C h a p t e r T w e l v e
Thunder
Today marked our first official week in Mississippi. Our few belongings were unpacked. It was now June. And there had been rumors about someone’s birthday.
On June fourth was Felix’s fourteenth birthday. That was tomorrow. We all agreed to let him plan the course of the day and play any game he wanted. We didn’t have any gifts to give him but I was making a cake. I aimed to surprise him.
It had been two days since that day by the river. Charlie didn’t talk to me or Artie, especially Artie, for all that time, but he finally began warming up again. He wasn’t completely himself yet, but he was getting there.
At first Artie had tried to apologize, but Charlie would just swat him away with a frustrated groan and a scowl. Now though, he was easing his way back into his rightful self and I felt so relieved.
A soul like Charlie—one who felt hurt perhaps easier than others, well, I was afraid he might never speak to me or Artie again.
But he did eventually.
And I’ll admit I had missed that smile.
This cloudy day, when the sky had lost its blue, but the weather was certainly not chilly, I had come into the stable where Artie worked. Charlie had followed me, but he didn’t come in.
Artie worked at a stable for various people’s horses. Some of the people lived here and some were just passing through or visiting. They rented the stable from a Mr. Cobb and that Mr. Cobb gave a small portion to Artie for feeding and caring for the horses. It was just enough so that he and Charlie could buy breakfast and supper.
“Hello, Artie,” I said as I peeked my head in.
He was actually asleep. Asleep in a pile of hay or straw, I couldn’t really tell, at the back of the row. He was as soundless and peaceful as a baby. His hat was over his eyes and I could see that his hair was covered in bits of straw. I finally noticed that his hair was really a darker shade than Charlie’s.
“Artie?” I neared the sleeping boy. He had a book in his hands.
I looked at the cover of the book as I bent over him. I didn’t recognize it, but it looked quite fancy, really. I ventured further by taking off his hat. I chuckled to myself and his green eyes opened and looked up at me. He sat upright, confusedly.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Well, I just stopped by.”
He raised one eyebrow at me and I felt pink. He put the book on the ground. “I just dozed off, that’s all.”
“I didn’t know you liked to read.”
“Well, I can’t go to school. So I teach myself the best I can by reading these books.”
“When the next school year starts you’ll be able to. And maybe some of my siblings will join you.”
He yawned. “Maybe.” Then he hopped up chipperly and said, “Say, have you ever had any of this stuff? Try it.” He grabbed a tin cup from off a piece of wood that lay on the ground.
He handed it to me and I recoiled ever so slightly. “It’s coffee,” he said lightly.
“I’ve never had coffee,” I told him, taking the cup. “My parents drank it.” When I lifted the rim to my mouth I hesitated.
“You’ll like it.”
“It has dust in it,” I whispered, hoping I did not sound—well, English for one.
“Maybe a little. But everyone around here drinks it.”
“If you say so.”
The coffee wasn’t actually that bad, although there were a number of dust flecks floating across the surface like miniature boats on a lake.
After that, I sat down on a bundle of hay across from him and leaned my head on my knuckles. “I was wondering…” my eyes looked all over the floor in thought. “I was wondering where you get all this stuff. That fancy book. The telescope.”
“Well, if you’re thinking that we can’t have nothin’ nice just because we’re poor as dirt—”
“Oh, I didn’t think that—”
“—Then you’re right.”
“Oh.”
“All of this,” he motioned with his hand like there were more treasures in this stable than just the book, “came from a someone. A person.”
“A person? Who would have thought?”
“You watch yourself,” he threatened, and I looked away to hide my laughter.
“There’s an older lady who lives around these parts. In fact—” he looked like he had just discovered something more, “in fact, she’s come from England.”
“Really?” I was intrigued.
“She’s fairly rich. Most of her treasures, she left behind, but the ones she didn’t—well, she lets me take whatever I want. As long as I bring them back.”
“How lovely. Where does she live?”
“A little ways down the roads, closer to where you live. She has the biggest house in all of Averdeene.”
“There’s not many houses in Averdeene.”
“Well, yes. But hers was custom made for her when she first got over here.”
I smiled warmly as I imagined her home. Thinking about her—someone I hadn’t ever even seen or met—it made me a little homesick for England. Now, I wasn’t sure if I even should meet her. My English past was gone now.
But no. It couldn’t be gone. Mother remained in England. Her spirit would always be in England. And Father was in England.
England would always be linked to me, a Phoenix.
I shook those thoughts away.
“Would you meet her?” and Artie suddenly looked excited.
“I…I would, Artie. Since you speak so highly of her.”
“Don’t be jealous, Annie, she’s near seventy.”
I gave him a shove and felt like Charlie, who was always shoving me. Then I looked up into Artie’s eyes and I felt something I had always felt, but now it was different. I didn’t know quite what it was, but all I did know was that I could trust Artie Ferguson. And I believed that we’d be friends forever. And that life wouldn’t ever take us away from each other. But it wasn’t a romantic silly thing, so don’t laugh. We were friends, him and I, like we were brother and sister. Claudia, however, had other ideas.
I looked out and made sure the other children were fine. I saw Claudia and Felix playing by the tree. Claudia was combing Charlie’s hair.
“Well, come on! The kids are fine,” Artie said as he roughly grabbed my arm. “Sorry,” he said, and let go.
I nodded and together we went out of the stable and down along a road. The sky overhead was growing dark and I heard low rumbles of thunder coming.
“Thunder used to scare me,” I confided to him as we walked together taking a “secret short-cut” through the woods to Eloise Rivet’s home. “I know it’s silly.”
He just shrugged.
When another fit of thunder banged in the sky, I jumped.
He laughed at me. “Thunder won’t hurt you,” he said, then he leaned closer to me and whispered, “but lightning will. Beware of the lightning around here. If you’re ever in a field during a storm, you get down and make yourself as small as you can. But that doesn’t remove you from danger.”
“You act as if you’ve had experience.”
“I haven’t ever. But I read about it in a book.”
“I’m glad you read,” I said, feeling fearful. “I love people who read. They’re intelligent.”
He arched his eyebrows at me like I said such a wild thing. “Really?”
“Well—I…” I sighed. “My mother loved books. That’s all.”
But then the rain started up and a lightning strike sliced the dim sky in the distance and I screamed and bumped against Artie’s shoulder.
“Don’t be such a baby,” he said, though lightheartedly.
I frowned at him. “I’ll try.”
He then took my hand and we sat down under a big tree. “I don’t think we should go on. Her house’s still a ways yet and the rain’s just gonna get harder. There’s some bit of shelter under this here tree,” and he looked up.
I shivered, even though the rain wasn’t nearly as bad from under the cover of the thick and lush leaves of the branches overhead. I sneezed and he laughed at me again. I leaned up against the trunk and yawned. “I hope it lets up soon.”
“Probably will. We don’t get a lot of rain during this time. Just thick heat.”
“In Boughsberry we got a good deal of rain. But we never tramped through the woods during it.”
“I expect so.”
“It wasn’t all that bad in England. We had our own little adventures. I just didn’t feel so alive. Without Mother, I mean. Coming here—I’m still without a mother—but it doesn’t hurt so much.”
Artie had a mysterious look in his eyes just then. He didn’t look at me though. Just down or straight ahead. “Your mother,” he said.
I realized that he never did find out about my mother or my father.
“Yes,” I said. “My mother is dead. She caught a mild fever on a day very much like this one. She worsened over a small time and…” my voice dropped to more of a whisper. “After she left us, I became afraid of thunderstorms. The thunder, more than the lightning.”
Artie looked down and I saw his finger wipe away a tear. I didn’t think he was crying about my mother.
“Both of our mothers died from a fever,” he said. “But at least your father—”
“No,” I stopped him. “You see,” I struggled to begin. I felt a lump rising up in my throat. Was this a sign that telling him all this might be a mistake?
But how could it be a mistake? Arther was my friend. I trusted him. We spent almost everyday with him and Charlie since we had arrived. We’d grown pretty close, after awhile.
“You see, you act sometimes like my life is a simple fairytale, but it isn’t, and you must know it. My life is fraught with many sad things, as are others. Life wasn’t easier because we had wealth for a time. Pain still comes to the wealthy. Hurt does. And sorrow.” There was a pause. “Death,” my tongue lingered on the word. “No money in the world can buy my mother back. No amount of riches.”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“You don’t have to be. If I were you, I’d have my assumptions too. On the outside, it does look like we have it fine.”
“I shouldn’t have—well, I shouldn’t have—whatever you just said.”
“Assumed?”
“Yeah. Assumed.” Artie looked down and then his brows knitted, as if he remembered something. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be, Artie.”
“No, I’m sorry for something else. That day me and your brother fought in the mud, I said a bunch of things I shouldn’t have.”
“Like…retarded chicken?”
Artie cringed and I laughed. “Yeah. Like that.”
“It’s all right.”
After a silence, I sighed again, becoming more and more weary. “My father may not come back. I could tell it in his voice, in his blue eyes. He’s been depressed. I…” now I felt my voice breaking and my eyes filling, “I didn’t want to believe he was leaving us. Really leaving us. Abandoning us. But—” and I coughed, as cold water splashed onto my neck. Artie gave me his hat. I told him he didn’t have to, but when I didn’t take it, he set it on top of my head. The rain no longer plagued my neck and chilled me. “Thank you,” I said, my lips trembling. “Anyway, I…” I yawned and my head slowly dropped against his shoulder. “I simply…”
And I knew I fell asleep.
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