Coast to Coast
Authors: Betsy Byars
Betsy Byars
to Ed and Harvey
3. Kick the Tire, Twang the Wire
11. Bimbo and the Mississippi River
22. Wings Over the San Gabriel Mountains
In the Attic
B
IRCH SAT BY THE
attic window. Motes of dust floated through the sunlight around her.
Ace, the dog, lay at her feet. He panted with the heat. Drops of saliva dotted the dusty floor. He looked up at her and gave a moan of impatience.
“If you’re that hot, Ace,” she told him absently, “go downstairs.” She did not look away from the box in her hands.
The box had once held candy, but now it was bound tightly with an old, faded ribbon. In an attic that had been filled with old things, this box was all that remained.
Birch pulled at the knot, but it had been tied by someone who did not want the box to be opened. She paused for a moment caught by an unexpected feeling of unease.
“Birch,” her mother called from downstairs.
“What?”
“Come down here, I need you.”
“In a minute.”
“Is everything out of the attic?”
“Yes.”
“Then come help me with the basement.”
“I’m coming.”
She began to work the ribbon off the box, carefully inching it over the old cardboard. The ribbon slipped off the end of the box and fell in a coil onto the floor. Ace glanced at it with interest, as if waiting for it to do something.
Birch fumbled with the lid, and the box sprang open like something out of a fairy tale. Sheets of paper, faded and discolored, green, cream, and blue, fluttered from the old lace lining and landed at her feet. Birch bent to gather them up.
She began to read. Shifting through the sheets, she paused to read again. For a moment she sat without moving.
“Oh, Ace. Ace!”
She scrambled to her feet. Clutching the box in both arms, she ran down the attic stairs. The movement caught Ace by surprise and it took him a moment to start after her.
“Mom, guess what?” Birch called as she ran. “Mom, where are you?”
“In the basement.”
Birch took the basement stairs two at a time. Her mother was leaning over a card table, marking items for the garage sale. The electric fan, priced at four dollars, turned slowly from side to side, stirring the air.
“You’ll never guess what I found.”
“I thought you said the attic was clean.”
“Mom, this was stuck on a ledge over the window. I didn’t see it before. I could have missed it completely! And guess what it is?”
“I can’t.”
“Mom it’s poems. And this”—she picked up the top sheet—“this is a love poem!” She held out the box. “Mom, these are your mother’s old poems. Remember you told me she wrote poetry.”
“Yes, but don’t bother me with it now, Birch.”
“Can I read you this one poem, please?”
“If it’s a short one.”
“They’re all short. Mom, this is going to shock you. Your mother and father were in love. Granny and Pop were in love!”
“Oh, Birch.”
“Well, maybe you aren’t surprised, but I am. And the poems are all dated. This one’s April 1944. Was that before they got married or after?”
Her mother gave it some thought. “Before.”
“Here it is.” Birch cleared her throat. “Word for word.
“Listen, World—
Listen, Sea—
Listen, all the powers that be.
Earl loves me.
“Whoo,” Birch said, “I didn’t know Granny had it in her. You want to hear another one.”
“Maybe later.”
“One more quickie. This is dated May 1944. The romance is heating up.
“Of all the treasures
In the world,
Like the oyster
With its pearl
I have Earl.
“Where’s Pop? I have to read these to him. To be honest I never thought of Pop as a treasure of the world.”
“Pop’s at the airport.”
“When’s he going to get home?”
“He’ll be here for lunch.”
“Mom, do you think he knows about these?”
“Your grandfather was never much for poetry. It embarrassed him.”
“So can I have them? The poems?”
“I think your grandmother would want you to have them. You probably got your gift for poetry from her. But you have to check with Pop first. All of these things are his.”
“I understand. I will buy them at the garage sale if I have to.”
Birch sat down on the basement steps. There was a startled yelp from Ace. “Well, if you don’t want to get sat on,” she told him, “you shouldn’t lie down under people.”
She brushed off the back of her legs. “Sitting on Ace is like sitting on a porcupine.”
“I wouldn’t know,” her mother commented idly.
Birch sat down, beside Ace this time. She rubbed him behind his stubby ears.
“I got the poems out of order when I dropped them,” she told her mom. She began to sort through the sheets of paper.
“I need some help, Birch.” Birch could tell that her mom was losing patience.
“I’ll help just as soon as I get these straightened out—” She broke off. “Oh, Mom! Guess what? Here’s one dated, June twelve. My birthday. She wrote a poem when I was born! A birth poem! ‘For the Newborn.’ I guess you hadn’t named me yet.”
She read the brief lines to herself. She read them again. Her smile faded.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“What?”
Birch bent over the pale paper and read the thin, spidery blue script one more time. She felt a chill at the back of her neck.
The baby took one fluttering gasp
Two …
Three …
Each softer than the last.
Four …
One more. … Passed. All past.
“So, read me the poem.”
“No, it’s nothing … nothing. I thought it was my birth poem, but I was wrong. It’s more like, I don’t know”—she choked on the words—“a death one.”
“More like what? I didn’t hear you.”
“Nothing.”
Birch held the sheet of paper gingerly, by one corner. It trembled as the electric fan turned in her direction.
“Read it to me. I want to hear it.”
“I’m having a problem making it out—it’s blue ink on blue paper.”
She felt as if she were on the edge of. some knowledge that she didn’t want, maybe that she couldn’t handle.
“You’ve got me interested,” her mother continued.
“I’ve already put it on the bottom of the pile. Anyway, Mom, it’ll make you cry.”
“It’s that sad?”
“No, everything makes you cry. I saw you weeping over two pillows yesterday.”
“Oh, Birch, those were your grandmother’s pillows when she was a girl. Their names were Willow and Billow.”
“She named pillows?”
“Yes. Oh, I’m going to start crying again if I’m not careful.”
Birch lifted her head. “Oh, there’s Pop, home from the airport.”
She jumped to her feet. And Ace, hearing the sound of the truck, ran on his short legs for the garage.
“Mom, don’t tell Pop about the poems yet. Let me do it.”
“All right.”
“I want to wait until he’s not so worried about his plane.”
“Birch, where are you going now?”
“Just upstairs. I don’t want the poems to get mixed in with the sale junk. I’ll be right back.”
Clutching the box against her pounding heart, Birch turned and ran up the stairs.
Secret Missions
“T
ALK TO ME, POP,”
Birch said.
“I don’t come out to the airport to have conversations,” her grandfather answered mildly. “If you wanted to talk, you should have stayed home with your mom. She’s the talker.”
Birch was sitting on a bench in front of the T hangar, nervously swinging her bare feet back and forth. Her grandfather was getting ready to wash his airplane.
“I had to get out of the house. I used to love to come to your house when it was your house, but now—with everything gone, it’s, I don’t know—spooky.”
Birch and Pop had been at the airport for an hour, but Birch had not mentioned the box of poems she had found in the attic that morning.
“Oh, I know something I haven’t told you.” Her words came in a rush as if this afternoon was going to turn out wrong, and she had to hurry through it. “Guess how I found out I was named for a tree? You’ll love this.
“It was my first day of kindergarten, Pop. My teacher, Miss Penny, goes, ‘Birch, what a lovely name.’ My mom goes, ‘I named her for a tree.’
“Everyone started giggling. Miss Penny goes, ‘Quiet, boys and girls, there is nothing funny about being named for a tree.’
“I just stood there, saying I ain’t believing this. I was named for a tree.
“At recess, this snob named Priscilla goes, ‘You were named for a tree-eee,’ like that. When my mom picked me up I burst out crying—the only time I cry is when I’m mad. ‘Why did you name me for a tree? Everybody’s teasing me about it.’ My mom goes, ‘Who, exactly, is teasing you?’ I go, ‘Priscilla.’ My mom goes, ‘You know what a priscilla is, don’t you? A priscilla is a curtain. Would you rather be named for a beautiful tree or a curtain?’
“The next day when Priscilla goes, ‘We don’t want to play with you. You were named for a tree-eee.’ I go, ‘Well, you were named for a curtain. Who wants to play with a curtain. Come on, you guys, we don’t want to play with a curtain.’
“That’s how I became popular in kindergarten—by making everybody scared of me.”
“There’s nicer ways to become popular.”
“I suppose. Now it’s your turn to pick what to talk about.”
He hesitated.
“There must be something you haven’t told me—maybe something about when I was little. When I was born, maybe.” She watched her grandfather intently.
“I know what I want to talk about. I don’t want to get rid of this airplane. That’s what I want to talk about!”
“Oh,” she said.
“I want to get rid of the house. I’m rattling around in there by myself. I don’t want the furniture.” He laid one hand on the prop of the J-3 Cub. “But I mind selling my airplane.”
“Why don’t you take your airplane with you? There must be retirement homes that allow airplanes.”
Her grandfather shook his head. “It was hard enough to find one that would take Ace.” His intensity was gone as quickly as it had come.
“You can help me wash the plane if you want to,” Pop offered. “First we’ll hose it off.”
“At last, some action.” Birch took one of the old bath towels.
“Now don’t press hard on the fabric. It’s just cotton cloth with a few coats of paint.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t worry about the top of the wing. I’ll get that with the ladder.”
Birch sighed. “Pop, I’m not a child. I’m thirteen. You’re just like Mom. If Mom wants me to make a salad, she goes, ‘Walk to the refrigerator. Open the door. Reach down. Open the crisper. Take out the lettuce. Walk with the lettuce to the counter …’” She trailed off, then added in a different voice, “But she doesn’t always tell me important things.”
Her grandfather didn’t respond. She watched as he hosed down the plane. Then she dipped her towel into the soapy water and began wiping the yellow fabric.
“I want it to look good when the man comes to get it day after tomorrow” he said.