Sunday morning I was up before the grackles. I grabbed the photograph with the list on the back and the little eraser and put them in my pocket. Mrs. Doornie's protractor gleamed in the moonlight from the window, so I grabbed it, too. Dressed in my blue jeans and my red sweater and my black Keds, I snuck out for Chamberlain's hill.

Under the live oak on top of the hill, the sky was the color of a burned-down piece of charcoal, all black and blue overhead, and kind of gray and orange in the east. It was cold enough to see my breath, and my throat hurt a little. The cows complained somewhere off in the darkness, and the morning dew made their pies stink something awful.

I left the protractor in my pocket, took the eraser in one hand and the picture with the list on the back in my other hand, and closed my eyes real tight. The hill was the angle of my dreams. All I had to do was run and never stop and I could soar all the way to Heaven and find those astronauts. Momma and Daddy would there with them, everybody laughing at some stupid story Mrs. McAuliffe was telling about the kids in her class.

My Keds smacked into the grass of the hill. My teeth clacked with each step. I knew there was nothing between me and the bottom of the hill except some grass, so I was safe. I stuck my arms out real far, straining fit to pop my elbows. My dreams told me what to do. My legs strained with a red-hot, sour feeling, then there was no more ground.

I had forgotten how to fall back down again.

I soared through the dawn like a bird set free and nothing in my heart hurt any more for the first time since I could remember. The cold air made my chest ache as I breathed, and my body creaked like the barn in the wind. All I had to do was angle my hips and shoulders to turn, and I could bank and loop like a fighter pilot.

I knew Heaven wasn't straight up, like they said at the Fontevrault Bible Church, because space was up there where NASA kept their satellites. But Heaven had to be somewhere in the sky, because angels have wings, so I kept out circling, looking for the way. Caldwell County, Texas stretched below me, like a big map except every little piece was real like one of them specially nice train sets. The sun had come up and everything was green and gold and beautiful. I wanted to sing, but I didn't know any good songs for the sky.

"Ronnie!"

It was Granddaddy. I looked down. I had flown over our little farm, and there he was in the front yard of the house, Bible in one hand while he shook his other fist.

"Get down here right now!"

I banked left, slipping over the housetop then back across the front yard the other way. This time Granddaddy was thrusting the Bible up at me. "You're in danger of your mortal soul, boy," he shouted. "Nobody mocks God's angels."

I shook my head, waving my hands as if to push him away. That was enough for me to remember how to fall. Head over heels, I tumbled into the yard at Granddaddy's feet. The last thing I saw was that little photo of Momma and Daddy circling high on the wind, as if it knew the way to the astronauts in Heaven without me.

My head felt like it was inside a bucket that kept rattling as someone was throwing gravel at it. I tried to shake it clear, but that only made things hurt worse.

"Sit tight, Ronnie," said Granddaddy. His voice was sadder than I'd heard since Momma died. I opened my eyes. We were in his truck, driving real fast down County Road 61 toward town.

"What happened?" It was a dumb question. I knew what had happened to me, but I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"You fell off the roof."

"No, I--"

His voice was almost a growl. "You were sleepwalking and fell off the roof, Ronnie Marshall." Granddaddy glanced away from the road and met my eye. "There won't be another word said once we're done with the doctor, you hear me boy? Not ever."

The strange thing was, I didn't even get a whipping.

I stayed out of school three days with a concussion. Mrs. Doornie's protractor was smashed in my pocket, and whenever I could get out of bed and sit up for a while, I tried to glue it back together. The picture was gone, and so was my space shuttle eraser. By Wednesday I was better, and that night Granddaddy made me come down to dinner instead of bringing me soup in my room.

After we said grace over the roasted chicken and buttered green beans, Granddaddy picked up his knife, then put it back down. He stared at me, so I put my knife and fork down, too. I didn't know what I had done wrong.

"Ronnie," Granddaddy said real slow, like he wasn't sure what he was saying. Except Granddaddy was always sure of himself. "Your Momma..." He stopped, staring at the butter-and-pepper skin on his half of the chicken. "She lost her Momma when she was a little girl."

He was quiet for a while, like I was supposed to answer. "My grandmother," I finally said.

Granddaddy almost looked relieved. "Your grandmother. She ran away from us, left me to raise your Momma. And lose your Momma, finally."

He hadn't never cried when Momma was sick or when she died. They had to carry Daddy away from the funeral, but Granddaddy had just stood at the grave with a face like a hatchet. I was real afraid he was about to cry now.

"Your grandmother," he said, "climbed a ladder one day when your mother was a tiny baby, and jumped off the roof." He grabbed my hand with his, like an old leather bird claw wrapped around my pale fingers. "She never hit the ground, Ronnie. You get me?"