Becca Flies to Cloudland

1989

Becca was in her swing, reaching out, with her toes pointing to the sky, working the arc of the swing higher and higher. She missed having Catherine to play with, but her sister was taking a late nap today. So Becca turned her attention to one particular cloud as it changed form. Now it is rolling a hump into its back. Now it is stretching out a little finger to point at the sun. Now it is moving its whole fat self into its finger.

At the highest possible arc of the swing before it would have started those jolts of terror at the possibility of going full circle, at that last possible moment, Becca left the seat and spread her imaginary wings. She made one graceful circle as she rode an updraft of the wind. Looking down, she saw the swing gradually slowing, seeming relieved, each arc shorter than the last. The steel-blue of her house disappeared under its gray roof as she passed over it, still rising.

"How pretty you are, how peachy-gold pretty," she told the maples in her front yard. Then she could see the whole town of Crystal Lake with its many golden-rose maples and dark green firs hiding nearly every roof.

"Here I come, little cloud," she called.

"Here I come, little Becca," the cloud called back, not with words but with a rolling motion like a wave of the sea. When they reached each other, the cloud rose and broke over Becca's head like sea spray.

"You're funny, little cloud," laughed Becca, her hair beaded with tiny droplets, her face moist and cool. The cloud pulled itself comfortably under her, stretching out into a cotton canoe. Becca folded her great wings and lay at ease, watching the movement of the upper-level clouds.

"Where shall we go?" Becca wondered. Then she had an idea. "How about squeezing through that hole where a ray of the sun is making a searchlight beam?" So the cloud slipped into a draft that was also intrigued by the sunbeam. In a moment they all slid together through the bright hole.

"Oh!" cried Becca as she shaded her eyes from the sudden brilliance. The cloud boat began to flatten and darken itself, sinking toward the bottom of the cloudbank so it could play at raining for awhile. Becca saw what it meant to do and rolled out into the
brightness. "I don't feel like rain just now, but thank you for the ride."

Her pupils had narrowed so she could see in the sun-reflecting whiteness. Her eye caught movement about fifty feet to her left. White against white, but something was waving wildly. She tried walking to it to see what it was, but her legs sank into the deep folds and she didn't seem to be getting closer. She tried rolling the way clouds do. That
worked better but made her too dizzy. Then she remembered how seals move through the ocean, so she plunged downward, then curved her back and rose over the cloudbank and plunged down again. Soon she saw the fluffy flag waving almost within reach and plunged once more.

"Oops, too deep!" she said as she emerged on the bottom of the cloud. "Oh, it's you, then!" She saw that the other end of the flag was a little white goat, its face and four feet hanging below the cloud. "What ARE you doing?"

"I'm watching that one tiny cloud rain on a circle of pasture," the little goat said in its nasal little voice. "See how the grass is darkened in that one spot? See that willow dripping on one side and dry on the other?"

"Yes, and see those mallard ducks waddling into the rain to take a shower." Becca laughed at the ducks opening their wings to catch the rain on their chests. Then she looked again at the goat. It was only half grown; its horns were not yet thick and tough; its beard was only a tuft, barely noticeable.

The goat looked at Becca now. "Wait, I know YOU! You're Becca. You brought me green salad from the garden last spring."

"Greta! My favorite goat! But you're so big! You're as big as I am; how did you catch up with me?" Becca scratched Greta's head behind her ears. Greta stretched up her nose to remind Becca to scratch under her chin also. But Becca had not forgotten.

"I've eaten a LOT of salad since May!" Greta said.

"Well, the cloud rained all the water it had. What shall we do now?" Becca asked. "Shall we have a jumping contest?" She remembered how goats love to jump.

Greta counted Becca's legs, then shook her head. "No fun. I'd win too easy. Goats are BORN jumping."

"Not you," Becca said. "Grandma Claire said you were born so tiny and weak, she had to hold you up to reach your first supper. Your twin brother was twice as big."

"I caught up real fast. And I could jump as high as any kid then!" Greta leaped to the top of the cloud, then leapt from billow to billow, each time almost straight up.

"OK, you win!" Becca chuckled. "Come on, give me a ride to the top of that cloud mountain. Pretend you're a wild mountain goat."

"You be a mountain lion who leaps on me and I take off like lightning for the peak, trying to shake you off."

"OK." Becca leaped on Greta, grabbing her around the neck just as Greta sprang away, eyes wide with pretend fear.

Greta tore up the cloud mountain, which joined in the game by pretending to be hard rock under a glassy layer of ice. Becca held on with all her might, listening to the little hooves clatter over the ice, being thrown from side to side as Greta careened around the sharp corners of ice walls. In some places the narrow ledge took Becca's breath away. Once Greta leaped across a crevice that seemed too wide, but her hooves gained the other side safely. The next instant Greta had plunged into deep, soft cloud snow.

"Get off and walk here," panted Greta.

"All right, but pretend I didn't," Becca said. "Mountain lions don't ever get off and walk once they get their claws into you!"

Greta agreed. As soon as they had waded out of the deep stuff and caught their breath, Becca climbed on again. It was only a little farther to the summit. That was when the cloud decided to play a new game. The instant Greta and Becca reached the peak, it stopped being a peak and melted into a bowl. They felt as if they were in a fast elevator going down, with their insides still at the top. Becca fell off Greta's back when they jolted to a stop. Their insides caught up with them, and then they were looking up at glassy sides all around.

"Let's have a sliding contest," suggested Becca. She took a few running steps and slid in a grand curve up and around the sides of the bowl. Greta tried a running leap, but her little cloven hooves clopped down and stayed put.

"Goats aren't supposed to slide," she said.

"What shall we play, then?"

Greta eyed Becca's jeans pockets. "Maybe we could play suppertime. Got anything to eat?"

"Sure. We can pretend a banquet." The cloud caught on to the game and mounded itself into a banquet table with two cushions to sit on and lots of fluffy dishes. "Here is a huge platter of . . ." Becca tried to picture what Mommy would serve at a banquet . . . "Swedish meatballs with yummy sauce . . . ."

"I don't like Swedish meatballs with yummy sauce," said Greta, sniffing at the imaginary dish. "I like salad sprinkled with wheat berries."

Becca thought of the good salad Daddy had made last night to go with Mommy's lasagna. "OK. We have here a spinach salad with green peppers and mushrooms and hard-boiled eggs and a choice of dressing. French for you?"

"Hold the dressing, green peppers, mushrooms and eggs. Could you toss in some dandelion greens, comfrey, dock, wild lettuce, daylilies and crowder peas?"

"All right. Here's YOUR salad and I'll have this one of Daddy's. With Mommy's meatballs and brown rice."

"You know what?" Greta's voice was sad.

"What?"

"I'm not pretend hungry."

"You took too much salad? That's OK. We can scrape the rest off your plate for those ducks." Becca made a hole in the cloud with her toe so she could see if the ducks were still there. They were.

"No, I mean I'm for real hungry. Do you have anything for real in your pockets?"

"I'll see." Becca felt in both pockets. She pulled out a piece of her kitty puzzle, a matched pair of cards-the baby and the parent possums-a candy wrapper, a broken blue crayon and a penny. "You can lick the candy wrapper if you like." She held it out.

Greta ate it. "Thanks." Very small voice.

"Want to suck on the penny?" Becca held it out.

"Might swallow it." Even smaller voice, head drooping. Long silence. "I wanta go home." And Greta was gone!

Becca climbed off the cloud cushion and poked her head through her toe hole. She thought she saw a white speck reflecting the low sun as the speck streaked southwest toward Kansas. Then, nothing.

Becca sighed. Cloudland wasn't as much fun without a playmate. And she was getting a little "for real" hungry, too. She thought about the meatloaf and baked potatoes and fruit salad she and Mommy had planned for supper. "I bet Mommy has things in the oven. I better hurry home to make the salad." There were bananas to slice, grapes to
pull off the bunch, peaches to peel and coconut to sprinkle on. Then honey to dribble all over it.

Just then a ray of the setting sun broke through her cloud and made a golden-rose slide all the way to a maple in her own front yard. Quick as a mountain lion, she leaped on it and slid in peachy-gold light to the top branch, then scrambled down from limb to limb.

"Catch me, Daddy!" Scott was astonished to see Becca leaping from the lowest branch. He dropped his briefcase just in time to catch her and set her on the ground. "We're having fruit salad for dessert and I'm going to make it," she called over her shoulder as she ran to the front door.

June was calling from the back door, "Becca, where are you? It's time for Daddy to get home and supper's almost ready!" Catherine was peeking out the front window, grinning.

"How EVER did that little kid get UP into that tree?" Scott said out loud.

But she didn't, you know. She got DOWN into that tree.