Shells by Cynthia Rylant

“You hate living here.”

Michael looked at the woman speaking to him.
“No, Aunt Esther. I don’t.” He said it dully, sliding his milk
glass back and forth on the table. “I don’t hate it here.”
Esther removed the last pan from the dishwasher and hung
it above the oven.
“You hate it here,” she said, “and you hate me.”
“I don’t!” Michael yelled. “It’s not you!”
The woman turned to face him in the kitchen.
“Don’t yell at me!” she yelled. “I’ll not have it in my home.
I can’t make you happy, Michael. You just refuse to be happy
here. And you punish me every day for it.”

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 “Punish you?” Michael gawked at her. “I don’t punish
you! I don’t care about you! I don’t care what you eat or how
you dress or where you go or what you think. Can’t you just
leave me alone?”
He slammed down the glass, scraped his chair back from the
table and ran out the door.
“Michael!” yelled Esther.
They had been living together, the two of them, for six
months. Michael’s parents had died and only Esther could take
him in—or only she had offered to. Michael’s other relatives
could not imagine dealing with a fourteen-year-old boy. They
wanted peaceful lives.
Esther lived in a condominium in a wealthy section of
Detroit. Most of the area’s residents were older (like her) and
afraid of the world they lived in (like her). They stayed indoors
much of the time. They trusted few people.
Esther liked living alone. She had never married or had
children. She had never lived anywhere but Detroit. She liked
her condominium.
But she was fiercely loyal to her family, and when her
only sister had died, Esther insisted she be allowed to care for
Michael. And Michael, afraid of going anywhere else, had
accepted.

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 Oh, he was lonely. Even six months after their deaths, he
still expected to see his parents—sitting on the couch as he
walked into Esther’s living room, waiting for the bathroom as
he came out of the shower, coming in the door late at night. He
still smelled his father’s Old Spice somewhere, his mother’s talc.
Sometimes he was so sure one of them was somewhere
around him that he thought maybe he was going crazy. His
heart hurt him. He wondered if he would ever get better.
And though he denied it, he did hate Esther. She was so
different from his mother and father. Prejudiced—she admired
only those who were white and Presbyterian. Selfish—she
wouldn’t allow him to use her phone. Complaining—she
always had a headache or a backache or a stomachache.
He didn’t want to, but he hated her. And he didn’t know
what to do except lie about it.

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 Michael hadn’t made any friends at his new
school, and his teachers barely noticed him.
He came home alone every day and usually
found Esther on the phone. She kept in close
touch with several other women in nearby
condominiums.
Esther told her friends she didn’t
understand Michael. She said she knew he
must grieve for his parents, but why punish
her? She said she thought she might send him
away if he couldn’t be nicer. She said she
didn’t deserve this.
But when Michael came in the door, she
always quickly changed the subject.
One day after school Michael came home
with a hermit crab. He had gone into a pet
store, looking for some small, living thing,
and hermit crabs were selling for just a few
dollars. He’d bought one, and a bowl.
Esther, for a change, was not on the
phone when he arrived home. She was
having tea and a crescent roll and seemed
cheerful. Michael wanted badly to show
someone what he had bought. So he
showed her.
Esther surprised him. She picked up
the shell and poked the long, shiny nail
of her little finger at the crab’s claws.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Michael showed her the crab’s eyes
peering through the small opening of
the shell.

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 “Well, for heaven’s sake, come out of there!” she said to the
crab, and she turned the shell upside down and shook it.
“Aunt Esther!” Michael grabbed for the shell.
“All right, all right.” She turned it right side up. “Well,” she
said, “what does he do?”
Michael grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Just grows, I guess.”
His aunt looked at him.
“An attraction to a crab is something I cannot identify with.
However, it’s fine with me if you keep him, as long as I can be
assured he won’t grow out of that bowl.” She gave him a hard
stare.
“He won’t,” Michael answered. “I promise.”
The hermit crab moved into the condominium. Michael
named him Sluggo and kept the bowl beside his bed. Michael
had to watch the bowl for very long periods of time to catch
Sluggo with his head poking out of his shell, moving around.
Bedtime seemed to be Sluggo’s liveliest part of the day, and
Michael found it easy to lie and watch the busy crab as sleep
slowly came on.
One day Michael arrived home to find Esther sitting on the
edge of his bed, looking at the bowl. Esther usually did not
intrude in Michael’s room, and seeing her there disturbed him.
But he stood at the doorway and said nothing.
Esther seemed perfectly comfortable, although she looked
over at him with a frown on her face.
“I think he needs a companion,” she said.
“What?” Michael’s eyebrows went up as his jaw dropped
down.
Esther sniffed.
“I think Sluggo needs a girl friend.” She stood up. “Where
is that pet store?”

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 Michael took her. In the store was a huge tank full of hermit
crabs.
“Oh my!” Esther grabbed the rim of the tank and craned her
neck over the side. “Look at them!”
Michael was looking more at his Aunt Esther than at the
crabs. He couldn’t believe it.
“Oh, look at those shells. You say they grow out of them?
We must stock up with several sizes. See the pink in that one?
Michael, look! He’s got his little head out!”
Esther was so dramatic—leaning into the tank, her bangle
bracelets clanking, earrings swinging, red pumps clicking on
the linoluem—that she attracted the attention of everyone in the
store. Michael pretended not to know her well.
He and Esther returned to the condominium with a thirty-
gallon tank and twenty hermit crabs.
Michael figured he’d have a heart attack before he got the
heavy tank into their living room. He figured he’d die and Aunt
Esther would inherit twenty-one crabs and funeral expenses.
But he made it. Esther carried the box of crabs.

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 “Won’t Sluggo be surprised?” she asked happily. “Oh, I
do hope we’ll be able to tell him apart from the rest. He’s their
founding father!”
Michael, in a stupor over his Aunt Esther and the
phenomenon of twenty-one hermit crabs, wiped out the tank,
arranged it with gravel and sticks (as well as the plastic scuba
diver Aunt Esther insisted on buying) and assisted her in
loading it up, one by one, with the new residents. The crabs
were as overwhelmed as Michael. Not one showed its face.
Before moving Sluggo from his bowl, Aunt Esther
marked his shell with some red fingernail polish so she
could distinguish him from the rest. Then she flopped down
on the couch beside Michael.
“Oh, what would your mother think, Michael, if she
could see this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into!”
She looked at Michael with a broad smile, but it quickly
disappeared. The boy’s eyes were full of pain.
“Oh, my,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Michael turned his head away.
Aunt Esther, who had not embraced anyone in years,
gently put her arm about his shoulders.
“I am so sorry, Michael. Oh, you must hate me.”
Michael sensed a familiar smell then. His mother’s
talc.
He looked at his aunt.
“No, Aunt Esther.” He shook his head solemnly. “I
don’t hate you.”
Esther’s mouth trembled and her bangles clanked
as she patted his arm. She took a deep, strong breath.
“Well, let’s look in on our friend Sluggo,” she said.
They leaned their heads over the tank and found
him. The crab, finished with the old home that no
longer fit, was coming out of his shell.

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