Blossoms and the Green Phantom (10 page)

“She says she is, but you know Mary. Some times she’ll do what she says and sometimes she won’t.”

Junior knew Mad Mary better than that. “If she says she’ll come,” he had said, nodding emphatically, “she’ll come. Tell me about it one more time.”

“I told you twice.”

“Once more. Please.”

“Well, I passed her on the road this morning. She was picking up a nice squirrel that had been lightly tapped by a pickup truck. She straightened up and waved, and so I stopped. The woman is getting downright sociable. Anyway, she came over to the truck to show me the squirrel and she said, ‘What’s Junior up to? I don’t see Junior much these days.’”

Junior stood there beaming. He loved to hear things people said about him. “Go on,” he prompted.

“Mary said, ‘You’d think since I pulled him out of the coyote trap, he’d be grateful and come see me more. He hasn’t been in any trouble, has he?’

“I says, ‘Would you call getting stuck on top of old man Benson’s chicken coop trouble?’ She says, ‘Oh, oh, oh,’ because old man Benson fired his shotgun at her one time; the rock salt actually left holes in her hat. The man aimed at her head! Get her to show you them holes sometime. Well, then I told her about your UFO and she told me—”

“No, tell it like it happened, the exact words—what you said and she said.”

“Well, I said, ‘Junior made a UFO, and he’s going to send it up again tonight. He’d be proud to have you come.’”

“No, you skipped some of it. She said, ‘What was he doing up on old man Benson’s chicken house?’ That’s the part you skipped. That’s one of my favorite—”

“Junior, you know this better than I do. I can’t stand here putting on a production for you. I got chores. I told you twice and that’s enough. She’ll come if she comes, and that is that.”

Even though Junior knew Mad Mary would be there, he ran ahead of everybody so he would be the first one to see her. He crossed his fingers as he came over the crest of Owl’s Hill.

“She’s here,” he shouted down the hill. “I told you she’d come.”

Mad Mary was sitting on a rock with her ragged skirts all spread out around her and her crook braced against the ground. It was the way queens sat, Junior thought, in olden times. He ran over and put his head on her lap, the way subjects used to do, also in olden times. He breathed in the dusty, outdoorsy smell of her skirts.

Mad Mary patted him on the head with her gnarled fingers. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. I thought you were going to come see me.”

“I am! I’ve got to launch my Green Phantom before I can do anything,” Junior cried happily. He loved having too much to do. “Then I’ll come.”

“Where is this Phantom that’s been getting you in so much trouble?”

“In the wagon. Here it comes now.”

“I hear it landed you on top of a chicken house.”

“Old man Benson’s,” Junior said proudly.

Vern and Michael came into view first, pulling the wagon, then Pap and Vicki Blossom followed, then Maggie and Ralphie. It was exactly like a procession, Junior thought.

“And I’ve got a new dog!” Junior turned his glowing face back to Mary. “You’ll get to see him. He’s coming. Mud is a little bit jealous of him and he puts his foot on Dump when nobody’s looking and holds him down—that’s probably where Dump is now, being held down. Pap, will you please call Mud? I want Mary to see Dump.”

Pap whistled, and in a few minutes Mud came leaping over the brush. A few minutes later Dump ran into the clearing too.

Michael was standing back from the group, partly because he was awed by Mad Mary, partly because he was awed by the occasion. This was the most exciting night of Michael’s life, and it followed the most miserable, a night when he had lain awake, his face turned to the window, trying for a glimpse of the Phantom.

He had thought he had missed it, and then that morning had come the phone call, the invitation. He had had to listen to a fifteen-minute lecture from his mother about behaving himself, but it was worth it. He was here with the Blossoms.

Vern came back and said, “Come on, Michael.”

“I am.”

“Mad Mary won’t hurt you.”

“I know.”

Vern stood for a moment, sensing that Michael was awed by his family. All this time he had been envying Michael’s family, and now Michael envied his. Vern didn’t understand exactly why this was true, but it made him feel better, more secure in his friendship.

“Everybody’s here,” Junior cried. Michael and Vern joined the circle. Now Junior was surrounded by every single person in the world that he loved, and this caused him to spin around with pleasure. His arms were out like airplane wings. He was so happy, he felt he could take off and fly himself.

His spin came to a stop, and he looked around. “Is everybody ready?”

“Whenever you are,” his mother said.

“All right. I’ll start setting things up,” Junior said. He crossed to the wheelbarrow, brushing his hands on his T-shirt.

“Doesn’t it look beautiful?” Junior asked.

The Phantom was now laid out on the ground. The three air mattresses were in a circle, the garbage bags were crumpled up in the center. The polka dots glowed dully in the creases.

Junior stood there, admiring it. He could feel that everyone else was doing the same thing, because they were standing so still. It was as if they couldn’t believe the Phantom was real.

The only person who had spoken was Mad Mary, and all she had said was “My, my.” Junior took those two “My”s as a very high compliment indeed.

“Ralphie, you can help me put in the helium,” Junior said. Even Ralphie was behaving right this time, waiting to be asked.

“My pleasure,” Ralphie said.

Ralphie came forward. In the middle of last night, as Ralphie lay awake in his sleeping bag, he had made a vow never to steal his mother’s helium again, not even for Maggie. It was too risky, especially when someone as unstable as Junior was concerned. After that vow, he made another. He would do everything he possibly could to make this second flight of the Phantom an absolute total success. Then there would never have to be a third.

Also, Ralphie had admitted to himself that there had been something about the way the Phantom sort of swam through the air that had surprised him. He wouldn’t go so far as to say the Phantom had been beautiful, but it certainly had not been ugly. On a scale of one to ten, the flight had been a good solid seven.

Ralphie allowed Junior to think he was doing it, but Ralphie got the helium in exactly the way he wanted it and taped the bags shut exactly the way he wanted that done. Then he said, “Good job, Junior!”

Ralphie and Junior stood up together. Ralphie moved over beside Maggie. Maggie had been holding the Phantom down in case the wind came up.

Junior walked slowly around the Phantom, admiring it, checking it. When he saw that it was perfect, he wiped his hands once again on his shirt.

“I’m ready,” he said.

Maggie and Ralphie lifted the Phantom, and Junior moved under it. For a moment he couldn’t breathe.

The Phantom was so big and so beautiful that it just seemed to pull Junior up to the sky. He looked up into the depths of the garbage bags. He wanted to explain to the Phantom that he would go along if he could, but somehow it seemed to him that the Phantom understood.

Junior started for the cliff. He had already decided he was not going to make any of the same mistakes he had made last time, mistakes like walking too fast and getting to the edge of the cliff before he was ready to let the Phantom go.

This time he went to the cliff like a bride, closing each step. He stood there with the Phantom over his head, his eyes on the lights of Alderson. His heart was beating so hard, he wondered if he would be able to hear the breeze.

As if on cue, it started. Junior heard the faint rustling of leaves down behind the hill. The breeze was on its way. Goose bumps rose on Junior’s arms.

Then the wind was there, and it seemed to just sweep the Phantom from Junior’s hands. It was breathtaking the way the wind managed the whole thing. It was as if this particular wind had been created specifically to carry his Phantom up into the heavens.

Junior remained with his arms lifted, his mouth open, his heart pounding, and he watched his Phantom rise toward the star-filled sky.

Everyone was looking up at the sky, so Mud put his paw on Dump and pushed him to the ground. Mud knew he was not supposed to do this—Pap had been telling him not to all day, but Mud couldn’t help himself.

Every time he saw the puppy running around like he was having a good time, Mud had to put his paw on him. He had to.

This time the puppy had been chasing a cricket, running after it when it jumped, poking his nose down into the grass. Then the cricket would jump again and the puppy would run after it.

When Mud had the puppy pinned securely on the ground, he glanced up at Pap to see if Pap had noticed. No, Pap was looking at the sky like everyone else. For once Mud could pester the puppy in peace.

The Phantom was making those slow, underwater motions that were so especially beautiful to Junior. Every time the Phantom swam like that, Junior would swear on a Bible it was alive. It had to be. Nothing that wasn’t real could move in that naturally graceful way.

Junior felt he could stand here for the rest of his life, staring up at the sky, watching the Phantom. The Phantom was, Junior thought, his own personal design and yet somehow it no longer belonged just to him. Somehow it now belonged to the—

He never got to finish the beautiful thought that the Phantom now belonged to the world, because behind him someone gasped.

Then he distinctly heard his mom murmur, “Oh, no.”

“What? What?” Junior cried.

At first he had merely been sort of irritated at the gasp because it broke what was, to him, a religious silence. Now he felt genuine alarm.

“Maybe it’s nothing, hon,” his mom said, “I don’t really know anything about it, but—”

She didn’t have to finish. Junior saw it too, and it was definitely not “nothing.” The Phantom had stopped turning. It was motionless in the air. Something was wrong.

“It’s exactly like last time,” Junior said. “Only last time—” Junior didn’t get to finish. Because, exactly like last time, the Phantom began turning in the opposite direction. Once again, the wind had shifted.

“Why does the wind keep doing this to me?” Junior moaned. His hands were under his chin now, clasped in prayer.

It seemed to him there was an awkwardness about the Phantom’s turn, as if it were doing something it didn’t want to do, as if it were resisting. Then the Phantom began moving toward them. Junior knew that the last time it had done this it had kept right on moving until it got to old man Benson’s chicken house.

He spun around. “Mom, it’s going to the chicken house again.”

“Maybe not, hon,” his mother said. “Anyway, don’t worry about that, I can handle old man Benson. Just don’t let yourself get upset.”

“I’m trying not to,” Junior wailed.

Another breeze started up the hill, Junior could hear the leaves rustling. The new breeze caused the Phantom to bob in the air and shift course again.

It seemed to Junior then that all the different winds in the world were struggling with his Phantom, trying to send it where he most didn’t want it to go.

“Where’s it going now? What’s happening? Where’s it going?”

Junior looked around for the place he most didn’t want it to go, because he knew from past experience that would most likely be the Phantom’s destination.

He saw it immediately—the oak tree. The Phantom was directly over their heads, and it was on a straight path for the oak tree.

The only thing that could save it now was another breeze. “Come on, breeze, come on, breeze,” Junior began to mutter under his breath. “Come on, breeze.”

He stood there helpless, tears rolling unchecked down his cheeks, hands clasped in prayer, and watched his precious Phantom move closer and closer to disaster.

“That stupid wind,” Maggie muttered. “It just can’t land in the tree. It can’t.”

Ralphie did not want to be the one to tell her that it not only could, but it was going to.

Even though Junior knew the worst, he was not prepared for how terrible he would feel when it happened. The sounds were so sad. Plastic brushing against leaves, catching on twigs, then that fatal silken sigh he had come to know, and then silence.

For a long moment nobody spoke. Maybe everybody felt as he did, Junior thought, that as long as nobody said anything, it wouldn’t really have happened. The Phantom would break away and keep going. The moment stretched on, but this didn’t happen. The Phantom remained where it was, a beautiful unearthly blob, glowing against the darker foliage of the tree.

And what made it so especially terrible, Junior thought, was that he would have to look at this sight for the rest of his life. He could see this tree from the road. He would have to watch the Phantom deteriorate, the way he had watched his American flag kite fade and shred and die on the electrical wires across the street. He would have to watch the polka dots fade, and the garbage bags tatter. He would have to watch the air mattresses grow limp and—

Junior’s shoulders sagged and his mom came over and put her arm around him. “It looks like it’s stuck, hon, but it was very beautiful while it lasted. I just loved it. Everybody did.”

Junior pulled away. He said what he knew all along he would have to say. “If I can climb up on a chicken house to save it, I can climb a plain old tree.”

And with his head high, Junior started walking.

“Junior, you are not climbing that tree.”

“Let me go! Let me go!”

Junior’s mother spun him around. She had him by both arms, but Junior kept twisting as hard as he could. His mother held on as hard as she could. Junior realized that if his mother had been holding him that night at old man Benson’s farm, he would not have ended up on the chicken house.

“I said to let me go!” He gave a final desperate twist. Still his mother held him.