“Let’s go back inside,” my mother urged.
“No,” I said, “I want to stay.”
I sank down in the grass, and my mother got down beside me. It lasted only a few minutes, the bird lying still throughout, with the exception of its rapid breathing and the beak, which continued to open and close in silent song until the very end.
I had seen dead animals along the side of the road, and fish washed up on the edge of Bonners Lake, but I had never witnessed the exact moment when life passed out of a creature. It was the most terrible and at the same time the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I started to cry, and my mother put her arm around me.
“These things happen,” she said, trying to comfort me.
But it wasn’t the bird I was crying about.
“Please don’t send me away,” I said.
“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked.
“Like Teddy,” I said, “and Uncle Mike. I know I’m warped, just like them, but I can’t help it. It’s like some kind of poison got poured into me and it’s turning me into somebody I don’t want to be. I promise I’ll try to do better. I do know right from wrong. Please don’t give up on me.”
“Oh, Verbie,” my mother said, “how could you think that I would do such a thing? Send you away? You are my whole world. I couldn’t live without you. Don’t you know that?”
“But I’m bad,” I sobbed, the words catching in my throat like the tiny claws on the ends of the little dead bird’s toes.
She took my face in her hands and held it tight until I’d caught my breath.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully,” she said. “You are not like Teddy or your uncle Mike. Do you hear me? You are sweet, and good, and kind.”
“I lied to Pooch and he almost died.”
“He’s lucky to have a friend like you,” my mother said.
“Lucky?”
“You saved his life, Verbie. You were such a brave girl to do what you did. I’ve never been more proud to be your mama.”
“You’re just saying that to be nice. But no amount of nice can fix what’s wrong with me. You said so yourself.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, little girl,” my mother said. “You’re just growing up is all. Feeling mixed up and mad at the world is a part of that for almost everyone. It certainly was for me. I gave my parents a real run for their money—especially my mother. It’ll pass, Sugarpea. I promise.”
When she called me by that name, I started to cry again, even harder this time. She put her arms around me and rocked me back and forth just like Pooch and I had rocked the boat to loosen it from the mud.
“Poor little thing,” she whispered, “poor little thing.”
I buried my face in her neck and closed my eyes, and we sat like that for a very long time. Mama and her Sugarpea.
We put the baby bird in a cardboard box and buried it under the lilac bush. I had never been to a funeral, except for the one in the fourth-grade play, so after we had covered the box with dirt I said the only words I knew that might be appropriate.
My beloved,
As the moon grows pale and slips from the night sky,
Do not be afraid.
I will find you in the sparrow’s song,
And in the firefly’s light.
Do not be afraid, my beloved.
Your soul will live forever in my heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Heart of My Heart
My grandpa Colty died on the same day I was born, and I don’t believe that was an accident. I think he knew I was going to need all the help I could get navigating what lay ahead for me. Whether or not he gave me his soul is something I may never know for sure, but that summer between fifth and sixth grade when I was trying to find myself, it gave me great comfort to know that either way, he still would have been my grandfather.
Because of the rain, the Fourth of July fireworks display was postponed until the following Saturday. That morning Pooch showed up on our doorstep bright and early.
“Good morning, Robert,” my mother said when she opened the door to let him in. “You’re just in time for pancakes.”
Pooch had been coming over to our house every day since he’d gotten out of the hospital. My mother absolutely adored him—except for his nickname. She didn’t like the story about how he had gotten it—she thought it was mean—so she refused to call him Pooch, insisting instead on Robert.
“Do you want real maple syrup, or do you prefer the store-bought kind, Robert?” my mother called from the kitchen.
“Store-bought, please!” he called back.
“Did you remember to take your pill?” I asked him as we walked to the kitchen together.
Pooch grinned.
“You guys sure are alike,” he said. “Like two peas in a pod.”
My mother looked over at me and we both smiled. There were plenty of things she and I didn’t see eye to eye on, but I was beginning to understand that in all the ways that really mattered, we were more alike than I had ever realized.
“Take your medicine,” I told Pooch.
“Aye aye, Captain,” he said.
Pooch pulled his allergy medicine out of his pocket, flipped the cap off the plastic bottle, and popped a pill into his mouth. If he forgot to take his medicine before he came over to our house, he would spend the whole time sneezing. Our house wasn’t dusty, but it was full of all kinds of other things that Pooch was allergic to, including the little bunny with the missing ears.
“Where is she?” he asked, looking around.
“Where do you think?” I said, pointing to the corner.
Jack was lying curled up on the rug, with the bunny sleeping between his paws. They had become fast friends and were never far from each other. Pooch bent down and patted Jack on the head, then gently picked up the bunny.
“Who’s the cutest little thing in the whole wide world?” he cooed, rubbing the soft brown fur against his cheek.
“Turn it down a notch, Pooch,” I told him. “Otherwise, I’m warning you, I’m gonna be sick.”
“Well she is the cutest thing,” he said, “Look at her. Who could resist that face?”
“I feel sorry for her,” I said. “We should never have let you pick out her name. She’s brown, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“So what,” he said, putting the bunny back down on the rug, “Tofu’s a perfect name for a bunny. And you never know—she might turn white later on when she gets older.”
“You don’t know much about animals, do you?” I said.
After breakfast, Pooch and I went out in the yard.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“We could pick blackberries,” he said. “Your mom said if we got enough, she’d make a pie. Your mom sure is nice.”
I had been worried at first, what Pooch would make of my mother, she was so different from his mom. But they hit it off right away. In fact sometimes it seemed like he came over as much to see my mother as to see me. She thought he was “cute as a button” and he didn’t mind it one bit that she liked to feed him. I don’t think Shari minded that either. I was glad that Pooch and my mom got along, and I was glad she had someone else to fuss over other than me, but I have to admit, every now and then I did feel a little jealous. It’s a wonderful thing, knowing that you’re somebody’s whole world, and I had no intention of sharing that place in my mother’s heart, even with Pooch.
It was a perfect day for berry picking, sunny but not too hot.
“There’s a bucket in the garage,” I said to Pooch. “Come on.”
The blackberries were plentiful and we laughed and joked as we moved from bush to bush working together to fill the silver bucket to the top.
“Did you know that you can die from having the hiccups for too long?” Pooch told me, tossing a berry up in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth. “I read it in a book.”
“Did you know that you can die from reading too many books?” I said.<
br />
Pooch looked at me.
“Are you grumpy today?” he asked.
“I’m grumpy every day,” I said, pushing up my glasses with a knuckle. “In case you haven’t noticed,”
“I’ve noticed,” said Pooch, “but I don’t mind. It’s part of who you are.”
“Yeah,” I said. “At least for now.”
It took us about forty-five minutes to fill the bucket with berries. We were so busy picking and talking, neither of us realized how far we’d come until Pooch pointed through the trees at a patch of sparkling green. Bonners Lake. We hadn’t been back, either one of us, since the incident in the boat.
“Do you want to go take a look?” I asked him.
“Do you?”
The boat was right where we’d left it, the ground around it covered with footprints that told the whole story. In among the big waffle-soled boot prints of the men who’d come to carry Pooch out of the woods, the tracks of my small bare feet were still visible, Jack’s paw prints right beside them.
“Do you care if we don’t ever come back here again?” I asked Pooch. “It kind of creeps me out. You could have died, you know.”
“I know.”
“I’m glad you didn’t die, Pooch.”
“I never told you this,” said Pooch, “but when I found out that you weren’t really a ghost, even though I was mad, I was also really happy. I’m glad you didn’t die either.”
As we stood looking at the boat, it suddenly dawned on me that the shape of it reminded me of something.
“What would you think about The Peapod as a name?” I asked Pooch.
“The Peapod?”
He tilted his head to one side, considering. “Now that you mention it, I guess it does kind of look like one. It’s even got a curly rope stem at the tip. Yeah, The Peapod would be a good name! If only we had some paint.”
“We do,” I said.
Crouching down beside the bucket, I picked out a handful of the biggest, juiciest blackberries I could find, and holding them between my fingers, I used the purple juice to stain the letters onto the side of the boat.
“What do you think?” I asked Pooch when I was finished.
“Sweet,” he said.
That night, after dark, Pooch and I lay next to each other on the blue blanket and watched the fireworks bursting overhead. At the end of the month when he left to go spend time with his father, it broke my heart to see him go. I got a postcard from him about a week later. It was from Fire Island and it had a picture of a boat on it. He’d scratched off the name on the stern and written SPINACH in its place. Several days later I got another postcard in the mail, this one from Annie. She was full of complaints about the awful food at camp and the bratty kids in her cabin, and how horrible and boring her whole summer had turned out to be. At the bottom of the card she had run out of space, so she’d turned it and written the end of her message going up the side. “I miss you, Verbie,” it said. “Love, Annie.”
That August was endlessly rainy, and the mosquitoes were so bad I spent a lot of time cooped up inside the house. My mother and I tangled plenty, but no matter how heated it got, I didn’t worry anymore. I knew she wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was I.
Sixth grade turned out to be a good year for me. For one thing, I grew five inches. Even better, Heather Merwin got herself a new best friend and things between Annie and me went back to normal. The lilacs bloomed in May the way they were supposed to, and on the last day of school, while Annie sat on the porch steps waiting, my mother took a picture of me standing in front of her roses with a big smile on my face. Years later I can look at that picture and still remember the way I felt as if it were only yesterday. Life is complicated sometimes to be sure, but there are other times, like that day, standing on the near edge of a new July, when life is just as sweet, and good, and simple as it seems.
Author’s Note
Fetal alcohol syndrome, or FAS, is the name given to a group of physical and mental birth defects that are caused by drinking alcohol during pregnancy. Once the damage is done, it cannot be undone, but FAS is the only birth defect that can be completely prevented—by not drinking alcohol during pregnancy.
(Author’s Note: The chapter headings are all names of actual polkas and waltzes that could have been played by the Clydesdale Band.)
About the Author
SARAH WEEKS is the critically acclaimed author of many novels and picture books, including SO B. IT, which was named to numerous state award lists as well as to the ALA’s Notable Children’s Book list and YALSA’s Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults list. She is one of the founding members of ART—Authors Readers Theater—a troupe that travels across the country performing at conferences of librarians and teachers. You can visit her online at www.sarahweeks.com.
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Praise for So B. It:
“A remarkable novel. Heidi’s cross-country journey is brave and daring and yields surprising results.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Weeks has a distinctive voice that’s all her own. Her fully dimensional characters are remarkable yet believable, [and] the foreshadowing builds to a beautifully satisfying ending. This is lovely writing—real, touching, and pared cleanly down to the essentials.”
—ALA Booklist (starred review)
“Refreshing, offbeat characters. As the riddle of Heidi’s life slowly unfolds, readers will be genuinely touched and surprised.”
—VOYA (starred review)
“The heart of the search for home and history is one that readers will find compelling.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A quick and satisfying tale of love, determination, and the kindness of strangers.”
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
A Los Angeles Times bestseller
ALA Notable Children’s Book
Book Sense Best Books List
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice
Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee
IRA/CBC Young Adults’ Choice
Notable Children’s Book in the Language Arts (NCTE)
New York Public Library’s “One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing”
Virginia Young Readers Award
Parents’ Choice Gold Award
Also by SARAH WEEKS
So B. It
Jumping the Scratch
Credits
Jacket art © 2010 Dave & Les Jacobs/cultura/Corbis
Copyright
AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS. Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Weeks. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weeks, Sarah.
As simple as it seems / by Sarah Weeks. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Eleven-year-old Verbena Polter gets through a difficult summer of turbulent emotions and the revelation of a disturbing family secret with an odd new friend who believes she is the ghost of a girl who drowned many years before.
ISBN 978-0-06-084663-3 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-084664-0 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Adolescence—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Family life—New York (State)—Fiction. 4. Ghosts—Fiction. 5. Identity—Fiction. 6. Adoption—Fiction. 7. Catskill Mountains Region (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.W42235As 2010 2009025441
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
/> FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition © May 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199962-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Sarah Weeks, As Simple as It Seems
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