As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth (24 page)

T
here was some explaining to do, to a variety of people: Parents. Authorities. Yulia.

Ry’s parents wanted to see exactly what kind of nutcase he had gotten mixed up with.

“He’s a really good kind of nutcase,” said Ry.

“Tell me again why he’s in this hospital?” asked his mother as they walked in. Ry didn’t want to say that Del fell off a windmill. Not yet, anyway.

“He fell from a deck that had a rotten railing,” he said.

When they entered the hospital room, Ry was so glad to see Yulia, he almost forgot that he had to tell her about the
Peachy Pie
. She rose from her chair to come give him a hug and to meet his mom and dad. She charmed them. Ry could feel the atmosphere lighten. Then she offered the only chair to Wanda and sat on
Del’s bed, moving his plaster-encased legs right over.

Ry’s father perched on the windowsill. Ry leaned against the wall. Everyone was being polite, but it couldn’t help being an awkward occasion. Del asked Skip and Wanda about their vacation. Skip and Wanda didn’t quite know what to ask Del, or Yulia.

Ry leaned against the wall, listening, helping things along where he could. It came to him as he leaned there that he didn’t want to say good-bye to Del and Yulia. Not permanently. Then, too soon, the moment arrived for him to tell his part of the story. The part where he sank the boat.

“So Ry, how did you get to St. Jude’s?” asked Yulia. “You didn’t sail there alone, did you?”

Ry looked from her beautiful face to Del’s. Despite being broken and glued back together like a china teapot, Del was happy.

“I was thinking,” Ry said to him, “that it’s going to take a while before you’re really up and around. And by that time, I’ll be in school. But maybe next summer we could build Yulia a new boat.”

He hadn’t been thinking that at all. It had entered his mind nanoseconds before it left his mouth. It appeared there like a miracle.

“It would be really educational for me,” he said for
his parents’ benefit, improvising, not knowing what he would say next. “And then you guys could come down and we could all go for a sail.

“Because the
Peachy Pie
is at the bottom of the ocean,” he said, in a voice no one could have heard if the room had not become utterly quiet. His miracle idea seemed to die on the vine. It flickered in and out of existence.

One more idea came to Ry.

“Actually,” he said, looking at Del, “I guess building a whole boat would be pretty much impossible.” Having said the magic words, he mentally crossed his finger and looked away. He tried to appear downcast, pensive, resigned. It didn’t require much acting.

He waited a beat.

Two beats.

Three.

Oh, well.

Then Del said, “I don’t know about ‘im
poss
ible.’”

Y
ou want to go off, have an adventure, be your own person. But first you want to make sure your family is all snugged in at home, not wandering loose like a bunch of stray cats. Or lost dogs. Otherwise, how do you call home for money? How do you get home in time for dinner, if no one’s there cooking it up? Someone has to stay home.

Someone had stayed home. Then, one little thing went wrong—or, okay, a half dozen, a dozen, an unusually large number of things went wrong—and everyone went spinning off in all directions.

The interesting and amazing thing was that then they came back together. Invisible and visible forces, whatever you wanted to call them, could pull you back. Another interesting and amazing thing was, now there was Del and Yulia, and there was also Betty the Neighbor. Maybe
the more people you put in your family, the better. Like a diversified investment portfolio.

Ry pulled on a clean T-shirt and went downstairs, gave the happy dogs a pat, and headed out the back door. He went for a spin on his bike, just checking out the old hometown. The new hometown.

The dead car junkyard was newly interesting. He wandered up and down, pushing his bike through the grass, looking over the rows of defunct vehicles. No Willyses. Some awesome ones, though.

He rode on and came to a park. A bike path threaded through it, alongside a small lake. Lake Waupatoneka. The path went over a low bridge across a creek that ran into the lake. On impulse, Ry parked his bike and hopped up onto the concrete railing. He walked across. He walked back and jumped down and got back on his bike.

On the far side of the park, the path continued, following the edge of the lake. Sometimes there was a sliver of beach between the path and the lake, sometimes not. A few sailboats scudded along. It was blowing. There were motorboats and Jet Skis, too. The sound of voices and the fragrance of grilling and barbecue floated through the air. Ry came up behind a girl around his
age who was wading along, hauling a Sunfish behind her by the rope. The sail was down, dragging a little in the water, the mast was rattling in its pocket, the rudder clunked, and the whole thing rollicked up and down over the wake of a passing motorboat. It looked like a slog. Ry slowed down unintentionally, out of curiosity, to match her pace. She noticed, scowled slightly, and kept going. She was beautiful in this interesting, stubborn, scowling, drowned-rat kind of way. She had clearly gone under a few times.

Ry had stopped. Now he pedaled to catch up and called out, “Why don’t you just sail it?”

“Too much wind,” she answered. Retorted, you could say. “It’s impossible.”

Ry watched as she slogged on. Then he caught up to her again, got slightly ahead, laid down his bike, kicked off his shoes, and came down to the water’s edge.

“I don’t know about ‘im
poss
ible,” he said.

Jacket art © 2010 by Lynne Rae Perkins

Jacket photographs © 2010 by Bob Handelman (jumping boy); © 2010 by Darren Greenwood/Design Pics/Corbis (ocean); and © 2010 by Fotohunter (train tracks)

Jacket design by Sylvie Le Floc’h