Authors: Kathleen Van Cleve

Drizzle (6 page)

BOOK: Drizzle

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“Ssshh,”
he seems to say.
“Ssshh.”

SAME DAY, FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

Self-Reliance

“Finally!” Aunt Edith exclaims from behind me. “I found it! Here,” she says. “It’s for you.”

I turn shakily from the Monster cricket to Aunt Edith. She’s so excited that she doesn’t notice I’m freaked out. She hands me the book. It’s small, attached by a hard leather cover with some kind of stamp on it.
“Self-Reliance,”
Aunt Edith announces. “Ralph Waldo Emerson. Read it a hundred times, and then one time more.”

I take the book and glance back to the table. The cricket is still holding his long black leg up against his mouth, telling me to keep them a secret.

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string,”
Aunt Edith continues. “That’s how I want you to approach the world, Polly.” She looks sad, kind of wistful. “I’m so glad I found it for you.”

I turn the dusty book over in my hand. “Thank you,” I say. I can’t help glancing back at the window. The dragonfly is hovering over that same pile of books, as if waiting for me. Then Aunt Edith straightens up, stepping directly on the ivy and ignoring the crickets. When I look back, Monster cricket has leaped to the top of the pile of books underneath the dragonfly.

“May we talk for a second?” Aunt Edith asks.

“Sure,” I say.

Aunt Edith leans against the bookshelves, her arms crossed over her chest.

“I want you to know something.” She gestures around the room. “First of all, all of
this—
the bugs, the crickets, the ivy, the rhubarb—it’s
wonderful
. It is magic. Truly.”

Relief floods through me. I was never sure what Aunt Edith believed. “I knew it! You thought so too! You think it’s magic!”

“Yes but . . .” Aunt Edith steps over to me and lifts my chin. “But it’s beside the point.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

“I mean, it isn’t
you
.That’s why I’m giving you Emerson. Trust yourself. Not the crickets. Not the rhubarb. Not the ring—”

“I lost my ring.”

She ignores me. “I watch you, dear. I know how connected you are to this farm. But
you
are bigger, better than the magic. You might not know that now, but you will. I never want you to feel trapped on this farm, or beholden to it.”

I don’t know what she’s talking about—I love our farm. I check out the Monster cricket. He’s got one leg up against his face as if he’s holding a violin. The other leg is moving back and forth across it like he’s playing a song. I almost giggle, but then I see the intense look Aunt Edith is giving me.

“Things are going to change, Polly,” she says. Her voice is strong and hard, scaring me. “I want you to be prepared.”

As she speaks, I feel something inside me rip, like a piece of fabric torn from my bones.

“What do you mean,
change
?” I grip the book tightly across my chest as the image of the green mist flashes through my mind. I must look terrified, because her voice shifts, and her eyes become reassuring.

“I just meant . . . don’t worry, sweetheart. All of life is change. That’s all I’m talking about. Life.”

I want her to explain, but she doesn’t. She’s just waiting for me to answer. I don’t think I have any choice but to say what she wants to hear.

“Okay,” I say. My eyes dart over to the bugs. They’re behind Aunt Edith, just watching.

Aunt Edith doesn’t notice. She’s still apologizing. “Sometimes, I forget you’re still a child. We can come back,” Aunt Edith says. “Would you like that?”

Before I have a chance to nod, the ivy springs up behind Aunt Edith and two of Monster cricket’s friends leap on top of the leaves. They jump from leaf to leaf, as if they’re on platforms of different heights. The Monster cricket springs up to the very top of the vine.

Aunt Edith smiles tenderly at me, patting down my messy hair. “Would you like to come back here?” she repeats.

I try to pretend I’m paying attention. But it’s hard. Behind her back, above her head, the dragonfly is spelling out another word.

Y. . . E . . . S.

“Yes,” I tell Aunt Edith. “Yes.”

“Wonderful,” she says, and she strides past me to the doorway. Before I walk through the doorway, I glance back into the turret one more time.

The dragonfly bobs up and down in the doorway, while the Monster cricket stares at me from the ground. Slowly, he lifts up his leg and waves.
Good-bye.

“I’ll be back,” I whisper.

SAME DAY, FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

Beatrice

After Aunt Edith leaves, I go into our playroom, sitting on the soft couch opposite an oil portrait of Enid, set above our fireplace. I glance up at her quickly, then lean back into the soft chair and open
Self-Reliance.
It begins with a poem.

Ne te quaesiveris extra
Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man.

“An honest and a perfect man.”

I frown and shut the book. You would think that Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson never knew any honest and perfect women. Only men. I rest my head on the back of the couch just as Freddy slams the door and walks inside, with Basford right behind him.

“We won,” he says. “Four zip.”

“Freddy scored two of the goals,” Basford says, gazing up at my brother with what can only be described as worship.

Freddy grins. My brother’s red cheeks are blotchy, and his shirt is soaked from sweat. “You need a shower,” I tell him. “You reek.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m totally beat.” He heads toward the stairs and stops. “Where’s Aunt Edith?”

“She left.”

“Where’d you go today?” He grins. “The Museum for Smart People?”

At that second, Beatrice walks into the room, an orange and white and red skirt cinched in at her wide waist.

“Laundry time,” she tells Basford. “And don’t forget to wash the clothes you’re wearing.” Beatrice makes all of us do our own laundry, which she insists will be helpful when we’re grown up.

Freddy takes off his sweaty shirt and tosses it to Basford. “Do a friend a favor?”

“Sure.” Basford says as he catches it.

“Excuse me?” Beatrice interrupts.

“It’s just one shirt,” Freddy groans. “I’m tired.”

“It’s no problem,” Basford says softly. Then he turns and leaves the room, before Beatrice can order Freddy to take his shirt back.

“Tired?” Beatrice stomps over to Freddy and tries to look him in the eye, which is pretty funny to see, since Freddy towers over her. She motions for him to lean down and presses her lips against his forehead.

“You have a fever,” Beatrice pronounces.

“No, I don’t,” he says.

“You do. To bed.”

“I’m fine. I’m just hot from the game.” Freddy pinches his shirt so that it’s away from his skin.

“Go upstairs and take a nap.”

It’s impossible to win an argument with Beatrice, and Freddy knows it. “Fine,” he says. “But not because I’m sick. Because I’m tired.” He walks out of the room, and Beatrice turns her attention back to me.

“What book is that?” Beatrice steps over to my chair and picks up
Self-Reliance.

“Aunt Edith gave it to me,” I tell her.

“Where did you get it?”

“Upstairs.”

“Enid’s locked library, you mean.”

“You know it?” I’m shocked.

“I’ve worked here for thirty years, of course I know it.” Beatrice hands the book back to me.

“It’s a really weird place,” I say. “Beatrice, there’s ivy growing on the
inside
and there are these bugs that were so big you’d have to kill them with a baseball bat—”

“Polly!” Beatrice turns her head sharply. “What kind of a grown-up are you going to be if you just go around blabbing secrets all over the place?”

“Secrets?”

“If Edith wanted to show you and
only
you the library, I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“She did. She said things were going to change and she wants me to be prepared.”

Beatrice looks me up and down. “Now why’d you go and tell me that?” She holds up her hand, waving the dust rag in my face.

“Do you know what she means?”

“No,” Beatrice says quickly. “I’m not a mind-reader, Polly.” She seems to scrub the top of the fireplace mantel with her dust rag. “And neither are you.” She stops dusting. “Everything changes. Every single second on a farm brings something new.”

“Is that what she meant?”

Her face scrunches up.

“I don’t ask a lot of questions. I just hope that when I need to do something, I do it. You never know what kind of person you’ll be until that moment of crisis: the kind who sits and watches, or the one who moves. I want to be the one who moves.”

She puts her hands on her hip, thinking.

“Okay, but—”

“Go read your book, Polly.”

“Beatrice—”

She turns one last time to face me. “And for God’s sake, don’t talk about killing any bugs with baseball bats!”

I stare at her, but it’s clear she’s finished with the conversation. A long time ago, Beatrice made us all sign a contract swearing that we wouldn’t kill any bugs on the farm on purpose, even if it had stung us or hurt us or anything. “Your dinner or your signature,” she insisted. Anyway, if she’d just let me speak, I could tell her that I
wasn’t
planning on killing any bugs. I was just trying to tell her how big and strange these bugs were.

But Beatrice is long gone. I clutch my book and trudge up the stairs to my room. At moments like this, I think I really do have the weirdest family—and live on the weirdest farm—in the whole wide world.

SAME DAY, FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

Jennifer Jong

I flop onto my bed, arms behind my head, and then glance absently at the bright blue folder sitting on my desk. Mom has left me a bunch of orientation materials about St. Xavier’s, the new school I’m starting in precisely eleven days.

I suddenly understand. I know
exactly
what Aunt Edith was talking about. She was telling me to be prepared for my new school. Seventh grade.

Of course!

I pick up the folder and stare at the bright picture of the beautiful stone building in the center of St. Xavier’s campus. Pictures of kids with big smiles and straight hair stare back at me. They look happy. Maybe
I’ll
be happy.

I close my eyes and let myself imagine all the
good
things that can happen at St. Xavier’s.

I have friends. I talk in class. No one thinks I’m weird. I’m one of those normal kids, the ones with their picture on the cover. I’ll even comb my hair.

At my old school, nobody paid me much attention until this one terrible, awful day when a big, smiling kid from my class named Max Keyser noticed my finger.

My right index finger is crooked. Not just kind of crooked,
really
crooked. It literally makes a right angle at the top knuckle, like a road sign announcing a turn. It’s genetic. Aunt Edith has one and so did Grandmom; perfect Patricia—of course—doesn’t. Usually I hide it, but on that day, I was looking through my backpack for a book to read so I didn’t look too stupid alone on the playground. I dropped the whole bag and some papers flew out. Max picked some up for me, but when he brought them over he glanced at my hand.

“Hey, what’s that?” His eyes locked on my finger. I tried to curl it up, but I was too slow. “Eww!” he yelled, jumping back, dropping my papers.

He made so much noise that a girl from my class—the most popular girl in my class—sauntered over. Her name was Jennifer Jong, but everyone called her Jongy. We were the two best spellers in our school.

“Let me see,” Jongy said.

I crouched down on the ground, pressing my fingertips against the palm of my hand. We had been in the same class since first grade. Up until fifth grade, she ignored me. Then I beat her in our school’s spelling bee. She told everyone I had taken some kind of secret rhubarb potion, and that I was a cheater. The teacher had told her to stop, but Jongy just kept saying “You can’t make me, you can’t make me.”

I didn’t take any potion. I just knew how to spell “broccoli.”

Anyway, this was the first time she had spoken to me in a year.

“It’s just my finger,” I told her. “It’s a little crooked.”

BOOK: Drizzle

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