Fleeing

By Jean Francis

An old woman now, Bethany and her friends sit around a table, eating popcorn, sipping hot tea and working on jigsaw puzzles. She replays her life. Did she make the right decisions? Is she fulfilled? Any regrets? Well, it was certainly exciting and terrifying. And of course, there was that murder...."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640967236

Book preview

One

Six-year-old Bethany Clapp sat on the floor of the first-grade classroom, working on a jigsaw puzzle. She finished the tail of the black-and-white dog before picking up another piece. When it didn’t fit as the nose, she dropped it in place for the dog’s paw. A perfect fit. Matching the color and ends of pieces until she found just the right one was fun for Bethany. Bethany was now up to seventy piece puzzles. Placing the finished one back in the bin, she chose a puzzle of a meadow with pretty flowers and goats. She liked goats because they had sweet faces. She wanted a goat and a dog with a big house and yard.

Can I help? asked Mike, sliding into a chair beside her. Mike Greene always had yellow eye boogies and a green snot-filled nose.

Okay, said Bethany, you work the top, and I’ll work the bottom.

I have a dog like the one in the puzzle, said Mike. He sleeps in my bed at night. Do you have a dog? he asked Bethany.

Not yet! My mother said I could have one. I want my dog to sleep with me too.

Mike left when Don Carney, his best friend, called him. Bethany kept busy with her puzzle. Her best friend, Aliceanna Stewart, was across the room playing with woodblocks. She was probably building a castle. Aliceanna was always talking about castles.

Okay, children, put away your toys now, said Mrs. Elder.

When Mrs. Elder stood by the piano, it was time to sing songs, and everyone sang in a loud voice. Then Mrs. Elder would read to the children before nap time. Reading a book was almost as good as working on a puzzle. When Bethany was working on a puzzle, she imagined herself in the picture, and she thought about a lot of things. She thought about her father and wondered if he missed being with her as much as she missed being with him. She thought about the kind of dog she would get. How would the dog look? Would it be big or small? Would she and Aliceanna be friends forever? What would she be when she grew up? What would Aliceanna be when she grew up? She worked on her puzzles and thought about big things for a six-year-old.

When the bell rang for recess, Aliceanna and Bethany held hands and ran to the monkey bars. Bethany climbed as high as she could and threw her legs over the bars so she could hang upside down. Aliceanna hung from another pole. While hanging upside down, Bethany watched as Don ran over to the bars and stood under her.

Pointing up at her, he started chanting, I can see your panty, I can your panty!

No, you can’t! Bethany yelled down. Her legs were covered. She was wearing leggings that matched her winter coat. But other boys gathered anyway, looking up at her, hoping Don was right.

Then other girls hanging from monkey bars started chanting, Don likes Bethany, Bethany likes Don.

Bethany righted herself, yelling at the girls that she didn’t like Don. Still on the monkey bars, she swung to another bar to get away from the boys. When she was alongside Aliceanna, she hung upside down again until the chanting stopped. The boys chased the girls swinging back and forth from pole to pole. Jumping off the bars, the girls were chased to the swings or the seesaw and back to the monkey bars again. It was a dizzy circle that was repeated over and over again. Pulling herself upright, Bethany smiled at Aliceanna. Aliceanna was the champion on the monkey bars. She could hang upside down until recess was over. The bell rang, and the boys chased the girls into the school, yanking at the girls’ coats and hair. When school let out for the day, Aliceanna and Bethany linked arms for the walk home, trying not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk. If you stepped on a crack, you broke your mother’s back. You didn’t want to take any chances and bring bad luck to your mother. Sometimes, they stopped at the corner store for sour pickles, pretzel sticks, or candy buttons on a strip. On weekends, they could be found at the store waiting for the delivery of new Archie Comics or the latest Barbie Doll clothes.

Poking under her bed when she got home, Bethany slid out a piece of cardboard. On the cardboard was the latest puzzle of a large wood house with a porch. Bethany lived in a brick house, but she wanted to live in a wood house like the one in the puzzle when she grew up. Goats, rabbits, birds, geese, and dogs could play in a big yard with the kids she would have. She would teach her kids to take care of their pets. Sometimes she wanted to be a doctor for pets, and other times she wanted to be an army nurse to care for sick soldiers. She knew the tree in the puzzle was an oak because she learned about different kinds of trees at summer camp. The oak tree was so big the branches touched the porch of the house. Her kids would have a tree swing just like in the puzzle. She would swing with her kids and play hide-and-seek behind the tree. Bethany wanted a lake just like the one in the puzzle. The kids could fish in the lake. Bethany didn’t know how to fish, but she could learn. The pets could play in the water too. Bethany fell asleep with her cheek on the puzzle. She dreamed of the things she would do when she grew up.

August 1955 was hot and humid in Baltimore, Bethany popped out of bed, her feet sticking to the moist wood floor. Pulling her nightgown from her back made her start sweating again, but she didn’t care. She dressed quickly and almost made it out of the house before her mother saw her asking if she was going to eat breakfast. Yelling to her mother that she was eating breakfast with Aliceanna, she ran out of the house and up the street to see her friend. Walking quickly up the street to Aliceanna’s house, Bethany dragged her hand along the neighbor’s chain-link fence, thinking back two months ago. That was when Aliceanna’s dog, Poppy, had six puppies, and one was Bethany’s. Aliceanna and Bethany were playing in the basement of Aliceanna’s house when Poppy slowly walked by them and fell onto her bed. Aliceanna and Bethany were staring at Poppy when she began whining softly just as a shiny, tight ball of fur slipped from her body, rolling onto the cold linoleum floor. Aliceanna screamed for her mother to come downstairs when another ball slid out of Poppy. By the time Aliceanna’s mother came, there were six wet puppies on the floor. Poppy bit the thin white coverings on the puppies and began cleaning them up. Aliceanna’s mother wrapped warm washcloths around each puppy after Poppy finished licking them. Poppy lay on her side as the squirming puppies greedily nursed. Bethany was amazed that all six puppies nursed at the same time without opening their eyes. The puppies were so cute with slick, sparse fur. A couple of the puppies were all black. Some puppies were black with white patches, and others, all white. Aliceanna said Bethany could be the first to choose a puppy because she was her best friend. Bethany was so excited. Choosing a black puppy with a white-tipped tail, she named her dog Tinker.

Bethany walked home with her Tinker. Going through the house, Bethany showed Tinker her new home. Bethany showed Tinker her bed in the corner of the kitchen near the back door. She showed her the backyard and, lastly, Bethany’s bed, where Tinker could sometimes sleep. Bethany placed her on the bed, and she hid under the bedspread with just her head sticking out, looking at Bethany with moist brown eyes. Rolling onto her side, Tinker decided to take a nap, so Bethany curled up beside her to nap also. Tinker’s breath smelled like oakwood.

How’s tinker? Aliceanna asked Bethany when they were riding bikes a few days later. It was a hot, sticky day.

She’s a good puppy, and she’s smart. She cries at the door when she has to go out. My mother lets her sleep with me sometimes. Other times, Tinker waits until my mother is asleep before coming upstairs to sleep in my bed. If my father was home more, Tinker could probably sleep with me every day. I saved my allowance and bought her a lot of toys.

Tinker looked like the dog in her new puzzle, the one her father bought her for getting good grades in school. Tinker dozed beside the puzzle box as Bethany worked on the puzzle. Bethany liked the different colors of the flowers in the picture. A small black dog was digging a hole in the flower garden. Bethany’s mother always had fresh flowers in their home cut from the flower garden in the backyard. Vases of flowers were in every room of the house. Every few days, her mother changed the water and rearranged the flowers. The yard in the puzzle looked like her mother’s yard. In the puzzle, flowers hung from the fence, the porch of the house, and the doghouse. There was a dog bone in front of the doghouse. Tinker liked smelling the different flowers in her mother’s flower garden. It was the only time Bethany’s mother seemed to like Tinker. Bethany couldn’t believe her mother let Tinker near her flower garden. Bethany searched the house for Tinker one day and, not finding her, went into the backyard to tell her mother. Her mother was on her knees weeding, with Tinker close by sniffing the turned dirt. Surprisingly, her mother didn’t shoo Tinker away or tell Bethany to take her away.

Instead, she said, Take these cut flowers into the house for me, Bethany. Your father is having guests over after dinner. I am replacing all the flowers on the first floor. Will you wash the extra crystal vases? Do you think blue irises will look good in the bathroom?

Of course, she didn’t wait for an answer. Her mother never did.

I’ll place blue flowers in the bathroom, red in the dining room, and red and white in the foyer, her mother said, still digging.

Bethany carried the metal bucket filled with irises, lilies, and snapdragons into the house, with Tinker trailing behind her. Bethany knew her mother picked those colors so everything, even the colors of flowers, would match the colors of the rooms.

Tinker, Bethany whispered, after placing the bucket of flowers in the kitchen sink, what were you doing out there with that woman?

It was a very cold day in November, and after two days of nonstop snow, Bethany and Aliceanna rode their sleds down the middle of the snow-packed street. Aliceanna begged her brother, Jacob, to sled with them. On the count of three, they pushed off from the top of the street and guided the sleds to the bottom. Bethany’s sled was blue; Aliceanna’s, red. Bethany fell off halfway down on the second ride down, but Aliceanna never fell off. Aliceanna and Bethany got Jacob to pull their sleds up the street to start all over again. When they were tired of sledding, Bethany and Aliceanna worked on puzzles at Bethany’s. They worked on a puzzle of a frozen pond with skaters. Aliceanna knew how to skate because her grandfather had a pond on his farm and when it was frozen, people who lived nearby skated on it. Aliceanna told Bethany she would teach her to skate as well as her. It was easy. Bethany was scared to try but didn’t want to tell Aliceanna that.

Suppose the ice breaks and I fall in? she asked Aliceanna.

I’ll pull you out or get help, said Aliceanna.

I don’t have a pair of ice skates.

I have two pairs. You can use a pair of mine. You’re scared to ice-skate, aren’t you, Bethany?

Okay, I am scared. Maybe one day I’ll try it.

Changing the subject, Bethany asked, Do you have a scarf and mittens like the girl in the puzzle?

Yeah. My grandfather bought me a scarf and mittens. I would like to have a plaid hat like the girl in the puzzle, said Aliceanna, looking at Bethany.

I’ll ask my mother if I can go with you to your grandfather’s, said Bethany.

When I skate, I wonder if I look like the girl in the puzzle, said Aliceanna. She put in a puzzle piece that looked like the top of the girl’s plaid hat. It was a good fit.

Now I have to find pretty laces for my skates like the girl in the puzzle, said Aliceanna.

Aliceanna’s brother had a collection of model planes and cars in his room. Jacob told them to not touch his models, and they didn’t. Besides, sometimes Jacob would take them to the store when he bought new models. Aliceanna and Bethany would trail Jacob around the store, trying to get him to buy the models they liked. When Jacob wasn’t looking, Aliceanna and Bethany would slip out of the store and run to the five-and-dime store. There they found a large selection of puzzles and board games. Jacob would eventually find them, and they, Bethany and Aliceanna, would plead for money to buy a game or a puzzle. Sometimes it worked, and afterward, Mrs. Stewart would pop a big bowl of Jolly Time Popcorn, with lots of butter and salt. Aliceanna and Bethany sat on the floor of Jacob’s room eating popcorn, listening to music, and watching Jacob work on his models. Bethany had stopped asking her mother for a brother or sister. She didn’t need a brother or sister for she had Aliceanna, Jacob, and Tinker.

Two

Loud pings could be heard as soon as you stepped into the building. A group of friends—Aliceanna, Bethany, Don, Mike, and six other neighborhood kids—waited at the counter for their instructor. All had signed up for a youth bowling league, but first, they needed shoes. They were instructed to bring socks and money. Aliceanna, Bethany, and two other girls met at Aliceanna’s house the night before to decide on the clothes they would wear for their first day of bowling. Boys from the neighborhood were in the league, and of course, they had to carefully choose what to wear. The final vote was pedal pushers, short-sleeve cotton blouses, and Keds. Mrs. Stewart popped corn with gobs of butter, and they drank root beer and Brownie sodas. Bethany and one other girl brought white shoe polish, and lots of newspapers covered the basement floor. Smears of shoe polish crusted on legs, arms, and fingertips, but the tennis shoes looked good when they finished.

Putting on the bowling shoes, the girls peeped at the boys as the boys peeped at the girls. They were teamed in two groups of five. Bethany and four others had never bowled before. The instructor was good. He was patient and spoke slowly, but boy, did he have fun laughing at their bowling. Mike ended up in the gutter while his ball rolled backward. Another girl banged her toe on the ball return, and still another dropped a few balls on her foot. Some of Bethany’s balls bounced into other lanes, and those people were mad. Don’s team was beating the team Bethany was on. Mike was also on the winning team. She had curveballs and gutter balls, but the worst for Bethany was learning to keep score. She just couldn’t get the hang of it, but it didn’t matter. Three hours later, everyone was laughing as they hunted for their shoes. Lining up at the snack counter, the girls couldn’t get over how much food the boys ate. Their plates were stacked with three and four hot dogs, chips, and mounds of French fries. Some had not one but two bottles of milk. How could they eat so much food?

The girls made it to the parking lot before one of the boys yelled Chase, chase! and it was on. The girls decided the night before that they would stay together if the boys chased them. It didn’t go according to plan. It never did. Three blocks from the bowling alley, the girls started running in different directions. Out of breath from screaming and running, Bethany and the girl running alongside her hopped over bushes in someone’s front yard and fell to the ground out of breath.

You look, said Bethany to the girl.

The girl slowly peered over the bushes. I don’t see the boys, she said, sinking back to the ground.

Let’s stay here a few minutes, she croaked at Bethany. I can’t run anymore. Just five minutes and I’ll be ready to run again.

Okay, Bethany whispered hoarsely, wondering what had happened to Aliceanna. Bethany lost sight of Aliceanna in the parking lot. Bethany hoped Don had been chasing her because she really, really liked him. Bethany looked at the girl beside her. She had seen the girl before but couldn’t remember her name.

Who do you want to chase you? Bethany asked.

Nigel. I really like him, but I don’t know if he likes me. My friend likes Don, the girl told Bethany.

Bethany, thinking about how much she liked Don, didn’t want to talk to the girl anymore.

I’m ready to run, Bethany said, jumping up and looking around.

Bethany, motioning for the girl to stand up, said, I don’t see them. Are you ready?

Sure, the girl responded.

Hopping over the bushes, they ran. When Bethany finally got home, Aliceanna was waiting for her on the front steps. Grabbing Bethany’s arm, Aliceanna dragged her to the backyard and shoved her down at the picnic table.

Aliceanna, smiling at Bethany, said, Guess what I found out?

What? asked Bethany.

First, you have to promise not to tell anyone, said Aliceanna.

Ah, come on, Aliceanna, you know I won’t tell anyone.

Aliceanna didn’t say anything, just continued looking at Bethany. Finally, Bethany swore she wouldn’t tell.

You know Nigel in Mrs. Proust’s class, don’t you? asked Aliceanna.

Bethany answered, Yes, I know Nigel. Just tell me, Aliceanna.

Well, I found out that he likes the girl that was running with you but thinks she likes another boy. I also found out that one of the girls in my group likes Don. Did you find out anything? said Aliceanna.

Bethany, trying not to let on that she was upset, asked, Do you know the name of the girl, the one that likes Don?

Aliceanna shrugged her shoulders. No. Is it important? Well? Did the girl running with you tell you anything?

Yeah, she definitely likes Nigel, answered Bethany.

Come on, Bethany, Aliceanna stared at her, stop acting like you aren’t upset. I know you like Don because you act goofy whenever you hear his name or see him. Did you tell her that you like Don?

No, answered Bethany.

"What are you going to do? Why don’t you let girls know you like him instead of