The Girl Who Fell Out of the Sky

by Victoria Forester

  The sun came over the horizon, and the dawn turned to morning. When the rooster crowed, Piper sat down, defeated.

  “Pa? Pa! PA!”

  Joe McCloud rushed out of the kitchen door, clutching his shotgun in one hand and the tops of his still-undone overalls in the other.

  “I’m up here, Pa.”

  Joe looked up. When he spotted Piper sitting slumped over on the roof, his face became confused.

  Tears of shame prickled Piper’s eyes. “I can’t get down, Pa. Can you help me? I think I need a ladder.”

  Joe put his shotgun down and scratched his head but then fetched the long ladder from the toolshed. When it was safely up against the side of the house, he helped Piper climb down. He helped her to the ground, and it was only then that she felt that her legs were shaking.

  “Thanks, Pa. I won’t ever go up there again.” Piper walked in the house and shut the door behind her.

  CHAPTER

  16

  It had been five hours and twenty-three minutes since Conrad had told Piper she was normal.

  Five long hours. Twenty-three excruciating minutes.

  Did time move more slowly for normal people? She wondered if she would be able to make it to lunch.

  The first thing Piper did after she returned to the house was set about cleaning her room. Her room was not large; none of the rooms in the McCloud house could be described as spacious. It consisted of a single bed, on top of which lay a quilt with patches of pink and green and blue. Her bed frame had been hand carved by Joe, and Piper used a cloth to follow the flowing lines of the wood and clean dust away from the details. She took the braided rug that sat at the foot of her bed and shook it out and then set about organizing her small bookshelf. She removed all the books and stacked them on the floor. After she carefully dusted them, she replaced them on the shelves. She decided to rearrange the books, first sorting them from largest to smallest and then changing her mind and sorting them by color instead.

  Piper had a small wardrobe consisting of T-shirts and jeans and three dresses. The dresses had not had a lot of use and were already on the small side. She took all six pairs of jeans she owned and refolded them neatly. In a stack next to them she placed her T-shirts—three red, one orange, and two blue. She lined her shoes up in a straight row and placed the dresses precisely on each hanger, leaving exactly two inches between them so that the closet would have symmetry.

  The only thing left in the room was her desk, and when Piper sat down at it, she found her scrapbook on the top in a jumble. She’d been working on it off and on for years, but there had never been enough time to finish. In the past, no sooner would she sit down and start to work on it than Max would get up to no good, and off the team would go to save the world again. Obviously, there was no danger of that happening today, so Piper allowed herself the luxury of looking carefully at all her mementos.

  The kids had been together for several years, and in the early pictures Piper could see when she’d lost a tooth or how short her hair was or how Jasper and Lily, who were the youngest, had grown. There was a picture of her and Jasper at the Eiffel Tower, their arms thrown around each other and grins on their faces. That was taken after they had thwarted Max’s plans to blow up a metro station. And here a picture of Lily, Myrtle, Daisy, and Violet laughing and eating gelato in Rome. In page after page Piper was reminded of the good that they had done, the trouble they had overcome, the power of their friendships.

  On the very last page was a picture of her with Conrad. They were relaxed, happy, victorious. The photo had been taken on a good day; they’d pulled two hundred earthquake victims trapped in the basement of a building to safety. Without Piper flying up and down, lifting each one through a narrow opening, it wouldn’t have happened. Conrad had warned her to be careful, because the structure was unstable and could collapse at any moment. Piper had gone ahead and done it anyway, and at the end of the day, Conrad had told her that they couldn’t have saved all those people without her. Those were his words.

  “We couldn’t have done it without you, Piper,” Conrad said.

  “You couldn’t have done it without me,” Piper whispered, running her hand over the photograph.

  When she’d positioned the last photo and everything was in order, Piper placed the scrapbook in a position of honor on her bookshelf and stood in the center of her room.

  Piper felt the silence and stillness. It didn’t feel good. She looked at the clock—all that cleaning and organizing had only taken her ninety minutes, and now it was done. How many more normal minutes did that leave for her to fill?

  Gingerly sitting on her bed, Piper looked at the wall. She sat like that for a while until she noticed that her breath caught in her throat on the way in, and her vision was blurry.

  * * *

  Piper decided to collect eggs in the henhouse, and as she did so, she attempted to wrap her mind around what she would do with the thousands and thousands of normal hours that stretched before her.

  Fido perched on the window of the henhouse and listened as a good friend should (but mainly watched the eggs in the hopes that one might come his way).

  “What do other kids do with themselves?” Piper asked Fido. For almost four years her main focus had been saving the planet from an evil kid bent on world domination. It hadn’t left her much time for hobbies.

  Fido snarfled.

  “Maybe I’m a sporty girl. What do you think? Soccer?” Piper imagined kicking a black-and-white ball around and getting excited when her team scored a goal.

  “Go, team!” she cheered. That felt awkward. It was one thing to get excited when you stopped a train from falling off a bridge, but the excitement she could muster for a ball going into a net was limited.

  “I’m probably more of a theater kid.” Piper struck a pose. “Hark, what light shines from yonder window?”

  Fido let fly a loud, wet sneeze.

  “Or I could get an iPad and download apps.” Would she sit in the barn and play her apps while the other kids were saving the world around her? That didn’t feel right, either. Piper bent down to reach for an egg that had rolled away and gathered it up when she noticed another egg that had been tucked back behind some straw. Sometimes the chickens hid eggs away, and it wasn’t always easy to find them all. There was no telling how long ago this egg had been laid. Reaching for the egg, Piper noticed it was cracked. Not only that, but the inhabitant of the egg was trying to get out.

  “Oh,” Piper said in shock. She watched as a little beak pecked and pecked at the shell. She found herself rooting for the little chick inside. “C’mon, you can do it,” she coached. The baby chick had managed to create a hole but wasn’t strong enough to break out.

  “Let me help you, little guy,” Piper cooed. Very gently she took her finger and broke open the egg, placing it on the straw. The chick lay in the half shell, its chest heaving.

  Piper’s face smiled at the miracle of the little life in front of her. She blew a gentle, warm breeze on the chick to dry it off and give it comfort.

  “See that, Fido? We’ve got a new friend.”

  Fido barked.

  “No, you leave it alone and let it get strong. It’ll be fine once it’s had a chance to catch its breath.”

  Hunkering down in the straw, Piper took the time to watch as the chick enjoyed its first moments of life. Maybe life wasn’t going to be so bad after all, she decided.

  A scream came from the house. Piper stopped what she was doing to listen when a second cry hit the breeze. Dropping the eggs, Piper ran as fast as her legs would carry her through the yard, onto the porch, and past the screen door.

  “Ma?”

  Piper discovered Betty doubled over, her arms on the kitchen counter, her head resting on her arms.

  “Ma?”

  “Ohhh,” Betty moaned. “I got me a wicked bellyache.”

  “I’ll run for Doc Bell.” Piper was already halfway out the door.

  “No, no; go fetch your pa. Hurry now
.”

  Piper ran like the wind. Joe was fixing the fence on the far end of the north pasture, and when she got to him, she could hardly get the words out. “Ma—stomach—doctor.”

  Joe dropped what he was doing, and the two of them rushed back to the house. While Piper helped her mother, Joe brought the pickup truck around, and together they made the short trip into town with as much speed as the old truck could manage. It was the middle of the day, and Doc Bell’s waiting room was chockablock full of patients. One look at Betty’s face, and Dottie Dutton, the receptionist, whisked her into the examining room.

  “You best go back to the waiting room, Piper, and I’ll fetch you when you’re needed,” Doc Bell said when he saw the state Betty was in.

  “Is Ma gonna be okay? Let me help you…”

  “Dottie, take Piper out front, and you’ll have to tell the others that they best come back tomorrow.”

  “Oh dear. Oh no. This is terrible,” Mrs. Dutton said, pulling Piper out the door.

  Dottie Dutton had worked for Doc Bell since he started in Lowland County and had helped out Doc Archibald before him, and during her tenure she had become impossibly old. She’d seen everything that could go wrong to a soul go wrong, and instead of being inoculated against tragedy had remained steadfastly shocked and alarmed by any new medical emergency—even ones she’d seen before or weren’t particularly serious. Needless to say, this was not a good quality for a medical receptionist to have.

  In a state of near hyperventilation, Dottie Dutton sat Piper down in the waiting room.

  “Go home!” Mrs. Dutton told the other waiting patients. “Doc Bell won’t see you today, so shoo. Come back tomorrow if you must. Now, git.”

  After the confused patients were pushed out the door, Dottie opened a package of peppermints. Her hands were shaking so much she dropped several on the floor before she managed to shove one in her mouth and then suck on it loudly, like she couldn’t stop herself, like the peppermint was the only thing that was keeping her sane.

  “Oh my, oh my,” she said, listening to Betty’s moans. “That doesn’t sound good. It surely doesn’t.”

  Piper’s hands clutched each other in a death grip. “She’ll be okay, though.”

  “You must prepare yourself.” Dottie Dutton shook her head sadly. Tears gathered in Dottie’s eyes, and she dabbed at them.

  The walls in Doc Bell’s offices must have been made of paper, because every moan and cry Betty made was heard plain as day in the waiting room. Piper took to holding her breath for as long as they lasted. Dottie Dutton, on the other hand, clutched her throat like she couldn’t breathe or covered the shotgun gasps that ejected from her throat by stuffing a handkerchief into her mouth and finally put her head down on the desk altogether and smothered it with her arms like the world itself was coming to an end.

  “I can’t take it,” Dottie whimpered. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

  Piper put her hands over her ears and pressed as hard as she was able.

  In the midst of this, the door to the waiting room flew open with a crash, and there stood Jimmy Joe Miller, dramatically holding one foot up in the air out in front of him. The foot was without a sock or shoe, and the big toe was smashed up such that blood was shooting out of it.

  Dottie Dutton leapt to her feet and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Jimmy Joe was extremely pleased with this reception, and he hopped in, spewing blood as he went. “Got my foot smashed, and Ma says that Doc Bell needs to take a look.”

  Dottie’s mouth opened and closed, strangled squeaking coming out of it. “I—you—Doc—Oh no! Oh no!”

  “Dottie, git back here,” Doc Bell called out from the examining room. “I need an extra pair of hands.”

  Dottie Dutton fled.

  Jimmy Joe Miller hobbled in, eyeing Piper.

  “What you lookin’ at?” Jimmy Joe snapped.

  “Nothing,” Piper said pointedly.

  “You calling me nothing?”

  A sharp moan from the examining room made Piper flinch. Jimmy Joe snorted and rolled his eyes. “That your ma in there making all that racket?”

  “Shut your piehole, Jimmy Joe Miller,” Piper blazed. She wasn’t going to have a Miller making fun of her ma at a time like this.

  Normally, Jimmy Joe, sensing weakness, went in for the kill, but the way Piper was fixed to her seat like a dangling icicle ready to shatter off, it didn’t seem like there was any sport to it.

  “My pa fell off the barn roof in spring. He smacked himself up good, and he was moaning something awful too. He made a noise that sounded like a bear wrestling with a mountain lion.” Jimmy Joe attempted to demonstrate what that sounded like.

  “ArgggggghhhhHHHHHmmm.”

  Thinking about a bear wrestling with a mountain lion, as well as enduring Jimmy Joe’s vocal gyrations, took Piper’s mind off her mother, and for this she was grateful. By this point, a small pool of blood was collecting on the floor, so Piper got up and helped Jimmy Joe to a chair.

  “Here,” she said, getting him settled.

  “I fell from the top of the rafters and my foot hit the side of the hay bailer and my boot got torn in two. Then blood started shooting out of my toe. It’s a gusher, huh? Bet you never seen this much blood!”

  Piper swung another chair around, put it in front of Jimmy Joe, and lifted his leg up so that the hurt toe was elevated. “It’s a lotta blood.”

  “It hurts like all hellfire, too.” This seemed to please him.

  Piper took off the handkerchief around her neck and put it on the toe, applying pressure.

  “DARN IT—that stings!”

  Piper couldn’t help but notice that Jimmy Joe’s foot was filthy. Somehow the filth on his foot was a comfort to her. It was just like the red spots on her body and the sickness that had taken hold of her ma; part of the indignity of being flesh and blood and how your body betrays you. They were none of them immune to it.

  “Guess you never fell down like this,” Jimmy Joe smirked, “being the way you are.”

  “What way is that?”

  “Weird. Strange. You and your freak friends. All the weird things y’all do.” Jimmy Joe looked out the window, expecting to see them outside. “Where they at, anyway?”

  “They had something to do.”

  “Oh yeah. So why ain’t you doing it with them?”

  Piper shrugged. “I’m not like them anymore.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You never was right in the head, Piper McCloud. No one believes a word that comes out of your mouth.”

  There she was being nice to him, and still he was saying mean things to her. Just like a Miller too! “I’m glad you hurt your toe,” Piper flashed, getting up. “You deserved it.”

  “Anyone tell you that those red spots on your face make you look diseased?”

  Piper went to the chair as far from Jimmy Joe as she could get and plunked down on it, crossing her arms over her chest. “I sure hope Doc Bell’s not gonna have to cut that toe off.”

  “Oh, I’ll be right as rain,” Jimmy Joe smirked. “Not like your ma. She sounds like she’s a goner, if you ask me.”

  As Piper sat seething, she realized it had gotten very quiet—too quiet. The quiet was worse than the noise.

  After Piper endured a few minutes of the miserable silence, Dottie Dutton slipped back into the waiting room and sat down at her desk in a daze. “I’m only supposed to keep the reception desk,” she said. “It’s all I’m trained for.”

  Piper got to her feet. “Mrs. Dutton, ma’am, is my ma…”

  Doris looked up, remembering that she had two people in the waiting room. “Oh, yes, Piper. Doc Bell says that you should go in now.”

  Piper gulped. “Is my ma gonna be okay?”

  “Your life won’t never be the same after today, child,” she said ominously. “Go on in, now. Go on.”

  Piper took one careful step followed by another
to the door. Her hand rested on the doorknob for longer than it needed to before she turned it. There was a short hallway that led to the examining room, and when she reached the final door, she knocked softly. The exam room door was instantly thrust open.

  “Well, well,” Doc Bell beamed. “Congratulations, young lady.”

  Doc Bell stepped aside, allowing Piper a view of the room. There, in front of her, was her mother, holding a little baby swaddled up tightly. Joe was standing at Betty’s side, and he looked like Piper felt: confused, terrified … with a dawning sense of elation.

  “You, Piper McCloud, are officially a big sister,” Doc Bell announced.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Piper could not understand the meaning of Doc Bell’s words. Of course she understood the words themselves, but the way he’d put them together didn’t make any sense at all to her. “I’m a what?”

  “Your ma just had a baby, Piper.” Doc Bell beamed. “You’re a big sister now.”

  Piper turned to her mother. “Ma? Are you alright?”

  “Your ma’ll be just fine.” Doc Bell patted Piper’s shoulders.

  Piper let out a strangled laugh that sounded like a sob.

  “Calm yourself, child.” Betty’s voice was tired but happy.

  A loud slamming could be heard coming from the waiting room. “Where is Doc Bell, I’d like to know?” It was the sharp, high voice of Millie Mae Miller. “How come my boy’s out here bleeding to death?”

  Doc Bell shook his head and gathered up a small tray of supplies. “Excuse me, folks.”

  Piper tried to come to terms with the new circumstances of her life. “But … but I didn’t know you was having a baby.”

  “You ain’t the only one who’s surprised,” Betty admitted. “Just thought I was feeling a bit tired. Guess I wasn’t paying attention.” Betty offered the bundle of baby to Piper. “Here.”

  “Me?” Piper received the baby into trembling arms.

  “She’s a girl.”