Snowbirds

by Crissa Chappell

“Waiting for the snowbirds?” asks the woman on a bench. Her long-sleeved dress is the same color as the orchids in the oak trees, and her hair is tucked under a stiff white prayer cap exactly like mine.

  The snowbirds.

  That’s what everybody calls the Old Order Amish. Every September, the snowbirds take a bus down to Pinecraft, Florida. They stay all winter long, then head back north to their farms when the ice melts.

  “My best friend’s coming down from Maine,” I tell her.

  “Sometimes I wish they’d take me with them,” she says, watching the buses roll down Bahia Vista Street. “Been years since I’ve seen snow.”

  I’ve never seen snow in my whole life.

  The parking lot is full of bearded old men in straw hats, all dragging suitcases. Old Order women in dark dresses follow quietly behind, their faces hidden under their bonnets. Just by looking at them, I can tell where they’re from. The Midwest girls wear brown dresses and stiff, pleated prayer caps. In places up north, like Lancaster, they might have heart-shaped bonnets. It all depends on the Ordnung, your church’s rules.

  Sometimes I wonder why we’re so different. Every church does its own thing. Who makes up the rules? And why does it matter?

  When Alice finally steps off the bus, I gasp.

  “Lucy!” she says, pulling me into a hug. “I’ve got so much to tell you.”

  We used to look like sisters. Now we don’t look alike at all. Her hair is unpinned and loose, spilling down her back. She’s still covered up in her apron and cotton dress, but there’s something different about her. Something I can feel more than see.

  Mrs. Yoder is already marching ahead. Her long black skirt almost drags on the ground. Ever since I can remember, Alice’s mom has always worn black. Her husband died in some accident a long time ago. That’s all I know about him.

  “Enough chitchat. There’s time for that later, don’t you know,” says Mrs. Yoder in her singsongy voice. “Hot isn’t the word for this day. Soon as we’re inside, I’m making sweet tea.” She glares at Alice. “And you’re going to do something about your hair. What happened to your pins?”

  “They got lost.”

  “Well, they better get found.”

  A couple of Old Order boys speed past us on Rollerblades. They turn their heads to get a second look at Alice.

  “If my mom doesn’t stop talking about my hair,” she whispers, “I’m going to chop it all off.”

  Yeah, right. The Bible says God wants us to have long hair. At least, that’s what I read. It’s our “crown of splendor” and we’re not allowed to cut it. Girls can’t wear boys’ clothes because it’s an “abomination.” It also says we aren’t supposed to eat pork, but Dad’s always first in line for ribs at the church barbecue.

  Together we walk down Kruppa Avenue. All the backyards in Pinecraft have clotheslines flapping in the breeze. The grass is smooth as mint candy. No cars parked in the driveways. Only bicycles tipped against the coconut palms.

  Mrs. Yoder always rents the place with the blue shutters. It’s just down the block from me, but it feels like another world. I leave my bike on the lawn and follow Alice inside the house. Her mom goes straight to the kitchen. Not that I’m complaining. Mrs. Yoder makes me a little nervous, like I’m going to say or do the wrong thing.

  “Sis hees dohin,” Alice mutters, fanning her face as we head for her room.

  I don’t speak Deitsch, but we’ve been friends so long, I’ve picked up a little.

  “Yesterday was ten times hotter,” I tell her. “I’m glad summer’s almost over.”

  “Yeah?” she says. “Feels like it just got started. At least, where I’m from.”

  While Alice unpacks her suitcase, I fold the quilt on her bed. The Yoders sell lots of quilts at the Amish craft fair, but Alice’s mom never lets her keep any. The blue and yellow squares are “too busy,” she says.

  Alice’s mom only brings one thing from Maine—her old-fashioned recipe book. On the cover are drawings of places I’ve never seen. Horses pulling buggies up a hill. A maple tree dropping its leaves. Ice skaters swirling across a pond.

  I sit on Alice’s bed, turning pages. In the margins of the recipes are old-fashioned rhymes and jokes.

  “This one’s my favorite,” I tell her.

  Girls with fat cheeks have hearts like flint.

  Alice rolls her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. But I like it.”

  On the opposite page, the same thing is written in Deitsch.

  De mad mit dika boka. Hen Hartsa we do woka.

  The words float over me like seashell music.

  “It’s Old German,” Alice says. “Nobody talks like that anymore.”

  “You do.”

  “How come you don’t?” she asks.

  I shrug. “My church has different rules.”

  Me and my dad belong to the Beachy Amish-Mennonite church in Florida. We’re different from the Old Order up north. I’m allowed to have things that Alice can’t have, like electricity in the house. But my dad won’t let me listen to the radio or watch TV. Dad says it’s a road to wickedness. He says I should be thinking about the next world. Not the one we’re living in.

  “You’re so lucky,” Alice says. “If I lived in Pinecraft, I wouldn’t have to get up before sunrise and feed the chickens. Or wash my clothes in a stupid bucket. Or spend my whole life doing chores.”

  “I’ve got chores too,” I remind her. “Lots of them.”

  “Like what?” she asks.

  “I hang the laundry out to dry. Same as you.”

  “But your dad’s got a car, right?”

  “He borrows Mr. Showalter’s truck on the weekend. It’s not really ours. My dad only uses it for hauling lumber.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got that.”

  I stare at her curls, the way they shine.

  The bedroom door swings open and Mrs. Yoder marches into the room. She drops something on Alice’s dresser. The metal hairpins.

  “Fix your hair,” she says.

  Then she turns and leaves the room, just as quickly as she appeared.

  Alice gets up and sweeps her hand across the metal pins. They clatter on the floor like nails.

  “My mom hates it when I dress English,” she says, meaning clothes that aren’t plain. “But I’m not baptized yet. She keeps talking about me joining the church. It’s like I don’t even get a choice.”

  “Are you going to do it?” I ask.

  “She can’t make me do anything,” Alice says, looking at the floor. “What about you, Lucy? Isn’t your turn coming soon?”

  My turn.

  It’s already been planned. A week from tomorrow, I will kneel in front of the whole church and say my baptismal vows. Then I’ll be Amish forever. Dad’s been talking about it ever since I was little.

  Can’t I wait a little longer?

  I reach down and scoop up her hairpins.

  “You don’t have to get baptized,” Alice tells me. “You know that, right?”

  Dad would be so disappointed if I didn’t join the church.

  “It would look bad if I wasn’t baptized. Everybody would think I messed up.”

  Alice grabs my hand. “Do you want to be stuck in Pinecraft for the rest of your life?”

  “Pinecraft isn’t so bad,” I say, a little defensive.

  “But there’s a lot more to see,” Alice says. “If you don’t go looking for it, you’ll never know what you’re missing.”

  Maybe it’s true. The world’s a lot bigger than Pinecraft. Too big, it feels like sometimes.

  “Promise you won’t do it unless you’re sure,” she says.

  I squeeze my fist around the metal hairpins. They’re made of stainless steel and stronger than anything you can buy at the drugstore.

  “Promise?” she says.

  I put her hairpins on the dresser.

  “Keep those stupid pins,” Alice tells me. “I don’t need them anymore.”


  • • •

  Later that day, we walk to Pinecraft Park. The clouds streaking above the canal are wispy and thin, as if they’ve been combed. “Mare’s tails.” That’s what they’re called. A sign it’s going to rain. I keep my ears pricked for thunder, but it’s way too quiet.

  “Was the bus ride okay?” I ask.

  Alice is walking so fast, I can barely keep up. “What?” she says without looking at me. It’s pretty obvious she’s not listening.

  “Never mind.”

  We used to talk until our throats hurt, once she got here. Now we’re not talking much at all. I get the feeling she’s holding back something. Whatever it is, I’ll find out soon enough.

  When we reach the canal, Alice finally slows down. Behind the fence where the bearded old men play shuffleboard, the boys jump and shout on the basketball court, their sneakers skidding across the concrete.

  “They’re Rumspringa boys,” Alice whispers.

  Rumspringa.

  The word means “running around.” If you’re Old Order, you can act English once you turn sixteen. You’re allowed to try out worldly things, in case you’re not sure about getting baptized. It’s your last chance to decide if you’re going to stay Amish forever. As far as I can tell, nobody ever walks away from the church. Of course, that doesn’t stop them from having as much fun as possible, if only for a couple of years.

  My dad says it’s wrong to step over the line of temptation. The Old Order can even wear English clothes—baggy jeans and tees. At least, the boys always do. If you asked me, the rules aren’t the same for girls. Still, I never hear anyone talk about it. They’d probably love to swap their long dresses for jeans.

  I know I would.

  Everybody says the Rumspringa girls have the same choices as boys, but I don’t believe it. Not when you see them sweating in their long dresses, while the boys run around in T-shirts. You see boys drinking more, too. When they toss their beer cans in the park, Dad says it’s just “boys being boys.” He says girls wouldn’t do something stupid like that.

  Girls aren’t supposed to mess up.

  Yeah, that’s what he really means.

  “So why did you ignore my letters?” she asks, staring at the ground.

  Now I get it. Is that what’s bothering her?

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Yeah?” Alice still won’t look at me.

  “I feel bad for not writing back.”

  That’s the truth.

  “So why didn’t you?” she wants to know.

  When I try to come up with an excuse, it doesn’t sound right.

  “I’ve been so busy helping Dad at the shop . . .”

  She nods. “That’s what I figured.”

  I’m not sure she understands. Alice’s world up north is so different from mine. Living on a farm without electricity, it’s work, work, and more work. That’s how she describes it in her letters. To be honest, I was fascinated by it. The “chicken chores” and early morning cow-milking. The tangy scent of wood smoke lacing the paper.

  There’s another reason I haven’t answered Alice’s letters. We used to talk about all kinds of things. When I told her my secret—I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in Pinecraft. I want to go to college and study the ocean—she didn’t make fun of me. She listened.

  Lately, all she talks about is boys.

  A plane slices across the sky, leaving a trail like a zipper.

  Alice squints. “How does it stay in the air without falling?”

  “The wings push it up,” I try to explain.

  “But the wings aren’t moving.”

  “Yeah, but the plane’s going really fast. So that makes it lift.”

  “Whatever.” She crouches down and digs inside her sock. I have no clue what she’s doing. Then she pulls out a silver tube of lip gloss. Where did she get that? I bet she’s had it a long time because there’s hardly any left. Just a stubby lump of pink.

  “Here,” she says, slipping it into my hand. “It’s almost gone anyway.”

  I’m embarrassed, just holding it. On the bottom, it says, Summer Passion. I glance around the park, hoping nobody sees me.

  “Go on. Try it,” she says.

  Okay. Here goes.

  I dab on the lip gloss. “Feels weird.”

  Alice laughs. “Don’t you wish you had Rumspringa?”

  Actually, I’m dying to know what it’s like. A small taste of freedom. But there’s no Rumspringa for Mennonites. That’s one of the reasons my church broke off from the Old Order, a long time ago.

  The Old Order girls keep their secrets hidden. They whisper to each other in Deitsch, hunched at picnic tables under the oaks. They move a little quieter, as if they’re trying to take up less space.

  The Rumspringa boys are different from the guys in Pinecraft. They hang out in packs like dogs and make a lot of noise, drinking beer in the park. That’s why there’s so much broken glass sparkling in the dirt. To be honest, it’s really annoying. Sometimes I wish they’d get back on the bus and go home.

  I wipe off the lip gloss on the back of my hand, but my mouth feels sticky. If Dad caught me wearing makeup, I’d be grounded for life.

  Alice leans against the chainlink fence. “Have you kissed anybody yet?”

  I look away. “What about you?”

  She smiles.

  “Tobias.”

  I can’t believe it. Alice is a year older than me, but sometimes I feel like she’s my little sister. She’s always asking questions. What’s this thing? How does it work? I used to think she’d never catch up. Now I’m the one falling behind.

  “Don’t be jealous, okay?” she says, grabbing my hand. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  Maybe I am a little jealous.

  “There’s a party on the beach tonight,” she says, never taking her eyes off the boys. “It’s going to be so amazing. You should come.”

  Yeah, right. There’s no way Dad will let me go. If I can have things like cars and washing machines, why can’t I have Rumspringa too?

  I watch the boys lunge at the basketball net. “How are we supposed to get there?”

  “Easy. Tobias knows somebody with a car.”

  A car is the first thing the Rumspringa boys want. And if they want something, they’ll find a way to get it.

  “What if my dad finds out?”

  “Just tell him you’re going to the Friday Night Youth Fellowship.”

  My stomach burns. “I can’t lie to Dad.”

  “You don’t have to lie. When it gets dark, walk over to church,” she says. “Then call my cell.”

  “Your what?”

  Alice reaches into her bag. She takes out a sparkly pink cell phone. “Pretty sweet, huh? My boyfriend gave it to me.”

  Dad has a cell phone for work, but he never lets me borrow it. Alice’s cell looks brand-new. On the back, her name is spelled in tiny plastic diamonds.

  “So I’ll see you tonight?” she says.

  “Maybe.”

  “Come on, Lucy. Remember when we used to sneak out?”

  Me and Alice used to climb the mango trees in the empty lot near my house. Hours would pass without our feet touching the ground. I never felt so free.

  “Let me give you the number,” she says, taking a pen out of her bag. She pushes back my sleeve and scribbles on my wrist like she’s drawing a tattoo. “There. Now you can’t lose it.”

  I almost want to rub it off.

  “I have to go,” I tell her. “My dad needs help at the shop.”

  She makes a face. “You’re always working.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “At least we’re finally done with school,” she says. “If I had to do that again, I’d go crazy.”

  When you’re Old Order, you have to drop out of school in eighth grade. The boys go straight to work with their dads. They usually end up in a factory, building furniture or painting RVs. That’s what Alice told me.

  She never sai
d what girls are supposed to do.

  In Florida, the rules are different. I finished all my classes last year. Tenth grade. That’s as far as it goes. A lot of my friends were homeschooled. Nobody goes to college, unless you’re studying something like nursing.

  “Don’t you miss school?” I ask.

  “Yeah, right,” Alice says. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

  “It’s better than sanding lumber all day.”

  Although I love whacking nails with a hammer, love the smell of sawdust and cedar, sometimes I wonder if my fingers will ever feel soft.

  “If you don’t get out of Pinecraft now, you’re going to be stuck here forever,” Alice says. “Soon as I save up, I’m moving to California.”

  I can’t listen to Alice anymore. Her head is full of dreams. I’ve got big dreams too. I want to go to college and learn about the ocean. Swim with dolphins and sharks. Watch loggerhead turtles lay eggs under the full moon. The world is a living thing that changes and grows.

  Try explaining that to Dad.

  When I talk to Dad about college, he says it’s too much money. But I’ve been looking up schools at the library. A nice lady who works there helped me apply for scholarships. I’ve got my hopes on a school for marine biology in St. Petersburg. I sent the applications last summer. I still haven’t heard back.

  “I really have to go,” I tell Alice, handing her the lip gloss. “Here. Keep this. My dad’s going to kill me.”

  As I turn to leave, she reaches inside her bag.

  “Got a present for you,” she says, handing me something wrapped in brown paper.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she says, smiling.

  I tear off the paper. “Is it a book?” I ask hopefully.

  It is.

  The Blue Planet: A Natural History of the Oceans.

  “Because you love the water so much,” she says.

  As I turn the pages, I look at pictures of animals from far away. Seals bobbing in the frozen seas of the Arctic. Tiny fish with enormous eyes, glowing in water so deep, we could never find them. Birds that migrate for thousands of miles without ever stopping to rest.

  I stare at those pictures a long time.

  “Don’t you like it?” she asks.

  “It’s beautiful. But I can’t keep this.”