She looked up at the kitchen clock. It was two fifty-five. Bernie’s bus was due at three forty-five. She didn’t know what to do with herself until then. It occurred to her later that she should have enjoyed the peaceful patch of time, read her book, taken a nap, but all she could do was pace up and down the worn kitchen linoleum and keep willing the hands on the clock to move faster. Has Grandma disappeared like Verna? Was she so sick and tired of Angel and Bernie that she’d just run away from home? Where on earth could she be? Angel should never have made her think she had to look after Bernie. That was it. The last straw. But I couldn’t help it. He had to have someone to watch him at the bus stop. And she offered. I didn’t force her into it. She said she would.
At three thirty, she couldn’t stand it any longer and ran down to the mailbox, only to start pacing up and down the road, craning for a sight of the yellow bus. Oh Lord, how am I going to explain about Grandma to Bernie?
She heard the bus before she saw it, shifting gears to get up the hill on the far side of the trailer. Finally, it lumbered into view, coming bumpily down the middle of the dirt road. With a squeal of brakes and flashing of lights, it pulled up by the mailbox.
The door whooshed open. “Okay, kids, hop on it. I ain’t got all day.”
Kids? What did the driver mean, kids?
She soon saw. First, Bernie bounced down the stairs, then slowly, very slowly, clinging to the rail as long as possible, Grandma. As soon as she was on the ground, the driver yanked the door shut.
“Grandma?”
“Well, I couldn’t call a taxi now, could I?”
“She stayed in my room all day!” Bernie was practically jumping up and down. “I was the only kid at school with a grandma in my class all day!”
“Are you okay, Grandma?” Angel asked anxiously. The old woman’s lined face was not nearly so cheeiy as Bernie’s round one.
“Ah, ginger snaps!” the old woman exclaimed. “Let’s get in there and get us something to eat. Have you ever tried to eat that pig slop in the school lunchroom? Bleeeh.”
Bernie giggled with delight. “Me and Grandma throwed our whole lunch in the garbitch!”
“Oh, Bernie.” Well, anyway he was happy. It couldn’t have gone too badly.
She gave Grandma some warmed-over coffee and a piece of toast and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with milk for Bernie. The milk looked so cool and inviting, she poured herself a glass and drank it quickly, feeling guilty about downing milk she ought to save for Bernie.
“You need any school supplies, Bernie? I got to run to the store and get me some.”
Bernie looked at Grandma. Did he expect her to remember what he was supposed to bring the next day? “Nah,” said Grandma. “They got more junk in that room than they know what to do with now. We ain’t spending our Social Security check for none, are we, Bernie boy?”
“Nah.” They both began to giggle.
Angel cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Grandma, but I’m going to have to borrow some of your money. Verna will pay you back later.” The old woman snorted in disbelief, but what else could Angel do? She’d given Grandma all the rest of her taxi money for the phone calls, and she had to have the supplies. “You want to walk to the store with me, Bernie?”
“Nah. I’m too tired. Me and Grandma need to rest, right, Grandma?”
She was relieved, really. She could go so much faster without him, and she wouldn’t have to use even more money to buy him a treat. But as she walked down the road, she kicked the dust. He had always depended on her up until now. He’d always chosen to be with her over anybody else around. She almost felt like crying.
FOURTEEN
Draco the Dragon
If it hadn’t been for the stars, she might have given up trying. Going to school was like running through a minefield in a war movie. She had to keep up the lie that her mother was home but the doctor had ordered her to bed because of severe back trouble, so she wasn’t able to take phone calls or to come in for a conference. She avoided all the other kids like poison. That was the easy part. No one was dying to be buddies with her.
She tried not to let it rub her raw that Bernie and Grandma were thick as thieves and treated her like she was some stern parent when she tried to make them eat their vegetables or practice reading—Bernie, that is. She didn’t try to make Grandma read, but Grandma was no help with Bernie. She just giggled and acted silly when Angel was trying to help him, which made him all silly, too.
So she couldn’t have stood it without the nights of starry skies. She would wait until Bernie and Grandma were asleep, pinching herself to stay awake, no matter how tired she was, and then sneak out to the old pasture. The star man was always there before her, lost in the heavens. She would wait beside him quietly, not daring to disturb him, until suddenly he would begin ta
lking about the sky.
“There’s old Draco the Dragon, his tail slinking around, dividing the Big Bear from his little brother. Want to see?” Then he’d adjust the telescope to her height and let her look. When she would squint and squint and still not be able to see what he was talking about, he would make her look at the naked sky and point out the constellation. “Okay. Find Dubhe in the lip of the Big Dipper and look toward the North Star—Polaris.” She obeyed. “Now, the tip of the dragon’s tail is just between Dubhe and Polaris. Then it snakes around and takes a sharp bend”—he drew it in the air with his pointed finger—“and ends in another sort of dipper. That’s the dragon’s head. See the bright star at the end of its snout and the star beside it? In ancient times those were called the dragon’s eyes. But the beautiful double star is on the top of its head. You need to see that through the telescope.” And then, with unbelievable patience, he would help her find the pair of beautiful pale-yellow stars in Draco’s head.
Angel could not remember it all, of course. She would go back to bed and lie there in the dark, head spinning, too tired to look up anything in her beloved book, too excited to sleep. It had taken more years than she could conceive of for the light from those stars to reach her eye. To her they were the most magnificent, the most wonderful, things she had ever seen. When the stars sent that light rushing toward the earth, she, Angel Morgan, wasn’t even alive, wasn’t even going to be born for ages and ages. She shivered. To the stars she was not even pond scum. Not even a speck of dust. Not even...not even...She tried to think of something smaller than nothing, but she couldn’t imagine it.
***
Three weeks after school began, Megan Armstrong, who hadn’t spoken to her since the first day of school, came strolling over to where Angel sat eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the back corner of the lunchroom. “It isn’t true, is it?” she said in a snooty sort of voice.