I am sorry about your arm. I know how it feels. I hope you like the poem.
And then I remembered when I had written it. It was when I’d seen Mr. Farley outside the boardinghouse one day shortly after he’d returned to Blackbird Tree. Bo and another boy were standing on the corner, pointing at him and laughing. It made me mad. I went home and wrote him that poem. I had forgotten this completely and wondered why he had sent it back to me now and how he knew where to send it.
At the very bottom of the page, in faint pencil, was this new note:
I like your poem.
Your friend,
Artie Farley
Also in the envelope was a square of paper with these words on it, in elegant script:
Naomi,
Your mother was an aide at the hospital when Artie met her. She was kind to him when few other people were.
Fondly,
Hazel Wiggins
Did a delicate cobweb link us all, silky lines trailing through the air?
CHAPTER 56
ACROSS THE OCEAN: TRUE AS TRUE
In Blackbird Tree, at Tebop’s General Store, the talk was about mysterious letters.
“And I heard that Mrs. Mudkin—”
“And what about Crazy Cora and—”
“I saw a florist truck from up in Ravensworth over at Witch Wiggins’s house—”
“No!”
“True as true can be. My sister’s brother-in-law works up there and he said a big fat bunch of roses was ordered up for Witch Wiggins—”
“From who?”
“From that Dingle Dangle fellow, that’s what I hear.”
“No!”
“True as true can be.”
CHAPTER 57
STANDING ON THE MOON
Mr. Dingle took one of the gold pieces to have it appraised. “Don’t want to arouse suspicion—or greed—by taking all six pieces,” he said. “I’ll say it belongs to a rich client in London.”
Before he left, he added, “Meanwhile, Naomi, you need to be thinking about the dogs.”
The dogs.
My fear of dogs had become too big, like a massive expanding clod, making me feel heavy, filled with clay. Sybil’s dogs had been staying with Mr. Dingle’s family, awaiting their intended return to Rooks Orchard. Lizzie said, “Naomi, here is my idea. Will you listen for one minute? We will bring in one of the dogs—on a leash—and you will just stand there, maybe let her smell you. We’ll bring Sadie—Auntie Pilpenny says she’s completely gentle. Then tomorrow, maybe two minutes. Then three minutes and on like that until you feel comfortable, okay, will you do it, will you, please?”
On the first day, the minute was agony. I cried.
On the second day, the two minutes were agony. I cried.
On the third day, the three minutes were agony. I threw up.
Later that day, Lizzie and I found clay in the stream that ran beneath the Crooked Bridge. We made clay dogs and perched them on the bridge railing to dry. I still carried a lump of wet clay when we visited Sybil’s grave and then Finnbarr’s stone beneath the oak tree.
“Poor Finnbarr boy,” Lizzie said. “Naomi, think of it. If Finnbarr had grown up, maybe my mother would have married him and never have moved to America or saved your life.”
I knelt beside Finnbarr’s stone. “Lizzie, we don’t know that she saved my life.”
“Well, I know it,” Lizzie said, “and if she hadn’t saved your life, you might be dead.”
“You crawdad.”
But I thought about all the things that had to have spun into place in order for us to be alive and for us to be right there, right then. I thought about the few things we thought we knew and the billions of things we couldn’t know, all spinning, whirling out there somewhere.
In the middle of the next week, I went to the moon. I saw the brilliantly blue earth, swaddled in swirls of white. I saw what it was and what it would be. I saw its smallness and its largeness.
That day, I looked into the eyes of a white and tawny foxhound named Sadie and fell in love.
Soon Sadie was joined by Maddie. Those eyes, those faces, their gentle manner, their silky coats: they bewitched me.
Outside with me and Lizzie, they ran and rolled and licked and nuzzled. They bounded back to us and leaned against our legs.
I understood what I had missed.
When Mr. Dingle returned with the gold piece, he said, “The appraiser was fearful. He said that, yes, it appears to be real gold but he did not want to touch it or have it in his shop because of this mark.” With a pen, Mr. Dingle tapped an indentation in the center of the coin. It resembled a half-moon. “That, apparently, is the mark of fairy gold.”
“I knew it,” Lizzie said.
I wished we could stuff the gold coins back in the donkey’s ears—and said so—but then I had to explain Joe’s story about the donkey’s ears.
Mr. Dingle said, “I suppose you could do that, stuff it back in the donkey’s ears.”
“What?” Lizzie said. “What?”
“Lizzie, you do know we don’t really mean to put it in a donkey’s ears?”
“Oh. I knew that.” You could see her rearranging a few things in her head. “Then let’s rebury it in the fairy ring. It’s only right.”
And so we did, or rather I did, because Lizzie refused to touch the ground inside the ring.
Lizzie felt obliged to offer an apology to the fairies. “We are sorry,” she said, “that Finnbarr stole it in the first place. We didn’t mean to touch it.”
And so we spent our days roaming the orchards with the dogs and wading the stream and digging for clay and wandering through the vast house. Nula missed Joe, but she was content at Rooks Orchard, and although Pilpenny mourned Sybil, she was cheered by rediscovering her niece, Lizzie.
Lizzie was nearly delirious in her joy. “We have a home!” she exclaimed each morning. “Plum jam!” She flew down the halls and up the stairs. “We’re just like sisters, Naomi, you and me—but we won’t be the kind who get mad at each other or fight over a boy and never see each other again, will we? We won’t do that.”
And me? One night early on, I dreamed that I was trying to get back to Blackbird Tree. I was following a rook and lost my way on a crooked bridge and landed in a hay loft and someone was calling, “Mary, Mary.” And then, “Naomi, Naomi.” I told the voice, “Naomi can’t stay; she’s on the ladder,” and I flew back to Ireland on the back of the rook.
When I woke, I felt such freedom, such lightness. Lizzie and I had a roof over our heads, we had food, we had Nula and Pilpenny, we had ladders and dogs, a creek and clay, and we had each other—with all the good and bad that might come with that.
But not too much bad, I hoped.
One day, about a month after we’d arrived, I was up in the oak tree near the fairy ring and Lizzie was in a nearby tree pulling plums. The dogs were trolling along beneath the trees, sniffing at fallen fruit. Rook was flying above.
“Lar-de-dar,” Lizzie was singing. “Oh, lar-de-dar-dar!”
I saw him first. He was coming toward me, sunlight on his hair, freckles on his cheeks.
“Hey, tree girl,” he called.
“Oh, lar-de-dar,” Lizzie sang. “Lar-de-dar-dar.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHARON CREECH is the author of the Newbery Medal winner WALK TWO MOONS and the Newbery Honor Book THE WANDERER. Her other work includes the novels THE UNFINISHED ANGEL, HATE THAT CAT, THE CASTLE CORONA, REPLAY, HEARTBEAT, GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP, RUBY HOLLER, LOVE THAT DOG, BLOOMABILITY, ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS, CHASING REDBIRD, and PLEASING THE GHOST, as well as three picture books: A FINE, FINE SCHOOL; FISHING IN THE AIR; and WHO’S THAT BABY? Ms. Creech and her husband live in upstate New York. You can visit her online at www.sharoncreech.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.
OTHER WORKS
ALSO BY
SHARON CREECH
Walk Two Moons
Absolutely Normal Chaos
Pleasing the Ghost
Chasing Redbird
Bloomability
The Wanderer
Fishing in the Air
Love That Dog
A Fine, Fine School
Ruby Holler
Granny Torrelli Makes Soup
Heartbeat
Who’s That Baby?
Replay
The Castle Corona
Hate That Cat
The Unfinished Angel
CREDITS
Cover art © 2012 by Zdenko Basic
Author photo by Lyle Rigg
COPYRIGHT
The Great Unexpected
Copyright © 2012 by Sharon Creech
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-06-189232-5 (trade bdg.)—ISBN 978-0-06-189233-2 (lib. bdg.)
EPub Edition © JULY 2012 ISBN: 9780062190130
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First Edition
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The Great Unexpected Page 14