The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech

Author:Sharon Creech
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780061892325
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

A PATCH OF DIRT

Where I wanted to go was the moon, as far, as far away as I could go. There I would not be able to hear chatter about blood and death. There I would be able to see all the larger world beyond our place, beyond Blackbird Tree, beyond our whole country, beyond our earth.

I fled to the barn and clambered up into the loft. The late-afternoon sun streaked through cracks between the boards, filling the loft with stripes of thick, dancing dust. A layer of hay covered the floor. A mouse dashed across a rafter.

Old egg crates were sloppily stacked along one side of the loft, a pile of ropes and rags slumped near the window, and on the far wall loomed the trunks. They were large, sturdy wooden trunks with heavy brass hinges and locks. When I used to play up here, I rode the rounded-top one like a horse. The two flat-topped ones were, variously, chow wagons, hay wagons, train cars, houses, even islands. I’d never seen the contents of the trunks, but according to Joe and Nula, one contained my father’s things, one my mother’s, and one Nula’s.

When I’d asked Joe why he and I didn’t have trunks, he replied, “We don’t have any junk worth saving, Naomi.”

I probably assumed the trunks were full of old clothes and blankets, nothing of interest to me. Until, that is, the day I heard Joe say to Nula, “When are you going to get rid of those trunks?”

“Why, I can’t do that,” she said.

“Don’t see why not. They’re just full of dead … things.”

“They are not dead. You leave those trunks alone, Joe.”

And somehow, my young mind took that to mean there was something living in the trunks. That night I dreamed it was my parents in the trunks, shrunken and clawing to get out. They called to me, “Naomi, Naomi, let us out—”

Nula tried to comfort me. “Shh, shh,” she said. “Just by living, just by being Naomi, you are letting them out.”

Although I did not know what she meant, it must have reassured me that night, but I avoided the trunks from that day on.

Now, in the loft, fleeing the funeral crowd, I heard, “Naomi.” The voice was soft, whispered. “Naomi.”

I stepped away from the trunks.

“Naomi, it’s me.”

There was Finn, at the loft ladder.

“You scared me,” I said. “I didn’t hear you.”

“You never hear me … until I’m here.”

I was happy to see Finn, but I felt awkward, so troubled by the day and the talk of dogs and of Joe.

“What’s in those?” Finn asked, gesturing toward the trunks.

“Stuff.”

Finn looked different, but I wasn’t sure how exactly. He wasn’t dressed up like everyone else, and there was dust in his hair, as if he’d been sleeping in the loft. He moved to the round-topped trunk, Nula’s. “This one’s really old, isn’t it? Now, that’s the one I’d like to open.”

“Naomi, Naomi!” It was Nula, calling from the yard

I went to the loft window. “Up here, Nula.

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