Beyond the Laughing Sky

by Michelle Cuevas

  DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  Text copyright © 2014 by Michelle Cuevas

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Julie Morstad

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cuevas, Michelle.

  Beyond the laughing sky / by Michelle Cuevas. pages cm

  Summary: Hatched from an egg and raised by a loving family, ten-year-old Nashville is more bird than human except for his lack of wings, but he and his classmates learn that differences need not keep them apart.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60009-2

  [1. Belonging (Social psychology)—Fiction. 2. Individuality—Fiction. 3. Self-acceptance—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction. 6. Transformation—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C89268Bey 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013034416

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  FOR MY LITTLE BROTHER, CHRISTOPHER, WHO TOLD ME THE ENDING

  —M.C.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: IN A PECAN TREE

  Chapter 2: NASHVILLE

  Chapter 3: THE FORT

  Chapter 4: HONEYSUCKLE

  Chapter 5: THE WELCOME CAKE

  Chapter 6: THE BIRDBATH

  Chapter 7: THE TOAST & JAM TRAPEZE TROUPE

  Chapter 8: NOTHING TO BE FIXED

  Chapter 9: HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A PLATYPUS?

  Chapter 10: THE FIRST DAY

  Chapter 11: SUPERNOVA

  Chapter 12: HATCHDAY

  Chapter 13: A DEAD BIRD

  Chapter 14: MAGNOLIA

  Chapter 15: THE SINGING TREE

  Chapter 16: A MURDER OF CROWS

  Chapter 17: A GADGET, A GIZMO, AN INVENTION

  Chapter 18: BOX OF QUESTIONS, SUITCASE OF FEATHERS

  Chapter 19: ENCHANTED BALLOONS

  Chapter 20: FEATHERS DON’T FIT IN

  Chapter 21: WHEN IT RAINS IN GOOSEPIMPLE

  Chapter 22: YOU’RE ALL RIGHT

  Chapter 23: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

  Chapter 24: WHO’S NEXT?

  Chapter 25: THE FINAL FEATHER

  Chapter 26: A FAREWELL CAKE

  Chapter 27: SEND ME POSTCARDS

  Chapter 28: THE LEAP

  Chapter 29: THE FALL

  Chapter 30: WAKE UP, JUNEBUG

  Chapter 31: BEYOND THE LAUGHING SKY

  Chapter 32: A SONG TO SING YOU HOME

  Chapter 33: THE END OF SPRING

  Coda: IMPOSSIBLE

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  Nashville and his family lived in a house perched in the branches of the largest pecan tree in the village of Goosepimple. The tree grew on the top of a high hill, and the hill overlooked the small, perfect village, where the sun always shined, the grass was always mowed, and the men strutted like doves in their gray suits.

  The house in the pecan tree, however, was often shrouded in fog like the purple-gray gloom of an aged bruise, causing the old men in town to sit on their porches, drink sweet tea, and gossip.

  “That tree on the hill looks like the last feather to be plucked from the pimpled skin of a goose.”

  “Naw, it looks like the last sprig of hair on an ancient bald head.”

  “Naw, it looks like the last white ghost seed waiting to fly away from a dandelion.”

  Tourists often wanted to drive up the one creeping road that led to the top and visit the house, but once they got close realized they had somewhere else to be or something else to do. When they stopped by the town visitor center they would say, “That house in that tree is not like the rest. Was it built there? Was it built like a nest?”

  “Oh no, sugar,” the old widow working at the visitor center would say. “That house sat on a small street in town for nearly a century. Then, ten years ago, there was a flood the likes of which this area had never seen. It started raining as hard as it could in March, and it didn’t stop until June. Can you imagine that?” The widow paused, allowing the visitors to imagine that amount of precipitation. “Needless to say,” she continued, “the rivers and swamps and the bayou overflowed. The foundation of the building came loose and the whole place just floated away, bobbing on the water like a toy in the tub. The water rose all the way over that hill, and when the rain stopped, the house was stuck in that pecan tree like a mouse in a hawk’s claw.”

  “Who lives there now?” asked the tourist.

  “A sweet young couple and their little girl,” replied the widow.

  “How precious.”

  “And also . . .” the widow paused. “And, well, that boy.”

  “What boy?”

  “What boy, indeed,” replied the widow. “What boy hatches from an egg?”

  “Oh, fiddlesticks,” a Southern gentleman said to the widow. “A boy can’t hatch from an egg. That’s impossible”

  “What an absurd little word,” the widow replied.

  “Pardon?”

  “You said impossible,” the widow pointed out. “There’s no such thing. There’s things you’ve seen and things you may not have, but there ain’t nothing that’s impossible, sugar.”

  Impossible. improbable. inconceivable. if the children from far-flung villages who came to catch a glimpse of Nashville had better vocabularies, perhaps these are words they would have used. As it stood, they would ride their bikes to the base of the hill after sunset, their brakes screeching like the call of a night bird, with hopes of seeing something they called just plain weird.

  “I double-dog super dare you to go up and knock on the door and get a look at him.”

  And then they’d look and look at the house without moving, their hearts pounding like hoofbeats. They’d imagine they saw a light come on, or a curtain billow out like it had bones.

  “I saw him!” they would shout to the wind, pedaling fast. “He’s half boy, half bird!”

  Had Nashville heard their words it wouldn’t have mattered, for he really did look how they said—why, the truth of the matter was, he looked like a bird in almost every way. He was the size of a normal boy, perhaps a tad small for his age, but he had feathers for hair and a beak for his nose and mouth. His eyes were sharp and golden and his legs too long and thin. But when it came to clothing, Nashville was fond of bow ties and hats, and this made him about as alarming as a puppy in a paisley suit. He was, however, extraordinary, and that tended to scare townsfolk, who were hooked on the Ordinary with a capital O, and preferred their day-to-day served without any Extra.

  Nashville was one of a kind, and he had a way of stirring up whispers in town, causing the old women to sit in the beauty parlor, get their hair curled, and gossip.
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br />   “That youngster looks like a dodo bird in a dinner jacket. What’s next? Turtles in tuxedos? Skunks in swimsuits?”

  “I’m just glad he doesn’t have wings.”

  “Oh! Can you imagine that? Some whippersnapper flying around, peeping in our windows.”

  It was true. The only avian attribute Nashville seemed to be missing, much to his disappointment, was a pair of wings. But he had everything else. Why, by the time he was a baby barely out of the egg, Nashville was not only looking like a bird, but acting like one, too—chirping instead of crying for food, preferring sunflower seeds to milk, and only settling down to sleep in the bed his parents had custom made just for him, the one carpenters had been consulted and hired to build. Branches had been soaked, bent, and twisted. The nest was as large as a bed, and made up with pillows and a soft blanket.

  “Did you make your nest?” his mother asked Nashville every morning.

  “And Junebug,” she asked his little sister. “Did you make your bed as well?”

  “I want to sleep in a nest, too,” whined Junebug, with the misguided jealousy of a younger sibling. She was only eight, but Junebug often seemed older and wiser, and Nashville enjoyed her company. And so, from time to time, Nashville would allow his sister, Junebug, to sleep with him in his boy-sized nest.

  Sometimes, especially when he was alone, Nashville would stand for a long time at his bedroom window. The interior of the house glowed green due to all the leaves outside, and was like being in the cabin of a ship that sank in an algae pond. Sometimes Nashville felt as if his soul was waiting just under the surface of his skin, ready to leap like a fish into the cool, crisp air above.

  But no. Nashville couldn’t fly, that was for certain, so there was no reason for his strange desire to leap. Plus, he loved living in a pecan tree. When it was windy, the branches around the house danced and made shadow puppets on the walls. When the birds sang, he and Junebug imagined that from the outside, it must seem like the tree itself was singing.

  “If a tree could sing,” asked Junebug, “what do you think it would sing about?”

  “I suppose,” replied Nashville, “it would depend on the tree. A tree starts as a sapling. If it’s lucky—if it’s not mowed or mocked, chewed or chopped—the tree sets roots. The tree grows branches. The tree sprouts leaves. And every part, down to the smallest speck of bark and the tiniest vein of a leaf, is shaped by the world—the particular world around the tree. One less storm, one more insatiable caterpillar, any twist or turn along the way, and the tree would be changed. The tree would have a different song to sing.”

  Junebug thought deeply about this. “I wonder,” she said finally, “what those pines at the edge of town sing about.”

  “Junebug,” said Nashville. “You know I’ve never been past those pines.”

  “Yeah. Me neither,” said Junebug. She looked at Nashville who was staring into the distance.

  “Nashville?” she continued. “I think I’d like to stay here in our tree for always. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course,” Nashville replied, with only the slightest hint of doubt. “I’d like to stay here forever, too.” Anything else seemed, well, downright Impossible, Improbable, and Inconceivable.

  The birdhouse hanging in the pecan tree was shaped like any other. It had a slanted roof, a hole for an opening, and a peg of wood that served as a front porch. The one difference was the size of this birdhouse—it was big enough for two children, and inside, instead of a nest and eggs, were books, crayons, and one small record player.

  The birdhouse hung from a giant rope in the midst of leaves and was only accessible by climbing up through the branches of the pecan tree. No one was brave enough to do this—no one but Nashville and Junebug, that is, for this was their fort.

  The fort.

  Sometimes, it was just a tree house. But most times it was a ship-like flying contraption with newspaper sails and oars dripping in ink. Junebug would sit in the crow’s nest, binoculars to her eyes, looking out for monsters in need of a good slaying. Nashville would, of course, man the wheel. His duties also included waving to pirate kings and throwing the occasional coin to a troll when they’d cross a bridge.

  The fort.

  Where the pair stored their painted scenes and books of made-up languages, their two-man band, and the tiny matchbox bed plus accessories that they made in case, someday, their experiments in the world of shrinking finally panned out.

  The fort.

  Where once, on a most heroic adventure, Nashville and Junebug finally traveled all the way to the edge of the map, where the paper was faded yellow and thin.

  “What now?” asked Junebug.

  So Nashville turned over the page, and there he drew them a new map. They were travelers. They were adventurers. They were treading real dust and pebbles on the surface of an imaginary moon.

  Junebug and Nashville weren’t allowed to start having adventures first thing in the morning. First things first, the pair had to do their chores. And the start of the day meant taking any trash down the hill and bringing the mail back up.

  Most houses in Goosepimple had a trash can on the curb and a mailbox at the end of the drive. This would have also been the case with the house in the pecan tree, except the road that wound up the hill was steep and twisted, and both the mail truck and trash truck couldn’t make the trip.

  “Truck’s too big,” explained the trash man.

  “Truck’s too small,” explained the mailman.

  “Well then, why don’t you walk?” asked Junebug.

  To this, neither answered, only laughed loudly.

  On the trash and mail mornings, Nashville and Junebug would decide their mission on the way down the hill.

  “Okay,” said Junebug. “This trash is just a cover. We’re picking up a top-secret encoded message in that mailbox. The mailman . . .”

  “Is a spy,” finished Nashville.

  “Dum, dum, DUM!” sang Junebug.

  They dumped a trash bag in the can, then crept up to the mailbox, looking around to make sure nobody was watching.

  “Coast is clear,” whispered Nashville.

  And so they opened the mailbox. Inside were three envelopes and a coupon flyer for the Goosepimple Grocery. One of the letters was addressed to their parents from Goosepimple Middle School. Nashville suspected he knew the contents, so that one he put back inside the box.

  “Come on,” he said to Junebug. “I know the secret mission.”

  The missions were always changing—sometimes collecting jars of rain, paper bags of hiccups, adopting lost moonbeams and folding them into cake batter. Or perhaps investigating glittering slug trails left in the moonlight, finding the owners of abandoned buttons, or playing the sousaphone for caterpillars still in their cocoons.

  Today, however, the mission was all about honey.

  The honey was trapped inside the honeysuckle flowers, and the honeysuckle flowers were trapped on the other side of their neighbor’s wooden fence. The neighbor—who had obviously built a high fence to keep out secret agents—was clearly planning a Goosepimple takeover.

  “The honey,” said Nashville, “can give you powers. Like invisibility. Or X-ray vision. Or . . .”

  “Or it can make you fly,” said Junebug, giving her brother a knowing look. Every time they went on a mission, it always seemed to end in Nashville finding, gaining, or otherwise procuring the ability to fly.

  Nashville, Junebug thought, didn’t seem to need the honeysuckle though. He seemed to be changing all on his own. And she would know. They spent so much time together, and she was so used to their two-headed shadow, that when she saw her own shadow it looked rather strange. But lately, Nashville had been spending time alone. Lately he’d been going for long walks, coming back with his pockets full of feathers he’d collected. Lately she’d find him standing in the yard, looking up, up, up at
the sky. He seemed to be stuck in that mysterious morning place—half asleep, half awake, still able to recall a dream.

  “Come on,” said Nashville, interrupting Junebug’s thoughts. “The honeysuckle is through the secret door.”

  The pair wiggled a board in the fence, loose like Junebug’s front tooth, and slipped inside their neighbor’s unruly garden. There were bushes growing wild, piles of leaves, and rusty, overturned lawn furniture in the yard. But there, at the far end, almost hidden, was the honeysuckle bush. Its yellow-orange blossoms drew Junebug and Nashville like bees to the flower.

  “Remember how I showed you,” said Nashville. He plucked a flower, held the whole blossom in his hands, and turned it upside down.

  “First pull off the bottom.” He did this, and a silken string emerged from where he separated this piece from the flower. A drop of nectar appeared at the bottom.

  “And then . . .” But before he could finish, Junebug swooped in and licked away the honey-tasting treat.

  “Then you steal it!” said Junebug.

  “Thief,” laughed Nashville, and they began collecting more blossoms until they heard a screen door slam behind them and the sound of boy’s voice.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “My mama said to use my BB gun if I caught you in our yard again!”

  Nashville and Junebug looked at each another, then started to run. They made it to the fence, and turned back as they crept through. The boy stood on his porch, arms crossed, no BB gun in sight.

  “The honey worked!” cried Junebug, laughing as they ran. “I have X-ray vision! I saw his underpants!”

  They collapsed, laughing, their backs against the old, tall fence. They held their hands open, and pulled the flowers apart to get to the honey-like drops hidden inside. Maybe, thought Junebug. Maybe the honey has another power. Yes, she felt sure it could transport her back here any time she had it—to a place that tasted like summer, to a place where two little shadows blended into one.