That boy could steal your heart. I said, “Jake Boone! If I were blindfolded and you came in the room, I’d know it was you—I know what you sound like, smell like. I’d just know it was Jake Boone filling up that room!”
His face turned about thirty-three shades of red, but he said, “And if I was blindfolded, and you walked in the room—cripes, I’d know it was you from three miles away! If I was blindfolded in Chocton, and you walked into a room in Bybanks, why, I’d know it—”
“Okay, Jake, I get the picture—”
We were getting a little sappy, but sometimes a little sap is nice. I wouldn’t want to drown in it, though.
Since then, we’ve had picnics on the porch and in the larch groves, and one day we cleaned the cabin from top to bottom, but we put all baby Rose’s stuff back where we’d found it. Except for the dolls. Baby Rose and baby Zinny, each holding her own medallion, sit side by side on the bed. I figured they’d appreciate a little air.
It feels good to run up that trail with Jake, and it feels good to go in the cabin and remember baby Rose and Aunt Jessie. All kinds of memories are coming back, whole drawers full of them. It doesn’t seem weird or morbid to be up there; it seems somehow necessary, at least for a time.
Sometimes I think I see Aunt Jessie and baby Rose running through the hills together, and sometimes I race down the hill after them. I know they aren’t really there, that this is an image in my mind, one that I want to see. I am not completely loopy. But I do often think that there’s a very fine line between people in your head and “real” people out there.
Meanwhile, I think I’m going to teach Jake how to do the boogie-woogie. Tootle-ee-ah-dah— I’ll tell him, and maybe he’ll answer me. Maybe he’ll say, Make that company jump!
Read an excerpt from Sharon Creech’s novel
Excerpt from
The Great Unexpected
PROLOGUE
My name is Naomi Deane and I grew up in Blackbird Tree, in the home of my guardians, Joe and Nula. Among the tales that Joe often told was that of a poor man who, while gambling, lost his house but won a donkey.
“A donkey?” the poor man wailed. “What do I want with a donkey? I cannot even feed a donkey.”
“No matter,” replied the donkey. “Reach into my left ear.”
The poor man, though shocked that the donkey could talk, nonetheless reached into the donkey’s ear and pulled out a sack of feed.
“Well, now,” the poor man said. “That’s a mighty handy ear. I wish it had food for me as well.”
“Reach into my right ear,” the donkey said.
And so the poor man reached into the donkey’s right ear and pulled out a loaf of bread, a pot of butter, and a meat pie.
Joe went on like this, spinning out the tale, with the poor man pulling all sorts of things out of the donkey’s ears: a stool, a pillow, a blanket, and, finally, a sack of gold.
I loved this story, but I always listened uneasily, fearing that something bad would be pulled from the donkey’s ears. Even after I’d heard the tale many times, always the same, I still worried that the poor man might reach in and pull out a snapping turtle or an alligator or something equally unpleasant and unexpected.
Sensing my fear, Joe would say, “It’s only a story, Naomi, only a story.” He suggested that I say to myself, “I’m not in the story, I’m not in the story”—a refrain I could repeat so that I would feel less anxious.
And so each time the poor man would reach into the donkey’s ears, I would tell myself, I’m not in the story, I’m not in the story, but it didn’t help because a story was only interesting if I was in the story.
CHAPTER 1
A BODY FALLS FROM A TREE
If you have never had a body fall out of a tree and knock you over, let me tell you what a surprising thing that is. I have had nuts fall out of a tree and conk my head. Leaves have fallen on me, and twigs, and a branch during a storm. Bird slop, of course, everyone gets that. But a body? That is not your usual thing dropping out of a tree.
It was a boy, close about my age, maybe twelve. Shaggy hair the color of dry dirt. Brown pants. Blue T-shirt. Bare feet. Dead.
Didn’t recognize him. My first thought was, Is this my fault? I bet this is my fault. Nula once said I had a knack for being around when trouble happened. She had not been around other kids much, though, and maybe did not know that most kids had a knack for being around when trouble happened.
All I really wanted to do that hot day was go on down to the creek and hunt for clay in the cool, cool water. I was wondering if maybe I could deal with the body later, when the body said, “Am I dead?”
I looked at the body’s head. Its eyes were closed.
“If you can talk, I guess you’re not dead.”
The body said, “When I open my eyes, how will I know if I’m dead or alive?”
“Well, now, you’ll see me, you’ll see the meadow, you’ll see the tree you fell out of, so I guess you’ll know you’re alive.”
“But how will I know if I’m here or if I’m at Rooks Orchard?”
“I don’t know anything about any rook or any orchard, so I can pretty much guarantee that you are here and not there. Why don’t you open your eyes and have a look around?”
And so the body opened his eyes and slowly sat up and looked all around—at the green meadow, at the cows in the distance, at the tree out of which he had fallen, and at me, and then he yelled, “Oh no!” and fell back on the ground and his eyes closed and he was dead again.
CHAPTER 2
LIZZIE
No sooner had the body laid back down than I heard the warbling voice of Lizzie Scatterding. Lizzie often felt it necessary to sing—in a high, trembly, warbly opera voice—when she was outdoors.
“Oh, lar-de-dar, the sky so blue”—definitely Lizzie—“the fields so green, oh lar-de-dar—”
Lizzie was my friend, and usually I was glad to see her, but I was not sure how she was going to handle seeing the body at my feet. Sometimes Lizzie could be a little dramatic.
“Oh, lar-de-dar—Naomi! Is that you?” Lizzie stopped in the middle of the path and crossed her hands over her chest as if to keep her fragile heart steady. “Naomi!” She ran toward me, her frizzy mane flopping here and there.
“Ack! Naomi, what is that? Is that a person?” She inched her way around to stand in back of me so that I was her shield. “Who is it? Where’d it come from? Is it dead?” She clutched my shoulders. “You didn’t kill it, did you?”
“It fell out of this here tree. I thought it was dead, but then it spoke, and now it’s gone off again.”
I kneeled beside the body and put my hand on its chest.
“Is it breathing?” Lizzie asked. “Take its pulse.”
I held the body’s wrist. “I can feel something gurgling in there.”
“Oh, my! Then it’s alive. Have you ever seen it before? What did it say when it spoke—before it went off again?”
“Something about a rook’s orchard, or maybe a crook’s orchard.”
Lizzie’s foot nudged the body’s foot. “Maybe it was in an orchard place and a crook tried to kill it and so he hid in this tree and then when you came along—”
“Maybe we should stop calling it an it.”
Lizzie studied the body’s face. “Never saw it before, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Look in its pockets, Naomi. See if it has something with its name on it.”
“I’m not looking in any boy’s pockets, dead or alive. You look.”
Just then the body grunted. Lizzie skittered sideways like a crab.
“Good gracious! I swear to bats! It’s alive!” Her hands were protecting her fragile heart again. “Naomi, the poor thing. What if his internal organs are hurt? What if he is bleeding to death and we don’t even know it? Naomi, you must get help.”
The body spoke. “Am I here—?”
Lizzie squealed. “It has a voice!”
Its eyes were still closed. “A
m I here—or am I there?”
I touched his hand. “You’re here.”
“How will I know that?”
“Well, ding it, you are here. If you weren’t here, you wouldn’t be hearing me, would you? You’d be somewhere else. But you’re not somewhere else, you are here!”
“Naomi, you don’t have to be so harsh. It’s a poor body lying there maybe bleeding to death and it just wants to know if it is here.”
“Fine. Then you take over, Doctor Lizzie.”
“I will.” Lizzie carefully placed herself beside the body, folding her legs daintily beneath her. “Now,” she cooed in the softest of tones, “everything will be just fine. We need to find out who you are and if you are injured in your internal organs.”
The body was silent.
Lizzie inched a little closer. “Boy, can you tell me your name?”
Silence.
“Boy, do you have family around here?”
Silence.
“Naomi, do you have a cool cloth?”
“No, Lizzie, I do not happen to have a cool cloth on my person.”
“I feel we should put a cool cloth on this poor injured boy’s forehead.”
“I don’t have a cool cloth.”
Lizzie sighed a deep, meaningful sigh. “Oh, dear, oh, dear.” She lightly touched her fingers to the boy’s head. Then she leaned closer and blew on his forehead.
“Whatever are you doing, Lizzie?”
“I am cooling the poor boy, Naomi. I am bringing comfort until such time as he can rouse himself.”
“What if he can’t ever rouse himself? What if he dies for good?”
Lizzie tapped the boy’s shoulder. “Please do try your best to rouse yourself and tell us your name.”
Silence.
“I am pleading with you, boy.”
Silence.
“Naomi, you will have to get help. I will stay here with the poor, injured boy. Please go. Please hurry.”
But before I could move, the boy spoke again. “Don’t take the gold.”
“Naomi, he spoke! He told us not to take the gold!”
“I’ve got ears, Lizzie. I heard him.” I tapped his arm.
“What gold?”
Silence.
I scanned the area. No gold in sight. I asked louder: “WHAT GOLD?”
“Naomi, please don’t shout at the poor, injured boy.”
The boy opened his eyes.
“Naomi, he opened his eyes.”
“For heaven’s sake, Lizzie, I’m not blind.”
“My name is Finn.”
“Naomi, he said his name! He said his name! His name is Finn!”
“There isn’t any gold,” he said.
“Naomi, he said—”
“I know, I know what he said. There isn’t any gold. There isn’t any silver, either. There aren’t any emeralds or rubies or diamonds—”
“—He didn’t say any of that, Naomi. He only said about the gold.”
“No gold,” the boy repeated.
“See?” Lizzie said. “No gold.”
CHAPTER 3
ACROSS THE OCEAN: REVENGE
MRS. KAVANAGH
While Naomi and Lizzie were learning the name of the body that fell from a tree, across the ocean in a stately manor on the southeastern coast of Ireland, the elderly Mrs. Kavanagh paused as she wrote on a piece of fine parchment. She placed the pen to one side and tapped a finger on the desk.
“There. Enough for now.” She smiled a wistful smile. “’T’will be a fine, fine revenge.”
Her companion, Miss Pilpenny, recapped the pen. “Yes, Sybil, a fine and clever revenge.”
“Shall we have a murder tonight?”
“Indeed, Sybil. Splendid notion.”
“And then perhaps a little jam and bread.”
“Indeed. That plum jam from the Master’s orchard?”
Old Mrs. Kavanagh laughed, a sudden girlish burst that was followed by prolonged wheezing.
Miss Pilpenny rubbed the old lady’s back until the wheezing subsided. “There, there. You can rest now.”
CHAPTER 4
THE BODY SPEAKS
The body named Finn asked if we had any sweets on us.
“Candy?” I said.
“Yes. Can-dee,” he said, as if he had never said the word before.
Then he asked if we had any can-dee drink.
“Candy drink?” Lizzie said. “Whatever do you mean, Finn boy?”
By this time, Finn had sat up and commenced to scratching himself: his head, his neck, his belly, his ankles. “You call it, wait, you call it—soda pop. You got any of that?”
You could take one look at me and Lizzie and see that neither one of us was carrying anything whatsoever, so where would we be stashing soda pop?
“No soda pop,” I said.
Apparently Lizzie thought I was too abrupt. She smiled at Finn and put her hands together under her chin. “I think this boy needs some refreshment, Naomi. I think this boy is hungry and thirsty.”
“I think this boy is old enough to say what he wants, Lizzie. I think this boy is not invisible.”
Lizzie ignored me. “Finn boy, are you entirely sure you are not bleeding from your internal organs? Because if you are, you should not move, and we should send Naomi for help. But if you are not bleeding from your internal organs, then perhaps we should escort you home, if you would be so kind as to tell us where that might be, Finn boy.”
“No. No help,” Finn said, leaping to his feet.
“Oh, my,” Lizzie said. “Are you entirely sure you should be upright?”
“I’m fine, fine.” Finn rotated his head and his hands. He lifted one foot and then the other. “I’ll be going now.” Finn turned and started off across the meadow.
“But wait,” Lizzie called. “Wait, wait, Finn boy!” She ran up behind him. “Won’t you let us escort you home? What if you become faint along the way? What if—”
“I can make it fine.”
Lizzie was protecting her fragile heart again. “But, Finn boy, at least tell us where you live. We’ve never seen you in these here parts before.”
Finn looked to the left and right and then to the sky above. “I’m staying up the hill apiece.”
“Up that hill?” I said. “Black Dog Night Hill?”
“That’s what you call it? That’s where I’m headed.”
“But nobody lives up there, nobody except the—” I looked at Lizzie. She looked at me. “Nobody except the dim Dimmens clan.”
Lizzie batted at me with her hand. “Shh.”
Finn looked right in my eyes, calm as could be, and said, “That’s where I’m staying, up at the dim Dimmenses’ place.” With that, he continued on his way with only the slightest limp.
“Look what you’ve gone and done, Naomi.”
“What? What’d I do?”
“You called them the ‘dim’ Dimmenses. That’s so rude.”
“That’s what everybody calls them. That’s what you call them.”
“But not to their—their—houseguest.”
“‘Houseguest’? Since when did you start calling company ‘houseguests’?”
“Oh, Naomi. That poor, injured boy. That poor, poor Finn boy.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHARON CREECH is the author of the Newbery Medal winner WALK TWO MOONS and the Newbery Honor Book THE WANDERER. Her other work includes the novels THE UNFINISHED ANGEL, HATE THAT CAT, THE CASTLE CORONA, REPLAY, HEARTBEAT, GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP, RUBY HOLLER, LOVE THAT DOG, BLOOMABILITY, ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS, CHASING REDBIRD, and PLEASING THE GHOST, as well as three picture books: A FINE, FINE SCHOOL; FISHING IN THE AIR; and WHO’S THAT BABY? Ms. Creech and her husband live in upstate New York. You can visit her online at www.sharoncreech.com.
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OTHER WORKS
ALSO BY
SHARON CREECH
Walk Two Mo
ons
Absolutely Normal Chaos
Pleasing the Ghost
Bloomability
The Wanderer
Fishing in the Air
Love That Dog
A Fine, Fine School
Ruby Holler
Granny Torrelli Makes Soup
Heartbeat
Who’s That Baby?
Replay
The Castle Corona
Hate That Cat
The Unfinished Angel
CREDITS
Cover art © 2012 by Zdenko Basic
Map illustration by Marc Burckhardt
COPYRIGHT
“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
From BUCK PRIVATES
Words and Music by Don Raye and Hughie Prince
© Copyright 1940, 1941 by MCA MUSIC PUBLISHING, a division of MCA INC.
Copyright Renewed
International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved
Chasing Redbird
Copyright © 1997 by Sharon Creech
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Creech, Sharon.
Chasing Redbird / by Sharon Creech.
p. cm.
“Joanna Cotler books.”
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Zinnia Taylor uncovers family secrets and self truths while clearing a mysterious settler trail that begins on her family’s farm in Kentucky.