DEDICATION
for my bella granddaughter
Pearl Bella Benjamin
and
for my bello friend
William C. Morris
CONTENTS
Dedication
Footfalls
Max
Before I Was Born
Queasy
But!
Grandpa
The Racer
Moody Max
Bare Feet
Tickets
The Alien
Rooms
Mother of the World
Questions
Fears and Loves
Pumpkin Alien
Fried Chicken
Saving
Footnotes
The Skeleton
An Apple a Day
Heartbeat
The Coach
The Kick
Flip, Flip, Flip
Perspective
Grandpa Talk
Mad Max
The Birthing Center
Apple
The Bite
Lines
Forbidden Words
Shoeless
A Gift
Pumpkin Baby
Treasure of Words
The Stranger
Shoes
Presents
The Race
Flurry
Labor
Pushing
Eternity
Watching
Infinitely Joey
Sleeping
A Secret
The Package
Yum Boy
One Hundred Apples
Extras
Sharon’s Story in Her Own Words
Just How Alike Are Sharon and Annie?
Hear from Sharon About Heartbeat and More
Try Out Heartbeat Reader’s Theatre
Excerpt from The Great Unexpected
Back Ad
About the Author
Other Books by Sharon Creech
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
FOOTFALLS
Thump-thump, thump-thump
bare feet hitting the grass
as I run run run
in the air and like the air
weaving through the trees
skimming over the ground
touching down
thump-thump, thump-thump
here and there
there and here
in the soft damp grass
thump-thump, thump-thump
knowing I could fly fly fly
but letting my feet
thump-thump, thump-thump
touch the earth
at least for now …
MAX
Sometimes when I am running
a boy appears
like my sideways shadow
from the trees he emerges
running
falling into thump-thump steps
beside me.
Hey, Annie, he says
and I say, Hey, Max
and we run
fast
and
smooth
and
easy
and we do not talk
until we reach the park
and the red bench
where we rest.
Max is a strange boy
thirteen
a year older than I am
deeply serious
determined.
He’s in training
he says
in training to escape.
BEFORE I WAS BORN
My mother says
I was running running running
inside her before I was even born.
She could feel my legs whirling
thump-thump, thump-thump
and she says that when I was born
I came out with my legs racing
as if I would take off
right then, right there
and dash straight out of her life.
She says it made her laugh
and it scared her, too,
because she’d only just met me
and didn’t want me to race away
quite so soon.
She says I’ve been
running
running
running
ever since—or nearly ever since—
I ran before I crawled
I ran from dawn to dusk
And sometimes at night
she would see my legs still restless
as if I were running
in my sleep
through my dreams.
I tell her not to worry
that I will always come home
because that is where
I get my start.
QUEASY
I was worried about my mother
who started taking naps
and stopped eating
and threw up in the kitchen sink
and in the bathroom
and in the car
and I was pretty sure
she had a deadly disease
and she would shrivel into nothing
and she would die
and I would be alone
with my father
who would cry
and I would run run run
but I would have to come back
thump-thump
thump-thump
sooner or later.
BUT!
But! My mother did not die.
She does not have a deadly disease.
Instead she has a baby growing
inside her
little tiny cells
multiplying every second
and the queasiness has stopped
and now she feels good—
like a goddess, she says
and we look at the books
which show cells
multiplying
and it seems miraculous
and strange
and sometimes creepy
and I ask her if it feels as if an alien
is inside her
and she says
Sometimes, yes.
GRANDPA
Grandpa lives with us
ever since Grandma died
and now we take care of him
because he is poorly.
He says he is falling to bits
little pieces stop working each day
and his brain is made
of scrambled eggs.
On his wall are photos
of when he was young
and he looks like me
with frizzy black hair
and long skinny legs
and often he is blurry
because he was running.
One photo shows him standing tall
with a medal around his neck
and a trophy in his hands
but his face is not smiling
and when I ask him why
he was not happy
sometimes he says:
I don’t remember
and sometimes he says:
Is that me?
and sometimes he says:
I didn’t want the trophy
and when I ask him why
he didn’t want the trophy
sometimes he says:
I don’t remember
and sometimes he says:
A trophy is a silly thing.
THE RACER
Mom says Grandpa was a champion racer.
He won the regionals when he was nine
and the state championship when he was twelve
and the nationals when he was fifteen
and then
he stopped
running
and he
wouldn’t say why
and he didn’t run again
until my mother was three
and the two of them could run
together
and that, my grandfather told my mother,
was the only kind of running
he would ever do
because it was the best kind of running
and the only kind of running
that made any sense to him at all.
MOODY MAX
Moody Max
Moody Max
puzzles my brain.
I’ve known him all my life.
Our grandpas used to take us
to the same park
the one we run to now.
We balanced each other
tossed sand at each other
dug in the dirt together.
We got older
played catch with pinecones
pushed each other on the swings
chased around the grass.
Max would laugh one minute
scowl the next
pinch my arm
and then kiss the pinch mark.
Then his father left
and his grandpa died
and Max got quieter
more serious
and when he ran
he pounded the dirt
with his feet
and ran farther and faster
as if he could run
right out of his life.
He thinks I’m spoiled
because I’ve got two parents
and a grandpa
and maybe he’s right.
BARE FEET
We always run barefoot
Max and I
because we like the feel
of the ground
beneath us
gritty dirt
smooth leaves
crunchy twigs
polished pebbles.
Even when it’s cold
we run on the hard, frozen path
our bare soles
slapping down.
Even when it snows
(which is hardly ever)
we fly through the wet fluff
our toes tingling
our feet red
and alive.
Some people think
we are a little bit crazy
running barefoot
through rain and mud and snow
but it doesn’t feel crazy to us.
It feels like what we do
and it’s one of the things
I like best about Max:
that he will run
barefoot
with me.
TICKETS
I am running up the path
behind the church
when my sideways shadow
Max
appears
falling into step beside me
thump-thump, thump-thump.
Hey, Annie
Hey, Max
and on we go round the bend
past four white birches
tall and thin
with leaves of gold
and peeling bark
like shreds of curled paper
and my breath is going out
into the air
into the trees
into the leaves
and his breath is going out
into the air
into the trees
into the leaves
and we breathe in
the air and the trees and the leaves
and we breathe in
our own breaths mixed together
and thump-thump, thump-thump
down the hill we go
to the creek
one l-e-a-p over to the bank
up the hill
past the old barn faded red
one side curved inward
like a big dimple
around the pasture
newly mown
smell of growing grass
slim green blades sticking
to our feet bare and brown
until we reach the red bench
beside the sycamore tree
with its mottled trunk
and wide yellow leaves
and we flop onto the bench
and breathe breathe breathe
while Max checks his time
on his grandpa’s pocket watch
and he looks displeased
and says we will have to
pick up the pace on the way back
and I tell him
he can pick up his own pace
but my pace is fine
thank you very much
and he says I will never get anywhere
if I don’t pick up my pace
and I tell him
I don’t need to go anywhere
and he says
You might change your mind someday
and it will be too late.
He wiggles his feet
flexes his ankles
These feet are my tickets
out of here
he says
sounding tough
like a boy in a movie
I look at my feet
which don’t look like tickets to me.
They look like two feet
browned by the sun
that like to run.
THE ALIEN
It is hard to believe
that the alien baby
is really growing inside my mother
because you cannot see anything
and she cannot feel anything—
not yet, she says—
and sometimes I dream
that it is not a human baby in there
but that it is a rabbit
or a mouse
or one time I dreamed it was
a miniature horse
silky and smooth
with petite hooves
and when it was born
my mother said
Oh! A horse!
It’s not what I expected!
And I said we should keep it
anyway
even though it was not
what any of us expected
because it was rather a nice
little horse.
ROOMS
The baby is going to share my room
with me.
It is a small room but a crib will fit
and I am glad the baby
will be with me
although my mother says
it might be annoying at first
because the baby will wail and cry.
Grandpa says the baby should have
his room
that he should just get on with it
and kick the bucket
to make room for that baby
and my mother tells Grandpa
that he cannot kick the bucket
he is not allowed
because the alien baby
needs to see its grandpa
and sometimes Grandpa forgets
about the baby
and when my father bought
a pint-sized baby outfit
Grandpa said
Is someone having a baby?
And so we told him again
about the alien baby growing
in my mother
and Grandpa nodded
and said, again,
that he should kick the bucket
and make room for the baby.
I go out running
thump-thump, thump-thump
in the air, in the wind,
under the autumn sun
and I think about Grandpa
when he was young
running running running
and I wonder how it must feel
not to be able to run anymore
and not to remember even
that you could run once
and it seems as if
he is evaporating
or shrinking
disappearing—
little pieces vanishing each day
while the alien baby
grows bigger and bigger
multiplying cells
which I hope are baby cells
and not rabbit or mouse or horse cells.
MOTHER OF THE WORLD
We live in a small yellow house
on the edge of a small town
with one main street
and two stoplights.
Max lives in an apartment
not far from me.
He says he hates our town
and will live in a big city someday
where no one knows your business
and where there would be
a million opportunities
and even he—
“a small-town boy
without a father”
(which is the way he describes himself)—
even he could be somebody.
He gets mad when I tell him
he is already somebody.
Often he reminds me
that when I was seven
he asked me what I wanted to be
when I grew up
and my answer was
Mother of the World!
although I have no idea now
why I said that or what I meant.
Max said—at seven—
that he was going to be a famous athlete
and he would open camps
all across the country
free ones
for boys like him
where they could run
and play
and be free
and have no worries.
And that is still
what Max wants to be and do.
Max also reminds me