Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) Read Free Page B

to grow up and be big, big fish and go find your mother. I bet if you could find her, she’d like you.” He dug with his hands at the bank of the creek, hoping to widen it, but the mud and gravel just came right back in. He got a big stick and used that. The rocks he moved didn’t make the creek wider, they just sat there looking like little islands, until one rolled down and came up against a big limb, which had fallen from a tree and stuck in the stream. He noticed how the water sort of stopped for a minute or two when it came to the rock and the limb, then rose up and spilled over it. Where that happened, the creek was a bit wider, a little deeper, too, he thought. He dragged more fallen tree branches and put them with the first one. Mrs. Ford had showed the class how beavers built dams. That’s what’d he do. Build a dam to make his fish’s pool bigger. But the force of the flow carried the branches away, tumbling them downstream toward the western shore of the island, a place he had not yet visited. Daddy had told him not to go near the ocean. He had to stay where he could hear Daddy call when it was time to come and eat.
    He wondered if Daddy would help him make a big pool for the fish. But Auntie Lorraine said he wasn’t to make a nuisance of himself or Daddy might get mad and then his head would hurt. Besides, Daddy was always too busy.
    With a sigh, he gave up his attempt at dam building. “Sorry fish, but I guess you’ll just have to stay small until I’m big enough to make a better pool for you.” The fish swam uncaring into the shade of a the devil’s club again and settled onto the bottom. Kevin threw a small rock into the pool and watched successive rings of waves lap at the gravel bar. It wasn’t long past breakfast, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt just to follow the creek a little way… He walked on down the course of the stream, head hanging, deep in thought.
    His quick imagination conjured up the next-door family. Mickey, only five, but bigger than Kevin, Jennifer, the three-year-old and Mr. and Mrs. Lawson. Mr. Lawson laughed a lot and sometimes smelled like beer, especially when he was barbecuing. Mrs. Lawson was pretty and made cake.
    He tried to imagine them walking beside the creek with him, but they kept getting far, far away and waving, saying, “Bye, Kev. See you next month,” just like they had when they left for Disneyland the day before he and Daddy had come here.
    It must be nice to have a mother. He tried to make Mickey’s mother come back like he sometimes could night when it was dark and he was just about asleep. Then, Auntie Lorraine would fling open his door and say, “What’s that doing in your mouth?”
    Always, she waited until he was nearly asleep, feeling warm and happy thinking that Mickey’s mother had just tucked him in and kissed him and given him a cuddle like she had one time when he’d had a sleep-over at Mickey’s house.
    When the door opened and the light flashed on all the same time sometimes he couldn’t get his thumb out of his mouth fast enough and then she scolded him and put that awful stuff on it.
    Kevin was sure Mickey’s mother wouldn’t do that, and if he had his own mother, she wouldn’t either. It wasn’t Auntie Lorraine’s fault. She had never been a mother and didn’t know that at night it was dark and something might come out of the shadows, and the thumb made it not so bad. That’s what Mickey’s mother said, anyway, and she said she’d cuddle him just any old time he wanted her to. She had lots of cuddling room on her lap. But still, it would be nice to have a mother of his own…
    So deep was he in his dream that he almost missed his great discovery. He thought, as he squatted down, that if it hadn’t been for the root he had tripped on, he would’ve missed it altogether. He touched gently, patted once, then rose to back away quietly. When he felt he was clear, he darted along the very edge of the creek, feeling the thick tangled