I’m getting annoyed, so I put the brochure away and go out to play catch with the Chrissies when they come back from the park. I walk Cassie around the neighbourhood before dinner. I walk along the main street near The Float Boat, but the doors are locked and there’s a CLOSED sign in the window. I sincerely want to talk to Mrs. Forest, but there’s no one around. She and Mr. Forest live above the store, but I just can’t see ringing the doorbell. It’s not an emergency or anything, and I don’t even know if Mrs. Forest is back from visiting her sister.
I walk on. The streets are deserted, until …
… I hear a bicycle turn the nearest corner.
It’s Martin.
He looks straight at me and then he seems petrified. He screeches on his brakes and we have no choice but to stare at each other for a second.
I cringe inside, just a little.
Cassie, bless her doggie heart, wags her tail at seeing him. I guess she remembers him from all those little kid play dates.
He makes up his mind and starts pedalling as fast as he can. He has no choice but to ride right past me. He whizzes by on his bike and yells at me, “Just don’t come near me, Gwennie, ya hear!” He puts his head down and pedals like he’s being chased by a hellhound. Cassie starts to bark like she’s going to chase him. That I’d like to see!
My mind is hesitating, but my body seems pretty fired up. I tear out of my shoes and sprint barefoot along the sidewalk, dragging Cassie with me. She’s so slow that I drop her leash, and that’s when I really start running.
I catch up to his bike and I shout, “You tell anyone about last night, and I swear, Martin Evells, I’ll fly outside your window singing opera at the top of my lungs every night for the rest of your life!” Okay, so it’s come to this. I’m going to terrorize someone into shutting up. Am I being a bully? Or am I just taking care of myself?
He stops. He actually screeches on his brakes and turns to stare at me. There is a horrified look on his face again, but it’s mixed with something else. A tiny hint of sadness. Or concern. Or maybe I just don’t know him very well and that’s how he looks when he hates someone.
Martin’s mouth makes a very surprised looking “oh” and his dark eyes get even wider. That boy looks like he could burst into tears. But he doesn’t. Instead he just shakes his head a little, and I hear him whisper, “Jeez, Gwennie!”
We look at each other. There’s a long moment of looking that could have ended differently maybe, if we were older. But we don’t know what to say, and we’re scared.
The moment leaves us. So he puts his head down once more and pedals as fast as he can away from me. I hear him shout over his quickly receding shoulder, “You just keep clear of me, Gwennie Golden!” but his voice quavers, and he sounds like a scared little kid.
Not the exact effect I want to have on boys, but maybe this is the new me?
TWENTY-NINE
After seeing Martin on the street, I walk Cassie home really slowly. I drag my sorry feet and even Cassie seems impatient with me.
THIRTY
I take my brother and sister home, and it ends up being a pretty ordinary night. I help my mom make dinner, but I tell her I have too much homework to help her get C2 to bed, and she lets me escape to my room.
THIRTY-ONE
I should listen to Jez. She’s smarter than me. I should go home to bed while I have the chance.
THIRTY-TWO
The police car turns into Martin’s driveway. The whole Evells family is out on the front porch in their pyjamas, looking scared. I can see them through the trees a little.
THIRTY-THREE
I wake up late. Someone has closed my screen, but not the blinds, and the sun is streaming onto my face. Cassie is looking at me and wriggles her stubby tail a little when I open my eyes.
She looks expectant. She needs to pee.
Which means that Mom and the twins are out. I’m groggy and tired. I feel really weird and shake my head and generally take too long to get moving. I sit up in bed and run my hands through my hair.
It’s Tuesday morning, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be at school? Why didn’t Mom wake me up?
Then I remember everything that happened last night. It’s kind of like remembering a bad dream, then remembering that it isn’t a dream, that it’s real. Then wondering what on earth is going to happen to you.
I must be in huge trouble, possibly with the law, for waking up Martin’s family like a screaming lunatic at three o’clock in the morning.
I vaguely remember Mrs. Evells saying something to a police officer about me being on drugs.
But more importantly, what, exactly, did Martin’s family see? Did the police officer and Martin’s family see me shrieking around the sky like a bat from hell?
Do they know I can fly?
I go downstairs and there is a note for me on the kitchen table. It is in my mother’s big, scrawling handwriting. It says: Gwen, stay home until I come back. We’ll talk. Soup on the stove. Luv Mom xx
There is another little note beside it, in really neat handwriting, which says: Gwennie, I’m sorry I was away for so long. Come talk to me as soon as you can. E. Forest
There’s also a yellow and black ticket, like a parking ticket, sitting beside both notes. It must be from the police officer’s notebook. I don’t really want to look at that one, but there’s no way I can’t. I take a peek:
Violation, Town of Bass Creek
Presiding Officer: Scott B. Taunton
Youth: Gwendolyn Imogen Golden
Age: 13 yrs
Sex: Female
Charge/Noted: Unchaperoned Minor. Disorderly Conduct in Public
Further Notes: parent/s strongly cautioned, first violation
As I take this in, I hear Cassie whining and licking her lips at the back door. I open it for her, and she runs outside and squats to pee as soon as she hits the grass. The look of relief on that dog’s face is almost laughable.
But I can’t laugh. Unchaperoned Minor. Disorderly Conduct in Public.
Parent/s strongly cautioned.
First violation.
I sit at the table and stare some more at the police officer’s note. I’m written up in a policeman’s book. They’ve started a file on me somewhere. They know my middle name.
I’m in trouble with the law. Worse than that though, possibly many, many people are going to know that I can fly.
I lay my head on the kitchen table and look sideways out the glass back door. Cassie’s doggie face is now begging me to let her come back in. But I can’t muster up the energy to move. I may just lie here on the table all day.
But I don’t get to stay here too long. I hear my mom come in and put her keys on the front desk, and there she is in the kitchen, a bag of groceries under her arm, just like it’s another normal day.
Not like her eldest child had a recent run-in with the law. Not like her daughter is suddenly the town criminal. Possibly soon to be a jailbird. One that can fly.
I sit up and look at her, and I don’t say anything. My mom sits down at the table and takes my hands, and the next words out of her mouth are like a slow-motion video that I’ll remember until the day I die:
“Gwen, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that it would ever matter to anyone else but me … but now I know I should have told you. See the thing is … your dad … well, he was a Night Flyer, just like you.”
And I couldn’t have been more surprised than if she told me I was born on a different planet, and my real parents were aliens with spiky green skin.
THIRTY-FOUR
But it does explain a lot.
THIRTY-FIVE
The next day I go to school. I sit in class, and I don’t fly. I don’t see Martin Evells, although there is a near-sighting in the lunchroom. Martin is with Jeffrey Parks and Sparrow Andrews and a bunch of other boys, most of them staring and whispering. Martin looks at me, though, not whispering and pointing. He looks a little sad. When I turn to look at them, they all run off, him included. Not exa
ctly the reaction I want from all the boys in school.
THIRTY-SIX
It’s late. Mom is sleeping. The twins are sleeping, finally exhausted after their last-day-of-school- sprinkler-party-of-two. I’m leaning against my window, playing with the little lock, pushing the window screen open further and further. Finally I just do it and push the screen all the way open.
THIRTY-SEVEN
When I turn around, my mother is sitting on my bed. For a moment we exchange astonished glances, then she jumps up and hugs me.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I spend the rest of the night lying on my bed, facing the wall. Mom sits on the bed for a while, then she has to go to sleep, too. The twins will be up early, and so will she.
THIRTY-NINE
After my brush with death, I spend the next week sticking pretty close to home. One thing I know for certain: I’m not flying again.
FORTY
The next day is too hot.
It is the very middle of the summer.
It also happens to be my birthday. I officially make it to fourteen years of age today.
It’s also the day that I finally drop by The Float Boat to talk to Mrs. Forest again after so long. But when I get there, the store has the big red CLOSED sign on the window. That sign filled me with despair when I was little. Today is no different.
I can’t talk to Mrs. Forest today, clearly, since she’s not here.
My mom wants me to invite Mr. and Mrs. Forest to my birthday “celebration” in our backyard that evening, so I leave them an invitation in the mailbox, anyway. Even though I’ve been so rude to Mrs. Forest and ignored her for a month and a half, I know she’ll turn up if she can. She’s my Mentor.
Which leaves me feeling awkward.
My fourteenth birthday ends up being a strange little affair with just the Chrissies and my mom and me in our backyard. We’re eating barbecued hotdogs and tossing tiny pieces to Cassie when Mr. and Mrs. Forest do arrive to liven things up with a huge white frosted cake.
At first I’m shy, but Mrs. Forest doesn’t let me stay shy for long. She just hugs me and says hello and doesn’t mention how rude and absent I’ve been. Things are fine between us, just like I’d been in The Float Boat every day, chatting away to my heart’s content.
There’s an angel, a golden candy angel with wings, on the top of the cake.
Cute.
The Forests closed The Float Boat today to buy me this golden candy angel from a bigger candy store in a bigger town down the highway.
It makes me feel like I’m about eight years old, but the cake is really tasty and it’s nice of them to think to bring it. The golden angel on the top is made of something called “marzipan,” which tastes all wrong to me, sort of like perfume and salt, but I munch a tiny piece obligingly. Luckily the Chrissies love it and finish it off, fast. I try not to be disturbed by the sight of a golden angel wing dangling from my brother’s cake-covered lips, like a cat devouring a butterfly, wings last.
I’m opening a gift from C2 (it’s a giant water gun, so I can really get the purple popsicles rinsed off them) when Mr. and Mrs. Forest have to leave.
Before she goes, Mrs. Forest tells me to come to the store later, that she has something to tell me. She smiles at my mom, who smiles back.
I’m intrigued. I decide that now all is forgiven, I will go and chat with her. I feel a tiny bit excited by this, but I really have no way of knowing, not right then, just how exciting things are about to get.
After I help my mom clean up the dishes and food from my birthday dinner, I head out with Cassie. I wear the swishy green shirt Mom gave me the night of Martin’s party, just to remind myself that it’s a birthday gift, too. Mom managed to get out the soda stain and fix the missing button. Cassie and I walk along the quiet streets in the warm night air. It’s really a beautiful summer night.
I’m at the open door of The Float Boat when I notice Mr. and Mrs. Forest rocking gently on the porch swing together.
“Well, Miss Golden, are you ready for another party?” Mrs. Forest says as she hoists herself to her feet. I swear there is excitement in her voice that perks up my ears and makes my heart swell, just a little.
Party? What is she talking about? I follow her inside the store, into the cool, dark, candied air.
“This came for us today.” She reaches under the counter and hands me an envelope. It’s a creamy, expensive-looking yellow envelope with “E.F. & G.G.” written on it.
“We’re invited to the Midsummer Party,” she says. I open the envelope and take out a feather stamped out of gold tissue paper. It’s the same shape and size as the golden feather in my handbook. There’s nothing else in the envelope but the feather.
“What’s this?” I ask, eyeing it.
“It’s our invitation. It came today. I’m picking you up at your bedroom window, tonight at 12:01 sharp. Wear something white. Bring your feather.”
I am about to protest and say I need to ask my mom, but she tut-tuts and says, “Don’t say anything about your mama, girl, she knows where you’re going tonight. I already told her.” Mrs. Forest bustles away into the back of the candy store, and she says over her departing shoulder, “You be ready at 12:01!”
Then she chuckles.
I shrug and am about to head outside again into the evening when I hear a little laugh and realize Mr. Forest is standing over by the jelly beans. He must have followed us inside and is now slowly filling up jelly bean jars, one by one, from big bags. Funny, I never thought about the jars being empty enough to be refilled. They are always full. It occurs to me that many things must happen in this world, keeping it steady and working along, when we aren’t paying attention.
“There’s no arguing, Gwen. It’s midsummer tonight, you know. You might as well just give in and enjoy it.”
I’m a little worried. This is my first time flying in a long time, and I’m not sure what Mrs. Forest has planned for me.
“Mr. Forest, am I going to get hurt?” I blurt out.
“No!” he answers, surprised. He puts down the big bag of jelly beans he is holding: licorice whip. He puts his hands on his skinny hips and listens to me. I spill it, fast.
“Well, it’s just that I’m wondering if anything in particular is going to try to kill me tonight, like the last time I went flying?” I can see that I’m suddenly a little more nervous about this than I thought. I fiddle with the golden paper feather in my hands.
He looks concerned. “You’re talking about the Shade, Gwennie?”
Now I understand that the death cloud has a name. “Yes,” I say, not looking at him. I don’t want him to see the worry on my face.
“You should be scared of it. Lots of Night Flyers don’t come back when they meet up with the Shade. It’s amazing that you did. You must have some fight in you, girl.”
“How did you know I met up with it?” I ask, ignoring his last comment. I thought the death cloud was my own secret.
“Your mom told Mrs. Forest,” he says. I know this is going to make me mad if I think about it, my mom telling Mrs. Forest about that night without my permission, so I don’t think about it.
“What is it? The Shade? There are … people things in there,” I say quietly. I start to breathe fast and my heart starts to race. That bad night is coming right back at me.
Mrs. Forest comes out of the back room and rests against the countertop: “They aren’t people, Gwen,” she says gently. “They’re the sad parts we remember, the memories we can’t forget. We put them there, in the Shade.”
“We do? How do we?” I must sound like a little kid.
“Because we can’t let them go. Or we’re sad for them. Or they’re sad for themselves for one reason or another. Maybe they didn’t live right, or they didn’t love right, or they didn’t do right. The Shade takes all that wrong and makes it into ball of misery, just waiting to find us, any of us, when we’re weak, or scared, or lost,” Mrs. Forest answers.
I’m not sure I understand.
&
nbsp; “Well, why is it especially dangerous for Night Flyers?” I’m still not getting it.
“Because it wants us to quit what we’re best at. The Shade wants us all to quit when it finds us. Which means the end for a Night Flyer who has gone too high, if you know what I mean.”
I think of how the death cloud found me and chased me, and I nod. I do know what she means. Exactly.
“It takes strength to say no, and escape like you did,” Mr. Forest says. He sounds almost proud of me. Suddenly a small part of me feels a little amazed at me, too.
Mrs. Forest holds out her hand. There’s a Hershey’s Kiss on it. I pluck it from her and unwrap it. Cassie thinks I’m going to give it to her, but I pop it in my mouth, which seems mean, but my dog doesn’t need any treats. Really.
“We’ll talk more about the Shade, but not now. Not tonight. I’ll see you at 12:01 sharp, you just be ready.” Mrs. Forest walks away, gone into the back room for good.
“Mr. Forest,” I whisper through chocolaty lips. “Mr. Forest, if there was anything I needed to know about, anything that might try to hurt me, or kill me, or anything, you’d tell me though, right?” I ask again. Wow, I really am worried about flying again.
He walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Now you listen here, Gwendolyn Golden. You are never going to get hurt with Mrs. Forest around. And you are in for the time of your life tonight, I promise.”
The Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden Page 4
