Excerpt of A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure
(Page 8 of 8)
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It seems as i f I have always found curiosity to be more compelling
than fear. My mother insists that my explorations started as soon
as I could walk. I was born in Florida. My father was the superintendent
of schools. Mother did her best to raise three children. Mother
insists that she took me out of the crib and put me into a bed because
I had developed the habit of climbing the sides of the crib and sleeping
on the railing.
I don’t remember crib climbing. The earliest climb I recall was
my first ascent of the pedestal. There was a stone pedestal in the
front hall of our Florida home. It was perhaps four feet high and had
a platform at its top about fifteen inches square. When my brothers
or I wandered into trouble, Mother punished us by making us sit on
top of the pedestal. As soon as Mother walked away, the troublemaker
was trapped. I hated being stuck in one place. The worst part
of sitting on the pedestal was that sooner or later my father would
walk through the front door. If he found me on the pedestal, it would
announce that I was in trouble.
It became a mission in my two-year-old brain to learn how to
climb down off this stone pinnacle. One day while my mother was
busy with my brothers, I decided to explore the ominous pillar. The
pedestal stood at one end of a long planter. Using a box as a step, I
climbed into the planter. Then I teetered along the edge using Mother’s
plants as handholds. Soon the top of the pedestal came into view
at eyeball height. Now it was merely a matter of wiggling up the same
way I wriggled into my father’s lap when I wanted him to read to me.
Before I knew it, I’d inched my way to the top of the pedestal.
Once on the summit, I learned a lesson known to cats and climbers:
climbing up is easier than climbing down. I was trapped, just
as I would have been had my mother put me there. Calling for help
was out of the question. I’d gotten myself onto the pedestal; I must
get myself off. I sat in silence searching for a way down, but escape
eluded me.
Time slowed to a crawl. I felt lonely, and the stone made my
bottom cold, but I dared not cry out. Then my worst nightmare came
to pass. Father came through the front door. Not having sufficient
vocabulary to explain either my achievement or my predicament, I
burst into tears. Father put down his briefcase, took me in his arms,
and went to find my mother. Mother looked at the two of us as if
we’d lost our minds: "She’s not in trouble." But, Father told her, he
found me on the pedestal. They summoned my older brother Duke,
who was eight years old. Duke claimed that he’d had nothing to do
with my being on the pedestal.
My brother Lamar came in; he was six. He tried to tell my parents
that I’d climbed up on the pedestal all by myself. As usual, Lamar
saw everything, but Lamar had a speech impediment. I could understand
him, but for some reason no one else could. By this time, I was
content to enjoy the confusion. I even added to it by babbling all the
words I knew: "Daddy, peanut, swim, swim, swim, Daddy, peanut,
swim, swim, swim." This was the way of the world. My parents
thought they knew all, but they didn’t. Lamar spoke the truth, but
no one understood him. Duke was blamed for something he didn’t
do, and I learned that life on a pedestal is cold, hard, unforgiving,
and best avoided.
Excerpted from A Pearl in the Storm
by Tori Murden McClure. Copyright © 2009 by Tori Murden McClure. Excerpted by
permission of Collins, a division of HarperCollins, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.
