Lucy had thought that, but she didn’t say so.
“The Queen made me think of my ma. Ma was always playing music, just like the Queen was always painting. Pa was proud of her, but he’d get mad all the same.” Oscar was quiet a moment, then added, “Do you suppose they ever would have made up their quarrel if it hadn’t been for Phoebe?”
“They did love each other,” said Lucy. “But I think they needed Phoebe. They were so different from each other; they needed something in common.”
“That isn’t fair,” said Oscar. “They shouldn’t have to depend on a child to make things right between them.” He sounded bitter.
“Maybe Phoebe’s only part of it. What I mean is, it helps to have something in common, but she can’t be everything for them. They need to choose to be happy.” Lucy was thinking of her own parents. In the past, she had often felt as if she were the one holding them together. But it wasn’t me at all, she realized suddenly. People have to decide for themselves to be happy.
“When I was out tonight with Ray, it was wonderful,” said Oscar. “His car can go so fast. There’s a siren louder than a train whistle! And a crystal set, right in the car!”
“A what?”
“I guess you call it a radio,” said Oscar. “Ray played some music — loud, drumming music. He called it rock-and-roll. He turned on the siren and we went down the dirt road in back of the Lee farm as fast as anything, dust flying behind us. Down one hill and up another — I could feel myself lifting off the seat. . . .” Oscar looked at Lucy. “You see? It’s not much for you. But for me, it’s as if — well, how would you feel if you got to travel into the future? To see things you never even imagined!” He looked away again, and his voice grew tortured. “Right then, I was actually happy that I wrote what I did in The Book of Story Beginnings.”
He went on before Lucy could respond. “Pa didn’t think much of me wanting to be a writer,” he said. “I couldn’t even talk about it with him. But Ma knew what I wanted. I wanted to go out and see things. I wanted — well, a writer’s got to have something to write about. I wasn’t going to waste my life here.” Oscar waved his hand across the horizon, and Lucy imagined the way things might have looked to him so long ago. Long, dull roads that went on forever before they came to anywhere that was somewhere. That was what he had written in his story beginning.
“I felt like Pa was never going to let me leave home,” said Oscar. “He wanted me to take over the farm when he got old. Sometimes I heard them arguing about it. Ma telling Pa to leave me alone about it. And Pa telling her to —” Oscar paused. “I just hated it when they fought. Sometimes I wanted to run away. That’s why I wrote that story beginning.”
“But you didn’t mean for things to turn out the way they did.”
“No.” Oscar’s voice was empty and sad. “I didn’t.”
“You can’t be unhappy forever,” said Lucy. “Your parents wouldn’t want —”
“But to be glad for what I did! It’s like being glad I murdered them.”
“But you didn’t murder them! They went on with their lives. They chose to be happy. They had to, even if they never forgot you, or never stopped missing you,” said Lucy. She was shivering, not because she was cold, but because she always shivered when she tried to say something important. “You’re just choosing,” she said. “You’re choosing to be happy about what’s happened.”
Though Oscar didn’t say anything, Lucy could feel him listening. “The happiest endings — I think they’re endings that feel like beginnings,” she said, still shivering. She was thinking of the King and Queen. She was thinking of her own parents. “We’re your family now, Oscar,” she said. “You should choose us.”
Oscar gave her a quiet look — the kind of look he might have given his own sister, she thought. A great sigh left him, like a ghost departing. He put his head down on his arms, and Lucy followed his gaze, looking out across the plains, at the four-lane highway that couldn’t have been there in 1914, at a bright point of light, a jet moving across the background of stars. Meanwhile, all around in the darkness the endlessly patient song of the crickets went on, like a clock keeping time through the night, through all the nights in all the years.
Lucy thought she could feel what Oscar was thinking. He’s choosing now, she thought to herself. He’s choosing this ending, this beginning.
They sat there together for a long time, until at last Lucy’s mother came to the screen door and told them it was time to come in. And they went in, and the door closed behind them, and all the Martins were home at last.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2006 by Kristin Kladstrup
Cover illustration copyright © 2006 by Tim Jessell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2013
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Kladstrup, Kristin.
The book of story beginnings / Kristin Kladstrup.
p. cm.
Summary: After moving with her parents to Iowa, twelve-year-old Lucy discovers a mysterious notebook that can bring stories to life and which has a link to the 1914 disappearance of her great-uncle.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2609-9 (hardcover)
[1. Authorship — Fiction. 2. Storytelling — Fiction. 3. Magic — Fiction. 4. Space and time — Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.K6767Boo 2006
[Fic] — dc22 2005054262
ISBN 978-0-7636-3419-3 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6409-1 (electronic)
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The Book of Story Beginnings Page 23