One Time Read online

  Dedication

  To all the Stretchberrys and Lightstones

  who light the way

  Epigraph

  Tell me, what is it you plan to do

  with your one wild and precious life?

  —MARY OLIVER

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Tell Me

  New Neighbors

  The Angel, the Groubes, and the Clackertys

  The Light, the Pollen, and the Elephant

  Nonna Filomena, the Angel, and the Fight

  The Porcupine, the Angels, and the Counselor

  The New Teacher

  Margie and Arif and Renaldo and Freddy and Me

  Miss Lightstone

  First Lines

  The Blue Frog

  Who Is It?

  Miss Judy and Miss Marlene

  The New Boy

  The Smile

  The Moon and the Lake

  Uncle and Auntie Pasta

  Mångata

  Sheep Talk and Family Trees

  That Old Swamp

  Pasta and the Frails

  A Package

  The World Turns

  Swirls

  Experiment

  Lasagna

  Images

  Pancakes and Porcupines

  Fictional Trees

  Predictions

  Komorebi and Pasta

  Small Secrets

  More Experiments

  The Clackertys

  Crows

  Uncle and Auntie Pasta Return

  Hobbit Holes

  Silence

  Absence

  Ribbity Rabbits

  The Hole in the Room

  Anyone Home?

  Woozy

  Missed

  Delivery Boy

  Sukey

  Adjusting

  The Knight, the Lion, and the Badger

  The Trial Smile

  The Desk

  One Time

  The Extra

  The Substitute

  The Announcement

  What I Saw

  The Exchange

  Onward Time: Twenty Years Later

  Sources

  About the Author

  Books by Sharon Creech

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Tell Me

  I wonder about you: who are you?

  Dear Miss Lightstone:

  I am Gina Filomena, age eleven.

  Sometimes teachers think I am not paying attention, but what they mean is that I am not paying attention to them. I pay attention to lots of other things like what is happening outside the windows, and the noises in the room, like the humming and the tapping and the snapping and the sniffling, and all the smells—some good, some bad. But I will try to pay attention to you.

  I will try.

  Your student,

  Gina F.

  When the new teacher asked us to write something about ourselves, that’s what I wrote. I did not write about the angels or the boy with the visions.

  No need to scare her.

  New Neighbors

  A month before school began, new neighbors and their cat moved into the house next door. When I spotted the cat sitting forlornly on Dad’s parsley plants, I tried to pet it, but the fur on its back shot straight up. A tall boy appeared from behind the moving truck and snatched the cat.

  “That’s Mr. Blue. You don’t want to touch him,” he said. “Cat is mean as spit.”

  The boy seemed about my age. Hard to tell. He was tall and lean but not skinny, and he moved as if his bones and joints were loosely connected. His hair was black and curly, shorter on the sides and longer on top so that it flopped over his forehead on one side. His eyes were black and shiny, his skin so smooth. In one hand, he held a jackknife and in the other hand a small piece of wood.

  I liked that boy from the minute I saw him. There was something calm and relaxed about him, something kind, but most appealing was his smile: a wide, gleaming, welcoming smile.

  Later, when I thought about that smile and its effect on me, I realized that people didn’t often smile in that open, inviting way. When I met Antonio with that generous smile, I was caught off guard, stunned. Maybe you would have been, too.

  “You going to live there?” I asked.

  “Guess so.” He nodded at my house. “You going to live over there?”

  “I already do. I’m Gina.”

  He tapped his chest. “Antonio.”

  An older girl came out onto the porch, scowling. “Nut head! We need some help here!” Later I learned that she was Carlotta, his cousin, and that his grandmother also was moving in.

  I didn’t see much of the new neighbors the first week they were there. Occasionally I heard someone calling for Mr. Blue, but by the time I made it to the window, the cat was already dashing into their opened door.

  I asked my dad what he thought about the new neighbors.

  He rubbed his hands together and leaned toward me. “Ah! Spies, you think?”

  My father liked to speculate.

  One time, at the grocery, when a clerk took a long time ringing up our order, Dad wondered if she was tapping in an extra code. He examined the receipt closely as we left the store. “Maybe there’s a coded message here, like ‘Help me. I’ve been kidnapped.’”

  Oddly, that’s kind of how I felt when I saw that Antonio boy, that maybe he was sending out coded messages into the air, through that smile. I felt a strong pull to help that boy, whether he actually needed my help or not.

  The Angel, the Groubes, and the Clackertys

  My grandmother, Nonna Filomena, liked to tell stories about the feisty and moody Angel Lucia who lived “high up in the mountains of Italy, where the earth is the color of chocolate and the sky the purest blue.”

  One time, when the townspeople in the village below were bickering over a piece of land, Angel Lucia threw down buckets of hail—right in the middle of summer.

  Another time, Angel Lucia pecked holes in all the pies sitting on windowsills to cool because one cook had denied a beggar a piece of fresh pie.

  One time Angel Lucia swept through the town, snipping flowers from yards and gathering them into a bouquet for a poor girl who was getting married but had no money for a bouquet.

  I never doubted the angel, no matter how outrageous the tales about her were. I welcomed her, adored her, depended on her.

  Not everyone appreciated Angel Lucia. My mother, for instance, might say, “Really? Really? Maybe Angel Lucia was hungry for pie.” Or, “Really? I’d like Angel Lucia to throw down some hail on the Groubes.”

  The Groubes were the family who used to live next door, before the new neighbors moved in. They had three angry, nasty boys who swore and threw eggs on houses and whacked people with sticks and left stinky garbage rotting in their driveway. Dad told me to ignore them and said that if Angel Lucia could hear them, she would coat their tongues with molasses so they would stick to the roofs of their mouths.

  I was relieved when the Groubes moved out and the new neighbors with that tall Antonio boy moved in. They made no noise whatsoever.

  This did not mean the whole neighborhood was now quiet because at the other end of Hatch Street lived the Clafferty family with seven or eight children (hard to count) and a little yippy-yappy dog. Dad called them the “Clackertys.” The kids ran around shouting and fighting, and the parents yelled at them to be quiet or get inside or go outside or quit hitting/punching/spitting/throwing, and the little dog yipped and yapped and yipped and yapped. I walked or ran the long way around the block rather than pass by their house.

  The Light, the Pollen, and the Elephant

  A few days after the neighbors moved in, I was mowing the grass when Antonio came outside. He walked to the back of his yard, peered into the bushes, and crept along the tree line.

  “You looking for Mr. Blue?” I asked.

  “Nope. Did you see anything strange out here this morning, like anything growing fast or dripping pollen?”

  “Um, no.”

  He was wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts. That skin—it was so smooth. He smiled that smile.

  He said, “Last night, I saw a white light, bigger than the moon, lighting up the black sky. It was surrounded by an orange halo, and it sped above the trees”—he waved his arm across the sky—“and it changed shape from round to thin and flat, like a pancake.”

  “A pancake?”

  “And it was so bright, so bright, and then it was gone.”

  “I wonder what it was.”

  “After it left, the tops of the trees right there were blackened.” He gestured toward the trees. “And tall, thick green stems sprouted from the earth and grew taller and taller, until they were as tall as—well, as tall as me!”

  “As tall as you?” I looked toward where he had motioned.

  “And velvety red flowers blossomed, dripping yellow pollen. Right there.” His hands made circles in the air and his fingers wiggled down, down.

  I saw nothing: no blackened trees, no sprouting plants, no red blossoms dripping. “But now?” I said. “Where—?”

  “All gone! But it happened and I saw it.”

  Two days later, when I was taking out the trash, Antonio’s cousin, Carlotta, called to me from their back door.

  “You!” she said. “Have you seen Antonio?”

  “Hi. I’m Gina—”

  “Have you seen Antonio?”

  “N
o. Is he—”

  The door closed abruptly.

  From behind the bushes, up popped Antonio. He put a finger to his mouth. “Shh.”

  “I guess you don’t want to be found,” I said.

  “Right.” Antonio acted as if he were resuming a conversation. “So, yesterday I saw the elephant.”

  “The elephant? What elephant?”

  “The one down the street.”

  “I’ve never seen an elephant on this street.”

  “You haven’t? Well, maybe he’s new. Anyway, I saw a frog sitting on his head.”

  I thought maybe I wasn’t hearing correctly. “A frog? On the elephant’s head?”

  “Yes, and the elephant raised his trunk and felt around the top of his head”—here Antonio felt around the top of his own head in imitation—“until the elephant reached the frog, and then he gathered it up in his trunk and set it down on the ground. Gently. As if it were a child.”

  He smiled that smile. I expected little flashes of light to sparkle off his teeth.

  “An elephant. A frog. I wish I’d seen that.” I leaned toward him and whispered, “Do you need help of any kind?”

  “No,” he whispered back. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  When I told my parents about Antonio seeing the elephant, my mother said, “Really? An elephant?” She glanced out the window. “Haven’t seen any elephants around here today, or, well, ever.”

  Dad said, “But you never know. When did that boy see the elephant?”

  “Yesterday, I think.”

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Dad said, already pulling on his jacket. “See if we can spot any elephants.”

  So we walked down the street, past a dozen small bungalows like ours and past the noisy Clackertys (two kids up in a tree, shouting at another on the ground below them; one kicking a trash can up the driveway; two throwing rubber balls against the house; one banging on the door and shouting, “Let me in! Let me in!”; and the little dog trailing its red leash and yipping and yapping and nipping at ankles). We walked the length of the street and around the block, all the way back to our house.

  “No elephant,” Dad pronounced. “I bet someone stole it.”

  “Dad!”

  “Probably one of the Clackertys.”

  Nonna Filomena, the Angel, and the Fight

  Each year on my birthday, Nonna Filomena, my grandmother who lived in Italy, sent me updates on Angel Lucia and also something colorful to wear—a scarf or blouse or skirt—made of delicate materials and unusual colors mixed together: deep crimson and emerald green or cobalt blue and bright gold.

  No one else in town wore this sort of clothing and for my first few years of school, the other kids took no notice of my clothes, just as I did not take much notice of theirs. It wasn’t until I was eight or nine that they began to comment. Some mocked me. Others imitated me, arriving with colorful scarves or bright blouses or sweaters, but the clothing I had was not easily copied, not from stores near us.

  One time, a mother made her way to our house and pleaded her case with my parents.

  “It isn’t fair,” the mother said. “My daughter whines all day long: ‘Why can’t I have clothes like Gina’s? Why can’t I have colorful scarves?’ It’s driving me insane. Please, can’t you dress her like everyone else?”

  My parents listened attentively, nodding now and then. “But we don’t dress her,” my mother said.

  “You know what I mean,” the woman said. “Get her normal clothes.”

  “And what are normal clothes?”

  “You know, you know! Look around, see what the other kids wear.”

  “But her nonna sends her these clothes from Italy. It gives her pleasure. You want us to deny her old nonna that pleasure?”

  “Whatever!” the mother said. “Just do something! It’s driving me crazy, and I’m not the only one who feels this way, you know.”

  “Oh?”

  “If you’d listen, you’d hear,” the woman said, and with that, she left.

  I’d heard it all from the kitchen. My father raised his hands to the ceiling. “People are so silly in the head!” He patted my shoulder. “To me, you look perfect.”

  My parents said nothing more about the complaining mother, and I didn’t worry about what she had said. It wasn’t as if I didn’t care that other kids were whining or envious; it was more that I could not understand it. I could not understand why anyone would want to look like anyone else.

  So, I guess the fight was inevitable.

  After school on a hot, dusty day, I got off the bus with others.

  “You! Gina!” a girl said. “Gypsy!” She said gypsy with scorn in her voice, her words doused with lemon juice.

  Two of the Groube brothers, perpetually angry boys, leaped on the challenge.

  “Yeah, Gina gypsy!” they taunted.

  Another said, “Get me my sunglasses. Oh, she is blinding me.”

  The girl who had first called my name snatched the silk scarf trailing from my waist. She pulled hard, ripping it and knocking me off balance.

  “What?” I said, not challenging, but calm, because I thought it was a fleeting game.

  The girl leaned in close, so close that I could smell her cinnamon gum. “You think you are so special.”

  The Groubes took up the chant. “Special gypsy! Ooh! So special!”

  The girl slapped me on the cheek and stood in front of me, hands on her hips, daring me to take up the challenge.

  “The angel in Italy—” I began.

  “Ha ha! Did you hear her?” a boy said. “An angel? In Italy?”

  “—would—”

  “Would what?” the girl said.

  I smoothed the fragment of the scarf at my hip. “The angel in Italy would freeze your words and let them fall like little ice chunks onto the ground.”

  For a few moments there was quiet, as the girl and boys absorbed that, and then the girl snarled, “Who do you think you are? Talking about a stupid angel!”

  One of the Groubes looked as if he was thinking about what I’d said, trying to picture words like ice chunks falling to the ground. At his feet was gravel, and maybe because he had no words of his own and imagined the gravel as words, or maybe simply because the gravel was there, he scooped up a handful and tossed it at me.

  The stones hit my forehead and arms. As I turned to walk away, the others scooped up gravel and threw it at me, with more force this time.

  There was only one thing to do: summon the angel in Italy.

  The next day, my father accompanied me to the principal’s office, where several mothers and their children, the gravel throwers, were gathered.

  “There she is!” Mrs. Groube said. She reached down to lift her son’s pant leg, revealing red welts along the shins. “See what she does, that girl!”

  The others pushed their children forward, displaying welts on their legs, too.

  “Ah,” Dad said. “Gina?”

  I pushed my bangs aside so they could see the gravel cuts. I slid the sleeves of my blouse up above the elbows, disclosing more cuts.

  One mother covered her mouth, shocked to see the fresh wounds.

  “But she started it!” one of the Groube boys said, and the others chimed in, “She did, she did!”

  The principal glanced around the room, nodding at each face. “Let me speak with Gina alone,” she said.

  Once the door was closed, the principal said, “So? Gina? I am a little surprised.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I do not believe you started it, but I am surprised that you fought back.”

  I had the feeling she was secretly pleased I had defended myself, but she could not encourage fighting.

  “What prompted you?” she asked.

  “The angel in Italy.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Angel Lucia. She was with me. She told me to pick up the branch, to swing it around, low, not high, so they would trip and stumble. Then she froze the words in their mouths and all they had left were little eee eee eee whimpers.”

  “Well. I see. Hmm. Angel Lucia, you say?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The principal nodded slowly. “I could use an angel like that.”

  The Porcupine, the Angels, and the Counselor

  But after all that, after the Groubes had moved away and the new, quiet neighbors had been there about a week, I spotted Antonio standing in the middle of our backyard.