Heartbeat

  DEDICATION

  for my bella granddaughter

  Pearl Bella Benjamin

  and

  for my bello friend

  William C. Morris

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Footfalls

  Max

  Before I Was Born

  Queasy

  But!

  Grandpa

  The Racer

  Moody Max

  Bare Feet

  Tickets

  The Alien

  Rooms

  Mother of the World

  Questions

  Fears and Loves

  Pumpkin Alien

  Fried Chicken

  Saving

  Footnotes

  The Skeleton

  An Apple a Day

  Heartbeat

  The Coach

  The Kick

  Flip, Flip, Flip

  Perspective

  Grandpa Talk

  Mad Max

  The Birthing Center

  Apple

  The Bite

  Lines

  Forbidden Words

  Shoeless

  A Gift

  Pumpkin Baby

  Treasure of Words

  The Stranger

  Shoes

  Presents

  The Race

  Flurry

  Labor

  Pushing

  Eternity

  Watching

  Infinitely Joey

  Sleeping

  A Secret

  The Package

  Yum Boy

  One Hundred Apples

  Extras

  Sharon’s Story in Her Own Words

  Just How Alike Are Sharon and Annie?

  Hear from Sharon About Heartbeat and More

  Try Out Heartbeat Reader’s Theatre

  Excerpt from The Great Unexpected

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Other Books by Sharon Creech

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  FOOTFALLS

  Thump-thump, thump-thump

  bare feet hitting the grass

  as I run run run

  in the air and like the air

  weaving through the trees

  skimming over the ground

  touching down

  thump-thump, thump-thump

  here and there

  there and here

  in the soft damp grass

  thump-thump, thump-thump

  knowing I could fly fly fly

  but letting my feet

  thump-thump, thump-thump

  touch the earth

  at least for now …

  MAX

  Sometimes when I am running

  a boy appears

  like my sideways shadow

  from the trees he emerges

  running

  falling into thump-thump steps

  beside me.

  Hey, Annie, he says

  and I say, Hey, Max

  and we run

  fast

  and

  smooth

  and

  easy

  and we do not talk

  until we reach the park

  and the red bench

  where we rest.

  Max is a strange boy

  thirteen

  a year older than I am

  deeply serious

  determined.

  He’s in training

  he says

  in training to escape.

  BEFORE I WAS BORN

  My mother says

  I was running running running

  inside her before I was even born.

  She could feel my legs whirling

  thump-thump, thump-thump

  and she says that when I was born

  I came out with my legs racing

  as if I would take off

  right then, right there

  and dash straight out of her life.

  She says it made her laugh

  and it scared her, too,

  because she’d only just met me

  and didn’t want me to race away

  quite so soon.

  She says I’ve been

  running

  running

  running

  ever since—or nearly ever since—

  I ran before I crawled

  I ran from dawn to dusk

  And sometimes at night

  she would see my legs still restless

  as if I were running

  in my sleep

  through my dreams.

  I tell her not to worry

  that I will always come home

  because that is where

  I get my start.

  QUEASY

  I was worried about my mother

  who started taking naps

  and stopped eating

  and threw up in the kitchen sink

  and in the bathroom

  and in the car

  and I was pretty sure

  she had a deadly disease

  and she would shrivel into nothing

  and she would die

  and I would be alone

  with my father

  who would cry

  and I would run run run

  but I would have to come back

  thump-thump

  thump-thump

  sooner or later.

  BUT!

  But! My mother did not die.

  She does not have a deadly disease.

  Instead she has a baby growing

  inside her

  little tiny cells

  multiplying every second

  and the queasiness has stopped

  and now she feels good—

  like a goddess, she says

  and we look at the books

  which show cells

  multiplying

  and it seems miraculous

  and strange

  and sometimes creepy

  and I ask her if it feels as if an alien

  is inside her

  and she says

  Sometimes, yes.

  GRANDPA

  Grandpa lives with us

  ever since Grandma died

  and now we take care of him

  because he is poorly.

  He says he is falling to bits

  little pieces stop working each day

  and his brain is made

  of scrambled eggs.

  On his wall are photos

  of when he was young

  and he looks like me

  with frizzy black hair

  and long skinny legs

  and often he is blurry

  because he was running.

  One photo shows him standing tall

  with a medal around his neck

  and a trophy in his hands

  but his face is not smiling

  and when I ask him why

  he was not happy

  sometimes he says:

  I don’t remember

  and sometimes he says:

  Is that me?

  and sometimes he says:

  I didn’t want the trophy

  and when I ask him why

  he didn’t want the trophy

  sometimes he says:

  I don’t remember

  and sometimes he says:

  A trophy is a silly thing.

  THE RACER

  Mom says Grandpa was a champion racer.

  He won the regionals when he was nine

  and the state championship when he was twelve

  and the nationals when he was fifteen

  and then

  he stopped

  running

  and he w
ouldn’t say why

  and he didn’t run again

  until my mother was three

  and the two of them could run

  together

  and that, my grandfather told my mother,

  was the only kind of running

  he would ever do

  because it was the best kind of running

  and the only kind of running

  that made any sense to him at all.

  MOODY MAX

  Moody Max

  Moody Max

  puzzles my brain.

  I’ve known him all my life.

  Our grandpas used to take us

  to the same park

  the one we run to now.

  We balanced each other

  on the teeter-totter

  tossed sand at each other

  dug in the dirt together.

  We got older

  played catch with pinecones

  pushed each other on the swings

  chased around the grass.

  Max would laugh one minute

  scowl the next

  pinch my arm

  and then kiss the pinch mark.

  Then his father left

  and his grandpa died

  and Max got quieter

  more serious

  and when he ran

  he pounded the dirt

  with his feet

  and ran farther and faster

  as if he could run

  right out of his life.

  He thinks I’m spoiled

  because I’ve got two parents

  and a grandpa

  and maybe he’s right.

  BARE FEET

  We always run barefoot

  Max and I

  because we like the feel

  of the ground

  beneath us

  gritty dirt

  smooth leaves

  crunchy twigs

  polished pebbles.

  Even when it’s cold

  we run on the hard, frozen path

  our bare soles

  slapping down.

  Even when it snows

  (which is hardly ever)

  we fly through the wet fluff

  our toes tingling

  our feet red

  and alive.

  Some people think

  we are a little bit crazy

  running barefoot

  through rain and mud and snow

  but it doesn’t feel crazy to us.

  It feels like what we do

  and it’s one of the things

  I like best about Max:

  that he will run

  barefoot

  with me.

  TICKETS

  I am running up the path

  behind the church

  when my sideways shadow

  Max

  appears

  falling into step beside me

  thump-thump, thump-thump.

  Hey, Annie

  Hey, Max

  and on we go round the bend

  past four white birches

  tall and thin

  with leaves of gold

  and peeling bark

  like shreds of curled paper

  and my breath is going out

  into the air

  into the trees

  into the leaves

  and his breath is going out

  into the air

  into the trees

  into the leaves

  and we breathe in

  the air and the trees and the leaves

  and we breathe in

  our own breaths mixed together

  and thump-thump, thump-thump

  down the hill we go

  to the creek

  one l-e-a-p over to the bank

  up the hill

  past the old barn faded red

  one side curved inward

  like a big dimple

  around the pasture

  newly mown

  smell of growing grass

  slim green blades sticking

  to our feet bare and brown

  until we reach the red bench

  beside the sycamore tree

  with its mottled trunk

  and wide yellow leaves

  and we flop onto the bench

  and breathe breathe breathe

  while Max checks his time

  on his grandpa’s pocket watch

  and he looks displeased

  and says we will have to

  pick up the pace on the way back

  and I tell him

  he can pick up his own pace

  but my pace is fine

  thank you very much

  and he says I will never get anywhere

  if I don’t pick up my pace

  and I tell him

  I don’t need to go anywhere

  and he says

  You might change your mind someday

  and it will be too late.

  He wiggles his feet

  flexes his ankles

  These feet are my tickets

  out of here

  he says

  sounding tough

  like a boy in a movie

  not like the other Max I know.

  I look at my feet

  which don’t look like tickets to me.

  They look like two feet

  browned by the sun

  that like to run.

  THE ALIEN

  It is hard to believe

  that the alien baby

  is really growing inside my mother

  because you cannot see anything

  and she cannot feel anything—

  not yet, she says—

  and sometimes I dream

  that it is not a human baby in there

  but that it is a rabbit

  or a mouse

  or one time I dreamed it was

  a miniature horse

  silky and smooth

  with petite hooves

  and when it was born

  my mother said

  Oh! A horse!

  It’s not what I expected!

  And I said we should keep it

  anyway

  even though it was not

  what any of us expected

  because it was rather a nice

  little horse.

  ROOMS

  The baby is going to share my room

  with me.

  It is a small room but a crib will fit

  and I am glad the baby

  will be with me

  although my mother says

  it might be annoying at first

  because the baby will wail and cry.

  Grandpa says the baby should have

  his room

  that he should just get on with it

  and kick the bucket

  to make room for that baby

  and my mother tells Grandpa

  that he cannot kick the bucket

  he is not allowed

  because the alien baby

  needs to see its grandpa

  and sometimes Grandpa forgets

  about the baby

  and when my father bought

  a pint-sized baby outfit

  Grandpa said

  Is someone having a baby?

  And so we told him again

  about the alien baby growing

  in my mother

  and Grandpa nodded

  and said, again,

  that he should kick the bucket

  and make room for the baby.

  I go out running

  thump-thump, thump-thump

  in the air, in the wind,

  under the autumn sun

  and I think about Grandpa

  when he was young

  running running running

  and I wonder how it must feel

  not to be able to run anymore

  and not to remember even

  that you could run once

/>   and it seems as if

  he is evaporating

  or shrinking

  disappearing—

  little pieces vanishing each day

  while the alien baby

  grows bigger and bigger

  multiplying cells

  which I hope are baby cells

  and not rabbit or mouse or horse cells.

  MOTHER OF THE WORLD

  We live in a small yellow house

  on the edge of a small town

  with one main street

  and two stoplights.

  Max lives in an apartment

  not far from me.

  He says he hates our town

  and will live in a big city someday

  where no one knows your business

  and where there would be

  a million opportunities

  and even he—

  “a small-town boy

  without a father”

  (which is the way he describes himself)—

  even he could be somebody.

  He gets mad when I tell him

  he is already somebody.

  Often he reminds me

  that when I was seven

  he asked me what I wanted to be

  when I grew up

  and my answer was

  Mother of the World!

  although I have no idea now

  why I said that or what I meant.

  Max said—at seven—

  that he was going to be a famous athlete

  and he would open camps

  all across the country

  free ones

  for boys like him

  where they could run

  and play

  and be free

  and have no worries.

  And that is still

  what Max wants to be and do.

  Max also reminds me