Casteel 01 Heaven

by V. C. Andrews

  "I never eat lunch."

  My answer made him frown. "Everybody eats lunch. So come along, and we'll have hamburgers, shakes, and french fries."

  Did that mean he was going to pay for my lunch as well as his own? My pride reared high. "I have to take care of Our Jane and Keith during the lunch hour . . ."

  "Okay, they're invited, too," he said

  nonchalantly, "and I might as well include Tom and Fanny, in case you're thinking of them."

  "We can afford to pay for our own lunches."

  For a second he didn't seem to know what to say. He shot me another quick glance, then shrugged. "All right, if you want it that way."

  Oh, gosh . . . I didn't want it that way! But my pride was as high as any mountain in the Willies.

  He walked beside me toward the lower-grade classrooms. Any moment, I thought, he'd regret his invitation. Both Our Jane and Keith were waiting near the first grade, each seeming terribly anxious before Our Jane came flying into my arms, half sobbing. "Kin we eat now, Hey-lee? My tummy hurts."

  About the same time, Keith began jabbering about the tuna fish sandwich I'd promised. "Did Miss Deale send us another one?" he asked, his small face bright and eager. "Is it Monday today? Did she send us milk?"

  I tried to smile at Logan, who was taking all of this in and looking thoughtfully at Our Jane, then at Keith. Finally he turned to me and smiled. "If you'd rather have tuna fish sandwiches, maybe the cafeteria will have a few left if we hurry there."

  There wasn't anything I could do now that Keith and Our Jane began running toward the cafeteria like foxes on the scent of chickens. "Heaven," said Logan with earnestness, "I've never allowed a girl to pay for her own lunch when I invite her. Please allow me to treat you."

  We no sooner entered the cafeteria than I could hear the whispers and speculations--what was Logan doing with the crummy Casteels? Tom was there, as if Logan had invited him earlier, and for some reason that made me feel much better. Now I could smile and help Our Jane sit at a long table. Keith crowded as close to her side as possible and looked around shyly. "Everybody still want tuna fish sandwiches and milk?" asked Logan, who had asked Tom to go with him to help bring back our lunches. Our Jane and Keith stuck to their preference, while I agreed to try the hamburger and cola drink. I looked around while Tom and Logan were gone, trying to see Fanny. She wasn't in the cafeteria. That gave me another worry. Fanny had her own ways of gaining a meal.

  All about us, people kept whispering, not seeming to care if I heard or not. "What's he doing with her? She's just a hillbilly. And his family has to be rich."

  Logan Stonewall drew many an eye as he came back with Tom, both of them smiling and happy to deliver tuna sandwiches, hamburgers, french fries, and shakes, and milk too. Both Our Jane and Keith were overwhelmed by all the food, wanting to sip my shake, taste my hamburger, try the french fries, so I ended up with the milk and Our Jane drank my cola, closing her eyes tight with delight. "I'll buy you another," Logan offered, but I refused to allow him to do that. He'd already done more than enough.

  I found out he really was fifteen. He smiled with pleasure when I whispered my age. He had to know my birthdate, as if that mattered, and it seemed it did; his mother believed in astrology. He told me how he'd managed to have himself assigned to the study hall where I sat each day to do my homework. I always tried to finish it there so I could take novels home instead of schoolbooks.

  For the first time in my life I had a real boyfriend, one who didn't presume I was easy just because I lived in the hills. Logan didn't mock my clothes or my background. However, from day one Logan made enemies in our school, because he was different, too good-looking, his clothes too "citified." His poise was too annoying, his family too rich, his father too educated, his mother too haughty. It was presumed by the other boys he was a sissy. Even that first day Tom said that one day Logan would have to prove himself. The other boys tried all their silly, but not so harmless, pranks. They put tacks in his shoes in the gym; they tied his shoelaces together so he'd be late to his next class after gym; they put glue in his shoes, and backed away when he grew angry and threatened to beat the culprit.

  Before his first week was over Logan was placed two grades above Tom's and my level. By that time he, too, wore jeans and plaid shirts, but more expensive designer jeans, and shirts that came from some place in New England called Bean's. He still stuck out despite the clothes. He was too soft-spoken and polite when others were rude, loud, and rough. He refused to act like the other boys, refused to use their foul language.

  .

  On Friday I skipped study hall, much to Tom's amazement. He couldn't stop questioning me as we strolled home in bright September sunshine. It was still warm enough so Tom could dive into the river, clothes and all--though he did pull off his worn sneakers. I fell on the grassy bank with Our Jane cuddled near my side, and Keith gazed up at a squirrel perched on a tree limb. I said without thought to Tom as he splashed around, "I wish to God I'd been born with silvery-gold hair"; then I bit down hard on my tongue from the way Tom turned to stare at me. He shook his head to throw off the water as a dog would. Fortunately, Fanny had dropped far, far behind as we trudged home, and even from where we were, we could hear her faint lilting giggles coming over the hills and through the woods.

  "Heavenly, do ya know now?" Tom asked in the oddest hesitant whisper.

  "Know what?"

  "Why ya want silvery-blond hair when what ya got is fine, jus fine?"

  "Just a crazy wish, I guess."

  "Now wait a minute, Heavenly. If ya an me are gonna stay friends, an more than just brother and sister, ya gotta be on the square. Do ya or don't ya know who had that silvery-gold color of hair?"

  "Do you know?" I tried to evade.

  "Sure I know." He came out of the water, and we headed toward home. "Always have known," he said softly, "since 'first time I went t'school. Boys in the rest room told me about Pa's first city wife from Boston with her long silvery-gold hair, an how everybody jus knew she couldn't last livin up in t'hills. Jus kept on hopin ya'd neva find out, an stop thinking I was so durn wonderful. Cause I ain't that wonderful. Got no Boston blood in me, no rich genes that's been cultured an civilized--like you got. I got one hundred percent dumb hillbilly genes, despite what you and Miss Deale think."

  It hurt to hear him say such things. "Don't you talk like that, Thomas Luke Casteel! You heard Miss Deale talk on that subject the other day. The most brilliant parents in the world often give birth to idiots . . . and idiots can give birth to genius! Didn't she say that it was nature's way to equalize? Didn't she say that sometimes when parents are too smart, they seem to use up all the brain fodder on themselves and leave none of it for their children? Remember all she said about nothing in nature being predictable? The only reason you don't get all the A's I do is because you play hooky too much! You must keep on believing what Miss Deale said about all of us being unique, born for a purpose only we can fulfill. Thomas Luke, you keep remembering that."

  "You keep remembering it too," he said, gruffly, turning to give me a hard look, "and stop crying out in the night to be different than what you are. I like what you are now." His green eyes were soft and luminous in the dim shade of the piny woods. "You're my fair gypsy sister, ten times more important to me than my whole sister, Fanny, who doesn't really give a damn about anybody but herself. She doesn't love me as you do, and I can't love her as much as I can love you. You're the only sister I got who can put her mind on a star in another universe." He looked so sad then, making me hurt inside.

  "Tom, I'm gonna cry if you say one more thing! It makes me ache to think someday you might go away and I'll never see you again."

  He shook his head, making his red hair ruffle in layers. "I'd never go anywhere you didn't want me to go, Heavenly. It's you and me- together, all our lives through. You know, like they say in books, through thick and thin, through rain and snow . . . through the dark of night."

  Laughing, I answered, "Th
at's the mail, silly." Tears were in my eyes as I reached to take his hand and squeeze it. "Let's just promise never, so help us God, will we ever go separate ways, or be angry with one another, or feel differently about each other than we feel now."

  He had me then in his arms, holding me as if I were made of spun glass and any second I'd break. He choked when he said, "Someday you'll get married--I know you say you won't, but Logan Stonewall is already looking with calf eyes at you."

  "How can he love me when he doesn't know me?"

  His face bowed into my hair. "All he needs to do is look at your face, your eyes--that's enough. Everything about you is written on your face, shining in your eyes."

  I pulled away and brushed at my tears. "Pa never sees what you do, does he?"

  "Why do you let him hurt you so much?"

  "Oh, Tom . . . !" I wailed, falling into his arms and really beginning to cry. "How am I ever going to have any confidence in myself when my own father can't stand to look at me? There must be something evil he sees in me that makes him hate me."

  He stroked my hair, my back, and there were tears in his eyes when I looked, as if my pain were his. "Someday Pa's gonna find out he don't hate ya, Heavenly. I know that day's comin soon."

  I yanked away.

  "No, it's not ever coming! You know it as much as I know it. Pa thinks I killed his angel by being born, and in a thousand years he won't forgive me! And if you want to know what I think, I think my mother was damned lucky to escape him! For sooner or later he'd have been as mean to her as he is to Sarah now!"

  We were both shaken by this kind of frankness. He pulled me back and tried to smile, but he only looked sad. "Pa doesn't love Ma, Heavenly. He's miserable with Ma. From all I've heard, he did love your mother. He married mine only because she was pregnant with me, and he tried for once to do the right thing."

  "Because Granny made him do the right thing!" I flared with hot bitterness.

  "Nobody kin make Pa do what he sets his mind against, remember that."

  "I'm remembering," I said, with thoughts of how Pa refused to let himself really look at me.

  Again it was Monday, and we were all in school. Miss Deale expounded on the joys of reading Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, but I was dying to get on to study hall.

  "Heaven," said Miss Deale, her baby-blue eyes fixed on me, "are you listening, or daydreaming?"

  "Listening!"

  "What was the poem I just discussed?"

  For the life of me I couldn't remember one word she'd said in the last half hour, and that was not my way. Oh, I had to stop thinking of that darn Logan. Yet, when I was in the study hall and Logan was seated to my right, I began feeling the strangest kind of sensations whenever our eyes met. His hair wasn't a true brown or black, but a blend with auburn highlights, with a little gold where the summer sun had streaked it. Really, I had to force myself not to glance his way again, since every time I did he was staring at me.

  Logan smiled before he whispered: "Who in the world was ingenious enough to give you such a name as Heaven? I've never known of anyone with that name before."

  I had to swallow twice so I could say it just right. "My father's first wife named me minutes after I was born, and then Leigh because that was her Christian name. Granny said she wanted to give me something uplifting, and Heaven is about as uplifting as a name can get."

  "It's the most beautiful name I have ever heard. Where is your mother now?"

  "Dead in a cemetery," I said bluntly, forgetting to be charming and coquettish, something Fanny never forgot. "She died minutes after I was born, and because she did, my father can't forgive me for taking her life."

  "Absolutely no talking in this room!" shouted Mr. Prakins. "The next one who speaks will receive fifteen hours' detention after school!"

  Logan's eyes softened with compassion and sympathy. And the minute Mr. Prakins left the room, Logan again whispered: "I'm sorry it happened that way, but you said it wrong. Your mother isn't dead in a cemetery--she's passed into the great beyond, into a better place, into heaven."

  "If there is a heaven or a hell, I've been thinking it's right here on earth."

  "How old are you anyway, one hundred and twenty?"

  "You know I'm thirteen!" I flared angrily. "Just feeling two hundred and fifty today."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's better than feeling thirteen, that's why!"

  Logan cleared his throat, glanced at Mr. Prakins, who kept his eyes on us through a glass wall, and risked another whisper, "Would it be all right if I walked you home today? I've never talked to anyone as old as two hundred and fifty, and you've got my curiosity aroused. I'd sure like to hear what you have to say."

  I nodded, feeling a bit sick as well as exuberant. Now I'd tricked myself into a situation that might disappoint him with only ordinary answers. What did I know about wisdom, old age, or anything else?

  Still, he showed up on the edge of the schoolyard, where all the boys walking home with hill girls waited until their choices showed up. And there stood Fanny.

  She spun about, flinging her hair over her face, then tossed it back, whipping around to make it fan out in a circle; grinning broadly when she saw Logan, as if she thought he was coming for her. A short distance from Fanny stood Tom and Keith. Tom seemed surprised to find Logan waiting near our trail. Ours was just a faint path through the underbrush that led to the woods, and eventually to only our cabin nearest the sky. The minute Fanny saw Logan and me heading for our trail she let out a whoop so loud and embarrassing I wanted to drop dead.

  "Heaven, what ya doin with that new boy? Ya know ya don't like boys! Ain't ya done said a million times yer neva gonna be nothin but a dried-up ole schoolteacher?"

  I tried to ignore Fanny, though my face turned beet-red. What kind of sisterly loyalty was she showing anyway? I knew better than to expect tact. I tried to smile at Logan. It was always best to ignore Fanny, if possible.

  Logan stared at her with disapproval, as did Tom.

  "Fanny, please don't say one more word," I said uncomfortably. "Just run along home, and start the wash for a change."

  "I neva have t'walk home with only a brotha," Fanny said to Logan in a sneering way before she turned on her most brilliant smile. "Boys don't like Heaven, they always like me. Ya'll like me, too. Ya wanna hold my hand?"

  Logan glanced at me, at Tom, and then said seriously to Fanny, "Thank you, but right now I'm intent on seeing Heaven home, and hearing all that she has to tell me."

  "Ya should hear me sing!"

  "Another time, Fanny, I'll listen to you sing."

  "Our Jane sings . ." said Keith faintly.

  "She sure does!" exclaimed Tom, seizing Fanny by the arm and pulling her along with him. "Come along, Keith. Our Jane is home waiting for you." That's all

  Keith needed to hear to hurry after Tom, for Our Jane had missed school today due to another tummyache and a fever.

  Fanny broke away from Tom and came running back to scowl and yell before she stuck out her tongue. "Yer selfish, Heaven Leigh Casteel! Mean, skinny, an ugly too! Hate yer hair! Hate yer silly name! Hate yer everythin! I do! Ya just wait till I tell Pa what yer doin! Pa won't like ya fer takin charity from some strange city boy who pities ya--eatin his hamburgers an stuff, an teachin Our Jane an Keith t'beg!"

  Oh, now Fanny was at her worst, jealous, spiteful, and apt to do just what she threatened, and Pa would punish me!

  "Fanny," called Tom, running to catch her. "You can have my new watercolor set if you keep yer trap shut about Logan taking all of us to lunch . . ."

  Instantly Fanny smiled. "All right! I want that color-in book Miss Deale gave ya, too! Don't know why she don't give me nothin!"

  "You don't know why?" sneered Tom, giving her what she asked for even though I knew he wanted that paint set and that coloring book so much it hurt. He'd never had a box of brand-new watercolors before, or a coloring book-about Robin Hood. Robin Hood, this year, was his favorite hero from a book. "When you l
earn to behave yerself in t'cloakroom, maybe Miss Deale will be generous with you, for a change."

  Again I could have died from embarrassment!

  Crying, Fanny fell down on the mountain trail that was gradually spiraling upward through tall trees that appeared to touch the sky. She pounded her small tough fists on the grass, screamed because a stone was hidden there and it drew blood. Sucking on that, she sat up and stared at Tom with huge pleading eyes. "Don't tell Pa, please, please."

  Tom promised.

  I promised. Though I still wanted to vanish and not see Logan's wide eyes drinking all this in, as if never in his life had he witnessed such a stupid, illmannered scene. I tried to avoid meeting his eyes until he smiled and I saw understanding. "You sure got one family that might age you dramatically inside-- outside, you look younger than springtime."

  "Yer stealin words from a song!" yelled Fanny. "Ya ain't supposed t'court a gal with song words!"

  "Oh, dry up!" ordered Tom, seizing her arm again and running so she had to race with him or have her arm pulled off. This gave me my chance to be alone with Logan.

  Keith was again bringing up the rear of our little parade, though he'd stopped to stare up at a robin, mesmerized and not likely to move for at least ten minutes--if the bird didn't fly away.

  "Your sister is really something else," said Logan when finally we were as good as alone on the trail. Keith was far behind us and so quiet. I kept my thoughts to myself. Valley boys thought all hill girls were easy for any boy hoping to experiment with sex. As young as she was, Fanny had caught the hill spirit and its easy sexuality that came much earlier than it did in low places. Perhaps it was due to all the copulating we saw going on in our yards and in our one- or two-room shacks. There was no need for sex education in our hills; sex hit you in the face the moment you knew a man from a woman.

  Logan cleared his throat to remind me he was there. "I'm ready to hear all your years of accumulated wisdom. I'd take notes, but I find it difficult to write while walking. But next time, I could bring along a tape recorder."