I was a little nervous the next day at school, but the icy fingers left me alone. So did Maddie. She avoided looking at me when she came down the bus aisle. When she and the Oslo twins walked behind me in the hallway, they talked about everything under the sun except me.
I didn’t blame Maddie for ignoring me. Coming back to school must have been harder than anything. She was the perfect girl who wasn’t so perfect anymore.
Sometimes, when no one else was looking, I caught sight of her face and briefly glimpsed the scared look in her eyes. Maybe she really wasn’t all that different from me, except she had to work harder to hide it.
After all I went through, it would be nice to say I’d sprung out of it like a new butterfly—able to spread my wings, find other butterfly friends, and live happily ever after. But that’s not what happened. Most of the time I kept to myself. I was still pretty quiet. I don’t think anyone had a clue what had happened to Antonia and me.
Which isn’t to say nothing changed. For one thing, I finally agreed to join the after-school art club. When I told May, she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed all the air out of my lungs.
“I knew you’d join, Lucy!” May squealed, grinning so hard I was afraid she might split her face in half. “You are going to love it!”
And she was right. I felt the jitters when I first stepped into Mr. Capp’s room, but Mr. Capp welcomed me with his usual smile, and May took hold of my hand and introduced me to the other six kids who’d joined the club. I even cracked a joke about Mr. Capp’s mustache, which made everybody laugh. Nobody laughed louder than Mr. Capp.
Then, one day during our regular art class, Mr. Capp showed me a big book of paintings by an artist named Georgia O’Keeffe. She made gorgeous pictures of flowers and skulls and the New Mexico desert.
“I wish I could paint like her,” I said.
Mr. Capp smiled. “You will in your own way. Just keep drawing. Never stop creating beautiful things.”
I thought about what Mr. Capp said. The next day I stopped copying pictures out of other books and started drawing what came to mind.
The first thing I drew was the brown face of the Susquehanna River as it flowed past the tall, pale gray birch trees of Hunter’s Moon Island.
* * *
—
“You’re going to chew that down to your elbow,” I said, eyeing the thumbnail Mom was nibbling. Mom pulled it out of her mouth and frowned at it. Then she started working on her pinkie.
Mom had been that way since the volunteer group from Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament showed up a week after the flood finally receded, offering to clear out the pile of debris that used to be our home. Not that she didn’t appreciate it, but church folks always made her twitchy.
Today she was keeping an eye on the man from the Federal Emergency Management Agency who was looking over the broken remains of the trailer. He’d been very friendly and had already assured us we’d almost certainly qualify for home assistance.
That meant we could afford the security deposit on the two-bedroom furnished apartment we’d visited the day before. I had loved it right away. It was roomy and clean, and it had shiny wood floors and a big bay window looking out over the street. Even better, it was only a block away from where May lived.
But none of that kept Mom from trying to gnaw her hand off. Government folks made her even twitchier than church folks.
“I feel like he’s judging me,” Mom said, who’d moved on to her ring finger.
“Did he say something to you?” I asked.
“No,” Mom admitted. “It’s just a feeling. Where’s Antonia anyway?”
“I’ll find her,” I said, and ran off toward the road.
I finally Antonia near the bus stop, but I didn’t shout out to her right away. She was talking to Gus Albero. Gus kept his hands stuffed in his front pockets, obviously trying to look cool and collected, and failing miserably. Antonia beamed up at him and bounced on her toes.
Gus spotted me and turned beet red. He said something quickly and scuffled off, his head hanging down like he was willing his neck to swallow it. Antonia turned to me and waved.
“Hey, hey, whaddaya say,” she said as she skipped over to me, still beaming.
“Mom’s looking for you,” I said.
“Sure,” Antonia said. I doubt she’d heard a word I said. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“Gus asked me to the Halloween dance!” Antonia smiled so hard I thought she might break all her teeth.
“I thought you weren’t talking to him.”
“Well, let me tell you what happened.” As Antonia started chattering away, I took her by the elbow and led her in Mom’s direction. “So I was at my locker yesterday morning and suddenly there’s Gus and he says hi but I don’t say anything. Then he kind of mumbles, ‘Sorry,’ and starts looking all stupid and so I kick him.”
“You kicked him?”
Antonia nodded like it wasn’t such a big deal. “So he’s hopping on one foot and he says, ‘What did you do that for? I just wanted to ask you to the dance!’ And what do you think happened next?”
“You said yes?”
“No!” Antonia squealed. “That weasel face Zoogie pops his ugly head up and starts saying mean things like before, except this time Gus shoves him against the locker and tells him if he says one more word, he’s going to be eating fist for lunch.” Antonia sighed. “Isn’t that the sweetest thing you ever heard?”
I shook my head, but had to smile. I hadn’t seen her so happy in a long time.
“That’s great,” I said, “but good luck trying to get Mom to let you go.”
Antonia grabbed my hands. “Can you talk to her, Lucy?” she begged. “You’re good at talking to her about things and being convincing. Can you? Please?” She fluttered her eyelashes and puckered her lips like a fish. I laughed and shoved her away.
“All right, I’ll see what I can do,” I agreed. “But we’d better get back before Mom thinks we both wandered off and got lost again.”
We ran, and soon enough we could see the crowd of volunteers sifting through the trailer junk. Mom was listening to the FEMA man while chewing on the one finger that still had a nail. I felt a little winded, so I bent down and put my hands on my knees until I caught my breath.
When I stood up, Antonia was staring wide-eyed with her hand over her mouth.
“What? What is it?” I asked frantically. I felt the icy fingers of panic until I saw the big grin hiding under her hand.
Antonia didn’t answer. She took off running, her joyful howler-monkey squeals trailing behind her. She was heading right for the ginkgo tree.
Its leaves had started to fall.
Once I caught up, the two of us just stood there under the branches while the fan-shaped yellow leaves gently floated down and covered our hair and our shoulders and the ground circling our feet. We looked at each other and started to laugh, then we jumped and danced and raced around the tree trunk. Antonia howled and whistled, and I swung my arms out and tried to catch the falling leaves and screamed my head off like a fool.
And I didn’t care one bit who heard.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE ORIGINAL SPARK for Hush-a-Bye was a secondhand story I’d heard many years ago. Someone had found a garden gnome’s head lying in a creek bed. Five years later, in the very same spot in the creek, they discovered the gnome’s body. How I got from that odd little scenario to here was not straightforward or easy, but I do know I did not get here by myself. So I have a few people to thank.
First and foremost is my amazing wife, Suzanne, without whom none of this would have been possible. Her unwavering support for me, despite all the headaches I gave her with my self-doubting rants and obsessive need to find clouds in any silver lining, kept me pushing forward. She is literally (and I do mean literally) the best. She is followed c
losely by my sons, Steven and Colin, my parents, my siblings, my in-laws, and all my extended family, who have been there for me for the good days and the difficult ones.
Next, I have to thank my agent, Lindsay Davis Auld, at Writers House. Lindsay has not only been a steadfast champion for this book since she decided to take me on as a client, but her detailed and incisive notes have made Hush-a-Bye a far better book than I had ever imagined. I feel like I am a better writer now because of her, which is no small thing.
Thanks also to everyone at Viking Children’s Books/Penguin Random House who helped in getting this book together. In particular, I’d like to thank my editor, Jenny Bak, for her guidance and her keen editorial eye, and for just being an engaging person with whom I’ve enjoyed working. And special thanks to illustrator and apparent mind reader Matt Rockfeller for creating the cover I’d always imagined.
Thanks as well to a group of wonderful writers— Margaret Peterson Haddix, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Kat Shepherd, and Christina Uss—whom I’ve had the pleasure to talk to about children’s books, and who graciously agreed to read my manuscript and offer their generous feedback.
A shout-out of thanks to New York West/Central chapter of SCBWI New York, whose conferences and critique sessions helped me hone my craft. A special shout-out to Darcy Pattison and the Novel Revision retreat she helmed, which did so much to bring focus to the book’s shape, as well as the middle grade group who offered their insightful suggestions: Rinda Beach, Kim Gillett, Susan Tabriz, and Kim Jakaway.
And going way back, a big thanks to the online group Critique Circle and those fellow writers who provided such smart critiques to the very earliest drafts of the book, with special mention going to T. J. McIntosh, Molly Zucknick, and Linda Kelly.
And finally, I’d like to offer my gratitude to the great writer Shirley Jackson. She sustained me through high school with her strange, mesmerizing stories of lost and wounded people, and I hope this book might do the same for any reader looking for a port in the storm, even if for only a little while.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JODY LEE MOTT is a former elementary and middle school teacher, and an avid reader of children’s books who finally decided to write down the stories bouncing around his brain. He is also the creator and host of the children’s book podcast Dream Gardens, which is on Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are found. He lives several stone throws from the Susquehanna River in Apalachin, New York, with his wife, children, and one very large greyhound. Hush-a-Bye is his first novel. Find him at jodyleemott.com.
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