by Diane Adams
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"Won't you get a backache if you sleep on the floor?" Alex worried, watching Pops roll out his sleeping bag. "My mom always says she gets a back ache if she doesn't sleep in a decent bed."
"Not me," Pops said with good nature. "I can sleep anywhere."
"Sometimes he falls asleep at the kitchen table," Rose told Alex. She let her head roll back and her mouth hang open while she shut her eyes and made a snorting noise to demonstrate.
Pops laughed along with Alex and climbed into his sleeping bag. "I'm going to trust you girls not to get into mischief," he said, fidgeting until he felt comfortable. "'Cause if you do, I'm the one who'll be in trouble with Meemaw."
"We'll be careful," Alex promised.
"Good," Pops said, and closed his eyes and started to snore.
Rose and Alex sighed simultaneously, then went onto the deck and leaned against the railing. It was a very dark night, with only the tiniest sliver of a moon. They couldn't even make out familiar objects, like the blue fountain that watered the white roses, or the ivy-covered archway that led to the alabaster statue of a fawn.
"I still think it was a hummingbird," Rose said.
"An albino hummingbird," Alex remembered. She yawned. "It's possible, I guess."
"Neal said he saw more than one though. There couldn't be more than one albino hummingbird, do you think?"
"I don't know," Alex said. "There's some town in Illinois that only has white squirrels, so maybe we only have white hummingbirds." Her eyelids were drooping and she yawned twice more. "Maybe he's right, and it's some kind of moth."
Rose didn't answer. She leaned over the railing and stared hard into the darkness, willing the little creature to reappear. Tomorrow, she was going to figure out a way to ask Pops about the bird houses - why he put them on the ground. What sort of bird lived in a house on the ground, where cats and snakes and a million other bad things could pop in the front door without an invitation?
"I'm so mad!" Alex complained, covering her mouth with both hands as she yawned again. "I absolutely cannot stay awake another minute. I'm going to take a nap."
"Okay," Rose told her. "I'll wake you up if I see anything."
"Don't fall off, okay?" Alex said, unrolling her sleeping bag next to Pops, shoving her feet in first.
"I won't, I promise," Rose said softly. She wanted Alex to go to bed so she could be by herself. She thought she might be able to figure things out, if she had some time alone in the darkness. Why somebody as mean as Nicole Macavity was so popular. Why Alex had a nice dad who coached her softball team and always gave her a hug if he hadn't seen her for a few hours. Alex's mom was nice too. She was the kind of mom who didn't mind altering blue jeans so they'd fit exactly right. How come Alex had two great parents and she just had a mom who acted like she didn't care if she ever got out of the hospital?
At least I've got nice grandparents who love me, she reminded herself, thinking of Neal's grandparents. And she still had a dad, somewhere, even if he didn't want to be her dad. That was better than knowing he was dead. She knew, too, that one day, her mom would get well and come back for her. She wasn't sure where they would go, but she was confident that they would be together. Poor Neal - his dad was gone for good and his mom ... she might be gone for good too. What if he had to stay with his crabby grandparents for the remainder of his childhood?
All of a sudden, the tiny white creature appeared, hovering right in front of her face! It seemed to glow in the darkness, as though the white light came from inside its body. Its wings were so transparent, they were almost invisible, and its tail draped around its legs like ... Rose squinted at it, afraid to move and scare it away. It wasn't a bird, she decided. It was more like a ...
She blinked and it was gone. She turned to wake Alex, but what would she say - I saw it again and I still don't know whether it's a bird or a bug?
She looked down into the garden, watching hopefully as the night air chilled her skin. She just wanted to see it one more time, so she could be the one to announce whether it was an albino hummingbird, a rare butterfly, or a lunar moth.
Suddenly a light flashed, towards the back of the garden. Then another, a little closer. Then another and another. Rose held her breath and didn't move even a fraction of an inch. The lights were flashing throughout the garden, like tiny flashlights turned on and off, off and on. She leaned against the railing and watched with awe - a circle of light formed over the place where she thought the blue fountain must be. It descended, like a giant halo, then rose again.
"Fireflies," she whispered, remembering what Meemaw had said. Sometimes Meemaw said things that sounded so dumb, but later, they happened exactly as she promised they would. She wondered if Meemaw had ever seen the light show, and if that was the reason she had given Alex and Rose permission to sleep on the balcony. If only Alex hadn't fallen asleep so quickly ...
While Rose watched with amazement, the lights flashed in rhythm, like some great hymn. A few times, they streaked across the sky in a band of purple and gold. She wondered if Alex would believe her, when she tried to describe it in the morning.
She tiptoed across the room to find her sleeping bag, then carried it onto the balcony. She crawled into it without making a sound, then stretched out and stared sleepily into the night sky. The flashes seemed to come closer, until she was surrounded by the light, warm and cozy and safe from all harm.
She closed her eyes, wondering when she had ever felt so lucky.
Lucky? She tried to argue with the feeling, but it didn't matter if it made sense. She was lucky and she knew it. Luckier than Neal, and maybe even luckier than Alex.
(( 8 ))
