The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech Page B

Maybe he should go straight to the sheriff’s office and let him know about the boy. He didn’t like the sheriff much. He was a bossy man, given to poking his finger in your face as if to warn you that he knew better about everything and you’d better not waste his time.
    John’s mind turned to Marta’s face when she held the child and when she’d tucked him into bed and when she’d risen in the night to check on him. Maybe, John thought, he should first go to the general store and pick up the tone of things. Gossip found its way quickly to the general store in these small towns.
    Out of nowhere, he thought of jelly beans and how he’d loved them as a child, how his father had taken him into town and let him buy a nickel’s worth of jelly beans from the glass jar on the counter at the general store.
    Maybe, John thought, he would bring home some jelly beans for the boy.

7

    W hen John returned home, the farmhouse was empty. He dashed out into the yard and called for Marta. He raced to the barn, calling her name. “Marta! Marta!”
    He didn’t know what made him so anxious. Maybe the people had come for the boy. He should have stayed home with Marta. What if there was a problem—but what sort of problem? What was the matter with him? He wasn’t usually a worrier.
    The barn was empty, except for kittens bouncing over hay bales. The goats and cows were in the fenced enclosures outdoors. And then he saw them, Marta and the boy, at the far end of the enclosure, lining up bottles and cans on the fence.
    â€œJohn, there you are—what news? Oh, don’t tell me. Please don’t tell me. Listen to this—”
    The boy raised his hands as if he were a music conductor, and then he began tapping at the bottles and cans with slender sticks. It wasn’t random, reckless tapping: there was a distinct rhythm to it, slow and soft at first, rising to a crescendo, and then falling back to beautiful calm and then rising again. It sounded like waves at the ocean or the wind as it came across the fields and through the trees.
    â€œI taught him that!” Marta said. “I mean, I was pretending to be a conductor and he put the cans up there and then—oh, I don’t know—I was just tapping them—”
    â€œYou were pretending to be a conductor? You were tapping the cans?”
    â€œWell, don’t sound so surprised , John.”
    â€œBut how would you know how to be a—oh, never mind.”
    â€œThe boy was imitating my every move and then he took off with it. Listen to him.”
    The boy continued, oblivious to everything but the sounds coming from the bottles and cans.
    â€œAnd wait,” Marta said. “Watch what he does with the ladder.”
    Farther down the fence was a ladder which she now dragged toward the boy. She handed the boy thicker sticks—ones John had used for stirring paint.
    â€œI taught him this!” she said.
    The boy rapped a rhythmic tune against the wooden ladder, on the sides and the rungs, a livelier, louder rhythm, full of life and joy, like a dozen dancers dancing on a wooden floor, or a dozen drummers drumming.
    â€œYou taught him that?” John asked.
    â€œOnly part—just the beginning—and he makes up the rest. He’s very quick to learn, John.”
    Next the boy’s attention moved on to a bucket half full of rainwater. He dipped a stick into the bucket and swirled the water round and round.
    â€œIf it’s bad news from town, don’t tell me, John. Not yet.”
    He rested a hand on her shoulder. “There is bad news and there is good news.”
    â€œDon’t tell me the bad news, John.”
    â€œThe bad news is—”
    Marta covered her ears. “I said don’t tell me—”
    John moved her hands. “—that you’ve got cat poo on your skirt—and the good news is that there’s no news in town.”
    â€œNo news? No