ABY

The Tengles

The Tengles

A long time ago, or perhaps it was just yesterday there were two kids, by the name of Tengle, Malcolm Tengle and Daphne Tengle. Daphne was fond of pronouncing their last name to sound like Bengal, the ancient and mysterious region of India where she imagined majestic tigers prowling in the moonlight.  However, where they lived, many folks had this reputable name, and pronounced it as, tangle, like a mass of unkempt hair. It was a name held in respect by the locals, who comprised the no nonsense people that inhabited a small town, somewhere between the endless prairies and the red mountains of Colorado.

Malcolm was a freckled, smudged faced, scamp with wheat colored hair cropped short like a harvested field. Daphne his “little” sister towered over him, a lanky, skinny girl with long dark hair and deep intelligent eyes. They lived in a house that had once belonged to their maternal grandparents before their father had purchased it just over a year ago. When quite suddenly, in a rather less than grandparental way, Jack and Helen Coffin had chosen to sell their home and everything they owned in order to move to the Bahamas, for, as they put it, “the rest of their lives”. They lived in their new country in a state of seclusion preferring no telephone and reluctantly providing a post office box.

The house was located in a small town that Jack Coffin at the age of 23, had located by throwing a dart at a map of the United States, after having been properly blindfolded and twirled by his beloved 28-year-old wife Helen. The game was part of a going away party that they threw for themselves in celebration of their early retirement having won, only days before, the Massachusetts State Jackpot. Until that moment in time they were living just outside Boston where they both were employed by a “think tank”, dedicated to the study and eventual commercialization of non-linear existence.  Despite their unique way of locating a community, once settled into their Coloradoan life they became deeply at home. In fact they almost never left the roomy bungalow they purchased at the edge of town preferring to receive deliveries whenever possible.

(The nonlinear existence research is something they kept going secretly and is an important underlying theme and reason for the odd events to follow, which the reader finds out, later)

The Tengle children were originally from the north. Their parents had met each other while attending a city university and had eventually married and lived near the campus in a small apartment for many years.  Mrs. Tengle was a quiet woman who always referred to her northerly move to college as her ‘escape”.  Mr. Tengle, who grew up reading comic books about super heroes in the compartment of his father’s cross-continental transport rig, had developed an aversion for travel and a deep love for realism.  He met his wife-to-be only several hours after being dropped off on the highway just outside the University, with only a small suitcase and an international high school diploma that he earned through correspondence.

Nancy was the first person Bob met on campus.  He was searching for the administration building to check in.  The crowds of students who were all moving at a fair clip across the grounds looked something like cars on a closely spaced interchange in down town Los Angeles, buzzing swiftly by, paying notice only to the direction they were headed.  Although accustomed to heavy traffic, Bob was used to the secure environmental control of his father’s luxury tractor-trailer cab.  Taking a deep breath he merged and followed a vigorously pumping artery toward some tall, official looking buildings set off by the mountains to the west.  Nancy was sitting behind a desk marked, Student Help in the middle of a vaulted entry hall.  She was so beautiful that Bob could not take his eyes off of her for the entire 20 minutes he stood in line for her assistance.  As he stepped up to take his turn another student appeared to relieve her.  Not wanting to miss his opportunity to speak to her, he abruptly left the window and caught her eye as she exited the booth.  “Excuse me miss.  Could you tell me where I can find the registrar’s office?”  She smiled lifting her hand to cover her teeth and gestured him forward with her head.
“I’m going that way,” she answered.  “Stay with me.”
Bob did just that.  He stayed close to her as they fled through the crowds that day and then continued to stay with her for the rest of his life.

As it turned out Nancy and Bob did not have a lot in common.  However, their strengths balanced each other’s weaknesses perfectly.  Bob had traveled all his life whereas Nancy had been born in and grown up in one small town.  During that time she had driven to the big city on numerous occasions to receive psychotherapy for post traumatic stress syndrome brought on by an overly active imagination or inexplicable  hallucinations.  Almost all of which had to do with things disappearing suddenly with no explanation and other things appearing out of nowhere for only moments at a time. Her parents were for the most part uninterested in their daughter’s peculiar experiences and dismissed them with a shrug and a smile.  The school health department, however, were quite disturbed by Nancy’s “stories” which seemed to be part of a greater epidemic of very similar tales being told by other children at school.  Eventually they insisted on intervention for all involved.  As a result of their peculiar experiences the children of her town all grew up rather nervous and timid, wishing to call very little notice to themselves and at odds with their parents. In the end both the kids and their folks looked forward to the day that the young ones would pack up and set out on their own.

(Few more things to expand between met and wed?)

It wasn’t until Nancy was a senior and Bob was a junior that he was able to persuade her from the habit of covering her mouth when she smiled. A year later at their wedding, following Bob’s graduation, she even opened her mouth a little to laugh.  After having ‘the children”, Nancy and Bob Tengle had imagined obtaining a larger home but time had a way of flying and it wasn’t until Daphne was 12 that they literally broke out of the place and moved south to their mother’s childhood home.  Her home, their “new” house was on a street where all the kids had grown up and moved away for good.  Very few of its retired residents got out much.  The only signs of life on the insides of the homes on Boone lane, pronounced “bone”, were the flutter of curtains behind darkened windows that the children would often catch from the corners of their eyes.  The most neighborly excitement Daphne and Malcolm experienced since they had lived on Boone Lane was when the old man who lived across the street backed into their mailbox. He then proceeded to drag it to the corner of the block where it fell off of his bumper as he turned right and continued on his way. When the kids hefted it back to the house, mother just shook her head and said

“You may as well just throw it on the heap at the side of the house.”

Although Malcolm and Daphne had seen the heap there before it wasn’t until that incident that they noticed it was largely filled with squashed mailboxes.

There was one playground near Boone Lane about a half block away, but it had long since been abandoned.  The equipment, what little there was of it, were like steel skeletons, broken down, paint peeling and disintegrating into rust. There must have been sand at one time surrounding the monkey bars and the slide because the whole lot stood in a foot deep cement pool. Empty, except for trash and leaves most of the year it would fill to the brim during the rainy season. When not offering reflected clouds or agitated ripples the place was either covered with snow and ice or baked to an egg frying degree.

One of the more curious qualities about their locality was the utter lack of animals, more specifically, pets.  Of course there were squirrels and birds and a colony of prairie dogs next to the Dairy King, but there wasn’t even one cat or stray dog to ever be seen or heard for miles around.  This fact disturbed the Tengle children. If Malcolm and Daphne had a passion in common, it was that they both loved all kinds of ‘folks with tails’.
They called animals folks because the fact was, that they believed them to be equal to people in all ways and they also found them to be a lot friendlier than most of their relations.  They were very fond of dog folk, cat folk and rodent folk as well.  Although many of their friends back in Denver had tail folk of all kinds Daphne and Malcolm had well, zero, not even one.

When the children first asked about having a pet, their mother burst into tears and ran into the bathroom.  Their father waved his arm wildly in their direction and told them to “hush up” and to not to talk of such things. At the time they were quite young and had the impression that anything that their parents did or said was quite normal.  However, by the time they were in the upper elementary grades they began to realize this was not the case.  In fact it was a feeling of mortification that swept over them when a friend suggested visiting their home

It seemed to them that every family had some kind of furry housemate and some of some kids were so totally lucky that they even had tiny creatures that they kept in their bedrooms.  Malcolm was always wishing out loud for a four legged, one tailed companion.  At first their parents had explained that their mother had had a tragic experience with a pet dog during her childhood.

“It ran away”, their Dad would say.
“Right through the fence” their mother would conclude.

Neither of the two children had ever imagined having anything so incredible living in their house as a dog.  For one thing the apartment was unbelievably small.  At the time, Daphne still slept in her parent’s room, on a narrow chase lounge mattress between her Mom’s side of the bed and the wall.  Malcolm slept on the living room convertible couch, which doubled as a seat for his sister and him at the family table. After meals the table and the bed were folded and neatly the former was stowed next to the wall behind the latter.  There would also be serious concerns about the safety of a pet dog when sent outdoors since the family did not have a yard or any of the accompanying benefits that came with such a space.  No, they had imagined a gerbil or even a mouse.  “Its cage could hang from the ceiling,” they suggested.

“The answer is no,” repeated father looking nervously over at mother who gave a little sniff and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

But now, now that they had moved south to where the world and indeed their home seemed enormous the kids had tried to entertain the notion of a furry friend, once again.  They had always thought it was the size of their quarters that prevented pet ownership.  However, they realized that, as often was the case, they hadn’t really been listening.  Due to some unimaginable trauma their mother was incapable of the emotional burdens of having a pet and therefore their father would not permit it.

“It ran away”, their Dad would say.
“Right through the fence” their mother would conclude.

After a while Daphne just gave up on the whole thing.  Besides it was beginning to bother her that her mother always seemed so sad and the whole issue would always intensify her solemn mood.  Malcolm on the other hand was tireless if not, as Daphne put it,
“Somewhat callous”

to the feelings of others.

He continued to make regular requests followed by storms of temper and misbehavior.  His parents ignored him.

“What’s up?” Malcolm complained. “Why can’t we have a dog or something?
If I had my way we could get a whole lot of fur beings in this place.  Forget the dog idea. Let’s get some really unusual ones.”

“No,” said Dad from behind the evening paper.

Malcolm turned an exasperated look to Daphne. She shrugged and rolled her eyes as if to say,

“Why Malcolm, do you bother?”

Malcolm considered this and then toning down his plea, put in a smaller bid.

“Just one ferret for me and a cat for Daphne?” he offered.

“No.  There won’t be any critters in this house,” insisted Dad.

Holding a small space between her thumb and forefinger in a dramatic attempt to look reasonable, Daphne used her special “good girl” voice.

“Just one…?  A very small one…?  …We could share?” And then she added, “Perhaps, it could live outdoors.”  Between her fingers she imagined an inch high poodle with delicate curling pink hair in a white snowsuit.

“I’m losing it,” she thought.

”Sorry Daphne” Mom tried to sound comforting.

“We can’t even have a small one, Dear.  That’s really not the problem.”

Malcolm and Daphne had not yet connected with friends even though it had been a year since they had arrived.  They rode a bus to school, which stopped just for them and then drove 15 minutes before pulling up to a house where two first graders lived.

Sometimes Malcolm and Daphne would just pretend they had a tailed friend.  Other times they pretended they, themselves, were folks with tails.  And sometimes they imagined that other people they knew were folks with tails.  Like, Ms. Bertie, the math teacher who clearly descended from a reptilian species.  Daphne imagined each one of her friends with a luxurious tail of some exotic species.  Malcolm liked to imagine what kind of tail bearing animal random people, like the grocer, might have.  He found it hard not to laugh when he got a particularly good visual and got in to trouble fairly often.

Then one day they made a very unusual friend.  Malcolm and Daphne were outside in the warm spring sun sitting at their family’s beat up, old picnic table having a snack. Mom had given them a huge bowl of walnuts.  Daphne was wielding a hammer and Malcolm was dangerously employing a pair of pliers. The afternoon air was oddly still and not even one bird was singing.

“Snap, crack, crunch, crunch, crunch!” The kids were totally absorbed in their activity. Not one word passed between them, and on the table, before each maniacal-tooth-cracking dentist, a pile of shells grew to a larger pile of shells.

Then suddenly,
“Swish, scamper, patter, patter.”
A squirrel jumped out of the big tree near by and ran along the fence to the patio.

They looked up at it.  It stared back.  They waited with their mouths half full of bits and their jaws hanging slack beneath their startled faces. It had a beautiful grey-brown coat and large black shiny eyes.  It didn’t move, frozen in its stance, but looking ready to leap at any moment.  Its big tan and rust colored tail waved back and forth in short swings reminding Malcolm of a batter waiting for a pitch.
“Can I have a nut?” it enquired.  The kids blinked and Malcolm rubbed his ear, sticking his finger inside and giving it a sharp wiggle.
“May I have a nut?”  It corrected itself, sounding hopeful.
Daphne slowly extended a cracked piece of nutmeat held unnoticed, until this moment, in the palm of her hand.
“Thanks!”  It leapt onto the table, grabbed the offering in its paws and took a nibble.  It looked up at its audience, took another nibble and then looked up again.
“Well, how’ve you been?”  It muttered between mouthfuls.
“Uh, great… I guess”, Malcolm spoke almost in a whisper.
“That’s good, may I have another?”
“Be our guest” Malcolm’s voice restored with irony.
“Oh. No! No! The squirrel replied, “My folks won’t let me stay with people.  For one thing they are very crude and for another the doors to their cages are very hard to open.”
“You speak.” Malcolm said
“Uh, huh”
“Hey, wow,” exclaimed Daphne, slowly coming back to her senses.  “Sorry we are acting so strained but we have never met anyone like you before.  You are so, so, unusual.
“Oh. No! No! I am very common,” answered the squirrel taking another nut.
Crunch.
“There are a lot of folks just like me.  Ground squirrels live everywhere.  They live in the city, they live in the country and they live in the mountains.
You’re a ground squirrel?”
“Yep, and there are other types of squirrels too, and there are lots of mice, rats and chipmunks around here.”
“You don’t say?” said Daphne trying to act normal.
“There are also ferrets, skunks and moles.”
“Moles?”
“Yes but they are very timid.  It’s not likely a mole would have much to do with you.  Nothing at all for them to say to strangers.”
“Really?”
“But skunks, now their good people.  Very outgoing, friendly sorts, skunks are.  A skunk could tell you quite a lot if she wished to.”
“Sweet!”  Malcolm exclaimed. “I would love to talk to a skunk.”
“Tell you what.  Why don’t you fill your pockets up with some of those nuts and come with me.  My grandfather can tell you all about skunks and the rest of us folks with tails.”
The Kids grabbed large fistfuls of walnuts and stuffed them into their pockets.
“You got it!” exclaimed Malcolm as they both jumped to their feet.

“My name is Anis” their fuzzy friend called over her shoulder as she whizzed away toward the fence. They ran too, but slowed to a stop toward the middle of the yard as they watched her leap through the fence. She was gone. In a moment she peered back through it and encouraged them.
“Well come along.”
Suddenly, to the children’s utter amazement a fluttering mirage appeared within the sun bleached planks of their backyard barricade.
“Let’s go”, Daphne beamed at Malcolm and grabbed his hand as she began to lunge forward.  Holding their breath along with their disbelief theyran through the space where a solid wooden fence had once enclosed them, feeling only the slightest snag as they entered into an unfamiliar field of waving grass.