From Ant to Eagle(12)

Aleta didn’t say anything. Instead she stood completely still. She seemed hypnotized by the slow, circular motion of Mom’s hand on Sammy’s back. There was a really awkward silence that seemed to last forever.

“I hear you have a sister,” Mom said, trying again.

Again Aleta said nothing.

I felt my ears growing hot. I felt embarrassed. I took a step toward Aleta and that seemed to snap her out of her daze.

“Aleta?” I said, trying to urge her to speak.

Her eyes looked frantically from me then back to Mom again. She looked like she wanted to say something but then thought better of it. Her mouth moved to form words but nothing came out. She stepped backwards, fumbled for the door handle, then turned and ran out.

Without saying a word—just like that—she left.





CHAPTER 8

BY THE TIME I HAD RUN OUT THE DOOR AFTER ALETA, SHE WAS at her bike, picking it off the ground. The once white clouds were now dark and grey and ominous.

“Hey, wait up!” I yelled, jogging up to where the bikes were. “Is everything all right?”

I knew the answer as soon as I saw her. Her green eyes were bigger than ever and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

She looked away.

“Everything is fine,” she sniffed, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve. “I just need to get home before my dad starts to worry.” Her bad excuse became worse when her voice broke down at the final few words, but before I could offer any comfort she was off, pedalling hard down the driveway toward the road.

“Hey! Hang on, I’m coming with you!” I shouted, grabbing my bike off the ground nearby. “It’s going to start to rain soon. Maybe we should wait for my dad to get home so he can drive us.”

Whether she was too far ahead to hear or just didn’t care to answer, she rode on, not acknowledging me.

I pedalled hard to catch up but she must have been pedalling hard too because we were a good ways down the road by the time I caught her. A light drizzle had started and I knew from the humidity in the air that it would only be a few minutes before that drizzle turned into a torrential downpour.

“Aleta, I really think we should turn back, it’s going to start to rain really hard soon.”

She looked defiant—like it would take a hurricane to make her turn around. We carried on in silence and as I’d suspected, the rain picked up with every minute. The road became wet and slippery, and the visibility rapidly worsened.

I saw a thick grove of trees ahead. “Aleta…” There was no need to finish; she was already veering off the side of the road toward it. The rain was coming down like a waterfall and I could hardly see her though she was only a few metres in front of me.

We dropped our bikes and ran into the woods, clothes sticking to our bodies like paint.

The trees offered good shelter so the ground was still dry. Aleta sat down, eyes red, hair matted like the first time I’d seen her in church. She was crying still, and the only noises in the forest were the rain hitting the canopy and her soft whimpers.

For a moment I just stood there watching her, unsure why she was crying, unsure what to do about it. But then I thought about Mom and what she did when Sammy or I were sad so I sat down next to her and wrapped my arms around her. I thought she might pull away—I’d only met her two days before—but she didn’t. Instead she moved closer into my arms and rested her head on my shoulder, and that’s when she broke down. Her quiet whimpers turned to loud sobs and her tears began to flow. I held her tight, not saying a word.

I don’t know exactly how long we sat there, I was lost in my own thoughts, but my daze broke when I realized Aleta had stopped crying. I let her go and she slid from my arms and sat back.

“Sorry,” she said. Then, more to herself, she whispered, “I promised myself I wouldn’t have a sad day.”

“A sad day?” I asked.

For a moment she sat chewing her bottom lip and though she was beside me, I could tell her mind was somewhere else. Judging by the way her nose crinkled and her eyebrows turned in—she didn’t like where she was. The sleeves of her shirt were wet and bunched up around her elbows and I noticed rows of faint lines running down her forearms. I reached out and touched one of the lines and that seemed to snap her back to the present. She pulled her arm away and rolled down her sleeve.

“Never mind,” she said quickly. “We should probably get going. The rain has stopped and I don’t want my father to worry.” She stood up and walked to the edge of the grove with an urgent look on her face. I wanted to ask her again why she was crying but I knew she didn’t want to talk about it, so I stood up and followed.

As we rode silently back toward her house, the clouds cleared and the sun came back out. It was weird, one moment it was raining like we were going to need an ark and the next the sky was blue and clear as if it had never rained at all. The only evidence was the puddles pockmarking the road and we zigzagged to avoid them.

When we got to the end of Aleta’s driveway I stopped my bike. I looked at the upstairs window expecting to see a shadow watching but there was no one. Still, I didn’t want to go near the house. “I should probably just say goodbye here.”

Aleta glanced at her house then back to me.

She grinned and nodded.

I expected her to ride away and that to be the end of that. I figured after the disaster of a day there wouldn’t be any more bike rides but to my surprise she stood there looking at me as if waiting for me to say something.