Walk Two Moons

19 FISH IN THE AIR

Gram said, “Where did we leave off with Peeby? What was happening?”

“What’s the matter, gooseberry?” Gramps said. “Did that snake bite your brains?”

“No,” she said. “It did not bite my brains. I was just trying to refresh my memory.”

“Let’s see,” Gramps said, “didn’t Peeby want you to tell your daddy about Mrs. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway hacking up her husband?”

Yes, that is what Phoebe wanted, and it is what I tried to do. One Sunday, when my father was looking through the photo albums, I asked him if he knew much about Mrs. Cadaver. He looked up quickly. “You’re ready to talk about Margaret?” he said.

“Well—there were a few things I wanted to mention—”

“I’ve been wanting to explain—” he said.

I plunged on. I didn’t want him to explain. I wanted to warn him. “Phoebe and I saw her slashing and hacking away at the bushes in her backyard.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” he asked.

I tried another approach. “Her voice is like dead leaves blowing around, and her hair is spooky.”

“I see,” he said.

“And there is a man who visits her—”

“Sal, that sounds like spying.”

“And I don’t think we should go over there anymore.”

Dad took off his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt for about five minutes. Then he said, “Sal, you’re trying to catch fish in the air. Your mother is not coming back.”

It looked like I was merely jealous of Mrs. Cadaver. There in the calm light of my father, all those things that Phoebe had said about Mrs. Cadaver seemed foolish.

“I’d like to explain about her,” my father said.

“Oh, never mind. Just forget I mentioned her. I don’t need any explanations.”

Later, when I was doing my homework, I found myself doodling in the margin of my English book. I had drawn a figure of a woman with wild hair and evil eyes and a rope around her neck. I drew a tree, fastened the rope to it, and hung her.

The next day at school, I studied Mr. Birkway as he leaped and cavorted about the classroom. If he was a murderer, he certainly was a lively one. I had always pictured murderers as being mopey and sullen. I hoped Mr. Birkway was in love with Margaret Cadaver and would marry her and take her away so that my father and I could go back to Bybanks.

What I found most surprising about Mr. Birkway was that he increasingly reminded me of my mother—or at least of my mother before the sadness set in. There was a liveliness to both Mr. Birkway and my mother, and an excitement—a passion—for words and for stories.

That day, as Mr. Birkway talked about Greek mythology, I started daydreaming about my mother, who loved books almost as much as she loved all her outdoor treasures. She liked to carry little books in her pocket and sometimes when we were out in the fields, she would flop down in the grass and start reading aloud.

My mother especially liked Indian stories. She knew about thunder gods, earth-makers, wise crows, sly coyotes, and shadow souls. Her favorite stories were those about people who came back, after death, as a bird or a river or a horse. She even knew one story about an old warrior who came back as a potato.

The next thing I knew, Mr. Birkway was saying, “Right, Phoebe? Are you awake? You have the second report.”

“Report?” Phoebe said.

Mr. Birkway clutched his heart. “Ben is doing an oral report on Prometheus this Friday. You’re doing one on Pandora next Monday.”

“Lucky me,” Phoebe muttered.

Mr. Birkway asked me to stay after class for a minute. Phoebe sent me warning messages with her eyebrows. As everyone else was leaving the room, Phoebe said, “I’ll stay with you if you want.”

“Why?”

“Because of him hacking up Mr. Cadaver, that’s what. I don’t think you should be alone with him.”

He did not hack me up. Instead, he gave me a special assignment, a “mini journal.” “I don’t know what that is,” I said. Phoebe was breathing on my shoulder. Mr. Birkway said I should write about something that interested me. “Like what?” I said.

“Oh, a place, a room, a person—don’t worry about it too much. Just write whatever comes to mind.”

Phoebe and I walked home with Mary Lou and Ben. My brain was a mess, what with trying not to flinch whenever Ben brushed against me. When we left Ben and Mary Lou and turned the corner onto Phoebe’s street, I wasn’t paying much attention. I suppose I was aware that someone was coming along the sidewalk in our direction, but it wasn’t until the person was about three feet away that I really took notice.

It was Phoebe’s lunatic, coming toward us, staring right at us. He stopped directly in front of us, blocking our way.

“Phoebe Winterbottom, right?” he said to Phoebe.

Her voice was a little squeak. The only sound that came out was a tiny “Erp—”

“What’s the matter?” he said. He slid one hand into his pocket.

Phoebe pushed him, yanked my arm, and started running. “Oh-my-god!” she said. “Oh-my-god!”

I was grateful that we were nearly at Phoebe’s house, so if he stabbed us in broad daylight, maybe one of her neighbors would discover our bodies and take us to the hospital before we bled entirely to death. I was beginning to believe he was a lunatic.

Phoebe tugged at her doorknob, but the door was locked. Phoebe beat on the door, and her mother suddenly pulled it open. She looked rather pale and shaken herself.

“It was locked!” Phoebe said. “Why was the door locked?”

“Oh sweetie,” Mrs. Winterbottom said. “It’s just that—I thought that—” She peered around us and looked up and down the street. “Did you see someone—did someone frighten you—”

“It was the lunatic,” Phoebe said. “We saw him just now.” She could hardly catch her breath. “Maybe we should call the police—or tell Dad.”

I took a good long look at Phoebe’s mother. She did not seem capable of phoning the police or Mr. Winterbottom. I think she was more scared than we were. She went around locking all the doors.

Nothing more happened that evening, and by the time I went home, the lunatic did not seem quite so threatening. No one called the police, and to my knowledge, Mrs. Winterbottom had not yet told Mr. Winterbottom, but right before I left Phoebe’s house, Phoebe said to me, “If I see the lunatic once more, I’ll phone the police myself.”