Read Online Chasing Orion by Kathryn Lasky - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kathryn Lasky
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the phone rang again. I picked up. It was Evelyn. I knew it would be. “My bladder is under control. We can talk.”
For the women in our family, beginning with my grandmothers, baton twirling was not just a high-school activity, and never a “sport.” It was an art form. For three generations the women had been baton twirlers and all members of the Hoosier Twirlers. Except me. I was too young. You had to be at least thirteen. When I got to eighth grade, I would be able to try out. I couldn’t wait! Ha, ha. No. I was a freak of nature, genetically speaking. I didn’t get the twirling gene or whatever it was that allows one to throw a silver stick high up into the air, catch it, flip it into a flutter twirl, and let it roll down her arm. In fact my one and only trip to the emergency ward was when I tried this and my nose got in the way of the baton and my hand. The baton broke my nose, and there was blood all over me, the baton, and all Mom’s pals, old Hoosier Twirlers who got together for sessions with their daughters. But did that maybe give a teeny-weeny hint to Mom that I was not cut out for this sport? And yes, it is considered a sport. Don’t ever say it’s not a sport, or you’ll get a twenty-minute lecture on all the muscle groups involved in baton twirling. But no, Mom was still convinced that I had the seeds, or whatever you call it, to become a great twirler. So in addition to terminal cowlicks, I had a crooked nose. It turned a little bit east. Thank heavens Mom wasn’t pushing twirling this summer. I think Dad sort of discouraged her, what with the new house, the new school, and all.
But today was Mom’s turn for hosting the alumnae of the Hoosier Twirlers.
And Velma, her best friend who had been the captain of the twirlers, was out there now setting the pace. I put my elbows on the windowsill and watched. It was so hot, I didn’t know how they stood it. Gads, I couldn’t believe it when I spotted Winona. Winona Beech was seventy-five years old. She was teensy even in her high-stepping boots, and until she was seventy, she could twirl three batons at once. Only a very few people could do that. I imagined that if I ever attempted it, I would not only break my nose but knock out both my eyes.
I put in earplugs to drown out the music and got my book. It was the newest Ray Bradbury. I was halfway through it now. But the first page was one of the best beginnings ever. I turned back to read the paragraph that I just loved.
Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in colors reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.
Now that is what I call writing.
The book is about a man whose whole body is covered with tattoos, and these tattoos predict the future. I couldn’t figure out how Ray Bradbury thought all this stuff up. He was so totally original. He was a genius. It was like Phyllis. She was original, too. Who else would think of painting a bedroom celery green with silver trim and making a lamp stuffed with prom corsages? I wasn’t original at all. My princess vanity reminded me of this every time I looked at it and saw my stupid face in the heart-shaped mirror. It wasn’t my face that sickened me now, not my stubby hair with its herd of stampeding cowlicks. It was the heart shape of the mirror. The vanity seemed so . . . so vain!
I looked up at the ceiling in my room. I wanted the walls to purr. The ceiling to dissolve into a deep blue. I wanted to be in a place before polio, a place where an iron lung had never been invented, never thought of, never needed. A place where an iron lung would be as strange as a flying saucer and polio would be science fiction. I remembered one graph in my polio folder that said in 1920 there were only something like 325
For the women in our family, beginning with my grandmothers, baton twirling was not just a high-school activity, and never a “sport.” It was an art form. For three generations the women had been baton twirlers and all members of the Hoosier Twirlers. Except me. I was too young. You had to be at least thirteen. When I got to eighth grade, I would be able to try out. I couldn’t wait! Ha, ha. No. I was a freak of nature, genetically speaking. I didn’t get the twirling gene or whatever it was that allows one to throw a silver stick high up into the air, catch it, flip it into a flutter twirl, and let it roll down her arm. In fact my one and only trip to the emergency ward was when I tried this and my nose got in the way of the baton and my hand. The baton broke my nose, and there was blood all over me, the baton, and all Mom’s pals, old Hoosier Twirlers who got together for sessions with their daughters. But did that maybe give a teeny-weeny hint to Mom that I was not cut out for this sport? And yes, it is considered a sport. Don’t ever say it’s not a sport, or you’ll get a twenty-minute lecture on all the muscle groups involved in baton twirling. But no, Mom was still convinced that I had the seeds, or whatever you call it, to become a great twirler. So in addition to terminal cowlicks, I had a crooked nose. It turned a little bit east. Thank heavens Mom wasn’t pushing twirling this summer. I think Dad sort of discouraged her, what with the new house, the new school, and all.
But today was Mom’s turn for hosting the alumnae of the Hoosier Twirlers.
And Velma, her best friend who had been the captain of the twirlers, was out there now setting the pace. I put my elbows on the windowsill and watched. It was so hot, I didn’t know how they stood it. Gads, I couldn’t believe it when I spotted Winona. Winona Beech was seventy-five years old. She was teensy even in her high-stepping boots, and until she was seventy, she could twirl three batons at once. Only a very few people could do that. I imagined that if I ever attempted it, I would not only break my nose but knock out both my eyes.
I put in earplugs to drown out the music and got my book. It was the newest Ray Bradbury. I was halfway through it now. But the first page was one of the best beginnings ever. I turned back to read the paragraph that I just loved.
Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in colors reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.
Now that is what I call writing.
The book is about a man whose whole body is covered with tattoos, and these tattoos predict the future. I couldn’t figure out how Ray Bradbury thought all this stuff up. He was so totally original. He was a genius. It was like Phyllis. She was original, too. Who else would think of painting a bedroom celery green with silver trim and making a lamp stuffed with prom corsages? I wasn’t original at all. My princess vanity reminded me of this every time I looked at it and saw my stupid face in the heart-shaped mirror. It wasn’t my face that sickened me now, not my stubby hair with its herd of stampeding cowlicks. It was the heart shape of the mirror. The vanity seemed so . . . so vain!
I looked up at the ceiling in my room. I wanted the walls to purr. The ceiling to dissolve into a deep blue. I wanted to be in a place before polio, a place where an iron lung had never been invented, never thought of, never needed. A place where an iron lung would be as strange as a flying saucer and polio would be science fiction. I remembered one graph in my polio folder that said in 1920 there were only something like 325
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