Flyers (9781481414449) (24 page)

Authors: Daniel Hayes

BOOK: Flyers (9781481414449)

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I didn't see them standing there until I was almost alongside them, which was just as well, because if I'd seen them sooner, I would have been a lot more self-conscious as I approached and might have ended up doing something graceful like tripping over my own feet. I might not have noticed them at all except that my ears happened to pick up a whispered snippit of conversation.

“Say
something to him.”

That's when I glanced over, and that's when it hit me. The thing was, the voice I'd heard was
Heather's.
Was it possible that I'd been mistaken all along and
Katie
was the one who liked me? Those times I'd seen Heather giving me the once-over, had she been doing it on Katie's behalf?

As I rounded the corner and hit the steps toward the side door, my eyes flicked back to where they were
standing and I knew it was true. Katie looked stricken and her face silently pleaded with Heather not to blurt out anything else. My heart did a flip and my feet felt light as I glided out the door.

I thought about it a lot, but I didn't actually call her till a few days ago. At first I'd been busy helping Pop with Mr. Lindstrom's wake and funeral, not to mention doing battle with the rest of my exams. Then Katie's family went away on vacation, and then I went to Maine with the Michaelsons, and thenâwell, I finally made the call. We're planning to go to a movie on Friday and, as near as I can tell, I'm still in love. This may turn out to be a record for me.

Pop managed somehow to smooth things over with Ray, who'd threatened both legal and Betsy action against Andy for the hail of bullets he claimed almost took him out that night. Of course, I happen to know for a fact there were only two bullets involved. The first made a hole in the ceiling above the staircase, and the second whizzed over
my
head, not his.

Andy's back with his mother in Syracuse, where they're both undergoing family counseling which, as you might guess, I don't put a lot of hope in. But I do have a feeling that Andy might have begun his own change that night, sitting by his grandfather's side and absorbing something beyond wordsâsomething beyond wallowing in the mud of the past and worrying about who caused what and who owes what. Pop really took to Andy in that short time, and has high hopes for him. I think Andy took to Pop too.

Pop is in the process of buying Mr. Lindstrom's land, including Blood Red Pond, and although I gather Rachel still looks at him as a force from the dark side for having agreed to be her father's counsel in the now
defunct lawsuit, I'd bet anything he offered considerably more than the property was worth, just so she and Andy could have an easier go of it.

So far I haven't told anybody about what I experienced in that hospital room, not even Bo, although I know I will, some night when we're sitting up talking into the wee hours of the morning. It's not that it's any big secret; it's just that, for now, I don't want to disturb the memory. I want to leave it tucked safely away.

I still have a good feeling about Mr. Lindstrom. From the little bits and pieces I know of his life, I'm pretty sure it hadn't been an easy one, and I get a nice glow inside when I think of him rising up from his tired and worn out body, looking down on his grandson and his friends, and returning Ethan's little waveâat least I like to think he didâbefore starting his return flight for home.

The other day I wandered into Ethan's room in search of another missing shirt, and on the way out I happened to glance up at Bo's Icarus painting. Right away it hit me that something was different about it. At first I couldn't tell what it was. Icarus looked pretty much the same as he ever did floating up there, and everything else looked just the way it always had. Then it dawned on me. The plowman, who I'd always seen as sinking into the dirt, wasn't doing that at all. What he was doing was pulling himself up
out
of the dirt. I don't know why I'd never seen it that way before. He looked as dense and weighted-down as ever, but I saw now how his legs and back were straining, pulling for all they were worth against the gravity. What's more, I could see how his neck muscles were tightening, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he'd pull his head up enough to get his first glimpse of the sky, and
of Icarus gliding effortlessly above him. And I knew too, that once he got that glimpse, he'd never be the same.

So I'm thinking that in the end maybe we all get to be flyers. Maybe we're like that plowman, plodding along between the earth and the sky, and if we can only lift our heads enough we'll catch a glimpse of where it is we're headed. I've been thinking that a lot lately. I think it when I see Ethan lost in one of his Superman comic books or hear Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson thumping around in their basement. I think it too when I see the way Pop looks at Ethan and me each time we come through the doorâor if I pick up the paper and happen to read about somebody dying.

And I think Bo had the right idea. That first time when Icarus fell out of the sky, it wasn't the end of his flight, but just the start of another one.

I like the thought.

A
LSO BY
D
ANIEL
H
AYES

T
HE
T
ROUBLE
W
ITH
L
EMONS
E
YE OF THE
B
EHOLDER
N
O
E
FFECT