Fly Away Read online

  and one for the little boy who lives in the lane.”

  Teddy smiles. He likes my singing. He doesn’t even know I can’t sing.

  Then he turns over and looks at me. And he sings “Baa, Baa,” so sweetly in the night that if Frankie is listening she’ll weep.

  When he finishes his song, he turns over again, and I know that he will sleep with me. I don’t mind. I like his warm little body next to me while it is raining outside the window.

  “Baa, baa, See,” Teddy says.

  “Baa, baa, Teddy,” I say.

  And he curls up next to me like a small dog.

  The rain falls. The river rises.

  But we are safe inside.

  chapter 8

  Friend

  All night long I hear different things—the hard rain and wind outside, and the soft breathing of Teddy next to me. Then, near morning, something changes. I lift my head off the pillow.

  The rain has stopped.

  We all wake early. It isn’t light yet. There is just a pale slice of light low above the land. Mama, Boots, and I go downstairs together. Gracie takes Teddy’s hand and they walk slowly down the stairs. We hear the sound of a faraway motor.

  Frankie comes out of her bedroom, braiding her long hair, her robe flapping.

  “Well, let’s see,” she says to us.

  She opens the door.

  And there is an ocean of river, as far as we can see. It is not quiet, still water. It moves fast, small boards and the tops of some trees going past and tumbling into the yard.

  Beside me Mama gasps. Boots takes her hand. The river has come up the hill and swept away the porch steps. Water sits even with the porch floor.

  I understand for the first time why Mama was always scared about the river.

  As we watch, the small shed at the foot of the hill moves and tips. And then it is carried away by the river. As the sun rises, the morning light shines everywhere, reflected by all the water. And then we see something else.

  At the far end of the porch is Becky. She is eating flowers out of the blue painted flower box. She stops to look up at us, still chewing, then goes back to her food.

  “Dutch Belted,” says Teddy behind me.

  Frankie laughs at Teddy and at Becky.

  “Becky, you’re a clever girl. How did you get here?”

  Boots goes over to rub her neck, and Becky brushes against him happily, still chewing pansies. I move closer to Becky, and she lifts her head to look at me. She stares at me, stopping her chewing, as if thinking her own thoughts.

  Her eyes.

  Her eyes are so big I can see my own reflection there, looking tiny next to this huge cow.

  The motor noise comes closer. It is Louis, standing at the tiller of his motorboat, coming carefully closer and cutting the motor.

  “Why, Louis, you look almost heroic,” says Frankie.

  “You’re quite a sight yourself, Frankie,” he says.

  Her braids still hang down.

  “Is everyone all right?” he calls. “You lost your steps.”

  “We’re fine,” calls Frankie. “How is it out there?”

  “Bridge is closed. Moody’s porch was carried away too, and part of Lester’s barn.”

  “Then we’re better off than many,” says Frankie.

  “Word is that the danger is over. No more rain in sight,” says Louis.

  “Good,” says Frankie.

  “And I see you’ve got a porch cow,” says Louis. “Floated in, did she?”

  Boots laughs. “I’ll get my boots and take her down the back steps where the water isn’t so high.”

  “Becky almost made it to the kitchen,” says Mama, making Boots smile.

  Boots gets his boots. He slips a line around Becky’s neck. They start to walk down the porch. Suddenly, Becky stops and turns her head to look at me.

  Those eyes.

  Then she clumps off the porch, down the back steps into a foot of water. I watch Boots lead her up the hill to the barn, where the other cows wait.

  “Louis,” says Teddy very clearly.

  “Teddy,” says Louis.

  “What can I bring you when I come for dinner?” asks Louis.

  “Did I invite you?” asks Frankie.

  “You meant to,” says Louis.

  “We have ham and salad and beans. The stove still works—I made coffee. Milk and bread would be nice.”

  Louis nods.

  “Louis,” says Teddy again.

  “Teddy doesn’t even say ‘mama,’ yet he says ‘Louis,’ ” says Mama.

  “That’s because he and Louis are alike. Louis doesn’t say much most times. Can you sing, Louis?” asks Frankie, smiling at me. I know our secret—Teddy’s and Frankie’s and mine—is safe. Louis pushes the boat away from the house with an oar.

  He sings.

  “You take the high road, and I’ll take the low road,

  And I’ll be in Scotland before ye.”

  His voice is steady and clear. He starts the motor and goes slowly off.

  Frankie grins.

  “He sings!”

  She pins her braids neatly over her head.

  “Who knew?” she says, amazed.

  “Maybe you should marry him,” says Gracie.

  “I don’t need to marry him,” says Frankie.

  She goes close to the edge of the porch and looks at the river.

  “Thank you for not coming into my house, old friend,” she says loudly. “Thank you.”

  Two ducks suddenly flutter into the yard, skidding to a stop in the water. They float happily.

  No one speaks.

  “Thank you for that, too,” she says in a soft voice.

  Then, after a moment, Frankie turns and goes into the house.

  chapter 9

  Darkness and Light

  We have bacon and eggs and biscuits for breakfast.

  “Bacon and ham in one day,” Frankie says to Gracie. “Not yet a vegetarian?”

  “Nope,” says Gracie.

  “I was once,” says Mama.

  “I remember,” says Frankie. “You were lots of things.”

  Mama sighs.

  “I was going to be lots of things. Coming back here reminds me of all those things I meant to be.”

  “And you came to Boston to go to school, and you met me and fell in love, and look at you!” says Boots.

  “Look at me,” repeats Mama.

  There is a small silence at the table.

  “And you have Boots, and Grace, and Lucy, and Teddy,” says Frankie.

  “And Langhorne Slim,” I add.

  Mama gets up, taking her plate to the sink to rinse. She goes out of the kitchen, through the hallway, and out to the porch.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” I say.

  Boots gets up.

  “No, it isn’t you. Mama needs something all her own, that’s all,” he says.

  He goes out to where Mama is.

  “Mama needs more than us,” I say.

  “Not really,” says Frankie. “She just doesn’t quite know what she has. She never did. She’ll find that out one day. I promise.”

  Frankie pours coffee and leans over close to me.

  “Baa, baa, See,” she says softly.

  I look quickly at her.

  “You heard last night?”

  Frankie nods.

  “You know I can’t sing then,” I say.

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are a spectacular sister.”

  Teddy looks up.

  “Spec-tac-u,” he says.

  “What are you two talking about?” asks Gracie.

  “Secrets,” says Frankie. “Don’t you have secrets too?”

  “Lots of them,” says Gracie happily.

  “Lucky girl,” says Frankie. “You’re spectacular too.”

  “Spec-tac-u-lar!” says Teddy slowly.

  He looks all around the table at us, waiting.

  “Yay!” we all shout, our arms i
n the air. Even Frankie.

  Frankie leans over to ask a question.

  “Who is Langhorne Slim?”

  Gracie and I laugh out loud.

  Slowly, during the day, the river calms a bit. There are fewer pieces of trees flowing by. The water begins to fall away from the porch, leaving watermarks behind. There is still a foot of water in the backyard, but the sun is bright and warm.

  Boots and Frankie go up to the barn to milk the cows. Mama goes with them, carrying Teddy up through the water to dry land to feed her chickens. The chickens have come out in the sunlight, walking around in the grasses.

  Gracie sits on the porch with her drawing pad, sketching scenes of the wide river and the ducks. Her drawing of the big Dutch Belted cow lies on the table.

  “This is beautiful, Gracie.”

  “Thanks. It’s simple to draw. Like someone else made this big, big drawing and all I had to do was fill it in.”

  I stare at Gracie.

  I sit down and stare at her drawing.

  “You’re brilliant, Gracie,” I tell her.

  Gracie looks up from her drawing and smiles at me.

  “I’m only six,” she says. “Too young to be brilliant.”

  She goes back to her work. I go upstairs and into my room. The bed is still rumpled from sleep—dents made from Teddy’s body, my body. I pull up the covers and smooth us away.

  I pick up my notebook.

  I write.

  Ring-Around Cow

  What artist

  Sketched

  Sculpted

  Your

  Big black sky body

  I look at the page for a long time. Boots is right. You can’t write anything better than a cow. I tear out the page of the notebook. I close the notebook.

  And that is when I hear Mama’s screaming.

  chapter 10

  Teddy

  The screams go on. I drop my notebook, the poem page flying across the floor. I run downstairs. Gracie and I run into each other as she comes in from the porch.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Mama,” Gracie says. “I don’t know.”

  We run through the kitchen. The teakettle is screaming too. I turn off the stove, and out the window I see Boots and Frankie running through the water up to the barn.

  Gracie and I race out the door and through the water in our sneakers. The water is cold.

  Mama stands at the top of the hill calling, “Teddy! Teddy!”

  My whole body turns cold. My heart pounds.

  “It’s Teddy.”

  Gracie starts to sob. Tears come down her face. We get to the end of the water and we run up the green grass to the barn. Boots takes Mama by the arms. He shakes her to stop her screaming and crying.

  “Which way did he go?” he says very loudly.

  Mama shakes her head.

  “He was right here with the chickens. I went in the barn to get more chicken food. And when I came out he wasn’t here.”

  Boots turns to Frankie.

  “Where would he go? What’s in the meadow? Are there cow paths? Tell me!” he almost shouts at Frankie.

  “There are cow paths. He could get under the fence and wander,” says Frankie. “How long has he been gone?”

  Mama shakes her head.

  “Ten minutes maybe. I don’t know! It wasn’t a long time I left him. It wasn’t!”

  Mama begins to cry.

  Gracie goes to the fence.

  “Teddy! Teddy!” she calls.

  There is no answer.

  “We can’t stay here,” says Mama, her voice hysterical with fear.

  “If he follows the fence, where will he come out?” Boots asks Frankie quickly.

  “Little River,” says Mama, suddenly calm.

  “Little River?”

  Frankie nods.

  “We call it Little River, but it is more like a stream most of the time. It cuts back behind the meadow, a very small arm of it.”

  Boots starts running along the fence and we follow him. I put my hand to my face and feel tears.

  “Teddy!” shouts Boots. “Teddy! Where are you?”

  Mama starts to follow, but Boots stops her.

  “Stay there in case he comes back, Maggie!” he shouts. “He needs to find someone home!”

  Mama stops as if she’s been slapped.

  Gracie and I run behind Frankie. We all call Teddy’s name over and over and over. We run through the woods that border the meadow. Cows lift their heads to watch us.

  “The water’s ahead,” shouts Frankie.

  We run into a clearing where the stream cuts through a steep bank. The water is running over and around rocks.

  “The small dam is that way,” Frankie says to Boots. “It’s kind of old, and once in a while rocks fall out and more water gets through.”

  “Teddy! Teddy!”

  Frankie stops suddenly and grabs my arm.

  “Wait!” she says.

  Everyone stops.

  “Sing, Lucy!” says Frankie. “Sing!”

  “You know I can’t sing!” I shout.

  Frankie shakes me like Boots shook Mama.

  “He sings to you every night,” she says. “If he hears you he’ll answer. You’re the one he sings to!”

  I walk to the edge of the water.

  “Lucy,” says Boots. “Sing.”

  I’ve never heard his voice so stern.

  I open my mouth. And I sing.

  “The birdies fly away, and they come back home.

  The birdies fly away, and they come back home.”

  My voice breaks and Boots beckons me to go on.

  “Fly away, fly away,

  All the birdies fly away.

  The birdies fly away, and they come back home.”

  I stop. There is no answer.

  “Again,” says Boots in a strong voice.

  “The birdies fly away, and they come back home.

  The birdies fly away, and they come back home.”

  A small, perfect voice answers. Teddy’s voice.

  “Fly away, fly away,

  All the birdies fly away.

  The birdies fly away, and they come back home.”

  Teddy is singing the words!

  Boots has already run toward the sound. We run after him. The stream seems higher and faster, as if filling up from somewhere.

  “Sing more, Lucy!” calls Boots.

  I sing and when we reach a bend in the stream, there is Teddy. He has scrambled down the steep bank and is in the middle of the stream, sitting on a rock.

  Boots looks like he might cry. He slides down the bank, dirt and stones falling with him.

  Teddy looks at me as Boots walks into the rising stream, struggling though the water.

  “Sing,” says Gracie softly. “It will keep Teddy quiet.”

  “The birdies fly away, and they come back home.

  The birdies fly away, and they come back home.”

  Boots slips and falls, gets up again.

  Teddy sings.

  “Fly away, fly away,

  All the birdies fly away.”

  Boots reaches Teddy and puts his arms around him, holding him tightly as he makes his way back.

  I’m crying too hard to sing with Teddy.

  Frankie puts her arm around me. Gracie holds my hand, something she has never done before.

  Ever.

  Teddy is glad to see us and is not crying, as if he has expected all along that we’d find him. He has scrapes and bug bites, a bloody knee, but he is smiling. He has lost a red sneaker. He points to his bare foot with a sad sound.

  “It’s all right, Teddy,” says Boots. “We’ll get you new sneakers.”

  Boots’s voice breaks.

  “He must have walked out into the stream when there wasn’t so much water,” says Frankie.

  Once, as we walk back along the river and through the trees to the meadow, Teddy reaches up and touches the tears on Boots’s face.

  “See?”

&nb
sp; “Teddy,” I say.

  He smiles at our ritual.

  “You were brave,” says Gracie to me.

  “Brave?”

  “You sang,” says Gracie.

  I start to laugh and can’t stop. I don’t know why I’m laughing. It just seems funny to me that I am brave because I sing badly.

  “You saved Teddy,” says Gracie.

  “You did,” says Boots.

  “You did,” says Frankie, who is finally crying herself.

  I think about Mama. I think about how guilty she feels that Teddy wandered off. She feels bad that she couldn’t help find him. She will worry about how Teddy feels about her.

  We walk along the meadow fence.

  “Cow,” says Teddy, pointing.

  “Cow,” I say.

  Teddy sees Mama standing at the end of the fence. She isn’t crying. She is all cried out.

  Teddy smiles at her. He reaches out his arms and calls to her.

  “Mama! Mama!”

  Boots hands Teddy over and Teddy puts his arms around Mama’s neck. Mama doesn’t say anything. She holds on to Teddy and carries him down the lawn, through the water, to the house.

  Suddenly, Boots’s knees sag.

  “Boots!”

  Frankie takes his arm and helps him sit on the grass. She sits next to him. Gracie and I sit on the other side.

  “Tired,” says Boots.

  He is quiet.

  “Tired,” he repeats after a moment, as if it is the only word he has the energy to say.

  He lies back and puts his arm over his eyes.

  And it is then we see a stream of blood on Boots’s cheek from a cut.

  Frankie hands me a handkerchief.

  I put it on Boots’s cheek and hold it over the cut. After a moment Boots puts his hand over mine and holds it there.

  “Lucy, I kept your secret until I couldn’t anymore,” says Frankie.

  “I know. That’s all right.”

  It is quiet again.

  Then Boots speaks without moving.

  “I heard that sweet little voice slipping through the darkness one night. I just didn’t know it was Teddy.”

  Boots may be a farmer, but he is still a poet.

  chapter 11

  Poet

  Louis ties his boat to the porch and jumps up and climbs over the railing.

  “You could have worn my waders,” says Frankie.

  “They are women’s waders,” says Louis.

  “They are not,” says Frankie crossly.