Dicey's Song Read online

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  Text copyright © 1982 by Cynthia Voigt

  First Atheneum Books for Young Readers eBook edition September 2001.

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition and an

  Aladdin Paperbacks paperback edition.

  Cover design by Daniel Roode

  ISBN-13: 978-0-6898-4798-1

  ISBN-10: 0-6898-4798-X

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  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  TO DUFFLE

  WHAT A DAY, Dicey thought. What a summer, for that matter, but especially, What a day. She stood alone in the big old barn, in a patch of moonlight; stood looking at the sailboat resting on its sawhorse cradle, a darker patch among shadows. Behind her, the wind blew off the water, bringing the faint smell of salt and the rich, moist smell of the marshes.

  You never knew where a road would end, Dicey thought, the breeze curling around her ears, you just knew that roads ended. Not like water, which always kept moving. Not like the stars, tossed out across the sky — the stars had made that light millions of years ago and already they were burning with new light. And the moon too, the moon would swell and dwindle, go dark and swell again. But the Tillermans traveled on a road, and roads ended. Dicey’s road, and James’s, Maybeth’s, Sammy’s, had ended here. The Tillermans’ road had rolled up against Gram’s house, and they had tumbled off it into Gram’s — Dicey grinned. Not exactly into Gram’s arms, maybe not into her lap. Certainly into her life.

  So. So they were going to live here, on the rundown farm, with Gram — Dicey’s heart danced again, inside her, to say it to herself like that. Home. Home with their momma’s momma, who was also a Tillerman. Home: a home with plenty of room for the four children in the shabby farmhouse, room inside, room outside, and the kind of room within Gram too — Dicey had seen Gram and how she listened when Maybeth sang, how she talked with James, how her eyes smiled at the things Sammy said and did — the kind of room that was what they really needed. One of the lessons the long summer had taught Dicey was how to figure out what they really needed.

  Dicey studied her sneakers, gray with old grime, the places where her toes had worn through pockets of darkness. When she wiggled her toes in the moonlight’s shadows, she couldn’t see anything moving. Home for Dicey, too, with the Bay — the Chesapeake Bay, quiet with little waves and long tides — the Bay just out of sight, with this grandmother whose character had sharp corners and unexpected turns, with the sailboat waiting here in the barn.

  She stepped into the darkness and placed both her hands flat against the rough hull of the boat. Imagining how it would feel when the little boat rode on the water, how it would respond to the wind in its sails, to the waves sliding by, to her hand on the tiller. She leaned her forehead against the wood, feeling the solid curve of the hull against her skin. Unexpectedly, she found herself yawning, a huge, hollow yawn that stretched her diaphragm up against her heart and cracked the hinges of her jaw.

  Dicey smiled to herself. Here it was, probably the most exciting day of her life, certainly one of the best, and all she felt was tired. As if all the walking and worrying, all the hunger and hope of the long summer, all hit her at once. Her bones sagged and her brain couldn’t grab onto any ideas. The muscles that held her bones in working order ached, but not a hurting ache, kind of a contented throb.

  Dicey yawned again. She guessed she’d better get to bed, but she guessed she knew why she didn’t want to: this happiness blew through her like wind, buoyed her up like water, and she wanted to float along on it. But the summer had worn her out, like it had worn out her sneakers; and tomorrow she’d have to start school, but on the weekend she’d get the boat into the water and learn how to sail it; the long summer stretched behind them, they’d made it through, made it home.

  CHAPTER 1

  AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Not the Tillermans. Dicey thought. That wasn’t the way things went for the Tillermans, ever. She wasn’t about to let that get her down. She couldn’t let it get her down — that was what had happened to Momma.

  Dicey lay on her back under the wide-branched paper mulberry tree. She opened her eyes and looked up. The paper mulberry had broad leaves that made a pool of shade in which she lay. Thick roots spread around her, making a kind of chair for her to lean on. She wore only shorts in the hot midday air. Her arms and chest were spattered and streaked with red paint, and the barn was completely painted, top to bottom, all four sides, patched and painted and looking good. The paint and sweat were drying on Dicey’s body. She could hear the buzzing of insects and nothing else. For once she was alone, but she knew where everybody was.

  Gram had taken James downtown in the motorboat. Gram was going to get groceries and James was going to the library to find some books for Dicey, on repairing and maintaining wooden boats. Maybeth was up in her room, doing some of the many extra assignments her teacher gave her, so she could catch up with the rest of the third graders and not be kept back again. Sammy was out back, on the other side of the old farmhouse, spading up fallow land to increase the size of the vegetable garden. Gram had said, right off, that they would have to do more planting next spring than she’d done for years, with four more people to feed. Dicey suspected that Gram hadn’t been sure how the children would feel about the work.

  Well, Gram would learn about them. And they would learn about Gram. There would be some surprises for everyone, Dicey guessed. She knew Gram had already been surprised: at Dicey’s reaction when her sailboat — the one she had hoped over and dreamed over — sank into the shallow water by Gram’s dock. Even James was surprised by how calm she stayed, maybe because he had seen Dicey’s face as they hauled it down the quarter-mile path through the marsh, seen her strain and pull and check to be sure the wheels they’d removed from a wagon and fixed to the legs of the sawhorse cradle didn’t fall off, seen how much it mattered to her.

  Dicey had watched the water pouring in through the leaks where the boards had shrunk apart with all those years of drying out. She had watched — they had all stood and watched, as the little boat filled up with water and settled quietly down onto the sandy bottom of the Chesapeake Bay.

  “I should have remembered,” Gram had said. “I knew, if only I remembered.”

  “You can’t sail in that,” Sammy declared.

  Dicey had stared down at the chipped paint on the gunwales of the boat, which still showed above the water. The boat was her lucky charm, her rabbit’s foot, her horseshoe, her pot of gold, it was the prize she’d set for herself for leading them from nowhere to somewhere. OK, she said to herself, thinking about what needed to be done. They’d have to bail it before they could get it out of the water. Then they’d have to take it back to the barn. She told James to find something to bail with. They’d have to slide the cradle back into the water, it would probably take all four children to do that.

  “You don’t rest a minute, do you,” Gram had said. Dicey shook her head; she had already gotten used to her grandmother’s way of asking questions without question marks. “But you’d do better to let it sit out here a day or so,” Gram had advised. “Let the wood soak up water, to swell up again. I knew that once, but I forgot. I’m sorry, girl,” she said.

  Dicey hadn’t answered, just looked at Gram where she stood on the dock with the wind blowing her curly gray hair around her face.

  “Dicey doesn’t mind, as long as she knows what to do about things,” Maybeth told Gram.

  “Is that right,” Gra
m asked Dicey.

  “I guess so,” Dicey said.

  “What do you do when there’s nothing you can do,” Gram said.

  “I dunno, I do something else,” Dicey said.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” James pointed out. “That’s illogical.”

  Gram looked around at all of them.

  “Which one of your sons built this boat?” Dicey asked, but Gram had turned away to go back to the house and didn’t answer.

  Remembering that scene, Dicey reminded herself that they all had a lot of learning to do. The boat was back in the barn and she had to begin scraping off the old layers of paint. But not quite yet. Gram and James would be back soon, and they’d have lunch, and then Dicey wanted to go downtown to see about a job. She’d been thinking about what kind of job she could get, all those long first three days of school. There wasn’t much else to think about in school. As far as she was concerned, about all school was good for was using up your days. Dicey hadn’t talked to anyone, except to answer teachers’ questions. That was OK with her, because she had important things to think about. Getting a job, to bring in some money was one. Tillermans always needed more money, because there were so many of them to feed. Dicey knew Gram worried about that. For that matter, Dicey worried about that too, and had worried all her life, because at thirteen, she was the oldest. That worry about food had been her single biggest worry all summer long, when they had traveled down here, after Momma disappeared. The other worries — about what James was thinking, because what James thought in his head told him what to do; about whether or not Maybeth was retarded as people claimed, or only shy, slow, and frightened, which was what Dicey thought; about why Sammy was so angry he hit out and didn’t mind how much the person he fought with hurt him; — those worries, and worries about how much Dicey should give up for her brothers and sisters in order to have any kind of home together — or if she was driving them too hard; about how many miles they had covered and where they were ever going — all the other worries had come and gone. The worry about food had haunted her all summer long, and maybe it always would.

  There were still things to worry about here, but nothing crucial. James said everything was all right now, now they could live with Gram. James was smart, but he wanted everything to be all right so badly that he couldn’t see —

  Couldn’t see what? Dicey asked herself. She hunkered up, resting her back against the tree.

  Couldn’t see how big troubles had little beginnings, just like little troubles.

  Dicey heard voices approaching the house from behind. Nobody ever came up the front driveway. Gram didn’t have a car and couldn’t drive. She always went downtown in the motorboat. So except for the children’s bicycles, the overgrown tracks that led off from the front of the house, through a stand of pines and between two long barren fields to the road, were unmarked. The voices came clearer.

  Lazily, Dicey stood up and went around to help carry in bags of groceries. When she got around back, Sammy had taken the extra bag in his grubby arms. His face appeared at the top, streaked with dirt. Dicey looked at him and grinned, and made a mental note to tell Gram that he was having his seventh birthday next week. James trailed up through the garden, carrying another bag.

  “You two are a mess,” Gram announced, before she even went up the back steps. She looked at Dicey and hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to say what she was thinking. “You’re too old to go around half-naked,” she announced.

  “What do you mean?” Dicey demanded. “I am not.” Gram was already in the kitchen. “Am I, James?” Dicey asked.

  “You know, Dicey,” he said. His eyes shifted away from hers. At ten he was old enough to be embarrassed. He hurried after Gram.

  Well, she guessed she did know. She guessed she had noticed when she had stripped off her T-shirt that her breasts seemed to be pointing out — maybe. But she had convinced herself that wasn’t true. Dicey shrugged. There wasn’t much she could do about getting a bosom, but she didn’t have to like it.

  Gram made a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, and she had put out a bowl of apples. Dicey had washed off most of the paint with turpentine. Then she and Sammy rinsed off with a quick swim, and she had put her shirt on. Sammy’s yellow hair was slicked down.

  James was on his third sandwich and Maybeth was still nibbling at her first. “How did it go?” Gram asked. “How many pages did you get read?”

  “Four,” Maybeth answered softly, without looking up. “That’s not enough,” she added.

  Gram looked at Dicey, and Dicey sighed. “Is the book too hard?” Dicey asked her sister’s bent head. Maybeth’s hair was as bright as sunlight, and she’d tied it back with a red ribbon. “Where’d you find the ribbon?” Dicey asked.

  “Gram got it for me,” Maybeth said. She looked up at Dicey then, with a little smile. Dicey liked the way Maybeth looked, like an angel, a Christmas angel. It was partly her wide, hazel eyes and her soft hair that curled gently at the ends; but more, it was the quiet ways she had. “I think it’s pretty.”

  “It is,” Dicey assured her. She, herself, like James, had their father’s straight brown hair. Which was about all they had of their father, that and the narrow face; Maybeth and Sammy looked like Momma — round and fair. But Dicey and James were mixes: Yet all the Tillermans had hazel eyes. She couldn’t remember the color of their father’s eyes, or exactly what he looked like; just his voice. Not surprising since she was seven the last time she saw him. “Was the book too hard?” she asked again.

  Maybeth shook her head. “I have to keep working, Mrs. Jackson said,” she told Dicey. “Only I can’t remember what the words are, so I have to go back and memorize the lists again. If I work, Mrs. Jackson says, everything will be all right.”

  Dicey wanted to cooperate with this Mrs. Jackson. “We’ll do fractions after dinner,” she promised Maybeth, who nodded with no more enthusiasm than Dicey felt. “Is it OK if I go downtown this afternoon?” she asked her grandmother. “The barn is finished,” she added, to distract her grandmother from any question about what Dicey wanted to do in town.

  Gram looked as if she knew Dicey wanted to distract her. But she didn’t know why. She decided not to ask. “I’m pleased it’s done,” she said.

  “You don’t sound pleased,” Sammy pointed out.

  “Appearances,” Gram declared, “can be deceiving.”

  Sammy thought about that. “Why?” he asked.

  Gram snorted. “Because you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “Why not?” Sammy wondered.

  DICEY HAD DECIDED to ask Millie Tydings, who owned the little grocery store down by the water at the foot of the one main street, if she had a job open. The store wasn’t ever busy, at least not ever when Dicey was in there. She wondered if anybody besides Gram shopped there, and she couldn’t blame them. Millie didn’t keep the windows or floors particularly clean. Dust gathered on the cans and boxes on unwashed shelves. The meat and fish counter, behind which Millie worked most of the time, got wiped down every day, Dicey guessed from the way the white enamel gleamed. Millie might be lazy, she might just be too tired (and Dicey guessed if she had to tote that body around every day, all day long, she’d get tired too), or she might just not care. Whatever the reason, Dicey figured there was a lot of work she could do in Millie’s store.

  Dicey leaned her bike up against the grimy plate glass window and entered the dim little store. Millie was at the back, leaning against the top of the meat counter. “What can I do for you today?” she asked. “Your grandmother forget something?” Her little blue eyes rested lazily on Dicey. She had gray hair that she braided into circles around her head.

  “No,” Dicey answered. “I came to ask you if you might give me a job.”

  “A job? Why? Why should I do that? I don’t make enough to keep myself in comfortable shoes,” Millie told her.

  “But if I kept the place cleaner, more people would want to come and shop,” Dicey a
rgued. “If I washed the windows and the floors and dusted off the shelves and the cans and the boxes.”

  “My Herbie used to do that,” Millie said, “before he died. Business isn’t good,” she told Dicey.

  Dicey made herself be patient. She’d just been talking about that, and how to make it better. “But it should be,” she argued. She’d thought about this all the long bike ride into town. “I mean, you have the only grocery store right downtown, the only store that people can walk to. The supermarkets are way out on the edge of town, and people have to drive there. It would be more convenient for people to come to you. If your store looked nicer they would want to.”

  Millie seemed to be thinking about this. “Business used to be better,” she finally said.

  Dicey stared at the woman, at the heavy mottled flesh of her face. She thought maybe Millie wasn’t very smart at all. She’d never thought of that before. If that was the case, how would she go about convincing Millie to give her a job?

  “I think business could be better, if the store looked better,” she said.

  Millie’s eyes moved slowly around, studying the narrow aisles. “It’s dirty,” she said. “But not back here,” she added. “I’ve always passed the health department inspection.”

  “You’re a good butcher,” Dicey said, trying a little flattery. “Gram says so.”

  “Really?” Millie smiled at this. “Did she really?” Dicey nodded, it was the truth. “Ab always was smart and quick. You know, we all — all of us in school — hankered after John Tillerman. He was so handsome and dignified, you know?” Dicey nodded, even though she didn’t know. “But it was Ab he courted. There were some tears shed over that, I can tell you.” Millie nodded her big head wisely.

  Dicey didn’t know how to get the conversation back on the track she wanted. “Gram says your husband taught you how to be a butcher.”

  “When we got married, that’s right. I wasn’t so fat then,” she said. “We never did have any children.” She relapsed into silence.