The Secret Life of Owen Skye by Alan Cumyn Page A

rafters to look at and the sloping planks of the roof and even two little windows in the floor of the fort that you could look through to see what was happening down below.
    â€œThis isn’t much of a fort,” Eleanor said. “I don’t know what you’re so excited about.”
    Owen tried to help Sadie up. She had a hard time gripping the cable with her hands and couldn’t seem to make her feet clutch. Owen stood below her with his feet on the iron bucket and pushed, and when that didn’t work, he climbed up halfway, then reached back down to try to pull her up.
    He was in the middle of doing that when the cable started to pull him up all by itself. It felt magical for a moment, and then it felt like the most horrible thing he’d ever known in his life.
    There were screams then, not from Owen but from Andy and Leonard and Eleanor, who used to be up top in the fort but now were sprawled on the dirt floor. The garage door which never closed finally had closed for some reason that might have been science or something more mysterious. But no one cared right at that moment, because Owen was dangling near the roof with his finger caught between the rusty cable and the round pulley.
    Andy climbed up first to have a look, and when he saw the finger really was caught he called down to Leonard to run to the house to get their mother.
    It took forever for Margaret to get to the garage.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” she called. Then she opened the door to see for herself, and Owen came down with the cable.
    â€œDid you cut yourself?” Margaret said in the voice that she used when things weren’t very serious and kids should stop crying about them.
    â€œI think so,” Owen said and held up his finger.
    Then Margaret turned and ran back to the house, and all the other kids ran with her.
    Owen was left alone. The severed tip of his finger hung down by a strip of skin. There was blood on his hand and the bone showed whiter than the whitest snow.
    All at once he felt the pain, and he stood screaming and looking, screaming and looking.
    He never knew what took his mother so long in the house. It seemed like she was gone for hours, though really she must have only been looking for her purse. Maybe she really wasn’t that long finding her purse, and perhaps a sweater. Maybe it only felt like an eternity to Owen because he was all alone with disaster.
    When Margaret finally returned, she put the tip of his finger back in the right place and had Owen hold it on with tissue paper. He stopped crying then. There was something powerful about tissue paper. Everything seemed better because of it. Owen sat in the front seat of the car holding the tip of his finger on, and all the other kids sat in the back. Andy and Eleanor were crying. Owen knew they thought the accident was their fault. Leonard and Sadie were quiet and pale.
    Margaret started the car. It was an old one that Horace had just bought that week for only fifty dollars. He was going to fix it up and sell it for seventy-five, but he hadn’t got around to the fixing-up part yet. Still, it was the only car on hand and Margaret started it expertly, then backed out onto the main road and shifted it into gear.
    The car stalled. Margaret slammed the steering wheel and started it again. But as soon as she tried to shift it to go forward, the engine quit.
    Margaret tried and tried to get the car going. Owen sat still and silent and closed his eyes. His finger really didn’t hurt as much as he thought it should, with the tip broken off like that. He held the tissue paper tight to keep everything on and to stop the bleeding. Now all the other kids were crying, and his mother was using evil language.
    But Owen knew it was going to be all right. He thought of that day when he was in the middle of the burning ditch, and how he’d had the courage to face the Bog Man when he