Dragonfly Secret

by Carolyn J. Gold

  Chapter Five

  I woke up early the next morning and went over to the desk to check on the fairy. She had moved during the night, shifting so that her wings were folded behind her and along her back. The broken one jutted out sideways, as awkward as a square wheel on a bike. I wondered if it hurt. She wasn’t moving at all, just lying there like a dead grasshopper. She looked pitiful.

  Gramps and Jessie weren’t up yet. I went to the kitchen for breakfast in my pajamas like I always do, and Mother made me go back and get dressed before she let me eat. I decided right then, even before she arrived, that I wasn’t going to like Miss Ryderson. Our lives were going to be miserable while she was here.

  I thought of running away, but it wouldn’t do any good. Maybe, I thought, I’ll run away later, if they decide to make Gramps leave. Sort of a reverse kidnapping. I’d stay away until they had to let him come home.

  Miss Ryderson arrived at eight thirty. She had on a skirt and sweater this time, without the jacket, and she didn’t look so official. I decided she wasn’t even as old as Mother. I wondered what gave her the right to decide if old people should be put in nursing homes if they didn’t want to go. She had a nice smile, though. I knew I’d better try to be friendly for Gramps’s sake, so I smiled back.

  “Call me Carol,” she said when Mother introduced us. “I don’t want to be in the way, but I will have to ask you some questions.” Just like a policeman, I thought. As if we were criminals.

  After breakfast she sat in the living room asking Gramps a lot of questions. I could tell he wanted to be rude. He usually got up and left if somebody pestered him that way. But he just sat there and answered her as if there was nothing he’d rather be doing.

  Jessie and I went into my room and closed the door. We leaned over the lizard cage to look at the fairy.

  “She dropped her doll,” Jessie said.

  The fairy had moved again, as if she had been tossing and turning in her sleep, and one golden brown arm hung down off the doll bed where Gramps had laid her. The thing she had been holding was on the floor next to her. I picked it up with my thumb and first finger, being as gentle as I could. It was about as big as a large raisin, but pale gold, like sand or dry grass.

  “I still say it looks like a beetle grub,” I said, holding it on the palm of my hand so Jessie could see it. “Maybe a pupa, like a cocoon, only waxy instead of spun.”

  “Could it be food?”

  “You mean, like a fairy lunch box? How should I know? Dragonflies eat mosquitoes and bugs. I suppose she could be carrying it around until it hatches so she can eat it.”

  “Could it be a dragonfly baby doll?” Jessie asked.

  I shook my head. “No, a dragonfly baby wouldn’t look like that. Dragonflies don’t make pupas. They live in the water and look like ugly, mean worms with ferocious mouths and lots of legs. They keep shedding their skin as they grow, and one day what climbs out of the old skin is a dragonfly instead of a hellgrammite. That’s what they’re called: hellgrammites.”

  “But she’s not really a dragonfly. She just looks like one.” Jessie took the little lump out of my hand. “I’m going to pretend it’s her doll and put it in a little cradle.” She got a tiny box from her doll things and put in a scrap of cloth. She put the grub-thing on top and folded the cloth over it like a blanket.

  “There. Now she’ll know we want to be friends.”

  Sure, I thought. We mashed her on the front of our car, locked her up in a glass cage, and she’s going to think we want to be friends because we wrapped her lunch box or whatever it was in a torn blanket. I didn’t say that, though. Maybe Jessie was right.

  “I think we should find something for her to eat,” Jessie said. She acted as if she was playing house with one of her dolls. I half expected her to go get her little plastic dishes and set up a tea party. She surprised me, though.

  “Nathan, what do you think she eats? She’s too pretty to eat mosquitoes like a dragonfly. Do you think she eats seeds and plants?”

  “Maybe. We can’t do anything but guess, Jessie. I can’t look her up in the encyclopedia, or call the library to ask them. Nobody even believes in fairies, not really. So there aren’t any books about them that aren’t pretend.”

  “How about flowers?” Jessie persisted. “She probably doesn’t have a long tongue like a bee, but maybe she can reach into big flowers and get the honey out.”

  “Nectar. Well, maybe.”

  “I think I’ll put in a bunch of things and see which ones she likes.”

  “Fine. But don’t take up too much space. If she tries to move we don’t want her to hit anything with her wings.” If she tried to move. I was afraid she was already dead, but I didn’t want to poke at her to find out.

  Gramps knocked softly at the bedroom door and came in as Jessie left to look for flowers. I stood in front of the lizard cage, afraid that Miss Ryderson would be right behind him, but she wasn’t. Gramps seemed to read my mind.

  “I think I’m on recess or something. Danged woman has more paperwork for me to fill out than I’ve seen since I got out of the army.”

  “I didn’t know you were in the army, Gramps,” I said.

  He stumped across the room. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. When you visit me in the rest home.” He pointed into the cage. “What’s that?”

  “Jessie put that lumpy thing in a cradle. She thinks it’s a doll.”

  “Doll,” Gramps snorted. “Just as likely a suitcase. Or some dumb decorator thing like one of your mother’s glass lamps.” He always made fun of the lamps. I thought they were kind of pretty. Mother said they gave our living room a touch of class, whatever that meant.

  “Where’d Jessie go?”

  “Out looking for something for our fairy to eat. Gramps, if it lives, it won’t be able to fly with that broken wing.”

  “Nope,” he agreed.

  “I don’t think it will heal, either. Insect wings are strong and stiff, but I don’t think they mend themselves like bones. They seem more like fingernails. If you break one, all you can do is cut it off.”

  Gramps stood staring at the fairy, cupping the old pipe my grandmother had given him in one hand. After a minute he said, “Wouldn’t help none to cut it off. Wouldn’t grow back. The critter couldn’t fly with only three, and one of them torn at the tip, too.”

  “How can we let her go if she can’t fly?”

  He turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Nathan, I don’t think she’s even going to live. I killed her when I caught her on the front of the car.”

  “Maybe,” I said, suddenly feeling stubborn. “But we have to act as if she’s going to be all right. If she dies, there’s nothing we can do, but if she lives . . . Gramps, we’ve got to find a way to fix that wing.”

  He looked at me for a minute. Then he took his hand off my shoulder and turned back to the cage. The fairy hadn’t moved. “You’re right, Nathan. It’s like everything else in life. You have to do the best you can and hope everything comes out all right. You can’t but lose if you quit playing before the game is over.”

  There was a sound at the door and we both spun around. It was only Jessie, her hands full of flowers. “I told Miss Ryderson it was a bouquet, to decorate our rooms. I even gave her one of the roses. I think she liked that. She says she’s ready for the test you need to take, Gramps.”

  Jessie moved toward the cage, and Gramps started toward the door. “Guess I better get back before she comes looking for me.” He stopped with one hand on the doorknob. “About that wing, Nathan. We better do whatever we’re going to do tonight, after Miss Busybody leaves. If we wait much longer it may be too late.”

  I watched Jessie put three or four flowers in the cage. The fairy didn’t move. Maybe we were already too late. But we had to try something. I sat on my bed and tried to think.

  I never wanted to be a doctor. I never paid much attention to insects, either, the way my friend Brad does. He has a big collection of butterflies and beet
les and things. Probably dragonflies, too, though I never noticed. I wondered for a minute if one of his books would tell how to mend a broken wing. Then I shook my head. Brad didn’t heal bugs; he killed them and stuck them on pins and labeled them for his collection.

  Brad couldn’t help. Nobody could. It had to be us. We had to come up with an idea, but what? I knew Gramps had lots of good ideas, but Miss Ryderson was keeping him busy and worried besides. He wouldn’t even have time to think about the fairy. Jessie was an eight-year-old girl, with dolls and dress-up clothes, even if she did like to play ball and ride bikes with me.

  Maybe I was just a twelve-year-old boy who liked to read and play outside and watch monster movies, but I was the one who had to figure it out. It wasn’t going to be easy. The closest thing to fairy wings I knew anything about was model airplanes.

  And then I knew what we could do.

  Chapter Six

  “You’ve got the beginning of a good idea there,” Gramps said after supper. “Only I don’t think model glue will do it. Too messy. What we need is some of that newfangled stuff where one drop is s’posed to hold up seven cows and a steam locomotive.”

  He was exaggerating, of course, but I knew what he meant. “Mother’s got some. She used it to fix a broken vase.” I hurried to the kitchen to ask if I could use it.

  Mother was still cleaning away the supper dishes. “Honestly, Nathan,” she said, wiping soapy dishwater off her hands. “If you can’t help at least you could stay out of the way until I’m finished.” She dug the tube of glue out of a drawer and handed it to me.

  “Thanks, Mother.” I gave her a little kiss on the cheek, not because I wanted to but because I knew she’d like it. “I’ll do the dishes tomorrow night.” Her mouth dropped open in surprise. We took turns washing the dishes, and tomorrow was one of her nights again. I didn’t wait for her to say anything. I wanted to get back to my room with the glue.

  Gramps reached into the cage and picked up the unconscious fairy. He gently stroked her wings until they opened. Then he smoothed the broken one.

  “The glue’ll prob’ly hold, but that wing won’t be much for strength. We need something to reinforce ‘er.”

  “A matchstick?” I suggested.

  “Too thick. Make it too heavy and she’d be lopsided. Matches are soft, too. Might get wet and rot away.”

  I shuddered at the thought. “How about a toothpick, then? They’re thin, and made out of really hard wood.”

  “Good thinking. Go get us a couple. Make sure they’re the flat kind.”

  “I went last time. Jessie, why don’t you go so Mother won’t ask too many questions.”

  “What should I say it’s for?”

  “What would a toothpick be for? To clean your teeth. Tell her it’s for Gramps.”

  She went reluctantly, afraid we’d do something while she was gone and she’d miss it. We didn’t, though. We waited until she was back.

  Gramps took the knife he uses to clean his pipe and shaved one of the toothpicks down so it was even thinner. Then he cut it in half so we had two short pieces.

  “Still too long,” he decided, inspecting them. He threw one in my wastebasket and cut the other in half. “That’s more like it.”

  He looked from me to Jessie. “My hands ain’t as steady as they used to be. Gonna need help from both you kids. I’ll hold on to the wing. Nathan, you put a teensy dab of glue on the break to hold it. Then Jessie can put a drop of glue on each splice and Nathan’ll lay them one to each side of the vein over the break.”

  “What’s a splice?” Jessie demanded.

  “The pieces of toothpick, dummy,” I told her. “Just do one at a time. It’s going to be tricky putting them on exactly right.”

  “Wait,” she said, and dashed out of the room.

  I looked at Gramps. “Girls. Where do you suppose she went?”

  He shrugged. “Never mind. Let’s get that first drop of glue on the break.”

  The fairy lay as still as death in his scarred old hands. He held the wing out perfectly straight. “Right there, boy, in the crack.”

  My hands shook a little, but I managed to get a drop on the broken spot. It was a big drop. I wiped away the extra with the other toothpick, careful not to get it stuck.

  “Here!” said Jessie. “You didn’t wait,” she accused.

  “We didn’t know if you’d be back tonight or next week,” I retorted. “Where did you go?”

  “To get these.” She held out Mother’s tweezers.

  “Good going!” I told her, for once thinking that she’d had a really great idea. “I’ll hold them while you put glue on one of the toothpick pieces.”

  She squeezed the watery glue all along the brace, much more smoothly than I could have. I picked it up with the tweezers and gently pushed it into place on the wing. It stuck right away. Gramps turned the fairy over and we repeated the process on the other side.

  “Now all we can do is wait,” Gramps said, putting the fairy back in the cage and arranging her so that the mended wing wouldn’t touch anything until the glue dried. “Let’s go watch television so your mother doesn’t get suspicious.”

  We sat on the sofa and watched a dumb quiz show. Then Mother made popcorn and we ate it while we watched some comedy. I didn’t catch much of the story, because it was finally beginning to sink into my mind that I had a real live fairy in my room. A real live fairy!

  At least I hoped she was alive. After the comedy ended I stretched and said I was going to bed.

  “Your favorite show is on next,” Mother said, giving me a funny look.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot. I’m going to check on the model I was working on. I want to see if the glue is dry. I’ll be back before the show starts.” I just had to check on the fairy.

  “I want to see your model, too,” Jessie chimed in.

  Gramps pushed himself up out of his chair. “Reckon I’ll go to the bathroom. Why don’t you get us some more popcorn, Kate?”

  Mother picked up the empty bowl. “Sounds like a good idea, but we’d better all hurry or we’ll miss the beginning of the show.”

  Gramps and Jessie followed me to my room. The fairy was alive all right. When I switched on the light she sat up and started making strange chirpy noises, like a cricket only fast.

  “It’s all right,” I told her, staying back from the cage so she wouldn’t think I was attacking her. She kept chirping and scrambling around the cage.

  “She’s a mite scared,” Gramps said behind me. “Can’t say as I blame her.”

  Jessie pushed her face up against the cage. “She’s not scared of us. She’s looking for something. I know!” She reached into the cage before I could stop her.

  “Jessie, no!”

  “It’s all right,” Jessie crooned. She unfolded the tiny blanket and pushed the little box closer to the fairy. The fairy grabbed the grub-thing and clutched it to her, sitting back on the bed and rocking gently back and forth. She stopped chirping and started to hum.

  “Well, I’ll be pickled,” Gramps said.

  “I told you it was her baby doll,” Jessie said triumphantly, letting the top of the cage fall back down.

  “You’re sure onto something, girl,” Gramps agreed, leaning close to the glass to peer at the fairy, who was ignoring us now. “But I’d bet dollars to doughnuts it ain’t a doll. It’s a baby.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mother had to work the next day. She does accounting and taxes, mostly at home, but sometimes she has to go to the businesses she works for. “Miss Ryderson will be here this afternoon, so keep the house picked up and do whatever she says,” she told Jessie and me before she left.

  I was glad there were still a few weeks before school started. I wouldn’t have been at all happy to leave Gramps alone with the fairy, especially with Miss Ryderson coming. It wasn’t because I didn’t think he could handle things. Like Jessie, I didn’t want to miss anything.

  We gathered in my room as soon as Mother left, and sat
and watched the fairy. She was moving around now, turning her head to look at her wing and fluttering it softly as if it felt funny. It probably did with those pieces of toothpick glued on, but it was the best we could do.

  After a while she settled down. She put the little lump on the doll bed and started exploring the cage. She ran her hands over the box as if square corners felt strange to her. She stroked the blanket and stuck her nose close to the embroidered flowers. Then she shook her head a little.

  “She wonders why they don’t smell like flowers,” Jessie said as if she could read the fairy’s mind.

  The fairy cupped her hands to drink from the bathtub the same way Jessie and I had at the old pump on the farm. Then she touched each of the real flowers and rubbed her cheek against the petals. She didn’t pay much attention to the fancy ones from Mother’s garden, even the roses, which I could smell all the way across the room. Instead, she tore one of the tiny buds off a clover blossom and put the small end to her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was chewing or drinking. She did the same thing with several more buds and then sat back down on the bed and picked up the little bundle.

  “If that’s a baby fairy, Gramps, what will it look like when it’s born?” Jessie wanted to know. “Will it have wings, or will it be an ugly worm like baby dragonflies?”

  “Hellgrammites, you mean,” Gramps said.

  “That’s an ugly name. I don’t like it.”

  “They’re ugly larvae,” I told her. “Anyway, that’s what they’re called.”

  “Don’t matter much, does it?” Gramps cut in, shifting his unlit pipe to one side of his mouth so he could talk around it. “She ain’t no dragonfly. No telling what her kid would look like.”

  “Can she fly now, Gramps? Did it work the way we fixed her wing?” Jessie was full of questions today. I was, too, but I didn’t figure it would do much good to ask.