Bluebirds followed girls on their way to school. The girls would start out walking. But since they were so young and new to the planet, they understood the language of the birds so easily. The girls would hear tiny bluebirds and also multicolored hummingbirds that flew up and sang into their ears. They would twist a toe forward, then slide a heel back. Then snapping their fingers they punctuated the birds' songs and their forward motion. The next step took the girls slightly off the ground. They swung the other leg forward in the air, knees bent as if bicycling, but only no bicycle and half of their weight lifted off the ground. In the next step, they jutted one hip forward and rose completely off the ground, feet at an angle with toes higher than heels. From there they broke out into jazzy individual dances. Then they glided forward in synchronized arm stretches and twinkled toes. On snow days their shadows danced violet blue on the curves of white snow. In the spring their shadows lay flat grey over green side grass and tiny flower buds of red, orange, blue, and yellow. Bees abuzzed in the air with them. Half a block before the schoolyard the girls dipped back down, book bags first, that pulled their weight to the sidewalk. They trotted across the quiet street and joined the other kids in the school yard, the other kids being the boys. The boys who were the only witnesses to their flights, adults were not able to see them fly.
--Shelley Marlow
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Shelley Marlow’s novel Two Augusts In a Row In a Row is out on Publication Studio. http://www.publicationstudio.biz/books/294
--Shelley Marlow
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Shelley Marlow’s novel Two Augusts In a Row In a Row is out on Publication Studio. http://www.publicationstudio.biz/books/294
