The Sky’s the Limit: My Journey with Maryellen

We don’t need to be asked twice. Maryellen pedals like a blur, and I’m close behind her while the girl runs behind us yelling to give it back. Maryellen swerves in front of the boy, forcing him to stop. Both tumble, and the bike skids into a tree. She grabs his arm, but he flings something into the grass and sprints off, taunting that the girl will never find it.

The girl helps Maryellen up and asks if she’s all right. Maryellen says she’s fine, though her hands are scraped from the fall. I drop my bike, search the grass where the object landed, and hold up a small sharp stone chipped into a point, asking if it’s what she lost.

She smiles, thanks us, and confirms it’s an arrowhead, the best specimen she’s dug up yet. She’d brought it home to clean when her brother, Roy, grabbed it and ran, without us she’d have lost it. She introduces herself as Nancy and invites us in to wash up.

I introduce myself as Sophie and Maryellen as Ellie. Nancy leads us to her house, and it feels strange knowing Gran once lived here, though I only remember it having shelves full of books. Nancy’s house is spick-and-span by comparison. She shows us her arrowhead collection and asks how I knew what the stone was.

I tell Nancy that Gran collects them, studying how people lived long ago by digging up old pots and relics from Native American and settler sites. Nancy is impressed, asks if Gran’s an archaeologist, and calls it fantastic when I nod, saying it’s awfully hard to become one and that she wants to be an archaeologist herself someday.

Just then Roy sticks his head in and declares that girls are mothers, teachers, nurses, or secretaries, never scientists. Maryellen and I insist girls can be scientists. Roy sneers and dares us to name one lady archaeologist. Maryellen and Nancy triumphantly point to me and say Gran is one. Roy looks genuinely surprised, then slinks off.

Nancy asks me to thank Gran for giving her hope. Maryellen says Gran must be unusual, and I nod, not admitting I’ve never asked about her work. It never occurred to me she had to push against ideas of what girls could or couldn’t do. I’ve always taken for granted that I can be anything I want, which wasn’t true for girls in the 1950s.

When I get home, I intend to ask Gran how she became an archaeologist, and whether anyone ever told her she couldn’t, and how she found the courage to ignore them.

Outside, Nancy tells Maryellen she’ll probably need a new bike. The tire is bent, the seat sideways, the handlebars cockeyed. Maryellen says it was hopeless to begin with. I mention she’ll soon be tall enough for Carolyn’s bike, but she already has one at home, Davy’s old bike, though it’s a boy’s bike with a bar across the middle, and she’s afraid her friends will tease her since girls don’t ride boys’ bikes.

Nancy says Maryellen should be like Gran and not worry what others say girls can or can’t do. I agree: if Nancy can be an archaeologist, Maryellen can ride a boy’s bike, especially since she pedals too fast for anyone to notice. Maryellen laughs and promises to ride it home and challenge anyone who teases her to a race.

Nancy holds out the arrowhead and has us all promise on it that we’ll be who we want to be, no matter what anyone says to discourage us. Maryellen and I put our hands on it and promise together.

Maryellen and I say goodbye and wheel our bikes away, Maryellen doing her best with the wreck of hers. At the corner we turn to wave, and Nancy calls out that she’ll never forget us, or Gran.

My heart quickens with urgency. I don’t want to leave Maryellen, but I do want to go home and get to know Gran.