Mom and Dad,
Riding my bike into town. Be back in
a couple of hours.
Love, Kev
We’d lived in Armadillo for almost a year, and this was the first chance I’d had to ride my bike. It was the old one. I still hadn’t bought a new one. We’d been so busy I hadn’t had time to ride anyway. This was my first time out alone, too, but I wasn’t worried about getting lost. By now I was pretty familiar with the town. After all, it wasn’t that big.
I came upon a yard sale a short distance down the road. I parked my bike and wandered around, trying to mingle in with the old people who were out hunting for bargains. I dug through a box of books, hoping to find a cheap field guide for birdwatchers. Instead I found a worn-out Book of Mormon.
What did Mom and Dad read in this book that made them want to join the Church?
I flipped through the pages. Lots of verses underlined, lots of words scribbled in the margins.
I tried to guess what Cletus McCulley’s Book of Mormon must have looked like and felt certain it would have been even more well-worn. I decided then and there if Cletus McCulley had read it, so would I. Dad had a denim-covered Bible on the bookshelf in the den that he got when he was in college. I figured he wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it too.
I carried the book with me as I scanned over the rest of the junk. While going through a box of baseball cards, I accidentally knocked a rusted toy truck onto the ground. I bent down to pick it up and found an old fishing pole under the table.
A woman sat on the front porch, holding a pencil, notepad, calculator, and a cigar box full of money. I carried the book and pole to her. “How much for these?”
“Five dollars.” Then she noticed the book. “Wait a minute. Where did you find that? I hadn’t planned to sell that.”
“I’d like to have it,” I said. “A friend of mine is Mormon.” I figured she didn’t have to know he was a dead friend.
Her face softened. “Keep it. My son is serving a mission right now. Who knows, maybe you will too.”
I dug down in my pockets. I had two dollars, thirteen cents, and a ball of lint. I hesitated for a second, then thought, well, all she can do is tell me no. “Would you take two dollars and thirteen cents for the pole?”
A mother pushing twins in a stroller walked up and gave her a handful of crumpled-up bills. The woman nodded to the armload of baby clothes the mother carried. “This will be fine. You go ahead. You’ve got your arms full.”
She smoothed the wrinkled money out in her lap. I was afraid she’d forgotten about me, so I cleared my throat. “How about two,” she said, never looking up from counting her money. “I don’t like dealing with odd amounts of change.”
I handed over the cash. I stuck the book in my pouch, strapped the pole to my bike, and took off again. But instead of riding into town, I decided to ride away, out in the country. I turned off a side road, crossed a bridge that spanned the edge of a small lake, and then turned onto a narrow gravel road. It was quiet and the sun was heating things up. But the trees were full and everything smelled green and moist.
Up ahead, the road ended at a clearing. A good place to see deer in the evening, I thought. But as I got closer I could see rows of gray and white stones off to the right. It was a cemetery. I parked my bike and walked around.
I remembered Dad saying once that graves are sometimes plotted to face the east, so I figured I must have been at the west end of the cemetery, since I was facing the backs of the stones. As I walked to the other end, I looked back at the markers and found some of them dated back to the early 1800s. A few of the oldest stones were so weathered that the engravings smoothed out into nothingness.
One large, newer stone was made from deep, gray granite, polished to such a shine that the sun’s reflection made it stand out like a beacon in the center of the field. There was something carved on the back that I couldn’t make out from where I stood. As I moved closer, the engraving became clear:
DEATH IS A FISHERMAN—AND WE THE FISHES BE.
I shivered from my neck to my heels, despite the ninety-degree heat. The name engraved below the epitaph was MCCULLEY.
I stepped around to the front of the stone. The name CLETUS DARNELL was etched on the left. GLENDA SUE was on the right. And in the center were two wedding rings, entwined with ribbon and held in the beak of a dove, with the words underneath TOGETHER FOREVER.
I pulled the worm from my pocket. It was warm and squishy from the heat, but still held its shape.
I ran back to my bike for the two-dollar fishing pole. I carried it back to the grave and sat down on the ground. I wanted to say something, but what do you say to a tombstone? So I just sat there for a long time.
Finally, I nestled the handle of the fishing pole into the artificial flowers in front of the grave. I fixed it so it stood at an angle, just as if it were being used to fish. I let the line out and stuck the hook in the ground. I stepped back to admire the result. It looked pretty neat. I figured Cletus McCulley would like it.
I thought about putting the worm on the hook. But I figured Cletus McCulley would want me to keep that.
“Thanks, Mr. McCulley,” I said out loud. “Thanks for everything.”
A soft rustle came from within the thick honeysuckle vines growing up the trees along the edge of the cemetery. A long, brown, scaly snout poked through the leaves, then a pair of beady black eyes followed by two tall, pointy ears.
Armadillos may be ugly, but they are interesting. This one’s nose scoured the ground in search of a six-legged lunch. He must have been nearsighted, because he acted like I wasn’t even there. Or maybe he couldn’t see me because, like a fish, his eyes were stuck on the sides of his head.
I got back on my bike and headed home. Granddad and Grandma were coming in tonight from Florida. They were going to spend a whole month with us. There would be lots of stuff to get ready. We’d have to move my birdbaths again, and I wanted to organize all the family history papers Grandma gave me into a special notebook, so she would know I hadn’t forgotten them—or her. Mom and Dad would most likely have something they needed me to do too.
I flew down the gravel road, into the soft late-morning wind. I turned onto the side road that led to the highway, and as I approached the bridge I slowed down and looked out across the water.
An old man and his wife were fishing. He yanked his line out of the water. A huge fish was at the other end. He hauled it into the boat. The fish flopped around, struggling to get free of the hook. The woman clapped her hands as the old man removed the hook from the fish’s mouth. As he put the fish in the cooler, his wife leaned over and whispered something in his ear. She pointed at the bridge where I stood, and the old man called out, “Hello, Son!”
I waved and shouted good morning. The wife fluttered her handkerchief in the air. The old man waved his hat, revealing crew-cut hair whiter than the wisps of clouds overhead and eyes bluer than the sky’s reflection on the sweet summer water.
About the Author
Patricia Wiles is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the Author’s Guild. She’s received several awards for her work in print journalism, has been a public radio commentator, and has had work published in regional and national magazines—but she’s happiest when she’s writing for young readers. She has three children—Ami, Jessica, and Aaron—who have all grown and are leading interesting lives of their own. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and best friend, Tim, and a spoiled-rotten, bob-tailed cat named Bandit. Visit her web site at www.patriciawiles.com or write to her at [email protected].
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Edition published 2004 by Covenant Communications, Inc.
Copyright © 2004, 2013 by Patricia Wiles
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2930-8
Distributed in 2016 by Open Road Distribution
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
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