The view outside my bedroom window is shocking. It’s snowing, snowing, on Easter! It’s only flurries, but still! Spring is supposed to be sunny, but cool days with plenty of daffodils and tulips.
I love Easter, just like I love Halloween, because it means candy. I crave candy. I dreamed about it when I sleep! I had laid out my Easter clothes last night. A beautiful white dress with lilacs sprinkled across the top, and pale purple sash that tied in the back.
My mom bought me a straw hat with a wide brim that she decorated with flowers and a white, satin band. Unbelievably, I got new patent leather shoes, and new socks with a little bow that shows when you fold the socks down.
The final touch was white gloves that come to my wrists. Well, snow or no snow I am wearing my new outfit. I can’t stop thinking of all that yummy candy that I am going to get, as I hopped down the stairs to the kitchen.
I make my grand entrance into the kitchen, I peek at the kitchen table fully expecting to see two baskets, one for me and one for my twin sister, Karen. What I see is not two baskets, but a cardboard box, and my mom and dad sitting on the same side of the table with a weird look on their faces.
“Happy Easter Susie, don’t you look pretty in your new dress.”
“Susabelle, you are a thing of beauty and a joy forever. “My dad adds.
“Hi Mom, and Daddy, Happy Easter, what’s in the box?”
“Well, why don’t you wait until your sister comes down and then you can both see at the same time?”
“You two will have to wait until after Mass, it’s getting late, Susie call your sister.” My mom says to me.
As I called my sister, I couldn’t help but wonder where the Easter baskets are, and what is in the box? Karen comes down the steps and is wearing a similar outfit as me, except her dress is blue and white, and has daisies.
My mother feels that twins should dress alike even though Karen and I do not look alike at all. In fact, we don’t even look related. I have blond hair, and Karen has chestnut brown hair, and freckles all over her face. As Karen walks into the kitchen, and I can tell by the look on her face that she is disappointed by the lack of Easter baskets. She loves candy almost as much as I do.
“Oh Karen, you look beautiful, my Mom and Dad say together.”
My father says,” before you leave for church, I want to take a picture of the two of you on the front steps. He whips out a camera from under the table. And off we go. If there is anything that I hate almost as much as I love candy is getting my picture taken.
My father is a real camera buff, always torturing me by wanting to take my picture, He has a little photo studio set up in the basement, and a darkroom where he develops and prints his own pictures. Five minutes later I hear the church bells ringing and Karen and I are off to the 9:00 Mass.
“Susie, what was that box on the table, did Mom and Dad hide the candy somewhere?” Karen ask.
“I don’t know Karen. You know as much as I do. There better be candy somewhere.”
Because it’s Easter, there is a high mass, one and half hours of torture. All the kids spend the whole time checking out each other’s Easter clothes. Waiting impatiently to leave so they can get back home to their candy booty.
Karen and I are not the only ones to have that particular monkey on our backs. Sugar, how we loved it, how we craved it, in every form it came in, candy, cake, ice cream, pies. You name it. We love it! I like to roll peeled apples in cinnamon and sugar.
Karen and I practically fly home. We can smell bacon and eggs as we walk through the door. My stomach is growling, sounds like there is a bulldog in there. The box is gone, but still no baskets. Well, we have waited this long, so I guess we can wait a little longer. I don’t think I have ever swallowed toast, eggs, and bacon so fast in my life. I don’t think I even tasted it.
My mother clears the table, and brings the mysterious box back and puts it on the table. I hear a weird scratching noise from inside the box. Karen and I look at each other, and I can tell that we are both thinking the same thing. This doesn’t look like candy. Even though we are not identical twins, sometimes we have the same thoughts, at the same time. “Well, girls open the box, Happy Easter.”
Karen opens the box, and we both lean forward to see what it contains. What we see is two little chicks, which are peeping away and trying to escape the box without any success.
Any thoughts of candy fly out of my head. I’m in love. I pick up my chick. He is yellow and has a brown spot on the top of his head. “Oh, isn’t he the most adorable thing in the world, I love him.” I immediately start making plans, where he’ll live in my room, how I can’t wait to show my best friend, Joanie.
“Oh, says Karen, he’s cute.” But she is still looking around for her basket.
My Dad says, “I thought you and Karen would like these better than candy, my friend Johnny Marrow has a chicken coop, and these chicks were just hatched a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh, I do, can he live in my room Mom?”
“No, Daddy has built a little house for them on the back porch.”
“He did, oh let’s go see it Karen!”
We decide to go down through the cellar and up through the bilko doors to the back porch. Which is really just a cement slab with walls that my father built out of found supplies like, old windows and an old screen door that bangs open and closed, every time you use it. He bought corrugated metal from the junkyard, and made it into a roof, which is great except when it rains and then it sounds like the roof is being hit by heavy artillery gunfire.
My father follows us down to the porch and shows us the new cage. He’s carrying the box with the chicks in it.
He likes to build things and almost always uses recycled materials. It looks like he has made the chick’s new house out of packing crates and window screen. He has a water bottle attached to the side and a little red bowl sitting in the back corner with some kind of, I guess- chicken food in it.
I tenderly lift my chick out of the box and put him into the cage, Karen looks at her chick and hesitates for a moment before picking him up and putting him in the cage. Meanwhile I am squatting down and buck, bucking at my baby chick.
“I’m calling my chick Maverick. Because Maverick is my favorite cowboy on TV.”
“How about you Karen, what are you calling your chick?”
“I don’t know yet, I will have to think about it for awhile, Daddy.”
After a couple of months, I notice that Maverick is growing a lot faster than Karen’s chick. In fact he is growing at an enormous rate and he’s growing a wattle and a red comb in the top of his head. His feathers are glossy black and brown. Karen doesn’t like cleaning out the cage so I clean it every day after school. 
One day I decide that Maverick must be bored inside the cage all the time. I decide that I will take him for a walk down my street, which is called Fellowship Road. At first, I walk with him cradled in my arms, but he keeps struggling to get up, so I decide to let him sit on my head.
I walk slowly down the street to show him off. He seems to really like it up there. I guess he can see everything really good from this perspective. All the sudden he starts making a weird noise like cartoon crows do on TV. Cock a doodle do, over and over again, and it’s pretty loud.
I can’t believe how great he is. So, I keep strutting up and down my street with Maverick on my head. Some of the neighbors come outside to see what all the noise is about. Mrs. Rice our next-door neighbor comes out and stands on her front step with her hands on her hips. She’s slowly shaking her head back and forth, and wagging her finger at me. Her son, Jackie comes running over to me, and says” hi, what’s his name, where did you get that rooster?”
“Oh, Karen and I got chicks for Easter, isn’t he neat? His name is Maverick.”
“Wow, he is really cool. I wish I could get one. but my Mom won’t let me have pets!”
After that I take a walk with Maverick every day after school, after I clean the cage. My sister, Karen’s chick got something wrong with it. And one day when I came home from school, he wasn’t in the cage anymore. I run upstairs and ask,”
“Mom where is Karen’s chicken?”
“Oh, Susie, Karen’s chicken got sick, and she died, I sorry.”
I started bawling my eyes. “Oh no, oh Karen is going to be so sad.”
“Well, I already told Karen and she was upset, but she will be alright, don’t worry.”
I decide I better go out and check on Maverick, and take him for a walk. In case he feels bad because his friend died. When he sees me, he starts crowing and pushing at the door to his cage. He seems really happy when I take him out for his walk.
The next morning is Sunday and after Mass, we have our usual big breakfast of scrambled eggs, and bacon and toast.
“Susie, Daddy and I want to talk to you about Maverick. You know how he likes to crow early in the morning and sometimes on and off all day, well Mrs. Rice and some of the neighbors have been complaining about all the noise.”
I look from my Mom to my Dad and see they both have a serious look on their face. “Susie, we have to give Maverick away, because he’s waking the neighbors up early in the morning, and making a racket all day.”
“What, no you can’t give Maverick away, I love him. He’ll miss me too much.”
“I’m sorry Susie we have to. Daddy is going to take him up to Johnny Marrows house, where we got him. So, he can live in the big chicken coop with all of the other chickens. And he won’t be lonely anymore. And you can go up and see him everyday after school.”
I was so upset all night, I couldn’t sleep, early in the morning I went down to Maverick’s cage and took him out and petted him until I had to get ready for school.
My Mom told me that my father was going to take him up to Johnny’s house that morning before he went to work. All day long I worried about him. I decided that as soon as school let out from school I would go over and see him and make sure he was doing OK in his new house with the other chickens.
As soon as the bell rang, I got in line to go home, but at the corner, I ran across the street, and down Main Street to Johnny Marrow’s house. He has an auto parts store downstairs, and he and his family lived upstairs in an apartment.
My father worked for him part time, delivering car parts to people and sometimes waiting on customers in the store. When I got there, I ran in the door and the bell that was attached at the top rang. My father was standing there talking to Mr. Marrow.
I ran up to my Dad and said, “Hi, Daddy, where is Maverick? Can I go see him now?”
“I’m really sorry Susie, but after I brought Maverick over here this morning, and put him in the cage, the other Rooster decided he didn’t like your rooster being in there, and they got into a fight. The other Rooster killed Maverick. I’m really sorry.”
I looked at my dad, and then Mr. Marrow and I cried, and said, “I hate you both, you killed Maverick, you killed him.”
“Oh, look Susie you need to calm down, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t know the other rooster would attack him, and don’t cry anymore.”
But I did cry. I cried all night until I fell asleep, and my eyes were all swollen when I got up in the morning and then I cried some more. My mother tried to calm me down, but couldn’t because I was mad at her too.”
It was a long, long time before I stopped being mad at everybody. And I never did forget how much I loved Maverick, and how I like strutting down the street with him on the top of my head.
Every time I saw Mrs. Rice, I stuck my tongue out at her, and would throw trash in her yard when she wasn’t looking. She told my Mom and Dad I was a brat. But I didn’t care what she said, because I thought she was a witch.
A well written story, both funny and sad. Susan makes her story come alive and we feel her joy and her sadness.
You did a really great job of painting a picture of your childhood experiences and feelings. Its just really sad how it turned out considering how much you loved him.
Great story! And as for me when holding a squirming rooster my first thought is put it on my head too!!???