“Honey, when someone don’t feel up to scratchin’ in the ground with their hand, they will invent a hoe to reach for them what needs scratchin’. When a farmer can’t cut the corn fast enough by hand, he’ll go make him a combine machine to do it faster. Yes,” sighed Aunt Leah.
“Baby, do you get my drift?” she went on. “Think of it. Think of it as a foretelling. Behind that machine of the radio and that machine of the combine and all so many folks just seein’ monsters, Martians, things that moved, maybe was them. Them out there tryin’ to tell us somethin’.”
“Them?” whispered Willie Bea. “Them that talked to me?”
“Whoever talked to you,” Aunt Leah said, “it was what was behind the talking. Talking just a kind of machine for our use, too.
“For someday, sometime, we are going out there,” Aunt Leah said, “out into the ether. Up there in the stars.”
“Aunt Leah!”
“I mean it, girl,” said Aunt Leah. “You just wait! Maybe not in my lifetime, but certainly in yours. Why was there ever a story, War of the Worlds? Because somebody realize that we are goin’ out there. We will go out to the moon and beyond. We will go to Mars and all so many stars and places.”
“Venus!” cried Willie Bea.
“Sure, Venus,” said Aunt Leah. “Not just this little world of ours. We aren’t all of it, no, sir. Not just Roosevelt and that Hitler, either. Not just you and Little, too, or me or your mama and papa or this town or the Kellys!” She smiled brightly at Willie Bea now. “Oooh, pretty Willie Beatrime!”
“Ohhh, Aunt Leah!” whispered Willie Bea.
“And I’ve got a surprise for you,” Aunt Leah said, eyeing Willie Bea mischievously.
Willie Bea sucked in her breath. “You do?” She couldn’t imagine what it could be. Aunt Leah had already given her a fine handkerchief. Would she now whisk her away to some hidden place where they would be together forever?
“Only if you understand—what?” asked Aunt Leah.
Willie Bea stared at her. “I … don’t know what,” she said finally.
“A surprise for you, if you know that good can happen and bad can happen.”
“Oh, I know that,” Willie Bea said, eager to please.
“But not just good and bad,” Aunt Leah went on. “But that anything can happen. Anything under the sun. One night you look up, there’s a monster, it’s a combine, it’s a monster. One time a space ship lands right there on the Kelly farm. And who’s to say it can’t! Who’s to say it didn’t? And why that radio play just then on this night in this world?”
Aunt Leah took Willie Bea’s face in her hands. Her eyes were deep and dark. She kissed Willie Bea’s bump. And whispered in her ear: “Don’t ever say never!”
Papa says that sometimes, Willie Bea thought.
Aunt Leah got up. She waved at Willie Bea, although she was right there in front of her.
“Aunt Leah, do you have to go?”
Aunt Leah nodded. “Close your eyes. Don’t open them until you count slowly to sixty. Okay?”
“Aunt Leah! What are you up to!”
Willie Bea closed her eyes, grinning from ear to ear. She was facing the bedroom door. She listened, but she couldn’t hear Aunt Leah leave. What she heard was her door closing.
“Bye, Aunt Leah,” she said, loud enough for Leah to hear. And then she counted. “One, two, three, four …” Out loud. She listened for Aunt Leah’s car, but she didn’t hear it.
Maybe she will stay awhile, she thought. “Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen …” All the way to sixty. It felt like a long time.
“Whew!” she said, and opened her eyes.
What she saw made her drop the hankie and cover her mouth with her hands.
Hanging there on the back of the door. It was the most beautiful thing Willie Bea had ever seen in her life.
It was a costume. Of stars. Of sparkles like silver. It was pink and silver. It had a fine pink netting called tulle over the skirt and bodice. The netting was sprinkled with the silver sparkles. And there was a silver rim around the neck and sleeves, a wide silver band around the full silk skirt that stood out. Underneath the see-through tulle was silky pink. A real, silky pink dress of soft folds. It looked like new, and it was, of course.
“Oh, it’s beautiful!” sighed Willie Bea. There was a pink mask looped over the hanger by its rubber band. There was a pink wand made out of hard cardboard down in the dress sack that had been ripped open so Willie Bea would see the dress. The wand was sprinkled with silver stars, she saw, peeking down at it.
“And what’s this?” Tenderly, Willie Bea lifted down her dress. She had to stand on tiptoes to do it. Behind her dress were two more sacks covering something. Willie Bea could see them.
“A costume for Bay Sister … and one for Bay Brother!” She couldn’t tell for sure, but she thought Bay’s was a pirate and Bay Sister’s a gypsy girl.
“Oh, Aunt Leah!” Willie Bea shook her head, she was so thankful.
But her dress was the best.
“Just the most beautiful fairy girl!” she sighed, holding it up against her.
Then she noticed a note pinned to the paper.
“What in the world …!” She put the dress on the bed and took out the pin.
“From Aunt Leah,” Willie Bea said. “Dear WB,” she read, “Wave your magic wand and anything can happen. For next year, Halloween.” It was signed, “Aunt Leah.”
Willie Bea stared at the note. She felt down in the sack. Took out the magic wand. She looked at it long and hard. And waved it. And waved it more.
“Nothin’ happened,” she said. She shook the wand hard. But nothing occurred that she could see. “Maybe somewhere, something’s happening,” she told herself. “I know!” The note said, “For next year, Halloween.” “Wait until next year, when I wave my wand.” She laughed. Do you believe that? she thought. “Well, why not? Anything can happen!” She laughed her head off.
Willie Bea hung up her costume and opened the door wide. It was wonderful how the costumes were all hidden with the door open. “Aunt Leah, you are sure something wonderful,” she told herself. “Give you a big hug when I see you. You wait, I’ll be just like you when I grow up!” She put the hankie under her pillow.
She went down the hall. At the head of the stairs, Willie Bea smelled a tasty supper aroma. And something so sweet and pungent.
“Pumpkin pie!” All of a sudden, she was weak with hunger.
She went down the stairs, sliding her shoulder along the wall. Downstairs, everyone was in the kitchen, nearly finished eating.
“Aw, why didn’t somebody call me?”
“Somebody did,” said her mama, “but you were busy.” She gave Willie Bea a secret smile.
“Oooh! Guess what? Aunt …” Willie Bea stopped herself. There was Bay and Bay Sister, staring at her. Her eyes grew round and wide. “Ohhh, Bay! Oooh, Bay Sister! Have I got surprises for you!”
“’Top it, Willie Bea,” said Bay.
“Bay, you said my name right,” Willie Bea said. He looked at her as if she were silly.
“It always sounded right to him,” said her mama.
“What surprises?” asked Bay Sister.
“Wait till I eat,” Willie Bea said.
“How could you have a surprise?” Bay Sister said. “You been in bed all day.”
Willie Bea smiled sweetly. “Anything can happen when you sleep in bed all day,” she said.
And before anyone could think, she said to her papa: “Big says you have his bow and arrows!”
Her papa lifted his eyes to the ceiling before he thought. Over to his right, toward the living-room ceiling. “If I have them, Willie Bea,” he said, “it’s for a good reason.”
Her mama and papa’s bedroom was up and to the right. Not over the kitchen. It was the front bedroom, over the living room, right where her papa had looked.
“Ho-hum,” Willie Bea said airily. She took her plate and filled it from the pots warmed on the stove. Good turkey an
d noodles with peas. Biscuits. Willie Bea sat down. She saw the pumpkin pie over on the counter. None of them had eaten pie.
“I feel so good,” she told them, buttering a biscuit. “My bump’s gone down. I don’t feel sore at all. I only missed one day of school, too. So did Big. Isn’t it just so awful funny how things happen?”
Interested, they all looked on, her mama and papa, Bay and Bay Sister. The kitchen was a swell evening place to be. Warm and safe, with dark pressing on the windows. All Gobble-uns were safely out of doors. This would be a last witch-and-Gobble-un night of frights and scares for another year. It would go on without her.
Who cares?
Big’s bow and arrows would be in the front bedroom closet. Or maybe under the bed. They would be in that front bedroom somewhere.
She stifled a grin.
Birds of a feather flock together! She and her cousin Big Wing.
Willie Bea giggled silently to herself.
She ate her fill.
A Biography of Virginia Hamilton
Virginia Hamilton (1934–2002) was the author of forty-one books for young readers and their older allies, including M.C. Higgins, the Great, which won the National Book Award, the Newbery Medal, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, three of the most prestigious awards in youth literature. Hamilton’s many successful titles earned her numerous other awards, including the international Hans Christian Andersen Award, which honors authors who have made exceptional contributions to children’s literature, the Coretta Scott King Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Award.”
Virginia Esther Hamilton was born in 1934 outside the college town of Yellow Springs, Ohio. She was the youngest of five children born to Kenneth James and Etta Belle Perry Hamilton. Her grandfather on her mother’s side, a man named Levi Perry, had been brought to the area as an infant probably through the Underground Railroad shortly before the Civil War. Hamilton grew up amid a large extended family in picturesque farmlands and forests. She loved her home and would end up spending much of her adult life in the area.
Hamilton excelled as a student and graduated at the top of her high school class, winning a full scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs. Hamilton transferred to Ohio State University in nearby Columbus, Ohio, in order to study literature and creative writing. In 1958, she moved to New York City in hopes of publishing her fiction. During her early years in New York, she supported herself with jobs as an accountant, a museum receptionist, and even a nightclub singer. She took additional writing courses at the New School for Social Research and continued to meet other writers, including the poet Arnold Adoff, whom she married in 1960. The couple had two children, daughter Leigh in 1963 and son Jaime in 1967. In 1969, the family moved to Yellow Springs and built a new home on the old Perry-Hamilton farm. Here, Virginia and Arnold were able to devote more time to writing books.
Hamilton’s first published novel, Zeely, was published in 1967. Zeely was an instant success, winning a Nancy Bloch Award and earning recognition as an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book. After returning to Yellow Springs with her young family, Hamilton began to write and publish a book nearly every year. Though most of her writing targeted young adults or children, she experimented in a wide range of styles and genres. Her second book, The House of Dies Drear (1968), is a haunting mystery that won the Edgar Allan Poe Award. The Planet of Junior Brown (1971) and Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (1982) rely on elements of fantasy and science fiction. Many of her titles focus on the importance of family, including M.C. Higgins, the Great (1974) and Cousins (1990). Much of Hamilton’s work explores African American history, such as her fictionalized account Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave (1988).
Hamilton passed away in 2002 after a long battle with breast cancer. She is survived by her husband Arnold Adoff and their two children.
For further information, please visit Hamilton’s updated and comprehensive website: www.virginiahamilton.com
A twelve-year-old Hamilton in 1948, when she was in the seventh grade.
Hamilton at a New York City club while she was a student at Antioch College in the mid-1950s. She often performed as a folk and jazz vocalist in clubs and larger venues.
Hamilton with her brothers, Buster and Bill, and sisters, Barbara and Nina, around 1954.
Hamilton’s head shots. The first was taken while she was a teenager in the early 1950s. The second was taken in her New York City apartment in the late 1960s, before she and Adoff built their house in Yellow Springs.
Hamilton outside of her first New York City apartment, which she shared with Adoff, around 1960. The couple moved to a below-street-level single room on Jane Street and, Adoff says, “thought we were such hot stuff, living in the Village and taking our places in that wonderful and long line of writers banging their heads against the wall … but in style.”
Adoff and Hamilton in Gibraltar in 1960, after a hard day of shopping and climbing the rock seen in the photo. As Adoff recalls, “This was the first time I convinced Virginia to sell everything but the books and leave America forever. It was also our delayed honeymoon. We made our way from Bremen to Paris to Málaga to a residency in Torremolinos, Spain, where we worked on our manuscripts and took side trips. This was one of them.”
Taken in 1965 in Argelès-plage, France, this photo shows the building where Hamilton and Adoff rented an apartment during what Adoff calls their “second time leaving America forever …”
Hamilton, Jaime, and Leigh at a reception at the Yellow Springs Public Library in 1975 after she received the Newbery Medal.
Hamilton at the publication party for Jaguarundi. She attended hundreds of conferences and book signings at schools and libraries around the country as each of her books was published.
Hamilton, Adoff, Leigh, and Jaime at Leigh’s wedding in Berlin in 2001.
Hamilton on Thanksgiving in 2001. This photo was taken by her niece, Nina Rios, a professional photographer, after Hamilton’s last round of chemotherapy, only a few months before her death.
All photos © 2011 by the Arnold Adoff Revocable Living Trust. Used by permission. Portrait courtesy of Jimmy Byrge.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1983 by Virginia Hamilton Adoff
Cover design by Kat JK Lee
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Martians Landed
Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed Page 17