RETURN TO SWAN LAKE

a novel by Gary Canup

Chapter 2

Soon they were spending all their free time at Swan Lake. They passed the lazy early summer days rowing on the rippling water, feeding oyster crackers to the ducks, or simply lounging on the shady bank talking. Sometimes they brought their swimsuits and splashed joyfully in the pond after jumping from a low-hanging branch on the island. When hungry, they ate the fruit and nuts and berries that grew in abundance in the surrounding woods; when thirsty, they drank the cool clear water of the spring that nourished the pond.

One afternoon they were wading in the warm shallow water just off the landing of the island, enjoying the sensation of mud oozing between their toes and of minnows kissing their ankles. Davy wandered around a bend in the island and surprised a fat old bull-frog sunning itself on a rock. The bullfrog croaked, and belly-flopped into the water. It swam the wrong way and Davy easily captured the lazy sun-drugged creature and hoisted it out of the water, the docile dripping bullfrog staring indifferently into space, its pale-green throat alternately ballooning and contracting.

"Hey, Jan!" he called.

"What?"

"Come and look at this!"

The girl came splashing merrily around the bend but when she saw what Davy was holding stopped in her tracks. "Oh, dear," she said.

"Ain't he a beaut?"

"Davy, what is that thing?"

"It's a bullfrog!"

"It's hideous."

Davy covered its ears. "Please. They're very sensitive, you know."

"He doesn't look very sensitive."

"Since this is such an enchanted place, why don't you kiss him and see if he turns into a prince?"

"Why don't you kiss this?"

Davy laughed. "Come over and have a closer look."

"I don't know."

"He won't hurt you."

"You sure?"

"He's not hurting me, is he?"

"Aren't they supposed to give you warts or something?"

"That's just an old wise tale."

"Old wive's tale," she corrected. She did not like the look on Davy's face. "Davy, you better not throw him on me."

"I won't."

"Do you swear?"

"I swear."

"Because I'd hate to have to pound the snot out of you."

"So would I."

"I'm trusting you now." Hesitantly she came up, and even reached out to pet the animal but sharply withdrew her hand. "Oh God, I think I'm going to puke."

"Rubbit, rubbit," the bullfrog said.

They laughed, Jan somewhat nervously.

"What was that you said, Mr. Frog?" Davy asked. "What do you want me to rub, your head?" He petted the creature's knobby head. "What do you want me to rub, your tummy?" He turned the creature over and stroked its silky pale-green tummy.

"What do you want him to rub," Jan chuckled, "your back?"

Davy handed her the frog but Jan did not know how to hold it quite so expertly and the frog began to squirm and thrash and she squeamishly fumbled it and the creature splashed into the water and swam indignantly away.

One day they were picnicking on the carpet of moss inside the coppice, eating sandwiches and sharing kool-aid from a thermos. They could hear the ducks quacking outside. The quacking seemed to be getting louder, which probably meant that some of them were swimming towards the island. Soon they heard a rustling in the vegetation of the entranceway and looking over saw a lone duck come strutting into the chamber, looking around and quacking obnoxiously. It nosed at the food on Jan's paper plate and took a bite of the bread of her sandwich and swallowed. It waddled over to Davy and inspected the food on his plate and started to nibble at his sandwich too but Davy yanked his plate away. They looked at one another in astonishment.

"Just help yourself!" Jan laughed, selecting an olive from her plate. "Here, would you like an olive, you bold little party-crasher?"

The duck accepted the olive and swallowed it whole.

The bird's unusual friendliness and utter lack of fear of humans led Jan to speculate that it must have flown here from some public park where it had grown dependent upon handouts from human beings. The duck even let Jan lift him onto her lap and pet him as much as she liked. She stroked its feathery head and named their new pet "Tchaikovsky."

One morning, in a lovely little glade within view of the pond, Jan danced for him, her movements fluid and graceful and elegant, her long raven tresses flowing freely about her serious face. Afterwards she flitted over and sat beside him to rest.

"You dance real good, Jan."

"Thanks," she said, catching her breath.

"Was that ballet?"

"No, it was modern dance. After you've seen the two forms, you won't have any trouble telling them apart. In ballet the movements are formal, artificial. In modern dance they're much more natural and free. Have you ever heard of Isadora Duncan?"

Davy solemnly shook his head.

"She was a dancer a long time ago who rebelled against classical ballet and founded modern dance. She taught that dancers should emulate the simple motions found in nature in the soaring of birds, the rolling of waves, the swaying of flowers in a breeze. She taught us to dance according to the way we feel, not according to rigid conventions. That's what modern dance is all about, it's deeply personal. I'd like to teach it someday to children about our age now. But there's small chance of that."

"How come?"

"Because my mother is pushing me into a career of ballet. She's been doing it all my life. She's taken me to thousands of ballets, bought me hundreds of ballet costumes, invested a fortune on the best schools and the best teachers. She's forever entering me in competitions and arranging auditions with impresarios and making connections in the ballet world. She does everything she can. Mother says teaching modern dance would be a waste of my talent. She says she will not rest until she sees me dancing the lead for a major company. She says that, after I retire from ballet, if I still want to teach modern dance, then I'll be free to do so, but for now I have to discipline myself and work hard and do whatever it takes to become a prima ballerina."

"Wow," Davy said.

The girl stared bitterly across the little glade.

"Don't you like ballet?"

"It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I prefer modern dance. And I think I would prefer teaching to performing. Oh, let's not talk about this anymore, Davy, not here. I'm sorry I brought it up." She asked brightly: "Would you like to see me dance some more?"

"Sure," the boy said, settling back against the tree again.

The girl returned to the center of the clearing to resume her modern dance.

Jan soon began to fantasize about spending the rest of their lives at Swan Lake. They didn't need the rest of the world, she told him. They had everything they needed right here. They could eat berries and nuts and fruit that they gathered in the surrounding woods. They could drink the cool clear water of the spring. They could sleep on the moss inside the coppice.

"What if it rains?" Davy asked.

"We could spread a tarpaulin or something over the tops of the trees."

"And what would we do in the winter?"

"We could build a fire or two or whatever it takes to keep warm."

"And what about school?"

"What would there be to learn? The only thing we would need to know is how to be happy, and we already know how to do that."

One afternoon Davy was lazily paddling the dinghy on the pond. Jan was languidly sunning herself in the bow with her eyes closed and with her hand trailing luxuriously in the water. Tchaikovsky was swimming alongside, nuzzling her hand.

"Don't you wish we could be twelve years old for the rest of our lives, Davy?"

"Not me," Davy said. "I want to grow up."

She opened one eye to squint at him in disbelief. "You're kidding. Why do you want to be a grownup?"

"Because they don't have to go to bed early. And they get to do more things."

"They get to do more things, all right — like go to work, pay taxes, put kids through college, worry." Jan closed her eye and rested her head back again.

"Yeah, but they don't have to go to school," Davy countered.

She let her hand swirl lazily in the water. "There was once this old man in Paris," she reminisced. "We were on recess from ballet class, playing jump rope on the sidewalk of this narrow cobblestoned street outside of school. The old man was sitting on a step across the street, watching us. I don't think he lived there, I think he was just passing through the neighborhood on a walk and had stopped there to rest. He didn't look any too prosperous. He wore this shabby coat and old shoes and his white hair was sticking out beneath a hat that he looked like he'd owned for decades. This one girl was skipping rope really fast, really slapping the pavement with it, and the old man smiled kind of sadly. Then he looked at his watch. It was all he could do to stand up, and it took him nearly a half hour to cross the street. He doddered up to me, I don't know why — probably because the other girls were sort of laughing at him — and he smiled at me with his kind old eyes. He said he had some good advice for me. He advised me never to grow up. He was quite serious about it. He said there are a lot of things you cannot see when you're a child, and even if you do see them, you don't understand them enough to be saddened by them. He told me to be a kid as long as I can."

"Wow," Davy said.

"I know."

"Who was this old guy?"

"Just some old guy. After giving me his advice, he just smiled again and walked away. We never saw him again. He's probably dead by now."

"My mom's always telling me stuff like that. Like you're only young once and you should enjoy it while you can."

"Does your mom really talk like that?"

"Every time she has a birthday."

"I wish I had a mom like that. Mine's just the opposite, she wants me to grow up. She's always telling me to stop acting like a child. Sometimes I feel I've had no childhood at all. You know, Davy, it's kind of scary. Because once it's gone, it's gone forever. Because I'm around adults so much, I know what their problems are like. I'm not ready for that yet. I'm not through being a kid."