It's a Little Haywire by Elle Strauss Page B

Disk by disk. Only I notice that they’re
not flat like plates, but curved slightly, like bowls.
    The caboose disappears into the
distance.
    My breath slows back to normal and I sit
there, on the log by the drying up creek, pondering the message the
beings have for me.
    I think I know what they are trying to
say.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Owen True – The Idea Guy
     
     
    IT ACTUALLY RAINS IN HAYWIRE sometimes.
The rat-tat-tat on the roof overnight and the cool fresh air knock
me out, and I sleep as soundly as Daisy.
    By morning, the sky is bright blue again
and the only signs of the downpour are the puddles in the potholes
on the road and a rise in the creek level.
    I find Mikala sitting with her feet in
the creek behind her house. From Gramps’ house the creek takes a
sharp turn to the south, past the Sweets’ back yard, where it heads
down hill into a ravine. The floor of the creek is deeper there,
and the water forms a pool deep enough to swim in, even in August.
We don’t go there much because Mikala doesn’t know how to swim.
It’s also the place where a skinny steel bridge joins Haywire to
the outside world and it’s kind of scary to be under there when a
car or truck drives over it.
    Mikala narrows her eyes. A warning not
to speak of what I saw at her house the day before. I’m no
dummy.
    “I saw them again last night. I think I
know what it means. What the beings are trying to say.”
    Mikala tightens her pony tail. “What
then? Spit it out.”
    I tell her what happened, how the image
was the clearest it’s been, how the beings were huge and how they
threw disk-like objects at me. “They weren’t Frisbee s, Mikala.
They were soup bowls.”
    “Soup bowls?”
    “Yeah, I think we’re supposed to make
soup with the vegetables from Gramps’, garden and feed the
people.”
    “Like a soup line?”
    “Exactly.”
    Mikala pulls her feet out of the water
and sets them on a sunny rock to dry. “That’s a lot of work.”
    “We got time.”
    “I suppose.”
    “Let’s go tell Gramps, see what he
says.”
    Mikala wrestles her feet back into her
sneakers and we race to Gramps’ arriving at the garden all
red-faced and short of breath.
    “Where’s the fire?” Gramps says.
    “I have something to tell you, Gramps,
and you might think I’m crazy.”
    “Alright, then.” Gramps adjusts his cap
like he’s trying to screw it on tight so the wind won’t take it
away, then sits in one of the lawn chairs. “Shoot.”
    I’m about to break into my story when
the screen door squeaks and out walks Mrs. Pershishnick. Man, why
is she here again?
    “I thought I heard young voices.” She
carries a tray, and a pitcher of something cold is beading
moisture. “It’s sweet iced tea. You thirsty?”
    Actually, now that she mentions it, I’m
parched. “Yeah, thanks.” We all accept a glass and as I guzzle mine
I try to decide if I should wait to tell Gramps until after she’s
gone. That could be a long wait, and I’m too excited to keep it to
myself. I decide telling Gramps with Mrs. Pershishnick listening is
fine.
    “Well,” I start, “Gramps did you know
the creek by the log is haunted?”
    His bushy eyebrows arch high. Mrs.
Pershishnick’s little mouth purses in humor. I press on despite
them. I tell them about the first two times I saw the ghost train
and how I thought I was crazy, and then the last time with the
enormous beings flinging soup bowls.
    “I believe they’re angels,” Mikala says,
bobbing her head enthusiastically. Nice to know I have one
believer.
    “Anyways.” I puff out a long breath. “I
think we’re supposed to make soup with the vegetables from your
garden Gramps. And give it away.”
    Part of me imagined Gramps thinking this
was a great idea. It’s noble, right? It’s helping the needy.
    He scrubs his beard. “I don’t know,
Owen. That’s a lot of work you’re suggesting there, and I don’t
know that anyone would come.”
    “Sure they’d come, Gramps.