“A storm?”
Lucy’s father knelt in front of her and took her hands. “Are you certain you want to hear this? It isn’t a nice story. It was always too hard to talk about, and I didn’t want to scare you. Are you sure you’re ready?”
“I’m sure,” said Lucy. And she was. The word storm felt good to her. It was something she needed, something to hold on to. She could picture a storm, in a way she’d never been able to picture gone. Trees and wind and rain and loud crashing noises. One word, just one, and already Lucy could begin to feel the truth—hard and terrible, but real. How could something so frightening make her feel…better?
Lucy’s father spoke in a stony voice, as though he were practicing a speech. “There was a terrible storm. Your mother had been hanging laundry beside the house all afternoon on a wire strung between two trees. I remember it like yesterday.”
Tears began to well up in his eyes. “It was a pretty day, and you were asleep in a basket beneath the pear tree. You liked to watch the clothes flap in the wind, so she always took you with her. That day…you had sung yourself to sleep. You had just learned to sing and we were so proud….”
“I was there?”
“You were sleeping. Your mother had always hated rain. She said it reminded her of her home on the mountain. But the storm rolled in so fast that there wasn’t time to take the laundry down. Your mother ran to fetch you from the basket, where you were sleeping soundly, despite the rain. But she tripped on a root and fell beside one of the trees. As she fell, a tremendous bolt of lightning struck the tree. That awful pear tree!”
“Struck her?”
“It killed her instantly.”
Lucy put one hand to her mouth. Tears filled her eyes, and she took a minute to think about things. But then she wondered something, and she couldn’t help but ask. “How do you know, Papa…how do you know it killed her instantly? That it happened just like that?”
“Because—” Lucy’s father choked as he began to weep. “Because—I watched it through the window. I saw it all—just there.” He pointed across the yard to a window.
“Oh, Papa!”
“And I should have gone out into the rain with her, to help her. I would have. If I had known you were out there—if I had known what she was doing. She hated the rain so. But I didn’t realize until it was too late. I saw her reach for your basket, and there was a sound—an awful sound. Oh, Lucy…”
“Oh, Papa, I’m so sorry.”
“I know, sweet girl. I know.”
Lucy took a minute to think. “Papa, is there a…does she have a grave? Where I could visit her?”
Lucy’s father took her hand, pulled her into his lap. “I’m afraid not. You see, the lightning started a fire, and it burned so fast. There was nothing…nothing left for us to bury.” He choked on the terrible words.
“I’m so sorry, Papa.”
“No, Lucy. Please don’t ever feel sorry. It’s me who feels sorry…that I didn’t tell you sooner. You deserved the truth. Even if I couldn’t give you your mama, I could’ve given you the truth.”
“Oh, Papa.” As sad as Lucy felt on the inside, she felt so much worse for her father. And she understood everything in that moment. His awful silence. Why he stared sadly at his feet when he heard the name Nora.
“It was as if she had just vanished. Like she’d never been. There was just an empty space and that awful burnt tree. That horrible tree. I dug up the roots. I chopped it up and then I burned it. All of it.”
“Oh, Papa…”
“Lucy, I hate pears. But you know, Lucy…even without your mother, you’ve grown up so well, and I’m so proud of you.”
“Truly?”
“Of course. Why, just look at you, with Cat, almost like a mother yourself!”
She picked Cat up and snuggled him hard. “Thank you, Papa.”
And her papa reached out and hugged Lucy just as hard.
“Now, come with me. I have something to show you. But first let’s find your sister. She needs to know these things too.”
“But Sally says she doesn’t want to know about Mama. Sally says it’s best to keep quiet.”
Lucy’s papa sighed. “Your sister is a very good girl, Lucy. She does as she’s told, and listens carefully. But maybe, this time, she’s listened a little too carefully to her sad papa. I think, deep down, Sally will want to know too. Don’t you?”
Lucy thought about this and then nodded in agreement. So she picked up Cat and tore off to the house, calling her sister’s name loudly. When Lucy stepped inside, Sally looked up from where she was reading quietly in a chair. “What is it, Lucy? What could possibly be worthy of such a hullabaloo?”
But under the circumstances, even Sally’s persnickety speech couldn’t keep Lucy’s face from shining. “Oh, Sally, it’s Mama. I know you said you didn’t want to know, but Papa is telling us about Mama!”
At that, Sally dropped her book and didn’t even bother to pick it up. The confusion and happiness in her eyes matched the glow on Lucy’s face. “Truly? Truly?”
And then Lucy’s father stepped inside. And from inside the closet, from the top tiny shelf, above the coats and aprons, he took a box, a carved wooden box. He beckoned Lucy and Sally into the kitchen and, choking back tears, set the box on the kitchen table. “You both should have seen this long ago. Your mother brought it with her from the mountain. And now it belongs to you girls.”
Lucy lifted the lid. From inside the box, she picked up a hand mirror. It was blue, and intricately carved with odd letters and flowers. Tiny goats peered out from the carvings, and the old mirror that was set in the center was a little clouded. But Lucy could see her face, her own red hair, and her own blue eyes smiling back at her. She smiled.
Then her papa turned her hand over. At first Lucy thought that there might be another mirror on the back, but there wasn’t. It was a painting, a lifelike portrait of another face, with another pair of smiling blue eyes. Another halo of red curls. A face almost identical to her own. Lucy’s hand shook, but she didn’t drop the handle. She held her mother and, for a minute, felt her mother holding her too.
It was a painting, a lifelike portrait of another face…
And in case you are asking yourself, But what about Rosebud? I’ll set your mind at ease. There was, a few weeks later, another voyage up the mountain. A plan was hatched, and bags were packed. But this time Lucy and Wynston zipped up the mountain in a shiny green boat, wearing sturdier boots and singing excitedly. Masha made sure there were plenty of meat pies to go around.
Cat stayed home in the barn, safe and dry.
And though I will not reveal the details of that adventure, because this story has nearly reached its end…I will assure you that Rosebud was (after some searching) discovered at the home of Mayor Callow, wearing a bright yellow ribbon. And I will further inform you that Sprout was found in the same location, though without such colorful adornment.
I will also say that when the party arrived, they found that Willie had indeed made it home, slowly, and not without mishap. He was happy to be there among the misty fields, heavy branches, and narrow, wet streets. His mother was very pleased to have him home, even though he continued to bump into things, causing a variety of interesting disasters.
But that…is a story all its own.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest thanks…
To Chris Poma, who suggested I begin writing this book, and Marvin and Dorothy Bell, who urged me to finish.
To Lisa Findlay, Tina Wexler, and Mallory Loehr who made this experience a fairy tale all its own.
To Gary Blankenburg and Richard Jackson, who suggested (when I was young enough to believe them) that I might someday be a real writer.
To Thisbe Nissen, Julianna Baggott, and Elizabeth Lenhard, who offered sound advice and cheerful chatter.
To Sonya Naumann and Jeff Skinner, who aided and abetted.
To Susan Gray, with whom I first wandered the Bewilderness.
&n
bsp; To my parents—Mom, Dad, Steve, and Cheryl—who built a house of stories. And to Henry, Emma, and Roy, who lived in that house with me.
To the University of Iowa, who granted me a James Michener–Paul Engle Fellowship and the luxury of time to write.
And finally, to the authors I’ve loved best and the people who led me to them: C. S. Lewis and Kate Hamill, W. B. Yeats and Steve Snyder, James Thurber and Steve Gettinger, Maurice Sendak and Judy Goldstein. Also Roald Dahl, Susan Cooper, Joan Aiken, P. L. Travers, Betty MacDonald, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Norton Juster, Edward Eager, E. Nesbit, and the generous librarians of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, who were my babysitters, friends, and teachers for many years.
I owe you all a great deal.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAUREL SNYDER wrote her first book when she was eight years old. However, she is sad to report that “The Very Naughty Unicorn” is unavailable for publication, as a badly behaved boy named Henry ripped it to shreds shortly after it was finished. Fortunately, Laurel continued to pursue her passion for words and went on to receive an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Michener-Engle Fellowship. She is a published poet, a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and an accomplished (but retired) waitress.
Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains is Laurel’s first novel, and she is currently writing another, along with a number of other projects. She lives with her husband and two young sons in Atlanta and online at www.laurelsnyder.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2008 by Laurel Snyder
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Greg Call
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Visit us on the Web!
www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Snyder, Laurel.
Up and down the Scratchy Mountains, or, The search for a suitable princess / Laurel Snyder; illustrated by Greg Call
p. cm.
Summary: Lucy, a milkmaid, and her best friend Wynston, a reluctant prince, go in search of information about Lucy’s missing mother—even though Wynston is supposed to be searching for a proper princess to marry.
[1. Fairy tales.] I. Call, Greg, ill. II. Title. III. Title: Search for a suitable princess.
PZ8.S4177Up 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007015689
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
eISBN: 978-0-375-84990-9
v3.0
Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains Page 15