All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

I smiled at him. “You’ve grown up a lot in a short time,” I said.

“You think?” he said.

“I think.”

51

I spent the night there, and Mrs. Carson put me in the room I was in before. Tony had his own room now, so it was just me in there.

I turned on the lamp by the bed and sat down on the edge and opened the letter.

I unfolded it and read:

Dear Jack,

I know I hurt your feelings, because I know you wanted more from me, and if I was going to be special with anyone, you’d be the one.

But I am not ready for that. I know my nature. I figured I should just cut the rope quick, not because I don’t care about you, but because I got to see the world and what’s out there. Just not ready to settle down and sew and cook and have babies. Though I would like a dog.

Now, I know you’re going to think this is a lie, ’cause I been known to lie, but I have gone off to California. I’ve got me a big notebook and a bunch of pencils and a pocketknife to keep them sharp, and I’m writing about what I see.

I’m writing about these folks that want to create unions. I’m writing about trains and hoboes. I’ve got real good at riding trains.

I want to learn to fly a plane.

I want to learn to sail a boat.

I plan to write a book.

Maybe I’ll see you someday. Maybe you and me will have a laugh, or another kiss.

By the way, I really liked that kiss.

May you have what you want in life. I hope the same for Tony. And I hope the same for me.

Love, Jane

I didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but that’s all there was. Next day I got in Strangler’s car and caught up with the carnival. It had gone across the Red River and was in northern Texas, at a place called Paris.

It wasn’t much like I pictured Paris to be. I had always thought it would be like Texas’s answer to the one in France. But it was just a hot little town where people came to the carnival, and Strangler won every bout.

I don’t know if I’ll stay with the carnival or not. I sure like Strangler, and I like the job of making him run and work out and eat right. I like making sure he’s ready for his bouts, and I manage his side bets. He makes quite a few, and he always wins. But I don’t know if I’ll stay. I don’t know if it’s enough, and it darn sure can’t last forever. Strangler is no spring chicken.

“Someday,” he told me, “when I feel one of them younger ones is making it too hard for me, I’m going to retire and go into another line of work.”

“What will that be, Strangler?” I asked.

“Brain surgeon,” he said, and laughed.

So, here I am, Strangler in his bedroom asleep, and me about to lie down on my couch. But before I do that, I thought I’d sit here with the lamp on, a writing pad on the table, and a sharp pencil in my hand, so I can put all the things down on paper that happened to us.

Guess I got that idea from Jane.

I hope she’s doing well.

I hope she’s finding what she wants out there.

I know I’ll never forget her. I love her, but truth to tell, I don’t know a whole lot about love. It confuses me. So maybe Jane was right to not let that go too far. Not with us as young as we are, with so much future stretched out in front of us.

But sometimes, right before I fall asleep, I think I can taste her lips, and they are sweet.

She was an awful liar, but still, she was so smart and so beautiful. She sure was something.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than a dozen novels for adults, including eight Hap and Leonard novels, as well as Sunset and Sawdust and Lost Echoes. He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Edgar Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, and seven Bram Stoker Awards. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas. All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky is his first novel for young adults.

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2011 by Joe R. Lansdale

Jacket art copyright © 2011 by Emmanuelle Brisson/Getty Images

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lansdale, Joe R.

All the earth, thrown to the sky / by Joe R. Lansdale. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: When the devastation wrought by endless dust storms in 1930s Oklahoma makes orphans of Jack, his schoolmate Jane, and her brother Tony, they take the truck of a dead man and set out to find a new start.

eISBN: 978-0-375-89748-1

1. Dust Bowl Era, 1931–1939—Juvenile Fiction. [1. Dust Bowl Era, 1931–1939—Fiction. 2. Automobile travel—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 5. Depressions—1929—Fiction. 6. Oklahoma—History—20th century—Fiction. 7. Texas—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L2795All 2011

[Fic]—dc22

2010029260

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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