The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher (6 page)

But since the only person around was Aunt Inga, Darius
thought
he
might go crazy. His aunt didn’t want Darius in the house, but she didn’t want him out of the house either. Really, she just didn’t want him anywhere. If he stayed in the basement, she would say, “Where have you been? You think you can just hide out down there without so much as a word as to what you’re doing? Here I am, so worried about what you’re up to that I can’t get anything else done.”

Then, when he came upstairs and sat quietly while his aunt watched TV or made her phone calls, she would say, “Fine, Mr. Snootypants, you just sit there and stare at me. You don’t do anything worthwhile the whole day long. I don’t know why I put up with you. I’m here slaving away and you don’t lift a finger to help out.”

Darius had read about slaves, and Aunt Inga didn’t appear to be slaving away at anything.

After a while, Darius realized that he was going to disappoint her no matter what he did.

So one day, just when he was about to go crazy with boredom, he slipped through the kitchen and called from the back door, “I’m going out!” Then he left before her tirade began.

Darius waited at the corner of the house until he could hear Anthony at the other end of the street. When the coast was clear, he hurried in the opposite direction, past the neighboring houses and a gas station on the corner. Crossing a busy street, he wandered around for half an hour, but didn’t find a single park or even a shady spot where he could get out of the hot sun.

Finally, Darius turned and headed to Aunt Inga’s. “I might as well give up,” he said to himself. “I could search forever in this neighborhood and nothing good would come of it.

However, on the way back, something good did happen.

Darius found the library

6
More Books and Bikes

D
arius hadn’t noticed the library before—maybe he just took a wrong turn, which became a right turn. The building stood back from the street, and a sidewalk, shaded by trees, led to its front doors.

As soon as Darius walked into the library, he felt himself relax—it was quiet and cool, and people spoke softly in tones very different from the ones he heard from Aunt Inga.

“May I help you?” a woman behind the desk asked.

“No thank you,” Darius said. “I’m just looking.”

He found the children’s section and started to look through the shelves of books. But after several minutes, an idea formed in his mind. He went up to the desk, where he saw a nameplate with “Ms. Gloria Bickerstaff” printed on it.

“Excuse me, Ms. Bickerstaff,” he said.

“Yes?” she answered brightly.

“Do you have any maps?”

“Of course we have maps. We have books and books of maps—they’re called atlases.”

“Yes ma’am, I know that,” he said. “My name is Darius, and before my father disappeared, we had a map room in the house where I used to live.”

“My goodness,” Ms. Bickerstaff said, catching her breath. “I’m sorry to hear about your father. But how wonderful to have a map room in your home. We have a map room here, too!”

“You do? Honest?” Darius couldn’t believe his ears.

“Honest,” she said, pointing past Darius’s shoulder. “Back to the left, through those doors.”

Darius walked across the main room and peered through the doors. A globe stood in the corner of the small room. Copies of ancient maps covered one wall. He was delighted to see that the shelves held large books the size of card tables, and several atlases were spread across the reading tables, opened to maps much more detailed and colorful than the ones in his own book. And the smell! How he loved the glorious smell of books! He had known that smell his whole life. This was the closest he had felt to home since leaving Miss Hastings.

Darius lost track of time in the map room. Finally, he found a map that showed both Aunt Inga’s and his old town. He used the map scale to measure the miles between the two.

“Two hundred forty-six miles. Let’s see, if I rode a bike twenty-five miles a day …,” Darius muttered. He picked up a short yellow pencil and scribbled the numbers on a scrap piece of paper. “… it would take me ten days to get to Miss Hastings.”

If
he could find Miss Hastings!

He wondered where she lived now.

Darius left the map room and approached Ms. Bickerstaff’s desk again. She was reading a book. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said softly.

The librarian looked up and smiled. “Yes, Darius,” she answered. Darius’s heart warmed at the sound of her kind voice saying his name.

“Do you think you could help me find somebody? I’m looking for her address.”

“Well, we could search for it on the computer. What’s her name?”

“Miss Hastings. I know her first name is Grace.”

“What town?”

Darius told her the name of the town where he used to live.

“Let’s see what we can find,” the librarian said. Darius followed Ms. Bickerstaff to the computer and stood by her side as her fingers flew over the keys. For all the music and stories and maps and adventures in Darius’s life, he hadn’t had much experience with computers. He was glad to be with someone who had. His spirits rose as Ms. Bickerstaff continued to search. But finally, she shook her head.

“I’m not finding anything, Darius,” Ms. Bickerstaff said. “Maybe she doesn’t have a new phone or address yet.”

“Maybe not,” Darius said, his heart sinking. “She might be living with someone else. I’ll just have to keep looking.”

Before he left, Ms. Bickerstaff gave Darius a library card, then helped him pick out an atlas and two books about travel adventures to take home. He wanted to take some of the large atlases, but Ms. Bickerstaff said he’d have to read them in the library. “Those are reference books. They stay here.”

“I’d like to stay here, too,” said Darius.

Ms. Bickerstaff laughed. She thought he was kidding. She didn’t know he really meant it.

“Let me know if I can help with anything else, Darius,” she added.

“Sure,” he answered. “Thanks.” As he headed out of the library, he could feel Ms. Bickerstaff watching him. Without
even thinking, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the silver wings Miss Hastings had given him. “I’m going to find you!” he whispered.

It seemed silly and ridiculous to think that he could fix the old bike in the basement, escape Aunt Inga, ride for ten days, find Miss Hastings, and run away with her.

“It sure would help if the bike flew,” Darius said to himself, looking up at the sky. It seemed almost impossible that he would ever get there.

But when you’re desperate, almost impossible is not bad odds.

Darius should have stayed in the library. As he lugged the books up the back stairs into the house, he heard Aunt Inga’s voice over the blare of the television.

“Where have you been?” she called.

Darius stuck his head into the living room and found her holding her hand over the receiver of the phone.

“I went to the library,” he said, holding out the books. “I got these.”

“Without my permission?” she asked.

“Well, um … yes,” said Darius.

“Fine. Just fine.” She uncovered the mouthpiece and spoke to someone. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to call you back…. Yes. Of course I will. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take three subscriptions…. Of course I’ll bother to call you. I have to. Do you think I like this?”

She hung up.

“Now look what you’ve made me do. I’ve lost at least three
subscriptions and probably won’t get them back, all because you bothered me. What’s all this about the library?”

“I got some books to look at.”

“Well, you’ll just take them right back. I don’t want all of your books and things cluttering up my house.”

“I’ll be careful. I’ll keep them downstairs.”

“Sure you will. I know how this goes. You’ll forget all about them, and you know who’ll end up paying the months and months of fines? Do you? I’ll tell you who. Me. I knew this was going to happen—one burden after another falling on me. Every single book will go back tomorrow, or you won’t be going to the library at all. One more thing for me to keep an eye on. I just knew it. Now let me get back to work.”

Tears filled Darius’s eyes. “I’m keeping the books!” he said, almost shouting. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll take them back on time.”

Aunt Inga began to sputter. “Oh, well, look at Mr. Snootypants now. Been here one week and thinks he’s ruling the roost. Thinks he can do whatever he wants at my expense.”

“I just want to look at these library books!”

“You will take those library books back tomorrow! This is my house and I won’t have any books in here cluttering up the place, making it look like a
pig sty!”

The walls rattled with Aunt Inga’s shrill voice.

“All right, all right,” Darius said, turning to escape to the basement. “Sorry.”

“SORRY. NOW HE’S SAYING HE’S SORRY! NOW THAT EVERYTHING IS IN AN UPROAR, HE’S SAYING HE’S SORRY. A LOT OF GOOD THAT DOES. COMES IN, RUINS MY BUSINESS, EATS ME OUT OF HOUSE AND HOME, AND MAKES
THE HOUSE A DISASTER AREA, BRINGING THINGS IN WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. AND WHAT DO I GET FOR THIS? WHAT’S MY REWARD? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!”

Aunt Inga went on yelling, lost in her own world. She didn’t even notice that Darius had left the room.

In the basement, he lay down on his cot and looked at the library books while Aunt Inga continued her tirade. It was hard to concentrate, but he had no trouble locating the map that showed the road leading from Aunt Inga’s to his old town. He stared at the map until it was burned into his brain cells.

“I’ve got to get out of here soon,” said Darius to himself. “I’ll have to work even harder to fix that bike.”

He rolled over and sat up on the edge of the cot. The silver wings in his pocket jabbed his leg, and Miss Hastings’s words echoed in his head. “We all have wings.”

He wished he had wings to fly right now, but all he had was a bike that he couldn’t ride.

Not yet, at least.

The next day, he took the books back to the library. Ms. Bickerstaff recognized him the moment he came in.

“Back so soon, Darius?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m done with the books.”

He held them out to her, but she didn’t take them. “You can have them for two weeks,” she said. “Why are you bringing them back?”

Darius didn’t want to explain. How could he? “There’s not enough room where I live for me to keep them there,” he said.
That sounded absurd, and he knew it. But Ms. Bickerstaff didn’t tell him that. Instead she looked at him thoughtfully and smiled.

“I have an idea,” she said. She took the books and rose from her chair. “We have an extra empty shelf here behind the desk. We’ll make this your shelf, since no one’s using it. The books you take out from the library, you can keep here.”

Darius caught his breath. “Really?”

“Really,” Ms. Bickerstaff said, smiling again.

“Thanks,” said Darius. “I have to go.”

“They’ll be here waiting for you,” she said.

Darius turned and walked out of the library. He smiled as he thought about the librarian’s kindness. Even though she knew something was wrong, she had helped him without asking for an explanation. That is about as kind as anyone can get, he thought.

Darius got up early every morning, made three pieces of toast, and put peanut butter on them. He sat on the back steps, eating his breakfast.

Everything seemed peaceful then, and he liked watching the sun come up. During that quiet time alone, Darius tinkered on the old bicycle. He would bring the bike up the stairs and work on it in the backyard for a couple of hours, then take it back down to the basement before Aunt Inga woke up.

One day he found some aluminum foil in a kitchen drawer and rubbed it on the handlebars to take off the rust. Another day he filled a bucket with soapy water and washed the frame. He found an oilcan in the basement and oiled the chain.

The bike began to look better.

But Aunt Inga began to get suspicious.

“What are you doing every morning before I get up?” she asked him.

“Nothing,” answered Darius. Aunt Inga was sitting in her big chair, stuffing cookies in her mouth and watching a game show while she talked to him. Aunt Inga should have weighed four hundred pounds from all those cookies, but she was still skinny as a rail.

“Don’t give me that,” Aunt Inga snorted. “You must be doing something. I don’t want you to go outside before I’m up. I can’t trust you. And why was the kitchen sponge wet this morning?”

“I was wiping up the sink with it,” said Darius.

“Well, just don’t do anything without telling me,” she said, cookie crumbs spraying from her mouth. “Now don’t bother me; this is a very important show.”

Darius went down into the basement. He found an old blanket and carefully covered the bike. If it was a secret, it had better stay hidden. He couldn’t afford to let anyone see it—not if he was going to use it to find Miss Hastings.

It had been almost two weeks since Darius had found the old bicycle in the basement. As he worked on the bike, he started to think of it as his. That can happen with things—when you care for them, they become a part of you. Darius often daydreamed about the places he would go with the bike and the things he would do.