Swan Place by Augusta Trobaugh Page A

home a better way. C’mon, Molly. Hurry!”
    “Not such a long way?” Molly’s mouth was in a pout.
    “Yes,” I lied, not wanting to get her all upset. Because I would not take us all back along the highway, when maybe there was a strange man in a brown truck who would see us and know we didn’t have any big, strong daddy coming for us. Run! The crows had said. And I meant to do just that. We reached the highway and went in the opposite direction from the way we had come.
    “Wrong way!” Molly announced.
    “No, Molly. This is the right way. Trust me! Hurry!” Maybe she sensed my fear, because she didn’t pull against me again. We went on down the highway—fast—in the wrong direction, until I saw a house across the highway. We crossed over, went through the side yard of the house, and came to a thick stand of trees.
    “This is the way,” I said, more to give myself confidence than to comfort Molly, and we all stepped into the thick woods. It was slow going, with Molly’s shoe coming off and briars catching our clothes, and Little Ellis feeling as heavy as a sack full of bricks. I got Molly’s shoe back on, untangled us from the briars, and shifted Little Ellis to my right hip. The muscles in my left arm were quivering from tiredness.
    Forward! That’s what I kept saying silently. And crazily, I remembered the T-shirt I borrowed at Aunt Bett’s on Easter Sunday afternoon. Forward! Forward! I thought again, Mama’s big girl!
    On and on, until through the trees off to my right, I could see yet another house. I thought we’d probably gone far enough to cut over and find our dirt road, but far, far away from where it met the highway we’d crossed and also maybe far away from a brown pickup truck that was waiting.
    “This way,” I said to Molly, and I heard her sniffle.
    “What’s wrong?” I said, but I was thinking, What’s wrong, besides the fact that maybe I’ve gotten us lost, and you’re hot and tired and scratched by briars, and we don’t know where home is, and there’s a strange man around somewhere?
    “Go home!” Molly fairly shrieked, and I had to work hard to stop myself from screaming those same words. Instead, I said, “That’s what we’re doing, Molly,” with a rough sound to my voice. I heaved Little Ellis upward from my hip and almost yanked Molly along as I trudged off toward the house I saw through the trees. All of a sudden a dog was barking—so loud and so close! We froze, right where we were.
    “Who’s out there?” A man’s voice. Angry. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Little Ellis pressed his face into the side of my neck, and Molly stepped behind me, her arms wrapped around my legs.
    “Who’s out there?” Louder. Angrier.
    “Children, sir!” I yelled back.
    “Children?” Still loud. Still angry. “Well, get outta here!”
    “Yessir!” I yelled.
    “You don’t get out, I’ll turn the dog loose.”
    “We’re going!” I fairly screamed.
    Little Ellis had begun sobbing against my neck, and I moved slowly across the side yard, with Molly still behind me, and as we passed, I saw the man—no shirt, leaning on the back porch banisters. Red face. Big white belly.
    “Go on!” he yelled, and I sprinted forward, dragging Molly along. When I thought that we were far enough away from the angry man and his big dog, I stopped and tried to put Little Ellis down for a moment. But he hung on to me in all kinds of ways, and trying to unwrap him was like trying to get rid of a kudzu vine. Little Ellis and I wound up on the ground in a heap, and Molly piled right on top of us.
    “It’s okay. It’s okay,” I tried to croon to them. But I was trying hard not to cry. Because Little Ellis was so heavy and Molly was so scared, and I still wasn’t sure of where we were. I finally got us all calmed down and sat up, and I found that I was looking through more brambles and trees… but through them, I could see a dirt road. Our road? Yes! And for the first time in