The Summer of the Swans

by Betsy Byars

  Joe Melby did not say anything but moved one foot back and forth on the sidewalk, shuffling at some sand. “Do you—”

  “Anybody who would steal a little boy’s watch,” she said, cutting off his words, and it was a relief to make this accusation to his face at last, “is somebody whose help I can very well do without.” Her head was pounding so loudly she could hardly hear her own words. For months, ever since the incident of the stolen watch, she had waited for this moment, had planned exactly what she would say. Now that it was said, she did not feel the triumph she had imagined at all.

  “Is that what’s wrong with you?” He looked at her. “You think I stole your brother’s watch?”

  “I know you did.”

  “How?”

  “Because I asked Charlie who stole his watch and I kept asking him and one day on the school bus when I asked him he pointed right straight at you.

  “He was confused—”

  “He wasn’t that confused. You probably thought he wouldn’t be able to tell on you because he couldn’t talk, but he pointed right—”

  “He was confused. I gave the watch back to him. I didn’t take it.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You believe what you want then, but I didn’t take that watch. I thought that matter had been settled.”

  “Huh!”

  She turned and started walking with great speed down the hill. For some reason she was not as sure about Joe Melby as she had been before, and this was even more disturbing. He did take the watch, she said to herself. She could not bear to think that she had been mistaken in this, that she had taken revenge on the wrong person.

  Behind her there were sudden cheers as someone hit a home run. The ball went into the street. Joe ran, picked it up, and tossed it to a boy in the field. Sara did not look around.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” she heard Joe call. “I’m coming.”

  She did not turn around. She had fallen into that trap before. Once when she had been walking down the street, she had heard a car behind her and the horn sounding and a boy’s voice shouting, “Hey, beautiful!” And she had turned around. She! Then, too late, she had seen that the girl they were honking and shouting at was Rosey Camdon on the opposite side of the street, Rosey Camdon who was Miss Batelle District Fair and Miss Buckwheat Queen and a hundred other things. Sara had looked down quickly, not knowing whether anyone had seen her or not, and her face had burned so fiercely she had thought it would be red forever. Now she kept walking quickly with her head down.

  “Wait, Sara.”

  Still she did not turn around or show that she had heard him.

  “Wait.” He ran, caught up with her, and started walking beside her. “All the boys say they want to help.”

  She hesitated but kept walking. She could not think of anything to say. She knew how circus men on stilts felt when they walked, because her legs seemed to be moving in the same awkward way, great exaggerated steps that got her nowhere.

  She thought she might start crying so she said quickly, “Oh, all right.” Then tears did come to her eyes, sudden and hot, and she looked down at her feet.

  He said, “Where should we start? Have you got any ideas?”

  “I think he’s up in the woods. I took him to see the swans yesterday and I think he was looking for them when he got lost.”

  “Probably up that way.”

  She nodded.

  He paused, then added, “We’ll find him.”

  She did not answer, could not, because tears were spilling down her cheeks, so she turned quickly and walked alone to Mary’s house and waited on the sidewalk until Mary came out to join her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She and Mary were almost across the open field before Sara spoke. Then she said, “Guess who just stopped me and gave me the big sympathy talk about Charlie.”

  “I don’t know. Who?”

  “Joe Melby.”

  “Really? What did he say?”

  “He wants to help look for Charlie. He makes me sick.”

  “I think it’s nice that he wants to help.”

  “Well, maybe if he’d stolen your brother’s watch you wouldn’t think it was so nice.”

  Mary was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he didn’t steal that watch, Sara.”

  “Huh!”

  “No, he really didn’t.”

  Sara looked at her and said, “How do you know?”

  “I can’t tell you how I know because I promised I wouldn’t, but I know he didn’t.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t tell. I promised.”

  “That never stopped you before. Now, Mary Weicek, you tell me what you know this minute.”

  “I promised.”

  “Mary, tell me.”

  “Mom would kill me if she knew I told you.”

  “She won’t know.”

  “Well, your aunt went to see Joe Melby’s mother.”

  “What?”

  “Aunt Willie went over to see Joe Melby’s mother.”

  “She didn’t!”

  “Yes, she did too, because my mother was right there when it happened. It was about two weeks after Charlie had gotten the watch back.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. You told Aunt Willie that Joe had stolen the watch-remember, you told everybody—and so Aunt Willie went over to see Joe’s mother.”

  “She wouldn’t do such a terrible thing.”

  “Well, she did.”

  “And what did Mrs. Melby say?”

  “She called Joe into the room and she said, ‘Joe, did you steal the little Godfrey boy’s watch?’ And he said, ‘No.’ ”

  “What did you expect him to say in front of his mother? ‘Yes, I stole the watch’? Huh! That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “So then she said, ‘I want the truth now. Do you know who did take the watch?’ and he said that nobody had stolen the watch.”

  “So where did it disappear to for a week, I’d like to know.”

  “I’m coming to that. He said some of the fellows were out in front of the drugstore and Charlie was standing there waiting for the school bus—you were in the drug store. Remember it was the day we were getting the stamps for letters to those pen pals who never answered? Remember the stamps wouldn’t come out of the machine? Well, anyway, these boys outside the store started teasing Charlie with some candy, and while Charlie was trying to get the candy, one of the boys took off Charlie’s watch without Charlie noticing it. Then they were going to ask Charlie what time it was and when he looked down at his watch, he would get upset because the watch would be gone. They were just going to tease him.”

  “Finks! Finks!”

  “Only you came out of the drugstore right then and saw what they were doing with the candy and told them off and the bus came and you hustled Charlie on the bus before anybody had a chance to give back the watch. Then they got scared to give it back and that’s the whole story. Joe didn’t steal the watch at all. He wasn’t even in on it. He came up right when you did and didn’t even know what had happened. Later, when he found out, he got the watch back and gave it to Charlie, that’s all.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before this?”

  “Because I just found out about it at lunch. For four months my mother has known all about this thing and never mentioned it because she said it was one of those things best forgotten.”

  “Why did she tell you now?”

  “That’s the way my mom is. We were talking about Charlie at the dinner table, and suddenly she comes up with this. Like one time she casually mentioned that she had had a long talk with Mr. Homer about me. Mr. Homer, the principal! She went over there and they had a long discussion and she never mentioned it for a year.”

  “That is the worst thing Aunt Willie has ever done.”

  “Well, don’t let on that you know or I’ll be in real trouble.”

  “I won’t, bu
t honestly, I could just—”

  “You promised.”

  “I know. You don’t have to keep reminding me. It makes me feel terrible though, I can tell you that.” She walked with her head bent forward. “Terrible ! You know what I just did when I saw him?”

  “What?”

  “Accused him of stealing the watch.”

  “Sara, you didn’t.”

  “I did too. I can’t help myself. When I think somebody has done something mean to Charlie I can’t forgive them. I want to keep after them and keep after them just like Aunt Willie said. I even sort of suspected Joe Melby hadn’t really taken that watch and I still kept on—”

  “Shh! Be quiet a minute.” Mary was carrying her transistor radio and she held it up between them. “Listen.”

  The announcer was saying: “We have a report of a missing child in the Cass section-ten-year-old Charlie Godfrey, who has been missing from his home since sometime last night. He is wearing blue pajamas and brown felt slippers, has a watch on one wrist and an identification bracelet with his name and address on the other. He is a mentally handicapped child who cannot speak and may become alarmed when approached by a stranger. Please notify the police immediately if you have seen this youngster.”

  The two girls looked at each other, then continued walking across the field in silence.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mary and Sara were up in the field by the woods. They had been searching for Charlie for an hour without finding a trace of him.

  Mary said, “I don’t care how I look. I am taking off this scarf. It must be a hundred degrees out here.”

  “Charlie!” Sara called as she had been doing from time to time. Her voice had begun to sound strained, she had called so often. “Charlie!”

  “Sara, do you know where we are?” Mary asked after a moment.

  “Of course. The lake’s down there and the old shack’s over there and you can see them as soon as we get up a little higher.”

  “If we get up a little higher,” Mary said in a tired voice.

  “You didn’t have to come, you know.”

  “I wanted to come, only I just want to make sure we don’t get lost. I have to go to Bennie Hoffman’s party tonight.”

  “I know. You told me ten times.”

  “So I don’t want to get lost.” Mary walked a few steps without speaking. “I still can’t figure out why I was invited, because Bennie Hoffman hardly knows me. I’ve just seen him two times this whole summer at the pool. Why do you think he—”

  “Come on, will you?”

  “It seems useless, if you ask me, to just keep walking when we don’t really know which way he went. Aunt Willie thinks he went in the old coal mine.”

  “I know, but she only thinks that because she associates the mine with tragedy because her uncle and brother were killed in that coal mine. But Charlie wouldn’t go in there. Remember that time we went into the Bryants’ cellar after they moved out, and he wouldn’t even come in there because it was cold and dark and sort of scary.”

  “Yes, I do remember because I sprained my ankle jumping down from the window and had to wait two hours while you looked through old Life magazines.”

  “I was not looking through old magazines.”

  “I could hear you. I was down there in that dark cellar with the rats and you were upstairs and I was yelling for help and you kept saying, ‘I’m going for help right now,’ and I could hear the pages turning and turning and turning.”

  “Well, I got you out, didn’t I?”

  “Finally.”

  Sara paused again. “Charlie! Charlie!” The girls waited in the high grass for an answer, then began to walk again. Mary said, “Maybe we should have waited for the others before we started looking. They’re going to have a regular organized posse with everybody walking along together. There may be a helicopter.”

  “The longer we wait, the harder it will be to find him.”

  “Well, I’ve got to get home in time to bathe and take my hair down.”

  “I know. I know You’re going to Bennie Hoffman’s party.”

  “You don’t have to sound so mad about it. I didn’t ask to be invited.”

  “I am not mad because you were invited to Bennie Hoffman’s party. I couldn’t care less about Bennie Hoffman’s party. I’m just mad because you’re slowing me up on this search.”

  “Well, if I’m slowing you up so much, then maybe I’ll just go on home.”

  “That suits me fine.”

  They looked at each other without speaking. Between them the radio began announcing: “Volunteers are needed in the Cass area in the search for young Charlie Godfrey, who disappeared from his home sometime during the night. A search of the Cheat woods will begin at three o’clock this afternoon.”

  Mary said, “Oh, I’ll keep looking. I’ll try to walk faster.”

  Sara shrugged, turned, and started walking up the hill, followed by Mary. They came to the old fence that once separated the pasture from the woods. Sara walked slowly beside the fence. “Charlie!” she called.

  “Would he come if he heard you, do you think?”

  Sara nodded. “But if they get a hundred people out here clomping through the woods and hollering, he’s not going to come. He’ll be too scared. I know him.”

  “I don’t see how you can be so sure he came up this way.”

  “I just know. There’s something about me that makes me understand Charlie. It’s like I know how he feels about things. Like sometimes I’ll be walking down the street and I’ll pass the jeweler’s and I’ll think that if Charlie were here he would want to stand right there and look at those watches all afternoon and I know right where he’d stand and how he’d put his hands up on the glass and how his face would look. And yesterday I knew he was going to love the swans so much that he wasn’t ever going to want to leave. I know how he feels.”

  “You just think you do.”

  “No, I know. I was thinking about the sky one night and I was looking up at the stars and I was thinking about how the sky goes on and on forever, and I couldn’t understand it no matter how long I thought, and finally I got kind of nauseated and right then I started thinking, Well, this is how Charlie feels about some things. You know how it makes him sick sometimes to try to print letters for a long time and—”

  “Look who’s coming,” Mary interrupted.

  “Where?”

  “In the trees, walking toward us. Joe Melby.”

  “You’re lying. You’re just trying to make me—”

  “It is him. Look.” She quickly began to tie her scarf over her rollers again. “And you talk about me needing eyeglasses.”

  “Cut across the field, quick!” Sara said. “No, wait, go under the fence. Move, will you, Mary, and leave that scarf alone. Get under the fence. I am not going to face him. I mean it.”

  “I am not going under any fence. Anyway, it would look worse for us to run away than to just walk by casually.”

  “I cannot walk by casually after what I said.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to face him sometime, and it might as well be now when everyone feels sorry for you about your brother.” She called out, “Hi, Joe, having any luck?”

  He came up to them and held out a brown felt slipper and looked at Sara. “Is this Charlie’s?”

  Sara looked at the familiar object and forgot the incident of the watch for a moment. “Where did you find it?”

  “Right up there by the fence. I had just picked it up when I saw you.”

  She took the slipper and, holding it against her, said, “Oh, I knew he came up this way, but it’s a relief to have some proof of it.”

  “I was just talking to Mr. Aker,” Joe continued, “and he said he heard his dogs barking up here last night. He had them tied out by the shack and he thought maybe someone was prowling around.”

  “Probably Charlie,” Mary said.

  “That’s what I figured. Somebody ought to go down to the gas station and tell
the people. They’re organizing a big search now and half of the men are planning to go up to the mine.”

  There was a pause and Mary said, “Well, I guess I could go, only I don’t know whether I’ll have time to get back up here.” She looked at Joe. “I promised Bennie Hoffman I’d come to his party tonight. That’s why my hair’s in rollers.”

  “Tell them I found the slipper about a half mile up behind the Akers’ at the old fence,” Joe said.

  “Sure. Are you coming to Bennie’s tonight?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Come. It’s going to be fun.”

  Sara cleared her throat and said, “Well, I think I’ll get on with my search if you two will excuse me.” She turned and started walking up the hill again. There seemed to be a long silence in which even the sound of the cicadas in the grass was absent. She thrashed at the high weeds with her tennis shoes and hugged Charlie’s slipper to her.

  “Wait a minute, Sara, I’ll come with you,” Joe Melby said.

  He joined her and she nodded, still looking down at the slipper. There was a picture of an Indian chief stamped on the top of the shoe and there was a loneliness to the Indian’s profile, even stamped crudely on the felt, that she had never noticed before.

  She cleared her throat again. “There is just one thing I want to say.” Her voice did not even sound familiar, a tape-recorded voice.

  He waited, then said, “Go ahead.”

  She did not speak for a moment but continued walking noisily through the weeds.

  “Go ahead.”

  “If you’ll just wait a minute, I’m trying to think how to say this.” The words she wanted to say—I’m sorry—would not come out at all.

  They continued walking in silence and then Joe said, “You know, I was just reading an article about a guru over in India and he hasn’t spoken a word in twenty-eight years. Twenty-eight years and he hasn’t said one word in all that time. And everyone has been waiting all those years to hear what he’s going to say when he finally does speak because it’s supposed to be some great wise word, and I thought about this poor guy sitting there and for twenty-eight years he’s been trying to think of something to say that would be the least bit great and he can’t think of anything and he must be getting really desperate now. And every day it gets worse and worse.”