Sharon Creech - Walk Two Moons

He didn’t look at Phoebe. I thought maybe he was embarrassed to be caught doing the dishes.

“You’ve probably washed that plate enough,” Phoebe said. He had been rubbing it around and around with the dishcloth. He stopped and stared down at the plate. I could practically see the birds of sadness pecking at his head, but Phoebe was busy swatting at her own birds.

“Did you call all of Mom’s friends?” Phoebe asked.

“Phoebe,” he said. “I’m looking into it. I’m a little tired. Do you mind if we don’t discuss this now?”

“But don’t you think we should call the police?”

“Phoebe—”

“Sal wants to know if I can spend the weekend at her house.”

“Of course,” he said.

“But what if Mom comes back while I’m at Sal’s? Will you call me? Will you let me know?”

“Of course.”

“Or what if she telephones? Maybe I should stay home. I think I should be here if she calls.”

“If she telephones, I’ll have her call you at Sal’s,” he said.

“But if we don’t have any news by tomorrow,” Phoebe said, “we should definitely call the police. We’ve waited too long already. What if she’s tied up somewhere and waiting for us to rescue her?”

At home that night, I was working on my mythology report when Phoebe called. She was whispering. When she went downstairs to say good night to her father, he was sitting in his favorite chair staring at the television, but the television wasn’t on. If she did not know her father better, she would have thought he had been crying. “But my father never cries,” she said.

The weekend was unbelievably long. Phoebe arrived with her suitcase on Saturday morning. I said, “Golly, Phoebe, are you planning to spend a month here?” When I took her up to my room, she asked if she was going to be sharing the room with me. “Why no, Phoebe,” I said. “We built a whole new extension just for you.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” she said.

“I was only teasing, Phoebe.”

“But there’s only one bed.”

“Good powers of observation, Phoebe.”

“I thought you might sleep downstairs on the couch. People usually try to make their guests comfortable.” She looked around my room. “We’re going to be a little crowded in here, aren’t we?”

I did not answer. I did not bash her over the head. I knew why she was acting this way. She sat down on my bed and bounced on it a couple times. “I guess I’ll have to get used to your lumpy mattress, Sal. Mine is very firm. A firm mattress is much better for your back. That’s why I have such good posture. The reason you slouch is probably because of this mattress.”

“Slouch?” I said.

“Well, you do slouch, Sal. Look in the mirror sometime.” She mashed on my mattress. “Don’t you know anything about having guests? You’re supposed to give your guests the best that you have. You’re supposed to make some sacrifices, Sal. That’s what my mother always says. She says, ‘In life, you have to make some sacrifices.’”

“I suppose your mother made a great sacrifice when she took off,” I said. I couldn’t help it. She was really getting on my nerves.

“My mother didn’t ‘take off.’ Someone kidnapped her. She is undergoing tremendous sacrifice at this very moment in time.” She started unpacking. “Where shall I put my things?” When I opened up the closet, she said, “What a mess! Do you have some extra hangers? Am I supposed to leave my clothes jammed up in the suitcase all weekend? A guest is supposed to have the best. It is only courtesy, Sal. My mother says—”

“I know, I know—sacrifice.”

Ten minutes later, Phoebe mentioned that she was getting a headache. “It might even be a migraine. My aunt’s foot doctor used to get migraines, only they turned out not to be migraines at all. Do you know what they were?”

“What?” I said.

“A brain tumor.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes,” Phoebe said. “In her brain.”

“Well, of course it would be in her brain, Phoebe. I figured that out when you said it was a brain tumor.”

“I don’t think that’s a particularly sympathetic way to speak to someone with a migraine or potential brain tumor.”

In my book was a picture of a tree. I drew a round head with curly hair, put a rope around the neck, and attached it to that tree.

It went on and on like that. I hated her that day. I didn’t care how upset she was about her mother, I really hated her, and I wanted her to leave. I wondered if this was how my father felt when I threw all those temper tantrums. Maybe he hated me for a while.

After dinner, we walked over to Mary Lou’s. Mr. and Mrs. Finney were rolling around on the front lawn in a pile of leaves with Tommy and Dougie, and Ben was sitting on the porch. I sat down beside him while Phoebe went looking for Mary Lou.

Ben said, “Phoebe’s driving you crazy, isn’t she?” I liked the way he looked right in your eyes when he talked to you.

“Extensively,” I said.

“I bet Phoebe is lonely.”

I don’t know what came over me, but I almost reached up and touched his face. My heart was thumping so loudly that I thought he would be able to hear it. I went into the house. From the back window, I watched Mrs. Finney climb a ladder placed against the garage. On the roof, she took off her jacket and spread it out. A few minutes later, Mr. Finney came around the back of the house and climbed up the ladder. He took off his jacket and spread it out next to her. He lay down on the roof and put his arm around her. He kissed her.

On the roof, in the wide open air, they lay there kissing each other. It made me feel peculiar. They reminded me of my parents, before the stillborn baby, before the operation.

Ben came into the kitchen. As he reached into the cupboard for a glass, he stopped and looked at me. Again I had that odd sensation that I wanted to touch his face, right there on his cheek, in that soft spot. I was afraid my hand might just lift up and drift over to him if I was not careful. It was most peculiar.

“Guess where Mary Lou is?” Phoebe said when she came in. “She’s with Alex . On a date. ”

I had never been on a date. Neither, I assumed, had Phoebe.

That night at my house, I pulled the sleeping bag out of the closet and spread it on the floor. Phoebe looked at it as if it were a spider. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll sleep in it.” I crawled in and pretended to fall asleep immediately. I heard Phoebe get into bed.

A little later, my father came into the room. “Phoebe?” he said. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” she said.

“I thought I heard someone crying. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I felt bad for Phoebe. I knew I should get up and try to be nice, but I remembered when I had felt like that, and I knew that sometimes you just wanted to be alone with the birds of sadness. Sometimes you had to cry by yourself.

That night I dreamed that I was sitting on the grass peering through a pair of binoculars. Far off in the distance, my mother was climbing up a ladder. She kept climbing and climbing. It was a thumpingly tall ladder. She couldn’t see me, and she never came down. She just kept on going.

The next day, as I was helping Phoebe lug her suitcase home, I said, “Phoebe, I know you’ve been upset lately—”

“I have not been upset lately,” she said.

“Sometimes, Phoebe, I like you a lot—”

“Why, thank you.”

“—but sometimes, Phoebe, I feel like dumping your cholesterol-free body out the window.”