Dragonfly Secret (9 page)

“Come on,” I said, picking up the empty coffee can and taking Jessie's hand. “Let's get back up to the house before they come looking for us.”

Jessie stood still, staring out over the spring. “She's gone.”

“No, Jessie, she's back, back where she belongs.”

She nodded. “I know. But we'll never see her again, will we? I wish we could see her again. I wish we could come and live on the farm.”

I did, too. Finding a fairy hadn't exactly made our wishes come true, though.

Jessie followed me up the path toward the house. “Do you think she'll remember her adventure? The trip to our house? And Smokey?”

I laughed. “She'll remember Smokey, all right. I think she'll remember us, too. But she doesn't know where we live, if that's what you mean. She was unconscious on the front of the car going there, and locked up in a coffee can coming back. I hope she won't remember much of that.”

“I wish she could have said good-bye to Gramps the way she did with us. He would have liked that.”

“Is that your third wish?” I asked, turning to her with a smile.

She smiled back. “I guess so.”

“Catch anything?” Mother asked when we got to the house.

I held up the empty coffee can. “No. The frogs heard us coming and the dragonflies were too fast.”

They had brought three straight-backed wooden chairs out onto the porch and were watching the sunset. “Why don't you bring the picnic basket and we'll eat here?” Mother suggested.

Miss Ryderson stood up. “I'll help,” she said, coming down the worn wooden steps.

“I can do it,” I said.

“I know you can,” she said, her eyes glinting a little with amusement. She came with me, anyway.

We were almost to the car when she looked off toward the spring. “Are there any fish in there, do you think?”

“Some. My father used to fish there. I remember once he caught a big bass. Almost a record.”

“I used to fish with my dad,” Miss Ryderson said. “We used grasshoppers for bait.”

“Father used hellgrammites.”

She nodded. “Dragonfly nymphs. They're good, too.”

I stopped with my hand on the back door of the station wagon. “What did you say?”

She looked at me. “Dragonfly nymphs. A lot of people use them for bait.”

“Father and Gramps always called them hellgrammites,” I said slowly.

“Hellgrammites are dobsonfly larvae, but most people don't know the difference. They look a lot alike. Like a cross between an alligator and a caterpillar.”

Nymphs, I thought. Nymphs and sprites and fairies. In the old folktales, they were almost the same thing. Maybe that was because people really
had
seen fairies. Maybe they wanted to let anyone else who saw a fairy know that, but they were afraid to come out and admit that they believed.

Miss Ryderson and I carried the basket between us. We were halfway back to the farmhouse when she stopped and shifted her grip on the picnic basket. “What made you decide it was all right for Gramps to stay with us?” I asked.

“He belongs here with you and your family, Nathan. You and Jessie are good for him.” She smiled. “You keep him young.”

“What about the way he gets along with our neighbors?”

Miss Ryderson laughed. “Sometimes I think he's just more honest than the rest of us. He says what he really means instead of what people think is polite.”

“How about Aunt Louise?” I asked. “Does she really think he'd be better off living in some sort of home?”

She frowned a little. “People are so different. Think of it this way: If you loved chocolate ice cream, and you thought it was the best thing in the world, what kind of ice cream would you get someone else for a special treat?”

“Chocolate,” I said instantly.

“But what if they liked strawberry better? What if they didn't even like chocolate?”

I looked at the path, thinking. “So Aunt Louise wants Gramps to have the things that would make her happy?”

“I think so. I hope my report will convince her he'd be happier the way he is.” She paused, then said softly, “Even if he does believe in fairies.”

I stopped suddenly. “Did he tell you that?”

She shook her head. “I didn't ask him. You see, Nathan, I don't think that's anyone's business as long as it doesn't interfere with his life. And I can't see that it does.”

I grinned. “I'm glad you came along today.”

“So am I,” she said, grinning back. “Now we'd better get this food up to the house before it's too dark to eat.”

The sun was setting as we reached the porch, and we sat around eating in the warm purple-gold of dusk. None of us felt like building a fire, so we ate the marshmallows cold.

When the last of the sandwiches were gone, and most of the cookies, Gramps stood up. “I think I'll walk down to the spring. Anyone want to come along?”

Jessie jumped up and took his hand. “I do.”

Mother was picking up the scraps and trash from our lunch. “Nathan, please take the basket to the car first.”

I did as I was told, and then started toward the spring. Gramps and Jessie were almost there. Mother and Miss Ryderson were walking more slowly. As I came up behind them, Mother sighed. “I wish we could live out here, the way we did when I was growing up. It's so peaceful.”

I caught her hand and walked beside her. “Why couldn't we, Mother? You could have your bookkeeping business out here.”

Miss Ryderson spoke up from the other side. “Why not? Most of your business is by telephone, anyway, isn't it? If you had to see clients in town, I'll bet you could work out a deal with my tax accountant to use his office space if you did some work for him, too.”

Mother picked a blade of grass and smoothed it between her fingers. I could tell she was considering the idea. “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe it would work. I'll have to think about it.”

“I want to catch up with Gramps,” I said, hurrying on ahead. I had a lot to think about, too. Gramps was staying after all! And maybe we could all come out to live at the farm.

Gramps and Jessie had taken the path on around the spring, and they were standing on the far bank when I caught up. “Have you seen Willow and Reed?” I asked, out of breath from running. .

It was so dark I barely saw Jessie shake her head. “No.”

“Not yet,” Gramps said. “But listen.”

We stood there quietly, listening to the sounds of the evening. Mother and Miss Ryderson had stopped on the other side of the spring, and were talking softly, but we couldn't hear what they were saying. Around us the night was alive with other sounds. A frog croaked, and another, farther off, answered him. Crickets chirped in the meadow. A mosquito buzzed in my ear. I swatted it.

“Do you think that Willow and Reed are the only fairies left, Gramps?” Jessie asked beside me.

“No, honey, that ain't likely.”

“Miss Ryderson says dragonfly larvae are called nymphs,” I said. “No one would call such an ugly thing the same name they called fairies unless . . .”

“Less'n they seen something like we did, and were afeard folks would think they were crazy? Could be, Nate. I reckon it could be.”

“So we aren't the first people who've seen fairies,” I said.

“I reckon not. And not likely to be the last, neither.”

The moon was rising, round and bright and almost full. I could see clearer now. “Gramps, do you ever think about coming back to the farm to live?” I asked.

I watched his face, silver in the moonlight, with black lines carving it in tiny wrinkles. “Sometimes I wish . . . ,” he began, and then stopped, shaking his head. “Not much chance of that.”

He cleared his throat and began again, not looking at me. “But I'm not going to sell it, either. I think I'm going to give it to you.”

“To me? But I'm just a kid,” I protested.

“It'd be in trust, for when you're grow'd. Then you could move out here to live if you wanted to.”

I squeezed his hand, not knowing what to say. I thought of all the things that had happened the last few days, all the wishes we'd made. I had wished that Gramps could stay with us, that everything would be all right. Miss Ryderson had wished she was coming on the picnic with us. And Mother and Jessie and Gramps and I had all wished that we could come back to the farm to live.

The only wishes that weren't coming true were the ones about things that had already happened, like Miss Ryderson never coming to see us and us never finding the fairies. You couldn't change what was past.

Jessie had wished to see Willow again, I thought, looking up at the moon. A delicate dragonfly shape danced across the bright face of it, and then another one, smaller and less graceful, joined the dance. I held my breath, watching.

“Willow,” breathed Jessie.

“Yep,” Gramps agreed. “Willow an' her kid.”

As we stood there gazing up at them, other shapes joined them, and soon the moon was ringed with a flutter of dancing wings.

“They're celebrating,” Jessie said. “The fairies are having a party to welcome Willow home.”

“Some of them could be dragonflies,” I said. “Maybe all of them. It's hard to tell from here.”

“Maybe,” Gramps said. I could tell he didn't believe it, any more than I did. In the pale glow of the moonlight I thought I saw something hover near his shoulder and brush against his cheek.

“Maybe,” he said again.

Maybe they were dragonflies, I thought. But maybe they were fairies, like Willow and Reed. And maybe there really was such a thing as magic.

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Text copyright © 1997 by Carolyn J. Gold

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Book design by Becky Terhune

The text of this book is set in Aldus roman.

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gold, Carolyn J.

Dragonfly secret / Carolyn J. Gold.—1st ed

p. cm.

Summary: While trying to stop Aunt Louise from putting Gramps in a retirement home, Nathan and his sister Jessie find an injured fairy.

[1. Grandfathers—Fiction. 2. Fairies—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.G5618Dr 1997

[Fic]—dc20

96-10183

ISBN 978-1-4814-3755-4

ISBN 978-1-4814-6663-9 (ebook)