Coast to Coast

Coast to Coast by Betsy Byars Page A

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Authors: Betsy Byars
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said, her tone changing to friendly interest. “Is it exciting?”
    “I’m numb, Mom, we flew eight hours.”
    “At least you had a beautiful day for it.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t say beautiful. It rained in Georgia.”
    “I don’t think I could have stood it if it had rained here. The thought of a sale in the rain is—” She broke off. “Your grandfather stops to rest every now and then, doesn’t he? He used to hate to stop when we went on trips. That’s the one thing I remember about our vacations. Mom and I begging to stop and Dad pretending not to hear us. You do stop sometimes, don’t you?”
    “We have to stop, Mom, the J-3 only holds twelve gallons of gas. We stopped at Louisville and Warm Springs. They’re both in Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama. Oh, at the Birmingham airport a man had just soloed and they were cutting off his shirttail.”
    Her grandfather came out of the bathroom, drying his sunburned face on a towel. “Is it safe for me to talk now?”
    Her mom said, “Is that Dad?”
    “Yes.”
    “Put him on, Birch. He will flip when he hears what I got for the porch swing. Now, Birch, I want you to promise to call me every single night.”
    “I will.” Wordlessly, she held out the phone to her grandfather. Pop paused as if reluctant to take it.
    “It’s all right. She’s not going to stop us,” Birch said with a sigh. “She wants to tell you about the sale.”
    Pop threw his towel into the air in celebration. He caught it and did an old timey fox-trot step with it as his partner. Then he draped the towel around his neck and took the telephone.

CHAPTER 11
Bimbo and the Mississippi River
    B IRCH WAS IN THE front seat of the J-3. She glanced above her at the skylight at the rectangle of bright, cloudless blue sky windowed there. The front had passed through during the night and the morning air was crystal clear.
    “CAVU,” Pop had said. “What does that mean, Pop?”
    “Ceiling and visibility unlimited. You’ll probably be able to see for a hundred miles.”
    They had taken off at 7:40 and were now flying westward over Mississippi.
    Birch glanced out the window. Below the broad ribbed wing of the J-3, lay the interstate.
    The interstate stretched as far as the eye could see. It had taken on a special beauty in the clean early morning sunlight—the pale side-by-side ribbons of highway, the scattering of greenery between, the double bridges, the perfectly symmetrical cloverleaf ramps. The rest stops with the parked trucks and cars were as appealing as toys.
    Her grandfather touched her shoulder to get her attention.
    “You can get an idea of how fast we’re going from the traffic. See that Roadway truck?”
    She nodded.
    “It’s probably doing seventy or seventy-five. We’ve got a little head wind today, so we’re probably doing sixty. See how he’s moving ahead of us?”
    Birch nodded again. She grinned at him over her shoulder.
    Pop had told her that morning at breakfast that things would be easier today. “We won’t have to be doing any navigating. We’ll just follow the interstate. And there won’t be a cloud in the sky.”
    “I got tired yesterday.”
    “I did myself.”
    “And I was nervous at times. You probably didn’t notice.”
    “I noticed.”
    “I had to come on this trip. I had to.”
    “I did myself.”
    “But not like me.”
    He looked at her for a moment, squinting as if to get a better perspective.
    She went on quickly. “Anyway, I knew when I woke up this morning that it was going to be a good day. You know how I knew?”
    “How’s that?”
    “Because on the TV news was a story about Bimbo the goat. Didn’t you see it?”
    “Nope.”
    “First I have to explain that what I see on the news affects my whole day like if there’s a disaster, I think about those people for the rest of the day. And today, I especially needed to feel good, and when I saw this goat—his name was Bimbo—I knew I would.
    “This goat started dancing after his kids

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