The Grey Reaches Town
Finn takes the grey patch personally.
“That's Old Meadow,” he says, standing at its edge, fists on hips like a tiny angry farmer. “I've caught nine grasshoppers in there. Named ones.” He throws a dandelion in. It lands, goes grey, and stops being a dandelion in any way that matters. Finn's jaw sets.
But it's worse than the meadow, and you find out two days later, when Finn bikes over so fast he takes the corner into the yard like a stunt rider. “It's in town,” he pants. “Come see. Bring nothing. Act normal.”
It's little, in town. That's what makes it horrible. The flag on the school flagpole has gone grey — just the flag. Mrs. Patel's prize marigolds, grey, in a bed of orange ones. The mural outside the library — the one with the whale — the whale's eye is grey, and somehow that's the worst of all. And the people… nothing you could report. Mr. Otis at the store, who whistles, wasn't whistling. The Tran twins were sitting on the curb at three in the afternoon doing nothing, and when Finn asked what was up they both said “nothing” in the same flat voice.
“It got their whistling,” Finn says darkly, pedaling home beside you. “It starts with whistling and marigolds. What does it end with?”
You think of a meadowlark on a grey stump, opening its beak and forgetting why. You pedal faster.