Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery

by Charles Martin

  Watching Sketch stand in the driveway, I thought to myself that if the kid gained 150 pounds, he'd make one heck of a strong safety.

  Unc grabbed a single duffel bag from the back of the car, and we all stood around and watched. He walked up to the kid, reached out his hand, and offered it. Sketch looked at it, at all of us, then slowly slipped his hand inside Unc's.

  The two walked up the steps and disappeared into the kitchen, where Aunt Lorna had set the table. She followed. Mandy, Tommye, and I stood in the driveway quietly listening to her breaking the ice trays over dinner glasses. A few minutes later, Unc and Sketch walked back out again-minus the notebook and the chess set.

  They walked around the yard, through the barn, up to the fence where the cows were feeding, and finally across the yard, through the muscadine vines, and into the greenhouse.

  Mandy looked at the glass building and said, "Why'd he take him in there?"

  I smiled. "The orchid speech."

  Chapter 20

  --'e strolled over to the greenhouse and found the light on and Sketch sitting up on a converted bar stool. His feet were nearly two feet off the ground. Unc stood off to one side, pointing out orchids and explaining how old they were, how long he'd had them, where they grow, and how they grow. I don't know how many he's got growing in that house, but I'd say it's close to two hundred.

  "There are about thirty thousand species of these things, and it's not exactly right to call them plants, 'cause they don't grow in soil. Orchids grow mostly in trees or strange places. They need bark to grow, not dirt. They need water-constant water-but not too much. Too much drowns the roots, too little dries them up. They need light, but you don't want to scorch them. Shade helps, too. They need fertilizer-that's a fancy name for plant food. And they need air. You give them those things, and an orchid can grow most anywhere. Side of a tree, top of a house. Orchids can be fragile, but they can also be tough as nails."

  He walked to the other end of the greenhouse and tied a small piece of rope around the stem of one that had leaned too far from its bamboo support. "All they need is a reason." He returned and leaned against the countertop. "They like mild temperatures, not extreme hot or cold." He leaned in close. "Some even smell ... like chocolate, raspberry, lilac, or citrus. It varies."

  He turned on a faucet underneath his bench. The faucet fed into a series of PVC pipes that ran around the interior of the greenhouse like a great maze. The pipes turned and twisted, hugging the contours of the house. Every so often a smaller tube ran out of a larger tube, then fed into an even smaller rubber tube that Unc had laid across the root system of his orchids. When the faucet was on, it spilled small amounts of water across the roots.

  "No matter what anybody tells you, the key is water. More heat, more water. Less heat, less water."

  He walked back near the door, where he had moved all those that were blooming. Around the door was a plethora of purple, red, white, and even light blue blooms in all shapes and sizes.

  "If you spend some time with them, take care of their roots, give 'em a good place to live where they feel safe, and give 'em just the right amount of water"-he ran his finger along a stem with twenty or thirty blooms-"they'll burst out in color and amaze you. 'Cause that's what they do ... they bloom. A bird in the rain forest will eat a seed, then crap as it's flying over the canopy. That will settle in the fork of a tree some hundred feet off the jungle floor below, and yet that orchid will take root. It digs in, grows up, out, and blooms for all the world to see."

  He sat down next to Sketch. "Now, we need to do one thing. We don't know your name, and you don't know your name, and that's okay. We'll come up with one."

  Sketch's head tilted sideways.

  "But we need to come up with something other than `hey you' or `the kid.' What have folks called you in the past?"

  Sketch opened up his pad and wrote quickly.

  "Snoot? That's what they call you? Do you like that name?"

  Sketch looked at the word and shook his head.

  Unc agreed. "Me neither. Sounds like something you do with your nose. Now..." Unc pulled a pen out of his pocket and laid the sketchpad across the potting bench in front of them. "How 'bout . . ." He paused, waiting for Sketch to write something. He read the word and nodded approval. "Michael is a good name. One heck of an archangel with that name. You like Michael?"

  Sketch shrugged.

  Unc looked at the page again and held his pen just inches from the paper. "How about ..."

  Sketch scribbled quickly again while Unc read along. "That's a good name too."

  He looked at Unc, looked at me, and then tapped Unc in the chest with his pencil.

  Unc tipped his hat back and knelt down next to the bar stool. "Well ... William's a good name. It's the name my father gave me ..." Unc tried to laugh, but it was a cover, he was stalling. "But when it was just us two"-he lowered his voice-"he called me Buddy."

  Sketch wrote again, eyeing the page and then showing it to Uncle Willee.

  Unc nodded. "Then Buddy it is." He stood up, his knee joints cracking and sweat trickling down his neck.

  Sketch stared at his notebook, then closed it and hopped off the stool. When he stood up, he looked two inches taller.

  Mandy nodded. "Hi, Buddy."

  He turned around like he was on a carousel.

  Tommye, who hadn't said much all night, squatted down, held out her hand, and raised one eyebrow. She stuttered-something I'd never heard her do-and said, "B-Buddy. It's one of my favorite names. Always has been."

  The air was thick with moisture and heavy with the aroma of lilacs and raspberries the day that Unc gave me the orchid speech. When he finished, I remember opening up my lungs and taking the first deep breath I'd ever known. It filtered down into my toes and made me feel like I could have held my breath for a week.

  Sketch looked around the greenhouse, eyeballed us, then closed his eyes and filled his chest like a zeppelin.

  Chapter 21

  lollowing that first summer, Unc and Lorna enrolled me in third grade. In my various tours of foster and boys' homes, I'd encountered my fair share of bullies, but this one was different. He was the son of a welder who lived farther west down Highway 99 and rode the afternoon bus with me. He began by name-calling.

  "Hey, orphan-boy ... what happened to old man McFarland? Your Uncle Willee shoot him?" He didn't let up. "And where's all the money? You all buried it in mason jars in the backyard?"

  I guess with a name like Rupert he had learned to get the attention off himself.

  I ignored him, but when he didn't get a rise out of me, he started slapping me on the back of the head. The bus driver saw it, but she must have been a sympathizer 'cause she did little to stop it. She hollered once or twice, but he smacked me close to a hundred times. The bus route drove past our driveway, so I was let off literally within sight of my front door. My stop was just before Rupert's. I knew things were getting bad when he forged a note instructing the driver to let him out at my stop-nearly a mile from his house.

  One afternoon it all came to a head. Rupert off-loaded behind me, and about the time the bus door shut he started laying into me. I guess he wanted the other guys on the bus to see how tough he was. He tripped me, rolled me in a mud puddle, pulled my backpack off me, and started kicking me in the ribs. I wrestled myself clear and outran him to the front door. I bounded onto the porch and nearly ripped off the door handle. I only had one problem-it was locked. And our front door was never locked. Unc always said, "Let them come. Anything I ever had worth stealin's already been taken."

  Hearing the sound of Rupert's feet, I ran around the back porch to the kitchen and pulled on the screen door. Same thing. I banged on the doorframe and peered through the screen. Six inches from my face, Unc stood, arms crossed, looking back at me.

  I screamed, "Let me in!"

  Aunt Lorna stood at the kitchen counter trying her best not to look at me.

  Unc shook his head and said, "Chase ... you got to lear
n to pick your battles." He looked at Rupert coming around the back of the house. "And this is one you fight. Now get out there and stand up for yourself."

  Rupert climbed the steps onto the back porch, dangling my backpack in his hand. "Hey, chicken. Time for your homework." He held it like a carrot, dancing around like a cross between a chicken and a turkey.

  I had started crying, so I turned back to the screen and said, "Uncle Willee."

  He shook his head.

  I turned around, wiped my tears and snot on my forearm, and stepped toward Rupert. I couldn't go back and didn't want to go forward. I figured words wouldn't get me anywhere, so I gritted my teeth and made a decision. I started at him on a dead run. When I got within arm's length, I crouched, left my feet, and hit him in midair. He toppled backwards, dropped my backpack, and landed on the ground below the steps. He probably had forty pounds and six inches on me, so I sat up and started hitting him in the stomach and then the face. After I'd popped him a couple times, I jumped up, waited for him to stand up, and when he did I hit him as hard as I could in the eye. Blood trickled out of his nose and down into his mouth. The last I saw of him that day, he was running home screaming something about his momma.

  As Rupert ran home, Unc sat me down on the porch step and put his arm around my shoulder. "Chase? You mad at me?"

  I nodded.

  He squeezed me tighter. "I want you to listen to me."

  I looked up at him.

  "I don't want you using this as a recipe to fight every boy in school. There's always somebody bigger." He nodded at my feet. "Best thing God gave you was two fast feet. God wasn't kidding when he said turn the other cheek, but"-he spat out across the porch and into the grass-"turning the cheek don't mean be a doormat."

  It was a hard lesson to learn. It was also one of the best.

  The next day, Rupert's eye was black and nearly swollen shut, but that afternoon on the bus he never said a word to me. And he got off at his old stop.

  Chapter 22

  unt Lorna fluffed up Sketch's pillows and put his few pieces .of clothing away in the dresser next to his bed while Tommye and Mandy cleaned up the kitchen. Tommye was washing the dishes, reaching into the soapy water, as Unc and the kid walked through the back door.

  Talking to Mandy and not really paying attention to what she was doing, Tommye slipped her hand into the soapy water and immediately jerked it back. She turned away from us, grabbed a paper towel, and wrapped it like a Popsicle wrapper around her finger. Within seconds, the blood had soaked through the tip. Trying to make light of it, she held her finger in the air and said, "E.T., phone home." She grabbed another towel, but was careful to bury the first deep inside the trash can.

  Aunt Lorna pulled the first-aid kit from the cabinet and emptied the Band-Aids, tape, and gauze pads across the countertop. Unc watched with measured restraint while Sketch walked up to Tommye and pulled on her shirtsleeve. Tommye looked beneath her arm and said, "Oh, it's okay. I just cut it on a knife down in the water." She bit her lip and tried to laugh. "Sharp, too."

  Sketch pulled on her arm and stretched his neck, trying to see the wound.

  She held it away from him, out across the soapy water, and wrapped the paper towel tighter. "Little Buddy, I better handle this one myself."

  He stepped back and dropped his head, like he'd done something wrong.

  Tommye knelt down, still applying pressure, and made eye contact with him. "You're sweet. Thank you. You probably know a thing or two about stuff like this. But ... I have cooties."

  Unc stepped up, patted Sketch on the head, and said, "You all have a seat, we'll be there shortly." He peeled the plastic off the gauze and took the lid off the antibiotic ointment.

  Tommye spoke beneath her breath, "You're not welcome either."

  He dabbed her good index finger with the ointment, then held out the gauze while she wrapped it around her cut finger. "That might need a stitch," he said.

  Tommye accepted his help, realizing she needed it, but she looked at him with disapproval. When he had her bandaged up, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gave her that hip hug that people do when they're familiar with one another. She shook her head. "You know, you're not too old to get cooties."

  He nodded. "Yeah, but once you've been dead, everything else is gravy."

  Sketch showered, Unc touched up his back with that same tube of antibiotic ointment, and then the kid climbed into bed. Lorna had bought him some Spider-Man pajamas, which he seemed to like. The short sleeves came down beyond his elbows and the shorts fell past his knees. She smiled. "You'll grow into them."

  Unc turned out the light, left the door open, and pulled a brass cowbell from behind his back. He sat back down on the bed and held it in his hands. "This is a cowbell. You hang it around her neck if you want to know where she is when you can't see her." He jingled it lightly, sounding a low, brassy clang. "It also makes a pretty good midnight bell if you need either me or Aunt Lorna." He set it on the bedside table. `Just give a ring if you need us, okay?"

  Sketch nodded, but his eyes were wide, and I didn't see much sleep in them.

  Tommye, Mandy, Aunt Lorna, Unc, and I sat in the den talking lightly, hoping maybe Sketch had worn himself out and he'd drift off to sleep. Thirty minutes later I crept around the corner, peeked into his room, and saw him looking wide-eyed at me.

  When I came back to the den and reported, Unc nodded and walked out the front door, and I smiled.

  Mandy asked, "What's he doing?"

  "South Georgia rain dance."

  A minute or so later, we heard a faint pitter-patter on the tin roof above the porch and Sketch's room. The sound grew louder. When Unc walked back into the den and sat down, his boots were wet across the toe.

  Mandy said, "What's that about?"

  Tommye sat on the couch, her feet tucked beneath her, and said, "Uncle Willee can't sing a lick, so he's learned to improvise."

  Two minutes later, I crept around the corner and peeked into Sketch's room. He looked like one of those kids in a stroller whose mom has spent three hours pushing him around the shopping mall. One foot was sticking out from underneath the covers, and he was drooling out of the left corner of his mouth. I pulled the covers up around his shoulders and arms, which were folded in a protective fence around both the bell and his notebook.

  The next morning, Sketch woke early and found me alone in the kitchen. He shuffled in, sleep still heavy in his eyes, and sat at the table clutching his notebook. I slid the cereal box across the table and set a bowl in front of him. He poured himself some Cheerios, mixed in some Raisin Bran, and covered it with milk. Then he walked to the drawer, pulled out a spoon, and we ate in silence-which seemed okay with him.

  Chapter 23

  . 't was nearly Christmas, my first with Uncle Willee and Aunt Lorna. .Because kids dream, I had spent considerable time imagining that my dad, who by now had been reduced to the voice in my memory, would appear like St. Nick carrying packages, a smile, and a one-way trip out the driveway. Unc told me they'd put ads in papers from Charlotte to Miami telling folks about me. So my dad could come get me. I just knew he'd read it. He had to.

  On Christmas Eve, just before dinner, somebody knocked on the door. I was standing on a stool in the kitchen helping Aunt Lorna cut up carrots and sweet potatoes. I heard the knock, my face lit, and I tore through the den, nearly knocking Unc over. I flung open the door, eyes wide, and found an older woman, glasses hanging around her neck, carrying a manila folder and selling a pasted-on smile. I pushed open the screen and looked around her. "Where is he?"

  She looked confused. She reached down to shake my hand. "Hi ... you must be Chase."

  "Where's he at? He hiding?" I ran to the porch steps and cupped my hands to my mouth. "Daddy!" When he didn't answer, I screamed again, "Daaaaaaddddd!"

  "Is Mr. McFarland here?"

  Unc appeared at the door. "I'm William McFarland."

  "Hi, I'm..."

  I didn't hear what else she ha
d to say. I ran around the front yard looking for his truck, because I just knew my dad wasn't coming to get me in a yellow Buick.

  They talked quietly, Unc nodding his head every now and again. I ran back up on the porch to get a bird's-eye view of the drive and heard her say the word "termination." Finally, they shook hands, and the lady stepped into her yellow submarine and disappeared out of the drive. Unc sat on the top step and patted the wood next to him. I sat on one side, opposite the folder.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. "Chase ... you know how we told you about those newspaper ads?"

  "Yes sir." I craned my neck to see around the railing that was blocking my view of the driveway.

  "Well"-he scratched his head and let out a deep breath-"when no one answers them ... the state sort of becomes your parents."

  "What? But ..."

  "Technically, it means-"

  I knew what it meant, and I didn't want to hear it. I ran off the porch, jumped the pasture fence, and ran across the pasture and into the darkness toward the highway. When I reached the other side, I jumped up on the fence and sat like a swivel, looking east and west, but the highway was dark and the night air cool. It crept through my clothes and turned my sweat to icy fingers.

  A few minutes later, Unc walked up next to me and hung his arms across the fence railing. In his hand he held an empty mason jar with holes punched in the lid. He stood there a long time turning the jar. Inside, a single lightning bug fluttered off the sides of the glass. Every five or six seconds, he'd light his lantern. Unc turned the jar in his hand. "Scientists say that these things evolved this way over millions of years." He shook his head. "That's a bunch of bunk. I don't think an animal can just all-of-a-sudden decide it wants to make light grow out its butt. What kind of nonsense is that? Animals don't make light." He pointed to the stars. "God does that. I don't know why or how, but I'm pretty sure it's not chance. It's not some haphazard thing he does in his spare time."