Beyond the Laughing Sky (8 page)

T
he class sat very still after nash
V
ille's statement, and for what seemed like an eternity, didn't make a sound. And then, finally, the silence was broken by none other than Finnes Fowl.

“Prove it,” said Finnes, with more joy than mocking in his voice. “If you can fly, then prove it.”

“Okay,” replied Nashville. “I will.”

And with that statement, Nashville smiled a giant-sized smile, turned, and ran out the door of the schoolhouse.

“Nashville!” yelled Miss Starling. “Stop! Come back here! Where are you going?”

But Nashville did not stop.

He hooted. He hollered. He sounded what could only be called a barbaric yawp.

Nashville ran and ran and ran all the way into the village of Goosepimple. He ran through his favorite park, and around his favorite tree; he waved to the puppets in the puppet shop, the old men gossiping on their porches, and several barking dogs.

He was, in his own way, saying good-bye to Goosepimple.

The last place he stopped was the pet shop. A closed sign hung on the door—likely due to Miss Craw playing canasta—but through the windows he could see the cages hanging around the store, birds hopping from perch to perch, or tossing around seeds, or staring at themselves in the mirror thinking they had a friend.

And then, all of a sudden, he knew exactly what to do. He found himself doing something that, until that day, he would have thought impossible.

Nashville broke into the pet shop.

It wasn't very hard actually. Nobody in Goosepimple locked their doors, and even when they did, they hid the key somewhere close. Nashville knew the key to the pet shop was under a stone turtle by the door.

The birds started squawking their alarm the minute he walked inside.

“Keep it down,” he said. “You can yell all you want once you're out.”

First Nashville propped the front door wide open. Next he flung open the large windows to the shop. And then, one by one, he unlocked every birdcage in the store. He stood back, waiting for them all to burst forward, but to his astonishment, not one of them moved.

“Haven't you ever heard the saying free as a bird?” he asked. “What are you waiting for?”

Finally, a small lovebird hopped onto the edge of her cage door.

“That's it. Go on,” Nashville whispered. “Be brave. Be bold.”

The lovebird puffed her chest once as if making a final decision, then flew out of her cage and out the door of the shop.

“Woohoo!” shouted Nashville.

The birds tilted their heads to the side. What a peculiar thing had just occurred.

“Who's next?” asked Nashville.

The lovebird's mate, not wanting to be alone, was the next to leave his cage.

“Good choice,” encouraged Nashville. “Bravo.”

It must be true what they say, because those birds of a feather began flocking together, right out the door to the shop. It all happened in one great whoosh! It was like a tornado, the whirlwind of birds and wings and feathers that rushed out the door and window, Nashville in the center of it all, spinning, arms up, yelling like madman.

He followed them, still hooting and hollering, out the door to the shop. He watched them get smaller and smaller as they flew away, like a bunch of balloons accidentally—or in this case quite on purpose—released. He made a mental note to leave instructions on his piggy bank, a note saying that its contents should be paid to Miss Craw for the birds.

“I'm coming, too!” shouted Nashville after the birds. “I'll be right behind you!”

W
hen Nashville arrived home, he could hear his parents once again talking in the kitchen. The phone was ringing over and over, and when his father answered, Nashville heard words like
expulsion
and
school grounds
. Words like
break-in
and
pet shop.
After his father hung up the phone, Nashville heard more clips of conversation. He knew what they were discussing, and he crept around behind the pecan tree to avoid it.

But when Nashville rounded to corner, he found himself face-to-face with Junebug climbing down the ladder to the fort.

“What are you doing?” asked Nashville.

Junebug smiled her biggest, goofiest smile at Nashville.

“I found your wings,” she said. “They're amazing.”

“Wh-what?” asked Nashville. He wasn't sure what to say.

“Or,” Junebug continued, “I should say they were almost
amazing.”

“No,” Nashville said, climbing up the tree so fast his foot slipped twice and he nearly fell. “What did you do to them?”

When he reached the fort, he saw the wings there, perfect and intact, not decorated with sparkles or glitter or any of the other Junebug crafting fears that had flashed through his mind.

“They're done,” said Nashville in awe. He wasn't quite sure why, but the wings seemed like they were perfect.

“But what did you do?” he asked.

“Everyone's looking for you,” Junebug replied.

“But what did you
do
?” Nashville asked again.

“I know you have to leave,” said Junebug. “I know, and it's okay. I won't tell them to come up until you're ready to go.”

“But . . .”

“I added the last feather,” said Junebug. “This one.” She pointed to a perfect feather at the tip of the wing, one that made it all come together.

“This one,” she smiled, “is the one I found after that rainstorm. I looked it up, and wouldn't you know it—this lucky feather came from the wing of a Nashville warbler.”

N
ashville stayed in the fort and got things organized while Junebug went downstairs.

“He's in his fort,” Junebug told her parents. “But he really wants to be alone for a little while.”

“I'm worried,” said his mother, her face washed in a rainy-day light. “I wish things were easier for him.”

“I know what we should do,” chimed Junebug. “We should make him a cake. Just like you did when he was being stubborn and wouldn't hatch from his egg.”

“A cake,” said her mother. She gave Junebug a knowing look. “Now that just might work.”

“But he's in big trouble,” protested Nashville's father. “He ran from school. He freed all the birds in town!”

But one look from his wife and daughter, and he went to fetch the mixing bowl. They put in the ingredients—eggs and flour and sugar—and Junebug stirred with ancient eggbeaters. She held out the bowl of batter to her father.

“Put something in,” she told him.

“Pardon?”

“It's a Nashville cake, so you need to put in some Nashville. Watch, I'll show you.” She held up an imaginary container and turned it over the bowl, pretending to shake the contents into the mix. “I'm pouring in one box of the feathers on his head, looking silly when he comes down for breakfast.”

“And I,” said her mother pretending to pour, “am putting in a dollop of the way he sings made-up songs when he thinks no one is listening.”

“His wonderful taste in hats,” added Junebug. “His sense of direction.”

They put in every hum and every hiccup; every sun and cloud that had passed across his face; every lovely thing that they loved about Nashville and some, in truth, that they had failed to appreciate, as well.

“I put in every feather,” added his father quietly. “I hope he can forgive me someday for telling him to fit in.”

They also remembered to add some real sugar, and butter, and flour, and when the batter was finally done, they poured it into the baking pans, opened the oven door, and put everything inside to bake. Slowly the ingredients started to mix, the kitchen and house filling with the delicious smell of cake.

W
hen the cake was finished, junebug took her mother's and father's hands and brought them to the very top floor of the house—to the dazzling, oversized window. The window his mother had sat at ten years earlier singing, wishing, and waiting for a cornflower-blue egg to hatch.

And there stood Nashville, wearing his homemade wings.

“Oh,” said his father.

“My baby,” said his mother.

Nashville's parents did not have much more to say. They knew without words, (in that way parents always seem to know), what Nashville had already decided. Perhaps they had always known—having in their own way willed Nashville into the world—that he could not stay. Perhaps they knew better than other folks that some things are too extraordinary to stay in our world for very long, and so the time they are here should be taken as a gift, as a pause for a moment in front of us, as a hummingbird at the bell of a flower.

“Do you have your good scarf?” asked his father, his hands shaking ever so slightly as he hugged his son and touched his wings. “And your long underwear?” he continued, standing back and looking at his son. “Perhaps you should bring an extra pair of socks. Weather can be . . . very unpredictable.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” cried his mother. “We baked you a cake.”

There, in her arms, was the finished cake, expertly decorated by his family. It was Nashville all right—same smile. But there was something extra as well. There, frosted and attached to each side of the cake, were wings—two beautiful, beautiful wings.

“Thank you,” he said to his family. “It's the perfect cake.”

“It was Junebug's idea,” they explained.

Nashville's father held his mother as she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, and watched Junebug walk her big brother to the window.

The wind blew and the white buds danced outside. Junebug looked at Nashville, and then at the window. She imagined him flying away, farther and farther, his shadow lengthening over the endless ground, until he was just a speck of white and gold wings in the distant sky.

“Will you write me?” she asked.

“I'll send you postcards,” said Nashville. “I'll send them on the wind.”

And then, as strangely as he'd come into their world, Nashville spread his wings and flew away from his mother, father, and sister; he flew away from the house in the pecan tree into the cinnamon air, so sweet.