Most of the adults in the countryside of Breton County knew who the dandelion people were. One man might say to the other,
“I’m off to see the dandelion people.” Then his friend would laugh and with a wink reply,
“Looks like I’ll be stopping by your place sometime this week.”
“I think that they are fairies that grant wishes,” said MaryLou, twirling a blonde pigtail around her finger.
“Nah, I bet they are just old people with fluffy white hair,” said Jonathan from his seat on a white pasture fence.
“I heard that they come out to the fields at night and pick all the dandelions. They comb all the fields of the county till there is not one left.” said Velma, who had an older sister that was twenty-one and knew everything.
“Really?” gasped MaryLou, “Have you seen them?”
“No, but my sister has,” Velma said smugly, “She went with them once.”
“No way,” said Jonathan, his mouth hanging open showing a missing tooth.
“Yes,” Velma looked him up and down, “She did.”
“What did they look like?” asked MaryLou practically bouncing up and down, “Were they fairies or elves or gnomes?”
Velma looked at her brown leather shoes now coated in reddish dust from the road. “I don’t know. My sister didn’t tell me much.”
“Oh,” sighed Jonathan and MaryLou in unison. Velma bit her lip and her eyes darted between the pair of them.
“I think we should see the dandelion people for ourselves.”
“What?” spluttered Jonathan.
“Really? How?” asked MaryLou.
“Simple,” said Velma shrugging her shoulders, “Mr. Parkins’ field is full of dandelions. If we wait the dandelion people will come eventually.”
“Alright,” said MaryLou smiling as wide as the sun, stretching the freckles across her nose. Jonathan nodded in agreement. Velma dropped her voice and leaned in close to them.
“Good we’ll do it tonight.”
They met again when the air turned cool and laid down in the grass of Mr. Parkins’ field on their bellies like snakes. Dandelions dotted the fields like thousands of little burned out suns and made the spring air smell sticky and sweet.
“When do you think they’ll come?” whispered Jonathan in the dark.
“No telling,” Velma answered, “we’ll wait here as long as we have to, even until the sun comes up.”
“I’d wait here for days if I had to,” said MaryLou taking off her shoes, clenching tufts of grass between her toes and plucking them from the ground. “If my parents knew what we were doing, boy, I’d be in trouble.”
“What did you tell them when you left your house tonight?”
“I said I was spending the night at your house, Velma.”
“And I said I was sleeping at your place.” The girls giggled.
“What about you, Jonathan? What did you tell your parents?” asked MaryLou.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” Jonathan lay his chin on his arms peering through the forest of grass.
“Really? They didn’t bother you about where you’d be?” said Velma.
“No,” muttered Jonathan as he rolled over on his back.
“Hey, Jonathan,” said MaryLou a little timidly, “You haven’t been back to school for a while.”
“Nope.”
“…It’s been a long time.” MaryLou turned on her side and propped herself up on her elbow.
“Yep.”
“Are you ever gonna come back?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t wanna,” sighed Jonathan as he reached out his arm and plucked a dandelion.
“Then what do you do all day?” asked Velma rolling her eyes in the dark.
“Depends, sometimes I swim in the river, sometimes I climb trees, sometimes I pick wild berries.”
“That’s stupid,” spat Velma, “you can’t live that way.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“I don’t care what you say, Velma. I can do with my life whatever I want.”
“You want to run around barefoot with holes in your clothes?"
“I don’t like school.”
“Well, you’re going to grow up and be a bum then.” Jonathan rolled over on his side facing away from the girls and didn’t speak for a long time.
“I think you made him mad,” whispered MaryLou.
“Well someone’s got to tell him the truth. His parents don’t do much.” Velma raised her voice a little so Jonathan would hear, “They don’t even care.” Everyone was silent until the moon rose high overhead, full like a shiny dime.
“Do you think they’ll ever come?” said MaryLou sleepily.
“I hope so,” Velma stifled a yawn. Jonathan was still curled up on his side.
“Velma, if we ever see the dandelion people, what would you wish for?”
“I’d wish for a new dress, bright red with a big bow on the collar.”
“I’d wish for a new deck of cards. Mine is missing two kings,” laughed MaryLou.
“What would you wish for Jonathan?” He rolled over on his back again.
“I don’t think I should say.”
“Why not?” asked Velma sharply.
“I think if you say your wishes out loud, then they don’t come true. Mine’s a really big one so I’d like to keep it to myself.”
MaryLou suddenly sat bolt upright, looking over the field like a deer that hears a hunter’s steps in the woods. Shadowy figures appeared in the distance at the rim of the field like inkblots. She immediately sunk back in the grass with a squeak.
“They’re here!”
The shadows roved over the field stooping to pluck the yellow weeds from the ground.
“There’s got to be at least twenty of them,” whispered Velma.
“They don’t look like fairies,” said MaryLou sounding very disappointed. They looked like normal people, mostly men, but there were a few women gathering the flowers in their skirts. As they worked they sung softly, like a pale vibration in the night.
“Should we go talk to them?” breathed MaryLou.
“Are you crazy?” said Velma, “We’ll wait until they’re done and follow them.”
“Follow them? I don’t remember agreeing to that,” grunted Jonathan.
“What are you scared?” said Velma.
“No.”
“Maybe they can still grant wishes,” said MaryLou always optimistic.
The children waited a long time, until the dandelion people had picked the field clean. Their minds buzzed like the static of a radio full of adrenalin and curiosity. Finally the figures began to retreat beyond the borders of the pasture, like black ants returning to their mound.
“Let’s go,” whispered Velma and the children silently slunk after them looking for safe shadows to hide their shining eyes.
They followed the dandelion people over another pasture fence to a dirt road staying far enough behind so that they could just here the excited murmurings. In the dark the dandelion people seemed to be a large centipede with many legs stumping along disjointedly, kicking up dust. Finally, a lit barn appeared on a hill and the people filed inside. Lively music pored out from lit windows and plucky fiddles danced, their notes running off into the distant trees like wild deer.
The children followed, crouched over like cats, bobbing in a out of the moonlight. Most of the dandelion people had gone inside so they managed to make it to the barn unseen. They pressed their backs to the old barn wall beneath a windowsill. Velma nodded firmly to the others as a signal. MaryLou and Jonathan nodded back. They all slowly peered over the edge of a worn windowsill and their eyes grew wide.
Adults were dancing about, laughing, drinking a reddish-brown liquid from glasses and recycled jam jars. The heat from inside the barn hit the children’s faces like the exhaled breath of a bull. Women had their dresses pulled up over their knees to demonstrate the newest dance steps, kicking their legs out wildly. A few men were gathered around a metal still, filling glasses, jam jars, and coffee mugs with the drink that seemed to be in such high demand.
“Isn’t that Mr. Jamison?” said MaryLou looking at the man squatting by the still’s spout filling up his mug.
“The grocery store manager?” said Velma, “Look I think that’s the police chief snuggling up to Miss Maryanne!”
“Yeah, and there’s Miss Pillsbury showing her garters,” said Jonathan as their young schoolteacher kicked her legs high like a can-can girl.
“Oh, Miss Pillsbury!” said MaryLou in a stunned whisper, “What on earth is happening?”
“They’re boozin’,” said Jonathan, his mouth drawn into a smirk, “I guess the dandelion people can grant wishes during the prohibition.”
“What do you mean?” asked Velma.
“They’ve gone and made a big batch of dandelion wine.” The children watched as their school teacher danced with the tractor repair man, her hair wild since she had shaken all the pins from it.
“They’ve gone crazy,” said Velma as the police chief and Miss Maryanne began to kiss very wetly.
“Yeah, grownups never do what they say, but somehow they expect us to. They tell us to be quiet and well-mannered and go to school, but they set different standards for themselves.” Jonathan rolled his eyes.
“Yeah,” breathed Velma and MaryLou from either side of him.
“They do look like they’re having fun though,” said Velma a little quietly.
"Wait till tomorrow morning,” sighed Jonathan, “they’ll be throwing up in the bathroom and have headaches and get really cranky if you talk to them.”
“Well that sounds gross,” said MaryLou wrinkling her nose.
"How do you know all this?" asked Velma. Jonathan shook his head and pulled up one of the straps of his overalls which had slipped off his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said turning away from the window. MaryLou followed quickly after, but Velma lingered just a second longer watching the women dangle their legs in the air like fishing lures.
They all headed back home, but this time they did not skulk in the shadows or hide behind bushes. They walked in the middle of the road, straight and tall like the trees that shielded their sides and were grateful when they could no longer hear the shrill music or the cackling laughter.
“You know,” breathed Jonathan, his chin towards the stars, “I think I can tell you my wish after all, seeing how the dandelion people aren't magical.”
Velma turned on him suddenly.
“Really? Well spit it out!”
“It’s just…” Jonathan kicked a rock down the road and watched it bounce along, “now you know. “
“Know what?” said Velma impatiently.
“What it’s like to grow up. Grownups don’t lay by the stream or climb trees. They do that,” he stuck his thumb over his shoulder toward the barn. “If that’s what growing up is, I’d rather stay where I’m at.” MaryLou nodded quietly.
“You don’t want to be a grownup and get a job and start a family?” asked Velma.
“I’m not sure right now,” said Jonathan with a shrug, “Right now I just want to swing on the vines over the river and soak up as much sun as I can. How about when I have one million freckles I’ll grow up, okay?”
MaryLou laughed and pointed to her nose.
“I think I’m more grownup than you.”
“Well that’s not fair,” said Velma looking at her pale arms, practically blue in the moonlight.
“Don’t worry about it so much, Velma,” said Jonathan nudging her elbow, “My mom says that worrying gave her wrinkles.”
Velma shut her mouth quickly and pored all of her energy into not worrying.
The road forked, to the right was Jonathan’s house, to the left was Velma’s white-washed house and further down the road sat MaryLou’s. The children slowed as the paths separated.
“Well that was an adventure,” said MaryLou smiling, “not what I expected but…”
“Yeah,” said Jonathan scratching a chigger bite on his knee, “are you disappointed, MaryLou? I’m sorry that the dandelion people weren’t magical.”
“A little,” MaryLou replied, “but I think deep down I knew.”
“Strange how we know things deep down. It’s almost like we’re living half asleep.”
The girls looked at each other and yawned widely.
“I better get home,” muttered MaryLou.
“Me too,” Velma stretched her arms above her head.
“G’night,” said Jonathan with a nod of his head as he plunged his hands into his overall pockets.
“G’night,” said the girls as they turned toward home.
“Jonathan?” MaryLou spun around so fast that her pigtails nearly slapped her.
“Yeah?”
“Could we go berry picking with you tomorrow?”
The next day, MaryLou and Velma did not go to school. They picked wild berries in the tangled thickets and dipped their toes in the brook with Jonathan where they did not have to wonder which lacy garters Miss Pillsbury was wearing that day.
