I CAN’T believe we’re home. This morning we climbed on the bus with our suitcases and headed for Firefly. We all sat together, Cookie and me, Missy with Dorothy and Pearl with Rowdy. We all seemed to lean forward, looking ahead for the first sign of home. First it was Bird Lake where my dad used to visit an old trapper called Johnny Cabou. Then it was the logging camp where Aunt Mamie used to live. Then that place at the end of the lake where we saw a thousand trumpeter swans one time.
When we got to Quiltcana, some of the parents were waiting by the side of the road with big smiles, waving branches because the mosquitoes were so thick. They hugged their children, and we felt jealous that they were home first. They were so happy they didn’t even stop to wave goodbye to us.
The next place was the little town of Trading Post where Uncle Tommy and Aunt Ella stay sometimes. From there we could see Cody Mountain and then we got really excited because we could see where home is, at the bottom of the mountain, right in the middle. When we passed the place where two big irrigation pipes come to the highway, we let out a yell all together. “Yahoo, we made it!”
Then I saw Mum at the bus station holding Benny’s hand. I felt like crying, but I knew I couldn’t so I laughed. It sounded like someone was choking me. Mum hugged me hard and kissed the top of my head. My dad shook my hand, then Dorothy’s and Missy’s. Then Benny lifted his T-shirt and showed us where lightning struck him on the tummy. It looked like a white scratch.
My dad drove over to the New York Restaurant and bought us all ice cream cones. That’s always our big treat. Then we went home. We looked at the fields, the trees and the corrals with the horses in them to see if anything had changed. Then there in the middle of the hayfield was our house with the porch, the lilac bushes, the bay window with its flowered curtains. Then Spud was running out to meet us barking and barking, leaping up to lick our faces.
Mum cooked us deer steaks and fried potatoes and macaroni and carrots and homemade bread and, of course, apple pie, all our favourites. She told us to run out and play. The first place we went was the wild strawberry patch up at the flume where the prickly pears grow. Then to the barn to visit the horses, and all around the ranch.
I am here now in the apple tree, my favourite tree in the whole world. I can see Dad up at the barn with Missy and Benny. Dorothy and Jimmy are in the porch arguing. Mum’s throwing scraps out to the chickens calling, “Here, chick, chick, chick.” It’s getting dark and the stars are coming out. Maybe I’ll cry now.