Chance and the Butterfly

by Maggie De Vries

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s see. It’s Wednesday today. I don’t like you missing school, Chance, but I can’t have you here if you are going to punch other children or destroy their belongings. I think a two-day suspension will give you enough time to think about things. Plus the rest of today. So you’ll be permitted back in the school on Monday, but the consequences will be much more serious if anything like this happens again. Is that understood?”

  Her words washed over him at first, but all of a sudden what she was saying came through. She was suspending him until Monday. He couldn’t stay away until Monday. Who knew what might happen between now and then?

  “Mrs. Laurence, please,” he said quickly. “I’ll think about it all afternoon. I know I shouldn’t have done that stuff. I know that. I’ll apologize to Ralph again. And to Martha. I’ll tape her paper back together. But please let me come back to school tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Laurence looked surprised, but Chance figured that it was hard for a school principal to resist a kid who begged to come to school. And he figured right. When Doug arrived and took him away, not a word was said about Thursday and Friday. He was only being suspended for the day.

  It was a quiet afternoon. Louise wasn’t screaming quite so much lately. Chance spent a long time in the family room coaxing her to roll over and dangling a variety of toys within reach. Angie sat on the couch with a novel, turning a page once in a while, but slipping into a doze in between times.

  At one point she said gently, “What’s making you feel like punching kids, Chance, and tearing up their work? Is something wrong at school? Or here? Or is it stuff you’re thinking about from before?”

  Chance tucked his finger into Louise’s palm and felt that satisfying tight baby grip. Angie’s questions made him feel kind of good, even though he didn’t have the answers to them either.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled back. “I just get mad sometimes.”

  “What happened that made you mad?” she asked.

  “Nothing special,” he said. He knew that he was mad about the butterflies and mad at himself, but how was he supposed to explain that?

  Angie waited a moment and then turned back to her book. Chance put his hands around the baby’s thick middle, picked her up and set her on his lap. She gurgled a grin at him, and his stomach turned over in delight.

  The afternoon wore on.

  Chance was in his own little reverie, feeding Louise watered-down juice from a bottle, when Angie jumped up.

  “Goodness,” she said. “It’s five to three and I’ve done nothing all afternoon!” She leaned down and took Louise from his arms. “I’m going to put her in her chair and get some laundry in.”

  Chance didn’t like letting Louise go. He hated Angie’s bustle and determination. The peaceful afternoon was over. But, come to think of it, maybe the timing was just right.

  “I’ll be out back,” Chance called to Angie down the basement stairs. “See you, Louise,” he said. Then, “See you, sis,” he tried. Not bad.

  He went out the door that led from the kitchen into the backyard, but he didn’t linger. He had about three minutes to get to school before the bell. At least six butterflies were fluttering around the butterfly bush, and he hadn’t even glanced their way in the morning. Now he was desperate to see them. To see them and to visit Matilda, the butterfly to be. He might get into more trouble, or he might not. But as he ran the three blocks to school, he was the happiest he had been in a long time. Maybe ever, he thought, and discovered that it was hard to grin and gasp for breath at the same time.

  He didn’t quite make it. The bell went when he was still half a block away from school. But that should be okay, as long as Mark had been told that he was gone and didn’t show up to get him, or just come out first and see him. Mark’s classroom was a long way away from the exit. He should be safe. And he was. He had mixed himself in with a crowd of grade fours and was well out of Mark’s path when Mark left the school with a friend. Chance waited until Mark was across the street and well on his way before he slipped into the school and through the door to his own classroom.

  “Hi, Ms. Samson,” he said, startling her. “I’m sorry I tore Martha’s storyboard. I could fix it for her if you like. But can I see the butterflies?” He spoke quickly, heading for the bush at the same time. If Ms. Samson replied, Chance didn’t hear her.

  The butterfly bush had finally earned its name. It was covered in beautiful, beautiful butterflies. Painted ladies. They were orangey and black with white spots and long, delicate feelers. Chance stood for a long time and stared.

  “Does your family know you’re here?” Ms. Samson asked when he looked up. Chance shook his head. She stood. “I’ll walk you home when I get back,” she said and left the room.

  Chance’s chair had not been stacked, so he fetched Matilda and went to his desk. Sitting down, he lifted the container, peered through the side and gasped. Matilda was dangling from the lid.

  With great care, he snapped the lid off and lifted it to look more closely. She hung, moving a bit, from a little ball of thread that Chance knew was her silk. Matilda had attached.

  “All right, Chance. Time to go. Angie was certainly glad to hear that you’re safe. Mark arrived and looked for you and…” Ms. Samson was talking as she entered the room. But she stopped when she saw what Chance was doing.

  “She attached,” Chance said.

  “Oh,” Ms. Samson said, “I’m so glad! On Friday morning she’ll be ready to join the others on the butterfly bush.”

  Then Ms. Samson and Chance left the school together.

  Chapter 18

  It was a long week for Chance. He knew he would have to wait seven days or so for Matilda to transform herself. But by Friday, about half the other chrysalides had cracked open and released brand-new butterflies into the world.

  The classroom was aflutter with butterflies and with excited children. Chance was excited some of the time, but he worried too. After all, he had buried the dead chrysalid. He knew what could happen. And Matilda wasn’t really changing in there. At least not that he could see.

  Then another thought occurred to him. If Matilda didn’t die, if she transformed the way she was supposed to, she would be released. She would fly away into the world with all the rest of the butterflies. Chance knew that he should be happy about that. But he wasn’t.

  He stopped working on his storyboard. And when Ms. Samson asked him if he wanted to skip Learning Assistance on Friday afternoon to join the class in releasing the butterflies, he said no. He noted that Ken wasn’t going to get to go either. For some reason or other, his father was picking him up at noon.

  When Mrs. Johnson, his LA teacher, pulled out a story to read to her small Friday-afternoon group, Chance used Ralph’s line. “We’ve heard that one a million times,” he grumbled. Mrs. Johnson read it anyway, but she stopped four times to ask Chance to keep his hands and feet to himself.

  Afterward she gave them paper and pencils and asked them to draw a picture and write a word or two about the story. Chance grabbed the first pencil and deliberately snapped the tip off, ripping a hole in his paper and making a mark on the table. Mrs. Johnson gave him a new pencil and a fresh sheet of paper. Chance did it again.

  “You’d better go back to class,” Mrs. Johnson said, in a calm, even voice.

  “I can’t go back. They’re not there,” Chance shot back.

  So he spent the last twenty minutes of Learning Assistance sitting at the other table with no pencils or paper, or anything else for that matter, within reach.

  Back in class, the kids seemed like volcanoes. Excitement erupted from them like molten lava. Chance did his best to ignore them, but he was their audience of one. They refused to leave him alone.

  “You should have seen them, Chance,” Ralph shouted across the room.

  “Yeah,” said Martha, just loud enough for him to hear. “You really should have come instead of staying behind sulking like a baby.”

  The
shove he gave her then felt very controlled to Chance. He mouthed “Shut up!” at her at the same time, feeling the words on his teeth. Martha did not shut up, nor was Ms. Samson impressed with his self-control. Chance was kept after school once again. But Mrs. Laurence was not called in. To his great relief, he was not suspended.

  “Can you see her wings yet?” Mark asked after school. He hadn’t been allowed in the classroom because Chance was in trouble.

  “Shut up!” Chance yelled back. “Can’t you just shut up?” He felt the words deeper this time, in his chest.

  Mark shrugged his shoulders. “Walk by yourself then,” he said bluntly and took off for the park.

  Then it was the weekend.

  When Chance got out of bed on Saturday morning and pulled back the dark curtain, light streamed into the room. The trees were swaying violently in the wind, but the sky was brilliant blue. Chance hoped that the butterflies weren’t having trouble in that wind.

  And now it was Saturday—windy, bright, fresh Saturday. Matilda was locked up in the school and inside her own unchanging skin. Mark was mad at him again. And Angie and Doug were planning to drag him and Mark and Louise to some faraway park at the beach for the day. He had almost been pleased when they mentioned it. After all, he had hardly ever been to the beach.

  Chance got himself dressed in runners, jeans and a sweatshirt. Then he slumped on his unmade bed, feet sticking out over the floor, and let his head clunk back against the wall. He could hear footsteps and muffled talk; Louise cried once for a minute or two. He could smell cooking. Probably pancakes and bacon, he thought. He loved pancakes and bacon. But not today. He lifted his head from the wall and let it clunk back once more.

  Without a single word or knock of warning, his door opened.

  “Get a move on, el creepo. My mom wants you down for breakfast, now.”

  Chance let the words, especially the my mom, glance off. He didn’t even blink until Mark was gone. Then he wiggled forward until his feet met the floor, heaved himself to his feet and began the long, slow journey to the kitchen table.

  It was a good thing that Louise’s car seat was in the middle, between Mark and Chance. Angie and Doug tried to make conversation at first, but soon Angie gave up and put the radio on. Chance kept his face glued to the window the whole way, almost an hour, to the beach.

  The last few blocks went slowly. Every light was red, and the whole city seemed to be out and about. Streams of pedestrians crossed at every corner, all headed, Chance figured, for the water. Then Doug saw a parking spot, and the drive was over.

  “We’ll walk from here,” he said. “The lots at the beach are probably jammed.”

  “It’s not summer,” Mark said. “What are all these people doing here?”

  “Same as us, I guess,” Angie said.

  Louise was perched high on Doug’s back, and the picnic and blanket were divided up among the rest of them. Chance hefted his bundle silently and off they trudged. It was hard to stay grumpy amid the throng though. Everyone was smiling and chattering away. Was it just the weather, Chance wondered?

  Finally, they crossed a last street and found themselves in an avenue of enormous trees, staring ahead at the water, rough, whitecapped. Both boys took off at a run.

  “We’ll see you at the water,” Doug shouted, waving them on.

  At the edge of the sand, they dumped their bundles and scuffed off their shoes. The sand was cold and sharp, more gravel than anything else, but they didn’t care. Moments later they were standing on the hard, flat surface at the water’s edge. Gulping salty air, they looked at each other and grinned. Then they turned back to the water just in time to shout a late warning to one another. They stumbled backward, but waves were already swirling around their feet and licking at their calves.

  “It’s a good thing I brought towels,” Angie said, laughing, when Mark and Chance joined them at the top of the beach.

  Shoes back on over sandy feet, Mark and Chance took off again, this time along the walkway beside the sand. Every kind of person imaginable shared the path with them—all ages, all sizes, all styles of dress, using every non-motorized form of transport known to humankind. They passed a concession stand, wishing in vain for a few dollars for fries or ice cream, stopped to watch beach volleyball for a while and then meandered on. They came to a basketball court and stopped, transfixed. This was the real thing. The players were good, really good. And they were tall, way taller than they looked on TV.

  “I’ll bet there’re some NBA players out there,” Mark said.

  Chance nodded. He was impressed, but he wanted to go on. Most people seemed to be walking in the same direction he and Mark had been. They were going somewhere. He could tell.

  “Let’s watch on the way back,” he suggested.

  “I want to hang out here. You go on ahead if you like. Pick me up on your way back.”

  Chance stood still, wanting to go, but knowing he shouldn’t.

  “Oh, come on, kid. Mom and Dad don’t need to know. There are lots of kids around. Just blend in.”

  So Chance did. He walked on, part of the happy crowd. He looked around at all the families, all the mothers and fathers and children on family outings. Well, he thought to himself, he was on a family outing too, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he?

  He came around a bend, and all such thoughts tumbled out of his head. Kites. That was what everyone was here to see. Kites. He had come upon a huge sloping green field, water on two sides, open to the wind. The field was filled with busy people. And the sky was filled with kites. Kites twirling, twisting and dancing in the wind. Kites in all shapes. Kites in all colors. He saw dragons, box-shaped kites, winged kites and butterfly kites. On his right, a man was flying a matched pair, doing a dance in perfect unison. They made a whizzing sound like race cars on the track.

  Chance walked slowly around the field, gazing upward. Sometimes he tried to trace a kite down to its owner on the ground. Not always easy. About halfway around, he stopped to watch a small kite that stood apart from the others. It was orange and red and green, with a brilliant yellow tail, but its colors blurred together because of the speed and intricacy of its dance. Chance found himself hoping that Matilda would fly like that one day soon—better than that, because she would not be constrained by a string. He smiled and began to work his way down from the little kite, searching for the skilled person who could make it dance in such glory. He found himself staring at Ken.

  Chance’s first impulse was to step forward, to call out a greeting. His second was to back away, to stay out of sight. He did neither. He stayed where he was and watched. Ken controlled the string and ran at the same time, every part of him connected with that brilliant diamond in the sky. At one point he shouted, and Chance saw that the man who had picked Ken up at lunch yesterday was flying one of the matched sets. Ken’s father. The man grinned and shouted back. Was it for this that Ken had left early yesterday?

  Now Ken was coming to a stop, staring up at his kite, trying some new move, Chance thought. He was close by, just across the path. Chance stepped forward.

  “Ken,” he called loudly. Ken looked, but he seemed to look beyond Chance, at something behind him. Chance half turned in time to see Angie running toward him, full tilt.

  “Chance, there you are, thank god,” Angie was saying as she ran the last few feet and folded him into her arms.

  Chance squirmed, annoyed. There was Mark, standing behind her. He looked annoyed too. Chance looked back toward Ken just in time to see Ken’s kite plummet to the ground, tangled with a big kite shaped like a fish. Ken’s face was twisted in anger.

  “You,” he yelled, “you made me do this. You make trouble at school. And now here…”

  “I’m sorry,” Chance said, freeing himself from Angie’s grasp. “I didn’t mean to do that. I…Your kite is so beautiful! And you’re amazing! You made it dance!”

  But Ken didn’t seem to hear. He was running to where his kite had hit the ground, running to protect it from al
l the trampling feet.

  Chance watched for a moment more. Then he turned to face Angie. Yes, he knew it was dangerous to go off alone. Yes, he understood that he was too far away, that it wasn’t safe, an eight-year-old all alone among all these people. But while he nodded his head or mumbled yes, over and over, he would not have missed seeing those kites for anything. He would talk to Ken again on Monday. Ken would have to understand.

  Chapter 19

  On Monday morning five more butterflies had come into the world. But Chance barely glanced at them, so intent was he on his own special chrysalis. As he stared, a warm glow started in his belly and spread to his chest. Tears pricked at his eyes. Friday’s white, dead-looking skin was now almost see-through. And through it, he could see the hint of a wing, a delicate black and orange wing.

  Chance danced to his desk, dragging his chair to the loud complaints of his classmates. He didn’t care about a thing until he faced Ken. Ken looked at him for a moment, his eyes ice. Then he turned back to his work. As the day passed, Chance tried to catch Ken’s eye again, to find an opportunity to apologize, to tell him one more time how amazing his flying had been. But Ken never once let that happen.

  On Tuesday morning, Ms. Samson announced that they would be releasing the rest of the butterflies before lunch. “Mr. Redding’s class are releasing their butterflies first thing,” she said, “so all the butterflies can go out into the world together.”

  “What about the last one,” Chance called out. “She’s still in her chrysalis.”

  “Yes,” Ms. Samson said, “that’s all right, Chance. We’ll release her when she’s ready.”

  Chance had a lot on his mind when he went out for recess. But all his worries turned to horror when he rounded the school and took in the scene before him. At first it seemed like nothing. Just two boys playing some sort of throwing game with rocks against the side of the school. Then he saw what they were aiming at. One of Mr. Redding’s butterflies was perched high on the wall. Those boys were trying to kill it!