Read Rhe Excerpt From Chapter 6 of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy Flashcards

  Lizzie Brilliant and the Buckminster Boy

Gary D. Schmidt

* * *

Clarion Books

New York

* * *

Clarion Books

a Houghton Mifflin Company banner

215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003

Copyright © 2004 by Gary D. Schmidt

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All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from

this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,

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Printed in the U.S.A.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schmidt, Gary D.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster boy / past Gary D. Schmidt,

p. cm.

Summary: In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg,

Maine, but things amend when he meets Lizzie Brilliant Griffin, a girl

from a poor, nearby isle customs founded by former slaves that the

town fathers—and Turner's—want to change into a tourist spot.

ISBN 0-618-43929-3

[1. Progress—Fiction. two. Race relations—Fiction. 3. Moving,

Household—Fiction. 4. Clergy—Fiction. 5. Maine—History—20th

century—Fiction.] I. Championship.

PZ7.S3527Li 2004

[Fic]—dc22

2003020967

ISBN-13: 978-0-618-43929-4

ISBN-ten: 0-618-43929-three

QUM 10 nine 8 7

* * *

For Virginia Buckley,

who, like the body of water cakewalk, urges united states of america to our all-time shores

CHAPTER 1

TURNER Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for fifteen minutes shy of vi hours. He had dipped his hand in its waves and licked the salt from his fingers. He had smelled the sharp resin of the pines. He had heard the low rhythm of the bells on the buoys that balanced on the ridges of the bounding main. He had seen the fine clapboard parsonage beside the church where he was to live, and the minor business firm ready a means beyond information technology that puzzled him some.

Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for almost six whole hours.

He didn't know how much longer he could stand information technology.

Maybe somewhere out West in that location really were Territories that he could light out to, where being a government minister'due south son wouldn't thing worth a ... well, worth a darn. He hoped so, because here, beingness a minister's son mattered a whole lot, and pretending that it didn't thing to him was starting to peck at his soul.

He did have to admit that their arrival had something to it. Every fellow member of Phippsburg's Starting time Congregational—as well as lost reprobates from other denominations—had gathered to greet the new government minister and his family. A quartet of slick trombones played a Sousa march as the steamer Kennebec came in sight of the wharf. A carmine, white, and blue welcome imprint unfurled at the end of the dock: Welcome Pastor Buckminster! The church building deacons stood properly at the foot of the gangway, their hands grasping the lapels of their nighttime suits, their hats lifting in unison every bit shortly every bit Mrs. Buckminster appeared on deck. A cheer at the sight of the new pastor, the quartet sliding into "Come up, Ye That Beloved the Lord," and the bronze bells of First Congregational suddenly tolling.

Then the iii of them had stepped onto the shore of their new home, and the deacons grabbed their new pastor'due south arms, and the women of the Ladies Sewing Circle of Get-go Congregational grabbed their new pastor's wife'southward artillery, and Turner ... Turner stood alone at the border of the dock, faced past the sons and daughters of the deacons and the women of the Ladies Sewing Circumvolve. Not a single one of them grabbed his arms. They looked at him as if he'd stepped in something they didn't want to exist around.

He held up his hand. "Hey," he said.

But it appeared that what he had heard in Boston was true: folks in Maine spoke a whole different linguistic communication, and didn't care for those who couldn't speak it themselves.

That was the first time Turner thought about lighting out for the Territories.

Though things did go better. The Ladies' Sewing Circle set out a picnic with enough cold chicken, cold pork, German potato salad, difficult-boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomato slices, dill pickles, bacon strips, ham-and-butter sandwiches, apple-cranberry muffins, rhubarb muffins, gooseberry muffins, and strawberry and boysenberry preserves to feed the 5 Thousand. And after Deacon Hurd had prayed long enough to aggravate the prophet Elijah, Turner sat down and began to think that mayhap Phippsburg wouldn't be such a bad identify after all—once he learned the language.

And things got even improve when Deacon Hurd called the sides for the afternoon baseball game. Turner's mother grinned at him, and he grinned back.

With whistles and calls and impossible boasts, the men and boys of First Congregational strolled across to Thayer's haymeadow—mown just the 24-hour interval before—and marked out the lines. They circled the bullpen'southward mound, and squared the batter's box beside the plate. Then Deacon Hurd, now Umpire Hurd, took off his jacket and held a bat out to Turner.

"You e'er play this game earlier, young Buckminster?"

"Yes, sir," said Turner.

He wanted to say, "Well-nigh a hundred 1000 times." Or, "About a hundred million times." Or, "Mister, I can shimmy a ball down a line so pretty, there isn't a soul on God'due south green earth that can even go almost it." Just he held back and only grinned over again.

"Then you're the offset man up," said Deacon Hurd.

"Aye, sir," said Turner, and took the bat, the resin on it feeling like home.

Information technology wasn't exactly the kind of field he might lay out on Boston Common. It was more stubble than grass. Home plate was tilted upwards and stamped on top with a cracked mollusk fossil. And since the other bases were set wherever a slab of granite showed its back, they weren't playing on annihilation yous could rightly call a diamond. But Turner saw that the pines sidled awful close to the left-field line, and he could spin a brawl to make it bear upon in fair, and so scoot off into the copse. He imagined that would be at least a triple. And even the trees in dead centre were near plenty that the sea breeze could take the brawl into their branches—if he could striking it loftier plenty.

And he could.

Turner decided that the second time upwards, he'd finesse the triple. But now, just to constitute himself, he would double past the second baseman, who was playing too neighborly to a second base of operations that was manner also close to tertiary.

He stepped to the granite plate and took a couple of wearisome swings. He straightened his left leg and cocked his right—this ordinarily confused the pitcher, though information technology didn't seem to confuse this ane. He was another Hurd, Willis Hurd, and he smiled as he tossed the ball up and downward. It was the kind of smile you requite to a chicken whose caput you're about to cut off.

That was the 2d fourth dimension Turner wondered about lighting out for the Territories.

He stepped back and took ii more slow swings, feeling the groove he left in the air. And then he stepped upwardly again, set his left leg, fixed his eyes, and waited for the quick swing of the pitcher's arm, the flashing slant of the ball through the blue-and-white air.

It never came. Willis held the ball a long while, notwithstanding smiling, then slowly leaned frontward, swung his arm downwardly depression, and lofted the ball into a high arc. Turner had never seen anything similar it. The brawl went about as high as a young pine, and so turned, slowly spun its seams once or twice, and sauntered on downward until it bounced softly on the granite plate.

"Strike ane!" hollered Deacon Hurd.

Turner looked at him. "Was that a pitch?"

"That was a strike."

"It landed on the plate."

"That'south what a strike volition do

. I thought you said you'd played this game before."

"Let's run into another strike," said Turner.

And he did. Another high, lofting brawl. No human being had ever pitched like that earlier, Turner decided. Information technology added an entirely new aeriform dimension. And when the ball meandered downward from about a mile above his head, he flailed at it as if information technology were a bumblebee.

"Strike two!" shouted Deacon Hurd. "You know you've only got 1 more, son."

"Perchance you'd ameliorate bend that front end leg," chosen still-grinning Willis.

"Are you property the bat high enough, boy?" suggested one of the Ladies' Sewing Circle from the sidelines. She turned to another of the circumvolve. "I don't call back he's holding the bat high enough. He'southward not holding that bat high enough at all. It's too heavy for him."

Turner stepped back from the plate and let the bat swing depression a couple of times. He wouldn't go for the double—-only a single. Someone clapped, and when he looked up, it seemed that every fellow member of Phippsburg Outset Congregational was standing on the lines figuring that he didn't have any idea what he was doing.

Willis waited a moment, letting Turner settle in, and Turner wondered what Willis's smile would look like if the brawl went crashing dorsum into his face. Perhaps that wasn't something a minister's son should want to see—just he did want to see it. He was almost startled that he wanted to run into it and so badly. He took some other couple of swings; and then he straightened his front end leg and waited.

"You certain y'all don't desire to bend that leg? Yous'd balance amend," suggested Deacon Hurd.

Turner did not motion. He waited with the bat held over his shoulder, absolutely yet.

And Willis looped the pitch upwards to him.

It must take peaked somewhere in the stratosphere, because this time information technology came downwardly screaming. Turner watched information technology come. He wanted information technology to come. The ball was big and fat, getting bigger and fatter, and he knew that when he swung at just the correct second he would shoot it out into center. He would feel information technology popular against his wrists, would watch it jump every bit he trotted hands to starting time.

Rushing, rushing, rushing, waiting, waiting, waiting—swinging.

And the brawl dropped onto the granite plate, bounced up against his knee joint, plopped back onto the plate, and rolled nonetheless against his talocrural joint.

"Strike three!" yelled Deacon Hurd.

"Curve your front leg next fourth dimension," offered Willis.

"Yous'll grab on, Turner. Next fourth dimension, you lot'll catch on," called Reverend Buckminster, and turned, laughing, to ane of the deacons, who had thumped him on the back.

Turner looked away from his father. He handed the bat to Deacon Hurd and saturday downward on the grass. No one else struck out the rest of the inning.

No 1 else struck out the residuum of the game—except Turner.

He never could time the descent of the brawl. It always seemed to cheat on him. In Boston, baseball game was honest. The pitcher threw as difficult every bit he could, the ball came flat and fast, or maybe spinning into a curve, but still fast. Here it only seemed to hang in the currents of the air until information technology found the convenient moment to plop onto the granite plate. No matter how he timed the thing, he was always off, and the most he could manage was a weasel of a hit that looped back to the bullpen's glove.

"Skilful, Turner. You got information technology back to me," said Willis.

"That's the fashion," added Reverend Buckminster.

Turner idea he might as well die right then and in that location. Information technology was probably likewise much to promise for the Apocalypse.

And and then his first failure in Phippsburg. He suspected he'd hear about it for a long time.

That first night, while the congregation sabbatum around the haymeadow eating the ice cream Mr. Newton and Mrs. Newton and all the little Newtons had brought up from their grocery store, he heard almost it from the Ladies' Sewing Circumvolve: "Turner, don't you retrieve you demand a lighter bat? That one is so heavy for a boy your size." While bits of low-cal flitted effectually and so thickly that Turner could non tell which were fireflies and which were sparks the body of water breeze kicked up from the blueish-gold logs, he heard about it from Reverend Buckminster: "Couldn't you have done better than that? Information technology didn't expect similar yous were swinging right." And while the fire burned low and the moon came up to silverish the haymeadow, he heard about information technology from Deacon Hurd: "Son, peradventure Willis tin can show you how to stand at the plate sometime. You be sure to ask him."Turner nodded. He'd be sure to inquire Willis about standing up at the plate sometime in the next millennium.

He didn't hear about it from his mother, just later that night, she did explain to him the purpose of the small house behind the parsonage.

"You lot don't mean that," said Turner.

"Yes," she said, "I do." She handed him the Sears, Roebuck catalogue.

It was, Turner thought, a plumbing equipment cease for the day.

***

And the next twenty-four hours wasn't and so promising. Bright and early, Mrs. Hurd stood on their front porch, a fresh blueberry pie for the new government minister and his family in her hands and the baseball game game on her lips: "I'grand pitiful you lot had such a hard fourth dimension last night. Did you lot ask Willis to show you how to play?"

"He will," said Reverend Buckminster. "Turner should have a thou fourth dimension with Willis. He's been looking forrad to living here in Phippsburg."

"He's been looking forward to lighting out for the Territories," thought Turner.

But the g fourth dimension came before he could low-cal out.

That afternoon, the dignitaries of Phippsburg arrived to deport Reverend Buckminster around his new parish, and the sons of those dignitaries arrived to bear Turner to "the all-time spot to swim in the whole state," according to Willis.

"Is it safe?" asked Mrs. Buckminster.

Turner was impressed that Willis could smile at his female parent and sneer at him at one and the same moment.

"We'd never swim where it wasn't, ma'am," said Willis. Then he looked at Turner. "You can swim, can't you? You take done that before?"

Turner wished he had a baseball game bat in his hand.

He walked behind the other boys, and tried not to hear the stifled laughs, tried not to meet the flailing swings. They crossed Thayer'southward haymeadow and passed among the firs and cedars and yellow birches, so began to climb up. Turner was a fleck dislocated; fifty-fifty someone who had lived in Boston knew you climbed downward to the body of water. Simply then the trees gave style, and they came to a granite outcropping that jutted out over the cold, light-green Atlantic. While the other boys draped their shirts over the blueberry bushes, Turner stepped to the edge and looked downward at the blue-black rocks. He figured this was where people who'd had enough of Phippsburg came to end it all.

Willis came upwardly beside him. "Y'all jumping in with your Sunday shirt on?"

"It isn't a Lord's day shirt, and I wasn't planning to."

"I suppose all Buckministers wear Sunday shirts every day of the calendar week. You do know how to jump, right?"

"I know how to jump."

"Wait for the wave to come in, then you don't splatter yourself all over those rocks. If you do, at that place won't be much of yous left to wash out to sea." Then Willis moved to the edge, waited for his wave, and, with a last smile at Turner, leaped.

It was beautiful. He fell slowly, like a baseball game, reaching the wave but equally information technology covered the rocks, disappearing in white and green, and so ascent out of the water equally the wave drew past and threw itself confronting the cliff. The lord's day gold the spray that fell around him.

Turner thought he might be ill.

Ane by 1, the boys jumped off the granite outcropping and fell perfectly into waves that had merely covered the rocks. And one by one they rose out of the sea into a golden spray.

Until at that place was only Turner.

He left his dress on the blueberry bushes and moved to the edge where his pale toes clenched the rock. The ocean swelled rhythmically beneath him, and he leaned forward whenever a wave folded in and broke to a xanthous froth. He looked downwards at his legs and was surprised to see that they were shivering, since he couldn't feel them at all.

He flexed his knees. Below him, the boys, standing on the blue-black rocks waved at him to jump. "At present!" they yelled with each cracking, and then groaned with thwarting when he

didn't go. "At present!" More groaning.

Turner hated their guts.

Somewhere there was a baseball diamond yellow with dust and light-green with summer grass. And there was a kid stepping upwards to the plate, swinging his bat depression, the pine tar sticky on his palms. He was moving his back foot behind him and trying non to center the gap downwards the right-field line big enough to run an eight-wheel locomotive through.

Merely Turner was standing forty feet higher up the writhing sea, waiting for a swell big plenty to continue him from splattering on the rocks and hoping he wouldn't throw up before he went under.

"You coming or not?"

"Hey, Buckminister, you coming?"

Turner leaned over. He edged the tiniest bit closer to the tip of the stone and wondered how far away the Territories were. He hoped that they never smelled of ocean table salt, that they never heard the urgings of the body of water, that they were so lone that being a stranger in them inappreciably mattered.

And then he saw the ocean surge that was coming in.

Already the boys were scrambling upward to a higher stone. "This is it, Buckminister. This is the biggest ane you'll ever get."

Turner had no dubiousness it was the biggest one he would ever go. The surge moved like a wallowing mount range, roiling to a whiteness at its peaks. He saw the water brainstorm to pull back from the rocks below him, saw the seaweed sucked out in long dark-green tresses, saw the ocean yanked away from the dark, precipitous mussel beds.

"You see it, Buckminister? You see information technology? That's the one!"

Of class he saw it. God and all creation saw information technology.

He flexed his knees once more, unclenched and clenched his toes. It would have a 2nd and a one-half, perhaps two seconds, for him to hit the wave. Not hard to judge. Keep the knees bent and so he wouldn't striking the bottom. Blow out the nose just when he hitting so he wouldn't come up spurting. Exist ready if information technology spun him over ... when it spun him over. No screaming. Oh Lord, delight no screaming.

By at present, the mountain surge had drawn all the water along the entire declension of Maine upwardly into itself, and information technology was no longer wallowing. The top ridge began to fall over and atomize into churning defoliation. Turner felt himself leaning, leaning more than and more, his legs about to spring. Then the wave crossed where he knew he must bound and exploded into chaos, h2o avalanching in every direction, roaring at the sky, tormenting the rocks, and bursting into a spray that blotted out the sunday.

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