing an opportunity, Jim Bowie, still playing with his peas instead of facing up to the ordeal of eating them, said, “Please, Mother, may I be ex—”

“No, you may not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But Grandfather is ex—”

“Stop it right now, J.B.”

The rest of dinner passed in silence. I was made to sit at the table for a whole hour after they left and SanJuanna cleared up, and I missed the firefly competition. Who cared about that? But not being out in the laboratory was killing me. I caught myself wringing my hands, something I’d only read about in overwrought sentimental stories. I was out of my chair and limping through the kitchen before the clock stopped bonging. Viola was feeding Idabelle the Inside Cat while SanJuanna washed the dishes.

“Listen, you—” said Viola as I crashed out the back door and came to a screeching halt. There, sitting on the back steps in the dark, stroking one of the Outside Cats, sat Granddaddy, smoking a cigar and staring at the sky. From the kitchen behind us came the homey noises of the crockery being put away. From the darkness came the chitter of some night-flying bird. I stood there a moment, my whole world hanging in the balance.

“Calpurnia,” he said, “it’s such a lovely evening. Won’t you join me?”

CHAPTER 12

A SCIENTIFIC STUDY

There are not many men who will laboriously examine internal and important organs, and compare them in many specimens of the same species.