by Betsy Byars
The cheerful one of himself in his wheelchair was his favorite. He would feel better every time he looked at that one. Then he would see Mud, and tears would drop from his eyes. He was careful not to get any on his own picture.
“I don’t know, Junior. I haven’t been home. I drove straight to the hospital to see you. Sandy Boy’s outside in his trailer.”
“I went to the courthouse.”
“I know you did. I read about it in the newspaper.”
“The boy that was in that bed took me, but he’s gone home.”
“Well, you’ll be going home, too, now that I’m here to take care of you. I’m going right down and talk to the nurse.”
“Talk to the big redheaded one,” Junior called after her. “She’s the nicest.”
His mother disappeared around the door and started down the hall. There was a pause and then
Junior sat straight up in bed.
“Get my harmonica!” he yelled.
* * *
“I keep hearing something. Do you?” Maggie said. “It sounds like Mud, but he’s real far away.”
“You think you hear something.”
“No, I do.”
“You wish you heard something.” Vern corrected her because he wanted her to know he understood exactly how she felt. He had been hearing things himself. “Maybe it’s thunder.”
Maggie nodded. “Maybe.” She dropped down beside him on the steps. “Mom’s coming home this afternoon.”
“I know it. I was standing right beside you when the policeman told us.”
“I wish she’d hurry.”
Maggie stretched out her legs. As usual she had on boy’s clothes. She was older than Vern but smaller, so she got what he had outgrown. Today she had on a pair of his last summer’s shorts and a shirt so old, it didn’t have a button on it. Maggie had tied a knot in the shirttails to keep it closed.
After a long moment Maggie said, “You know, Vern, it wasn’t a stupid idea after all.”
“What?”
“Your idea. Busting into jail.”
Vern had come to that conclusion himself, but it was something he longed to hear about. “Why do you say that?” He shifted his feet and looked at Maggie out of the corners of his eyes.
“Well, because if you hadn’t busted into jail, Pap wouldn’t have gotten off, and Mom wouldn’t have seen the newspaper, and she wouldn’t be coming home. Why, if you hadn’t busted into jail, we’d be right back where we were the night outside the jail—desperate and helpless.”
Vern swallowed. He closed his eyes as if the world had suddenly gotten too bright to look at. He was speechless with pleasure.
“Vern,” she said, and then she added the most beautiful sentence Vern had ever heard, one he would never forget: “You are a hero.”
CHAPTER 33
Family Favorites
Vicki Blossom was fixing breakfast. She was fixing the family favorite: fried shredded wheat. She softened the shredded wheat in hot milk, and then she put it on the griddle, flattened it with the spatula, and fried it. The Blossoms ate it with lots of syrup.
“Annybody want seconds?” she asked. When nobody answered, she looked around. She couldn’t believe it. “Nobody?”
The three kids shook their heads.
“Well, all right. I’ll save these for Pap.”
At the moment Pap was off looking for Mud. All day yesterday and at dawn today he’d been in his pickup truck, riding around town, whistling out the window for Mud.
“You’re just wasting gas, Pap,” Vicki had told him.
“Not if I find him,” Pap answered. “It ain’t wasted if I find him.”
“Well, at least wait until the rain lets up.”
“I can whistle for him in the rain good as I can in the sunshine.”
And he had driven off, whistling. The rain coming in the window poured down his wrinkled face.
“All we need is for you to catch pneumonia!” she called after him.
Vicki watched her children at the table. “Are you kids still moping about that ugly dog?” She shook her spatula at them.
The Blossom kids looked down at their plates to keep from meeting her eyes.
“I’m ashamed of you kids. Count your blessings. Pap’s out of jail. Junior’s out of the hospital. I’m home, and you’re moping about Mud. If you can’t live without a dog, go to the pound this afternoon and get another one.”
“Mom!” Maggie looked up in shock. “That’s a terrible thing to suggest.”
“We could get a puppy,” Junior said. He liked the idea. “A puppy is not a dog.”
“It is, too, Junior,” Maggie said. “Anyway, it’s not our dog, Mom; it’s Pap’s. Mud lets us play with him, but he’s Pap’s dog. That’s why I feel bad. Pap really loves Mud.”
“Pap is old enough to hide his feelings. If he wouldn’t go around with that long, sad face, looking like he’d lost his best friend, whistling out the truck window like a lunatic, you wouldn’t feel bad. Shoot, I felt bad leaving the rodeo. The rodeo’s in my blood—you know that. But I didn’t mope around, making everybody else feel bad too. Pap needs to grow up.”
She slapped a flattened shredded wheat on her plate. It was one of the ones she had been saving for Pap. She sat at the table and ate it angrily, without syrup, cutting it up so hard with her fork that pieces shot off the plate.
Mud was rolling in a patch of wet Bermuda grass. He nosed his way through, rubbing his stinging eyes against the cool grass. He had spent the past eight hours rolling in whatever he could find—moss, leaves, dirt, mud, a small stream, a bank of ferns. None of it got rid of the smell.
His eyes still felt scratchy, but at least he could see now. After the spray hit his face, his eyes had watered so much and so long that a lot of the irritation had been washed away.
He twisted over and rubbed the other side of his face. Then he got up and shook himself. He saw a stand of pine trees, and he went over and rubbed his face against the rough bark. Turning, he did the other side.
It was nice under the pines. The branches shielded him from the rain. Like Pap, Mud had never cared much for rain.
He lay down and rolled in the pine needles, nosing them from side to side, still trying to get the scent off his face.
He rested a moment. Mud was exhausted. He had not had a real meal in four days. His ribs showed through his fur.
Still, there was something comforting about lying under these particular pine trees. He had lain here before. Maggie had pushed him under here one hot summer afternoon and said, “Now you’re the wolf and I’m Hiawatha. You stay under there until I come by and I don’t see you and I don’t know you’re there. Pretend like you’re going to eat me.”
He had waited on the soft bed of needles—waited, without understanding why, for the okay to come out. With the memory growing sharper, urging him on, Mud squirmed out from under the branches. He stood for a moment, smelling the air.
Then he began to bark wildly as he bounded through the woods. He leapt over bushes, logs, the creek. He charged down the ravine, up the other side. His shrill barks rang through the woods and echoed. The sound was continuous, like the ringing of bells on a joyous occasion.
CHAPTER 34
Together
“See if you can guess what this song is,” Junior said. He put his harmonica in his mouth. He kept it on a string around his neck because of Ralphie’s unfortunate experience. At least if he swallowed his harmonica, he could pull it back up.
“I’m tired of guessing,” Maggie said. “Let Vern guess this one.”
“They all sound the same to me,” Vern said.
“No, this one’s different.”
Junior began to play.
Vicki Blossom was at the sink, washing the breakfast dishes. She had just opened the window, and she was the first to hear Mud’s wild barking.
“Well, you kids can stop moping,” she said over her shoulder. “I hear Mud.”
She opened the back door and went
out on the stoop, drying her hands. Maggie and Vern ran out too. Junior was desperately trying to maneuver his wheelchair around the kitchen furniture.
“Wait for me! I want to see too!”
Mud came out of the trees like a streak; he tore up the incline where the Blossoms threw the garbage; he leapt over the old tractor. He headed for the house.
Vicki threw back her head. “Oh, Lord, he’s been skunked. Get back in the house. Quick.” She held her nose. “Get back, Maggie. Close the screen door. Quick! Junior, get out of the way.” She spun his wheelchair around. “Close the door, Vern. Close it!” She reached around and slammed the door herself just as Mud hit the porch.
Mud leapt up and down, throwing himself at the door. His happy face appeared framed in the high glass pane every time he jumped.
When she had watched his face come into view seven or eight times, Maggie said, “I don’t care. I’m going out.”
She turned the knob and slipped through the door. “Me too,” Vern said.
“Well, you’re not coming back in this house, either one of you, if I catch one whiff of skunk on you or your clothing.”
“We know.”
Maggie and Vern threw their arms around Mud.
“Well, they can split us up,” Pap said. He was in the creek, washing Mud with heavy-duty detergent. “But we Blossoms always manage to get back together. That’s the good thing about being a Blossom.”
“One of the good things,” Maggie said.
This was Mud’s seventh bath. For the first two or three he had spent a lot of time trying to get out or shake the soap off, but now he was resigned to being washed.
He stood without moving. His ears were flat against his head. His tail was between his legs. His eyes rolled occasionally up to Pap.
“I hate it as bad as you do,” Pap told him.
Maggie and Vern sat on the bank, watching. Maggie had on another old outfit of Vern’s, and her braids were still wet. “Tomorrow,” her mom had told her, “I’ll make you a French braid. I learned how to do it in a beauty parlor in Pecos. Hey, maybe I’ll go to work in a beauty parlor. That always was my second love.”
Vern’s hair was wet, too, combed with a part. “You kids have got to start fixing yourselves up,” their mom told them. “Maggie, I’m getting you some dresses.”
“And cowboy boots.”
“We’ll see.”
“Okay, Mud, that’s probably about as good as we’re going to do.” Pap rinsed him off with a bucketful of water. Mud closed his eyes as Pap poured another bucket over his head.
“Go roll in the grass,” Pap told him. As soon as Mud heard the word go he went.
He leapt up the bank and shook himself. Drops of water hit Maggie and Vern, and they turned their faces out of the way. Mud rolled in the grass. He got up, shook himself, rolled again.
Pap stepped out of the creek with the aid of a small tree. Pap used trees like walking sticks. He pulled himself up the bank.
He said, “Vern, I noticed a lot of beer and pop cans when I was riding into town. After lunch, what say we go pick them up?”
“Fine with me,” Vern said.
“Well.” Pap straightened. “Let’s go up to the house and see if we smell good enough to be allowed inside.”
And with Mud leading the way, the Blossoms headed for home.
Chatting It Up
A Holiday House Reader’s Guide
All about the Blossoms in …
The Not-Just-Anybody Family
and more!
Discussion Questions
An Interview with Betsy Byars
Discussion Questions
1. Describe the Blossom family. What are the unique traits of Vern, Maggie, Junior, and Pap?
2. Why do the Blossom children run when the police come to the house after Pap is arrested? Discuss whether their view of the police changes by the end of the novel.
3. Why is Pap so surprised by his arrest?
4. The Blossom children have been instructed to call their mom only if an emergency occurs. Discuss Vern’s definition of an emergency.
5. The Blossoms are so busy trying to break into jail that they forget about Mud, Pap’s dog. What evidence is there that Mud misses Pap?
6. Maggie calls Vern a hero. How do his heroic actions help the entire Blossom family?
7. Discuss Junior’s reaction to Ralphie. Why can’t Junior see through Ralphie’s wild hospital stories?
8. Explain how Ralphie works his way into the Blossom family.
9. Discuss how the Blossoms deal with their fame. How does their mom react when she reads about them in the newspaper?
10. Maggie tells Ralphie, “We Blossoms have never been just ‘anybody’ ” (p. 117). How do the police, the judge, Ralphie, and the entire town realize this after Pap’s trial?
Prepared by Pat Scales, retired school librarian and independent consultant, Greenville, South Carolina.
An Interview with Betsy Byars
You’ve written more than sixty books! Where do you get your ideas?
What an author does to make an idea work is a lot more interesting to me than where it came from. Here’s what I do: First I get rid of the parents. Then I pick my main characters—either two girls and a boy or two boys and a girl. This book will take place in two or three days so I’ve got to start with action, maybe put one of the characters in danger. Hmmm … how about the smallest boy—Junior.
Where did you get the idea for the very first book about the Blossom family?
My idea for the first Blossom book was this. I would take this wonderful, close-knit family and split them up so nobody knew where anybody else was. It would be like a big, crazy game of hide-and-seek. Then I would bring them back together again.
Did you ever have a pet like Mud? Do you have any pets now?
I never had a dog like Mud except in my imagination. I have two dogs now—May and Pearl. They like to ride in my pickup with me, but they never ride in the back like Mud.
Are any of your children like the Blossom children?
My kids do share some traits with the Blossom children. They were adventuresome, fearless, and liked to invent things. Also, I could never predict what they would do next.
Where do you live?
I now live in South Carolina on an airstrip. The basement of our house is a hangar, so we can just taxi out in our airplane and take off—almost from our front yard.
Happy landings, everybody!
A Biography of Betsy Byars
Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning author of more than sixty books for children and young adults, including The Summer of the Swans (1970), which earned the prestigious Newbery Medal. Byars also received the National Book Award for The Night Swimmers (1980) and an Edgar Award for Wanted … Mud Blossom (1991), among many other accolades. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she has fans all over the world.
Byars was born Betsy Cromer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father, George, was a manager at a cotton mill and her mother, Nan, was a homemaker. As a child, Betsy showed no strong interest in writing but had a deep love of animals and sense of adventure. She and her friends ran a backyard zoo that starred “trained cicadas,” box turtles, leeches, and other animals they found in nearby woods. She also claims to have ridden the world’s first skateboard, after neighborhood kids took the wheels off a roller skate and nailed them to a plank of wood.
After high school, Byars began studying mathematics at Furman University, but she soon switched to English and transferred to Queens College in Charlotte, where she began writing. She also met Edward Ford Byars, an engineering graduate student from Clemson University, whom she would marry after she graduated in 1950.
Between 1951 and 1956 Byars had three daughters—Laurie, Betsy, and Nan. While raising her family, Byars began submitting stories to magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Look. Her success in publishing warm, funny stories in national magazines led her to consider writing a book. He
r son, Guy, was born in 1959, the same year she finished her first manuscript. After several rejections, Clementine (1962), a children’s story about a dragon made out of a sock, was published.
Following Clementine, Byars released a string of popular children’s and young adult titles including The Summer of the Swans, which earned her the Newbery Medal. She continued to build on her early success through the following decades with award-winning titles such as The Eighteenth Emergency (1973), The Night Swimmers, the popular Bingo Brown series, and the Blossom Family series. Many of Byars’s stories describe children and young adults with quirky families who are trying to find their own way in the world. Others address problems young people have with school, bullies, romance, or the loss of close family members. Byars has also collaborated with daughters Betsy and Laurie on children’s titles such as My Dog, My Hero (2000).
Aside from writing, Byars continues to live adventurously. Her husband, Ed, has been a pilot since his student days, and Byars obtained her own pilot’s license in 1983. The couple lives on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina. Their home is built over a hangar and the two pilots can taxi out and take off almost from their front yard.
Byars (bottom left) at age five, with her mother and her older sister, Nancy.
A teenage Byars (left) and her sister, Nancy, on the dock of their father’s boat, which he named NanaBet for Betsy and Nancy.
Byars at age twenty, hanging out with friends at Queens College in 1948.
Byars and her new husband, Ed, coming up the aisle on their wedding day in June 1950.
Byars and Ed with their daughters Laurie and Betsy in 1955. The family lived for two years in one of these barracks apartments while Ed got a degree at the University of Illinois and Byars started writing.