The Wonder of Charlie Anne (23 page)

“Stop looking at her,” I tell them.

I open my mouth and start singing, too, and I sing the only song I know, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.” I am screaming and croaking and belting out the words, and when I look over, Phoebe seems in pain just to listen to me. Belle and Anna May walk away,
and pretty soon Olympia, Minnie and Bea follow them, and I tell them all, go, good riddance, who needs friends anyway?

Two more feet and I am higher in the elm tree than I have ever been, and I sit myself on my swing and then I jump.

I feel myself fall, fall, fall, the earth coming close, and then the rope catches and I sail out, and then the swing catches me again, because swings are like that, and I am flying back the other way, straight back, and I try and twist myself around because when you’re on a swing, you need to know where you are going.

And just for an instant, I see Anna May over by the privy looking at me with her molasses eyes, but they are not soft, they are filled with cow-worry.

Then I slam into the tree and feel myself crumple and my hands let go of the ropes, and I am falling to the ground, where the roots of the elm tree rise up in a gnarled and angry mess.

When I look up, there is Mirabel picking me up and carrying me into the house, and I am thankful she is pretty good with cuts because I have a lot of them.

All the next morning I sit on my swing and watch to see if Phoebe is looking for me. After a long time, she comes out and crosses the road and pretends she can’t see me. She climbs over the fence and walks right up to Belle. I can hardly believe it.

“Did it hurt when Charlie Anne climbed up on you like that?” she says, kissing Belle all over the nose. “She doesn’t know how to treat a cow, does she?”

I am off my swing like a bullet. “Don’t you be touching Belle,” I yell at her, rushing over. My cuts hurt quite a bit. “You stay away from her, do you hear?”

But she does touch her. She touches her all over and then she pats her all tenderly on her wet nose and whispers little soft words in her ear, just the way Belle likes it. Anna May comes rushing over to see what the dickens is going on and if maybe Phoebe has some corn in her pocket, or maybe an apple. Then Phoebe is giving little whispers in Anna May’s ears, too. I think she is telling her bad things about me.

“Don’t you be doing that. Don’t you be saying things about me to Belle and Anna May.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Phoebe says,
backing up from Belle and looking at me. “I’m not even
thinking
about you, Charlie Anne.”

Well, that hurts just a little because I have been thinking about Phoebe ever since school, but I do not let her know that. Then Phoebe gives Belle and Anna May big goodbye hugs and sets off toward the river.

“Don’t you dare go in our fields,” I yell. “That river is ours. Plus it’s too dangerous now.”

“I know how to be careful of a river, Charlie Anne. Why are you acting all stupid?”

Well, that makes me so mad I run after her, a little slowly on account of my cuts, and I grab her arm and jerk her around to look at me. “I AM NOT MAD. AND STAY OUT OF OUR FIELDS.”

Phoebe yanks herself out of my grip and she hisses, “Don’t you ever touch me again, Charlie Anne.”

All of a sudden I know exactly where she is headed. “Oh, no,” I tell her. “Don’t you dare go by my mama. I am not sharing her with you.”

“I am not going by your mama. And when did God make you the owner of that river?”

That’s the last thing Phoebe says before she turns away from me and stomps off into our fields, and I climb back on my swing and spend a whole long time swinging higher than Phoebe.

When I get tired of swinging and go in the house, Mirabel wants to know why I have been missing for so
long, because she wants me to dump all the potato peels on the compost.

It is getting cold. The sheets I hung out are stiff. Mirabel will tell me soon to go get them and bring them back in, it’s too cold, she’ll say, and I will want to tell her why didn’t she think of this before?

I am thinking about this when Mama starts calling,
Hurry, Charlie Anne, hurry.
I hear the river rushing over the big rocks that sit piggyback on each other out in the middle, and when it does, it makes a booming, booming, booming. I’m not talking to you, I tell her.

Hurry, Charlie Anne, hurry
, she calls again, and I put the compost bucket on the ground and put my ear up to the wind. The river is loud from all the rain last night.
Hurry, Charlie Anne.

I walk down by the clothesline and out past Anna May and Belle. Their eyes are filled with cow-worry. I climb over the fence and through the garden, now all picked over, and start along the way that Phoebe went, out through the cornfield with all the corn cut down.
Hurry, Charlie Anne, hurry
, and now Mama is screaming and the river is screaming, too, and I’ve never heard either of them do this before, and I begin to run.

I fly over corn stubble, listening to the water pound. I call out to Mama, and when I reach her, the river is racing like there’s no tomorrow and I ask Mama what is wrong, and she says,
Phoebe.

I do not see anything except churning, rushing
water. My heart pounds. I hurry downriver where the beech trees are all silvery with yellow leaves, and I look out and keep asking Mama where is Phoebe, but now that I am so close to the river, all I hear is the roaring.

I don’t know what you’re saying! I yell back to Mama, and I rush up the ridge that towers over the water and go by Mama.

Hurry, Charlie Anne. Go down to the water. Hurry.

I rush back down the bank, slipping, and hurry along the river edge, listening, listening, listening, but all I can hear is the crashing of the water.

I am so afraid that Phoebe has fallen into the river. I yell for her, but I cannot even hear myself over the churning water.

I go back and forth along the river edge, retracing my steps, over and over. Mama is saying the same thing, over and over:
Hurry, Charlie Anne, hurry.
I tell her to stop so I can listen. Is somebody moaning?

Yes
, Mama tells me.
Yes, yes, yes. Hurry, Charlie Anne, hurry.

My heart is leaping. I run, screaming “Phoebe, Phoebe,” and right then and there I start praying to the angels again, because it’s the only thing I can think of. Please, I pray. Please, please, please, let the best friend I ever had keep being the best friend I ever had.

And then I hear it, a tiny, thin little voice. Phoebe! I look around me, all around, but there is nothing out of place on the ridge, nothing on the bank, nothing along the river. But I hear it again, and this time it is louder. It is awfully sad and awfully tired and awfully hurt.

Hurry, Charlie Anne, hurry!
screams Mama.

I rush toward the voice, a moaning coming from behind a pine tree, and then I stop because there is my Phoebe on the ground. Her face is turned up and she is very still and worst of all, her foot is caught in one of the Thatcher boys’ rusty old traps. There’s a big red
T
painted on the side, and the rushing in my head starts as soon as I see the blood, and I believe I am going to fall over right here. “Oh,” I say. “Oh, oh, oh.”

She is wearing boots, but the trap has chewed right through the rubber and there is blood coming out. Then she is moaning again. I say a prayer to the angels that I won’t faint and fall over. “Phoebe, Phoebe. I am here,” I say, kneeling down.

She doesn’t do anything but moan. Big moans, now, and I am afraid, and I don’t know what I should do. She is lying on the ground and her skin is river cold.

“Phoebe. It is me. Charlie Anne.”

Phoebe does nothing but moan a little more, and then she opens her eyes and closes them again. I take off my jacket and make a pillow for her and lift her head up real careful, and then I am not sure what to do. I put my head on her chest and listen to her heart. It is a slow quiet beat.

Her foot is a terrible-looking thing, and I try and pull the jaws of the trap apart, but they are strong. I pull at the chain that holds the trap to the tree, but I can’t break it, and the moving makes Phoebe moan. I cry out to Mama. I am not sure if I should leave Phoebe or if I should stay. I am not sure if she will be alive when I come back.

I rush along the river, looking for a rock big enough to smash the chain, and Mama tells me that won’t work, that I need something to wedge the trap open, but I tell her that maybe she doesn’t know everything, and I carry a rock as big around as a slop bucket and drop it on the chain, and that makes Phoebe cry out and then faint.

Then I start sobbing.

Stand up, Charlie Anne. This is no time for quitting.

Mama says to go find a rock that is shaped more like a fence stake so I can wedge it in the trap and force it open. The trap is big and Phoebe’s foot is small and it might work, says Mama.

Phoebe is moaning again. “I’ll be right back,” I whisper in her ear.

New tears are falling down my face and I have to wipe them away so I can see my way back down to the river.

I rush down the hill, searching along the river for a rock the right size. After about a hundred years, I find something at the edge of the water that might work, and I rush back to Phoebe.

I wedge the rock in the space between her foot and the side edge of the trap and push, and I scream out to Mama, and Phoebe lets out a terrible cry as the trap opens, and then she faints again.

“Phoebe!” I scream. “Now don’t you go and die.” Then I stagger quite a bit as I try and pick her up, and I slip, but I keep holding on to Phoebe, I keep holding on, and when I finally get her up into my arms, I tell my legs they better carry me and my best friend up the hill.

Good job
, says Mama.

I am rushing, but Phoebe keeps sliding down from my arms, and I have to keep hoisting her back up, and when I do, she whimpers, and it cuts right through my heart. By the time I get out to the cornfield, I am nearly dropping her.

But there is Mirabel way down at the clothesline, hurrying to bring in all those wet sheets. I am glad to
see her, even though she is probably good and mad at me right now, and I scream for her. She looks up, wondering why I am carrying such a big load.

“MIRABEL!”

It takes her only a moment to know there is something terribly wrong, and she throws the sheets on the ground and rushes toward me.

She has trouble running. She keeps hoisting her dress up over her knees. “Oh my God,” she says when she sees the blood, and Mirabel is reaching for Phoebe and pulling her into her arms. She hugs Phoebe to her chest and rushes for Old Mr. Jolly’s house and I am flying right behind.

At the door, I don’t bother knocking, I fling it open, and there are Rosalyn and Old Mr. Jolly having a fight over some sort of paint job Rosalyn wants to do.

“She’s real bad,” I tell them, and Mirabel lays Phoebe on the couch and we all crowd around and Rosalyn starts to cry.

It turns out that Mirabel is good at big cuts, too, and she gently pulls the boot off Phoebe and I think I am going to faint from all the blood and Mirabel tells Rosalyn to help her prop up Phoebe’s feet and then go and get a washbucket and lots of cloths, and while Mirabel is getting the bleeding to stop, Rosalyn sponges off Phoebe’s face and I hold her hand. Phoebe cries out
and Mirabel asks Rosalyn to soothe her and sing to her and try and keep her quiet and I thank Mama that Mirabel is getting everything right.

Old Mr. Jolly is already in his coat and hat. There is no hospital for one hundred miles, but there is a doctor, three towns over. Old Mr. Jolly comes over and lays his hand on Phoebe’s face and then reaches out and squeezes Rosalyn’s hand, and she tells him how scared she is and he says, “Me too,” and then he says, “Take care of our little girl.”

And then he is gone and I am all choked up and we are left with Mirabel telling us how making sure the wound is clean is the most important thing. Mirabel makes me keep getting fresh water from the well, and as I do, I am thinking about how sorry I am about everything, about my terrible bad behavior when Phoebe was my teacher assistant and my awful manners and how I’d like to take everything back.