One of a Kind

Blane told me if I ever went for a ride with Grandma, I’d surely to have an adventure. I had to wait until I was tall enough, though. Grandma thought it was dangerous for anyone under four-feet-six to ride on her Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

A mark on her kitchen doorsill said 54 inches. Blane had passed the mark long ago, of course. When I reached it early that fall, Grandma invited me on a weekend trip to Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire.

“We’ll take the back roads,” she explained, “and see some scenery. On Saturday afternoon, I’m performing a wedding ceremony for a couple of bikers, then I’ll preach Sunday morning, and we’ll be back Sunday afternoon. If you’d like to come, I’d love to have you.”

I had never ridden on a motorcycle, so I was a little scared. Should I go? Uncle Edgar told me, “You decide.”

On a bright Friday afternoon early in October, Grandma came to pick me up. Fortunately, no mourners were at the funeral parlor yet. Seeing a tall, silver-haired lady charge up the driveway on a Harley would not contribute to the quiet, peaceful atmosphere people prefer in a funeral parlor.

I felt a little silly in the black leather jacket Grandma had bought me, with my hair sticking out under the bright red helmet. Grandma said I looked perfect.

As we packed my things next to Grandma’s in the saddlebags, Uncle Edgar trimmed the bushes along the driveway. He kept glancing in my direction.

“Edgar, dear, you’re hovering,” Grandma said kindly. “Relax. We’ll be fine.”

“I worry about you, going on the road all the time like you do.”

“You should know by now that I can take care of myself.”

She added, with a grin at me, “And I expect I won’t have much trouble taking care of Milly, too, if that’s what’s really bothering you.”

“Ma, you really are one of a kind,” he said shaking his head. I couldn’t tell whether he admired that fact or regretted it, maybe both.

Grandma told me how to sit on the bike, where to put my feet, and where to hold on. With a wave to Uncle Edgar, we were off. I felt like an astronaut being blasted into space, except that the ground never dropped away. In fact, I soon learned that the ground whizzes by very fast and very close when you don’t have a car around you to take your mind off it.

After a few minutes, though, I got used to the roar of the engine, leaning at turns, and looking at Grandma’s strong, straight back, the only object that remained steady as the world zoomed past.

Of course I had told Josie about Grandma and the weekend trip. The road out of town went past her parents’ store, and Josie was watching for us from the parking lot.

When we approached, she waved. As we flew by, she held up a big cardboard sign: “7.0.”

Grandma called back, “What’s that all about?”

“Nothing,” I hollered. “It’s just Josie. Too complicated to explain.” How could I explain Josie’s Weirdness Index?...

From time to time, we stopped to admire the view. After a few hours, we parked at a place called “Scenic Lookout” to watch the hills change color in the glow of the sunset.

Then we whooshed down a darkening wooded road and pulled in near a loud sign that said “Scenic Lookout Motel” in bright yellow lights above a long row of tiny neat cottages. A cheerful restaurant gave off the sound of taped organ music and the smell of frying hamburgers.

The few diners didn’t pay much attention when we walked in, but the short, smiling round man behind the counter boomed through his bushy gray beard, “Well, Sarah. Long time no see! On your way to Mount Monadnock? And who is this little waif?”

“This is my granddaughter, Milly. Milly, this is Nick, but most people call him Santa. I suppose you can guess why.”

Grandma arranged for a room in Santa’s motel, then we picked a table and ordered supper.

I gobbled down my burger and fries. Grandma was gobbling, too and we didn’t talk much as we ate. …

At first, I had only half-noticed the raggedy-looking man in the corner booth hunched over a cup of coffee. But after a while, I realized that he was staring at Grandma and me.

“Grandma, don’t look now, but that man’s staring at us.”

Grandma didn’t look right then, but soon she thought up some reason to turn around, and gave him a glance.

“Poor scrawny thing,” she said. “He seems pretty young to look so miserable and unhappy.”

“Why’s he staring at us?”

“I don’t know. But don’t worry about it,” she said matter-of-factly, and she went back to her supper…

When we finished dessert, we went to our cabin. Before long I was snuggled in the bed near the wall and Grandma was getting into the bed near the door. I fell asleep as soon as she turned the light off.

But during the night, the faint creak of the front window being opened woke me up.

At first, I thought I was having a bad dream. I blinked my eyes to make sure I was awake. Then I froze. By the glow of the yellow lights outside, I could see a man climbing in the window carefully and silently. It was that raggedy guy from the restaurant, the young man who had been staring at Grandma and me.

I’ve always heard that, if there’s an intruder in your room, it’s best to pretend you’re asleep. I was so scared my muscles wouldn’t move if I told them to! But if I closed my eyes, I’d have to imagine what he was doing. That would be more scary than watching and knowing. So I left them open just a slit. … I wished Josie was here instead of me. She probably wouldn’t be so scared. She’d probably start tallying up how to rate this experience on her Weirdness Index, or thinking up a million questions to ask this creepy man.

Step by careful step, he tiptoed to the little table near the foot of my bed. He began to rummage through Grandma’s handbag. If he came one inch closer I’d have to scream.

I didn’t know whether to hope Grandma would stay asleep or hope she would wake up.

But suddenly, with one enormous leap, Grandma was out of bed, the light was on, and she was standing tall in her flowery pajamas, demanding, “Excuse me, but exactly what do you think you’re doing?”

The man snatched the handbag and ran for the door, but Grandma was too fast for him. Flowered arms and legs flying, she jumped across her bed and grabbed his arm. There was a scuffle. The next thing I knew, he was lying flat on his back on the floor. Grandma was practically sitting on his chest. He was moaning, “You broke my nose, you broke my nose.”

“I’m sorry you bumped your nose. I’m sure it’s not broken,” she said kindly but forcefully.

“Grandma, you want me to call Santa and tell him to get the police?”

“No. Wet a towel with cold water and bring it here.”

“But, Grandma, he could have killed you!”

“I’m okay. I don’t believe he meant to hurt either one of us. Did you?” she asked him. It was more a statement than a question. He shook his head frantically.

I got the towel and Grandma gently pressed it to his nose while he stared at her in fear and disbelief.

“I’m going to let you get up,” she said, “if you think you can behave yourself.”

He nodded anxiously.

But before she got off his chest, she preached him a sermonette.

“I suppose you think that, because you need money, it’s okay just to take it. But in the long run, that approach will never work. And I imagine you thought it would be easy to rob an old lady and a little girl. As you can see, that approach doesn’t work so well, either.”

Then she got off him. “Get up and sit down.”

She motioned toward the chair next to the little table, the only chair in the room. He sat erect on the edge of it, holding the towel to his nose, glancing nervously between Grandma and me. He was shorter than Grandma, pale and thin, with dark matted hair. His jeans and flannel shirt were rumpled and dirty; he smelled sweaty.

I sat on my bed. Grandma sat on hers.

She looked him straight in the eye — with that look of hers, that can see into people’s hearts — and gently demanded, “Now suppose you tell me what this is all about. First, what’s your name?”

“Alan.” He spoke so softly I could hardly hear him.

“Alan what?”

“Alan Brown.”

By this sort of question and answer, she dragged his story out of him. He had been a handyman for some rich people near Philadelphia but he lost the job when they sold their estate, he had hitchhiked to New Hampshire because he heard about a similar job up here but somebody else got it, he ran out of money and had been sleeping in the woods, and he used his last bit of change that night to buy coffee at Santa’s.

Grandma picked up the phone and dialed. She waited. “I’m sorry to wake you, Nick, but we have a situation here. Would you mind meeting us in the kitchen?”

I put my clothes on over my pajamas, and she did the same. We all arrived in the restaurant just as a sleepy Santa was turning on the lights.

He raised his eyebrows in mild surprise to see that we had a guest. He looked questioningly at Grandma, but he didn’t say anything. It was almost as if he half expected Grandma to get him up in the middle of the night to be kind to a ragged stranger.

“We have someone here who needs something to eat,” Grandma said. Santa nodded and turned to the grill.

“Milly,” she said, “why don’t you and Alan go sit down while I have a chat with Nick.”

I chose a table and we sat across from each other. I didn’t have any idea what to say to a guy who had just tried to rob us. I once heard somebody say that children shouldn’t speak until spoken to, a rule that was coming in handy at the moment. After all, Alan was the grown-up in this situation — even if he was a thief.

He looked around nervously at the ceiling, the floor and the other tables. He fiddled with the salt shaker.

“Is that your grandmother?” he asked finally.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think she’s going to turn me into the police?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. She could have done that already if she wanted to.”

“What’s she going to do?”

“First I guess she’s going to get you something to eat.”

Nick brought us each a cup of hot chocolate and placed a huge plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast in front of Alan.

“Thank you,” Alan mumbled and dug into his meal. He practically inhaled it. I sipped my hot chocolate.

Grandma and Nick were still talking in the kitchen when Alan mopped up the last speck of egg with his last piece of toast.

He leaned back in his chair.

“That was great,” he sighed. He folded his hands across his stomach as if he could feel it full from the outside as well as the inside.

“Where are you and your grandmother from?”

I told him we were from Massachusetts, and where we were going and why.

“You mean she rides a motorcycle? A grandmother who’s a minister and rides a motorcycle? What’s the rest of your family like?”

So I told him about Uncle Edgar and his funeral parlor, and Blane, and Josie…

Finally, Grandma came to the table.

“Nick’s going to let you stay in one of his cabins tonight,” she announced, “and tomorrow he’ll see what he can do. He said he could use some help around here, so maybe he’ll have a job for you.”

“Thank you,” Alan said quietly. “Thank you for everything. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused.”

“Glad to help. And I don’t want to hear about you trying to rob any more helpless little old ladies.”

“No, ma’am, you sure won’t.”

We all went out and Nick turned off the lights. Grandma and I went to our cabin, and Santa unlocked another for Alan.

“Night, Milly,” Alan called softly as he went in.

Grandma and I went back to bed. She conked right out. But I had trouble getting to sleep. My brain was too busy trying to sort everything out: how Grandma had been so brave, and she and Nick were kind to a guy who tried to rob us, and how the man who had seemed so creepy and scary at first turned out to be pitiful and even sort of nice.

The next afternoon, Grandma “united this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”…

Sunday morning, I watched Grandma preach to the bikers on the mountainside. I thought proudly that nobody in the world was entirely like my grandmother. Uncle Edgar had been right when he called her “one of a kind.”

Blane had been right, too, when he said I’d surely have an adventure if I went for a ride with Grandma.

I couldn’t wait to tell Josie all about it. She had already scored Grandma and me 7.0 our of 10.0 on the Weirdness Index. I wondered how many points we’d get for an actual robber.