Read Online The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester - Free Book Online

all neatly arranged in an old carpetbag that was light to carry, even to Piper’s arms. Seeing her clothes all packed up jolted Piper out of her euphoria and stopped her short in her tracks.
     “Ma, what are you doing with all my clothes?”
    “Fancy institute or not, I’m figuring you’ll need a stitch or two to cover yourself with.” Betty pushed Piper’s long underwear into the bag.
    “But . . .” Piper didn’t understand. “Why are you packin’ ’em all up?”
    “You’ll have to leave with Dr. Hellion and you won’t be able to live here anymore.”
    “What?” Piper’s confusion grew. “But that ain’t right! Why can’t I walk to the institute like I see them Miller youngens walk to school every day?” It didn’t occur to Piper that it would ever be otherwise.
    “Dr. Hellion’s institute is real far, Piper. Too far to walk to and too far to come home from, even on holidays.”
    All at once, Piper came to realize that there were greater implications to what had seemed like a commonsense decision. She sank down on her bed. “No!”
    “Now, now, child. Don’t get yourself into a state. Like you says, Dr. Hellion’s got everything all figured out.”
    Piper noticed that her mother’s hands were shaking as she folded the only handkerchief the McClouds had ever owned. Made with a delicate linen and embroidered with tiny bluebirds, the handkerchief had been carefully passed down through the generations. Betty had only ever used it once and that was on her wedding day. Neatly folding it and placing it in the old bag, Betty was now quietly bestowing it on Piper. The simple gesture woke Piper up to the finality of leaving her parents and the farm.
    “But I didn’t know.” Piper wrung her hands. What was she going to do now? She wanted to go to Dr. Hellion’s institute but not if it meant leaving her home and her ma and pa. Suddenly a simple decision had become very complicated and Piper couldn’t figure her way to an answer that didn’t include disappointment and regret. How had she gotten herself into such a muddle?
    “You’ll be safe, and they’ll give you special schooling.” Betty could see Piper’s mounting concern and tried to reassure her. “You’ll get to meet other youngens, maybe make some friends.”
    Piper shook her head. “I don’t reckon I’ll go now.”
    Betty sniffed, turned away quickly, and gathered up a hairbrush. “Ain’t nothing in this life comes easy to any of us, child. Every road you walk down’s got a price. Sooner you learn that the better. Don’t matter the direction you go, there’ll be some bad mixed in with the good and you just gotta learn to take the one with the other.” Winding Piper’s Sunday hair ribbon around the brush’s handle, Betty tucked them in the bag and closed it with finality. “You done went and chose your path and there ain’t nothing your pa and I can do about it now.”
     At first Piper didn’t understand what her ma was angling at, and then at once things snapped into focus in such a way that they did make sense. Betty had told her and told her not to fly. She’d warned her to keep her feet on the ground and Piper hadn’t paid her any mind. Sure as anything, she’d gone and caught that baseball and everyone saw. The whole situation was out of her ma and pa’s hands. Like a detective unraveling a case, Piper traced the steps she had taken to arrive at this moment. Leaving with Dr. Hellion was only the latest ramification of the choice she’d made to jump off the roof while lying on the tree branch that day. There wasn’t anything she or her ma or pa could do about it now. It was Piper, and Piper alone, who had brought all this about.
    “I didn’t never think this was gonna happen.” Piper breathed quietly, shaking her head in wonder.
    Betty handed Piper the carpetbag. “Mind your manners now.”
    “I will, Ma.”
    “See to it you clean your plate.” Betty sniffed,