As Easy As Falling Off The Face Of The Earth Part 16

And though he had made a mistake about that once as a child, he was certain that there was his father leaving, getting ready to sail away. His mother's immediately identifiable even in a life jacket mom-shape moved along the boat, checking in her mom way that all was in order. There was the boat, moving away from the dock. Ry was running now.

Holding them in his gaze, he didn't see the rope that had been left uncoiled in his path. He went flying through the air. The greasy bag of saltfish-johnnycake sandwiches flew from his clutch. The yellow shoes fell from under his arm. Boy, sandwiches, and shoes met weathered wood in that order, in varying degrees of injurious impact. Ry landed on his chin and his forearms. He was up in an instant. Running again, arriving at the place his parents had just left behind.

They were facing seaward, about four or five boat lengths out. Their tender trailed behind. Ry hurled himself into the water, a human torpedo. He rose to the surface, a human seal. He swam to the boat, a human...really good swimmer. A ladder climbed up the stern from the waterline. As Ry hauled himself up, a smile couldn't help forming. Peeking up over the transom, he saw his father studying the chart. His mother was sorting out the sheets and the halyards. He crawled onto the boat and came up behind her.

"Here, Mom," he said, "let me show you how that's done."

Teenage ninja cowboy sailing guy. Howdy, ma'am, can I help you with that halyard?

He hadn't counted on her fainting. Ry guessed he still had some things to learn. That was no surprise. He was an apprentice. It would take practice.

DOGS.

THE NEWS.

Back in Waupatoneka Betty and Lloyd settled in on the couch to watch the news. They had just returned from their trip-Betty's high school reunion, and a couple of days at her family's cabin on a lake in the woods. Lloyd's head was doing a lot better now. He knew who Betty was almost all the time, especially now that they had left her twin sister back in Illinois. And he liked her, even when he wasn't sure who she was. He liked her quite a bit. They watched the news holding hands.

Suddenly a fuzzy photograph of Lloyd appeared on the screen. An old one, taken at some birthday celebration. Now phrases popped up beside the photo, facts about Lloyd: his age, his height and weight, when he was last seen.

"Oh, dear," said Betty. "You're missing. I guess we better call that phone number. I'll go do it right now, before I forget."

She repeated the number to herself as she got up and went into the alcove in the hall. She was writing it down on the notepad there when the phone rang. She picked it up and squinted at it, searching for the Talk b.u.t.ton.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said. Then, "Yes?

"The dogs?

"Where?"

DOGS.

SOME EXPLAINING TO DO.

There was some explaining to do, to a variety of people: Parents. Authorities. Yulia.

Ry's parents wanted to see exactly what kind of nutcase he had gotten mixed up with.

"He's a really good kind of nutcase," said Ry.

"Tell me again why he's in this hospital?" asked his mother as they walked in. Ry didn't want to say that Del fell off a windmill. Not yet, anyway.

"He fell from a deck that had a rotten railing," he said.

When they entered the hospital room, Ry was so glad to see Yulia, he almost forgot that he had to tell her about the Peachy Pie. She rose from her chair to come give him a hug and to meet his mom and dad. She charmed them. Ry could feel the atmosphere lighten. Then she offered the only chair to Wanda and sat on Del's bed, moving his plaster-encased legs right over.

Ry's father perched on the windowsill. Ry leaned against the wall. Everyone was being polite, but it couldn't help being an awkward occasion. Del asked Skip and Wanda about their vacation. Skip and Wanda didn't quite know what to ask Del, or Yulia.

Ry leaned against the wall, listening, helping things along where he could. It came to him as he leaned there that he didn't want to say good-bye to Del and Yulia. Not permanently. Then, too soon, the moment arrived for him to tell his part of the story. The part where he sank the boat.

"So Ry, how did you get to St. Jude's?" asked Yulia. "You didn't sail there alone, did you?"

Ry looked from her beautiful face to Del's. Despite being broken and glued back together like a china teapot, Del was happy.

"I was thinking," Ry said to him, "that it's going to take a while before you're really up and around. And by that time, I'll be in school. But maybe next summer we could build Yulia a new boat."

He hadn't been thinking that at all. It had entered his mind nanoseconds before it left his mouth. It appeared there like a miracle.

"It would be really educational for me," he said for his parents' benefit, improvising, not knowing what he would say next. "And then you guys could come down and we could all go for a sail.

"Because the Peachy Pie is at the bottom of the ocean," he said, in a voice no one could have heard if the room had not become utterly quiet. His miracle idea seemed to die on the vine. It flickered in and out of existence.

One more idea came to Ry.

"Actually," he said, looking at Del, "I guess building a whole boat would be pretty much impossible." Having said the magic words, he mentally crossed his finger and looked away. He tried to appear downcast, pensive, resigned. It didn't require much acting.

He waited a beat.

Two beats.

Three.

Oh, well.

Then Del said, "I don't know about 'impossible.'"

POSTSCRIPT.

You want to go off, have an adventure, be your own person. But first you want to make sure your family is all snugged in at home, not wandering loose like a bunch of stray cats. Or lost dogs. Otherwise, how do you call home for money? How do you get home in time for dinner, if no one's there cooking it up? Someone has to stay home.

Someone had stayed home. Then, one little thing went wrong-or, okay, a half dozen, a dozen, an unusually large number of things went wrong-and everyone went spinning off in all directions.

The interesting and amazing thing was that then they came back together. Invisible and visible forces, whatever you wanted to call them, could pull you back. Another interesting and amazing thing was, now there was Del and Yulia, and there was also Betty the Neighbor. Maybe the more people you put in your family, the better. Like a diversified investment portfolio.

Ry pulled on a clean T-s.h.i.+rt and went downstairs, gave the happy dogs a pat, and headed out the back door. He went for a spin on his bike, just checking out the old hometown. The new hometown.

The dead car junkyard was newly interesting. He wandered up and down, pus.h.i.+ng his bike through the gra.s.s, looking over the rows of defunct vehicles. No w.i.l.l.yses. Some awesome ones, though.

He rode on and came to a park. A bike path threaded through it, alongside a small lake. Lake Waupatoneka. The path went over a low bridge across a creek that ran into the lake. On impulse, Ry parked his bike and hopped up onto the concrete railing. He walked across. He walked back and jumped down and got back on his bike.

On the far side of the park, the path continued, following the edge of the lake. Sometimes there was a sliver of beach between the path and the lake, sometimes not. A few sailboats scudded along. It was blowing. There were motorboats and Jet Skis, too. The sound of voices and the fragrance of grilling and barbecue floated through the air. Ry came up behind a girl around his age who was wading along, hauling a Sunfish behind her by the rope. The sail was down, dragging a little in the water, the mast was rattling in its pocket, the rudder clunked, and the whole thing rollicked up and down over the wake of a pa.s.sing motorboat. It looked like a slog. Ry slowed down unintentionally, out of curiosity, to match her pace. She noticed, scowled slightly, and kept going. She was beautiful in this interesting, stubborn, scowling, drowned-rat kind of way. She had clearly gone under a few times.

Ry had stopped. Now he pedaled to catch up and called out, "Why don't you just sail it?"

"Too much wind," she answered. Retorted, you could say. "It's impossible."

Ry watched as she slogged on. Then he caught up to her again, got slightly ahead, laid down his bike, kicked off his shoes, and came down to the water's edge.

"I don't know about 'impossible," he said.

POST-POSTSCRIPT: PEG AND OLIE.

Acknowledgments.

Thank you to Bill, Lucy, and Frank for various and sundry (but crucial!) bits of information, plot a.s.sistance, moral support, and frequently, dinner. Thanks to Frank, especially, for accompanying me to Montana at the drop of a hat. Thank you, Tom K., for sailboat guidance. Thank you, Paul K., for building a homemade airplane. Thank you, Candace N., Eli S., and their friend Lilly for Spanish translation. Thank you to everyone at Greenwillow Books, for everything.

About the Author.

LYNNE RAE PERKINS was awarded the Newbery Medal for Criss Cross. She is also the author of the novel All Alone in the Universe, the award-winning companion to Criss Cross. An artist as well as a writer, Lynne Rae Perkins has published several acclaimed picture books, including The Broken Cat, Snow Music, Pictures from Our Vacation, and The Cardboard Piano.

The author lives with her family in northern Michigan. You can visit her online at www.LynneRaePerkins.com.

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