Butterflies- The Adventures of Roland Mccray Read online

Butterflies

  “The Adventures of Roland McCray”

  Blaine Coleman

  Text and Artwork copyright 2014 Blaine Coleman

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  These stories were previously published as part of “The Adventures of Roland McCray”, a collection of stories that see every moment as its own adventure, rather than adventure stories in the non-stop, action-packed thriller sense. They follow the life of Roland McCray from age eight to eighteen. These stories draw you into the unique and often innocent worldview as seen through the eyes of Roland McCray as his attempts to understand the culture and religion he encounters growing up in the south. Roland tries to see meaning in the world around him and to apply his values of honesty and thoughtful caring to his experiences.

  Although Roland learns new things in every story, taken as a collection, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

  The books in this series are available in eBook, print, and audiobook at your favorite online book retailer, through some local public libraries, and print edition can be ordered through some offline book retailers such as Barnes & Noble. The audiobooks are available at Audible.com, Amazon.com, and Apple iTunes.

  *Bonus story included- Poke it with a Stick!

  The ‘Roland McCray’ books would not have been possible without the editing assistance and advice of others. I want to thank Anita Young for reading and suggesting edits on the final draft, Gail Geiwont for being brutally helpful, and Jerry Bryson for invaluable input in improving the stories in the “Adventures of Roland McCray”.

  And a special thanks to Steve Johnson for tirelessly reading these stories and searching out my many grammatical errors and typos.

  This book is are dedicated to all who love literature and classic storytelling.

  Table of Contents:

  Butterflies

  Poke it with a Stick!

  “And that all of the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.”

  Walt Whitman

  Butterflies

  I was about halfway along the path when a familiar voice called out, “Where’re you going?”

  It was Laurel, the girl who lived two houses up from me. The path led under big pin oak trees and passed a stand of younger pines that separated our neighborhood from the open fields of a National Park, and right past Laurel’s backyard. Whenever she saw me headed up the path alone she always wanted to tag along.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged and tapped the canteen hooked on my belt. “Just hiking. Guess I’ll go up to the field.”

  “Can I go?”

  “If you want. I’m just hiking.”

  She saw I had my bug net and an empty mayonnaise jar. “You’re going to catch bugs?”

  “Maybe If I find anything I don’t already have.”

  “Oh. Are you taking your kite?”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t going to. Why?”

  But I knew why she asked; sometimes I took my jar and net with me because I did want to find new bugs for my collection or at least better specimens of what I already had. Then other days I’d get to the field, look up at the blue sky, the clouds like fluffed cotton, and I'd go back home to get my kite. Every day wasn't a good day for kite flying so the bugs could wait; they’d still be there.

  Sometimes the best thing about kite flying was that after I got it high enough I could push the stick that held the roll of string into the ground and the kite would soar and hover in the sky on its own. Then I’d lay back the warm grass and watch the towering summer clouds as they mushroomed from the inside out, constantly growing, but staying the same size. I didn’t know how they could do that- it seemed magical to me. And if I looked t the bottom of the clouds just right they looked like a long, sloping hill. I liked to imagine that I could walk up it and into another world, one floating in the sky.

  "I'll get my kite if you want," I said. I didn't mind if Laurel tagged along with me, even though I was a third grader and she was just in second. She didn’t get to play outside her yard much at all. When the other kids and I rode our bikes around the neighborhood, she’d ride hers up and down the short sidewalk in her front yard; we’d all play in the woods while she’d stay in her backyard, usually alone. Her little brother rode his bike and played wherever he wanted and he was a year younger! I didn’t know why Laurel just wanted to stay in her yard all the time.

  Once I’d asked my Mom if she knew why Laurel didn’t like to play with the rest of us.

  “I don’t know that she doesn’t want to,” she’d replied as she dried her hands on a dishtowel and turned to face me. “Maybe her mother won’t let her, I don’t know." She sat down at the table with me. "But, that’s her business Roland and I’m sure she has her reasons. And if you’re her friend you’ll respect her privacy.” Her tone of voice made it clear that was the end of the conversation; talking about other people’s personal business wasn’t something we did.

  Laurel’s little brother told me later that their mother didn’t like Laurel running all over the neighborhood, but thought it was “sweet” that I let her follow me around without complaining, so she’d let Laurel go up to the field with me whenever she wanted.

  "I'll wait here," Laurel said. "But I don't have a kite. Can I fly yours?"

  “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll be right back.”

  While I went to my house Laurel told her mother she was going up to the field with me. When I got back she was holding her butterfly net and an empty jar.

  “I thought you wanted to fly my kite. Why’d you bring those?”

  “Just in case,” she said. “I might see something to catch and take home to show Mama.”

  Laurel loved to catch butterflies. She’d trap them with the special butterfly net her mother had gotten her, the kind that’s not supposed to hurt a butterfly’s wings. She'd put them in a jar and take them home to show to her mother and then she’d let them go.

  “If you say so. But if we’re going, let’s go.”

  The path to the field led around the stand of pines, but for bug collecting we usually cut directly through. We’d been trying to make a new, shorter path by breaking branches and stomping underbrush every time we went that way, but it didn’t work. There would be a limb down and we’d circle around, hit a briar patch and have to double-back to find an opening, have a clear path for a dozen yards or so, then cut this way… And sometimes, we just saw something interesting and never made it to the field at all.

  But we took the long way to the field, the path around most of the pine trees because I didn’t want to carry my thin paper kite through the woods. I was afraid I'd rip a hole in it and I wouldn’t get another one this year if I damaged the one I had. Directly behind the neighborhood was a wide open, leaf covered area under a high canopy of huge old oak trees. But the path around the end of the pine stand was one that the other guys and I made by stomping down weeds and grass through a narrow clearing at the uphill end of the stand of pines but we'd never finished it. We’d gotten as far as a patch of overgrown wild black berries, then gave up. The last part of the way was through the pine trees.

  Unlike the oak trees directly behind the houses along my street, the pines weren’t very old and the branches grew low and dense, weighted with thick clusters of needles. Not a good place to carry a kite but better than the short way to the field which was directly through the center of the pine stand.

  The branches broke easily and we could stomp through most of
the underbrush. Although I’d been through that part of the woods many times it seemed a new path had to be found every time; young branches grew, others fell, and briars sprang up almost overnight in every sunlit area…

  Nothing up there ever stayed the same.

  When we came to a briar tangle that hadn’t been there before we doubled-back, found a way around and then crawled under a low-hanging branch. The ground under that tree was mostly a bed of damp pine needles so I kind of tossed my net, jar, and string reel under the branch to the other side and then slid my kite over top of the pine needles that coated the ground.

  Laurel handed me her net. She carried her jar and put her other hand on her head to keep her hair from tangling. I had to crouch low, leaning on my jar for support with one hand while I dragged the nets behind. Laurel was smaller than me but kept one hand on her head. She put her jar on the ground, leaned on it with her