Sara, Book 1 (3 page)
H
er only awareness—as she lay sprawled in front of her school locker on the mud-streaked floor—was that her elbow was hurting, really hurting.
Falling down is always such a shock. It happens so fast. One moment you’re upright, moving quickly forward with some very deliberate intention of being in your seat when the final bell rings, and the next minute you’re lying flat on your back, immobilized, stunned, and hurting. And the worst thing in the whole world is to fall down at school, where everybody can see you.
Sara looked up into a sea of gleeful-looking faces that were grinning, snickering, or laughing right out loud.
They act like nothing like this has ever happened to them.
Once they figured out that there was nothing as exciting as a broken bone or bleeding flesh, or a victim writhing in pain, the crowd dissolved, and her ghoulish schoolmates went on with their own lives, making their way back to their classrooms.
A blue-sweatered arm reached down, and a hand took hers, pulling her into a sitting position, and a girl’s voice said, “Are you okay? Do you want to stand up?”
No,
Sara thought,
I want to disappear,
but since that wasn’t likely, and since the crowd had already pretty much dissolved, Sara smiled weakly, and Ellen helped her to her feet.
Sara had never spoken with Ellen before, but she had seen her in the hallways. Ellen was two grades ahead of Sara, and she had only been at her school for about a year.
Sara really didn’t know much about Ellen, but then that wasn’t unusual. Older kids never interacted with younger ones. There was some kind of unwritten code against that. But Ellen always smiled easily, and even though she didn’t seem to have many friends and moved about pretty much by herself, she seemed perfectly happy. That may have been why Sara had noticed her. Sara was a loner, too. She preferred it that way.
“These floors get so slippery when it’s wet outside,” Ellen said. “I’m surprised more people don’t fall down in here.”
Still a bit dazed, and embarrassed into numbness, Sara wasn’t consciously focused on the words Ellen was speaking, but something about Ellen’s offering was making Sara feel much better.
It was a little unsettling to Sara to find herself so affected by another person. It was truly a rare occasion for her to prefer the words spoken from another to the quiet retreat into her own private thoughts. This felt weird.
“Thank you,” Sara murmured, as she tried to brush some of the mud from her soiled skirt.
“I don’t think it will look so bad once it dries a bit,” Ellen said.
And, again, it wasn’t the words that Ellen spoke. They were just normal, everyday words, but it was something else. Something about the way she spoke them.
Ellen’s calm, clear voice seemed to soothe the sense of tragedy and trauma Sara had been feeling, and her enormous embarrassment all but vanished, leaving Sara feeling stronger and better.
“Oh, it doesn’t really matter.” Sara replied. “We’d better hurry or we’ll be late.”
And as she took her seat—elbow throbbing, clothes muddied, shoelaces untied, and her stringy brown hair hanging in her eyes—she felt better than she had ever felt sitting in this seat. It wasn’t logical, but it was true.
Sara’s walk home from school was different that day. Instead of withdrawing into her own quiet thoughts, noticing not much more than the narrow path in the snow before her, Sara felt alert and alive. She felt like singing. So she did. Humming a familiar tune, she moved happily down her path, watching others on their way about the small town.
As she passed the town’s only restaurant, Sara considered stopping in for an after-school snack. Often, a glazed doughnut or an ice-cream cone, or a small basket of French-fried potatoes, was just the thing to temporarily distract Sara from the long, weary day she had spent in school.
I still have all of this week’s allowance,
Sara thought, standing on the sidewalk in front of the small café, considering. But she decided not to, as she remembered her mother’s often-offered words: “Don’t spoil your dinner.”
Sara had never understood those words because she was always ready to eat if what was offered was good. It was only when dinner didn’t look good, or, more important, when it didn’t smell good, that she found excuses to pass it by, or at least eat it sparingly.
Seems to me like somebody else is the one that spoils it.
Sara grinned to herself as she continued walking home. She really didn’t need anything today, anyway— for today, all was really rather well in Sara’s world.
S
ara stopped atop the Main Street bridge, looking below at the ice to see if it looked thick enough to walk across. She spotted a few birds standing on the ice and noticed some rather large dog tracks in the snow on the ice, but she didn’t think that the ice was quite yet ready for all of her weight, including her heavy coat, boots, and a rather hefty bag of books.
Better wait a bit,
Sara thought, as she peered down the icy river.
Leaning way out over the ice, supported by the rusty railing, which Sara believed was there just for her own personal pleasure, and feeling better than she had felt in a long time, she decided to stay for a while to look at her wonder- ful river. She dropped her book bag to her feet and leaned against her rusty metal railing, Sara’s favorite place in the whole world.
Resting and leaning and appreciating this spot, Sara smiled as she remembered the day this old railing was transformed into the perfect leaning perch by Mr. Jackson’s hay truck when he slammed on his brakes on the wet, icy road to avoid running over Harvey, Mrs. Peterson’s dachshund. Everyone in town talked on and on for months about how lucky he was that his truck didn’t go right into the river. Sara was always surprised at how people were always making things seem bigger and worse than they really were. If Mr. Jackson’s truck had gone into the river, well, that would be quite different. That would justify the big fuss everyone made. Or if he had gone into the river and had drowned, that would have been even more reason to talk. But he didn’t go into the river.
As far as Sara could figure out, no harm had come from it at all. His truck wasn’t damaged. Mr. Jackson wasn’t damaged. Harvey was frightened and stayed home for several days, but he wasn’t hurt in any way.
People just like to worry,
Sara concluded. But Sara was elated when she discovered her new leaning perch. Large, heavy-gauge steel posts were now bending way out over the water. So perfect, it was as if it was made especially to please and delight Sara.
Leaning out over the river and looking downstream, Sara could see the great log stretched across the river, and that made her smile, too. That was another “accident” that suited her just fine.
One of the big trees that lined the riverbank was badly damaged in a wind storm. So the farmer who owned the land gathered some volunteers from around town, and they trimmed all of the branches from the tree, getting ready to cut it down. Sara wasn’t sure why there was so much excitement about it. It was just one big old tree.
Her father wouldn’t let her get close enough to hear much of what they were saying, but Sara heard someone say that they were worried that the power lines might be too close. But then the big saws started buzzing again, and Sara couldn’t hear anything else, so she stood back at a distance, with most everyone else in town, to watch the big event.
Suddenly, the saws were quiet and Sara heard someone shout, “Oh no!” Sara remembered covering her ears and squeezing her eyes closed tight. It felt like the whole town shook when the huge tree fell, but when Sara opened her eyes, she squealed with delight as she got her first glimpse of her perfect log bridge connecting the little dirt paths on each side of the river.
As Sara basked in her metal nest, hanging right out over the river, she breathed deeply, wanting to take in that great river smell. It was hypnotic. The fragrances, the constant, steady sound of the water.
I love this old river,
Sara thought, still gazing at her big log that was crossing the water downstream.
Sara loved to put her hands out for balance and see how quickly she could scoot across the log. She was never frightened, but she was always mindful that the slightest slip could take her tumbling into the river. And Sara never crossed the log that she didn’t hear her mother’s cautious, uncomfortable words playing in her mind: “Sara, stay away from that river! You could drown!”
But Sara didn’t pay much attention to those words, not anymore, anyway, because she knew something that her mother didn’t. Sara knew that she couldn’t drown.
Relaxed, and at one with the world, Sara lay in her perch and remembered what had happened on that very log just two summers earlier. It had been late in the afternoon, and all of Sara’s chores were done, so she had gone down to the river. She had leaned in her metal perch for a while, and then she had followed the dirt path down to the log. The river, swollen from the run-off from the melting snow, was higher than usual, and water was actually lapping up over the log. She had debated whether it was a good idea to cross over. But then, with a strange sort of whimsical enthusiasm, she decided to cross her precarious log bridge. As she got near the middle, she paused for a moment and turned sideways on the log with both feet pointing downstream, teetering back and forth only slightly, as she regained her balance and her courage. And then, from out of nowhere, came the Pittsfields’ mangy mutt Fuzzy, bounding across the bridge, happily acknowledging Sara, and bumping up against her with sufficient force to topple Sara into the very fast-moving river.
Well, this is it,
Sara had thought.
Just as my mother warned, I’m going to drown!
But things were moving too fast for Sara to give too much thought to that. For Sara found herself on an amazing and wonderful ride as she floated rapidly downstream on her back with eyes looking upward, seeing one of the most beautiful views she had ever witnessed.
She had walked these riverbanks hundreds of times, but this was a point of view very different from what she’d noticed before. Gently carried on this amazing cushion of water, she could see blue sky up above, framed by perfectly shaped trees, denser and sparser, thicker and thinner. So many beautiful shades of green.
Sara wasn’t aware that the water was extremely cold, but instead, she felt as if she were floating on a magic carpet, smoothly and quietly and safely.
For a moment, it seemed to be getting darker. As Sara floated into a thick grove of trees that lined the riverbank, she could see almost no sky at all.
“Wow, these trees are beautiful!” Sara said right out loud. She had never walked this far downstream. The trees were lush and lovely, and some of their limbs were dipping right down into the river.
And then, a long, friendly, solid limb seemed to reach right down into the water to give Sara a hand up.
“Thank you, tree,” Sara said sweetly, pulling herself out of the river. “That was very nice of you.”
She stood on the riverbank, dazed but exhilarated, and tried to get her bearings.