by Diane Adams
"What are you doing?" Alex asked Rose, when she found her sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor.
Rose had propped her picture against the cushions of the couch, so that it was eye level. "It moved," she said, gesturing with a nod of her head. "I'm watching to see if it moves again."
"What moved?" Alex asked with annoyance. "Can't you ever just act normal?"
"I am acting normal. Normal for me." She gestured again. "The thing. The white thing, whatever it is. It's not a bird. Meemaw still thinks it's a firefly, but I don't think it's a bug either."
"What do you mean it moved?" Alex demanded, saying each word slowly and clearly. "We already knew it could fly."
"In the picture," Rose said, just as slowly and clearly. "It moved from the center of the picture to the left side."
Alex shut her eyes as her head automatically turned towards the picture. She opened them and studied it for a long moment. "Did you paint a different one?" she asked suspiciously.
"How could I?" Rose asked. "I left my paints outside."
"Maybe it's a light bulb that's going bad," Alex said nervously. "Sometimes they blink for a while before they burn out and that could make it seem like something in a picture was moving."
Rose looked around the room, but the lamps weren't turned on. "Too bad we don't have a ceiling fan, or we could blame it on that," she said. "Where's Neal? Maybe he could think of a scientific explanation."
"There are a lot of them," Alex said, closing her eyes again. Her voice had turned dull, like someone who felt very sick or scared. "We saw five of them sitting on the top of the fence. Neal's gone home to get his camera and I thought we could borrow Pops's camera too. Neal's hoping he can get a good shot of it and blow it up so he can figure out exactly what it is."
"It's not anything we've ever seen before," Rose said with an air of authority.
"Neal thinks it might be something that's supposed to be extinct. Like a prehistoric moth? Or maybe it could be a cross between a bird and a butterfly? Or an ancient species, like a flying chipmunk?"
Rose sighed and got up from the floor, moving as though she were ancient. "It's why we aren't allowed to go in the garden," she told her cousin.
"Is that what Meemaw said?"
"No. But I'm sure that's why."
Alex thought about it for a moment. "I think so too," she decided. "Maybe Pops is raising them? Maybe they're part of a top-secret experiment for the government?"
"What would the government use them for?" Rose scoffed.
Alex shrugged her shoulders. "I don't feel all that great. If my parents weren't out of town, I'd ask them to come get me."
"Lucky you," Rose said. "I can't ever call my parents and ask them to come get me."
Alex rolled her eyes. "Do you want to help us or not?" she asked.
"I have one of those throw-away cameras upstairs. I'll go get it," Rose said in answer, trudging across the room to the stairs.
Alex backed into the doorway, as though she didn't want to stand too close to the picture.
"What are you up to?" Pops asked, coming into the room from the other doorway.
Before Alex could answer, or say something to stop him, he sank onto the couch and leaned back on Rose's picture.
"Uh oh! What's this?" he wondered, leaning forward enough to pull it out from behind him. He put it on his knees and tried to smooth the wrinkles away, nodding his head with satisfaction. "I think Rose was right - she has got a gift for painting. These flowers look so real, I can practically smell them."
"What about the white thing?" Alex dared him.
"What white thing?" he asked, holding the picture at arm's length.
"The not-a-bird, not-a-bug thing," Alex said specifically. "As much time as you spend in the garden, you must have seen them flying around."
Pops pushed his glasses up his nose and moved his head right and left as he scanned Rose's art work. "Don't tell Rose, but I don't see the bird," he whispered. "Where is it? Would you mind pointing it out?"
Alex stomped across the room and pushed the paper flat on his knees again, but the little white creature had disappeared. "That's impossible!" she said angrily. "What kind of paints did you buy her? This is not funny, Pops! Her mom is already crazy!"
"Her mom isn't crazy," Pops said seriously. "Who told you that? Your Aunt Felina made straight A's all the way through school - high school and college. She's a lot smarter than I'll ever be."
"I didn't think she went to college," Alex said, continuing to eye the picture with a wary expression. "I thought she quit high school and got married."
"Oh, no," Pops said, shaking his head. "She quit college, not high school. She fell in love, you see. Happens to lots of people. When you fall in love, you forget all about the plans you were making for your future. Your dream sort of disappears, just like that." He snapped his fingers and settled a little deeper into the cushions. "Don't get me wrong," he sighed. "I'd rather fall in love with Meemaw a thousand more times than graduate from college even once. But a person has a job to do, whether or not they're in love."
"Is that what Meemaw means when she talks about figuring out our 'gift?'"
Pops clapped his hands, as if Alex had accomplished something spectacular. "That's right! And it's good to start trying to figure out your 'gift' while you're still young. If Felina could've gone right back to whatever she was meant to be doing in the first place, she would've been fine. But she got mad at herself for getting mixed up. Good thing I don't get mad at myself for that, or Me, Myself and I wouldn't ever be on speaking terms."
He chuckled with amusement, but Alex only sighed and tapped her toe.
"Well, she'll get back to it in time," Pops said, a little more seriously. "And once she gets on the right path - the path that's right for Felina - she'll run into the right person. That's how it works. 'Course, he has to be on the right path too. She might have to wait awhile for him to catch up, but he'll get there sooner or later."
"Do you really think painting is Rose's gift?" Alex asked.
Pops held up the painting so that Alex could see it. "Don't you?" he said with surprise.
Alex turned her eyes to Rose's picture again. "It's really good, isn't it," she said. "You're right - the flowers look so real, they practically smell good." She kneeled down and studied the picture more closely. "I really do smell something perfumey. Maybe it's just my imagination?" She looked as if she might cry. "I don't think this is the same picture Rose painted outside. Maybe the white thing got paint on its wings and painted the picture itself. And then it got tired of being stuck to a piece of paper."
"There you go," Pops said with a smile. "Makes perfect sense to me."
"What's my gift?" Alex asked Pops in a small voice.
"Well now, let's see," Pops said, studying her as if he'd never seen her before. "You're pretty. And we already know you're as sharp as a cat's claw. You're a natural born leader, aren't you? People seem to enjoy your company ... maybe you could do something that might persuade them."
"Persuade them to what?" Alex asked. She no longer sounded frightened.
"To what?" Pops volleyed the question back to her. "That would be the part you'll have to figure out."
Alex frowned at him and got up. "Have you got a camera I could borrow?" she asked politely.
"Rose is getting it," he assured her. "One for her, one for you."
"Pops," Alex said, staring into his eyes. "Do you really not know what the white things are that live in the garden?"
"White things? You mean grubs?"
"No! They fly! Meemaw keeps saying they might be fireflies, but they're much too big to be fireflies. You can't ever get a good look at them, because they fly so fast. One time, they got right in our faces, like they were trying to figure out what we are."
"Imagine that!" Pops said with awe.
"Haven't you ever seen them?" Alex pressed him. "I mean, you're always out in the garden. How come you haven't ever seen them?"
"Maybe I hav
e," Pops admitted. "You say Meemaw thinks they're fireflies?"
"She hasn't actually seen them either," Alex admitted. "We just described them to her."
"Well, maybe she's right," Pops suggested, toeing off his shoes and lifting his legs onto the couch. "I'm going to take a short snooze," he announced. Then he closed his eyes and started snoring.
Alex sighed heavily and turned to go up the stairs, just as Rose appeared on the landing, headed down. "I've got two of those disposable ones," she said, holding them up. "Meemaw said Pops doesn't have a camera. Just an old one but you can't buy film for it anymore. Not around here anyway."
"That's the bad part," Alex grumbled, accepting one of the cameras from Rose. "If we had a digital, we could see it right away. When I go home, I could even put it on the computer and blow it up bigger."
"We'll have to get the film developed," Rose agreed. "Maybe Pops would take us to one of those one-hour photo labs."
"I doubt if it would do any good. Once the film is developed, there won't be any birds or bugs or whatever they are anyway. They'll just disappear - poof! C'mon! Hurry up!" she urged Rose. "Before Neal thinks I started eating cookies and forgot about him."
(( 12 ))