Free Fly Away by Patricia MacLachlan Page A

time to use it ever since. It is much too long for a poem.
    Frankie, who Mama says is as “old as time,” lives far out in the middle of the universe. She lives by a big river that floods in the rainy season. It is now the rainy season, and Boots says it will flood while we’re there.
    â€œFrankie will need our help even though she doesn’t think so,” says Boots.
    â€œShe is so stubborn,” my mother complains.
    Boots looks at me in the rearview mirror. It is like looking into my eyes, we look so much the same.
    He smiles.
    â€œWho else is stubborn?” he asks.
    â€œMama!” says Gracie.
    Frankie has a few milking cows she milks every day, but leases most of the higher meadowland for other people’s cattle.
    There are few trees, no mountains, just miles and miles of prairie grass and gophers and sky.
    And the river.
    Frankie’s house is the house where Mama grew up. Mama loved it and hated it at the same time. She always cries when we get there and cries when we leave. Maybe one day I’ll understand that.
    â€œIt sounds like ‘the birdies fly away and come back home’ to me,” I once said to Boots.
    â€œYou’re very right,” he said, peering at me as if I’d said something important.
    At dusk we find a place to stop for the night. It is a state park hill with an open field, bordered by a farmland fence. Mama lets Sofia, Ella, and Nickel out of their crates and spreads chicken feed on the ground for them. They flap their wings and mosey around, eating and strutting. My mother and father get out their chairs and their small stove. They set up their tent near a tree. Gracie, Teddy, and I always sleep in the car beds, Teddy in the middle. Mama and Boots could sleep in the bus, but they love their small domed tent.
    â€œWhy can’t we stay in a motel?” Gracie asks. “Trini’s family goes to a motel with a pool and dining room and minia­ture golf course where a little volcano goes off if you get a hole in one.”
    I know what Boots is about to say. I’ve heard it many times. I’ve even written a poem about it. Gracie has heard it before too, but she is young enough to think the answer may change when she asks to stay in a motel. She’ll know better one day.
    Motel Room
    Where’s the river?
    Where’s the sky?
    Can’t see the clouds—
    Or bluebirds fly by.
    Boots waves his arm.
    â€œIn a motel you wouldn’t have this great view,” says Boots. “You’d have fourwalls with boring paintings.”
    â€œMaybe a motel would have a pool,” said Gracie.
    â€œMaybe we’ll find a river,” said Boots.
    Can’t smell the flowers,
    Can’t smell the sea—
    Four walls and bad art
    Is all that you’ll see.
    I take Teddy for a walk in the mea­dow. He reaches up and takes my hand with his tiny hand. His hand is warm. He wears red sneakers and a faded T-shirt with a green fish on it.
    Suddenly Teddy stops. He is staring at something. He points.
    â€œCow,” he says.
    â€œTeddy, you said cow!”
    As far as I know Teddy has never said cow. But he says it as clear as light. He says it again.
    â€œCow.”
    â€œMama!” I shout. “Boots! Teddy said cow!”
    Mama waves. Boots and Gracie come quickly across the field and look where Teddy is pointing. Far off, at the fence, stands a cow. It is a kind of cow I’ve never seen. Ever.
    â€œOh, my.” Boots’s voice is strange. “Oh, my,” he repeats.
    â€œCow,” says Teddy again.
    â€œOh, my,” says Boots again.
    I feel like I’m in a strange echo chamber.
    Boots starts to walk toward the fence, then comes back to scoop Teddy up in his arms. He beckons for us to follow.
    At the fence is a very large cow. She is beautiful and black, with a wide white stripe around the middle of her. My breath catches. Maybe Boots is right after all. That he couldn’t write anything more