Sammy hopped onto his and wobbled for a few feet before he toppled off. “Did you see me ride?” he yelled.
Dicey and James had ridden on other kids’ bikes in Provincetown, so they knew how. Claire took Maybeth aside to begin teaching her. Sammy needed no help, or so he thought. Dicey watched him for a minute and decided that he would manage on his own and that would be better than trying to get him to sit still and learn properly. She and James raced down the muddy driveway and back again. As they rode back, the rain intensified.
“We’d better get these in the barn,” Dicey called over to him.
“If we’d had bikes I bet we could have gone twenty miles a day,” James answered.
They took the bikes into the barn and dried them off with the tack cloth there. “If the rain lets up later, can I ride again?” Sammy asked. “I’m beginning to know how.”
“Maybe,” Dicey said. Claire had gone back to the porch. “We didn’t say thank you,” Dicey realized.
They quieted down when they came to the back porch. Maybeth went up to Will. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s more wonderful than anything. Will you tell everyone thank you?”
“I certainly will,” Will answered.
“For me too,” James said, and Dicey and Sammy added their thanks.
Will and Claire stood up then, while the rain poured down beyond the wire screens, over the trees and garden and marsh.
“Do you have to go?” Dicey asked. She felt that when they did go she and her family would be further away from the circus than before, than just that morning. “Can’t you stay for lunch? Can they?” she asked her grandmother.
Her grandmother looked hesitant.
“Perhaps you would allow us to take all of you to a restaurant for lunch,” Will said. He spoke to their grandmother.
That seemed to decide her. “And pay good money for what we can make better ourselves? Nonsense. If James and Sammy will empty the crab pots and Dicey will get us some tomatoes, I think I can feed us pretty well here. If you don’t mind eating out on the porch. If it’s not too cold for you.”
So they had lunch together on the back porch, while the rain faded away outside. They ate and talked. Will told their grandmother about how he first met the children, and how they turned up again with Mr. Rudyard on their heels. Then James had to tell about Mr. Rudyard again, because he told it best. Their grandmother picked crab meat and chewed and listened. She studied James’s face as he spoke. She looked from one to the other of them, especially at Maybeth. At the end she raised her eyebrows a little and said to Dicey, “You ran a risk to hire yourselves out.”
“I had to,” Dicey said.
“I can see that.”
Then lunch was over and it really was time for Will and Claire to leave. The rain had stopped by then and the thick masses of gray clouds were beginning to break apart. A golden bar of sunlight would occasionally slip past the guard the clouds had put up. But the mood as the children stood around Claire’s car, saying good-bye, was still rainy.
“Well,” Dicey said.
“Well,” Will said. Then, like a bolt of sunlight he changed the subject from good-bye. “It’s turning into biking weather, wouldn’t you say, Claire?”
Dicey grinned at him then. “Don’t lose touch with us,” she said. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a calling card, printed with the name of the circus and an address in New York City.
“My booking agent,” Will said. “He always knows where we are.”
Dicey reached up and kissed him on the cheek. His short beard scratched at her cheek as his arms hugged her, round and strong, for the briefest of times.
“You’ll be okay,” he assured her. “I don’t know what that old lady will do—I don’t think even she knows—but you kids, remember you can always call on us.”
Dicey nodded, and tried to smile. What was the matter with her today? Wasn’t she used to saying good-bye?
The white car drove off, splashing through puddles, its wheels throwing muddy water aside.
Sammy asked if he could ride his bike and Dicey gave him permission. Maybeth went into the house to help their grandmother clear up. James and Dicey worked out plans for mending the biggest holes in the side of the barn.
“Whadda you think, Dicey?” James finally asked. “Are we going to stay?”
“I think so,” Dicey answered. “I think we’ve shown her we can be useful. And not too much trouble. I think she likes Sammy—maybe because he’s named after her son—”
“Our uncle. Did you think of that?”
“And I’m pretty sure we’ll be okay here. All of us.”
“What about schools?”
“We can ride our bikes downtown and find out. Tomorrow. You want to?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“Then the next day.”
“That’s Labor Day.”
“Then Tuesday or next week. Why are you quarreling, James? Don’t you want to stay?”
“I guess so. I like it, and all those books. Do you think our grandfather was smart? Do you think he went to college or just read? What do you think he was like?”
“I don’t know anything about him except what she said. Would it be okay with you if we stayed?”
“Sure. It’s a good place. But Dicey, why did all of her children leave her? She’s not so bad.”
“Do you think there’s something we don’t know? Do you think it’s dangerous for us?” Dicey asked him.
“Do you like her?” James asked.
Dicey considered this. “You know? I could. I mean, she’s so odd and prickly. She fights us, or anyway I feel like I’m fighting her and she’s fighting back, as if we both know what’s going on but neither of us is saying anything. It’s fun.”
“You’re crazy,” James said.
“Maybe. But she’s a good enemy—you know? In that way. Cousin Eunice wasn’t.” Dicey thought some more. “So she might make a good friend,” Dicey said finally.
“You are crazy,” James said. He looked at her. “But you might be right. You’re smart too, Dicey, do you ever think about that?” Dicey hadn’t. It didn’t seem very important to her, not the way it was to James.
Sammy had ridden out of sight, beyond the long driveway. He wasn’t back in an hour and he wasn’t back in two hours. The rain clouds blew away, leaving room for a bright red sunset, where fiery lights burned behind the clouds that gathered around the lowering sun.
They had cold ham for supper, and Sammy hadn’t returned when they sat down. Dicey was worried. She didn’t dare say anything though. They sat down in a troubled silence.
When she heard Sammy’s feet on the steps of the porch, Dicey’s appetite revived. He burst in the door to the kitchen, his cheeks red, his eyes sparkling.
“Wash your hands,” Dicey said. She could see him and he was fine, he was safe and back again. Relief dissolved into anger then. She looked at her grandmother.
“When you’ve done that, go to your room,” their grandmother said.
Sammy turned. “But I’m hungry.”
“That’ll help you remember. Did you tell your sister where you were going?” Sammy’s jaw went out. He wasn’t going to answer, not to tell a lie.
“Did he tell you?” Dicey shook her head. “Did he have your permission?”
“Sort of,” Dicey said.
“Sort of?” their grandmother said in a sharp, sarcastic voice. “Sort of? How do you sort of give permission to disappear for hours at a time? What do you say? ‘Okay, Sammy, go sort of run wild and sort of let people worry’? Are you stupid, girl?”
Dicey chewed her lip. Why did every adult send kids away from the table? Maybe because nobody sent them to bed hungry. Maybe they’d forgotten what hungry was. But it wasn’t right. Dicey knew what hungry was, and so did Sammy.
“It’s not Dicey’s fault,” Sammy said. “It’s my fault. Don’t yell at Dicey.”
“I will yell at whom I please,” his grandmother answered him. “I h
ave told you to go to your room.”
“No,” Dicey said quietly.
“Dicey!” James whispered.
“It’s not right, James,” Dicey said. “It’s not right to send him to bed hungry. I can’t let that happen, and I was wrong when I let Cousin Eunice do it. Sit down and eat, Sammy,” Dicey said.
Then she turned to try to explain to her grandmother. Her grandmother’s eyes flashed. Her face was stiff and pale. Her lips were hard together.
“You,” Dicey said. She wanted to call her by name, but she had no name to call her. “You don’t understand, not what it is to be hungry. It doesn’t serve any purpose to punish Sammy that way.”
Her grandmother’s fury burned behind her immobile face. Her hand clenched the handle of the fork.
Dicey was frightened, with a fear that swelled up deep within her. This fear had two heads, and Dicey was caught between them: she was afraid to speak and lose what they had gained of a place for themselves in this house; she was afraid to keep silent and lose what she felt was right for Sammy, for her family. This was more difficult danger than any she had faced before. It wasn’t the kind of danger you could run away from, or fight back at. Dicey wasn’t even sure she wanted to fight. She just knew she had to stand by her brother and her family.
“Whose house is this?” their grandmother said. “Whose food? Whose table?”
“You’re right,” Dicey said. “It’s not our house, that’s what you said from the beginning. But we’re not your family, you meant that too, didn’t you?”
Her grandmother stared at her.
“Sit down and eat,” Dicey said to Sammy. James and Maybeth were staring at her. Everybody was staring at her. “But you’re not to ride the bike again for two days.”
“Aw, Dicey,” Sammy said. He slipped into his chair and cut his meat.
“I mean it. No matter what. Will you obey?”
Sammy nodded.
“You have to say when you’re going off,” Dicey said. She ignored her grandmother, who was sitting at the head of the table in a silence of furious anger.
Sammy nodded again. “I know. I will. I’m sorry, Dicey,” he said, with a weak smile. Then he turned to his grandmother. “I’m sorry to you, too. I didn’t mean to make trouble. But it’s my fault, not Dicey’s.”
“You’re a child,” his grandmother answered.
“So is Dicey,” Sammy said.
“I will not have this talking back!” their grandmother snapped.
“But it’s not talking back,” James said. His voice was high and frightened. “It’s explaining. We’re trying to get at the truth.” His grandmother stared at him before she answered, as if he had said something she didn’t understand.
“You are in my home,” their grandmother said. She looked around the table at the four pairs of hazel eyes, none as dark as hers. And none, except Dicey’s, as angry as hers. “My home, not yours,” their grandmother said.
We might as well have it out now as any other time, Dicey said to herself. She felt as if she had been running away from this for days, and she had only the last of her strength left. She had to turn and fight now. She took a deep, shivering breath.
“Are you expecting us to stay then?” she demanded. Her voice sounded thin and hard.
Her grandmother’s mouth worked, and she looked surprised, as if she hadn’t understood what it was they were fighting about this time. Her mouth formed words, but no sound came out. Finally she spoke:
“No.”
The word ballooned out and filled all the air of the kitchen. Dicey didn’t even try to argue. She just nodded her head and ate her supper in silence and helped with the dishes, and when the little children went up to bed she went with them. The No filled the whole air of the house. Every time she breathed in she breathed in that No. Dicey wasn’t even frightened anymore. She was simply defeated. She fell asleep suddenly and without any thought.
CHAPTER 11
Dicey awoke to a thick, black silence. She slipped out of bed and went to the window. Night smothered the land. A dark wind blew clouds over the face of the moon and over the little stars. This kind of wind blew in clear weather. So tomorrow would be a good day to begin traveling again.
They had only seven dollars left, but they had bicycles now, and Dicey had her jackknife and her map. What they didn’t have was any place to go.
Back to Bridgeport, Dicey supposed, the long way back.
Will couldn’t help them. They couldn’t live with the circus. James had to go to school. And so did Maybeth, but for different reasons.
Could they hide out? Could they find the circus again and travel south and then pitch a permanent camp somewhere? Dicey thought they could manage that. She could lie to any school officials. She’d be eighteen in five years. She could say they lived back in the hills with their momma and their momma couldn’t come in because she was working the farm. Nobody’d care enough to question, not as long as they showed up in school. There was a boy Dicey knew in Provincetown who ran away from home and he just kept on coming to school and nobody knew, not for months.
The plan was possible, Dicey thought. Only she couldn’t get excited about it. Having someplace in mind that you were traveling to was different from not having any place.
But it was a plan. She’d ask James what he thought. He might think they should go back to Bridgeport, and he might be right. One way or the other, north or south, they’d be moving on.
“Okay,” Dicey said to herself. “Okay, that’s what we’ll do.” She thought she’d go back to bed and sleep some more, if she could get to sleep again. She took a last look—seeing in her mind’s eye the things she couldn’t really see, the pines and the fields, the marshes and the bay beyond, the barn that held the sailboat like a buried treasure in its dark belly. Dicey belonged here. She belonged here; yet she was being blown away. Well, it wasn’t her house, that was true. It was their grandmother’s house and they were not welcome. They would stay together, at least that. She could go along with Cousin Eunice on everything except about that; she wouldn’t agree to sending Sammy or Maybeth away. She’d say that right away.
Dicey noticed a yellow light, flowing onto the lawn below the porch. Had somebody left the kitchen light on? She went downstairs to turn it off.
Her grandmother sat at the kitchen table wearing an old striped cotton bathrobe. She had a cup of tea before her and a pad of paper on which she was writing. Her hair was all in tousled curls. She looked up at Dicey when Dicey came in.
“I couldn’t sleep so I’m writing that silly woman, Eunice,” she said.
Dicey stared. Her grandmother was pretty. Her face had delicate straight bones, and those wide dark eyes.
“What’re you staring at, girl?”
“You. You’re pretty. I never noticed,” Dicey said. “Never mind. I saw the light from my window. I didn’t know anyone was here. I’m sorry.”
“Sit down,” her grandmother said. “Get a glass of milk first. I wondered who’d taken that room when I heard you up there. Get your milk and sit—I’ve got something I should say to you.”
Dicey poured herself a glass of milk and sat down. She had never really looked at her grandmother before, just at the enemy she had to trick, just at her bare feet.
“It’s okay,” Dicey said. “I’m not going to argue about staying.”
“Wouldn’t do you any good,” her grandmother said. She put the cap on the pen and twisted it shut. “But I should apologize for yelling at you.”
Her grandmother’s mouth twisted in her sudden smile. “That Will seems a good man. Could you go to him? Would you rather do that than go back to this woman?”
“I was thinking about that,” Dicey said. “I was going to ask James what he thought. He’s the one, really, he should go to school. Well, Maybeth should too.”
“Maybeth’s not retarded,” her grandmother said.
“I know that. She is slow though. Not as slow as she seems in school, but . . . ” Why go over thi
s again? “There was a lady, a nun, in Bridgeport. She might help Maybeth.”
Her grandmother sipped at her cup of tea and Dicey drank at her milk.
“I want to explain,” Dicey’s grandmother said. “I’ve never explained before, to anyone, but I have to now. Because, in a way, I do want to keep you here. But I can’t.”
Dicey nodded. She could feel how true that was. Her grandmother went on speaking.
“I’m old. Not very old yet, but getting older. You can’t tell what will happen. What if I fell sick, for instance. And I’ve very little money. When my husband died he left some insurance. Enough to live on if I live carefully. I don’t mind that. But it’s expensive with children.” She smiled again. “I’m already going to have to die a month sooner than I planned, with the food this week.”
“That’s crazy,” Dicey said.
“It’s a joke, girl,” her grandmother said. “I mean to explain that I don’t have the money. Will said Social Security would give me money for you. But I never took charity.”
“Momma wouldn’t, either. That’s why she was taking us to Aunt Cilla’s house,” Dicey said. “I understand about that,” she said.
“There’s more too,” her grandmother said. “I don’t know whether you can understand this now, but if not now there’s always later. I was married for thirty-eight years and my husband just died these four years ago. Until then, until he died—when you marry someone you make promises. I kept those promises, love and honor and obey. Even when I didn’t want to I kept them. I kept quiet when I had things to say. I always went his way.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Dicey said.
“It is, isn’t it. Since he died, I’ve been different. It took a while, but—it’s my own life I’m living now. I had a hard time getting it. I don’t want to give it up. No lies, no pretending, no standing back quiet when I want to fight.”
Dicey thought of Cousin Eunice. She couldn’t picture her grandmother like Cousin Eunice. It would be awful if her grandmother was like that.
“It’s okay,” Dicey said. “I understand.”
“That’s more than your momma could,” her grandmother said. “She felt sorry for me—do you know that?”