by Betsy Byars
Maggie let her Popsicle drop down between the floorboards. It plopped unnoticed onto the dust below.
Then, with a sigh, she began to wipe the ice cream that had melted down her fingers onto her Wrangler jeans.
CHAPTER 13
Letting Go
“Don’t let go!”
“I won’t. Don’t you let go!”
These were terse commands yelled loudly, although Michael and Vern were only ten inches apart.
Then: “Watch it!”
“I am. You watch it!”
“I am!”
Michael and Vern had looped vines around two small trees on shore. They had gradually let the raft and themselves out into the creek. At present they were exactly six inches from land.
It seemed a lot farther to the boys. The water swept around the raft, giving the impression that they were in midstream. The way the current pulled at the raft gave both of them new respect for currents.
Both boys were in a crouch like surfers in the curl of a wave. Neither boy felt secure enough to stand erect, and they kept glancing uneasily over their shoulders. The creek at their backs now looked as wide as the Mississippi River.
“This was a rotten idea,” Michael said in a strained voice. His vines were twisted so tightly in his fingers that the circulation was being cut off.
“You didn’t think so this morning.”
“That was this morning.”
“And now?” Vern’s voice was strained too.
“How many times do I have to say it? This was a rotten idea.”
“All right, if you think it’s such a rotten idea, all you have to say is that you want to quit.”
Vern looked at Michael.
Michael hesitated. “I’m not a quitter,” he said.
“I didn’t say you were a quitter, but if you do want to quit, now’s the time to say so.”
“Do you want to?” Michael asked.
“If you do.”
“No, you have to say it.”
Vern’s vines were beginning to fray. The outside bark had rubbed off on the tree, and the green inside was showing. The circulation in his fingers was cut off too. He didn’t have any feeling in his fingertips.
“I’m ready to quit,” he said.
“Me too,” said Michael. “Let’s pull back to shore.”
“But pull gently. We don’t want too much pressure on these vines. Mine are starting to fray.”
“Mine too.”
“Are you pulling?”
“Yes, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t we moving?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s the current!”
“I know. Just don’t let go.”
“I won’t. Don’t you let go.”
Vern tried to get a better grip on his vines. One strand snapped. The sound was as loud in Vern’s ears as gunfire, and just as frightening.
Vern edged closer to the side of the raft. His toes curled over the log’s edge. He judged the distance.
“Maybe we better jump for it,” he gasped.
“And lose the raft?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll count so we go at the same time. Don’t jump till I do, all right?”
Michael nodded.
Vern said, “One—two—three—”
Vern did not get to say the word “Go.” On the count of three, the last of Vern’s vines snapped. Vern fell back onto the raft. The raft swung out into the creek. Michael, set to jump, was slung sideways. He fell too.
The raft rocked dangerously in the water as the boys scrambled to their knees. They both had one thing in mind—jumping for shore.
Jumping was impossible. They were already in mid-stream.
Michael and Vern looked at each other in horror. Then they glanced down at the cold, muddy water lapping at their knees. The sail flapped wildly over their heads.
“How good a swimmer are you?” Vern gasped.
“Not that good,” Michael answered.
With sinking hearts, they watched the familiar part of the shore pass from view—the white roof of Michael’s house, the weather vane on the barn, the pecan trees.
“Then paddle!” Vern said.
“We lost the paddles when we fell!”
“Use your hands!”
In a crouch they began to pull their hands through the water.
“This won’t work. Break off some deck! Quick!”
“Good idea! Deck!”
Vern pulled on a board. It snapped off easily. Michael’s did too. They began to sweep the boards through the water, aiming for the closest bank.
“I think it’s working. Paddle hard.”
“I am! You paddle hard.”
The raft moved around the bend, got caught in an eddy and turned sideways.
“Paddle on the other side!”
“Right.”
The boys were so intent on paddling that they did not look up and see the bridge.
The bridge was a wooden one that led to the Houston farm. Normally it was twelve feet higher than the level of the creek. Now it was at the exact height of Michael and Vern’s heads.
The raft was on a stretch of straight water. It picked up speed. The boys were bent over, paddling. Vern was yelling, “It’s working!” when they hit the bridge.
They struck with such force that both boys were thrown forward. Their faces plunged into the creek. They inhaled water and came up choking for air.
They were hanging off the back of the raft. They pulled themselves back and clung, gagging and coughing, to the slick boards.
“The bridge,” Vern gasped. “We hit the bridge.”
“My head,” Michael moaned.
“Mine too.” Vern didn’t dare let go to feel the damage. “Can you paddle?”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ll be at my house before long,” Vern gasped. “Can you yell?”
Yelling was the one thing that appealed to Vern. He had wanted to do it the moment the voyage began.
“Yes,” Michael said.
“We better start now.”
They threw back their heads and screamed at the top of their lungs.
“Helllllp!”
“Helllllp!”
“Helllllp!”
CHAPTER 14
Junior’s Dump
Junior squinted into the dark crawl space. He had called Dump five times, and Dump still had not come.
Junior didn’t like to go under the house. It was too dark, too scary, and it smelled funny. He was not going to go one inch farther than he absolutely had to.
“Where are you, Dump?” he called.
He heard the sound of Dump’s tail brushing against the ground.
“I hear you but I don’t see you,” Junior said.
He pushed aside his paper bag.
“Nothing works for me today,” Junior grumbled, getting ready to start crawling. “Pap won’t come when I call him. Now you won’t either, Dump.”
Junior wiggled forward, pulling himself along with his elbows.
“Well, I can’t do anything about Pap, but I can do something about you. I’m going to make you come, Dump.”
At last Junior had something purposeful to do. “You’re coming with me, frogs or no frogs.”
He stopped crawling when he mentioned frogs and looked down. He didn’t want to mash one. He didn’t want one jumping up in his face.
He peered into the darkness. A lot of bushes grew around the house—and these bushes were seventy years old, so they were big and thick. No sunlight came through. No fresh air got in either.
“I should have brought matches,” Junior said.
He propped his head in his hands to let his eyes get used to the darkness. He didn’t want to move until he could see exactly what was ahead of him.
As his eyes adjusted, he caught sight of Dump. Even in the dark Dump was easy to see because he was white with brown spots. “He’s just like a Dalmatian,” was the w
ay Junior described his dog to other people, “only his spots are brown and his hair’s long.”
“Dump! I see you! Get over here!”
Dump wagged his tail, sweeping some dried leaves back and forth in the loose dirt.
“Didn’t you hear me calling you? Come on.”
Dump hesitated.
“Come on, Dump, nice Dump. Good dog.”
Pap had told Junior he had to speak nicely to Dump because Dump had had a hard life. “This dog,” Pap had said, stroking him gently on his lap, “this dog’s been kicked, he’s been hit, he’s been starved, and he’s been thrown into a garbage Dumpster to die. Now, every time you call this dog, Junior, and he don’t come, you remember what he’s been through. He’ll get to trust you, but it’s going to take time.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Dump, I just want you to go somewhere with me.”
Junior pulled himself forward on his elbows.
Dump’s tail stopped wagging.
“I said I wasn’t going to do anything to you,” Junior said. “Have I ever hurt you? No. Have I ever hit you? No. Even if you did something wrong, even if you bit me, Dump, would I hit you? No. You might not believe this, but I have never, ever hit one single person or one single animal in my entire life.”
Dump gave a feeble wag of his tail.
“That’s better. Now, remember this. I’m not going to hurt you. I like you. Actually, I love—”
Junior stopped. A strange, musty scent hung in the still air. Junior had smelled this only once before, but he had never forgotten it.
He had been in the garden with Pap, weeding, when Pap had stopped. He had lifted his head, leaning slightly on the handle of the hoe. It was a hot morning; there wasn’t enough of a breeze to rustle the corn stalks.
“Smell that?” Pap said.
At first Junior could smell only the newly turned earth, and so he took in a deeper breath. There it was—a sweet, musty smell, the smell of old, dark bread.
“What is it, Pap?”
“Snake,” Pap said.
Junior scrambled to his feet.
“Anytime you smell that, Junior, you know a snake’s nearby.”
Now here it was again. The same sweet musty smell. Junior was smelling it for the second time in his life, and a chill went up his spine.
His eyes darted around the dim crawl space. He didn’t see the snake, but he knew it was there. Nothing else smelled like that.
“Come on, Dump, come on! We got to get out of here.” The urgency in his voice made Dump’s tail stop wagging.
“Come on, will you? Come on?”
Junior reached out to beckon. Dump took one step backward. And in that unguarded moment the snake struck.
Dump screamed with pain. Junior didn’t even know dogs could make sounds like that. Junior screamed too.
Dump leapt into the air, striking his head on the floorboards of the house. He twisted in agony and then he rushed past Junior so fast Junior didn’t have a chance to grab him.
Dump’s sharp yelps of pain grew fainter as Dump ran into the woods. Junior peered into the shadows. There it was, the snake. It blended in perfectly with the dirt, the dead leaves, the old wood. It was not a black snake.
In the cabbages that day, leaning on his hoe, Pap had told Junior about snakes. “They can’t hear, but they feel vibrations, Junior. That snake knows you and me are standing here in the cabbages.”
Junior knew that at the moment his whole body was vibrating so hard every snake in the county knew his exact location.
The snake slithered around the chimney and out of sight. Junior backed out of the crawl space fast. He scrambled to his feet and ran down the hill to the creek.
When he got to the bank, he started screaming,
“Pap, Pap, Dump’s been snake-bit. Pap, Oh, Pap!”
“I’ll see you back at the stables,” Vicki Blossom said to Maggie.
Maggie had been pretending to watch the bull fighting, but actually she had been watching her mother out of the sides of her eyes.
“Where are you going, Mom? I want to go with you. I’m tired of watching this.”
“I just want to congratulate a friend, Maggie. I’ll see you later.”
“Why can’t I come?”
“Maggie, we aren’t Siamese twins. We can be apart for five minutes, can’t we?”
“Cody Gray?” Maggie asked. “Is that who you’re going to congratulate?”
“Yes! You got any objections?”
Maggie didn’t answer, and her mom didn’t wait for one.
Things were beginning to click together in Maggie’s mind. Ever since they got to Tucson, her mother had been going out at night. “With the girls,” she said, but every night she had come home late. Maggie wasn’t sure of the exact time, but every morning it was harder and harder to get her mother up.
And her mom had started dressing up a lot for these nights with the girls. She’d even started painting her eyelids to match her outfits.
Maggie sat alone, going over these things in her mind. The bull fighting had started, but Maggie wasn’t paying attention.
In the arena, the bull ignored the fighter and ran after one of the clowns. The clown ran for a barrel and dove inside.
Joe Nevada laughed. “That’s the fastest that clown ever ran. I had a dog used to run like that before we cured him of worms.”
The crowd laughed. Maggie didn’t.
Maggie was suddenly tired. The sun … the noise … the dust. She wished she hadn’t eaten so much popcorn.
“Excuse me,” Maggie said. She crawled over the knees of the woman beside her. The woman took Maggie’s arm to steady her.
The woman said, “I can’t believe you’re leaving during the bull fighting. This is the best event.”
“I ate too much popcorn,” Maggie said.
“You kids never learn.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say never. Sometimes we do,” Maggie answered.
She hurried around the stands, her hat low on her head. She passed the pens where the bulls, horses, and calves stood, quiet now. There were yells from the crowd as the bull fighter made a close pass.
Maggie stopped. She slipped behind a horse trailer. Her mother was just ahead, joining a group of people in bright shirts, well-worn hats.
Maggie’s eyes narrowed with concentration. She bit her bottom lip. She worked her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
The crowd shifted to make room for Vicki Blossom. It was as if they had shifted like this before, as if they all knew Vicki Blossom belonged inside the circle. Vicki Blossom moved quickly. Before the crowd closed around her, Maggie saw her throw her arms around Cody.
“Cody, love,” she cried. “Oh, shug, you were wonderful!” And then, as Maggie pulled back into the shadows, her mother kissed him.
CHAPTER 15
The Rope Trick of the Year
“Whoa, slow down, Junior, slow down,” Pap said. “Take it easy.”
Junior had run down the hill and into Pap’s arms so fast he had spun Pap all the way around.
“Now, what’s all the yelling about? Start at the beginning.”
Junior regained his balance. He caught his breath. Then he began shifting anxiously from foot to foot.
“The beginning,” Pap said again.
“That is the beginning, Pap! Dump’s been bit by a snake. A snake!” Junior used two big gestures with the last two words, the way he would if he’d been saying them on a stage.
“Now, calm down. What kind of snake was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Junior, I’ve taught you about snakes. Did it have markings on it?”
“I think so. Anyway it wasn’t a black snake.”
Junior tried to turn Pap around and head him in the right direction like somebody starting a game of blind man’s bluff; Pap rocked back on his heels.
“We got to find him, Pap, and give him some medicine.” Junior gave up on pushing Pap. He grabbed Pap’s hand and began tugging him toward
home.
“Junior, hold on. There ain’t no medicine you can give a dog for a snake bite.”
“I know there is. There has to be.”
“A snake-bit dog either gets well on his own or he don’t.”
Junior turned his face up to Pap.
“My best dog when I was a boy got bit by a water moccasin on the nose.”
“The black hunting dog?” Junior asked.
“The pit bull—Buster, we called him. Buster got bit right there.” Pap pinched his left nostril. “Buster went running off just like you claim Dump did and didn’t come back for four days.”
“Four days!”
“That’s right. Buster was an ugly-looking dog anyway, but when he came home after those four days, he was the ugliest thing you ever saw outside the moving pictures. They had an Ugly Dog Contest that year at the fair, and didn’t no other dog stand a chance. Buster took the blue ribbon and the red ribbon. The yellow ribbon went to a little Mexican dog that didn’t have no hair.”
“And he lived?”
“To a ripe old age,” Pap said.
“I think Dump got bit on the leg.”
“Well, that helps his odds. If you got to get bit, an extremity is the best place.”
“A hind leg is an extremity?”
“Yes.”
Junior sighed. “It was sort of my fault, Pap. I was crawling under the house and Dump was afraid I was coming to do something to him, and so he stepped back to get away from me and—”
Suddenly Pap said, “Hush!” He threw up his head. He cupped one hand behind his ear so he could hear better.
Junior started to finish the story about Dump, but Pap grabbed his arm and squeezed it hard. He said again, “Hush, Junior!”
“What is it, Pap?”
“Lord, somebody else is in trouble. Hear that? They’re yelling for help. It sounds like Vern.”
Pap started up the creek. He went from tree to tree, pulling himself along. Junior followed.
“It is Vern!” Pap said.
He moved up the hill toward the barn. Now that there were no trees to help him along, Pap was making swimming motions with his arms.
He had to get to the top of the hill. He would have a good view from there. And he didn’t have any time to waste.
“Vern needs my help,” he reminded himself as he ran. “Vern needs me.”
