Secrets

Billy had been eyeing the small trees in the fencerow with all the little round green fruit ever since he came home. Rufe had told him they were persimmon trees, but Billy had never seen or heard of persimmons. Those little round balls had gradually turned bright orange. Now two of the trees were beautifully decorated with masses of orange fruit. Oddly enough, the squirrels and raccoons had not touched them yet. Even the groundhogs had left them alone to ripen and hang thick in the trees.

As Billy worked in the garden, pulling the dead okra stalks and cleaning out the bean rows, he approached the fence. He stood in the shade of a persimmon tree, wiping the sweat off his face with a big cowboy handkerchief. "Man, it's hot out here," he said to no one in particular.

Looking up, he saw that he could almost reach a limb full of persimmons. He stuffed the hanky back in his jeans pocket. Then, backing up a little and jumping up, he grabbed the end of the branch. He pulled it down and followed it up far enough to pick two of the shiny, smooth persimmons. "They look good," he said to himself. "I wonder what they taste like." He lifted the fruit to his mouth, then lowered it and looked at it again. "It must be ripe. The skin is smooth like an apple, and it has turned from green to bright orange. Thad said they don't eat them till they turn orange." He took a bite and began to chew. "Thewweeee!" He quickly spat it out. "Whath Happnin'?" Billy's mouth puckered up until he could hardly talk. He felt his lips drawing into an "O" shape and his tongue puckering up like a washboard. Grabbing his mouth with his hands, he high-tailed it to the creek. Running all the way, Billy made a dash for the bank and jumped into the cooling water, shoes and all! He opened his mouth, gargling up Sugar Creek as he swam.

"Hey, big buddy," came a familiar voice. "What's goin' on?"

Billy turned around to see Rufe on the bank. He splashed his way back to his old friend. With tears in his frightened eyes, Billy pointed to his mouth. "I think I poisoned myself." The voice that came out didn't sound like Billy.

Rufe looked closely at his friend. Then he began to smile as he noticed the puckered mouth. "Hey, man," he said softly. "Have yuh been eatin' persimmons?"

Billy nodded his head sadly.

Then Rufe's grin spread from ear to ear. "Yuh ain't poisoned, Bill. That's jist the way green persimmons do yuh. It'll go way in a little while."

"But it wasn't green," Billy spoke through the puckered lips. "It was orange."

"True, Bill, true", agreed Rufe. "But them 'simmons are peculiar fruits. They don't get so's yuh kin eat 'em 'til after frost. When they turn kinda brownish and git all wrinkly, they're good eatin'. "

"I didn't know that." Bill's mouth was beginning to lose it's numb, puckery feeling. "It feels yucky! I never felt anything like that before."

Rufe laughed. "I reckon there ain't nothin' that feels like that. But it goes away and don't really cause no harm."

Billy's fright dissolved at Rufe's reassuring words. He ran his tongue around his lips beginning to feel almost normal again. He savored the still-weird feeling in his mouth and laughed. "I'd never have known what they could do to you if I hadn't taken that bite."

Rufe laughed, too. "That's fer sure, good buddy. There jist ain't no words to describe that feeling. I've done it, too. It's downright scary."

Billy crawled out of the water onto the creek bank. He stood there dripping, shaking off water like a wet hound dog. "Yeah, and it's for sure I'll never try it again! How can anything that looks so good play a mean trick like that?"

"Like what?" Thad suddenly appeared, landing beside Billy.

Rufe explained. "Bill jist got his first taste of a purty orange 'simmon."

"Yikes!" Thad puckered up his lips and made a sour face. "Yuh shoulda had yer girlfriend with yuh. Yuh'da been puckered jist right to play kissie face!" He danced around making kissing noises and silly faces until Billy and Rufus rolled on the ground laughing.