“I sit in this same spot every morning and meditate, PJ. I let my mind float with the sounds. Listen!” Water trickled over stones in a shallow part of the pond close to their feet. “When it rains,” Ms. Naguri went on, “I love to watch that.” She pointed at a flutelike bamboo fountain that tilted down with the weight of water, and then, when the water flowed out, tilted up with a snap to capture yet more water.
“Did you make that? And your bamboo wind chimes?” PJ nodded at the chimes hanging close by. They were quiet because the air was still.
“Oh yes.” Ms. Naguri smiled. “I love to carve bamboo. I just finished a new rain fountain in my studio. It’s a bit bigger than mine. Would you like to have it for your garden, PJ?”
“Are you sure?” PJ asked. “Will it make plink-plink noises when it rains? Like a tiny orchestra?”
“More than that,” said Ms. Naguri. “You will hear different sounds in a light rain compared with a heavy rain.”
PJ knew about the different noises rain made as it rushed through gutters and downspouts into their barrels at home. She’d place the fountain under her bedroom window so she could hear it at night. She also knew her bird buddies would enjoy drinking from it.
Then she had an idea. “Ms. Naguri, could you make bamboo wind chimes to hang on Ruth’s live oak after Mr. Splitzky brings me her tree house?” she asked. “So Josh and her parents can fill that space with music?”
“That’s a lovely idea!” Ms. Naguri said. “Then the whole block will think of Ruth each time breezes visit us.” She smiled, then added, “PJ, I know you love that tree house. But don’t hide in it too much. Keep finding new joy in your own garden and home.”
“PJ, why can’t you have a dog or a cat like other kids your age?” Mr. Picklelime complained when he met her later, carrying her new rain fountain through the front gate. “I’m tired of those scruffy seagulls pooping on the lawn. Aren’t they supposed to poop on the beach?”
“Oh, come on, Dad, they’re just fertilizing the grass,” said PJ. “They aren’t hurting anyone.”
“Well, it’s interesting the way they seem to follow you home. The instant I come into the garden they make awful noises and fly off.”
“Maybe if you sat outside quietly they wouldn’t fly off?”
He didn’t reply but stared at the bamboo fountain in her hands. “What’s that contraption?”
PJ explained how it worked and then asked him to help her find a suitable spot for it under her bedroom window.
He pointed up at a corner in the rain collection gutter on the roof, close to a downspout. “When it rains heavily there’s always overspill in this area, PJ, so it’s perfect for your fountain just below. You can direct the spout onto whatever you are trying to grow up this trellis.”
“Jasmine,” she told him, hoping he wouldn’t ask why it was planted off center. She had to leave a space so she could scale down the trellis from her bedroom window.
Mr. Picklelime didn’t seem to notice. He scouted around, gathering rocks to secure the base of the fountain. “There,” he said, then, with a glance at the sky, added, “Now all we need is rain.”
“Dad, thanks,” said PJ. She went to get the watering can to try out the new fountain and also drizzle water over her new plants and herbs, all of which were beginning to grow nicely. Later, she joined her dad in the kitchen.
“Hungry? I think Mom left something here for us,” he said, opening the freezer door. “Lasagna? Ravioli?”
“No thanks, it’s too much,” said PJ. “I think I just want yogurt and fruit, Dad.”
“That’s all I feel like, too.”
Together they chopped apples, peaches, and bananas into a big bowl and stirred in a pot of strawberry yogurt with some crushed pecans from their past fall crop. PJ made tea from a fresh mint plant that Mrs. Patel had given her.
They ate in silence until Mr. Picklelime said, “Everyone’s talking about Ruth. It’s a tragedy when a child dies. Parents never get over it. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK, Dad. I’m working through this. It helps to know her tree house will be here soon.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for you to visit your other school friends?” he said as he stirred honey into his mint tea. “It doesn’t seem right somehow. You really want to spend time in a dead friend’s tree house?”
PJ shrugged. “Ruth isn’t a ‘dead’ friend, Dad. She’s someone I’ll always remember.”
Mr. Picklelime sighed and said, “Tree house or no tree house, PJ, don’t neglect school and your duties around here. I don’t want to come home and find cockroaches running all over a sink full of dirty dishes.”
“You won’t, Dad. I promise.”
“Thanks, PJ.” He finished his fruit, and chewing on the spring of mint from his tea, he left her alone.
After he was gone, PJ took the fruit peels and bits out to the compost. Luckily, none of her bird buddies had flown in. She didn’t want them to confront her dad. Reassured that the coast was clear, she went to her room to complete an essay for class, on neighbors. She wrote about everything she had seen that day, Mr. Kanafani’s lovely orange blossoms, Ms. Naguri’s pond with the koi, dragonflies, wavy line of stepping stones, bamboo fountain, and wind chimes.
She reached for her sketch pad and pastels to try to capture those images on paper. But somehow she still couldn’t seem to get the right mix of colors or forms. It was as though her hand just froze. She hadn’t been able to add any new sketches to the corkboard since Ruth’s death. Was this “freezing” something everyone experienced after losing a friend? How long would it last?
Squirt interrupted her thoughts by flying from a branch to the window ledge and onto her shoulder. He draped himself around her neck in the same way he used to drape himself around Ruth. Except he lay there quietly, very different from his usual chattering and twitching about.
PJ stroked his fur until he drifted off. She eased him from her shoulder and into his box beside her bed. Then she looked through the reading assignment Mr. Flax had given them to prepare for tomorrow’s class. They were going down to the beach to help coastal and wildlife crews clean up and document debris, and plant grasses on the dunes to replace those damaged by the oil spill. Feeling sleepy, she climbed under the covers and spent a restless night swimming across the ocean in a dream with koi fish the size of dolphins.
PJ felt some of her sadness lift as she ran around on the beach in a blustery wind with her botany class. Her mom was right. It was important to throw herself into regular activities. She was far from the area where her gull friends normally hung out, but even so, she found herself looking up each time she heard a familiar caw-caw-caw.
Decked out in protective gloves and boots, PJ and her classmates helped the crews fill garbage bins with junk littering the beach, like broken sandals and plastic buckets, soda and beer cans. They also documented the debris that washed up on shore from boats, wrecks, storms, and distant countries, like ships’ timbers, bottles, anchors, entire palm trees, and even an old trunk filled with sand. They found dead birds trapped in huge clumps of seaweed, some still matted with oil. Any industrial waste they red-flagged for the coastal crews to document, remove, and trace back to points of origin to file complaints.
“Why do we need to help restore the dunes after storms and oil spills?” Mr. Flax asked when the class had completed their share of cleanup and gathered around him in a circle.
“Dunes protect the beach?” someone said.
“How?” Mr. Flax asked.
“They hold the sand together and prevent it from blowing away.”
“How?” Mr. Flax asked again.
“Grasses and plants help to bind the dunes,” said PJ. “Then birds can nest in them. It’s a whole other ecosystem.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Flax. Next to him was a trolley load of sea oats, beach grass, morning glory vines, and goldenrod he had wheeled onto the dunes. He handed out spades and trowels and told the class where and how to start planting to repl
ace grasses that had been destroyed by the oil spill.
“Their roots go way, way down,” he said, “and they also help to filter out pollutants left by oil and anything else—which is why you must never pull up or destroy sea oats or dune grasses. Don’t feel tempted to pick the pink or yellow or purple flowers you see growing across the dunes on vines. Enjoy them, photograph them, but leave them alone.”
After the digging and planting activities, the class loaded their spades and trowels onto the trolley and trundled back to the school bus. Their cheeks were windblown to a bright cherry red. Salt spray made their hair, especially PJ’s, look like explosions.
When they returned to school, PJ asked Mr. Flax if she could have a few moments alone with him during the lunch break.
“Of course, PJ.”
“Mr. Flax, do plants have souls?” she asked. “Is that why seeds from a dead plant can create new flowers?”
He smiled down at her. “What do you think, PJ?”
“I know seeds have a special energy that makes them grow. People have different energies, but after they die they don’t sprout little people like seeds sprout little flowers. So where does their soul energy go?”
Mr. Flax said, “Hmmm.” He knew why PJ was asking these questions. “PJ, in my church we talk about the soul going toward light, toward God. The soul comes from God, and returns to God, the highest and purest form of energy.”
“Doesn’t God need plants?”
“He gives us the gift of plants for beauty, and to nourish us. We best serve God when we honor and respect people, plants, and all forms of life,” Mr. Flax said.
“That’s God’s work on earth?”
“A big part of God’s work, yes, PJ. Does that help?”
“It makes me think. Do you know Mr. Splitzky, the ‘bearded beekeeper’? And Blossom, his dog? He said I should talk to a lot of people, ask a lot of questions about life and death.”
Mr. Flax nodded. Everyone knew Mr. Splitzky and Blossom. “Mr. Splitzky’s honeybees actually stop caterpillars from eating plants in your neighborhood. Caterpillars don’t like the vibration bzzz-bzzzing the air, so they move away!”
“He never told us that,” said PJ. “That’s great news for our gardens!”
“It sure is. He’s a good man and he’s given you good advice,” said Mr. Flax, gathering up his books. “Keep on asking questions, PJ. You will get many different answers. Don’t be confused. Let different questions and answers play around in your thoughts like different tunes. You know how that goes? Until a favorite tune keeps on playing over and over in your mind?” Pausing to pick up his laptop, he smiled at her. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Your art teacher, Mr. Santos, and I are planning an exciting project together for the end of the semester. I know you’re quite the artist. You’ll love it!”
“What’s the project?”
“Can’t tell you now.”
PJ turned away. “Mr. Flax, I haven’t been able to draw anything since Ruth died.”
Mr. Flax said, “Look at me, PJ. Grief hits all of us in different ways. Some feel sad. Others feel angry. Some kids shut down so they don’t feel anything at all. Be patient with yourself. Your art is just taking a rest.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so. That’s another reason why you should go talk to Mr. Santos.”
the gull gang
Pablo dos Santos y Sanchez did a swift U-turn on his racing bike and pedaled after PJ when he spotted her cycling toward a jagged split in the cliffside not far from Mrs. Patel’s waterfall. Below, the ocean was a choppy, restless gray, flecked with foam.
“Whoa!” he said. “You are cycling like the wind these days, PJ! Mr. Splitzky and Mr. Flax said you wanted to see me. Come—let’s drop our bikes over there by that big boulder and talk a little!”
Mr. Santos was not only PJ’s art teacher but a wonderful sculptor who created beautiful objects and fountains in stone for meditation gardens and to catch the eye of people who walked into office buildings and universities. He ordered his stone from surrounding quarries.
“I add shape to what I see in nature,” he told PJ. “Nature does eighty percent of the work. See this?” Mr. Santos sat down in a bowl-like niche on the boulder, which was deeply scalloped by centuries of wind and water. He tapped the rock as PJ sat down beside him. “Look at all these contours and funny shapes,” he said. “Look how tiny sea creatures got trapped here and here.” He pointed out some shellfish fossils. “See where little plants and flowers sprouted out of a few grains of dust blown here by the wind. Milagro! A miracle!”
“Mr. Santos, you sound like Mr. Flax. He also taught us how to look for tiny plants growing out of rocks and roofs.” Feeling the warmth of the rock through her hands, PJ asked, “How would you sculpt this rock if nature has done most of the work?”
Mr. Santos got up and circled it thoughtfully. Every now and then, he bobbed down to examine some crevice or to run his long fingers over a jagged edge. “Perfect,” he said. “I’d leave the areas that nature has claimed exactly as you see them here. Then, ah, then I would use this lovely bowl shape on the top for a special fountain. Sand it carefully to smooth out the roughness so you can see the grain in the stone. Look at all these lovely patterns. Look at the seams of pink quartz, PJ … PJ? Hello? Anyone at home?”
PJ didn’t respond and Mr. Santos just smiled and said, “Eh!”
Clouds raced across a gray sky that matched the color of the ocean. The waves seemed choppier than usual. Everything seemed to be churning, including PJ’s own emotions. She appreciated Mr. Santos’s intensity, but her mind was far away. “My neighbors have been sharing all their thoughts with me about what happens after death. What’s your belief?”
“Well, I’m an artist, PJ, so that’s what I will share,” he said. “Not some traditional Catholic belief!”
“That’s OK,” said PJ. “I hate it when people talk to me like a baby and say Ruth is ‘in a better place’ or ‘up there’ somewhere,” she said, gesturing toward the sky. “Up where?”
Mr. Santos folded his hands. “When I was a schoolboy of your age in Spain,” he said, “my teachers were monks who drummed dramatic ideas in our head about mortal sin and heaven and hell, and a sort of midway place called purgatory, where you went if you weren’t bad enough for hell or good enough for heaven. Pffffft!” he said with a flick of a hand. “By the time I went to art school, I shed all that like a skin. I began to see life and especially art as one big school. Training us to learn. To be sensitive. Kind. To listen. To observe. Yes, to do crazy things sometimes and fall down.” He laughed in his musical way. “We also learn from one another—as you learned from Ruth. You are growing through everything she taught you. So, in many ways, she is still among us. Only her physical form is not.”
“It’s still hard, Mr. Santos.”
“I know, PJ. Ask yourself this. What would your life be like if you had not met Ruth?”
PJ thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t have learned so much or have all these cool animal and bird friends!”
“Ah. So her work with you was complete? You learn fast. Now, does it help you to think of her in some invisible form somewhere, teaching others?”
PJ sighed. “What you are saying is that I need to share her with the universe, right?”
“You could think of it that way, why not?” Mr. Santos said.
“I’ll try, Mr. Santos,” she said, close to tears. “I don’t understand why I can’t seem to draw anything at the moment. I can’t even draw Ruth.”
“Don’t worry, PJ. Don’t force yourself. Wait until things happen spontaneously. Just spend these days doing things that come easily. Cycle, garden, work extra hard at school. Ah, go to the library and enjoy the most beautiful art books.”
That seemed like a good idea to PJ and was also an excuse to talk to the librarian, Mrs. Martins.
Mr. Santos leaned down and let a handful of sand trickle through his fingers. “Look, PJ, nothing is separate from us,
” he said. “We are all made up of tiny particles moving at different speeds and in different shapes and forms. Even this sand has minerals in it that we also have in our bodies.”
“Is that art? Or science?” PJ asked.
“Oh, PJ, an artist would say art. A scientist would say science. What do you think?”
“Is there really a difference?”
“Is ice cream art or science?”
“Both!” PJ smiled.
“Good! Let’s jump on our bikes to see if we agree on that over vanilla cones swirled with peanut butter, caramel, and crushed nuts. I’ll tell you about the art show Mr. Flax and I are planning for the end of the semester. We’re looking for some hot creativity from you!”
“PJ, is that you, my girl?” Mrs. Martins came tap-tap-tapping down her ladder after replacing books on the top shelf in the library’s science section.
PJ waited below, arms laden with art books. “Hi, Mrs. Martins. Do you have ten minutes for me?”
“Come into my little den, PJ.” Mrs. Martins led the way through the stacks and between tables of readers by the bay windows to an office behind the front desk. She ruffled PJ’s hair and said, “Doesn’t take long for it to grrrrrow wild again, hey, PJ? When the sea air’s heavy and damp like today, we say bushy hair like ours is ‘going home to Africa,’ you know?”
PJ liked that idea and thought about the way her curls helped mop up oil on the waves. Perhaps her hair floated all the way to Africa, along with Lemon Pie? It was nice to hear Mrs. Martins’s clipped accent and rolled rrrrr’s because they reminded her of Messenger Gull’s b-mail visit.
She perched herself on a tall stool opposite Mrs. Martins and said, “I’m asking all my neighbors to help me understand life and death.”
Mrs. Martins’s eyebrows shot up. “And you’re trying to find answers in art books?” she said. “Fire away, PJ. Ask anything you like.”
“Mr. Splitzky said you were a Protestant.”
Mrs. Martins hooted with laughter. “Nay, my girl. I can’t be pinned down in a box like that. Remember I grrrrrew up in an area of Cape Town where we had Muslim spice sellers on one side of the street, Indian textile merchants on the other side, and a Jewish furniture shop on the corner. One little Catholic church squeezed in here, and a Methodist church squeezed in there. One family worshiped on Friday, another on Saturday, and others on Sunday. So I thought, God is far too overworked. When our minister started on about repenting sins and looking for grace through Christ for everlasting life, I thought, wait. It’s action that counts. Not words.”
Sunshine Picklelime Page 10
