SummerHill Secrets, Volume 1 (40 page)

It was true about my not turning Amish. Even though I’d toyed with the idea, spending days on end over at the Zooks’ place and “trying on” their beliefs and customs, I really had no idea how being Plain could possibly fit into
my
life. Especially now, during the beastly hot dog days of July. Those heavy, long Amish dresses and aprons would wipe me out!

Give me good old shorts and T-shirts and striped sundresses,
I thought as I rinsed the plates and silverware and Skip loaded the dishwasher.

“Hey, Mer, I heard your friend Levi’s got big plans for you,” he blurted out. Right in front of Mom!

This is truly horrible,
I thought, glaring at him. I’d totally overestimated his worth.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Guess again.” Skip leaned over to stuff a handful of utensils into one of the square-shaped compartments. “The word’s out all over SummerHill.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you already know.” He glanced knowingly at Mom.

“Get a grip,” I snapped. “Don’t you know Levi’s been teasing me about marrying him ever since I pulled him half dead out of the pond?”

Skip nodded. “Say what you want, little girl, but Levi Zook’s no fool. He thinks you’re gonna marry him when you grow up.”

Mom inched closer. “Which means he’s probably trying to convert you.”

“Really?” I said sarcastically. “Isn’t that funny—
I
never noticed any of this.”

“Love is blind,” Mom stated.

“And the neighbors ain’t!” Skip teased.

I turned off the faucet. “Who said anything about love? Levi and I are just…friends.” I refused to cry in front of my interrogators.

Skip harrumphed. “That’s what everyone says.”

“So…is that what you and Nikki are, too? Just friends?” It was a low blow, but Skip had it coming.

He snickered. “Wouldn’t
you
like to know?”

“Save your breath.” And with that, I tromped out of the kitchen.

I was thrilled to have an excuse to leave the house. Anything to get away from Skip’s weird comments…and Mom’s insinuations.

Little Susie waited barefoot on the front porch step as I came down the Zooks’ long dirt lane. Her grandfather was relaxing in one of the old hickory rockers and smoking his pipe. His untrimmed beard was long and white, and chubby bare feet stuck out of his black trousers.

“Hullo-o, Merry!” called Susie, getting up and running across the well-manicured lawn. “Come look what Mam gave us to catch the lightning bugs in.” She reached for my hand, and we headed back toward the old farmhouse.

I hurried to keep up with her, and when she settled down on the porch step, I noticed only a slight reddish spot on her forehead where the goose egg had been earlier.

Grandfather Zook smiled and nodded as I sat on the porch step. “
Wilkom.
How’s our girl?” The way he said it made me wonder if he was in on Levi’s plan to convert me. If there even was such a thing.

“Fine, thanks,” I said. “And how are you?”

“Oh, fair to middlin’. ” He took his pipe out for a moment. “It’s a fine summer’s eve—a fine night for fireflies.” He glanced at Susie, who picked up a small canning jar with blades of grass inside.

She peeked at the holes poked through the top. “These are so the lightning bugs can breathe,” she explained in her husky little-girl voice. She handed a glass jar to me. “Are ya ready?”

“Wait now,” Grandfather Zook said, as though he were expecting dusk to descend on us any minute. “They’ll be comin’ out by the thousands in a bit.”

And he was right. A few minutes later, hundreds of fireflies began twinkling their bright, intermittent lights, sending their courting signals all the way across the field and up and down SummerHill Lane.

“Let’s go!” Susie said.

“Be careful now,” Grandfather said. “Don’t smash ’em.” We knew he was teasing.

Susie’s eyes grew wide. “My brother Aaron catches ’em and pulls their tails off.”

“Must be a guy thing,” I said, remembering that my own father had admitted to pulling their tails off when he was a boy. He’d also stuck the tails on his fingers to make it look as if he were wearing glowing rings.

“But
we
hafta be careful not to hurt ’em,” she said.

She was so precocious—carefully reminding me how to capture these twinkly bugs without smashing them. To her, it was very important not to kill her exquisite fireflies.

We spent a half hour chasing and catching, turning our canning jars into miniature lanterns. Off and on the fireflies blinked their luminescent lights, like twinkling stars.

“Look!” Susie cried, staring down at the ground. “We’ve got ’nough bugs to light up the path.”

“Hey, I have an idea. Let’s experiment with our lanterns in the willow grove. It’s darker there.”

“Jah!” she squealed with delight.

Off we ran through the side yard, climbing over the white picket fence. Then, carefully dodging fresh cow pies, we rushed into the pasture. Levi and Aaron waved to us as they unhitched the mules out back, taking them to the barn to feed and water and to rest from the long, hot day. Nancy and Ella Mae ran toward the house barefoot, carrying buckets of vegetables from Rachel’s “charity garden.”

Carrying our firefly lanterns, Susie and I kept running toward the willow grove. At last, we came to the densest, darkest spot, where the willow branches created a most secret place. A woodland alcove away from the world.

“O-o-oh, this is fun!” Susie held her jar down close to the grassy area beneath her bare feet. The soft, pulsating lights made the willowsheltered haven seem mysterious as we stood there in the dusk.

“See how much brighter our jars look here,” I said. “The darker the night, the brighter the candle.”

Susie looked up at me. “Where did ya hear of that?”

I laughed. “Oh, it’s something I read in English class last year.”

“It’s like the beginning of a poem.” She brought the jar of fireflies up next to her face. “You should hear
Grossdawdy
’s poem.”

“Your grandfather writes poetry?”

She nodded. “He’s workin’ on it every night after supper—till his poem is all done.”

This was a surprise. I’d heard that some Amish thought displays of individuality led to high-mindedness and pride. As far as I was concerned, Grandfather Zook didn’t have a prideful bone in his seventy-year-old body.

“Do you like your grandfather’s poem?” I asked.

She raised the jar of twinkling fireflies high over her head. “Jah, it’s beautiful.” Her eyes were full of wonder and excitement. “It’s called ‘Night of the Fireflies,’ ” she said in a hushed voice.

“That has a poetic ring to it,” I whispered. “Sounds like a truly good poem title.”

“Or maybe a book, jah?” she said. “Do ya think you’d ever wanna write one?”

“Write a book?” I had never thought of such a thing.

“I like books. Lots of them.” Susie looked around as though her words were secrets. “Levi does, too. Only Mam and Dat don’t know.”

“What do you mean, they don’t know?”

“Promise not to tell?” she said. I had no idea what she was talking about.

I sat down in the soft wild grass. “Why can’t we tell?”

“Levi, he’s miserable,” she confided, sitting down beside me. “Growing up Amish is real hard for him. Alls he’s got to read is the Bible and the
Sugarcreek Budget
.” The latter was a weekly newspaper published in Ohio for Amish all across America.

“What do you think he’d like to read instead?”

“Something else besides what’s in the house. Maybe magazines.” Susie paused, thinking. “And maybe some books from a Bible college somewheres.”

This was the first I’d heard anything about Levi’s interest in higher education, or Bible school. Eight grades of school were all the Amish felt necessary—higher education was considered useless. Even discouraged.

Susie stared at her bug lantern. “Rachel’s mad at him for it.”

I wasn’t surprised. “I hope she doesn’t think I’m to blame.”

Susie shook her head. “It’s not yer fault, Merry.” She sighed.

“Levi’s always been
anner Satt Leit.
”

I knew she meant her brother was more English, or modern, than Amish. But I wasn’t convinced. “Well, he sure looks Plain to me…except for his new haircut.”

She frowned. “Oh, that.”

“Does it bother you—Levi’s haircut?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I think he wants ta go English.”

I gasped. “Who told you that?”

“Levi did! He said not to tell Mam and Dat…and ’specially not Grossdawdy and
Grossmutter
.”

“Does Rachel know?”

“She’s madder’n a hornet ’bout it,” she said. “And about you.”

So
that’s
what was bothering Rachel today in town. It hurt me that she thought I was putting Levi up to such things. “Does Rachel think I’m causing trouble?”

“Jah…I think so. She doesn’t want Levi to go off and get hitched up with you, like he’s always saying.”

I was shocked. “He actually talks like that?”

She nodded. “All the time.”

“In front of your parents, too?”

“Levi’s a
Deihenger
—a little scoundrel.”

“He’s not so little, really,” I said. “He’s nearly seventeen now.” Levi’s birthday was coming up at the end of the summer, in August.

“Grossdawdy wanted him to get baptized this fall, but he won’t. He’s bein’ stubborn.”

It was unsettling hearing this news about Levi—and Rachel—from their youngest sister. But Susie had a daring streak in her, and it wouldn’t surprise me if someday she started talking about leaving the Amish, too.

I remembered what Mom and Skip had said about Levi’s making plans to convert me. Were they ever wrong!

Susie started counting her fireflies, first in English, then in German. And when she finished, she began to hum a familiar tune—“What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

I joined in, trying to remember the German words. When I forgot, Susie helped me on the second verse.

It was truly enchanting here, singing softly like this in the middle of the willow trees. Spending time with a little girl so much like Faithie—my long-ago twin. I leaned back in the grass listening to the sounds around us as we sang our song. It seemed as though all of nature wanted to join in on the last stanza, and one by one, tiny creatures of the night began to emerge from their hollows.

“Listen! I hear something,” Susie whispered.

I stopped singing. “What?”

She put her jar down and kneeled up, cupping her hand around her ear. “Ach, there it is again!”

I peered into the darkness on all sides of us. I really didn’t think there was anything to be afraid of, but I wanted Susie to know I could take care of her…in case there was.

“We’re safe here, jah?” she asked.

“Don’t worry.” I glanced around the familiar area. I’d grown up playing in this thick strip of trees. The willows grew in long rows, dividing our property from the far edge of the Zooks’ pasture to the west of their farmhouse. I knew every inch of this grove.

Rachel and I had spent many hours here. Faithie too. It was a splendid place to conduct secret meetings, make mystery-solving plans, and…

Susie jumped. “Didja hear that?”

“I hear it now.”

She clung to her glass jar.

A sound, almost like a horse whinny but not quite, rippled through the stillness. It sounded close. Maybe a few yards away.

“Let’s get out of here!” I grabbed her hand and we ran through the trees, pushing tendrils of long weeping willow branches away from our faces. At last, we reached the open pasture.

“Are we safe now?” Susie asked.

“Looks like it to me,” I said, noticing her fireflies were gone. “Oh no, did you drop your jar?”

She looked down. “Ach, where could it be?”

“Stay here. I’ll go search for it.”

“No, Merry! Don’t go back.”

I knelt down, looking into her angel face. “Don’t worry, I’ll find it. Here, hold my jar—keep it safe, okay?”

She nodded, her lower lip protruding. “I’ll stand right here till ya come.”

I hurried back toward the willows and was out of breath by the time I found the spot where Susie and I had sat in the grass.

It was dark now, no moon to speak of.
The jar of fireflies should be easy to spot,
I thought as I searched the area.

That’s when I heard the strange sound again. My ears tingled. The sound was definitely a horse, but a horse in desperate need.

I envisioned a colt caught in the thicket. Should I call for Levi’s help?

Walking in the direction of the neighing, I felt truly courageous—at first. Then, as it started up again, I heard rustling behind the thick, wide trunk of a willow tree.

My throat turned to cotton. Even if I had wanted to call for help, I—

Suddenly, whatever was behind the tree began to thrash around. I was close enough to touch it!

My heart pounded in my throat.

Legs cramped, I inched backward, unsure of my next move. The thought crossed my mind that I should run for my life. I paused, trying to think rationally. What could possibly cause so much commotion?

Part of me wanted to forge ahead—find out what was lurking in the darkness. But another part of me—my legs—absolutely refused to move.

I backed away from the tree and the strange sounds. It was a cowardly act, but I’d promised to rescue Susie’s lightning bugs.

In the distance, I spotted a glowing object. Off and on it flickered, a few yards from where Susie and I had whispered our secrets just minutes before.

I made my legs move toward the radiant jar.

“Stop!” a voice rang out.

I froze. “Who’s there?”

The scratchy-throated voice of someone pretending to be a horse broke the stillness.

“Rachel? Is that you?”

Slowly, hesitantly, she emerged from behind the tree. Rachel’s
Kapp,
her white prayer bonnet, had slipped halfway off, and her apron looked mussed. “Ach, I can’t fool ya,” she said, wrestling with a stray willow branch. She tossed it aside.

“Rachel, what on earth are you doing? You nearly scared the wits out of your little sister—and me.” I looked to see if Susie was still standing in the side yard where I’d left her. The blinking fireflies in the jar she held for me told me she was.