by Betsy Byars
“No, I’m tired of those things.”
Vern could not understand how Michael could ever become tired of a BB gun, a rifle, and a rod and reel, three things he would have given anything to own. Still, he did not want to lose a friend who had access to them. He said, “What do you want to do?”
“You know.”
“What?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I want to go to your house.”
Vern stopped breathing. He and Michael had been friends for exactly two weeks, by far the best two weeks of Vern’s life. Michael was not only the first friend Vern had ever had, but he was the ideal friend. Michael lived the way boys were supposed to live, Vern thought, and owned the things boys were supposed to own, like BB guns. The one cloud on the two-week friendship was the fact that every now and then Michael said the very words he had just said, “I want to go to your house.”
The reason Vern had made the bedspring trampoline in the first place was because he sensed Michael was once again about to make the suggestion. Now all that labored jumping had been for nothing. The suggestion had come anyway.
Vern sighed. He did not want to take Michael home. He did not want Michael to see that he himself lived all wrong and owned nothing. He also did not want Michael to see his family, because Michael’s family was different. Michael had two parents, a mother and a father, and the father—it was the father Vern really envied—did things with his children, like let them shoot his rifle.
“There’s nothing to do there,” Vern said, kicking his foot in the dust.
“Well, there’s nothing to do here either.”
Vern gaped at Michael. He wanted to list again all the pleasures—the BB gun, the rod and reel, the—
“Let’s go,” Michael said.
Vern sensed from Michael’s tone of voice that he was not going to be put off. He got slowly to his feet. He brushed off the seat of his pants.
“Mom,” Michael yelled, “we’re going to Vern’s house.”
Michael’s mom came to the door. Michael’s family had only been living at the farm since June, and they had not met many neighbors. “Where do you live, Vern?” she asked.
“About a mile down that way.”
“Are your folks at home?”
“My mom and my granddad and my brother and sister are. My dad’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess it’ll be all right, Michael, but you be back by suppertime.”
“I will,” Michael called happily. He kicked the stand up on his bike. It was a ten-speed bike, the exact kind Vern would have chosen for himself.
Vern pulled his bike away from the tree trunk where it had been leaning. It was an old bike of his father’s, so old it did not have a kickstand. Kickstands probably hadn’t even been invented back then. It also had, to Vern’s shame, balloon tires.
With Michael in the lead, the two boys pedaled down the dusty drive. As Michael turned onto the main road, he stopped. “Who’s that?” he asked, astonishment in his voice and expression.
Vern stopped his bike beside Michael’s. He looked down the road where Michael was pointing.
He swallowed. It was Mad Mary, and she was picking up a dead animal from the road. She examined it and, satisfied, tucked it into her shoulder bag.
“Who is that?” Michael asked again.
“Mad Mary,” Vern answered.
Mad Mary had been a friend of his grandfather’s all his life. Now, ever since she had rescued Junior from the coyote trap, she had become a family friend. It was something else about his family he didn’t want Michael to know.
“She eats things she finds on the road,” Vern explained, careful not to reveal too much. “She lives in a cave.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“From a distance. I didn’t want to go too close because of the vultures.”
“Vultures?”
“Yes. They roost over her cave.”
Michael looked at him with respect. “You’ll have to take me there sometime.” He hesitated. He nodded his head in Mary’s direction. “Is she dangerous?”
“She knows me. I better go first.”
“Thanks.”
With Vern in the lead, the boys pedaled down the road toward Mad Mary. She was on the left-hand side of the road now, striding along in her man’s boots. Her long, crook-necked cane matched her stride.
As they passed her Vern raised his hand. “Hi, Mary,” he said. Her head snapped up, and she looked at him with her bright, piercing eyes. “Afternoon,” she said.
Vern leaned over his handlebars and began to pedal faster. He was relieved she had answered, yet disappointed she had not spoken his name.
CHAPTER 4
On Sandy Boy
“Come on down,” Maggie called to Ralphie. “You can be my first audience.”
Maggie had never been happier in her life. Her happiness had begun two weeks ago when her mom had spoken that magic sentence, “Maggie, I think you and me ought to get ourselves up a trick-riding, mother-daughter routine.”
They had been sitting at the kitchen table, across from each other. Maggie had been looking at her nails, wondering why they wouldn’t grow.
Maggie had lifted her head, a quick birdlike movement. She thought she hadn’t heard right.
“Are you serious, Vicki?” Pap asked.
Pap was at the sink, cutting up fish for supper. He turned in surprise. Fish water dripped on the linoleum floor, but no one noticed.
“Yes, I am serious.” Vicki looked at Pap over Maggie’s head. “B.B. called me this morning. Thelma’s out of the Wranglers, and B.B. wants me back. It was B.B. who thought up the mother-daughter idea.”
At one time, when the Blossom children were small, the whole family had gone on the rodeo circuit. Vicki Blossom was a trick rider and performed with the Wrangler Riders between events. Pap, in his younger days, had done rope tricks. Cotton Blossom, the children’s father, had been World’s Champion Single Steer Roper.
Cotton Blossom had been killed by a steer in Ogallala, Nebraska. After that Pap and the kids stayed home on the Blossom farm, and Vicki went with the Wrangler Riders by herself.
“Maggie always has been a natural,” Vicki went on. “She could stand up on a horse before she could stand up on the floor. When she was five years old she won first place in the barrel race in the Junior Rodeo.”
“I know that.”
“So what do you think?”
“Well,” Pap went on, “I think it’s up to Maggie, but if it’s my opinion you want—”
“I do, Pap, we both do.”
“Well, she’s a Blossom, and we Blossoms are known for doing what we set out to do. As I see it, it’s up to her.”
Maggie had been sitting there hardly breathing while they talked about her. Her eyes had gotten larger and shinier. Before her mother could ask the question, she answered it. “I want it more than anything in the world.”
“Then, go for it,” Pap said. “I wouldn’t mind getting back on the circuit myself.” He turned to the sink. “I probably couldn’t do nothing more than pick up pop cans from under the stands but …”
“Then it’s settled!” Maggie’s mom reached across the table and took Maggie’s hands. She squeezed her daughter harder than Maggie could ever remember having been squeezed before.
This made Maggie brave enough to ask, “Will I get to have a white satin shirt like the other Wranglers?”
“Shug, you’ll have the shiniest white satin shirt of the bunch.”
Ever since that evening Maggie had not had one single moment of anything but pure happiness. Even when she fell off Sandy Boy and landed hard on the ground, even when she hurt herself, the happiness was still there inside, whole and unharmed.
While Ralphie coasted down the hill on his bike Maggie said to her mom, “Here I go!”
Her mom slapped Sandy Boy on the flank. “It’s all yours.” Maggie dug her heels into the horse.
“Be ca
reful,” Ralphie called as she started across the field. He couldn’t help himself. He had never seen Maggie on a horse before. It worried him, not only because she seemed so careless about her safety but because, in some more troublesome way, he sensed she was about to ride out of his life.
Maggie turned in the saddle. “Ralphie, trick riders can’t be both good and careful. My mom told me that, and my mom’s the best.”
Ralphie leaned on the seat of his bike and concentrated on not looking as stupid as he felt. His cheeks burned. The tips of his ears turned red. Maggie grinned and flung her braids over her shoulders.
A path had been worn into the grassy field, a wide oval where Maggie had been practicing her trick riding. Maggie was riding fast. Ralphie wanted to ask if she was going too fast, but his ears were still burning from his last stupidity.
He threw a sideways glance at Mrs. Blossom. She was obviously not worried. She beamed with pride as her eyes followed Maggie and Sandy Boy around the field.
Maggie paused at the far side of the field. “Here I come!” she called. “Only, Ralphie, try to imagine me with music and satin, shining like the sun!”
That would be easy for Ralphie. He had never imagined her any other way.
Again she dug her heels into Sandy Boy. She and Sandy Boy came around the circle fast. As Maggie passed in front of Ralphie and her mom, she hooked her knee in the saddle and dropped off the side of the horse.
Her arms, her braids were flung over her head. She was grinning. She was the most beautiful thing Ralphie had ever seen in his life.
Ralphie applauded.
CHAPTER 5
Junior’s Words
Junior lifted his head. He heard Maggie, Ralphie, and his mother coming up from the meadow. At last! Now they would see the Green Phantom. He could not wait for Pap and Vern.
He made a few adjustments on the sagging garbage bags and pulled the air mattresses into a circle. Every time he wasn’t looking, the three air mattresses bunched up into a pyramid. “Now, stay round like that,” he told them. He went outside the barn to wait.
He was standing there, smiling in anticipation, when his mother came around the barn. At that moment Junior heard her say something to Maggie that caused the smile to freeze on his face, because the words his mother said to Maggie were the very words he had always wanted her to say to him.
And the painful thing was that up until this moment, Junior had not known how much he needed to hear these words. He had not even known these words existed. And to hear his words said to someone else …
The words his mother had said to Maggie were, “Oh, love, your dad would be so proud of you.”
“What?” Junior said. The word came out sharply, as if someone had struck him on the back.
His mom smiled and hugged Maggie. “I was just telling Maggie how proud your dad would be of her.”
The words went to Junior’s heart like a knife. Every single day since his father had died four years ago, Junior had missed his father, every single night his father had visited Junior in his dreams and rubbed his hand over Junior’s head the way he used to do, “For luck.” Every single rainy afternoon Junior had taken out the old snapshots of his father and gone over them with a magnifying glass, but Junior had never once thought of trying to make his father proud.
Junior’s pink face paled. He had not even realized his father could be made proud. He felt cheated. All this time he could have—
Junior’s thoughts broke off with the terrible realization that he had done nothing his father could be proud of. Every one of his inventions had failed.
Last summer he had made himself wings, the best wings he could possibly make. The only place he had gone was twenty feet straight down.
The horror continued. Last month he had made the best coyote trap he could possibly make. Only he had not trapped a coyote. He had trapped himself and then Mud. He had trapped two members of his own family.
And if his dad had seen both of those failures—and Junior was pretty sure now that he had—then his dad would be the opposite of proud. And Junior knew his opposites. The opposite of proud was ashamed.
“Junior, you look pale,” his mother said. She let go of Maggie’s shoulders and came over to him. “Are you all right?”
“Not really,” he said. He was breathing through his mouth. His lips were pale, too, and dry. His blood pounded in his ears. His chest ached.
She put her hand on his forehead. “You don’t have any fever.”
“It’s worse than fever,” he muttered through his parched lips.
“What do you have? Is it your stomach?”
Junior shook his head. Tears filled his eyes. He put one hand over his heart.
“You have a pain in your chest?”
He shook his head. He turned one finger inward to point to the center of his chest.
“Your heart?”
He nodded.
“What kind of pain?”
He shook his head. It was the kind of thing that could never be told. If everyone knew that his father was ashamed of him, then they would be ashamed of him too.
“Junior.” His mother looked into his eyes. He turned his head away.
“Junior!”
Then a dam broke inside him. He couldn’t help himself. He told.
“Dad’s ashamed of me.” He began crying. It was like an explosion. His chest heaved with sobs. He couldn’t get them out fast enough. He could barely speak.
“Everything I do fails.” He gasped for breath. “I’m a terrible, terrible failure.” He began making little hand movements as if he was reaching for something. “Every single Blossom—” He tried swallowing back the sobs, but that didn’t work either. “Every single Blossom is a success but me.” He gasped again. “I can’t do anything right.” He put out his hands to show that he had tried his best and had still come up empty. “I’ve never done anything right.” Now came the worst of all. “And I never will!”
He gave up trying to continue and put his hands over his face. Instantly his mother’s arms were around him. This was the only place Junior had ever liked to be when he was crying, but even her arms couldn’t help him today.
“Junior!” she cried. She kissed him on top of the head again and again. “You are not a failure. You’re not a failure at all. You are a wonderful, wonderful boy.”
He shook his head against her.
“The whole family is proud of you.” She paused to hug him harder and rain more kisses on the top of his head. “You are just”—more kisses and tight hugs—“wonderful! You are the sweetest, kindest, most lovable boy in the world. We all love you very much, don’t we, everybody? You are a wonderful, wonderful boy!”
“No, I’m not,” he said, his voice muffled against her body. The unspilled sobs formed a solid knot of pain in his chest.
“You are too! Now, look at me.” She turned up his tear streaked face. “This isn’t like you at all, Junior. I want you to tell me what is wrong.”
He raised his hands again and let them fall. The word “Everything” burst from his lips.
“Everything is not wrong. Now, calm down and start at the beginning. No, don’t turn your head away. Look at me. What has happened?”
He made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the barn where his invention lay in the dust. He saw it through his tears. It looked so pitiful, he put his hands over his eyes. All of the air had now leaked out of the garbage bags, and the air mattresses were back in a triangle.
“Are you talking about your invention?”
Junior nodded, and then he shook his head because the word invention was too grand to use in connection with the pile of junk in the barn.
His mother turned slightly so she could look into the barn. “What is it, Junior?”
“See, you can’t tell.”
He burst into tears again. He couldn’t help it. He felt as if he were going to be spending the rest of his life trying to get rid of the terrible sobs stuck in his chest.
“N
ow, stop it, Junior. I mean it. Stop it!”
“I’m trying.”
“Stop it this minute. You can’t keep this up. You are going to make yourself sick. Now, have you got control of yourself?”
He nodded.
“Then tell me what that thing in the barn is. I have a right to know. I demand to know.”
When his mother spoke in that voice, he knew he had to answer.
“It is”—he paused to correct himself—“it was supposed to be a flying saucer.”
CHAPTER 6
A Blossom Promise
Vern and Michael were pedaling their bikes down the hill to the Blossom farm. Vern could see as soon as they crossed Snake Creek that his family was involved in some sort of crisis. They were in a tense cluster in front of the barn.
Vern’s spirits sank. He coasted through the pine trees. Blackbirds flew up, filling the air with the beating of wings and loud cries. When the calls of the blackbirds had faded into the distance, Vern heard a new, more troublesome sound—Junior’s sobs. Then Vern knew that, as usual, the family crisis involved Junior.
“Hold it a minute,” he told Michael.
Vern paused and got off his bike. He pretended to examine his bicycle chain; what he was really examining was his family.
The situation had to be bad because Maggie was wiping her eyes with her braids, and his mother was hugging Junior and kissing the top of his head. The only dry eyes in the group, apparently, were Ralphie’s, and Ralphie was looking down at the ground and shuffling his foot in the dust. Vern could see that Ralphie was uncomfortable, and Vern knew it took a lot to make Ralphie uncomfortable.
He glanced at his friend through the spokes of his bicycle wheel. Michael was watching the Blossom family with interest. He had one hand up, shading his eyes.
“My brother must have hurt himself,” Vern told Michael. He jiggled the bicycle chain as if testing it.
“That’s what I figured,” Michael said.