Below her, on Gooch Street, Libby could see kids riding bicycles and playing in yards. The houses, aside from theirs, were brightly painted, the lawns green. There were swing sets, gardens, even a couple of swimming pools.
Mal was still waving his arms. Libby couldn’t help laughing, although she also felt sad. Her father was her enemy.
The only other person to notice her flight was the man across the street. He waved something happily. It took Liberty a minute to figure out what it was: a long, wiggling worm.
Within minutes, everything looked insectlike. Mal was a cockroach with scrambling legs. Sal, still stuck in the doorway, was a fat caterpillar.
Libby kept rising. The sky was a beautiful place, with changing colors. Life now felt like that sky.
Around her, she heard music. It was as if the clouds had strings—cellos and harps—and the breeze sounded through a flute. Was it possible she could comprehend nature as well?
Her whole life she had wanted escape and adventure, and now here it was.
Am I dreaming? She wondered what Sal would think about her floating away. Sal had tried to protect her, had asked Mal to leave her be, had said that morning she should have a childhood. The thought made Libby feel warm inside, like when she was offered ice cream. Was it being married to Mal that ruined Sal’s life, like she always said? Had Mal ruined Sal?
A white cloud parted for her like a doorway.
Remember what I said earlier about time? Libby had been rising for five minutes, but it felt like hours. And in that time, she began to consider her future. She would not go home again, so where should she go?
That was the one small hitch in her escape—what to do next. In books, something usually appeared: a gingerbread house, a prince, a garden through a keyhole.
I’ll go to boarding school. The Sullivan School. I just need to figure out how to get there, she thought.
Like an answer, the wind picked up, sweeping her east. That was an improvement. She couldn’t rise forever. She’d end up right out of this galaxy.
Soon she began to make out shapes, like shadowy pipes reaching into the sky.
* * *
It may seem far-fetched to have a girl floating in the sky, but remember that for most of history, people would have thought that airplanes, electricity, computers, and cell phones were far-fetched.
In this world, anything is possible.