Dragonfly Secret (3 page)

“Ugh!” Jessie wrinkled her nose. “How would you like to wake up in a lizard cage?”

“It's clean! She won't even know I had lizards in it.”

“Sounds like the best we can do for now,” Gramps said, putting an end to our argument. “We can make other arrangements later.” I thought he was going to say, “If the danged thing lives,” but he didn't. He started for the back door.

“Nathan, you go in first, kind of clear the way.”

I walked into the kitchen. It was empty. The way our house is built, the bedrooms open off the hall. You can get to the hall from the front room or from the laundry, which opens off the kitchen. I walked on through to the laundry.

I could hear voices from the front of the house. “. . . so I can get to know all of you . . .” the lady was saying.

I went back out and held the door open for Gramps. “The coast is clear,” I said softly. He nodded and led the way, followed by Jessie and me. I made sure the door closed without slamming.

We shut the door of my room behind us and I got the lizard cage down from the top shelf in my closet. I had two chameleons in it last year, the quick, skinny lizards that change from brown to green to hide themselves. They got loose a couple of times, and finally Mother made me give them away.

The cage was about a foot wide and two feet long, made of glass, with a screen top that came off. I set it on my desk. “Lizards need sand and water and a branch to climb,” I said. “What do we put in for a fairy?”

“About what you'd put for a dragonfly, I reckon,” Gramps said. “Water to drink. Maybe some moss and a branch to climb or hide behind.”

“I know!” Jessie ran off down the hall to her room. She was back a minute later with some things from her dollhouse: a bathtub full of water, some tiny dishes that were still huge compared to the fairy, and a miniature bed.

“She'll like this,” Jessie said confidently as she arranged the tiny blankets on the bed. “The flowers Mother embroidered on the blankets will remind the fairy of the wildflowers at the farm.” I guess it was natural for her to think the fairy came from the spring, where we had seen the dragonflies.

“What will she eat?” Jessie worried.

“No need to saddle the mule before you've got somewheres to go,” Gramps told her. He settled the unconscious little creature gently on the bed. “Right now she needs to rest and stretch out that wing.”

I squeezed closer for a better look. The fairy had stopped moving, and her eyes were closed. Her body was a golden brown, covered with fine down that looked like velvet. Her upper body, where a person would wear a shirt or sweater, was shiny like a leather jacket. I couldn't tell if it was clothes she was wearing or her natural skin like a dog's fur or a lizard's scales. She was still clutching something tightly between her arms.

“I wonder what she's hanging on to.”

“If she thinks like Jessie, maybe it's something to eat,” Gramps scoffed.

“Or a doll,” Jessie said softly. “I bet she's scared.”

“It doesn't look like a doll, Jessie,” I objected. “It looks more like a beetle, only smooth, with no legs that I can see.”

“Dolls can look different,” Jessie said, pouting. “Teddy bears don't look much like people. How do you know what a fairy teddy bear would look like?”

“I guess you're right,” I admitted.

I reached in and gently smoothed the crumpled wing between two fingers, being careful not to break or tear it. The main vein across the top edge was broken. “Will it heal?” I asked.

“Don't know,” Gramps allowed. “Never had to doctor a fairy before. Best just let her rest.”

We heard the sound of the front door closing. “Now we can tell Mother!” Jessie cried, running out of the room.

I put the cover on the lizard cage and followed her and Gramps into the front room. Jessie was bouncing with excitement, but Mother didn't seem to notice.

“Sit down, all of you. We have to have a talk.”

We looked at each other and sat down, Jessie and I on the sofa, Gramps in his old stuffed recliner with the worn spot on the arm. Mother paced back and forth three or four times. Then she pulled a chair out from the table and sat facing us, her eyebrows pinched together into a wrinkly line over her nose.

“This isn't easy for me to say, so please don't interrupt. You know Louise has been worried about whether Dad is all right living here with us. She thinks he'd be better off where there are doctors on call all the time and a nutritionist planning the meals and lots of other people his own age.”

Gramps said a word he usually reserves for flat tires and stepping in the mess a neighbor's dog leaves in our yard.

“Now, Dad,” Mother said, turning to him. “You know as well as I do that she's got reason to wonder. She only sees, you once or twice a year and you seem to go out of your way to irritate her. She probably thinks you're getting senile.”

“Well, I ain't.” His words were emphatic.

“I know that. And the kids know it, too. The problem is, Louise has her mind made up, and she's sure a professional would agree with her.”

“Ain't none of her dad-blamed business.”

“Of course it is. She's your daughter, the same as I am. She wants what's best for you.”

“What's best for me is for her to leave me alone!” His voice rose in an angry shout.

Mother sighed. “I happen to agree with you, Dad, but that's not the point. The point is, she's talked to a lawyer about being named as your legal guardian. If she manages that . . .”

“She wants to see if she can get me committed!” Gramps exploded.

Mother blinked back tears, and stared at her hands, which were twisting a handkerchief in her lap as if they wanted to strangle it. “It isn't that simple. She can't have you committed, even if she is your guardian. But she would control all your finances. She could make all sorts of decisions for you. And you pay a share of the cost of the house. If you didn't . . .”

If he didn't, we wouldn't be able to afford a house big enough for all four of us. I jumped up. “We can't let her do this! Gramps belongs here with us!”

Mother looked over at me. “Yes, he does. But we can't afford to hire an expensive attorney to fight Louise. Our best chance is to go along with her until we can prove she's wrong about Gramps being able to handle his own affairs.”

Jessie jumped up and stood beside Gramps.

“Nobody would believe her. Gramps doesn't need anybody to take care of him.”

Mom smiled, but she shook her head. “It isn't that simple, either, honey. Louise isn't trying to be mean. She really believes she's doing what's right. She asked the lawyer to have a psychologist do an evaluation. We're going to have to go through it together, and somehow convince Miss Ryderson that Louise is wrong.”

“Miss Ryderson? Is that the lady who was here?” Jessie asked.

Mother nodded. “She does evaluations in the home, instead of taking the” —she stumbled over the word— “the subject into a clinic. Louise wanted me to take you in for testing, Dad. She knew I wouldn't do it, though. She already arranged this before she said anything about it.”

Gramps said another of his words, sounding as if he was spitting on the ground.

“That won't help,” Mother said firmly. “In fact, that's one of the things Louise is complaining about. She thinks your swearing is a sign that you're unhappy and that you're rejecting reality.”

“If they believed that, they'd lock up most of the baseball players in the big leagues,” Gramps snorted.

“That's only one of the things she mentioned. She thinks you're hurting the kids, too.”

I could see the shock on Gramps's face. I probably turned as pale as he had. Hurting us! Who could believe that? But then I thought of the bandage on my arm, and my black eye. The psychologist had seen that. What would she think?

“Miss Ryderson is the one we have to convince,” Mom said, breaking the silence. “She was assigned to the case last week, and she's been talking to the neighbors. That's why she was here today, to talk to Mrs. Pruitt. Apparently, they don't think I'd tell them if you were doing things like that.”

He sat there, staring at the floor, with his mouth so tight on his pipe I was afraid he'd break it.

“Miss Ryderson just stopped over to make an appointment. She's coming out tomorrow to talk to us. Please, Dad, try to be pleasant to her. We need her on our side.”

He stood up and headed toward his room. “I'll be on my best behavior.” Then, in a low grumble as if he didn't want us to hear, he added, “Like a durned trained seal.”

I looked at Mother and went after him. Jessie trailed along behind. Gramps went into my room instead of his. With his hands in the pockets of his old slacks, he gazed down at the broken-winged wonder in the lizard cage. He turned as we came in.

“This ain't the best of times to tell your mother I've been seeing fairies.”

Jessie and I nodded. It would be hard enough for Mother to get through the next few days without having to worry about accidentally saying something like, “I've got to go and check on the fairy who lives in Nathan's room.” If she did that, we might all be sent away. A psychologist wouldn't understand, not without seeing the fairy.

“Maybe we should tell Mother and Miss Ryderson both about what we found,” I said. “If we show them, they'll have to believe us.”

Gramps held the bowl of his old pipe in his hand and pointed at me with the stem, the way you might shake a finger at someone. “We do that and they'll have the critter in a cage permanent, same's they're trying to do with me. Ain't right, a wild thing like that locked up. No, we got to keep still about this.”

I knew he was right. The fewer people who found out about her the better. Otherwise, she could end up in a zoo, or worse, in some laboratory cage like a white rat. If she lived, she deserved to be free, back in the fresh green meadows where she'd started.

“Don't worry, Gramps. It'll be our secret. We'll all have to be careful the next few days.” I hoped he could remember that, too, and not do something to upset Miss Ryderson.

I
woke up early the next morning and went over to the desk to check on the fairy. She had moved during the night, shifting so that her wings were folded behind her and along her back. The broken one jutted out sideways, as awkward as a square wheel on a bike. I wondered if it hurt. She wasn't moving at all, just lying there like a dead grasshopper. She looked pitiful.

Gramps and Jessie weren't up yet. I went to the kitchen for breakfast in my pajamas like I always do, and Mother made me go back and get dressed before she let me eat. I decided right then, even before she arrived, that I wasn't going to like Miss Ryderson. Our lives were going to be miserable while she was here.

I thought of running away, but it wouldn't do any good. Maybe, I thought, I'll run away later, if they decide to make Gramps leave. Sort of a reverse kidnapping. I'd stay away until they had to let him come home.

Miss Ryderson arrived at eight thirty. She had on a skirt and sweater this time, without the jacket, and she didn't look so official. I decided she wasn't even as old as Mother. I wondered what gave her the right to decide if old people should be put in nursing homes if they didn't want to go. She had a nice smile, though. I knew I'd better try to be friendly for Gramps's sake, so I smiled back.

“Call me Carol,” she said when Mother introduced us. “I don't want to be in the way, but I will have to ask you some questions.” Just like a policeman, I thought. As if we were criminals.

After breakfast she sat in the living room asking Gramps a lot of questions. I could tell he wanted to be rude. He usually got up and left if somebody pestered him that way. But he just sat there and answered her as if there was nothing he'd rather be doing.

Jessie and I went into my room and closed the door. We leaned over the lizard cage to look at the fairy.

“She dropped her doll,” Jessie said.

The fairy had moved again, as if she had been tossing and turning in her sleep, and one golden brown arm hung down off the doll bed where Gramps had laid her. The thing she had been holding was on the floor next to her. I picked it up with my thumb and first finger, being as gentle as I could. It was about as big as a large raisin, but pale gold, like sand or dry grass.

“I still say it looks like a beetle grub,” I said, holding it on the palm of my hand so Jessie could see it. “Maybe a pupa, like a cocoon, only waxy instead of spun.”

“Could it be food?”

“You mean, like a fairy lunch box? How should I know? Dragonflies eat mosquitoes and bugs. I suppose she could be carrying it around until it hatches so she can eat it.”

“Could it be a dragonfly baby doll?” Jessie asked.

I shook my head. “No, a dragonfly baby wouldn't look like that. Dragonflies don't make pupas. They live in the water and look like ugly, mean worms with ferocious mouths and lots of legs. They keep shedding their skin as they grow, and one day what climbs out of the old skin is a dragonfly instead of a hellgrammite. That's what they're called: hellgrammites.”

“But she's not really a dragonfly. She just looks like one.” Jessie took the little lump out of my hand. “I'm going to pretend it's her doll and put it in a little cradle.” She got a tiny box from her doll things and put in a scrap of cloth. She put the grub-thing on top and folded the cloth over it like a blanket.

“There. Now she'll know we want to be friends.”

Sure, I thought. We mashed her on the front of our car, locked her up in a glass cage, and she's going to think we want to be friends because we wrapped her lunch box or whatever it was in a torn blanket. I didn't say that, though. Maybe Jessie was right.