I might as well tell you about it.
I mean, I could lie. I could tell you some big old lie about the whole big dramatic change, and you’d never know. How would you? How would anybody? They wouldn’t.
Because there were only two of us there at that moment when it happened, and one of us says she didn’t see a thing, so that leaves me to either tell you about it or not. So, I might as well. You don’t have to believe me, but it happened.
So, here’s the truth. It was that Bathtub Mary that Mr. Roller’s got in his side yard. Almost behind all the hydrangea bushes but still sticking out enough that everybody walking down the sidewalk can see the old scuzzy white bathtub stuck in the weeds of Mr. Roller’s garden with that statue of Mary in her blue hood standing there like she was in church and not in the middle of an old man’s side yard inside his old iron bathtub.
Anyway, Ellen said to go up to it and get down on your knees. Say Hail Mary full of grace and then ask Mary to do it for you. I asked Ellen was that all. I didn’t have to cross myself on the head or shoulders or something? We didn’t pray like that in the Methodist church, and I only knew it was Mary in the bathtub at all because of something Momma said last summer about the Catholic Holy Rollers and their Mary, Mother of baby Jesus, sitting out in the yard. So that’s who the lady in the old Mr. Roller’s bathtub is. It’s Mary. Anyway, if I was gonna do it at all, I wanted to do it right.
Ellen said that’s all. She waved one long arm at Mary and pointed her index finger back at me. Go forth and ask Mary; tell her what you want. I laughed but really, Ellen looked a little bit strange with her finger pointed at the old bathtub and her eyes almost bugging out.
You can imagine I was scared as fire that Mr. Roller or his raggedy old wife who looked like Almira Gulch from The Wizard of Oz but without the bicycle might come outside and holler at me for crunching through the hydrangeas. But if Mary could do it for me—I mean, you’d have done it too. Don’t say you wouldn’t.
So, I hunkered over and kinda snaked through the yard, keeping one eye on Mary—I mean, it’s wasn’t like she was gonna move, but Ellen said she was holy and could work miracles and all, so you never know—and the other eye on the kitchen window. It was about two in the afternoon and Mr. Roller was well-known to be a big fan of Our Miss Brooks that was on about that time every day, so I figured he wouldn’t be outside, but you know, just in case.
Anyway, Mary stood there in her little white church of a bathtub, looking all calm and royal really, her blue scarf and dress fading to nearly white near where her feet were planted in the mush of last fall’s leaves that Mr. Roller hadn’t raked up even though there Mary stood in that mess. I brushed some of the ground clean, then knelt down there like Ellen said, and I heard Ellen giggling away over on the sidewalk, but anyway, I said it. I said Hail Mary full of grace and then I sorta whisper yelled at Ellen do I have to say anything else, and she said no just ask her.
So, I did. I said Mary, you are a woman, or were a woman I guess, and that’s what I want to be. I’m tired of being so little and flat chested so that Matthew Snyder won’t shut up making fun of me and calling me Pancake. I guess you know about teasing and what terrible things boys can do ’cause of, well, Jesus, and all that trouble. I’m sorry about that. I guess I should’ve said that first. So anyway, Mary, if you could help me, it’d be much appreciated, and that’s all I guess.
This is when it happened, and it did happen. Believe me or not ’cause I know it did even if Ellen says she didn’t see anything. But the birds got real quiet, and the squirrels stopped running and chittering, and it seemed like even the sun didn’t move in the sky, and all around Mary, things just changed. The bathtub was gone and there stood Mary, a real person wearing a blue robe standing on a float of the bluest prettiest water you ever saw—like pictures of that blue ocean in Greece where the little white houses fall off the hillside down straight to the sea—Mary was standing on it, and she looked like the kindest and wisest person who ever lived. She didn’t say anything, but she looked at me, she looked right into both of my eyeballs like she could see right through there and into the cauliflower buds of my brain, and I felt her just looking at me, and I felt it. I felt it changing, and you can’t tell me any different.
The sweetest smell like something sweet and ashy floated on this breeze that started up and blew across my cheekbones, and there was a soft little rattle of bells, way high and friendly sounding. And then Mary smiled at me, and I felt warm and good and whole and as healthy as I’ve ever felt in my whole 13 years, and I wanted to stay there forever.
Then Mary was gone all of a sudden, along with the breeze and the bells and the blue water, and all that was left was just a concrete statue inside an old iron tub. And Mr. Roller came banging out his screen door hollering what did I think I was doing, and Ellen ran off and left me, and I told Mr. Roller some story about thinking I saw my brother’s football in the weeds, and he said well is it there, and I said no and sorry and I’ll go on now.
But the next day, and I mean the next day, it happened, and Matthew Snyder cannot call me Pancake anymore. And that’s all there is to tell.
2024 Winning Submission for Penned: Fiction