enough to want an answer to his question.
“Has somebody been saying things to you?”
“No, Mom. It’s just … well … why isn’t he here any more?”
She stroked his wispy hair. He could tell she was thinking through her answer before saying it.
“You know, Sagandran,” she began, “sometimes people just have to spend some time apart if they’re going to try to sort out their problems.” She paused,thinking, then carried on. “Imagine you’re walking along with a friend, a good friend, someone like Jennifer. You’re chatting away nineteen to the dozen, telling jokes and laughing. Then you and Jennifer come to a fork in the road. Jennifer wants to go one way, you want to go the other. You could argue about it and maybe have a fight, or you could both just agree to take the road you want to take, the one that’s best for you. You know you’ll be meeting again soon enough if that’s the way it all works out, but for the moment, you have to go different ways. You see what I’m trying to tell you?”
“I guess so, Mom.” He held back a yawn.
“Well, it’s like that at the moment with me and your father. He needs to go one way, I need to go the other. Sooner or later, we’ll find we’re back on the same road. We just don’t know exactly when that will be.”
It seemed to make sense. Anyway, it was reassuring. Even if it hadn’t been, he was too slee
eeeee
eeeee
eeeeeepy to answer …
It was a beautiful, clear morning – one of those mornings when you can taste the air as if it were fresh water from a spring. Sagandran went with his mother to the bus station.
“… and try not to stay up too late and give Grandpa a big hug from me and don’t forget to write and make sure you wash behind your ears each night and—”
“Yes, Mom. I’ll remember.”
She kissed him goodbye and gave him a lunch box containing soda, candy bars, comics and a couple more peanut butter sandwiches, her culinary specialty. Then she told him all over again the long list of things he mustn’t forget while he was staying with Grandpa, adding a few new ones as she thought of them. The driver loaded Sagandran’s bags into the storage space at the side of the bus and gave him a sympathetic grin when Mom wasn’t looking.
Sagandran climbed onto the bus with the feeling that he was shedding a great weight from his shoulders. The seats at the back were empty, so he went straight there and spread out his comics.
The bus’s big engine started throbbing somewhere underneath him. The driver reversed the vehicle out of the bay and turned it toward the road, then set it in gear with a screech.
Looking out the rear window, Sagandran waved at his mother, who was still waving when she became too small to see.
He was on his way to Eagle Lake.
Without realizing it, Sagandran must have dozed off. One moment he was reading about Strontium Man being chained up in a dungeon by the arch-villain Mentodurge the next the bus was jolting to a halt at Eagle Lake. He grabbed his things from where he’d strewn them on the back seat, and joined the line of passengers who were getting off here. There were a few other kids, but they were all dressed like their parents in brand new, brightly-colored, outdoorsy-type clothes that looked as if they cost a fortune and would be absolutely useless in the real outdoors. Sagandran was the only one who was dressed in a plain old T-shirt and jeans, and his jeans had a neat patch at the knee that Mom had sewn on during the night as he’d slept. He felt kind of scruffy for a moment, like a street pigeon that had somehow strayed into the parakeet cage at the zoo. Then he remembered what Grandpa Melwin, who was a real outdoors person (he’d been a ranger for forty years, hadn’t he?) always said about the summer tourists and their fashionable finery. The comments were among many of Grandpa’s that Sagandran had not repeated to Mom.
As he jumped off the last step, he saw Grandpa waiting for him.
“Has somebody been saying things to you?”
“No, Mom. It’s just … well … why isn’t he here any more?”
She stroked his wispy hair. He could tell she was thinking through her answer before saying it.
“You know, Sagandran,” she began, “sometimes people just have to spend some time apart if they’re going to try to sort out their problems.” She paused,thinking, then carried on. “Imagine you’re walking along with a friend, a good friend, someone like Jennifer. You’re chatting away nineteen to the dozen, telling jokes and laughing. Then you and Jennifer come to a fork in the road. Jennifer wants to go one way, you want to go the other. You could argue about it and maybe have a fight, or you could both just agree to take the road you want to take, the one that’s best for you. You know you’ll be meeting again soon enough if that’s the way it all works out, but for the moment, you have to go different ways. You see what I’m trying to tell you?”
“I guess so, Mom.” He held back a yawn.
“Well, it’s like that at the moment with me and your father. He needs to go one way, I need to go the other. Sooner or later, we’ll find we’re back on the same road. We just don’t know exactly when that will be.”
It seemed to make sense. Anyway, it was reassuring. Even if it hadn’t been, he was too slee
eeeee
eeeee
eeeeeepy to answer …
It was a beautiful, clear morning – one of those mornings when you can taste the air as if it were fresh water from a spring. Sagandran went with his mother to the bus station.
“… and try not to stay up too late and give Grandpa a big hug from me and don’t forget to write and make sure you wash behind your ears each night and—”
“Yes, Mom. I’ll remember.”
She kissed him goodbye and gave him a lunch box containing soda, candy bars, comics and a couple more peanut butter sandwiches, her culinary specialty. Then she told him all over again the long list of things he mustn’t forget while he was staying with Grandpa, adding a few new ones as she thought of them. The driver loaded Sagandran’s bags into the storage space at the side of the bus and gave him a sympathetic grin when Mom wasn’t looking.
Sagandran climbed onto the bus with the feeling that he was shedding a great weight from his shoulders. The seats at the back were empty, so he went straight there and spread out his comics.
The bus’s big engine started throbbing somewhere underneath him. The driver reversed the vehicle out of the bay and turned it toward the road, then set it in gear with a screech.
Looking out the rear window, Sagandran waved at his mother, who was still waving when she became too small to see.
He was on his way to Eagle Lake.
Without realizing it, Sagandran must have dozed off. One moment he was reading about Strontium Man being chained up in a dungeon by the arch-villain Mentodurge the next the bus was jolting to a halt at Eagle Lake. He grabbed his things from where he’d strewn them on the back seat, and joined the line of passengers who were getting off here. There were a few other kids, but they were all dressed like their parents in brand new, brightly-colored, outdoorsy-type clothes that looked as if they cost a fortune and would be absolutely useless in the real outdoors. Sagandran was the only one who was dressed in a plain old T-shirt and jeans, and his jeans had a neat patch at the knee that Mom had sewn on during the night as he’d slept. He felt kind of scruffy for a moment, like a street pigeon that had somehow strayed into the parakeet cage at the zoo. Then he remembered what Grandpa Melwin, who was a real outdoors person (he’d been a ranger for forty years, hadn’t he?) always said about the summer tourists and their fashionable finery. The comments were among many of Grandpa’s that Sagandran had not repeated to Mom.
As he jumped off the last step, he saw Grandpa waiting for him.
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