After Sylvia Read online

  Owen couldn’t fly, of course, but he could certainly shinny down the rest of the drainpipe if he didn’t think about it too much. It was like slipping down the main trunk of the apple tree in the yard or the banister in the hall stairs.

  He stood on the ground dizzy and cold and looked up to see the birds. But they were gone, and the house itself seemed unfamiliar in this light and unsteady in the wind, as if it might collapse upon itself suddenly. Owen looked and looked, but it stayed where it was, shivering in the breeze.

  And soon he was surrounded again by his mother and father and brothers, all talking at once, like a flock of birds still clacking even after they have escaped an angry dog.

  Broken Eggs

  OWEN came downstairs early the next morning and found Horace alone in the kitchen. Owen sat at the table and glumly watched his father poke the bacon in the big black cast-iron frying pan. It had been hard to sleep, even though Margaret had cleaned up the bed and found the boys a new blanket and left the window wide open. The smell of smoke still clung to Owen’s pajamas, and his eyes were red. And it was chilly in the old farmhouse that wasn’t really a farmhouse anymore. All the surrounding fields, which Owen could see out the window soaked in cold dew, belonged to other families and were worked by real farmers.

  Owen poured himself a glass of orange juice. “Did you ever think of moving to Elgin?” he asked his father.

  “Why would we want to do that?” Horace replied.

  “I don’t know,” Owen said.

  “Everything’s a lot more expensive in town,” Horace said. And then he changed the subject. “Are you nervous about school?” he asked.

  “A bit,” Owen said.

  “I remember getting so upset,” Horace said. “Because of the multiplication codes.”

  “What codes?”

  “Well, you know the multiplication tables” Horace said.

  Owen nodded. He had sweated for months to learn those.

  “Well, every year the teachers choose a new multiplication code,” Horace said. “They get together in a big, secret meeting in the summer­time, and they say, ‘Seven times six used to be forty-two, but this year we’ll agree to make it forty-seven.’”

  “They can’t do that!” Owen said in alarm.

  “Of course they can. They’re teachers. They can do what they want.” Horace took a long drink of his coffee and poked the bacon some more with a fork. “They might decide the new multiplication table was last year’s answer plus five. Or maybe plus five for even numbers and minus five for odd.”

  “But why would they do that?” Owen asked.

  “Otherwise it would be too easy,” Horace said. “If the tables just stayed the same every year, then what would the kids have to learn? The teachers would lose their jobs. Not enough work. The unions are very strong over this.”

  Horace started on the toast then, and that took all his attention, since the toaster didn’t pop on its own anymore and only heated things on one side at a time. Owen was left to ponder the terrible news while Leonard and Andy straggled down the stairs.

  Nothing could be counted on anymore, not even the multiplication tables.

  When Horace finished the toast he put it in the oven to warm, then turned his attention back to the frying pan. Owen watched as his father scooped the bacon onto a plate, wrapped it in a cloth to soak up the grease and placed the plate in the oven. Then he drained the rest of the grease from the pan into an empty jar, quickly cleaned the remaining grit off the surface and returned a small amount of grease to the pan.

  Owen had watched this mysterious process many times. Horace went to the fridge and pulled out six eggs — two for himself and one each for everyone else. In a few minutes, when the pan was again hot enough, he would one-handedly crack and pour each egg, then fire the empty shells into the sink for someone else to clean up.

  Horace did nothing in the kitchen at any other time, but he was the king of breakfast.

  Owen didn’t feel like the king of anything. He tried to think of what he was good at. Andy could conjure adventures out of air and Leonard was smarter than almost any kid his age, but Owen felt like he had no special skill. And the more he thought about it the less comfortable he felt, as if the walls of the kitchen itself were leaning in on him and either he had to grow this instant or he’d be squeezed to death. All through his body he felt an aching wave of nervousness that almost made his skin itch.

  And so, on the spur of the moment and before Horace could crack the first shell, Owen stood up and said that he wanted to cook his own egg.

  “You can’t cook your own egg,” Horace said irritably. He didn’t explain, but Owen under­stood. It would ruin the schedule. How long would it take to get this family through breakfast if everyone insisted on frying his own egg?

  But Margaret, who walked into the kitchen at precisely that moment, said sharply, “Of course he can!” Her hair was bunched up badly on one side of her head — the sign of a wretched night — and even her dressing gown looked rumpled and sore.

  “Owen can’t cook his own egg!” Andy said.

  “Why not?” Margaret asked.

  Andy hesitated, then said, “Dad does the breakfast!”

  “You boys need to learn how to make your way around a kitchen, too,” Margaret said. “Owen is certainly old enough to fry an egg.”

  Owen thought his brother would argue that he had no right to learn such a thing because Andy hadn’t learned it yet and the oldest always did everything first. But Andy stayed quiet and Horace grudgingly said, “All right,” and handed Owen an egg.

  Owen stepped up to the pan and concentrated on the sharp groove in the side, against which he had seen Horace crack the eggs countless times. It was a quick little motion, mostly a snap of the wrist.

  Owen tapped the shell against the side of the pan. Nothing happened.

  “Before you crack the egg,” Horace said, “you have to be aware of how hot the pan is. If it isn’t hot enough, then the egg doesn’t cook properly. But if it’s too hot —”

  Owen again tapped the shell against the edge of the pan, but he couldn’t dent it. . “You have to hit the thing, Owen! But don’t worry about that now. Listen to me! How do you know how hot the pan is? You can tell by the —”

  Splat! The shell suddenly collapsed in Owen’s fist as he was preparing to hit it against the pan for the third time. Cold, sticky egg guts dripped down the side of the oven and onto the floor.

  Andy and Leonard exploded in laughter as Owen stepped back to avoid the mess. Horace barked out, “Owen!” and Margaret instantly hovered with a cloth.

  “No, no!” Horace said. “If he’s going to do eggs, he has to learn to clean up, too.” So Margaret gave Owen the cloth and he wiped up the disaster, rinsing the cloth again and again to get off all the egg goop.

  Horace handed Owen another egg and said, “Now be careful —”

  But before he could finish the thought, Owen had dropped the egg onto the floor between his slippers.

  Andy and Leonard couldn’t contain themselves. They held onto the breakfast table and howled breathlessly while Owen staggered back to the sink to retrieve the wiping cloth yet again.

  “Hurry up!” Horace said. “The pan’s getting too hot!” All the time Owen was wiping up the egg, he was conscious of the angry snap and sizzle of the hot grease in the pan.

  Finally Horace commanded, “Leave that! You need to put the egg in now!”

  Owen had to spread his legs to make sure he wasn’t stepping in spilled egg. His race was so close to the pan that snapping grease pricked his cheek. He gripped another egg, and with all his concentration tried to make sure he didn’t fumble it on the floor, or squeeze it so hard that it shattered in his fingers.

  The others were crowding around now to see what new disaster he would achieve.

  “Hurry!” Horace urged, so Owen
tapped the egg against the sharp side of the pan. This time it cracked neatly halfway round.

  Owen stared at the miracle of it.

  “Open it!” Horace said.

  Horace always opened his egg with one hand, making it look as easy as unfolding your wings and flying away. But Owen realized now what a complicated thing it was. He dug his thumb and fingers into the crack and felt the shell quiver dangerously.

  “Use both hands!” Horace said, but too late. The shell had already collapsed, and egg now dripped down Owens shaking arm, half into the hissing pan and half onto the stovetop and down the crack where the oven door didn’t quite close.

  Both of Owen’s brothers became writhing, barking beasts, helpless with laughter.

  “That’s enough!” Horace said, and he grabbed the hot pan with his bare hand and then dropped it, full of searing grease and half-cooked egg, into the sink, where it sizzled in water like the flaming wreck of an airplane hitting the ocean.

  The boys had cold cereal for breakfast.

  On the way to school Owen wrestled with bad thoughts. Why was the world changing so recklessly? Why were the simplest things turning into disasters? He had tried to set up the crystal radio and almost lost his life having to climb down the drainpipe. Then he had tried to cook his own egg, and the kitchen had turned into a disaster zone. And what was waiting for him at school but a minefield of changed multiplication codes and who knew what else the teachers would dream up?

  Why?

  Because Sylvia was gone.

  Most mornings the boys would start walking to school together. Andy was supposed to make sure they all got to their classrooms safely, and while their mother could see them they usually stayed in a tight clump. They walked with their heads down, unspeaking, carrying their books and their lunch boxes. But as they got farther from the house and its hold on them weakened, the brothers would begin to separate. Andy was a fast walker, Leonard dawdled, scuffing his heels on the gravel road, and Owen kept a middling pace.

  So Owen was on his own as he approached the village. He came to the crossroads where his pulse always started to race. Because Sylvia’s house — her old house — was just down that road, and in the past Owen would always look to see if she was walking toward him in her blazing orange coat. Sometimes he had timed it perfectly and arrived at the corner just when she did.

  He could not keep himself from looking. But instead of a blazing orange coat, all Owen saw was a large, black-haired, slobbery-tongued dog with ears that nearly dragged on the ground and a tail that wouldn’t stop wagging.

  The dog immediately started running toward him. Something big and awkward was in his mouth — a slimy, muddy rock.

  “Hey! Down boy! Stop!” Owen cried, but muddy paws were on his chest, and the dog’s wet .face — and the rock — were rubbing against his neck.

  Owen pushed him away and started walking more quickly, but the dog circled, making pleading, whining noises.

  “Go home! Scram! Go away!” Owen said, but the dog wouldn’t let him alone.

  At the light Owen had to hold the dog down to keep him from running out into traffic. There was no collar, his coat was spattered with dirt, and he seemed to be shivering, although it wasn’t that cold.

  “Go home!” Owen yelled again, right into his pleading face.

  Owen crossed with the green light and the dog sat, looking sad and abandoned, until the light changed. Then, still carrying the rock, he sprinted right in front of an old truck that luckily was slow in starting.

  “You can’t come to school!” Owen yelled. He walked away and the dog sniffed and whined at his feet once more.

  School was very close now. Other children on the sidewalk looked at Owen strangely as he knelt to wipe the slobber off his hands onto the grass, and was licked in the face for his troubles.

  “Go home! Now!” Owen yelled.

  At last the dog seemed to understand. He trotted back toward the traffic lights.

  Owen walked away quickly. But just before the school gates the dog caught up with him again. This time he deposited the rock at Owens feet, then backed away in shivery anticipation.

  Owen picked up the rock and tossed it back along the sidewalk, just missing two girls who were walking, new notebooks and pencil cases pressed to their chests. The dog sprinted by them, chased down the rolling rock, pinned it with his forepaws and then opened his jaws enormously to lift it again in his mouth.

  Owen ducked inside the school yard just as the bell rang. The school was as big and dark and forbidding as ever, and he felt the familiar nervousness of the first day. Old as the school was — it looked as if it had been there since the Egyptians — everything on this day was new and up for grabs. Owen followed the long lines of children along the corridors and up the stairs to the classroom to which he had been assigned at the end of the previous year. Outside that room, however,’ instead of an orderly line, he found a mob of children around the door. A list of names had been posted, including Owens.

  “We have to go to a portable!” Joanne Blexton said.

  They all walked back outside to a drab wooden building on the edge of the playground. Though newer, it reminded Owen of his own rickety house. It looked like it had been pulled together out of a couple of garden sheds. The boys and the girls formed up in separate, parallel lines outside the door.

  In previous years Owen would usually do his utmost to make sure he was beside Sylvia in any such line. Then he wouldn’t look at her, but would be safe in the knowledge that they would be married. But now he didn’t care. He just fell in haphazardly, and looked without special interest to see that he would be marrying...

  Martha Henbrock, who was half a head taller than him, and who snorted like a horse whenever she laughed!

  Suddenly, wet gobbering lips smooched up and down Owen’s neck and ear, and he whirled to find the dog up against him again. Owen stepped back and pushed hard to get him off. All the other kids laughed and called out to the dog, who deposited the same muddy rock at Owens feet.

  “What’s his name, Owen?” someone called. “Mucus Face? Why did you bring him to school?”

  “I didn’t!” Owen said. He hurled the rock as far as he could out into the empty playground. The dog took off like a racer, his lean body close to the ground, ears flying back in the wind.

  “Children! That’s enough!” someone commanded, and Owen and the others turned to face their new teacher.

  She was much younger than he had expected, and she seemed very small for a teacher, though she had large, frizzy hair.

  The children slowly reformed their lines. The teacher waited until they were silent before addressing them again, this time in a much softer voice.

  “My name is Miss Glendon,” she said. “And you are the very first class of my teaching career!” A scarlet blush took over her face.

  “Oh, brother!” Martha Henbrock muttered.

  Owen heard the dogs snuffling, slobbering form getting closer and closer. He closed his eyes and wished himself miles away. But when he opened them he was still in line and the dog was kneeling in front of him, snorting and whining in gleam-eyed excitement over the muddy rock.

  “Shh!” Owen said under his breath, and he kicked the rock a few feet away. The dog pounced on it instantly and returned it to Owen’s foot.

  “Is this your dog?” Miss Glendon asked him. A teacher’s brand of broken glass had entered her voice.

  “No!” Owen said.

  “He seems to know you,” Miss Glendon pressed. “Do you have something of his?”

  “Just his goobery rock full of dog germs!” Martha Henbrock snorted.

  The boys’ and girls’ lines dissolved, and Owen found himself at the center of everyone’s gaze. He quickly picked up the rock again and threw it as far as he could over the roof of the portable. The dog dashed after it immediately.

  “
We should go in right away!” Owen said, wiping his sticky hand on his trouser leg.

  Miss Glendon hesitated a moment, then stood aside and let the children in. Owen, who was at the end of the line, was just able to duck in as the dog rounded the corner of the portable, the rock dripping from his mouth once more.

  “Get out of here! Go away!” Owen yelled before shutting the door.

  He hung up his jacket and chose a desk near the window. The dog was running around and around the portable now, looking to see where Owen had gone.

  Owen hid his face in his hands.

  If Sylvia were here this would be funny, he thought. She would pick a seat next to the window so she could watch the dog, and maybe for once in his life he would get to sit beside her.

  Instead, at this very moment, she was choosing her seat in a brand-new school far away, in Elgin, where there was no drooling dog, and no Owen.

  Owen turned to see, sadly, who was occupying the seat next to him. It was... Martha Henbrock. Without saying a word she passed him a note.

  “Get a load of her!” it said.

  Miss Glendon was standing in front of them.

  “Children!” she said. “Education Board regulations require that I draw your attention to the fire exits.” And she pointed to the closet. Already the armpits of her blouse were soaked with dark stains.

  “You can smell her, she’s so nervous,” Martha whispered.

  Miss Glendon broke her chalk and misplaced her notes, and sweat formed on her forehead when so many of the children squeaked their chairs against the floor and dropped their pencils one after another.

  “I think she’s going to cry!!!” Martha Henbrock wrote later in one of her notes. Miss Glendon’s eyes were puny, and she seemed unsure what to do when Dan Ruck’s ruler whirled across the room like a boomerang and bounced off the shoulder of Amanda Little, whose notebook spontaneously exploded, with blank pages fluttering everywhere.