Halfway to Cambridge, we noticed flashing lights coming up in back of us, and Pop reluctantly pulled off to the side. The flashing lights whipped in behind us.
“It’s a state boy, Pop,” I said after making out the blue-and-gold Chevy in our taillights. The trooper climbed out slowly and approached our car cautiously, his hand feeling for his gun, expecting, probably, to find a bunch of kids joyriding in a stolen Mercedes. I’m sure his eyes must have gone wide when Pop’s gray-haired head poked out from the driver’s-side window.
“Stevie,” Pop rasped out, “I’m glad it’s you. We have to get this boy to the hospital right away!” Luckily Pop knew most of these guys from the courthouse.
“My God,” the trooper said. “I thought it looked like your car, Mr. Riley, but . . .” Then he snapped out of his daze. He probably figured if Pop was driving like that, somebody in the car must be dying. “Follow me,” he said, tightening his hat on his head and trotting back to his car.
Following the trooper, even with his flashing lights, actually had the effect of slowing us down. “Don’t be timid, Stevie,” Pop instructed through the windshield as he bore down on the troop car’s bumper. “I’m with you.” We kept up with this reverse chase scene all the way to the hospital, the trooper electing to pick up speed rather than risk getting nudged by Pop’s bumper. After we’d climbed the winding hill up to the hospital, we split off from him as he raced for the emergency room and we raced for the main entrance. I turned and saw his brake lights and then his backup lights as he realized he’d lost us. I can only guess what his reaction was when he saw all four of us get out of the car and tear into the hospital under our own steam.
After the elevator door closed behind us, I told Pop how impressed I was with his driving.
“Aaaah,” he said, waving off the compliment. Then as an afterthought, “Those Germans can still build a car, now can’t they?” He roared out his trademark laugh and threw his arm over my shoulders.
• • •
Mr. Lindstrom was a couple of shades paler than the last time I’d seen him and, as far as I could tell at first, not even conscious. But when Pop took a seat next to his bed and picked up his hand, asking if he could hear him, I saw Mr. Lindstrom’s hand give Pop’s a feeble squeeze.
“I’ve brought you something, John,” Pop said, patting his hand gently, “and you’d better brace yourself for this one.” He got up and led Andy over to the bed. “John, meet your grandson, Andy.”
I don’t know if Mr. Lindstrom caught the “grandson” part or not. But I do know that when he opened his eyes and saw Andy looking down at him, a definite change came over him. It must have been all in his eyes because the rest of his face, his whole face now and not just one side, was as unchanging as a mask. “Eeen,” was all he could say, but I knew what it meant. His eyes watered a little as Pop guided Andy into the chair by the bed.
“Andy, this is your grandpa,” Pop told him.
Andy didn’t say a word. He just sat there and stared down at his grandfather.
• • •
It was three hours later before anything happened. Earlier, after Pop had explained to Trooper Stevie what the deal was and Stevie had gone back to his appointed rounds, I’d gone out and moved the car from the main entrance to the parking lot. A couple of times Ethan and I had gone out for hot chocolate and to get coffee for Pop and a soda for Andy. Andy hadn’t budged from the bedside. Pop hadn’t either, except for stepping out to have that short meeting with the trooper. He’d pulled up a chair next to Andy’s and there they sat, hour after hour. Mr. Lindstrom had drifted off to sleep after the first hour as near as I could tell, and most of the time the only sound in the room was his deep, labored breathing. About an hour after midnight, we noticed a change. Each breath now seemed like a struggle, and for a while I thought each one might be his last. This went on for what seemed like forever but was probably only about forty-five minutes. Then all of a sudden I sat up, aware of a strange silence in the room. I was pretty sure what that meant.
Mr. Lindstrom lay there completely still on the bed. Except for the silence and stillness of his chest, he looked the same as he’d looked all along. His face was still a mask. His eyes were closed.
I looked over at Ethan, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, and wondered how he was taking all of this. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling right above Mr. Lindstrom. At first I thought he was deliberately looking away, and I couldn’t blame him. This was the first time either of us had ever been around anybody who was dying and it was a little eerie, especially, I figured, for a kid his age. But he didn’t appear scared, or even as if he were about to cry, so I thought maybe he’d managed to drift off into his own little world of Superman and magical powers and people who could fly. My eyes went over to Pop, who had reached out and was now holding Mr. Lindstrom’s hand. Andy had his arms folded across his chest and was leaning over the bed, almost doubled over as if he had a wicked stomachache. You could tell he was about to cry and didn’t want to. I looked back at Ethan again. His eyes were still on the ceiling, but different from before. This time he was more alert, and his eyes were wide and focused. I looked where he was looking but couldn’t see anything, which was par for the course. My eyes had just gone back to Ethan when I saw something that sent a tingle up my spine. With his gaze still fixed up there, his face gradually broke into a shy smile. Then he gave his little wave—his aloha wave.
Suddenly it hit me. I looked up again and tried my best to see what Ethan saw. I couldn’t, but it didn’t matter. I knew what he’d seen. I’d believed it when I read about it, but not the way I believed it at that moment. I felt a kind of exhilaration sweep over me as I thought about Mr. Lindstrom up there, feeling lighter and freer and happier than he’d ever felt in his whole life.
The other part is harder to describe, and I can’t swear it wasn’t caused by my own thoughts at the time or maybe because I was so tired. All I know is that the experience was real. The tingle I’d felt travel up my spine continued to grow. It spread out across my head until my whole scalp was tingling, and then spread through my face and neck and into my chest. At that moment I felt an almost indescribable peace coming over me. It seemed to be pouring into my heart and spreading out from my heart at the same time. I touched my arm and felt a delicious tickling sensation, as if my skin was experiencing a joy of its own and sending the good word out to the rest of me. I never knew I could feel so good, let alone at the deathbed of someone who’d been nothing but kind to me my entire life, not to mention this being right on the heels of one of the scariest experiences of my entire life. The whole thing was surreal.
I looked down at Mr. Lindstrom lying on the bed. Somewhere along the line a nurse had entered the room and was using a stethoscope to check for a heartbeat. “I think it’s over,” she said softly to Pop.
Pop, still holding Mr. Lindstrom’s hand and suddenly looking extremely tired, nodded. Then he folded Mr. Lindstrom’s hand gently over the one resting on his chest and gave both hands a final squeeze. “God be with you, John,” he said. He reached over and set his hand on Andy’s knee. “Would you like a few moments alone, son?”
Andy nodded slowly, and as he did a single tear rolled down his cheek. Pop stood and, wrapping his hand around Andy’s neck, pulled Andy’s head into him and ruffled his hair. Then gathering Ethan under one arm and me under the other, he led us out of the room.
Twenty-one
Katie and her friend Heather were hanging around the hallway outside the auditorium when I left school Monday afternoon. I think they’d been there for a while because it had been close to a half hour since they’d left the gymnasium, which is where most of our final exams were given. Luckily I hadn’t known that Katie was in the gymnasium taking her own test, a few rows over and about ten rows back, until she was handing in her paper, or it would have been a real distraction for me. I had my hands full with the biology Regents as it was.
I didn’t see them standing there until I was al
most alongside them, which was just as well, because if I’d seen them sooner, I would have been a lot more self-conscious as I approached and might have ended up doing something graceful like tripping over my own feet. I might not have noticed them at all except that my ears happened to pick up a whispered snippit of conversation.
“Say something to him.”
That’s when I glanced over, and that’s when it hit me. The thing was, the voice I’d heard was Heather’s. Was it possible that I’d been mistaken all along and Katie was the one who liked me? Those times I’d seen Heather giving me the once-over, had she been doing it on Katie’s behalf?
As I rounded the corner and hit the steps toward the side door, my eyes flicked back to where they were standing and I knew it was true. Katie looked stricken and her face silently pleaded with Heather not to blurt out anything else. My heart did a flip and my feet felt light as I glided out the door.
I thought about it a lot, but I didn’t actually call her till a few days ago. At first I’d been busy helping Pop with Mr. Lindstrom’s wake and funeral, not to mention doing battle with the rest of my exams. Then Katie’s family went away on vacation, and then I went to Maine with the Michaelsons, and then—well, I finally made the call. We’re planning to go to a movie on Friday and, as near as I can tell, I’m still in love. This may turn out to be a record for me.
Pop managed somehow to smooth things over with Ray, who’d threatened both legal and Betsy action against Andy for the hail of bullets he claimed almost took him out that night. Of course, I happen to know for a fact there were only two bullets involved. The first made a hole in the ceiling above the staircase, and the second whizzed over my head, not his.
Andy’s back with his mother in Syracuse, where they’re both undergoing family counseling which, as you might guess, I don’t put a lot of hope in. But I do have a feeling that Andy might have begun his own change that night, sitting by his grandfather’s side and absorbing something beyond words—something beyond wallowing in the mud of the past and worrying about who caused what and who owes what. Pop really took to Andy in that short time, and has high hopes for him. I think Andy took to Pop too.
Pop is in the process of buying Mr. Lindstrom’s land, including Blood Red Pond, and although I gather Rachel still looks at him as a force from the dark side for having agreed to be her father’s counsel in the now defunct lawsuit, I’d bet anything he offered considerably more than the property was worth, just so she and Andy could have an easier go of it.
So far I haven’t told anybody about what I experienced in that hospital room, not even Bo, although I know I will, some night when we’re sitting up talking into the wee hours of the morning. It’s not that it’s any big secret; it’s just that, for now, I don’t want to disturb the memory. I want to leave it tucked safely away.
I still have a good feeling about Mr. Lindstrom. From the little bits and pieces I know of his life, I’m pretty sure it hadn’t been an easy one, and I get a nice glow inside when I think of him rising up from his tired and worn out body, looking down on his grandson and his friends, and returning Ethan’s little wave—at least I like to think he did—before starting his return flight for home.
The other day I wandered into Ethan’s room in search of another missing shirt, and on the way out I happened to glance up at Bo’s Icarus painting. Right away it hit me that something was different about it. At first I couldn’t tell what it was. Icarus looked pretty much the same as he ever did floating up there, and everything else looked just the way it always had. Then it dawned on me. The plowman, who I’d always seen as sinking into the dirt, wasn’t doing that at all. What he was doing was pulling himself up out of the dirt. I don’t know why I’d never seen it that way before. He looked as dense and weighted-down as ever, but I saw now how his legs and back were straining, pulling for all they were worth against the gravity. What’s more, I could see how his neck muscles were tightening, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d pull his head up enough to get his first glimpse of the sky, and of Icarus gliding effortlessly above him. And I knew too, that once he got that glimpse, he’d never be the same.
So I’m thinking that in the end maybe we all get to be flyers. Maybe we’re like that plowman, plodding along between the earth and the sky, and if we can only lift our heads enough we’ll catch a glimpse of where it is we’re headed. I’ve been thinking that a lot lately. I think it when I see Ethan lost in one of his Superman comic books or hear Mr. and Mrs. Michaelson thumping around in their basement. I think it too when I see the way Pop looks at Ethan and me each time we come through the door—or if I pick up the paper and happen to read about somebody dying.
And I think Bo had the right idea. That first time when Icarus fell out of the sky, it wasn’t the end of his flight, but just the start of another one.
I like the thought.
ALSO BY DANIEL HAYES
THE TROUBLE WITH LEMONS EYE OF THE BEHOLDER NO EFFECT
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York. New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1996 by Daniel Hayes
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster
Book design by Anahid Hamparian
First edition
1098765432 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hayes. Daniel. Flyers / Daniel Hayes. — 1st ed. p. cm.
Summary: While filming a movie for a school project. Gabe and his friends discover mysterious activities at a supposedly vacant house.
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8881-6
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1444-9 (eBook)
[1. High schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Grandfathers—Fiction. 5. Death—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H31415F1 1996
[Fic]—dc20 96-10568
Flyers (9781481414449) Page 18