Down to Earth

by Betty Culley

  I don’t think those are gifts. Everyone uses their own eyes to see the world, and who wouldn’t be kind to Birdie?

  Suddenly the cranes take flight, their big wings flapping, their long legs trailing behind. We hear their loud, trumpeting calls.

  “Guess it’s time for us to go home, too,” Mom says.

  When we get back to Nana’s, supper is all the food neighbors and friends brought for us. Everything tastes a little bit the same and a little bit different. I’m used to Nana’s baked beans. These have some kind of spice that’s good but makes my tongue burn. The macaroni and cheese has orange cheese instead of yellow like Mom’s. The Jell-O salad has whipped cream, but the whipped cream is mixed inside the Jell-O, not scooped on top.

  Dad takes a bite of the beans, then a drink of water, a bite of beans, then another drink of water.

  “I’m tasting those chili peppers Darlene grows,” Dad says between sips.

  “The mac and cheese is kinda cheery, so bright like this,” Mom compliments the dish.

  I serve myself some of the Jell-O salad, green and white swirled together in a round bowl, and it’s much better than I expect.

  “Do you want to try some of this, Birdie? It’s really good.” I hold up another spoonful.

  “No, Henry. I eat pie.”

  Birdie’s plate has a slice of Fiona’s pumpkin pie and a slice of blueberry pie.

  There’s new glass where the window broke, and I hear the call of a barred owl far off in the woods. I decide Nana’s house is like the food we got. It’s different than the house we lost, but also the same. My view out the window in the upstairs room is in the same direction as my old bedroom. I can still see the sun rise in the morning. Only now, instead of a view of the field, I see a stream shimmering with reflected light. It’s not the same, but it’s good.

  American Indians…have treated rivers with the greatest awe. Some tribes believed that fast-flowing springs were sacred and that the bubbles that issued from them were caused by the breathing of spirits.

  —Fred Powledge, Water

  THE NEXT DAY I wait. I wait to hear what Charlotte Rose finds out about Mr. Ronnie. I wait to hear how James is doing. Every minute feels like an hour. Every hour feels like a month. Especially since I don’t know if what I’m waiting for will be good news or bad.

  While I’m waiting, the doorbell rings. It’s Mr. Ward from the Lowington Fire Department with a bag of mittens, hats, gloves, and scarves. There are small ones for Birdie, ones that fit me, and bigger sizes for Mom and Dad.

  The phone rings, too. News has spread about the gusher, and there are calls from people who want me to dowse a well for them. I write down their names and numbers.

  “Come for a walk with me, Henry,” Nana says after one of the phone calls. “Take your mind off things for a bit.”

  We go over the hill past the gravel pit, and Nana stops to look at the quarry. It’s a deep hole cut in the side of the hill, with huge slabs of speckled granite sticking out from the dirt.

  “Your grandfather quarried the granite foundation for our house from here. And most of the granite for the county courthouse and the town library came out of this quarry.”

  Nana always stops here and tells me this same story. I listen to be polite, but today I look at the hole and try to imagine what it was like when my grandfather worked the stone.

  “Really? How much granite is in there?” I ask her.

  “More granite than you could cut in your lifetime. The boys got busy with drilling and selling gravel from the pit and let the quarry go. Why, do you think you might want to get it going again someday?” Nana’s winter coat is buttoned up to her neck, and her hat is pulled down over her ears. Only a little bit of white hair sticks out in the back.

  “I don’t know. I like rocks.”

  My hand feels in my pants pocket out of habit, reaching for the little stone, before I remember it’s gone.

  “It’s a real art, cutting stone. You have to be patient and follow the lines in the granite, your grandfather used to say.”

  When Nana and I walk back down the hill, there’s a car I don’t recognize in the driveway. It’s bright orange. Charlotte Rose is sitting in the driver’s seat and waves at me to come over.

  I get in the front seat. Her long hay-colored hair is tied back in a ponytail. She taps her fingers on the steering wheel. When she turns to talk to me, I notice for the first time that she has mossy eyes like Mom and Birdie and me.

  It takes a long time for her to explain what happened. When she’s done, she asks if I want to go with her.

  “Your parents are willing to let you go. Mr. Ronnie really wants to see you, but it’s up to you.”

  “Yes, but you’re sure it wasn’t Mr. Ronnie who threw the brick?”

  Charlotte Rose already said that, but I want to be very sure. One hundred percent sure.

  “No, he didn’t. He’ll tell you himself.”

  She starts the car, and the radio comes on at the same time. We head up Bower Hill toward town.

  “You’re not going to arrest him?”

  “Do I look like I’m going to arrest anyone? No police car, no uniform, no handcuffs. This is going to be a friendly visit.”

  Charlotte Rose has a plastic troll with orange hair hanging from the rearview mirror on a chain.

  “Mr. Ronnie tried to take a piece of the meteorite,” I remind her.

  “I know. He’s not going to be trying that again. By the way, what’s happening with your space rock? I heard you turned down that reward but now some bigwig scientist from New York City is interested in taking it.”

  “He’s interested IN it, not in TAKING it,” I explain.

  We pass the 25 mph speed limit sign in town, and the speedometer pointer goes to 40 mph as we round the corner. Charlotte Rose pulls up in front of Mr. Ronnie’s store.

  The Picker Palace hasn’t changed at all since the last time I was in there. It might even be more crowded. There’s only room enough to walk one in front of the other toward the back of the store. I follow Charlotte Rose. The piles start on the floor and go almost to the ceiling. Stacks of books, buckets of tools, chairs on top of tables, birdcages, huge spools of rope, old lawn mowers, tire rims, pitchforks, lamps, strips of sheet metal, and rusted sewing machines. There are more things piled behind the stacks we walk past, but I can’t figure out how anyone would get to them. The Picker Palace is like an iceberg. You can only see about ten percent of what’s there.

  All the way in the back, the narrow path through the store opens to a small clearing, where Mr. Ronnie stands. There’s no space to even set a chair. The black-and-white dog lies under a table.

  Charlotte Rose puts her arm around my shoulders and speaks to Mr. Ronnie.

  “Henry is best friends with James, and he was there during the assault. He’s willing to hear what you have to say.”

  Mr. Ronnie wears his green-and-black-plaid jacket. It’s cold in the store, almost as cold as it is outside. His head is bent and he talks into the collar of his jacket.

  “The Palace’s not been doing too good. I lost my house and moved in upstairs here. I thought if I could get the reward for a piece of that rock it would help. I didn’t see you folks lining up to get the money. My son, Dwayne, was mad I lost our house and wanted me to sell this building and give him half the money so he could buy himself a piece of land. But who’d buy it without water?”

  When Mr. Ronnie says his son’s name, the dog picks his head up and barks once.

  “Quiet down, Badger,” Mr. Ronnie tells the dog. “He’s not coming back anytime soon.”

  The dog puts his head back down on the dusty floor, and Mr. Ronnie continues with his story.

  “I got Dwayne riled up about the rock and the water. Told him it was the rock’s fault and your father’s fault for witching away our water. We never had a flood or a drought like this before
and I lived in Lowington my whole life. Never had a space rock fall out of the sky. Yes, I did put up those signs in town. It’s not against the law to say what you think. I know Dwayne has a short fuse, but I didn’t think he’d do anything like throwing a brick through your window and hurting that boy so bad. He was in jail before for fighting, but this time he’s gonna be there a long time.”

  Mr. Ronnie looks up at us then.

  “Dowsers don’t take away water, they find it. And now there’s a new well that has lots of water,” I explain.

  “Yes, I know, and I heard tell it was you yourself found the water, when no one else could.” Mr. Ronnie holds up a mug full of water. “Good-tasting water it is, too.”

  Charlotte Rose taps her fingers on a metal toolbox in front of her.

  “Mr. Ronnie, I think we’re getting a bit off the subject. Did you say what you needed to say?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I hope your friend gets better and comes home. That’s what I meant to say, but maybe it didn’t come out clear.”

  “It was clear,” I answer.

  “Good. Now that’s done. Son, I want you to pick out something. Anything from the whole Palace.”

  I’ve been looking around, so it isn’t hard to choose. I see a wooden apple ladder that comes to a point at the top. With the tall ladder, I can pick the apples that get left at the top of my great-grandfather’s tree every fall. And in the winter, I can ask Dad to show me how to prune the high-up suckers.

  It takes a while for Mr. Ronnie to reach the ladder and bring it outside.

  “Might you have a piece of rope to tie this ladder to the top of my car?” Charlotte Rose asks Mr. Ronnie.

  “A piece of rope? I have miles of rope! That’s not a problem at all.”

  Mr. Ronnie helps Charlotte Rose tie down the ladder. Then he goes back into the store and comes out with a big doll. It has stains on its yellow flowered dress and blue Magic Marker on its bald head.

  “Here, take this for that little sister of yours. What’s her name? Tweety?”

  “Birdie.”

  “Yes, you give this to Birdie from me. So she doesn’t feel left out.”

  Mr. Ronnie sticks his hand out.

  “No hard feelings?”

  “No hard feelings,” I say, and shake Mr. Ronnie’s hand. “I hope you don’t have to sell the Picker Palace. There’s some great things in here.”

  “Thank you, son.”

  It’s a short ride home with Charlotte Rose. The rock music plays, and I think about Mr. Ronnie’s son, Dwayne, in jail. I guess that would be the worst thing, to be where you can’t smell the spring or see the stars at night. I’m glad the meteorite found a way to protect itself and be outdoors under the sky.

  Mr. Ronnie’s spools of rope give me an idea for measuring the distance around the meteorite using hay string. I picture myself holding one end of the string and James stretching it out all around the rock. Then I remember where James is.

  Birdie runs at me when Charlotte Rose drops me back at Nana’s.

  “Where you go, Henry?”

  “To town. Mr. Ronnie sent this for you,” I say, and show Birdie the doll.

  “Oh! Sweet dirty baby.” Birdie grabs the baby doll and hugs it to her chest, then throws it across the room into the kitchen sink. “I clean you up.”

  Most granite once was hotter than lava, but it cooled and hardened deep underground.

  —Carroll Lane Fenton and Mildred Adams Fenton, Rocks and Their Stories

  I go up to my room and open my notebook.

  What makes a quarry?

  How did the granite get on Bower Hill?

  How do you follow the lines in the granite?

  The pages of the Q encyclopedia Mrs. Kay gave me smell like the inside of Nana’s old wooden trunk, and pressed between some of them are dried leaves. I turn the brittle pages carefully until I find what I’m looking for. I’m concentrating so hard I don’t notice at first when Fiona comes into the room.

  “You’re reading the encyclopedia? Who reads the encyclopedia?”

  Fiona’s dark brown eyes are curious and puzzled at the same time.

  “I do. Not the whole encyclopedia. Just volume Q.” I hold up the heavy book.

  “That’s a very old book.” Fiona comes over and traces the gold letter Q on the black spine. “My mother and I dropped off a casserole, so I thought I’d come say hi. I didn’t know you could read,” she teases.

  “I can read. What kind of casserole?”

  “Noodles and peas and mushrooms, mostly. It sounds strange but it’s really good.”

  “Mushroomy,” I say.

  “Yes, definitely mushroomy. What are you reading about? Quicksand? Quiches?”

  We both laugh at that.

  “Granite quarries. We have one on the other side of the hill. I just read that granite rock used to be molten lava.”

  Fiona sits down next to me on the floor, and I turn the encyclopedia so she can see the photo of the Rock of Ages granite quarry in Vermont. The picture is in black-and-white, but it says the water at the bottom of the quarry is green.

  She looks at the photo, and then she notices my notebook on the floor. “Henry Ten. What does that mean?”

  “It’s my homeschool notebook. I get one every year on my birthday. I can write, too.”

  Fiona laughs.

  “We had to keep a notebook in English last year. With a list of all the books we read and what we thought of them. Is that what’s in your notebook?”

  “No, it’s mostly questions. About science or experiments I’m thinking of doing.”

  “I got an A-minus on my notebook. The minus ’cause I write sloppy. What about you? What grades do you get?”

  “No one looks in my notebook. It’s just for me. I don’t get grades. How sloppy do you write?”

  “So sloppy the teacher can’t read it. You don’t believe me? Give me a pen and I’ll show you.” Fiona sounds proud to write so sloppy a teacher can’t read it.

  “I only have a pencil.” I give her my pencil.

  Fiona turns the pages. “It’s more than half full.”

  “I’ll be eleven in August.”

  She finds a blank page near the back and writes for a while. I watch her write. No one else has ever written in my notebooks. When she’s finished, she passes the notebook to me. She writes in cursive, but the loops and curves on the letters get bigger and bigger each sentence she writes.

  “See, the more I write the sloppier it gets.”

  “I wonder why. You could do an experiment. Like stop after every sentence and see what happens. Or print instead of cursive.”

  “Print is worse. We do experiments in school. In science last year we made sedimentary rock in milk containers. In all these layers. It was really fun.”

  “We have a big outcrop of sedimentary rock in the family cemetery. I’ll show you sometime, if you want.”

  “You have your own cemetery?”

  There’s a sudden noise on the stairs behind us as Birdie jumps her way up from one step to the other, shouting as she jumps, “I CAN KEEP A SECRET. I CAN KEEP A SECRET.”

  “Hi, Birdie,” Fiona says.

  “Hi, I can keep a secret.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Mom says come down,” Birdie tells us.

  “Now?”

  “YES. I can keep a secret.”

  “Okay.”

  Birdie leads the way downstairs, holding on to the railing, as she calls out, “I DIDN’T TELL. I DIDN’T TELL. I DIDN’T TELL.”

  Birdie can hardly contain herself as she runs into the kitchen.

  “SEE!” she yells, pointing.

  I can’t believe my eyes.

  James is sitting at the kitchen table, in the same seat he sat in when the brick came through the window. Wendell is there, too. James does
n’t have a bandage on his head, but when he turns to look at us, I see that part of his hair in back is missing.

  Seeing James in Nana’s house again feels like watching the fireball light up the field. It’s completely unexpected and amazing.

  “JAMES! JAMES!” I yell louder than Birdie. “You’re back!”

  “I can’t wait to tell everyone at school.” Fiona claps her hands.

  “Why are you all up here at Nana’s house?” James asks, looking from me to Mom to Wendell to Birdie to Fiona.

  “The water flooded our house, remember? We live up here now,” I say.

  Wendell holds up a hand. “James doesn’t remember everything that happened before the, you know…”

  “Don’t fall on the floor,” Birdie tells James.

  “What?” James looks even more confused.

  Wendell shakes his head at us from behind James.

  “Birdie said your name and mine, James,” I say. “And she said it in a whole sentence.”

  “I said James,” Birdie agrees.

  “Wow, Birdie! That’s great!” James smiles, and in that moment, he looks like the old James.

  “Why aren’t you at your house, Henry?” James says again.

  “We’re staying with Nana now. I’m sorry you got hurt, James,” I say. “How does your head feel?”

  James touches the back of his head.

  “I got stitches. But they don’t hurt at all. The nurses said they would itch, but they feel fine. I had a funny dream. I dreamt you told me I could have the Honor Box and we could set it up in front of our trailer.”

  “That wasn’t a dream. I visited you in the hospital and told you that.”

  I get the wooden Honor Box down from the mantel and give it to James.

  “Here. I’ll help you set up the table if you want. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “That shouldn’t be too long,” Wendell says. “The doctors are surprised how quickly he woke up and how much better he is. A few hours after you and your mom visited, James opened his eyes. The nurses said it was a real miracle.”

  “When are you going back to school?” Fiona asks him.

  “I don’t know,” James says. “What happened to me?”