Home Free (8 page)

“No,” she said. “No, my dad never took me to the Dairy Queen.”

“But–”

My father butted in. “Well then, this really is a special day. How about we get something for the road?”

What was going on here?

“You mean we can have more ice cream?”

“Why not?” said my father.

So Cassandra and I headed back into the shop and ordered two chocolate milkshakes, and when we came out my father was back in the car, and we were headed home.

But we weren't.

My father turned onto Dixon Road and headed west. And I knew!

I poked Cassandra Jovanovich in the ribs with my elbow and smiled. “Guess where we're going?” I said.

“Dunno.”

“The airport!”

“So?”

“So? Are you kidding? Haven't you ever been to the airport before?” I was amazed that she had missed this treat.

We drove and drove and then my father pulled over on the side of the road by the farmer's field and we got out and put the blanket from the trunk on the hood of the car and climbed up and lay down. Lots of other cars were parked along the road beside us.

We could see clear across the airport to where the planes started, and by the time they got to us, they were in flight. I screamed and screamed as they roared just over our heads.

For a bit, Cassandra didn't say anything. But by the time the third plane flew over, she was screaming too. My father just shook his head and smiled at us. And when he pulled out a package of cigarettes, I knew the deal. He walked along the side of the road, puffing away, saying something to the other dads, sometimes offering a light or even a cigarette. And I wouldn't tell my mother. She hated him smoking. Just like Marilla hated Matthew smoking and
said (Marilla, that is), “What else could you expect from a mere man?”

So I turned away and Cassandra and I finished our chocolate milkshakes and we screamed at the top of our lungs.

“Where do you think they're all going?” asked Cassandra.

“Everywhere. All over the world.”

“I wish I was on one,” said Cassandra Jovanovich.

And I suddenly knew I could sneak in another question. “Have you ever been on a plane? Like, with your parents?”

But a plane was coming toward us and Cassandra pretended she didn't hear me.

It roared overhead and then everything was silent. So silent we could hear the birds in the fields. And it seemed odd, the jet scream and our screams and then the birdsong.

But it was getting dark and my father said we had to go home.

When we got home, Cassandra started to walk away and then turned to my father in a rush and said thank you. “Thank you, Mr. Mets. That was… was … truly one of the best –” She didn't finish.

“It's okay, honey. And you're welcome,” said my father.

Honey?

Cassandra went inside and my father looked at me.

“Don't be asking her questions all the time. Sometimes, people just can't answer them.”

Then my father went inside and I waited a moment and then hurried to my Sanctuary. I stared up at the stars and wondered where all those planes were now.

Tuesday!

In the morning I showed Cassandra Jovanovich how I put a rope between the two biggest poplar trees and hung the curtain over it. When we pulled it back, the grass in between the trees made a really super stage. Then we sold tickets for five cents and made lemonade to sell when the play was over. Everybody came with a costume, and then we all did our make-up together.

Paula came by and said she wasn't buying a stupid ticket to our stupid Halloween party and didn't we know Halloween was in October? Then she called us all stupid and said, “Just you wait.” But I didn't know what we were waiting for because Ronnie and Donnie liked being in the play and I didn't think they'd beat us up ever again.

But we really didn't care about Paula anymore because we were all having fun. I was supposed to be the director, but Cassandra really did everything. She showed Ronnie and Donnie how to sound scary and she showed Linda and Nancy how to look like real royalty. And she frightened everybody because she was so mean when she did the evil witch. But she always smiled at Laura Butterfield and then I saw that Ronnie and Donnie were always smiling at Laura Butterfield, too. I tried to figure out what it was about Laura Butterfield. I stared at her lots and then I knew.

She looked fragile. She looked like you could snap her in half. With her tiny body and white hair, she looked like the light could shine right through her. She didn't look real. That's why she made such a good fairy. She looked just like the fairies Arthur Rackham draws.

And I tried to understand why Ronnie and Donnie were so different around her. I figured it out, too. I think they wanted to protect her from breaking. I think instead of wanting to fight
with
everybody all the time, Ronnie and Donnie finally wanted to fight
for
something. And I knew that Laura Butterfield needed fighting for. And when I figured all of this out, I felt shivery down my spine. I had a new idea for another play. It would be about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And the princess they had to protect would be just like Laura Butterfield.

Soon everybody was there. Lots of kids came and even some parents. My mother brought cookies for after, but she said she wasn't paying five cents to get into her own backyard.

So we started, and we were pretty good until Tinkerbell grabbed the curtain and trotted around the yard with it. Everyone started laughing, but Cassandra just made up some lines and told everybody to be quiet or she'd turn them into toads. Then she grabbed Tinkerbell and tied him up. Ronnie and Donnie put the curtain back up and we got through the rest of the play.

The audience clapped at the end and we took a bow. And then Cassandra told everybody to wait a minute and called my name. She made me go to the front and she told them all that I was the writer of this wonderful play and they clapped for me, too. I smiled and waved and looked for my mother, but I guess she'd gone back inside.

Then we sat around and talked about how good we were and finished the lemonade and cookies. Then I got the cast to autograph my copy of the play because that's what they do in real theater and some day we might all be famous.

Then Ronnie and Donnie's mother said I had real talent and hoped I'd keep writing. And Debbie Walker's mother, Muriel, said I should write for Hollywood!

And when everyone else was gone, just Cassandra and I were left to clean up.

“We're a good team,” Cassandra Jovanovich said. I felt a thrill!

“See?” I exclaimed. “We're kindred spirits. I knew it!”

Cassandra rolled her eyes, but she smiled at me. “You're an idiot! I just meant we're a good team. We should do this again – you write another play, and we'll put it on. Okay?”

“It'll be like Anne Shirley's story club. She and her friends …” I trailed off when I saw Cassandra Jovanovich's look. I made myself stop smiling. I made myself look stern. “Okay,” I said. But on the inside I was jumping for joy.

I told my father all about the play at suppertime.

“It's too bad I missed it,” he said.

Sniff
. “You didn't miss much,” my mother said.

“What do you mean?” I said. “We were wonderful. Everybody clapped.”

“Don't talk back, Lee. And don't be silly.”

“I'm not silly. You're silly!”

“Go to your room.”

And I jumped up so hard my chair fell over behind me. I grabbed it and shoved it and I felt something crack open inside me and I screamed. I ran to my room and slammed the door and kicked it and kicked it over and over.

Nobody came after me. I could hear my parents fighting
in the kitchen. They yelled and said bad words and I could hear they were fighting about me and about lots of things all jumbled up together. Then I heard my mother go out and start the car and drive away. And I heard my father go downstairs to the basement.

I waited until it was dark and when I still didn't hear anything I opened my door and tiptoed down the hall. I snuck outside and hurried across the yard and into my Sanctuary.

I didn't want to be in the house. I wanted to be outside breathing in the night air. Night air never suffocates you. It's always fresh and smells like … it smells like life.

I stared at the stars and remembered the ugly duckling.

I think this is the hardest part of my story. I thought about not writing it, about embellishing around it, but everybody knows anyway, so leaving it out would be stupid. Miss Gowdy says it's best to be straightforward when you have something difficult to say, so here goes.

I fell asleep outside in my Sanctuary and Cassandra Jovanovich found me in the middle of the night. She woke me up and then she told me.

I could tell she'd been crying. “What is it? What's wrong?”

“Oh Leanna. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

And I was scared. “What? What happened? Did she hit you?”

Cassandra just shook her head. Then she grabbed for my hand. “You have to come. You have to come inside. Your mother –“

My mother? Was that it? My mother was mad at me? I suddenly realized how late it must be. I looked up and saw the moon had passed right over my sky window.

“I'm in trouble, aren't I?” I sat up.

Cassandra shook her head. “Leanna. It's your dad. It … he's … I'm so sorry. Your dad is … he died. And your mother found him and couldn't find you and phoned us and Doris woke me up and I knew where you were, or I thought I did, so I came out here and … and …”

My father was dead.

There.

Sometimes in books people say time stood still and I thought I knew what they meant, but I didn't back then. Now I do. It was as if the world stopped. As if everything was frozen and silent. Just one split second. And now everything was different. It was like someone had broken apart a block of ice. One half was before and one half was after and in between was this silent frozen air. Just for a second. Then it was gone.

If I have to write about this, then I want to be very honest about what I felt. I didn't cry. I could embellish this part and tell you I cried hysterically and beat my breast, but I
didn't. I don't want to lie about my father's death. I believed Cassandra, but I didn't cry. What I felt was sick. This was my fault. I yelled at my parents. I made fun of my mother. I said I wanted to be an orphan and God heard me.

I followed Cassandra into the house. Mr. and Mrs. Fergus and Mrs. Petovsky were with my mother. She was crying and I just stood in the doorway looking at her.

“Leanna,” she said and the sound came out all chokey. And I ran to her and hugged her and said I was sorry. She held me so tight it hurt, and I didn't mind. The hurting from hugging was better than the hurting that was going on inside.

Then our doctor came up from the basement and looked at us.

“I'm very sorry, Mrs. Mets. I think it was a heart attack. He probably died instantly.”

Mrs. Petovsky helped my mother sit down.

Then everyone was talking and crying, but it was all just a loud buzzing in my head.

I wanted to see my father. I tried to get down the basement stairs, but Mr. Fergus held me back.

But then some men came and Mr. Fergus took them downstairs and they got my father outside and into a big black car.

“I want to see him,” I said to one of the men.

“Now honey, you just wait. It isn't decent to see your father now. You'll see him sure enough later.”

Then Mrs. Fergus said I could come home with them and eat breakfast over there. And I suddenly realized it was almost morning. My mother said run along because she had lots of phone calls to make.

Cassandra and I watched something on television, but I couldn't pay attention. When I realized that I was half an orphan I told Cassandra Jovanovich.

“I'm almost like you,” I said. “I'm almost an orphan. Can someone be a half-orphan?”

Cassandra pushed back her hair and looked at me.

“Listen, Leanna,” she began. But she stopped. “Never mind. I'm just … really … sorry about your dad.”

In the afternoon my mom said to come home and have a bath – even though it wasn't Saturday night – before we went to the funeral parlor. And then our minister came and drove us. And when we got there, some of our relatives were waiting and then we got to go into the parlor first, before anybody else.

I'd never seen a dead person before. My father was lying there in his suit for church and his hands were folded on his chest. They were all clean and usually they never are because he always works in the garden. And his face had make-up on to make him look “natural,” the undertaker said, but it
made him look silly. I grabbed a tissue from the box on the table and tried to wipe it off, but somebody stopped me.

So then I stood back and tried to figure this all out. Everyone whispered as if my dad was sleeping and everyone went up to look at him and then said the same things over and over to my mother.

I stood where I could see my father and I just stared and stared. I couldn't get the hang of it. I couldn't figure out that this was my father and wasn't my father at the same time. He was there and he wasn't there. It didn't make sense. I tried to think about not being in my body but it was like trying to understand about infinity. Infinity goes on and on forever and ever. But I can't get the hang of that, either. Whenever I think about infinity, I always come up against an ending somewhere. I can't imagine forever. That's how I felt about trying to imagine what it was like to be dead. You can't imagine nothing.

And then I remembered something. Once, when I was little, I watched my father in the garden. He was wearing his beige shorts and no top and was dividing up the peonies. So I put on a pair of beige shorts and I took off my top and walked over to Debbie Walker's house.