After Will had been sent away from the table, he headed to the barn.  Drawn by his curiosity about Calaban, he cautiously approached the rear of the Professor’s wagon.  He was about to knock on the small door in the back when he heard a kind of singing inside.  The words were slurred and indistinct, but after listening to a verse repeated several times, Will made out the words and knew he was right about it being a song:

The daring young man on the flying trapeze.

Will was enchanted by the song and couldn’t resist quietly opening the wagon door and slipping through.  Inside it was dark, dimly lit by a candle on a small table in the center of the cramped quarters.  Along one wall next to the table crouched a short, thick man with huge hands.  Will watched and listened while the man, whom Will realized must be Calaban, rocked back and forth, back and forth, quietly repeating the song’s lyrics over and over.

The daring young man on the flying trapeze.

The candle illuminated Calaban’s face, and Will saw that his head was gigantic.  It looked as though he had hardly any neck, and his face drooped on one side.

Because Cal seemed not to know that he had come in, Will timidly reached out a hand towards the singing man.

As Will was about to touch his shoulder, Cal seemed to sense Will’s presence.

Cal turned his head and saw out of the corner of one eye a disembodied hand, dimly lit by the candle’s tiny flame, reaching towards him.

Fear rose like a hissing snake inside Cal, bursting from his throat as a groan and moan and grunt all mixed into an agonizing sound that terrified Will, who then screamed even more loudly than Cal.

Together their joint wails of terror made them even more afraid, and they screamed a second time, each of them jumping in spasms of fear.

Will was the first to find his voice.  Breathing heavily he said, “Oh, you scared me!”  Then he noticed the terrified look on Cal’s face.  “I guess I scared you, too, huh?  I didn’t mean to, honest!  I’m really sorry!”

Will saw that Cal was huddled into himself, and he looked like he might spring forward at any moment.  “You aren’t gonna hurt me, are you? I wouldn’t hurt you!”

This seemed to reassure Cal, who noticeably relaxed, and Will said, “Hey, I heard you singing about flyin’ — that was a good song!”

Cal smiled a crooked grin.  Will listened closely as he noticed Cal about to speak.  The words seemed to come reluctantly out of one corner of his mouth.

“Fly?” Cal said, then pointed to himself.  “Cal fly!”

“You like to fly?” asked Will.

Cal nodded his head several times.

Will thought  for a moment, then said, “I know a great place, feels just like flying.  C’mon with me, I’ll show you if you want.  Here, gimme your hand.”  As he reached to take hold of Cal’s large hand, Will felt something in its palm.  “Hey, what’s that in your hand?”

Slowly Cal opened his fingers fully, exposing a small, delicate carving.

“Wow!” exclaimed Will, “Did you carve this?”

Cal nodded his head proudly.

“It’s an angel, isn’t it?  It’s beautiful, Cal.  Looks like it’s flying.  Its wings are all fanned out.  They’re so delicate I can almost see through them.  Did you really carve this?”

Again Cal nodded, then said, “Cal make.  Fly.  Angel fly.”

“You really do like flying, don’t you?”

Cal nodded his head once more as Will led him out of the wagon and up some stairs inside the barn to the loft.  From there they climbed a ladder built into the back wall of the barn.  They climbed all the way to the highest peak where they stepped out onto a thick rafter.

Holding hands, the young boy and the large man looked down into the airy darkness below them.  Outside, the rain had stopped, and the clouds were beginning to break up, though inside the barn it remained gloomy.

They looked at each other once and smiled.  Then, without exchanging a word, they flung themselves off the rafter, arms outstretched like the wings of Cal’s flying angel.

Laughing and yelling their delight, they soared through the air, falling through golden shafts of setting sunlight that suddenly streamed through the slats of barn board.

Falling, falling, flying, they landed at last upon mounds of soft hay far below.

No sooner had they landed than they climbed the high ladder and flew again.

And then again, and again.

OUTSIDE IN THE yard the Professor and the Sheriff were heading from the house towards the barn.  Laura Mary Alice was rushing to catch up with them.  She wanted to let the Professor know she was not angry at him.

The two men reached the open barn door and stood for a moment looking into the gloom, hearing shrieks of delight.  When their eyes had adjusted, they saw Will and Cal perched precariously on the topmost beam of the barn.

Alarmed, the Sheriff shouted, “Hey, get down from there!  Are you crazy?”

Startled, Will lost his balance.  As he started to fall off the beam, he grabbed onto Cal, pulling him off as well.  Waving desperately to regain balance, they fell and plummeted downward, crashing into the hay with Cal landing heavily on top of Will.

When Will cried out in pain, the adults rushed in, shouting in dismay.

Hearing the commotion from the barn, everyone inside the house came running.

In the confusion that followed, Ellen wrongly accused Cal of deliberately hurting Will.  “I hold you personally responsible, Professor!”

The Professor tried to explain, but Ellen refused to listen.

“I want you to leave this farm at once and never return!”

Then she carried Will back to house over his loud objections.

“I’m okay, Mama.  I can walk!”

Once inside the house, Ellen instructed the children to have no further contact with the Professor.   “And I want you all in bed immediately.”

From their bedroom windows on the second floor the children silently watched the Professor’s ornate wagon reach the main road and head away from town as Sheriff Bill rode back towards the village.

Standing in the doorway of the empty barn, Laura Mary Alice also watched the two men depart.  In the waning light she stooped to pick up a delicately carved wooden angel, its wings outspread like a prayer.