The Blue Between the Clouds Read Online Free Page A

your mind fast,” I said.
    â€œI’m not afraid of bad spirits,” Two Moons said. “I know their medicine.”
    â€œWell, don’t get all worried about me,” I said. “I’m gonna fly outta here and I don’t care what’s up there. Are you comin’ with me?”
    Two Moons stared at me, then he looked at the sky.
    â€œYes,” he said.
    We ran the rest of the way home and cleaned out the henhouse. We had three gunnysacks full of feathers when we were done, and both of our hands were bleedin’ from bein’ pecked by mad hens. Then we cut some willow branches and bent them into long loops. We covered these with bed sheets. Ma would’ve beat our backsides with a wooden spoon if she’d caught us. We melted all the candles we could find and poured the hot wax on the wings. Then we pushed feathers into the wax before it dried.
    By then it was dark. We decided to wait until the next day when we could see where we were flyin’.
    â€œI’m thinkin’ we should stay kinda low tomorrow,” Two Moons said. “Just till we’re sure everything works out.”
    â€œOh yeah,” I said. “We don’t want to get close to that sun. Besides, it might be more effort than we think. We could get tuckered out pretty fast.”
    â€œThe spirits,” Two Moons said.
    â€œRight,” I said. “We don’t want to be in the air too long, just enough to get familiar, see how they treat us.”
    We agreed that the first flight would be a short one, and that we wouldn’t go showin’ off until we were really good at it.
    We were up early the next day. We hurried through breakfast and got on our way to school. I guess we were a little anxious to get home and get into the air. The hardest part was keepin’ the whole thing a secret. We were so nice to Esther it made her nervous. But we had to be. If we got in a fight, we were liable to burst out in anger and tell her everything. Besides, we both knew deep down that we would get her back after we felt the wonders of flight.
    I was thinkin’ about all this when I looked up and saw a chicken hawk circlin’ above us. He followed us all the way to school. I figured it was a good luck sign. I pointed him out to Two Moons. Two Moons smiled.
    â€œBrother hawk is waitin’ for us,” he said.
    â€œWhat are you talkin’ about?” Esther said.
    â€œNothin’,” I said.
    â€œYou two better not have some fool ideas in your heads,” she said. “I’ll throw you both in the holdin’ pond. You know it too, don’t you?”
    â€œYeah, we know it,” I said.
    Well, we planned on keepin’ everything a secret. You know, lay low all day, then sneak back to the barn unnoticed and go for a short flight before supper. That was before all the kids in the schoolyard crowded around us and asked us about Esther’s dolls.
    â€œWe got better things to do,” I said.
    â€œLike what?” they said.
    â€œLike none of your business,” Two Moons said.
    They all laughed. Then Jacob Kranz, Jimmy’s older brother, said, “You got to get home and make some doll clothes?”
    Most kids think they can get away with stuff like that. But most kids don’t know Esther. She stepped in front of me and slugged him right in the stomach. Knocked the wind clean out of him. Everybody went silent, except fat Jacob. He kneeled down wheezin’, tryin’ to catch his breath.
    â€œWe got some flyin’ to do!” I yelled.
    Esther turned around sharply and looked at me as if I were Emmett. Two Moons kicked me in the backside.
    â€œWell, they’re gonna find out anyway,” I said to Two Moons. Then I turned to all of them.
    â€œIt just so happens that me and Two Moons made us a pair of wings like Icarus. We got ’em back at the barn and we’re gonna go for a little flight today after school.”
    Everybody was