A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt

looked like grass. Herons lived in the marshes, crabs and clams. Not any more,” she said. “I don’t know whether to get angry or just weep. And I’ll tell you something else; the Chesapeake Bay is worse.” She turned to face him. “Do you know what Captain John Smith said about the Chesapeake Bay? He said it teemed with fish, so all a man had to do was step into its water with his sword out, and fish would leap onto it and he could feast. You’ve seen it, what do you think?”
    Jeff thought about the harbor at Baltimore, where tankers lined up at piers edged by high brick warehouses, and he remembered Sparrow Point, where the air was thick with industrial pollution. “It smells much worse than this,” he said.
    â€œOnly because the air’s right today,” Melody told him. “When the wind comes down from the refineries and plants, it stinks — no, it really stinks. But you’re right, things are better down here, and do you know why? Because it’s a poor country, the South. Poverty may save it — that’s ironic, don’t you think? The only thing that saves what’s left of the ecology down here is because we’re too poor to develop. I think, if I didn’t know about the victims of that poverty, I’d be grateful for it. But I don’t think — in the long run — anything will save us.” Her hair hung long and black in the braid down her back, gleaming in sunlight. “Let’s sit down in the shade,” Melody said.
    She led him back down the steps and across the street and across the park to a bench facing the row of houses that faced out over the harbor. These were mansions, with verandas on all three floors, with curved staircases leading up to their broad front doors. They were the kinds of houses that might welcome women in hoop skirts and gentlemen in tall boots. The ancient trees around them were twisted, broad-branched, and hung with spanish moss.
    â€œWe can really
talk,
” Melody said. “Are you still at the University School?” She sat close enough beside him to hold onto his hand.
    â€œYes. I’m going into seventh grade.”
    â€œThat’s the year I was going to take you out, because no girls can enroll — is that still true? No girls after sixth grade?”
    Jeff sensed that she wanted him to talk about school, but hewas bemused by sensations and couldn’t chatter. He felt as if he had been cold, frozen down to his bones and into the marrow, and suddenly now he lay under the warmth of the sun. He could feel himself growing easy, relaxed, under the warmth; he couldn’t distract himself from the enjoyment of that. It had something to do with the way his mother held his hand, held to his arm when they walked, touched him with her glance. His sensations were half-remembered, memory growing stronger with every minute he was with her.
    â€œHow do you do at school?”
    â€œAll right. I get some B’s, mostly C’s.”
    â€œB’s without working or B’s with working?” she asked.
    â€œWith working,” he said. The silver and turquoise rings looked wrong on her hand, too big and clumsy for her fingers.
    â€œOh dear, you must have gotten my brains, not your fathers’s,” she said. “Poor Jeffie, is that hard on you?”
    â€œNo,” he said, “I don’t mind.”
    She laughed. “I never did myself. His brains don’t do him much good, do they? I remember when you left for school for your first day, do you remember?” He shook his head. “You were quiet, but you weren’t frightened. After all, you’d been in day care for years. I even remember the first time ever I saw you. In the hospital — oh Jeffie, I’d never even suspected what it would be like. Having a baby. They tell you, but you never take it in. I thought I’d died and gone to hell, the
pain —
and the horrible bright