Okay for Now

by Gary D. Schmidt

It means something, you know, when people plant things together.

Flipped :)

“Some family,” I said. “No one’s paying attention to the mother. Who could blame her if she took off? Look at them.” A minute or so went by, and then Mrs. Windermere said, in a voice as soft as summer blue air, “Skinny Delivery Boy, you have it all wrong. Look how she’s standing close to her little one. She’s looking around to watch for the next spectacular thing that’s going to come into his life.” And I’m not lying, she was right.

OKAY. So I was going to the library every Saturday. So what? So what? It’s not like I was reading books or anything.

“It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother.”

You know, when someone has been crying, something gets left in the air. It’s not something you can see, or smell, or feel. Or draw. But it’s there. It’s like the screech of the Black-Backed Gull, crying out into the empty white space around him. You can’t hear it when you look at the picture. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

“Like I what? Like I what, Douggo? Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be so angry that you . . . And then something happens, and after that, everyone figures that’s what you’re like, and that’s what you’re always going to be, and so you just decide to be it? But the whole time you’re thinking, Am I going to be like him? Or am I already like him? And then you get angrier, because maybe you are, and you want to . . .”

Reader, I kissed her.

Maybe the Snowy Heron is going to come off pretty badly when the planes come together. Maybe. But he’s still proud and beautiful. His head is high, and he’s got this sharp beak that’s facing out to the world. He’s okay for now.