I hung on to the tie. “I would like,” I said, “to never speak to You again.”
God said: “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes,” I said, “I do.”
“Be careful what you say,” said God.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You can’t do anything to me now.”
God said: “You’ll be sorry.”
“No,” I said, and took my hands away from the tie. “I already am.”
One Good Thought
IT GOT QUIET in the room. I took a deep breath, but I couldn’t kick away the chair.
I tried to think what Father would do if he were me and I knew he would try to think of a good thought. So I tried. I thought how good it was now that God had gone away, like it was in the beginning. But it wasn’t like it was in the beginning, because now I knew nothing I had made was good after all.
I tried again. I thought how in a few minutes Armageddon really would be here and all the bad things would be washed away and the world would be how it was always intended to be. But then I remembered all the people God would destroy, and pretty soon I couldn’t think about that either.
Then I looked down and caught sight of one of the little people I had made to begin with. An arm had come away from the body, but the face was still the same. And that is when I had the best thought I have ever had in my life. I thought of Father going into the Land of Decoration and meeting my mother again.
Father would see Mother standing a little way from him. Something about her would make him go toward her. Then she would turn round and he would not be able to believe it. But he would have to believe it, because it would be true. They would go walking together, leaving a trail in the grass, sometimes my mother’s hand would be in Father’s and sometimes his arm would be around her shoulders. And all the streets and all the rivers and all the names and places of this world, all the people that were and are and will be, would be nothing to this moment.
I knew it was possible, I knew they really could be together if I could just step forward. But I still couldn’t do it. And then I realized it wasn’t that Father didn’t love me but that I didn’t love Father enough. And when I thought that, the world split apart.
I undid the tie and fell off the chair and began to cry, though it wasn’t much like crying and more like being sick, like turning myself inside out. I don’t know how long I’d been crying when I heard someone say: “Judith.” Father was standing there.
His face was white. Then he was beside me on the floor pulling me to him roughly, holding me so tightly, saying over and over: “I’m sorry”—and it was all very strange, as if I was dreaming.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but we were in no place and there was no more time. We were borne up high; we were burning. I never knew another person could do that to me, and perhaps I was doing it to him too.
And then something happened. The clock in the hall began to chime, and I stopped breathing and looked at him. I got to my feet and my chest was rising and falling.
He said: “What’s the matter?” He said: “Judith! What on earth—?”
I listened to those strokes, and at each one a little part of me passed into nothingness, and as each new stroke came, a new piece of me took its place.
Then the strokes were over and I looked at him. I said: “We’re still here.”
He blinked. “Where d’you expect us to be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Judith, what are you talking about?”
I began to cry again. I said: “We’re alive, aren’t we?” I held on to his sleeve, his shoulder. My hands were hungry.
He said. “Judith,” and then he was crying too.
I said: “I tried to save you. I thought the world was ending,” and we didn’t say anything more for a while. Then he laughed and sniffed and said: “Well, it looks like it’s still here to me.”
I shook my head. I stared at him. “What are we going to do now?” I said, because I really couldn’t think of anything; I couldn’t see how it would go.
Father wiped his eyes. He said: “Well, we could have breakfast.”
“
“I don’t know—we could go for a walk.”
“
He thought for a minute. “Up the mountain—the Silent Valley, maybe. We could watch the sunrise.”
I wiped my eyes. I looked around. “What about the Land of Decoration?”
“We’ll take care of it when we get back.”
My eye caught the card of Auntie Jo and I took hold of Father’s sleeve. “Let’s visit her,” I said suddenly.
He looked at me and then at the card. I kept hold of his sleeve. I gripped it tight. He said: “All right.” He got to his feet, as if he was very tired, and then he helped me up.
We were going through the door when I stopped.
“What is it?” he said.
“I thought I heard something,” I said.
He looked at me. “All right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I must have imagined it.”
How to Make a Hot-Air Balloon
AND NOW I will show you how to make a hot-air balloon, one that really does fly. It is not very difficult once you get the basic shape right.
You will need:
a wire helium balloon
all-purpose glue
string
scissors
acrylic paint
a small basket
a needle
burlap
cotton thread
tissue paper
a net bag oranges come in
cardboard (no thicker than a Weetabix box)
very sticky tape
a sharp pencil
rice
1. Take a helium balloon that is shaped like a pear. Not the flattened kind, not the perfectly round kind, not the novelty kind. Trim the seam that runs around the edges.
2. Cut a rectangle of cardboard and curl it around the bottom of the balloon so that it is a little cylinder and hides the tail. Glue it together on the inside and tape it to the balloon.
