Fly Like a Bird

by Jana Zinser

  She turned to go back to the kitchen. Uncle Tommy clutched at his throat and stuck out his tongue, pretending to fall off the end of the booth. “Yeah, your cooking probably sent them to their grave in the first place.”

  Miss Shirley swaggered back to the grill, swishing her big hips. “You’ll never know.” Her deep laughter rang through the small restaurant. Ivy and Nick looked at each other and laughed. Jesse stared out the window. The old wooden ceiling fan spun in an endless rhythmic circle.

  Kitty set the lunch bill on the table. “When you’re done, boys, why don’t you go on home? You’ve stirred up enough trouble for one day,” said Kitty. “You know, I see you guys more than my own husband.”

  Uncle Tommy laughed and slapped the top of the table. “You mean the fogger man? This summer I saw him driving down the church alley on that bug tractor. Don’t think he knew where he was going. Nearly ran over the preacher and a little old lady.”

  Ivy picked up the pies and her friends got up to leave.

  “Ivy, will you take these clowns with you?” Kitty asked, pointing to Uncle Tommy and his buddies.

  “Sorry, they’re all yours. But thanks for the pies.”

  Ivy never paid for Miss Shirley’s pies because Grandma’s deal with Miss Shirley to supply wild morel mushrooms for her special gravy extended to the Coffey Shop.

  Chapter 17

  THE DUSTY LIBRARY

  After leaving the Coffey Shop, Jesse and Raven headed to the high school gym that was open on the weekends for workouts. Jesse’s only goal was to get out of Coffey and be a football coach for a Division 1 college. He despised unranked college teams and small towns.

  Nick waited with Ivy outside the Coffey Shop and a few minutes later, Uncle Walter pulled up in front of the library, driving Grandma’s Dodge Dart with the window rolled down. “I’m looking for some pies. Miss Shirley’s bartered pastries are the best, don’t you think?”

  Ivy smiled and nodded as she put the pies in the back of the car. The cool fall air blew Ivy’s hair. The breeze felt good, like a fresh breath after the stifling summer heat.

  Uncle Walter got out of the car carrying a stack of books to return. “Come with me to the library. I may need backup with Edna Jean.”

  Ivy and Nick laughed and followed him into the library.

  Although it was her job, Edna Jean Whittaker did not like to loan books. She inspected each returned book with a high-powered magnifying glass to check for reading crimes; bent corners, smudged pages, or small tears. She accused patrons of taking advantage of her failing eyesight.

  Ivy and Nick waited with Uncle Walter while he returned his books.

  Edna Jean’s very pale vampire-like skin showed almost translucent, because she never saw the sun. Edna Jean took off her glasses, and cleaned the lenses with a tissue as if using them as a prop.

  “Walter, I must say, I hear the shenanigans that go on over at your place are absolutely appalling.” Her high-pitched whisper echoed around the almost empty library. “No self-respecting man would let his brother rampage through his trailer, doing only God-knows-what-all.”

  Uncle Walter frowned and shuffled his penny loafers. “Edna Jean, for your information—and your gossip friend Bertha’s—I don’t let Tommy rampage through my trailer. He breaks in. He picks my locks. I have several.”

  Edna Jean straightened out the tangled chain connecting the earpieces of her thick glasses and she put them back on her long, pointed nose. “Tommy Taylor’s been bothering people his whole life. For years, he told people that he put my precious pretties up the library flagpole in high school.” Her hand grabbed at the air. “Lies, all of it. No, indeed, I sure wouldn’t let him pillage my private things, if I were you.”

  Uncle Walter ran his fingers through his thick dark hair and sighed. “Right, Edna Jean. Thanks for the advice.”

  Edna Jean bent down to examine Uncle Walter’s returned books with the magnifying glass. She gasped and straightened up, pointing to a victimized page.

  “What’s this? There’s a tear on page 143.”

  Uncle Walter shrugged.

  “It looks like a tiny, little rip. I don’t even know how you could see it, it’s so small.”

  Edna Jean wore no makeup. She didn’t have the eyesight for that kind of detail. She stared at Uncle Walter with her mouth pulled to the side. “What? Do you think I’m blind?”

  Ivy and Nick exchanged a glance.

  Uncle Walter’s well-manicured hands gestured in the air. “No, Edna Jean, the tear is just so small. It was just an accident.”

  Edna Jean’s eyes narrowed until they were two little slits in her glasses.

  “There are no accidents, only careless readers.” Her high-pitched voice rose even sharper. “There is no excuse for book abuse.”

  Ivy looked at Nick who pursed his lips and shook his finger, imitating Edna Jean behind her back. Afraid she would laugh, Ivy covered her mouth and turned away.

  “Really, Edna Jean. Books are supposed to be read.” Uncle Walter shook his head and turned to go. “Ivy, do you want a ride home?”

  Ivy glanced around the library. “As long as I’m here, I think I’ll get some more travel books and maybe look up something for school. You want to help me, Nick?”

  “Not really.”

  She nudged him.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Uncle Walter winked. “Well, make sure you don’t turn the pages.”

  Edna Jean sniffed loudly. She shushed a group of little kids in the children’s section and turned back to her desk to stamp Uncle Walter’s books.

  Nick leaned over to Uncle Walter. “You have to cut her some slack. She’s a member of the library police.”

  Ivy and Uncle Walter laughed.

  Edna Jean turned around and glared at Nick. Her tiny bat ears twitched. “I heard that. I have a very keen sense of hearing, you know.”

  Uncle Walter waved to them as he left the library, still chuckling to himself.

  Ivy turned to Edna Jean. “I need to go through some old copies of the Coffey Gazette for a school project.”

  Nick cocked his head to the side and gave her a questioning look, but didn’t say anything.

  The floorboards creaked as Edna Jean slowly crept around the stacks with a pencil sticking out of her stiff wig. The dust-phobic librarian led them to the back stairs that went down to the lower level of the library where the periodicals and damaged books she considered unreadable or needed protecting were kept.

  Edna Jean avoided going down to the basement because everything was dusty. The place smelled old and forgotten, like the Rose Hill Nursing Home. “I find the smell of dust overwhelmingly distressful and problematic,” Edna Jean coughed. She pointed to a bookshelf at the far end of the dark room. “I think you’ll find the old papers over there somewhere. Don’t mess with the stuff down here.” Edna Jean put her hand over her nose and mouth and hurried up the dingy stairs.

  “What? Can she hear us turning the pages down here?” Nick asked.

  “Probably.”

  Ivy found a dusty pile of oversized folders filled with the yellowed pages of the Coffey Gazette. Nick leafed through huge books that contained the weekly paper from over the years. “What are we doing here?”

  “I’m trying to find my parents’ obituaries or something about their crash.” She opened the cover of the big book resting on top of the pile. She gingerly turned the brittle pages filled with Coffey’s news. The date was July 7, 1944. She turned the page. “Hey, look. Isn’t that Reuben?”

  The picture showed the young Reuben Smith, a member of the Future Farmers of America, winning a blue ribbon for his oversized tomatoes at the McKinley County Fair.

  Nick leaned in closely to look at the yellowed picture. “Oh, my gosh. That’s Patty next to him.”

  “Let me see.”

  Ivy stared at the thin, smiling girl standing beside Reuben. She ran her finger over the old picture. Her heart sank. If only someone could have warned this young, prett
y girl about the heartaches that would someday haunt her.

  Ivy sighed and turned the page to the obituaries and wedding announcements. A newly engaged young woman peered out of her thick glasses, looking happy and hopeful. The name under the picture read Edna Jean Whittaker.

  Nick looked at Ivy. “Oh my God! Edna Jean used to have real hair.” Nick exaggeratedly threw himself against a bookshelf. “And someone was actually going to marry her.”

  “Uncle Tommy says Edna Jean’s boyfriend ran off with her best friend.”

  “She had a best friend?”

  Ivy hit Nick’s arm. “Stop, Nick. She’ll hear you. She has keen hearing. Help me find the papers from 1959.”

  They neatly rearranged the stacks until they found the newspapers from the year her parents died. Ivy flipped through the papers until she found December 14. She tucked her hair behind her ears and read each yellowed page, searching for reports of her parents’ accident. But she found no mention of the deadly car wreck. Why wouldn’t a fatal car crash be in the local paper?

  On the front page of the newspaper from December 21, 1959, the week after her parents died, there was a big article about the search and tragic discovery of Conrad’s wife in the pond behind his house. But the obituaries of Ivy’s parents had not been published in the paper. It was as if the accident had never happened.

  Ivy and Nick climbed the stairs out of the dark basement filled with discarded books and forgotten periodicals. Ivy felt dusty and discouraged. When they reached the main floor of the library, they saw Edna Jean hunched over a book with a magnifying glass. She straightened up when she heard them coming. She pushed her glasses up and leaned forward to within inches of Ivy’s face. “Oh, it’s you.” She covered her nose. “You smell dusty. What do you want now?”

  Ivy stepped back and swallowed hard. “Miss Whittaker, I was wondering. Do you remember the night my parents died?”

  Edna Jean pushed her glasses up. “Sure. I can still smell the rain. It pounded that night, nearly broke my eardrums.”

  Ivy shifted nervously. “Do you remember seeing my mother that night?”

  Edna Jean looked around the library, her tiny bat eyes squinting. “Well, sort of. I left here late that night. You wouldn’t believe how dirty this place can get. Lord knows I try to keep it clean. Anyway, I heard your mother talking to somebody down the street. I recognized her voice.” She tapped her ears. “Keen. But I couldn’t see who she was talking to. My eyesight’s not the best, you know. But I could tell it was a man. I could smell a man’s smell.” Edna Jean tapped her long, pointed nose.

  “Like aftershave?”

  Edna nodded. “Maybe. Definitely a musty man smell.”

  Ivy thought about how much Uncle Tommy’s Old Sage aftershave stunk. “But what happened after that?”

  Edna Jean leaned forward to within an inch of Ivy’s face. Her voice turned to a scratchy, high-pitched whisper. “You know, sometimes you can’t see what’s right in front of you.” She moved her hand up and down in front of her eyes.

  Ivy glanced at Nick, who stood behind Edna and squeezed his eyes shut, groping the air in front of him. Ivy suppressed her laughter and looked at Edna Jean, nodding. “I know what you mean.”

  With her back to Nick’s antics, Edna Jean continued her advice. “Just be forewarned. I’ve learned that the truth is often disappointing. Ask Bertha. She’s never been the same after her husband ran away with that dime-store floozy. Some of us don’t survive the betrayals.”

  Ivy nodded, absently reaching up to touch the silver heart necklace around her neck.

  Nick grabbed Ivy’s arm and gently steered her out of the library. She looked up and saw Russell staring out of his apartment window above the Coffey Shop. She waved but he didn’t see her. She could tell his mouth was moving as he counted the bricks in the street.

  Chapter 18

  THE CORN QUICKSAND

  The Iowa woods dressed up in their best reds, oranges, and yellows, in a fall foliage fashion show. The brisk breeze of autumn brought the clean and earthy smell of Mother Nature.

  On a windy but warm Sunday in September, Ivy wandered around the old Victorian house, restlessly pacing like a polar bear confined at the zoo.

  After going to church with Grandma and Uncle Walter in the morning, Ivy had spent the afternoon putting up travel posters of New York City, London, Paris, and Athens on her bedroom walls. But when she finished, she had nothing to do. “Grandma, I’m going to call Jesse and see if he wants to go for a run. I should be back in an hour or so if Nick or Maggie call.” Grandma looked up from reading the Des Moines Register in front of the big windows facing the backyard. “Okay, dear. Watch out for cars.”

  Ivy laughed. “Grandma, it’s Sunday. Nobody goes out after church. Everything’s closed except for the Coffey Shop. It’s a ghost town.”

  “Still. Danger can strike at the oddest times. Believe you me.”

  Ivy pulled her shoulder-length hair back in a ponytail and put on a pair of old gray sweats and her red with a white-stripe running shoes. She met Jesse at his house and they went for a run down the deserted streets of Coffey toward the high school gym. Jesse had planned to meet the coach for a workout.

  As they jogged by the train station, the silos behind the Farmer’s Co-op loomed high in the air like silver skyscrapers, a silhouette of the farmer’s harvest. The birds soared against a clear, blue sky and the air smelled sweet. Down the block, a lawn mower whined, cutting the grass one last time before the cold weather blew in.

  “So, I saw my Dad last weekend,” Jesse said.

  “Really? How’d it go?”

  “He’s married. Got another kid. Said we’d get together soon.”

  “That’s good. You’re lucky.”

  “Yeah, lucky. Lucky Strikes were the cigarettes he went to buy the night he never came back. I probably won’t see him again.”

  The lawn mower turned off as they passed the grain elevator of the Farmers Co-op. Suddenly, a muffled voice echoed through the quiet afternoon.

  “Help! Help me!”

  Ivy listened, then sprinted across the street toward the Coop, glancing over her shoulder at Jesse. She motioned to him and he followed her down the hill and around the corner to the grain silos, as they ran toward the faint cries. Pausing outside the towering silos, she turned in a circle, listening for the voice.

  “Where are you?” Ivy yelled.

  The cry, unclear but desperate, came from inside the silver cylinder closest to her. “The corn! In the silo!”

  The grain bin door of the silo remained slightly open, some yellow corn spilling out. Ivy went in, stepping knee deep in the corn spread out by the door. Jesse followed. The large mountain of corn inside almost reached halfway up the silo. Shafts of sunlight squeezed in from the short door.

  The face of a young girl peeked out of the huge pile of corn. It was Remmie, Thelma Sampson’s nine-year-old girl from Mulberry Street. Ivy scooped away the corn with her hands and pulled her out of the suffocating, deadly corn trap.

  The round-faced girl pointed to the heap of yellow corn next to her. “The corn ate Justin.”

  “Justin Roberts?”

  Remmie nodded. The quicksand of grain had swallowed Miss Shirley’s little boy without a trace. Ivy could see the corn dust swirling around the few shafts of light. She could feel it in her lungs as she breathed heavily from her run. She quickly climbed onto the bank of corn, her legs sinking into the grain and trapping her movements.

  She remembered playing “king of the mountain” in the corn when she was little. She had scaled the corn mountain by flattening her body against the pile, and crawling along like a spider on a web.

  Jesse grabbed her arm. “Ivy, don’t do that. You know how dangerous it is. It’s too late for that boy. Do you want to die, too? There’s no need to risk your life.”

  Ivy looked back at Jesse. “I’ve got to try.”

  “Seriously, get down. He’s a goner.”

  She shook her head an
d dug through the pile, throwing the kernels in every direction. She pushed her arm into the corn, frantically grasping for any sign of five-year-old Justin. She didn’t know where to dig or how far down he had sunk. But she had to try to save Miss Shirley’s little boy.

  Behind her, Remmie jumped up and down, repeating Jesse’s words. “He’s a goner. He’s a goner.”

  Ivy climbed up the pile of grain, pressing her limbs against the mound and clawing at the yellow mass. “Justin! Justin! It’s Ivy. I’m going to get you out. Move your arm! Move anything, so I can find you.”

  She desperately dug, pushed, and kicked at the corn. Breathing hard, she scrambled further up the mound and continued searching through the pile. Terrifying seconds passed. Remmie flailed her short arms around and spit flew out of her mouth. “He’s a goner. He’s a goner.”

  “Remmie, be quiet. Move your arms, Justin. Do it now!” Ivy’s frantic words echoed up the silo’s tall chamber, like a ghost rattling around in an empty barn.

  The corn sank in a little funnel toward the back of the round, metal cocoon of the silo. She carefully scooted over, pulling out her legs as they slipped into the grip of the corn. She pushed her arms deep into the mound. A few tiny fingers broke through the corn hill and a little hand swayed weakly. Ivy scrambled toward the hand.

  “Justin, I got you!” She grabbed his hand but she couldn’t free the boy from the corn’s grasp. He sank down further and Ivy knew there was precious little time to save Miss Shirley’s son. She quickly burrowed through the corn, the kernels flying in a yellow snowstorm. “Please be okay.”

  She dug until the corn released his little body, and dragged him out by his arms. Once the corn let go, Justin’s little body felt amazingly light. Ivy held him in her lap as they slid down the grain heap together. The solid ground felt good under her feet.

  Jesse carried Justin across the corn floor and out the little door at the bottom of the silo. Remmie and Ivy followed.

  The afternoon light shone unbearably bright as Jesse lay the little boy on the ground. Ivy sat beside him and held up his head.

  “Justin?”