Characters in Gramma

… Scarborough at the same time Gramma decided to quit teaching, but once, about a year ago, when Aunt Flo was up for a visit from her home in Salt Lake City, George and Buddy, listening at the register as Mom and her sister sat up late, talking, …

It would be eight months, Aunt Flo and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle George (after whom George had been named) all said; a year at the most.

“Sure, I’ll be okay. Tell Buddy to lay chilly.” “Pardon me?” George smiled. “To stay cool.” “Oh. Very funny.” She smiled back at him, a distracted, going-in-six-directions-at-once smile. “George, are you sure—” “I’ll be fine.” Are you sure what? Are you sure you’re not scared to be alone with Gramma?

So at Grange I said—” George guessed that Henrietta was on the phone with Cora Simard.

No! And no reason why he should! Mom could cover her face when she got home! Or Dr. Arlinder when he came! Or the undertaker! Someone, anyone, but him. No reason why he should. It was nothing to him, and nothing to Gramma.

… to the blankness, his mouth still formed around the words I’m sorry, Missus Dodd, but this is George Bruckner and I have to call the doctor for my Gramma. No voices. No dial tone. Just dead blankness. Like the dead blankness in the bed in there.

… Buddy who had listened so sympathetically when George had one night whispered in the dark of their bedroom that he liked Heather MacArdle and who the next morning ran across the schoolyard screaming …

George picked up the phone and listened. “—so I told her, I said, ‘Mabel, if he treats you like that—’ ” He put it down again. Henrietta Dodd.

George picked up the phone and listened. “—so I told her, I said, ‘Mabel, if he treats you like that—’ ” He put it down again. Henrietta Dodd.

Desecrated was the word Mr. Burdon, the principal, had used the next day when he convened all eight grades for Assembly and lectured the whole school on Malicious Mischief …

… hospital bed, it occurred to him with dawning horror that it was the next day they had learned that Mrs. Harham, who lived up the road and sometimes visited Gramma, had died in her sleep that night. Gramma’s “bad spells.” Spells. Witches were supposed …

He knew what a skeleton in the closet meant by then, because he had asked Mrs. Redenbacher at school. She said it meant having a scandal in the family, and a scandal was something that made people talk a lot.

He had never been left alone with Gramma, that was what he was worried about. Send the boy to me, Ruth. Send him over here. No. He’s crying. She’s more dangerous now . . . you know what I mean. We all lie to our children about Gramma.

… • Mom herself had been born in 1930, followed by Aunt Flo in 1932, and then Uncle Franklin in 1934. Uncle Franklin had died in 1948, of a burst appendix, and Mom sometimes still got teary about that, and carried his picture. She had liked Frank the best …

Some of his fright began to recede now, and George tried to think. He remembered Uncle Fred showing him how to wet a finger and test the wind, and now he licked his entire palm and held it in front of Gramma’s mouth. Still nothing.

… It would be eight months, Aunt Flo and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle George (after whom George had been named) all said; a year at the most.