Chasing Redbird (24 page)

We swung back and forth in silence for a while. At last he put his hands together and said, “Zinny, I want to tell you something.”

My heart was thumping away.

“You said I was a dag-blasted fool—” he began.

“I didn't really mean—”

“And maybe you were right,” he said. “Maybe I just lost my head.”

“That can happen,” I said, wishing he'd stop talking. I prepared my mouth to receive a kiss.

“Maybe you were right about something else, too.”

“Mm—?” I got my lips ready.

“Maybe I'm too old for you,” he said, staring out across the yard.

“Not
that
old—just a few years—”

“Don't try to make me feel less foolish.”

“But—”

He chewed on his lip. “I'm sorry if I embarrassed you.”

May leaned out the upstairs window. “Jake?”

He stood up and leaned back to get a better view. “Hi,” he said.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked.

“Yup.”

“I'll be right down!” she yelped.

“
What?
”
I
said. “What do you want to see May for?”

He rubbed his hands through his hair and scratched the back of his neck and chewed on his lip some more. “I thought I'd ask May to the movies. That ought to make
you
happy.” He grinned, then instantly frowned. “Get me out of
your
hair, at least!”

I grabbed his arm. “Jake Boone,” I said. “If you take May to the movies, I'll punch your brains in.”

Oh, the look on his face! You'd have thought I'd slung a bucket of hog slop on him.

“I mean it, Jake Boone,” I said. “If you go and tangle up my spaghetti again, I'll shove ten tons of chicory down your throat!”

“Spaghetti?” he said. “Chicory?” He stared at me. “Are you trying to tell me you
like
me?”

May burst through the door. “Here I am!” she announced.

“Cripes!” Jake said.

U
p on the trail is the most beautiful sight you ever did see. The zinnias are like bright little sentries marching along the trail, and the trees have burst forth in brilliant reds and yellows, so that all around you is an explosion of color. I know the leaves will fall soon, and our squirt gardens will fade, and I wish I could freeze it, capture it. I hope I can save it all in my mind, until the spring, when things will bloom all over again.

And even when I'm not on the trail, it's with me, in my mind. On the trail I can think, and on the trail I am me, and on the trail I can touch the ground and climb to the sky.

Sometimes I wonder about other trails. Maybe I'll check at the museum for more maps. I can see myself running across the whole country, chasing—what? Who?

Uncle Nate has left the cabin in my care, for the time being, until he can get back up there. He said I could take the family there to show them the shrine to baby Rose and Aunt Jessie. My brothers and sisters were pretty surprised to see all that stuff up there. Mom and Dad, even though they'd seen it before, cried. And after they'd all left, I stayed behind, and I curled up on the bed, hugging the dolls, as if I were four years old.

But now, Jake and I go up there from time to time. One day we had this conversation on the way up the trail:

Jake said, “I guess you don't know me all that well—”

That boy could steal your heart. I said, “Jake Boone! If I were blindfolded and you came in the room, I'd know it was you—I know what you sound like, smell like. I'd just know it was Jake Boone filling up that room!”

His face turned about thirty-three shades of red, but he said, “And if I was blindfolded, and you walked in the room—cripes, I'd know it was you from three miles away! If I was blindfolded in Chocton, and you walked into a room in Bybanks, why, I'd know it—”

“Okay, Jake, I get the picture—”

We were getting a little sappy, but sometimes a little sap is nice. I wouldn't want to
drown
in it, though.

Since then, we've had picnics on the porch and in the larch groves, and one day we cleaned the cabin from top to bottom, but we put all baby Rose's stuff back where we'd found it. Except for the dolls. Baby Rose and baby Zinny, each holding her own medallion, sit side by side on the bed. I figured they'd appreciate a little air.

It feels good to run up that trail with Jake, and it feels good to go in the cabin and remember baby Rose and Aunt Jessie. All kinds of memories are coming back, whole drawers full of them. It doesn't seem weird or morbid to be up there; it seems somehow necessary, at least for a time.

Sometimes I think I see Aunt Jessie and baby Rose running through the hills together, and sometimes I race down the hill after them. I know they aren't
really
there, that this is an image in my mind, one that I
want
to see. I am not completely loopy. But I do often think that there's a very fine line between people in your head and “real” people out there.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to teach Jake how to do the boogie-woogie.
Tootle-ee-ah-dah—
I'll tell him, and maybe he'll answer me. Maybe he'll say,
Make that company jump!

Read an excerpt from Sharon Creech's novel

M
y name is Naomi Deane and I grew up in Blackbird Tree, in the home of my guardians, Joe and Nula. Among the tales that Joe often told was that of a poor man who, while gambling, lost his house but won a donkey.

“A donkey?” the poor man wailed. “What do I want with a donkey? I cannot even feed a donkey.”

“No matter,” replied the donkey. “Reach into my left ear.”

The poor man, though shocked that the donkey could talk, nonetheless reached into the donkey's ear and pulled out a sack of feed.

“Well, now,” the poor man said. “That's a mighty handy ear. I wish it had food for
me
as well.”

“Reach into my right ear,” the donkey said.

And so the poor man reached into the donkey's right ear and pulled out a loaf of bread, a pot of butter, and a meat pie.

Joe went on like this, spinning out the tale, with the poor man pulling all sorts of things out of the donkey's ears: a stool, a pillow, a blanket, and, finally, a sack of gold.

I loved this story, but I always listened uneasily, fearing that something bad would be pulled from the donkey's ears. Even after I'd heard the tale many times, always the same, I still worried that the poor man might reach in and pull out a snapping turtle or an alligator or something equally unpleasant and unexpected.

Sensing my fear, Joe would say, “It's only a story, Naomi, only a story.” He suggested that I say to myself, “I'm not in the story, I'm not in the story”—a refrain I could repeat so that I would feel less anxious.

And so each time the poor man would reach into the donkey's ears, I would tell myself,
I'm not in the story, I'm not in the story
, but it didn't help because a story was only interesting if I
was
in the story.

I
f you have never had a body fall out of a tree and knock you over, let me tell you what a surprising thing that is. I have had nuts fall out of a tree and conk my head. Leaves have fallen on me, and twigs, and a branch during a storm. Bird slop, of course, everyone gets that. But a body? That is not your usual thing dropping out of a tree.

It was a boy, close about my age, maybe twelve. Shaggy hair the color of dry dirt. Brown pants. Blue T-shirt. Bare feet. Dead.

Didn't recognize him. My first thought was,
Is this my fault? I bet this is my fault.
Nula once said I had a knack for being around when trouble happened. She had not been around other kids much, though, and maybe did not know that
most
kids had a knack for being around when trouble happened.

All I really wanted to do that hot day was go on down to the creek and hunt for clay in the cool, cool water. I was wondering if maybe I could deal with the body later, when the body said, “Am I dead?”