The banquet wasn’t so bad after all. At least I made it through my speech without losing my dinner. Actually, I had a good time. I didn’t even mind wearing my new clothes until a couple of girls came up and gushed, “Oh, Patrick, how nice you look.” Gack!
The highlight of the night came when Mr. Meeker surprised us by having some of the kids from the apartment complex come to the banquet. Jimjoe was with them and they sang some of the songs we’d taught them. In English. I had to admit I was proud of that little guy.
After that weekend, the guys and I had a hard time finding any way to get together. There’s always a last minute rush that always seemed to happen to get everything done before school starts. Like we hadn’t had any time during the summer.
When I finally got a chance to get on the computer and research burial mounds, I didn’t find much. I’d have to dig deeper. But I did find out that immigrants named Feurey had come to the United States back in the 1800s. That was another thing I’d need more time to investigate. But something else was on my mind.
I’d noticed that Taylor wasn’t saying much about college and, from what I could tell, it didn’t look like she was doing anything to get her stuff together. I can be a little dense at times so I decided to go and talk to her about it.
Her bedroom door was open but I knocked anyway. We have a rule about that. Entry by invitation only. She was sitting on her bed with her laptop. She looked up from the screen and tilted her head to one side, letting me know it was okay to come in, then went back to whatever was on the screen.
“Hey, I was just wondering,” I said, waiting by the door. “You haven’t said anything about school since you’ve been home. No packing, nothing. So, what’s the deal?”
“Plans have changed.” Just like that. She didn’t even look up from the laptop.
That was it? Plans have changed? Well, excuse me . . . she could not think I would settle for that. “Since when? What’s up, Taylor?”
My sister is super smart and I knew she had been accepted to a couple schools she’d applied to. So what was going on?
“I’ve just decided to wait,” she said, looking up at me and shrugging. “That’s all.”
“Wait on what?”
Oh, my gosh! A wild thought rushed into my brain. Had my dad lost his job? My mom? Were we broke? Couldn’t they afford to send Taylor to college? But, hold on, wait just a minute . . . didn’t she get a scholarship to one school? A tuition waiver for her first semester at another?
“Wait on what, Taylor?” I asked again.
“Patrick, just drop it, okay?” She looked back at the computer like she was totally engrossed in what was on the screen. And acting like she was Miss Queen of Something-or-Other and dismissing me from her presence.
I wasn’t buying it and I was not going to leave her room until I had an answer. This was too big. You just didn’t turn your back on free money for college. Not Taylor, for sure. She’d been planning for college since she started kindergarten. I closed the door then sat on the end of her bed. I stared at her until she looked up at me.
She watched me for a minute like she was trying to make up her mind about something. Then she said, “Swear you won’t say a word.”
Aha! I knew something was up. “Out with it.”
“Well, you know how, from the time we were little, Abby and I talked about going to college together someday?”
“Yeah, I remember. But did you forget that our cousin doesn’t want to come to Texas for school and you’re not in favor of moving to California? As I recall you two could never agree which college, though.”
“Right.”
“I also remember that you have already graduated and she won’t finish high school until next year.”
“Right. Well, maybe.”
Was it just Taylor, I wondered, or were all big sisters huge drama queens and had to drag things out forever?
“Taylor, for crying out loud, would you just tell me what’s up and quit dragging this out?”
“And you are not going to let Mom know I told you anything?”
I wanted to strangle her. But, I zipped my lips, crossed my heart, and raised my hand.
“Well, you know how you guys,” she said, sitting up taller, “the family, didn’t go on vacation this summer?”
“Don’t remind me. But what’s that got to do with you and going to school?
“Will you let me finish?”
I zipped my lip again and nodded.
“So, I know Mom has told you the family might do something special at a later time?”
I didn’t know how Disney World or white-water rafting could have anything to do with Taylor’s plans for college, but I was cheering for my dream for one of those to be connected in some way and was willing to stay quiet until the Grand Plan was revealed. I was about to find out my dreams would not be coming true.
“Well, instead of everyone going to Grandmother and Papa’s for Christmas this year like we usually do, we’re all going to meet in Arkansas at Grandmother’s old home over Fall Break!”
The ‘everyone’ she was talking about was my mom’s family: her sister, Aunt Liz, Uncle Nathan, and our cousin Abby; her brother, Uncle Clint, Aunt Judith, and the little darlings, Kate and Jillian. To be fair, they weren’t the little pests they used to be any more so I figured it might be time to ditch the ‘little darlings.’ Grandmother and Papa live in Oklahoma City and the whole gang went to their house for Christmas every year. Now they’d decided to change things up? Did that mean nobody was going to Oklahoma for Christmas? My head was beginning to hurt.
Taylor had this happy face like she was expecting me to jump up and down and yell “Whoopee!” or something. Well, she had another think coming. Seriously? Grandmother’s unbelievably small, out-in-the-sticks-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-nothing-ever-happens home town? I’d been there a couple of times, and, believe me, it was nothing to jump up and down about. For sure it didn’t deserve the kind of face Taylor was wearing.
“I don’t believe it.” I slapped my forehead and flopped back on her bed. “I’ve spent the whole summer with nothing happening but mowing lawns and cleaning the garage, thinking about all the cool places Mom and Dad might be planning to go. Hoping that eventually something special was going to happen like Mom said. Now this?”
“Patrick Michael Morrison, how can you say that?” Taylor gave me a look like I had something hanging from my nose.
I rubbed my finger under there, checked it, just in case. Then I glared at my sister while she kept talking.
“From what you’ve told me, you have spent hours of free time with your friends. You’ve shot off several rockets–even a real live mouse, for heaven’s sake–and taken pictures from one.” She paused a second to scowl at me then went on. “Which, by the way, you haven’t told me how the pictures came out.”
And I wasn’t going to tell her now.
Let’s see,” she kept going, “you’ve explored what you think might be an Indian burial mound. Then you and your friends spent a week volunteering at a day camp for some little kids who really didn’t have anything to do all summer. You probably made a big difference in their lives. I wouldn’t call all that nothing, Patrick. Sounds like a pretty full summer to me.”
She’d left out the tombstones, and the suspicious image in the pictures of the graveyard, and the almost fire. Oh, that’s right . . . I never told her about that stuff.
The way Taylor put it, I suppose I’d had a busy summer. But my mother’s idea and my idea of a special trip, or vacation, were planets–make that galaxies–apart.
“Okay, okay,” I said, sitting up and facing Taylor. “I guess I have had a lot of stuff going on, but where did this whole idea of going to Arkansas and Fall Break come from? Why aren’t you going to school now, and what has any of this got to do with that?”
“That’s just it, Patrick. There’s a chance Abby and I will be able to go to school together.” Taylor’s face was all lit up like a puppy who’d just had a double treat. “Just like we always talked about!”
“Taylor, come on . . .”
“You’re right,” she said, putting her hands up, palms facing me. “I’m getting ahead of myself.” She took a deep breath and let it out before she went on. “Abby, Aunt Judith and Uncle Clint are coming to Arkansas so Abby can check out the university there. Well, I’m going to check it out too.”
She jumped off the bed, almost dancing around the room, talking a mile a minute. “Actually, we’ve both checked it out, on line. So have Aunt Liz and Uncle Nathan, and Mom and Dad, so it’s not like we don’t know anything about the school. We do. We just want to check out some other stuff, but I’m applying, Patrick. I’m pretty sure I’ll be accepted. Abby can graduate from high school early, and we can start next semester together. Only there’s a couple things we have to work out first, which is part of the reason for the trip. I’ll tell you about that later.”
Taylor turned to look at me like she had just discovered the cure for zits, cooties and braces; all the problems of the entire universe; and that I should applaud her or something. Only for me it felt like my world was spinning out of control.
I hardly ever got mad— really mad —at my sister. Right then I was really, really mad.
“So you’re saying that even though I’ve had a really full summer, and didn’t get even one day of a vacation—you’re telling me that this whole special trip over Fall Break is all about you!”
“It’s not like that at all, Patrick.”
“Sure sounds like it to me!” I was off the bed and at the door in a flash then turned back to tell my sister, “You know, Taylor, I was glad you got to spend the summer in England with Brett, I really was. And I was glad when you came home, but, you know . . .” I had to get out of there before I started to cry like a little kid. I jerked the door open. “This is not fair!”
I couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. I knew if I didn’t leave, my sister would come after me. She’d follow me around the house, try to come in my room. I was in no mood for her explanations, no matter how good she thought they were. I did not want to be told any reasons why I should be happy.
By the time I stopped, I was on the other side of Mr. Nelson’s pasture, in the open field. I found the spot where we’d launched the rockets and sat on the ground, looking at the woods. I tried concentrating on what had happened here to get my mind off Taylor and her trip.
The woods weren’t just the woods anymore. It was a mound, an Indian burial mound and a graveyard. Maybe it held the answer to where the legend of Fury came from. I had lots of questions: Did it have anything to do with that tombstone with the name Feurey on it? Were the tree stumps and fire pit in the clearing at the top really a sacred meeting place? The biggest question in my mind right then was, was it all connected in some way?
The answers would have to come another time. I’d been gone from the house for quite a while, my parents might be wondering where I’d gone—that is, if they missed me at all. If anyone did think to look for me, they’d never imagine the field or woods. It wasn’t a place I would have gone by myself before. I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I was so bummed when I left the house I forgot to take it. Besides, I was getting hungry so I stood up and dusted off the seat of my pants and headed for my house.
By the time I stepped into our front yard, I’d cooled off . . . some. I was still pretty sore at my sister, and I guess at my parents, too, since they’d all been in on the Fall Break Trip. But I was going to have to figure out some way to suck it up and get through it. I still needed a way to get around, which meant I needed Taylor to drive me. When I thought about it, I decided it might just work out for me after all. I knew a secret I wasn’t supposed to know, and if I played my cards right. . .
Yep, things just might be looking up.