Beyond the Laughing Sky by Michelle Cuevas Read Free Book Online

that day was a daydream about finding a tree on the playground tall enough to let him hide behind the clouds and avoid the boys at school.
    The second thought he had was that it would be better to never go back to school at all.
    And the third thought he had was just one word, so lovely he dare not even speak it. Instead, he wrote it on a small slip of paper.
    The word was Wings.
    He stared at it for a while. Wings. He imagined the W looked like two bird wings itself, and the rest of the word was in flight, singing along behind it. Finally, not knowing what else to do, he folded the paper, went to the library, and handed it to the librarian.
    â€œHmm,” said the old librarian, pushing up her thick glasses. “Wings.” She walked slowly, slowly through the stacks, picking books off the shelves and handing them to Nashville.
    â€œWings,” she repeated. “Wings, wings.”
    Nashville stayed there all morning reading his way down the stack of books. He learned that bird wings evolved in two ways, that preflight birds were hopping a lot, up into the air to catch and grab things, or away from predators. They were also leaping from tree to tree. Eventually, after many, many, many years of all this hopping and leaping, birds were able to fly. But that was just the scientific answer.
    The librarian had also given Nashville other books. Prettier books. Books full of poems and feathers.
    Nashville only knew he liked the poems. He understood the poems. He loved the sound when he read Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul. And I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable; I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. Poetically speaking, Nashville realized, wings started with a desire. The pre-wing birds wanted things; they wanted the tops of trees, or the cloudless skies, or the stars. Who could really be sure?
    So Nashville figured he was already on his way, since he certainly had the desire to fly, and hope, and somewhere in him a very barbaric yawp. So now all he needed were the actual materials and tools. Using Magnolia’s wing for inspiration, Nashville made a trip to the Goosepimple Curiosity Shop on his way home from the library.
    â€œTo help you find what you need,” said the wart-nosed proprietor, “I need to know what you’re building.”
    â€œOh, you know,” said Nashville, not wanting to divulge his plan, “a device. A doohickey. A doodad.”
    â€œEh?” said the owner.
    â€œAn apparatus, a gadget, a gizmo. A thingamajig. A whatchamacallit.”
    â€œAh,” said the owner finally. “An invention .”
    Like the librarian, the curiosity shop proprietor walked down the aisles of his shop, poking and pulling items off dusty shelves. Nashville followed at a safe distance as the owner handed him various items: an umbrella, a ship sail, shoelaces, and a hat rack made from bamboo. He handed him a teapot, and one captain’s wheel. Nashville teetered to the register with the items.
    â€œPerfect,” he said. “Just what I was looking for.”

“S o,” asked Nashville’s father at dinner, “tell us what’s been happening at school?”
    Nashville was glad when Junebug began prattling about every detail of her day—about the girl with the koala backpack, the pudding fight at lunch, and the freshly painted hopscotch lines on the playground. This gave Nashville time to think of something to say, since he definitely couldn’t tell them about the boys on the playground. It was just the kind of thing his mother—or even worse, Junebug—would show up at his school, and make a big stink about.
    â€œAnd what about you, Nashville?” asked his mother. “Anything fun happening in your class?”
    â€œWell,” said Nashville, thinking, “I’ve been working on this assignment we got.”
    â€œMaybe you didn’t hear her ask if anything fun was