by Eric Bower
While some kids might have been confused or upset by that, B.W. was actually excited at the idea of seeing some of my parents’ wacky inventions.
“Really?” he said. “That’s fantastic! Do you think they’d let me try out one of their inventions? I’ve always been interested in science.”
“You have?” I asked with a frown, unable to hide my disappointment.
Don’t get me wrong. I like science. Science is wonderful. It’s great. It’s wonderfully great.
But there’s something about science that my brain doesn’t quite understand. My parents will sit down and try to explain their scientific inventions to me, but my brain refuses to listen. It will shut off and play loud, wacky music, usually with a lot of funny sounding horns and an off-key piano. And if I try to listen to my parents’ scientific explanations despite the wacky music playing in my head, my brain will start throwing odd thoughts at me, odd thoughts which distract me. My brain will make me wonder how many hard-boiled eggs I can fit in my mouth at a time or if chipmunks are just squirrels without tails or why my belly button is so much deeper than everyone else’s or what another word for “thesaurus” is.
Basically, my brain does not want me to understand science. I don’t know why. I honestly don’t. If you want a better answer than that, then you’ll have to ask my brain. But I should warn you, it’s pretty hard to get a straight answer out of it. I’ve been trying to get straight answers out of my brain for years.
“Of course,” said B.W. with a proud grin. “I’ve always wanted to be an inventor.”
My face must have showed my utter disappointment that my new friend would likely be far more interested in my parents than in me, because B.W. laughed and patted me on the back.
“Don’t worry, W.B.,” he said. “I’m not obsessed with science. I just think it’s fun and interesting, that’s all. But I’m a normal kid who thinks that other things are fun too.”
“Like what?” I asked, as I realized that I had no idea what “normal” kids did for fun.
B.W. shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. Shooting at tin cans. Pretending we’re bandits at the bank. Playing Hull Gull with beans. The usual games kids play.”
I’d never shot a tin can with anything before. And I’ve never pretended to be a bandit at the bank—what was I supposed to do, tie a bandana over my nose and mouth and then pretend to open a savings account? And I had absolutely no idea what a Hull Gull was, or why on earth you played it while eating beans. Could I play it while eating cornbread and sausage too? If so, then I think I liked Hull Gull the best out of all those options.
But the last thing I wanted was for my first friend in Pitchfork to think I didn’t know what normal kids did. So I nodded my head quickly with a big, fake smile plastered on my face.
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “Bandit banking. Shooting cans with . . . things. Eating bean games. I like doing all that stuff too. I certainly don’t spend all of my time sitting in bed, reading adventure novels while eating pie.”
I was a bit surprised when we arrived at the Baron Estate and nothing odd appeared to be happening. There were no explosions or fires or gigantic metal contraptions that would turn you into a bird if you flipped a metal switch. There were no flying machines or steam-powered bicycles or glowing trees or mechanical badgers puttering across the grounds. And the house itself was just sitting there. It wasn’t rolling or floating or flying or digging or spinning in the air. It was just acting like a normal house.
In fact, the only odd thing I noticed was how normal everything seemed. We walked into the Baron Estate, and we saw that M was in the living room sweeping the floor. I could hear Aunt Dorcas and Rose Blackwood in the kitchen, practicing their baking for the upcoming Pitchfork Fair. I was really looking forward to that fair. They always served lots of pie, cake, donuts, cookies, and ice cream at the fair. I would literally go anywhere in the world if they were serving pie, cake, donuts, cookies, and ice cream there.
“Hello, W.B.,” M said, setting her broom aside. “Who is your friend?”
“This is B.W.,” I told her. “He’s new.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Baron,” B.W. said politely as he shook my mother’s hand. “Your son has told me a lot about you and your husband. I like to consider myself a bit of an inventor too. I’d love it if you could show me some of your fantastic inventions one day.”
This pleased my mother, who promised B.W. that she would be more than happy to show him some of her and my father’s inventions.
“Speaking of your father,” M said, turning to me with a smile, “he’s out back, W.B. And he’s got a little surprise to show you.”
“. . . Oh.”
I’ve heard that some children get excited when they hear that one of their parents has a surprise to show them. I am not one of those children. For most children, a surprise from your father might mean a new bicycle or a deck of cards or a trip to the ocean. But for me, it was usually something weird and confusing, like a strange new invention that would transform my fingers into sausages, or something like that. At the very best, I could expect to be given a new hat.
My father has a strange thing about hats. He takes them very seriously. Very seriously.
With B.W. following close behind, I walked through the house and out the back door, where I spotted my father and someone who I hadn’t been expecting to see.
“Hi there, W.B.!” my father chirped happily, as he gently petted his new friend.
His new friend was a brown Arabian horse with a shaggy, black mane. I could tell by the way my father was looking at it that the horse had instantly become his new favorite member of the family. My father loves animals. In fact, I’m pretty certain that he loves them more than he loves people. People confuse him, and he confuses people. Animals he understands, and, for some reason, animals understand him as well. Maybe he was just born the wrong species.
“Hey there!” another familiar voice cried.
I couldn’t see the person who cried out because she was standing behind Aunt Dorcas’s butter churner. But even if I hadn’t recognized her voice, there was only one person I knew who was short enough to be blocked by a butter churner.
It was my old friend from Chicago. Her name was Iris, but everyone called her Shorty. They called her that because she was half the size of most kids our age. In fact, there were infants who could stand up and look at her, eye-to-eye. But you couldn’t let her size fool you. Shorty was, by far, the strongest and toughest kid I’d ever met. As she sped across the yard and jumped up into my arms, she gave me a hug so powerful that, for a moment, my eyes bulged out of my head, my chest caved in, and my mouth made an involuntary ERRRRNNNTTT! noise. “ERRRRNNNTTT!”
Shorty was dressed in her usual western style: a work shirt and vest, with a little cowboy hat perched on top of her head.
“How’s it going, W.B.?” she cried before giving me a playful punch on the arm, which knocked me over. “I see you’re still as graceful as a one-legged hog in a flooded pigpen.”
I picked myself up and cleaned the mud out of my ear before I patted her on the shoulder.
“It’s great to see you too, Shorty,” I said. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Chicago?”
“His name is Geoffrey,” my father said, as he continued to gently stroke the horse’s mane. “He’s the newest member of our family. Isn’t he a good horse?”
“I’m here because of Pa,” Shorty told me. “There was a terrible fight in his tavern, and someone ripped half his mustache from his face. It tore up his lip something fierce, but he was more upset about the mustache. The taxidermist had charged him six dollars for it.”
Shorty’s father runs a tavern back in Chicago. He’s . . . what you might call a strange sort of person. He was unable to grow a proper mustache, but, since he’d always wanted a mustache, he started gluing a
nimal tails to his upper lip to make it look as though he had one. He started off using rabbit tails, but then, when other men started growing bigger and bushier mustaches, he switched to squirrel tails, then raccoon tails, and finally beaver tails.
Like I said, he was a very strange person.
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my upper lip in sympathy.
“Yeah. But there’s a special doctor here in Arizona Territory who should be able to help him. We read about him in a fancy magazine back in Chicago. This special doctor, who is also a barber, and who also sells used shoes on the weekend, is known for brewing some sort of miracle oil that will grow hair on your upper lip.”
“Really?”
“Geoffrey has very intelligent eyes,” P said as he considered his horse’s eyes. “You can tell how intelligent a horse is by his eyes.”
“Yup,” Shorty told me with a nod, ignoring my father. “The doctor said that if Pa dabs a little bit of the miracle oil on his upper lip every day for six weeks, he should end up with a mustache thicker than my Great Aunt Megan’s, which is pretty darn thick. So, we’ll be in town for the next few weeks while the doctor sews up Pa’s lip, and then gives him a few doses of the miracle oil. Say, who’s your friend?”
For a moment, I was confused by what she meant, but then I remembered I had brought a friend home with me from school—a friend who was still standing quietly behind me. B.W. had been waiting politely, listening to Shorty’s strange story about her strange father while stealing glances at my equally strange father, who had taken out his sewing kit and was beginning to sew his new horse a hat.
“Horses love hats,” P told us. “Few people know this. But it’s true.”
“My name is Belford Eustace Nigel Egbert Doolittle Ignatius Cattermole Threepwood Whitestone the Third,” B.W. said as he stepped forward to shake Shorty’s hand. “But everyone calls me B.W. I’m—aaaaahhhhhhh!”
I forgot to warn B.W. that Shorty has one of the strongest grips in the world. Shaking hands with her can feel like shaking hands with an angry gorilla. She once gave me a neck rub when I was stressed, and, afterwards, I couldn’t feel my legs for six days.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, B.W.,” Shorty said with a grin. “My name’s Iris, but everyone with a working pair of eyeballs calls me Shorty. Glad to see old Wide Butt here finally found himself another pardner.”
Ahem.
I should point out that “Wide Butt” is not a real nickname of mine. Shorty was just joking. That’s all. Pretend you didn’t just read that. Pretend you read something else instead. Hey, did you know that in 1848, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for over a day because the Niagara River was blocked up by ice? Isn’t that an interesting fact? Think about that instead. Niagara Falls.
Shorty gave B.W. a friendly pat on the shoulder, and, when B.W. had picked himself up off the ground, he forced himself to offer her a smile.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Shorty,” he said, as he alternated rubbing his aching shoulder and his throbbing hand. “That’s . . . that’s a mighty firm handshake you have. Oh my gosh, I can’t feel my fingertips . . .”
“Should I sew a feather onto Geoffrey’s hat?” P asked us. “Oh, never mind. That’s a silly question. Of course I’ll sew a feather onto his hat.”
Finally, my curiosity got the best of me.
“When did you decide to buy a horse?” I asked P.
“He didn’t buy it,” Shorty said proudly. “I brought Geoffrey here as a thank-you gift. Your pa was kind enough to give me your old horse, Magnus, after I helped you defeat Benedict Blackwood, so I wanted to return the favor. I’ve won several cattle roping and trick riding contests lately, and they keep giving me horses as prizes. This here was one of my favorite horses. He’s smarter than a whip and twice as quick. I knew that your dad would like him.”
“I think I’ll give him two feathers in his cap,” P said as he continued to work on his new horse’s hat.
Shorty turned to B.W., who I noticed was slowly backing away from us. He had the look on his face that most people got when they realized how weird my family is. And he hadn’t even seen anything particularly weird yet. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Mrs. Baron invited me to stay for supper,” she said to my new friend. “I hope you’re staying too, B.W. I heard that W.B.’s Aunt Dorcas is cooking a chicken pot pie, which is my absolute favorite.”
It was my favorite too. Actually, all food was my favorite, except for spinach, which I don’t really count as food. I think of it more as a soggy stinkweed that people make their children eat because they secretly hate them.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can stay,” B.W. said slowly.
My father finally looked up from his new favorite family member.
“We’d love to have you over for supper, B.W.,” said P. “I heard you tell my wife that you’re interested in inventions. We have quite a few inventions around here that might tickle your brain.”
“Tickle his brain? Is that a good thing?” I asked.
I hated having my armpits and feet tickled, so I could only imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have your brain tickled. It would probably make you feel as though you’d just had a really big idea. Or like your brain had to sneeze. Either way, I didn’t think I’d like it. I have enough terrible ideas without my brain being tickled.
“Wait a minute,” said B.W. with a frown. “How did you know that I told Mrs. Baron about my interest in inventions? You couldn’t possibly have heard that from all the way out here.”
My father reached into his ear and produced a tiny mechanical device that looked a bit like a snail that was made of metal. It had a single, blinking red light in the middle of it.
“This is one of my favorite inventions,” he told us. “I call it the Listen Up, Stephen! Device. When I place it in my ear, I can hear everything that’s going on within 500 feet of me. And I mean everything.”
He placed the Listen Up, Stephen! Device back in his ear and listened.
“Right now, I can hear that my wife is busy fixing the ice box, Rose Blackwood is telling Aunt Dorcas not to cry in her pie filling, there is a lizard scuttling across our front steps, a family of squirrels is climbing a tree behind the garden shed, two crows down the road are having an argument, and W.B.’s stomach is about to rumble quite loudly.”
My stomach then rumbled quite loudly.
I had to admit, it was a pretty good invention.
“That’s brilliant,” B.W. said, his eyes growing wider than wagon wheels. “It’s an absolutely incredible invention, Mr. Baron. But why do you call it the Listen Up, Stephen! Device?”
“Great question,” my father replied with a cheery smile. “I call it that because the invention helps you to listen.”
“But why Stephen?”
“Why not Stephen?” P answered.
That’s what you get for asking my father a silly question. You get another silly question in return.
“Huh,” B.W. said with a frown. “Okay. Well, I have to go home now, sir. Otherwise my family might get worried. I’d love to come over for supper another day though, if you’ll allow me to. And perhaps show me some more of your interesting inventions? I bet you make blueprints for all your inventions, don’t you? So that you’ll know how to build them again, in case something happens to them?”
“Of course we do,” said P. “And we’d love to have you over. The more the merrier. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should add some sparkles and sequins to the hat as well . . .”
B.W. shook my hand and told me that he’d see me tomorrow at school before he quickly jogged around the side of the house and started his journey on the path leading back to Downtown Pitchfork. Shorty and I watched my new friend disappear over the large sandy lumps of the desert as the sun slowly began to fall. B.W. certainly seemed in quite a hurry to get home. I hoped that I hadn’t gotten him into trouble
with his family.
“That was a little strange,” Shorty said to me.
“I know,” I said. “Why would a horse want sequins on its hat?”
A Very Familiar Shoe
As we made our way inside to wash up and set the table for supper, Shorty explained to me that it wasn’t Geoffrey the horse’s hat that she had found strange. It was B.W.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “There’s nothing strange about him. He’s a perfectly normal kid. Considering how weird my family is, I think he acted just fine.”
Shorty shrugged as she stood on a stepstool to reach the kitchen sink.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I just got a weird sort of feeling from that kid, that’s all. There’s something I can’t quite put my finger on that’s bothering me about him . . .”
I handed her a towel as I rolled my eyes. B.W. was a perfectly normal and nice kid. It was clear to me that Shorty was just being paranoid. And maybe a bit jealous too. After all, before B.W. came around, she was my only friend. Now she had a bit of competition.
“Well, you’re the only one who got a weird feeling from him,” I told her as we walked to the dining room. “Everyone else likes him a lot. You’d like him too if you spent more time with him.”
“Maybe,” Shorty agreed as she stacked three books onto one of the dining room chairs before hopping onto them and sitting down. “But right now, the only thing I’d like to spend more time with is that chicken pot pie.”
I agreed with her. The smells coming from the dinner table were so good that my mouth had started to water like a leaky faucet. In my life, I’ve flown thousands of feet over the ground in a flying machine and stood at the bottom of the sea in an underwater breathing suit, and I can tell you with certainty that if there’s anything more beautiful in this world than a full supper table, I’ve yet to see it.
