So I just looked at them and said, “Eddie and I are going up the creek this morning. We have something important to do, and I want you to come and help us.”
“You mean you’re going back to where Dodie fell?” Reba Lu sounded scared.
“Why do you want to go there?” Geraldine asked.
“Because Dodie and I didn’t get to finish what we started,” I told them. “She was trying to save some little fish that got caught in shallow water. All we have to do is move them to a deeper place. It won’t take long with all of us working together. I just have to get another sieve. I must have dropped the one I had yesterday. Eddie, can you find a pail that we can fill with creek water?”
Before he could move, Geraldine had her hands on her hips and was exclaiming, “Fish? We’re walking all that way to save some fish?”
Reba scowled at her. “They are God’s creatures, Geraldine.”
Charles raised an eyebrow at me. Eddie shrugged. “I’m just along for the ride.”
We started up Palm Avenue together. Nobody said much. I guessed we were all thinking our own thoughts. When we came to Dodie’s house, a beat-up pickup truck was pulling up in front. We slowed down and watched a man get out. His hair was whitish-blond, like Dodie’s, and scraggly looking. His clothes looked like they came from somebody’s scrap bag. On the side of the truck were the words, CRUMPER’S SANITATION SERVICE. I had a pretty good idea who he might be, and so did Geraldine.
“I saw him once before,” she whispered. “That’s Dodie’s father.”
We walked on in silence, up to the end of the block, through the park, into the groves, and out onto the clearing by the cliff.
I started down the cliff first. “Be careful,” I told them. I concentrated on blocking Dodie’s screams from my mind, trying instead to think about the way we had climbed down the cliff together. How I had skidded, but she was sure-footed. How she had encouraged me. I tried not to, but I remembered her voice when she fell. I remembered her screams. I listened hard for the sound of running water. I was glad when a bumblebee got too close and buzzed in my ear.
We hiked upstream to the spot where Dodie and I had seen the rattlesnake. There was no sign of it now, but the minnows were there, flapping around in a pool that had only a little water in it.
“There they are,” I said. “Poor things. Look, there’s barely enough water for them to move around in. I hope we got here in time.”
Charles went and filled the pail with fresh creek water. Eddie handed me the sieve.
“We can each lift a few out of the pool,” I said. “That way we’ll all be saving them together.”
I wondered what Dodie would think about “those others” saving her fish. She had been so determined not to let anyone but me in on her secret place. But it wasn’t safe now for me to come up here alone. Not when Jefferson Clement was walking the streets free. Anyway, I had a good feeling when I thought of all of us doing something for Dodie.
I dipped the sieve into the pool and caught three tiny fish. Quickly, I transferred them to the pail and handed the sieve to Geraldine.
She caught only two, then one of them got away. “Gotcha!” she said when she finally captured both of them. When she put them in the pail, I saw that her face was red, and her lips trembled. I stopped looking at her for fear she would get me crying, too.
After all the fish were caught, we hiked up the creek until we began to see scrub oaks growing along the sides. The water deepened here. “This is a good place,” Eddie said.
“Ready?” Charles asked.
I nodded, and he handed me the pail. It was heavier than I expected. He helped me lower it into the water, then tilt it so that the fish spilled over the rim and splashed into the creek. They swam slowly at first, then faster, darting freely back and forth. Some went in circles. Others started upstream. A few hid in the shade of big rocks.
“We did it,” I said softly. I was talking to Dodie, but nobody else knew it.
We walked single file back to the bottom of the cliff. Geraldine looked around curiously, but I didn’t. I tried not to think about where Dodie might have fallen and hit her head.
“Look here,” Charles said. He bent over and picked up something half hidden under a manzanita bush. He held it in the palm of his hand, where it glittered in the sun.
“It’s Dodie’s golden ring,” I said.
Charles handed it to me. We all stood together a few minutes looking at it. I closed my fingers around it and put it in my pocket. Then we climbed the cliff and headed for home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Messina News was published every Friday, and there was a big article about Dodie on the front page. Right next to the article was an invitation by Reverend Adams for the whole town to come together to send up prayers for her recovery. They would meet at the Congregational church at twelve o’clock sharp, right after the regular service. The way the church filled up on Sunday, you would have thought it was Easter.
Mr. Wilcombe, the janitor, put extra seats down the side aisles, then turned on three big rotating fans, two in the back of the sanctuary and one up front where the altar flowers were already drooping from the heat. Some of the church ladies handed out carnations, one to each person. It smelled like somebody had opened a box of cloves.
“After the prayer service, we’re all going to walk up to the altar and put our carnations there,” Reba Lu said. “Then my daddy will take them to the hospital for Dodie. I hope Dodie likes that smell,” she added. “I sure don’t.” She gave a big sniff and wiped her nose with her hankie.
Reba Lu and Geraldine and I sat in the third row with Eddie and Charles.
Mrs. Crumper hadn’t come for the church service, but she came in now, by the side door from Reverend Adams’s office.
“Mr. Crumper’s not with her,” Reba Lu whispered, “because he’s staying at the hospital with Dodie.”
“How do you know that?” Geraldine demanded.
“I’m the preacher’s daughter,” Reba Lu said.
Geraldine couldn’t top that, so she commenced flipping through the hymnbook. “I’ll bet we sing ‘Jesus Loves Me,’” she said.
Reba Lu shushed her because her daddy was helping Mrs. Crumper to a seat, all alone, in the front row. Mrs. Adams had offered to sit with her, but Reba Lu had overheard her mama tell the reverend that Mrs. Crumper had said she didn’t want any favors from anyone in this godforsaken town.
The service started. We all stood up and sang Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so … Geraldine poked Reba Lu and gave her an I told you so smile.
Then Reverend Adams talked a bit about Dodie and how Jesus loved her. He told about Dodie’s wanting to save the minnows in the creek. He said she cared for God’s creatures, and I remembered how she’d stopped me from throwing a rock at a rattlesnake. He said everyone should take hands while he said a prayer. I didn’t know what to do because Charles was sitting next to me, but he just held out his hand like it was something he did every day, so I took it. It was warm, but not sweaty. Reba Lu glanced over at us and rolled her eyes.
After that, I got my hand back, and we sang “God Will Take Care of You,” which sounded like a promise. I hoped it was. Then the church organist played some soft music while people started filing down the center aisle to the front of the church to deposit their carnations on the altar.
“They’re showing that they care about Dodie,” Geraldine whispered.
I stared at her. I thought of how I had once said I hated everything Dodie Crumper did and had only changed my mind when I got to know her a little better. But most of these people didn’t know her at all. It felt fake for everyone here to be pretending how sorry they were about what had happened.
“Who in this town cares what happens to Dodie?” I whispered.
“Dr. Thomas, for one,” Geraldine said. “And Reverend Adams, and we three, and …”
“OK, OK. But most people don’t. We didn’t. Remember how hard it was for us to
find something about her to love?”
“Some of these people look sad,” Reba Lu argued.
Old Man Snyder stood at the altar shaking his head slowly. Miss Hallie Harper, who had given Dodie an even worse grade than she’d given me, sobbed out loud and had to be helped back to her seat by Mrs. Dawson.
“Come on, Angie,” Reba Lu whispered, standing up.
I shook my head. “I’m not going up there.”
“Of course you are. You have to put your carnation on the altar.”
She gave me a shove and said, “Stop being difficult.” I was about to tell her she sounded just like her mother when she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the aisle behind her.
We laid our carnations there with all the others and turned to walk back to our seats. Just as we sat down, we heard Mrs. Crumper start to wail. It was an awful sound, like somebody having a tooth pulled without anything to deaden the pain. It made my skin crawl to hear her.
“Oh, my baby!” she cried. “My Dodie! She is all I have to live for. Oh, my precious Dodie!”
She kept on like that. I wished I knew what to do. Finally, Dr. Thomas went to the front of the church and helped her to her feet. He took her by the arm and led her down the aisle toward the back of the church.
The whole place was quiet, everybody waiting out of respect until Mrs. Crumper got outside before they would start to talk. But she never made it to the door. She stopped at the pew near the back where Jefferson Clement sat with his family.
My heart started to pound. She leaned over until she was right in his face and said loud enough for everybody to hear, “I know what kind of man you are.”
A low murmuring of voices filled the church. Mr. Clement never looked at her, just stared straight ahead like he hadn’t heard what she said. But her words echoed like a church bell gone sour.
I know what kind of man you are. They floated over the congregation and echoed from the rafters as Mrs. Crumper folded up like a used handkerchief and collapsed onto the floor.
Lots of people stood up to see what had happened. They began to talk all at once. Some gathered round, peering over each other’s shoulders to get a better view. Dr. Thomas had to tell them to move back and to give Mrs. Crumper some room. They moved back a little, but not much.
Finally he told them, “Get on outside. You’re not helping by standing around watching!”
My dad helped Dr. Thomas stretch Mrs. Crumper out on a back row pew. Mrs. Dawson fanned her with that morning’s church bulletin until she began to moan, and we knew she was alive.
Geraldine and Reba Lu and I had twisted around in our seats to watch what was happening in back. I especially wanted to get a look at Jefferson Clement. He was still sitting there in one of the back pews, stony faced, looking neither right nor left.
I seemed to hear Mrs. Crumper’s voice again in my head. I was glad she had said those words right out loud so everyone could hear them. But the look on Mr. Clement’s face scared me. It reminded me of that day at the cliff when he had put his finger to his lips as a warning.
I felt a little better when I felt Reba Lu’s hand in mine. “Let’s go on outside,” she said, “so we won’t have to look at him.”
It was cool out there under the spreading elm trees. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Reba Lu and Geraldine put their heads together, whispering, but I didn’t care. I walked around to the churchyard where the grass around the gravestones was dry and brown from the heat. It felt crisp under my feet. I passed a marble monument with an angel spreading her wings. I sat down on a little bench in the shade.
I wished I could go back to last week and live it over again. If I hadn’t been late that morning, would things have turned out differently? Would Mr. Clement have stayed away when he saw that there were two of us? I wanted so bad to have another chance to keep Dodie away from the cliff, away from Mr. Clement. If I just had another chance, I’d get it right this time.
Geraldine and Reba Lu came over and sat on the bench, one on either side of me. “Looky there,” Geraldine said.
Jefferson Clement stood to one side with his hat held in his hand. “He’s holding it over his heart,” Geraldine said in a low whisper.
“He doesn’t have one,” I whispered back.
As we watched, he put one foot forward and nudged a pink cemetery daisy with the toe of his shoe. Geraldine’s hand reached out and touched mine as he put his foot flat on the flower and squished it. I shut my eyes tight and gave Geraldine’s hand a squeeze.
Mrs. Crumper was making snuffling noises when she came out of the church and made her way through the crowd. Mrs. Adams put her arm around her and patted her on the shoulder. Just then, a pickup truck pulled up in front of the church, and Dodie’s father got out. He had combed his hair and put on a clean shirt. But his pants were too short, and the sole of one shoe flapped when he walked. Shabby or not, he was a better person than Jefferson Clement, dressed in his Sunday best.
He came up to Mrs. Crumper and stood looking at her. We could tell that Mrs. Adams was asking him a question, but we couldn’t hear what he said. He just shook his head slowly, back and forth, back and forth. Then he raised his voice. “She won’t wake up,” he finally said, loud enough so we could hear him. “I was at the hospital. I talked to her … talked a long time. But she won’t wake up.”
We stood and watched as Mr. and Mrs. Crumper walked away. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a soiled cap, putting it on his head and pulling the brim down over his eyes.
Pretty soon, everybody began to wander off. Then we three were the only ones left in the church cemetery. A mockingbird flew from a low branch and began to sing. Up and down the notes went. Up and down like the merry-go-round horses. We waited and listened until the bird flew away. We didn’t look at each other. None of us spoke a word.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Geraldine, Reba Lu, and I picked a big bouquet of sweet peas from Mama’s backyard vines. Mama wrapped them in wet newspapers, and we stood out in front of my house and waited for Dr. Thomas to drive up in his Model T Ford. He loved that car. “Over fifteen years old and getting better every day,” he said. He had given me a ride one time, and I sat in the back seat because Miss Emma liked to be up front. This time, I climbed into the front seat real quick, and that left the back for Geraldine and Reba Lu.
Dr. Thomas handed me a jelly jar filled with orange blossoms in a little water. I took a sniff. I loved that smell.
“Where did you find those?” Geraldine asked. “Orange blossoms don’t bloom in the summer.”
Dr. Thomas started the car and stuck his head out the window to check for traffic, even though there was hardly ever any. “Sometimes they do,” he said. “When a plant is under stress, it sometimes blooms out of season.”
I liked that idea—of a flower sometimes blooming out of season. “That describes Dodie,” Reba Lu said.
But Geraldine didn’t agree. “Dodie isn’t a flower,” she said. “She might have been out of season, but I never saw her come close to blooming.”
“She was about to,” Reba Lu insisted. “Our friendship changed her.”
I wondered if that could be true. It seemed to me that we were the ones who had changed, especially me. That day up the creek had made me look at things differently. Who would have thought I’d have hiked back up there to save a few little fish? The thing that surprised me most was that I had been the leader.
I had never been a leader before in my whole life.
I was still thinking about that when we arrived at the hospital. Dr. Thomas pulled into a parking space that had his name painted on it in big red letters. I turned around and looked at Reba Lu and Geraldine in the back seat. Reba Lu’s eyebrows were raised, and Geraldine had her mouth open. But I wasn’t surprised at all. I had always known Dr. Thomas was somebody special.
Dr. Thomas had to go talk to somebody at the front desk, so we three waited by the elevator for him. Reba Lu couldn’t wait to start talking a
bout what was going on in Messina. “My daddy says Constable Mullens has asked for a judge to come from the courthouse in San Andreas to hold a hearing next Monday. That will be just six days after Dodie … after Dodie …”
“After Dodie fell.” Geraldine finished the sentence for her. Reba Lu nodded and looked relieved that she didn’t have to say the words that meant Dodie was lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
Geraldine went on. “I heard Dr. Thomas say that the judge will have to question people and decide if it was an accident or if somebody caused her to fall.”
She stopped and looked at me. “I guess that means you, Angie. And Willie Jack and Mr. Clement. You three were the only ones who were there. Anyway, if they decide it wasn’t an accident, there has to be a trial at the courthouse in San Andreas, and someone will be in a whole lot of trouble.” She took a deep breath. “And that someone is Willie Jack. That’s all I know. Just what I heard Dr. Thomas say.”
Reba Lu looked put out that Geraldine was acting like she knew so much. “Jefferson Clement is going around town blaming Willie Jack,” she said. “But he’s not the only one who was there. Angie saw the whole thing.” She looked at me. “You’ll testify in front of everyone, Angie. You’ll probably get your picture in the paper.”
That made me mad. “I don’t want my picture in the paper,” I said. “Not for something like this.”
“I don’t see that you’ll have much choice,” Geraldine told me. “You’re a star witness.” She was quiet a minute, until Reba Lu gave her an elbow jab. Then, “Come on, Angie. Tell us what you know. How come it’s Willie Jack who’s on trial?”
I stared at her. “I can’t talk about it,” I said, even though I knew I could if I wanted to.
I was glad when Dr. Thomas joined us and pushed the elevator button for the second floor. “Here’s what I want you girls to do,” he said. “You stand around Dodie’s bed and talk naturally—about things that she cares about. Tell her how you saved those fish and how everybody came to church and prayed that she would wake up and be all right.”
When the Crickets Stopped Singing Page 17