The Hop (5 page)

AT FIRST, TAYLOR'S FEET FELT HEAVY. But after a while, the May air started to swoosh through her lungs. And then after another couple of warm-up laps, energy was singing through her like a wind. She waved to her grandmother, who watched from the almost empty bleachers. In the six weeks since she had started chemotherapy, Eve hadn't missed one of Taylor's activities.

Once she got in the groove, running made Taylor feel like she had swallowed a happy pill. Like she could leap over the silvery circle of the moon that barely showed in the morning light. Actually, her track coach had told her she was a natural.

Kia fell in beside her, her long dark braid bouncing as she ran.

“So, did you talk to your dad?” Taylor asked.

“Save the chatter, girls!” the coach called from the turf. “Just focus on your breathing.”

How could Taylor possibly focus on her breathing when she
had
to know whether their most recent plan to save the pond was going to work?

Kia's dad was a TV news producer. And the plan was that Taylor and Kia would make signs and march around the pond. Kia's dad would come out with a news crew and film their protest and put it on the six o'clock news. The girls would chant things like
Save the pond! Save the fish! Save
the toads!
And when the reporter interviewed them, they could talk about what a terrible thing it would be to destroy Mr. Dennis's old place, because it was so special.

Maybe it wasn't special to anybody but her. But another strip mall wouldn't be special to
anybody at
all
. It would just be the same old same old.

She glanced at Kia, who held her hand out flat where the coach couldn't see and made a wobbly sign.

What did that mean?

That she'd asked her dad and he'd said—

He couldn't say no! What was news for if not to report the news? “We've got to talk,” she told Kia, out of the side of her mouth.

“Girls,” Coach said.

Taylor tried to get her mind on the track meet.

The first event was the dash. “Just look at that finish line,” Coach said. “Don't think about anything but that.”

Taylor felt a trickle of sweat shoot down her forehead.

The gun popped and she was off. She loved the feeling of flying like an arrow to the target. She imagined her feet weren't even touching the ground—that she was just willing her body to fly out ahead of everybody else.

Maybe she should talk to Kia's dad herself. If she explained it all to him—

And then, Madison McKenzie, the sixth grader from Westcliff, was half a stride ahead.

Taylor tried her hardest, but she couldn't recover. Before she thudded over the finish line, two other girls passed her.

Coach gave high fives and “good jobs,” but she also gave Taylor a look.

If Taylor had kept her focus, her teammates would be patting her on the butt right now and telling her she rocked, like Madison McKenzie's teammates were doing to Madison.

In the bleachers, Taylor's parents had joined her grandmother, and they waved. They didn't give a hoot where she placed.

Coach handed out towels and water. “Relays in thirty minutes. Stay warm.”

“So what did your dad say?” Taylor asked, pulling Kia aside.

“He said he didn't think a couple of kids carrying signs would have enough impact for a news story. And he said we could get in a lot of trouble too. The land belongs to somebody else now.” Kia looked over Taylor's shoulder, no longer meeting her eyes. “And he said I couldn't do it. That it was breaking the law.”

Taylor pulled on a sweatshirt and popped up the hood. She didn't want her best friend to see how disappointed she was.

“But listen, Taylor, he told me there's going to be a big city council meeting this Tuesday,” Kia said, “and he's heard a lot of people are going to city hall to speak and protest local development in general. The TV stations will all be there.”

“Yeah?” Taylor squealed and gave Kia a bear hug. “That will be even better.” Lots of people. Lots of signs. Lots of news coverage.

“I've gotta go now,” Kia said. “My brother has a baseball game this morning too, so we're trying to be in both places. I don't have another event for a couple of hours. But my dad said I could go with you and carry signs at city hall if you want to do that. And he'll try to make sure we get on camera.”

“Thanks so much,” Taylor said, hugging Kia again. “We can make the signs Monday after school, okay?”

Time was running out. It had been over two weeks since the man who looked like a bulldog told her they were going to destroy the pond. Every day, Taylor worried it would be gone forever and that she hadn't done all she could to save it. This was their
best plan and it
had
to work.

Taylor climbed the bleachers, where her parents were waiting with her grandmother. Eve had on a pretty purple turban printed with pink hibiscus flowers. Beneath it, she was as bald as a softball. Taylor had touched her shining head this morning, a little embarrassed at first, but it felt kind of nice once she got used to it.

Her mother had on a sun hat. The metal bleachers reflected the sun, making Taylor squint. It had rained in the night, and the world looked scrubbed. Maybe it would rain a lot between now and next Tuesday so the big machinery wouldn't be able to work. She searched the sky for more clouds. It might look a little dark in the west.

“When's your next event?” her dad asked.

“Relays. Thirty minutes.”

Her parents looked at each other. Her dad took off his baseball cap and settled it on Taylor's head.

She took it off and handed it back. “You should keep it. You'll get sunburned.” It would be a long day, and his hair was getting a little thin on top.

He settled it back on her head. “Your mom and I gotta go,” he said. “Wish we didn't, but the band only has three more rehearsals before the road trip.”

Well, what did she expect?

Taylor sat beside her grandmother as her parents left. She spotted earbuds dangling out of Eve's bag. Eve probably had a book or two, a sandwich, a bottle of water, an umbrella, and maybe a sleeping bag in there. Taylor could count on her grandmother to stay to the end of all her track meets, no matter how long it took. That was one thing that hadn't changed.

Taylor took off her dad's cap and lay down on the bleacher seat, her knees bent, the top of her head touching her grandmother's leg. She put the baseball cap over her face. It was dark and cozy underneath. They announced the boys' hurdles.

“Eve.” Taylor's voice sounded funny with her face covered up.

She felt her grandmother's fingers tickle her bare knee. “What?”

“Is it supposed to rain?”

“I think they said scattered thunderstorms for the next several days. Why?”

She sat up, blinking in the sudden light, and told her grandmother about the city council meeting.

“Taylor, it's fine to make your opinion known,” her grandmother said. “But even if it makes a difference, we still wouldn't own Mr. Dennis's old place. You have to face facts. We're not going to be able to swim or ice skate or sled or fish there again.”

They didn't know that
for sure.
Maybe her dad would win a huge prize for some building he designed. Maybe her mother would have a colossally big case and make a zillion dollars. And if the pond and woods were still there, then they could
buy
them. But if the ponds and woods were destroyed and covered with concrete, they were gone forever.
FOREVER
.

So they couldn't give up.

“You used to protest things,” Taylor reminded her.

Her grandmother gave her a long look, but because of her dark glasses, Taylor couldn't see her eyes.

“My generation did a lot of protesting,” she finally said. “I protested the war in Vietnam. I even went to jail for a few hours once.”

Taylor gasped.
Her grandmother, in jail?

“I thought the war was wrong for a lot of reasons,” Eve said. “For reasons that other people agreed with. Like people will agree with you that we shouldn't turn the whole countryside into strip malls. But the real reason I stood out in the rain and stared down scary policemen with nightsticks and screamed rude things was purely selfish. I didn't want your grandfather to die in the jungles of Vietnam. I wanted to keep him safe with me always. I wanted that so much I didn't know what to do.”

Taylor stared at her grandmother. She sounded so…not old. She sounded like Taylor felt. Taylor didn't want the pond and fields to die. Because they were
hers.

Her grandmother dug in her purse for a tissue and blew her nose.

Taylor put her head in her grandmother's lap. Her grandmother stroked her hair.

“Taylor, I think you should go with your parents on their trip to Reno this year,” she said.

Taylor sat up. She couldn't have been more shocked if her grandmother had said,
Let's pierce our
belly buttons.

The Reno week was Taylor's absolute most favorite time of the year. That was the time her parents went off to their rock-and-roll extravaganza, leaving her with Eve. Each day, Taylor and her grandmother did something special, like having a swimming party for Taylor's friends or going to a ball game. Each night, they stayed up late watching movies and eating ice cream.

And then Taylor got it. Her grandmother was too tired this year. “It's okay,” she said. “We don't have to do all that stuff we usually do. Really.”

Eve took a deep breath. She didn't look at Taylor, but she took her hand. “You need to get to know what your parents do—”

Taylor knew what her parents did. Day and night. Her mother argued with other lawyers, and her dad drew buildings and made little models.

“—for fun,” Eve finished. “I would like to see you have some fun this summer.”

Taylor blew her bangs off her face. “Oh, all that rock-and-roll stuff. I'd be bored.”

“Maybe not,” Eve said. “You could stay in a big hotel with all kinds of things for kids to do.”

Was her grandmother just trying to get rid of her? Taylor suspected that she was, and it tore out a little place inside. “You look like an old fortune-teller in that turban,” she said.

Eve stared at Taylor in silence. Then she smiled. “Then let Madam Eve tell your fortune. Let me read your palm and tell you what awaits.”

Taylor swallowed and held out her hand. She was sorry she had said that about the turban. She wished they could back up and start over.

“I see a great change,” her grandmother intoned, cradling Taylor's hand in hers.

Taylor didn't want a great change. She wanted things just like they were.

“And I see a journey—a long voyage.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and Taylor smiled in spite of herself. “I see bright lights. And a tall prince.”

Taylor rolled her eyes.

“I do,” Eve insisted, and she went on with silly, extravagant stuff about what all she saw in Taylor's future. “I believe I see you wearing a tiara.”

By the time the fortune was fully told, and Taylor had married the prince and become a princess, it was time to warm up with the relay team, and things had been healed between her and Eve. Still, Taylor wished the ugly idea of traveling with her parents hadn't come up. Her grandmother couldn't actually
make
her go to Reno, could she?

THE TOADS HAD SPENT A RAINY NIGHT huddled under the soft leaves of a sprawling clematis, terrified to go anywhere near Tumbledown, where Rumbler still dozed and oozed a foul smell. One twitch of his enormous feet and their home would be crushed.

Tad was afraid his courage would dissolve before the sun rose, but Seer said all important voyages began at first light. So Tad had waited, listening to the drumming rain and remembering the music in his dreams.

Now, as the sun lifted over a sparkly wet Mother Earth, his own heart drummed so hard he could barely hear Seer's words as all the inhabitants of Tumbledown gathered for his send-off.

“If you make your way to this”—Seer found a broken twig in the wet sand and traced the word reno—“which will appear in the night sky in colors brighter than the sunset, you will find the young queen. You will know her because she will have this on her head and this on her belly.” He drew in the sand again.

“But I've never seen anything like those shapes,” Tad worried aloud. He had seen the pale white stems of grass where they went into the earth. He had seen the ball of the sun roll its way across the sky. He had seen bugs and worms and snakes and hawks. He had seen the tadpoles tickling Father Pond. He had seen all of Mother Earth from the top of the mulch pile. “Where do I look for things like that?” It sounded impossible.

Seer gazed at him with his milky eyes. “Wherever there is to look. Follow the mantises. They will point the way.”

“How will a mantis know the way?” Tad asked.

“Mother Earth will tell it.”

Why couldn't Mother Earth just tell
him
? But that would mean dreaming, and he wasn't sure he wanted to dream. He nodded to Seer. “I'll try,” he said, hoping nobody else heard his voice shaking.

His three best friends waited among the toads. Shyly and Anora were wearing purple clematis garlands over the white garlands that Buuurk and Tad had made. They looked pretty and brave in the morning light. Waiting at home, with Rumbler crouched over Tumbledown, would take courage too. And Buuurk looked as scared as Tad felt.

“The time has come,” Seer croaked, motioning for Tad.

Tad was so frightened about going off alone, he didn't know if he could move, but he managed to make his diggers lurch forward.

“Wait for me,” Buuurk cried, with a hop out of the crowd.

It took a minute for Tad to understand. Then he didn't dare look at his friend, so great was his gladness that he wouldn't have to go alone.

Tad kept his eyes on Seer, but he nudged Buuurk when they squatted in front of the old prophet for his blessing. “Thank you,” he whispered as Seer touched their heads.

“Two toads are better than one,” Buuurk whispered back. “Everybody knows that.”

“May Mother Earth and Father Pond care for you both,” the old prophet said. He turned them to face the toads of Tumbledown. “May the rain soak gently into your skin. May tasty bugs fill your belly. May the mantises show you the way.”

Tad looked at Buuurk. Buuurk looked at Tad. The other toads waited. Tad felt their trust rising off them like a warm fog in the morning air.

Anora lifted her garland from her head and placed it on Buuurk. “Every path has a puddle,” she said, the white rings around her warts gleaming in the sunlight.

Shyly hung her garland over Tad's head. “And when the puddle is dry, you know the worth of water.”

Tad felt his diggers clinging to the soft grass of home. He would so much rather sit in the mud by Shyly than go look for the queen. But after one last good-bye, he turned and set off, bouncing along beside Buuurk.

They brushed the low-hanging leaves of the dogwood, and dewdrops showered on their backs like a second blessing. As they hopped toward the edge of Mother Earth, Tad could still hear the toads cheering them on.

A shadow of a hawk sailed over them, and Tad shrank into an iris bed, pulling Buuurk with him, waiting among the spear-shaped leaves until the hawk circled wide and flew away. Then the two friends crept out and hurried onward.

The cheers of the toads became a whisper and then only a memory. But Seer's prophecy of Rumbler rang in Tad's head.
He will come on feet with teeth. He
will scrape the grass off the earth, leaving earthworms and
grubs to bake in the sun. He will hit the trees, making them
shake out squirrels and baby birds. Foxes and groundhogs
will try to flee, but he will overtake them and squash them
to jelly. And Tumbledown will crumble on our backs.