DEDICATION
For
Karin, Mark, Pearl and Nico
with special thanks to
Pearl, Greta and Audrey
and all the
dedicated
4-H-ers
at
Aldermere Farm
and to their intrepid leader,
Heidi
CONTENTS
Dedication
That Zora
But First, Before Zora
Flight Path
Which Is How
People Said
Why Maine?
Friend Withdrawal
Welcome to Maine
Harbor Town
A Cow
The Farm
The House on Twitch Street
Inside
Don’t You Touch Me
Beat and Zep
Employment
Misty Morning
Rocks
Back to Twitch Street
The Books
We Went
Disrespect
Prickly
Charming
Meltdowns
The Next Day
The Barn
Scoop and Shovel
Cow!
Zora
Mrs. Falala’s Plan
A Day Off
The Outfits
Setback
Mucking About
Color
Bugs
Bodily Fluids
Lonely
Fog
Dreams
Plans
A Long Line
A Friend
Yolanda Arrives
Training
Rain Day
Sad Zep
Whaaaat?
Sympathy?
Agitation
Face the Facts
Show Stick
Beauty Day
To the Fair
Fairgrounds
More Primping
Showtime!
Catch That Heifer
Showmanship
Breed
Rides
Phone Call
Speculation
Waiting
Notebook
Dripping
Puzzled
The Search
Portraits
Mrs. Falala’s Gifts
More Dripping
The Proposal
Six Months Later
About the Author
Books by Sharon Creech
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
THAT ZORA
The truth is, she was ornery and stubborn, wouldn’t listen to a n y b o d y, and selfish beyond selfish, and filthy, caked with mud and dust, and moody: you’d better watch it or she’d knock you flat.
That’s Zora I’m talking about. Nobody wanted anything to do with her.
Zora: that cow.
BUT FIRST, BEFORE ZORA . . .
I am Reena, twelve years and two months old, formerly of a big city, a city of monuments, and people of many colors, a harlequin city
of sights and noises,
of museums and parks and music
and cockroaches and rats
and mosquitoes and crickets
and fireworks and traffic
and helicopters whopping overhead
and sirens screaming through the air
and that’s how we lived for a time
me and my parents and brother
zzzoooooooooommmming
on the
subway
or creeeeeping along in buses or cars
in
to
and
around
the city
trawling through the museums
ogling
the dinosaurs and artifacts
ambling through the zoo
listening to the ROARS and SCREEEEEECHES
and scrabbles and warbles
staring at the l a z y crawls
of bored animals.
Yes, for a time that’s how we lived.
FLIGHT PATH
Then one day, when we were stuck in traffic
behind a tall gray bus spewing exhaust
with horns HONKing
and people YELLing
and sirens WAILing—
on a day that was hotter than hotter than HOT
my mother asked my father a question.
A question can swirl your world.
My parents had recently lost their jobs when the newspaper they worked for went out of business. We were on our way to drop my father off at another job interview.
So, my mother said, do you still like reporting?
Not so much, my father admitted.
Is that what you see yourself doing ten years from now?
Um—
Because that’s the flight path we’re on.
I was sitting in the backseat with my brother, Luke, a seven-year-old complexity. Sometimes he acted as if he were two, and sometimes twelve. He was full of questions and energy and opinions except when you wanted him to have any of those things.
Luke was drawing with a black marker in the yellow notebook that was nearly always with him. He drew for hours and hours: contorted heroes leaping and jumping and vaporizing; bizarre enemies with gaping mouths and sharp talons and horns; and complicated towns with alleys and bridges and dungeons.
In the car, when Mom said, Because that’s the flight path we’re on, Luke said, Flight path? We’re not in an airplane, you know. We’re in a car and we’re on a road, but I noticed that he was adding a runway and an airplane to his drawing.
Drivers all around us were HONKing their horns like crazy, and the smells and the heat and the NOISE were pouring in the windows and
squeezing us
from all sides.
Let’s get out of here, my mother said.
My father took his hands off the wheel and raised his palms to the sky.
No, I mean out of this city, my mother said.
Let’s move.
To—?
Maine! I said.
My parents turned to look at me.
Then they looked at each other.
Then they looked at me again.
Maine! they said. Of course!
My parents had met in Maine many years ago
and when they spoke of Maine
their voices had the glint of sea and sky.
In the car that day,
Maine just popped out of my head.
I hadn’t expected they would take me seriously.
I’m glad I didn’t say Siberia.
WHICH IS HOW . . .
Which is how I came to meet Zora, though not quite so easily as it might sound because first we had to give our landlord a month’s notice and then we had to clear out all our closets and cupboards and the dreaded storage garage. Then we had to lug some of that outside for a yard sale and the rest to the Salvation Army and then we had to clean and watch as future renters tromped through our rooms noting
how small they were and how old
and how dark and
it
was
embarrassing.
And then there was the packing and moving of the beds and clothes and books and pots and pans—oh, it hurts my head to remember it so let’s skip it.
PEOPLE SAID . . .
My parents’ friends said
Are you crazy?
and
It gets cold in Maine, you know.
and
There are giant mosquitoes in Maine.
and
It gets cold in Maine, you know.
and
Why? Why? Why?
But some others said
They have lots of lobsters there.
and
Great blueberries in Maine!
and
Beautiful ocean and mountains!
and
Great skiing!
and
Lots of lobsters!
Lots of blueberries!
Though . . . it does get cold there
you know?
Luke said
How did this happen
this moving thing?
In his yellow notebook
Luke drew a winged dragon
scaled in gold
flying through purple skies
grasping a house, a car,
beds, tables, and chairs
in its black talons.
WHY MAINE?
Why did I say Maine! that day?
Let’s move to Maine!
Because I’d read a book about it—
three books in fact:
two were stories about a family’s life
on an island in Maine
and one was a book of photographs
of rocky shores and lighthouses
and vast oceans with breaking waves
and high blue mountains
and while I was reading those books
and looking at those pictures
I was there already
in my mind.
I was clambering over rocks
and wading in the ocean.
I was hiking up a mountain
and standing at the top
peering down the steep hillsides
to the ocean beyond.
I was there.
Maine.
It had such a sound to it
such a feel.
And yet . . .
I’d always lived in the city
I was full of buses and subways
and traffic and tall buildings
and crowds of people
and city noises
honking and sirens and
helicopterwhirring
and city smells
bakeries and car exhaust
hot dogs and coffee
and city lights so bright . . .
Was there room inside for
the sights and sounds and smells
of
Maine?
Would I know what to do
and how to be
in
Maine?
FRIEND WITHDRAWAL
The few friends I had didn’t believe me when I told them we were moving to Maine, and then when I’d convinced them, they acted excited about it, but as the days went by, I realized they were already forgetting me. It seemed they didn’t want to waste friend effort on someone who was leaving town.
One of them said, You’re going to get all Maine-y.
I wasn’t sure what “all Maine-y” meant, but whatever it was, they had decided it was undesirable.
My parents had similar reactions from their friends. At first people thought they were joking, and then they seemed excited and curious, but gradually they became less and less interested.
My mother was hurt by that, but my father said, Maybe they’re jealous or maybe they feel you’re abandoning them.
When Luke told his latest friend, Toonie, that we were moving to Maine and that it was far away and he couldn’t come over to her house anymore, she socked him on the nose and called him a stupid doofy head.
When Luke told Dad about his encounter with Toonie, Dad said, Well, who knows, maybe we’re all stupid doofy heads.
WELCOME TO MAINE
With that white chalky paint
that newlyweds write
Just Married
on their cars
we wrote
Moving to Maine!
And all along the way
as cars and trucks passed us
people honked their horns and waved.
Some rolled down their windows
and shouted: Maine!
and some scribbled signs
and held them up for us to see:
Eat some lobstah for me!
and
I love Maine!
and
We’re so jealous!
but one guy’s sign read
It’s COLD there!
At the border
we pulled over and posed beside
the WELCOME TO MAINE sign.
People honked their horns like crazy
as they sped past us.
Maine!
In a small town three hours up the coast
we parked by the post office
and walked to a diner for lunch
and when we returned there was a note
on our windshield:
Welcome to Maine!
We hope you like it here.
The ocean was a block away—
you could smell that salty air.
People were walking their dogs
and their kids
and the church bells were chiming
and the sky was blue.
Maine!
Dad stepped in dog poop
that oozed into every crevice
of his running shoes
but still:
Maine! We’d made it!
HARBOR TOWN
It was the beginning of summer
and we thought we’d landed on another planet:
a boat-bobbing
sea salty harbor town
with people strolling the docks
eating ice cream and lobster rolls.
Gentle mountains rose up opposite the harbor
and curled around it
wrapping the town
in their bluegreen embrace.
How exactly did we get here? Luke said.
He drew towering mountains
and steep cliffs
above jagged rocks
and tiny, fragile boats
bobbing in the ocean below.
We made our way
to the place my parents had rented:
a small old house
with a woodstove inside
and an apple tree outside
and a chipmunk on the doorstep
and a chickadee nest in a lilac tree
and spiders in the woodpile.
That same day our parents said
Go on, ride your bikes.
Check out the town.
We’ve got unpacking to do.
Go!
What? we said. By ourselves?
In the city where we’d lived
there were few safe places
for us to ride—
few places where we weren’t competing
with cars and trucks and buses
and surprise clumps of kids
armed with sticks and stones
or wobbly bearded men spitting
but here in this little town by the sea
there were wide sidewalks
and quiet, curving lanes
spreading like tree limbs
from the trunk of the town center
and you could ride and ride
the whole day long.
We rode down streets and trails
discovering our new town
its people and dogs and old houses
its winding lanes and gnarled trees.
One day we passed a farm
and Luke shouted, Oreo cows!
Black-and-white cows
(black in front and back
with a wide white fur belt)
munched at the grass.
A girl about my age
in rubber boots
stood near us
on the other side of the fence.
Belted Galloways, they’re called,
she said.
Or just Belties, for short.
Purty, right?
A COW
Maybe I had imagined a cow was like a
LARGE lamb:
soft, furry, gentle, uttering sweet
sounds.
But oh—
not so, not so!
One of the Belted Galloways
lumbered up to the fence
and pushed its
ENORMOUS HEAD
with its
ENORMOUS NOSE
toward us and uttered a
DEEP DEEP LOUD
MOOOOO
so loud and deep as if it were
coming from low down in the ground
and traveling up through the cow’s legs
and body and head and out of that
ENORMOUS
SLOBBERY
MOUTH:
MOOOOO
so LOUD and surprising that we
j u m p e dback
and the girl in the rubber boots
gave us a pitying look
as if she were thinking
Silly tourists!
And I wanted to say
No, no, we’re not tourists!
We live here now!
More cows ambled up to the fence
nudging their
ENORMOUS HEADS AND NOSES
between the wires of the fence
and bellowing the
DEEPEST LOUDEST
MOOOOOS.
Luke’s hands were pressed tight against his
ears.
Flies
dipped
herethere
and
amid the smell of
cow dung.
THE FARM
Out riding around on our bikes, Luke and I passed that farm nearly every day. On the gate was a blue and white sign:
BIRCHMERE FARM.
I’d never been to a farm before our move to Maine, and I wasn’t sure what I thought of this one at first. On sunny days, it looked inviting, with its green pastures and its barns, and cows dotting the hillsides and gathered in the pens. On the first rainy day, though, when Luke and I stopped by the fence, it looked muddy and sloppy and smelled of sawdust and manure. Flies dogged the animals and the stalls.
Up close, the cows were thick and wide, with heads as big as kegs, and black eyes the size of oranges, and wide sweating nostrils, and they let out loud, low mooooos. They scared me, to tell the truth.
A rotating group of teenagers showed up each day to work with the animals. Only a few adults were around, driving tractors or trucks. We watched the teenagers fill feed bins and water buckets and climb fences and tromp through sawdust and lean against cows. Luke often sat on the grass and drew. His heroes, now, took on the look of farmers brandishing halters and conquering giant cow-like creatures.
THE HOUSE ON TWITCH STREET
Just before you reached the farm
at the far edge of town
at the end of Twitch Street
was a tall, narrow house
that tilted to one side.
Thick, twisted vines crept up
the side of the gray house
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