“She died in a car accident. In Chicago. In May.”
The painter put her hand to her sternum. “Oh, no.”
He was relieved they weren’t facing each other. “It was my fault. I’m the one who killed her.” He listened to himself as if to a stranger. “I’d been drinking, actually. At a party.”
The woman inhaled. “I’m so sorry.” She stopped. “You must—”
“I was actually trying to kill myself. I killed her instead, by accident.”
It was like falling down the basement stairs, unexpected and unstoppable. Brent felt dizzy, unsure of where he was. He knew he hadn’t let out this last fact before, not to his parents or the police or the psychologists. He felt empty inside, like a chicken from the store with its plastic bag of organs removed. He was glad the woman didn’t know his name. He wanted to leave his confession, like his whirligigs, anonymously.
“It’s hard to know what to say,” the painter murmured. She set down her drink. They both stared out to sea. “From our chats, you certainly don’t strike me as a killer. Or suicidal. Just look at your artwork.” The wind toyed with the chimes and turned the row of pinwheels into blurs. “Only someone with a strong life force could possibly have created that.”
The cicadas pulsed, then were silent.
“I’m sure you know that we all get depressed. Seriously, sometimes. Most of us probably think about throwing in the towel at some point.” She paused. “And, God knows, we all make mistakes. All of the above, in my case.” She looked at Brent. “I could be wildly wrong. But my sense of you is that you’re a good person, not a bad one.”
The words worked their way through Brent’s brain. That he might in fact be like everyone else was a foreign idea, never considered. That he could have done what he’d done and still be good was an even more startling notion. He remembered the note from the motel maid: “No one is alone with Jesus.” Jesus forgave you no matter what you’d done. But that was his business, and the priests’ and ministers’. They were professional forgivers. They said “It’s okay” the same way your parents said they loved you, whether they meant it or not. This, though, was different—hearing himself forgiven freely, by someone he trusted. He wasn’t sure, though, that she knew enough to forgive him. He told her the story in detail. It didn’t seem to change her mind.
The sun lowered toward the hills. Brent declined the woman’s offer of dinner. He felt talked out. Producing the camera, he took four pictures of the whirligig from various angles and distances, the last one with the painter beside it. They exchanged farewells.
Brent continued into town. He bought groceries, then scented food coming from the diner nearby and decided he couldn’t wait to eat until he made it back to the camp. He stepped in and took a seat in the front corner, watching the comings and goings out the window as if he were in a trance. He couldn’t quite believe the world was his to enter. He felt dazed and stayed on at his table long after his meal had been cleared. Across the street, cars were parking and people walking into the Town Hall. He paid, drifted out, heard music, and followed the others as if under hypnosis.
A pianist was pounding out chords on a stage, surrounded by a fiddler, a flutist, and a woman plucking a stand-up bass. Beside them, a gangling man was calling out steps to the two rows of dancers below. The music was brisk, bouncy, and infectious. Brent watched inconspicuously, leaning against the wall. Except for a few teenagers, the hall resembled a reunion of some sixties commune, with plenty of beards and ponytails in view. The caller’s promptings, like an auctioneer’s spiel, seemed almost to be in a foreign language.
“Allemand left. Now ladies’ chain. Left-hand star. Back to the right. Actives down and back. Cast off. Everybody swing!”
Couples turned in circles, skirts rippling. Brent stared. It was a human whirligig, set in motion by music instead of wind. He sank into a chair and watched dance after dance. Suddenly, a young woman rushed up to him.
“We need one more couple.” She held out her hands.
To his great amazement, he agreed. A few people clapped when he got to his feet. As before, the caller walked them through the dance slowly, without any music. Brent now recognized some of the steps. Knowing hands turned him left instead of right and pointed him toward the proper partner. Then the music started up at full speed and the dancers, like clock parts, began to turn. Arms reached for his. Faces whizzed past. He was instantly enmeshed with the others. Wordlessly they corrected him, adjusted his grip, smiled at him. He’d always been gawky. This hadn’t changed. But the pattern of steps, repeated over and over, slowly began to sink in. The galloping tune had an Irish feel. It was exalting to be part of the twining and twirling, and strangely thrilling to touch other hands and to feel them grasping his. He felt like a bee returning to a hive, greeted and accepted by all. He clapped with the others when the music stopped, stood outside to cool off, and was promptly asked if he wanted to do the next one. His partner called the event a “contradance.” It felt to Brent like his rite of reentry. He stayed all the way to the waltz at the end.
* * *
He slept late. When he woke, he could still hear the music and see the wide smile of the woman who’d driven him back. Birds were busy in the trees around him. He looked outside. The day was clear. He lay there for half an hour. Then he realized that he’d finished Lea’s mother’s task.
He built a fire and cooked himself some oatmeal, peering into the flames. The guilt hadn’t magically vanished overnight. Four whirligigs wouldn’t accomplish that. He knew it would reside in him like the ashes after a fire, unconsumed. But something had changed. He felt oddly buoyant. He discovered as well that a new view lay before his mind’s eye. He saw himself returning to Chicago and to his parents. Delivering the photographs. Starting at a new school in the fall. These had been beyond the horizon until now. He began readying himself to meet them. He felt that he was up to it.
He put out his fire and packed his tent, then took out Lea’s photo. It struck him now that the crash wasn’t only something that he’d done to her. When they’d met, he was longing to be swallowed by the blackness. She’d set him in motion, motion that he was now transferring to others.
He replaced the photo and took out his bus pass. It didn’t expire until August seventeenth. He had another three weeks left. He wouldn’t mind seeing New Hampshire and Vermont. Then maybe camping on Lake George, in New York. Someone he’d met at the dance had just come back from a canoeing trip there. He thought he might build some more whirligigs. Maybe he’d start on a lifetime project of putting one up in every state.
He put on his pack and walked down to the office. He paid, then backtracked toward the cove, squinted, and made out his whirligig, bright against the painter’s white house. The breeze off the water ruffled his hair and made the whirligig flash in the distance. He’d interlocked some of the propeller blades so that one would pass its motion to the others. In his mind, his whirligigs were meshed the same way, parts of a single coast-to-coast creation. The world itself was a whirligig, its myriad parts invisibly linked, the hidden crankshafts and connecting rods carrying motion across the globe and over the centuries.
He took off his pack. A few nights before, he’d come to the end of Two Years Before the Mast, the author’s ship finally returning safely to Boston Harbor. He pulled out the book, felt linked with the writer and Emil and the others he’d met on the trip, and walked back inside the office. He placed it on the book exchange shelf, aware he was nudging an invisible gear forward. He wondered who would read it next. He scanned the titles and decided on The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects. Outside, a warm breeze ran its fingers through the trees. He started reading while he walked down the road.
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publishers since 1866
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10010
www.henryholtchildrensbooks.com
Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
C
opyright © 1998 by Paul Fleischman
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fleischman, Paul.
Whirligig / Paul Fleischman.
p. cm.
Summary: While traveling to each corner of the country to build a whirligig in memory of the girl whose death he causes, sixteen-year-old Brent finds forgiveness and atonement.
[1. Whirligigs—Fiction. 2. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 3. Forgiveness—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F599233Wh 1998 [Fic]—dc21 97-24429
ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-5582-5 / ISBN-10: 0-8050-5582-7
First Edition—1998
eISBN 9781466860322
First eBook edition: November 2013
Whirligig Page 10
