Free The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane

understand?"
    "The bus to Galway, yes." Where is Johanna? Greta thought.
    "Give this to your mother. It's the doctor's address, and at the bottom is my name, so you can tell him I sent you. I also made a few notes." He pressed the paper into Greta's hand. "It won't cost anything. Tell your mother that too. Tell her everything I said."
    Greta folded the paper in fourths as she walked away. When she got beyond the front gate of the school, she sat on the road, opened her bag, and tucked the note neatly between the pages of her book. Behind the rushes she could hear the creek flowing over the rocks. Father Mitchell had glasses. Greta got a good look at them every time she received Communion and their faces were mere inches apart.
They seemed yellow in color and always made him look as if he had just stopped crying. Mrs. Norton, who owned one of the two shops in town, also had glasses, but hers were two little half-moons that sat at the tip of her nose. Mrs. Norton's Greta could accept. Father Mitchell's she could not.
    "What's the story?" Johanna demanded, breathless from running to find Greta. "What was he on about? Did he pull any teeth on you? No, you're grand. I can see that for myself. Me as well. Did you look in the bucket? You'd think they'd cover it up with something. Johnny Sullivan looked as green when he saw it! I watched him glance down, and then what did he do but put his hand right over his mouth. Trish had a mouthful of blood, and she spit it right on—"
    Greta handed her the note, and Johanna snapped it open.
    "Glasses?" Johanna said.
    "Does it say anything about whether they'll be yellow like Father Mitchell's?"
    "No, nothing like that. I think you're supposed to go to Galway." Johanna refolded the note and handed it back to Greta.
    "That's what he said. To Galway to see a doctor, and then the doctor will give me glasses and I'll be able to see."
    "Can you not see?"
    Johanna leaned in close to Greta's face, then leaned away, in and out to look at Greta's eyes up close and then from a slight distance.
    "When Pepper went blind his eyes went red and swelled up. And he wouldn't come out of the stable if it was sunny. Remember him rearing up on Pop?"
    Greta rubbed her eyes.
    "Now, Greta. Mammy will want it to be just the two of you to save on bus fare, but tell her you want me to come. You will, won't you? Tell her you're scared and you need me."
    "I will not!"
    "Well, I'll be left home, then. You would do that? At Christmas? You and Mammy off looking at the shops and the lights, and me at home listening to the wind?"
    "I won't say I'm scared. I'm not scared."
    Johanna shrugged and began walking. "Might not happen anyway. You know who'll have something to say about this, don't you?"
    Â 
    Lily didn't know what to think. The girls had come home and given her the note as if they were making a formal presentation. Greta offered it on her open palm, and Johanna stood next to her, watching the note pass from Greta's palm to Lily's fingers to the table, where it was opened and the creases smoothed flat.
    "Glasses," Johanna summarized as Lily read. "For Greta."
    "We're supposed to go to Galway," Greta said. "To see a doctor. Does it say?" she asked, standing on her tiptoes and looking over her mother's shoulder.
    "I can't make heads nor tails of most of it," Lily said. "It's mostly to the doctor in Galway. There's just a little bit at the top to me." She turned to Greta, took her by the wrists, and pulled her so that she was standing against Lily's knees. "Can you not see, Greta? I mean, I know we tell you don't squint and do your neck like the goose, but can you not see?"
    "I already looked at her eyes to see do they look like Pepper's," Johanna said.
    "I'm not blind," Greta said.
    "Look around here now." Lily shooed at Johanna to back away, give Greta some room. "What can't you see?"
    "Mammy, how can she tell you what she can't see?" Johanna said.
    "She knows what I mean."
    "I can see the kitchen for a start."
    "What