Sharon Creech - Walk Two Moons

“If I were walking in Peeby’s moccasins, I would be jealous of a new brother dropping out of the sky.”

“If I were in Gram’s moccasins right this minute, I would want to cool my feet in that river over there.”

“If I were walking in Ben’s moccasins, I would miss Salamanca Hiddle.”

On and on we go. We walk in everybody’s moccasins, and we have discovered some interesting things that way. One day I realized that our whole trip out to Lewiston had been a gift from Gram and Gramps to me. They were giving me a chance to walk in my mother’s moccasins—to see what she had seen and feel what she might have felt on her last trip.

I also realized that there were lots of reasons why my father didn’t take me to Idaho when he got the news of her death. He was too grief-stricken, and he was trying to spare me. Only later did he understand that I had to go and see for myself. He was right about one thing, though: we didn’t need to bring her body back because she is in the trees, the barn, the fields. Gramps is different. He needs Gram right here. He needs to walk out to that aspen grove to see his gooseberry.

One afternoon, after we had been talking about Prometheus stealing fire from the sun to give to man, and about Pandora opening up the forbidden box with all the evils of the world in it, Gramps said that those myths evolved because people needed a way to explain where fire came from and why there was evil in the world. That made me think of Phoebe and the lunatic, and I said, “If I were walking in Phoebe’s moccasins, I would have to believe in a lunatic and an axe-wielding Mrs. Cadaver to explain my mother’s disappearance.”

Phoebe and her family helped me, I think. They helped me to think about and understand my own mother. Phoebe’s tales were like my fishing in the air: for a while I needed to believe that my mother was not dead and that she would come back.

I still fish in the air sometimes.

It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had at first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind.

I decided that bravery is looking Pandora’s box full in the eye as best you can, and then turning to the other box, the one with the smoothbeautiful folds inside: Momma kissing trees, my Gram saying, “Huzza, huzza,” Gramps and his marriage bed.

My mother’s postcards and her hair are still beneath the floorboards in my room. I reread all the postcards when I came home. Gram and Gramps and I had been to every place my mother had. There are the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands—the only card that is still hard for me to read is the one from Coeur d’Alene, the one that I received two days after she died.

When I drive Gramps around in his truck, I also tell him all the stories my mother told me. His favorite is a Navaho one about Estsanatlehi. She’s a woman who never dies. She grows from baby to mother to old woman and then turns into a baby again, and on and on she goes, living a thousand, thousand lives. Gramps likes this, and so do I.

I still climb the sugar maple tree, and I have heard the singing tree sing. The sugar maple tree is my thinking place. Yesterday in the sugar maple, I realized that I was jealous of three things.

The first jealousy is a foolish one. I am jealous of whoever Ben wrote about in his journal, because it was not me.

The second jealousy is this: I am jealous that my mother had wanted more children. Wasn’t I enough? When I walk in her moccasins, though, I say, “If I were my mother, I might want more children—not because I don’t love my Salamanca, but because I love her so much. I want more of these.” Maybe that is a fish in the air and maybe it isn’t, but it is what I want to believe.

The last jealousy is not foolish, nor is it one that will go away just yet. I am still jealous that Phoebe’s mother came back and mine did not.

I miss my mother.

Ben and Phoebe write to me all the time. Ben sent me a valentine in the middle of October that said,

There was a P.S. added: I’ve never written poetry before.

I sent a valentine back that said:

I added a P.S. that said, I’ve never written any poetry either.

Ben and Phoebe and Mrs. Cadaver and Mrs. Partridge are all coming to visit next month. There is a chance that Mr. Birkway might come as well, but Phoebe hopes not, as she does not think she could stand to be in a car for that long with a teacher. My father and I have been scrubbing the house for their visit. I can’t wait to show Phoebe and Ben the swimming hole and the fields, the hayloft and the trees, and the cows and the chickens. Blackberry, the chicken that Ben gave me, is queen of the coop, and I’ll show Ben her too. I am hoping, also, for some blackberry kisses.

But for now, Gramps has his beagle, and I have a chicken and a singing tree, and that’s the way it is.

Huzza, huzza.

SHARON CREECHis the author of the Newbery Honor Book THE WANDERER. Her other novels include GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP, RUBY HOLLER, the New York Times best-selling LOVE THAT DOG, BLOOMABILITY, ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS, CHASING REDBIRD, and PLEASING THE GHOST. She is also the author of two picture books, the New York Times best-selling A FINE, FINE SCHOOL and FISHING IN THE AIR. After spending eighteen years teaching and writing in Europe, Sharon Creech and her husband have returned to the United States to live.

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Absolutely Normal Chaos

Pleasing the Ghost

Chasing Redbird

Bloomability

The Wanderer

Love That Dog

Ruby Holler

Granny Torrelli Makes Soup

Fishing in the Air

A Fine, Fine School

Cover art © 2004 by Cathleen Toelke

Cover design by Andrea Vandergrift

Cover © 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

WALK TWO MOONS. Copyright © 1994 by Sharon Creech. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Mobipocket Reader

November 2008

ISBN 978-0-06-178687-7

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