Зенна Гендерсон - Holding Wonder

"Sorry," she said, "Vincent thinks maybe you'd like see the craft arrive-but –"
"You're afraid I might tell," I said for her. "And should be kept in the family. I've been repository for odd family stories before. Well, maybe not quite­
" Vincent scrambled for the porch. "Here it comes!" cried.
I was beside Mrs. Kroginold in a split second and, grasping hands, we raced after Vincent. Mr. Kroginold had been standing in the middle of the playground, but he drifted back to us as a huge-well, a huge nothing came do through the moonlight.
"It-where is it?" I wondered if some dimension I didn't know was involved.
"Oh," said Mrs. Kroginold. "It has the unlight over Jake! Ask Ron-"
Mr. Kroginold turned his face to the huge nothing. And there it was! A slender silver something, its nose arcing down from a rocket position to rest on the tawny sands of the playground.
"The unlight's so no one will see us," said Mrs. Kroginold, "and we flow it so it won't bother radar and things like that:" She laughed. "We're not the right shape for this year's flying saucers, anyway. I'm glad we're not. Who wants to look like a frosted cupcake on a purple lighted plate? That's what's so In
now."
"Is it really a spaceship?" I asked, struck by how clean the lovely gleaming craft was that had come so silently to dent our playground.
"Sure it is!" cried Vincent. "The Old Man had it and they took him to the moon in it to bury him and Bethie too and Remy went with their Dad and Mom and-"
"A little reticence, Son," said Mr. Kroginold, catching Vincent's hand. "It isn't necessary to go into all that histo– "She-she realizes," said Mrs. Kroginold. "It's not as if she were a stranger."
"We shouldn't be gone too long," said Mr. Kroginold. I'll pick you up here as soon-"
"Pick us up! I'm going with you!" cried Mrs. Kroginold. "Jake Kroginold! If you think you're going to do me out of something as wild and wonderful as this-"
"Let her go with us, Dad," begged Vincent.
"With us?" Mr. Kroginold raked his fingers back through his hair. "You, too?"
"Of course!" Vincent's eyes were wide with astonishment. "It's my man!"
"Well, adonday veeah in cards and spades!" said Mr. Kroginold. He grinned over at me. "Family!" he said.
I studiously didn't meet his eyes. I felt a deep wave of color move up my face as I kept my mouth clamped shut. I wouldn't say anything! I couldn't ask! I had no right to expect-
" And Teacher, too!" cried Vincent, "Teacher, too!"
Mr. Kroginold considered me for a long moment. My wanting must have been a flaring thing because he finally shrugged an eyebrow and echoed, "And Teacher, too."
Then I nearly died! It was so wild and wonderful and impossible and I'm scared to death of heights! We scurried about getting me a jacket. Getting Kipper's forgotten jacket out of the cloak room for Vincent who had come off without his. Taking one of my blankets, just in case. I paused a moment in the mad scramble, hand poised over my Russian-English, English-Russian pocket dictionary. Then left it. The man might not be Russian at all. And even if was, people like Vincent's seemed to have little need such aids to communication.
A door opened in the craft. I looked at it, thinking blankly, Ohmy! Ohmy! We had started across the yard toward the craft when I gasped, "The-the door! I have to lock the door!"
I dashed back to the schoolhouse and into the darkness of the teacherage. And foolishly, childishly, there in the dark, I got awfully hungry! I yanked a cupboard door open and scrabbled briefly. Peanut butter-slippery, glassy cylinder-crackers-square cornered, waxy carton. I slammed the cupboard shut, snatched up my purse as though I were on the way to the MONSTER MERCANTILE, staggered out of the door, and juggled my burdens until I could manipulate the key. Then I hesitated on the porch, one foot lifting, all ready to go to the craft, and silently gasped my travel prayer. "Dear God, go with me to my destination. Don't let me imperil anyone or be imperiled by anyone. Amen." I
started down the steps, paused, and cried softly, "To my destination and back! Oh, please! And back!"
Have you, oh, have you ever watched space reach down to surround you as your hands would reach down to surround a minnow? Have you ever seen Earth, a separate thing, apart from you, and see-almost-all-able? Have you ever watched color deepen and run until it blared into blaze and blackness? Have you ever stepped out of the context in which your identity is established and floated un-anyone beyond the steady pulse of night and day and accustomed being? Have you ever, for even a fleeting second, shared God's eyes? I have! I have!
And Mrs. Kroginold and Vincent were with me in all the awesome wonder of our going. You couldn't have seen us go even if you had known where to look. We were wrapped, in unlight again, and the craft was flowed again to make it a nothing to any detection device.
"I wish I could space walk!" said Vincent, finally, turning his shoulders but not his eyes away from the window. "Daddy-"
"No." Mr. Kroginold's tone left no loophole for further argument.
"Well, it would be fun," Vincent sighed. Then he said in very small voice. "Mother, I'm hungry."
"So sorry!" Mrs. Kroginold hugged him to her briefly. Nearest hamburger joint's a far piece down the road!"
"Here-" I found, after two abortive attempts, that I still had a voice. I slithered cautiously to my knees on the bare floor-no luxury liner, this-and sat back. "Peanut butter." The jar clicked down. "And crackers." The carton thumped –and my elbow creaked almost audibly as I straightened it out from its spasmed clutch.
"Gollee! Real deal!" Vincent plumped down beside me and began working on the lid of the jar. "What'll we spread it with?"
"Oh!" I blankly considered the problem. "Oh, I have a nail file here in my purse." I was fishing for it amid the usual clutter when I caught Mrs. Kroginold's surprised look. I grinned sheepishly. "I thought I was hungry. But I guess that wasn't what was wrong with my stomach."
Shortly after the jar was opened and the roasty smell of peanuts spread, Mr. Kroginold and another fellow drifted casually over to us. I preferred to ignore the fact that they actually drifted-no steps on the floor. The other fellow was introduced as Jemmy. The Old One? Not so old, it seemed me. But then "old" might mean "wise" to these people. And on that score he could qualify. He had none of the loose ends that I can often sense in people. He was-whole..
"Ron is lifting," said Mr. Kroginold through a mouthful of peanut butter and crackers. He nodded at the center of the room where another fellow sat looking intently at a square, boxy-looking thing.
"That's the amplifier," Jemmy said, as though that explained anything. "It makes it possible for one man to manage the craft."
Something buzzed on a panel across the room. "There!" Mr. Kroginold was at the window, staring intently. "There it is! Good work, Ron!"
At that moment Vincent cried out, his arms going up in their protesting
posture. Mrs. Kroginold pushed him over to his father who drew him in the curve of his shoulder to the window, coaxing down the tense arms.
"See? There's the craft! It looks odd. Something's not right about it."
"Can-can we take off the unlight now?" asked Vincent, jerkily. "So he can see us? Then maybe he won't feel so bad-
"Jemmy?" Mr. Kroginold called across the craft. "What do you think? Would the shock of our appearance be too much?"
"It could hardly be worse than the hell he's in now," said Jemmy, "So-"
"Oh!" cried Vincent. "He thinks he just now died. He thinks we're the Golden Gates!"
"Rather a loose translation." Jemmy flung a smiling glance at us. "But he is wondering if we are the entrance to the afterworld. Ron, can we dock?"
Moments later, there was a faint metallic click and a slight vibration through our craft. Then we three extras stood pressed to the window and watched Mr. Kroginold and Jemmy leave our craft. They were surrounded, it's true, by their shields that caught light and slid it rapidly around, but they did look so unguarded-no, they didn't! They looked right at home and intent on their rescue mission. They disappeared from the sight of our windows. We waited and waited, not saying anything-not aloud, anyway. I could feel a clanking through the floor under me. And a scraping. Then a long nothing again.
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