The Summer of Bad Ideas

by Kiera Stewart

  Rae and I try to argue, but it’s useless. If there was any hidden treasure on our horizon, it seems like it’s quickly being stolen away.

  Out in the garage, Rae takes another look at the trike. With the front tire deflated, it looks like a droopier version of itself. She sighs. “Well, it doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere on this thing again anytime soon.”

  “Where did you guys go, anyway?” Beatrice asks.

  “Just downtown,” I tell her.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Why not?” Rae says.

  “Yeah, why not?” I echo.

  Beatrice looks at me, a little puzzled. “You’re acting weird, Edith.”

  “I’m acting normal,” I say. “This is what normal people my age do. They go places. And do things.”

  “What things?” Henry asks.

  “Like try to buy metal detectors?” Rae says, breaking into a laugh. I do too.

  Henry looks up. “Why did you want to buy a metal detector?”

  I look over at Rae. It seems like the list should stay between us. Letting the twins in on it would mean questioning, dissecting, and shredding it into trivia categories. So I say, “We were just curious. You know, if there are any old family treasures, it would be a shame to let them go to some new owner—”

  “No, I mean why would you want to buy a metal detector? We can just build our own.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “By making a radio frequency signal.”

  “Oh,” Rae says. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  He shrugs. “Probably because you go to an arts school.”

  “Wasn’t a real question,” Rae says, giving him a look.

  “But you—”

  “Henry,” I interrupt, “why don’t you just show us how?”

  He puts down the camera and runs into the house.

  “Is he serious?” Rae asks.

  “Yeah, I think he is.” And for that moment, I feel grateful for his little weird-genius mind.

  When he comes back, he’s carrying a box. It’s full of the old electronics that he’s apparently been scavenging from the closets and nooks of the house since we got here last week. He turns on the radio, and we hear scrambled voices and static. “First, you have to go to the high end of the AM band, but you don’t want a real station,” he explains. He plays with the dial until he finds steady static. Then he turns it up.

  “Does it have to be so loud?” I ask over the nerve-jangling sound.

  “Yes,” he says. He takes an old calculator out of the box and turns that on. Then he places the radio and the calculator together, back to back, and the radio sound changes into a loud whirring.

  I help Henry tape the two devices together with some smiley-face-patterned duct tape—no doubt from the shelves of Augustus Tools and Treats—and Henry looks up. “It’s ready.”

  Rae looks a little dubious, but her expression changes when Henry hovers it close to a box of stray nails and the radio makes a static beeping sound. The closer it gets to the box, the more distinct the beeping.

  Rae says. “Can I see it?”

  Henry hands the metal detector over to her. She waves it around in front of him. It’s just making the usual static. “Well, I guess you are human,” she declares. Then she starts wandering around the garage, setting off the device’s beeping with hubcaps and screws and tools. “This is so cool!”

  Henry smiles a little proudly.

  “Come on, you guys, maybe the pirates of the Caribbean were here.” In a grand, performance-ready voice, she says, “I regret nothing. Ever.” And we follow her out the door.

  The homemade metal detector whirs its static sound as we slowly make our way past Mitchell’s house.

  “Hihihihi,” we hear. I notice a small face pressing into the screen door.

  “Hey there, kid,” Rae says.

  Mitchell appears in the doorway, behind the small boy. He opens the door. “Oh, hey,” he says. “This is Colvin, my brother.”

  “Hi, Colvin,” I say, and wave.

  “Hello,” Beatrice and Henry say.

  “Hihihihi.”

  The twins stare at him like he’s an exotic lab specimen, while Colvin keeps spewing out the greeting.

  “How do you get him to stop?” Henry asks Mitchell.

  “I wish I knew,” Mitchell says. Our eyes flicker to meet and bounce away.

  “Halt,” Beatrice says to Colvin. It’s ineffective.

  “He probably needs specific instructions,” Henry says, and then he tries. “Please close your mouth.”

  “No!” Colvin runs past them into the yard.

  “Now what’s he doing?” Henry calls out.

  “Running,” Mitchell says.

  “Why?” Beatrice asks.

  “I think he wants you guys to chase him,” Mitchell explains.

  “For what purpose?” Henry asks.

  “Just do it!” Rae says.

  The twins run off behind Colvin, who is surprisingly fast. I watch them chase each other aimlessly around in the yard. They almost look like normal children.

  Mitchell sits down on the front steps of his house. He looks over at the strange device Rae holds in her hand and then shoots her a questioning glance.

  In a gravelly voice that I recognize from their Godfather banter, Rae says, “Don’t ask me about my business.” And they both laugh.

  I want to be part of this. I try to remember the other Godfather quote they had flung around the other day. What was it? And then it comes to me. “Leave the gun,” I say. “Take the cannellini!”

  “Oh, you mean cannoli,” Rae says.

  Whoops. I redden. And out of embarrassment, I start to laugh. Well, I snort. It just comes out that way, and I try to laugh to cover it up, but it ends up in more snorts, so I pretend I’ve developed some sort of cough. Rae gives me a couple gentle slaps on the back.

  “You okay?” Mitchell asks.

  “Yeah, I . . . uh, inhaled a bug, I think.” Which actually does happen in these parts of Florida.

  “Honestly, Edie, you’ve got to see it. It really is a cinematic masterpiece,” Rae says. “It’ll change you forever.”

  But for the moment, I’m less interested in a movie that will change me forever, and more interested in a magical feat that will somehow help me instantly disappear.

  The twins seem happily occupied with their chasing game, but Rae and I are ready to press on with our treasure hunt.

  “So, Mitchell,” Rae says. “If you watch the twins for a few minutes, we’ll give you first dibs on any treasure we find with this thing.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.” He gives her a single-cheek smile. “Go ahead. I’ve got to be here with Colvin anyway.”

  Rae and I thank him and tell him we’ll be quick. Then we make our way down the road. We have several false alarms: a bottle cap, a stray metal wire, an old spoon. Then we find ourselves in front of another small house, with the detector screeching out a high pitch. There’s a car in the driveway, gray and dented, long enough to belong in another era. On the car’s bumper is a sticker: I PLAY ACCORDION, in big letters. Underneath, in smaller letters, AND I VOTE.

  Rae turns off the device, but our scuttling around has alerted someone inside. The door of the house opens. A shrunken man stands there. He’s hunched over enough that you almost wish him some scaffolding. He takes a look at us. “No Girl Scout cookies for me. Awful sorry. I got the sugar. Can’t eat that stuff anymore.”

  “We’re not selling cookies. We’re just neighbors—Petunia Posey’s granddaughters. I’m Rae and this is Edie.”

  “We’re cousins.” I blurt, and immediately want to kick my own shin. I sound like I want a gold star for it or something.

  The man looks at us and smiles. “Tuna’s grands? I tell you what.”

  “Tuna?” The question comes out of both of us.

  “Sorry, that was just an old nickname. She used to be one of the biggest fishes in the sea back when we w
ere young.” He stops himself. He puts his hand on his chest and looks from me to Rae. “Pardon me. Name’s Zachary Amos, and I knew your grandmother well. I’m sorry for your loss. Come in, come in.”

  He steps back and motions us into the living area, which is a narrow space just inside the door. I hesitate, but Rae needs no encouragement. I follow her in. The air inside is chilly and loud from a window air conditioner, and it smells like baby powder and citrus fruits. “Hey, Mel!”

  “Just a minute,” an old woman’s voice comes from somewhere inside. “We got company?”

  “It’s Tuna’s grands,” he calls out as he settles into a recliner and shoots the legs out with a loud thwomp. Rae and I sit on the edge of a couch.

  “Tuna’s?” this Mel lady calls back.

  “That’s right,” he says.

  Rae and I trade an amused look.

  “We grew up together, Tuna and me,” Zachary says. “Sure was sorry to learn of her passing.”

  Then a squeezy sound comes out of him, and I’m worried that he’s crying. But he’s not. He’s laughing.

  “My apologies, girls, my apologies,” he says, trying to quiet his laugh. “It’s just every time I think of when we were young—I always get to laughing.” He looks up at us. “Well, you know, she always spoke her mind. Always. Even when we were real young. You probably know that.”

  “So we’ve heard.” Rae smiles.

  “Well, she was one of those who got her mouth washed out on a regular basis. Didn’t even faze her. ‘I prefer Ivory,’ she’d say, like she’s proud. ‘None of that pink stuff.’”

  Another laugh squeezes out of him, like he’s telling a story he’s forgotten could be funny. This time we both laugh with him.

  “Tell them about the parade,” the Mel voice calls from the other room.

  “That’s right,” Zachary says. “She was driving a car when we were just ten years old. Youngest driver in the state—she wasn’t worried about a license or anything. Drove a float in the Independence Day parade, back when this town was big enough to have those kind of shindigs.”

  “She did?” I ask, impressed.

  “Sure did. She always did her own thing. Wore blue jeans to school, even. Doesn’t sound like much to folks your age, but back then, it was against the rules.”

  So Petunia was a real rule breaker. No wonder she and my mom didn’t get along!

  “It sounds like you knew her pretty well,” Rae says.

  “I did. Think I even loved her once.”

  Rae and I must look intrigued, because Zachary says, “Oh, now, I think everyone was a little bit in love with Petunia, back then. But you know, she didn’t quite love me back. Not the same way. My feelings for her? They was one-way. All out, no in.”

  “Unrequited?” Rae asks, making a sympathetic face.

  “That’s right. That’s what it was.”

  From the short hallway, a woman walks into the room. She’s wearing a yellow pantsuit and wedged sandals, and a gentle smile. Her hair is gray and curly, and slightly lopsided. I realize she’s wearing a wig, just slightly off center. It makes me feel a little sad, in a sweet way.

  Zachary’s whole everything changes when she walks into the room. He smiles, and his voice gets a little melodic. “Girls, meet my bride, Melba.”

  We both smile and greet her. Rae compliments Melba’s pantsuit and Melba smiles and offers things—sandwiches, juice, grapefruits—all around. Rae and I both pass on it all, but Zachary takes her up on the offer. Before she slips back into the kitchen, she says, “Tell them about when she asked you to the stomp.”

  “What’s a stomp?” Rae asks.

  “Well, back in those days, it was a big to-do with a lot of dancing,” he continues. “But this one in particular, it was the Flag Day stomp. This town sure has changed, but this was back in sixty-five.” He leans back in his chair, his eyes focused on the wall above us. “That summer, I had my eye on her—well, lots of us fellows did. And boy, did she know it. I was working at the gas station. She pulled up in her daddy’s new car—a Ford Galaxie. That’s what it was. Red, like a maraschino cherry. A beauty. Both her and that car. And she said, ‘Zachary Amos, I think you should take me to that stomp.’”

  He stops and considers it, then breaks into a squeezy-sounding laugh. I’m reminded of the accordion bumper sticker.

  “So I guess she kind of told me I was going to the stomp with her. She didn’t ask me nothin’.”

  I feel a strike of admiration. Petunia was so bold! So daring!

  Melba comes in with a small plate of cheese and crackers and a tiny glass of orange juice.

  “Thank you, love,” he says to her as he puts the plate down on a side table next to his chair. “Anyway, things didn’t quite work out with us, but I have no regrets.”

  “So, did you end up going to the stomp together that night?” Rae asks.

  “We did. But fact is, that’s the night I met Melba. Didn’t I, my dear?”

  “You sure did,” she says, and the two of them look at each other like we’re not even in the room. I look away and notice the clock. The twins have been with Mitchell for almost half an hour.

  I nudge Rae. “We should probably go.”

  Melba breaks her gaze away from her admiring husband and starts twittering about us having to go so soon, are we sure?

  But as Zachary walks us toward the door, I realize something he said feels a little like a conversational cowlick: it sticks out to me, and I can’t brush it away.

  “So what happened that night at the stomp?”

  He smiles and looks over at his wife. “I’m looking at her.”

  Melba laughs and waves her hands at his words. “All I did was march right up and ask him to dance, when Petunia was off being belle of the ball.”

  “It was the way you asked me. So sure of yourself,” he says.

  “Well, I had to be sure of myself. To look at me, I was just a lanky thing with Coke-bottle glasses and a metal contraption around my head to get my teeth straight.”

  “Maybe so, but just look at you now,” he says, standing a little straighter, gazing into her eyes.

  “Oh, sugar,” she swoons back. “You are just too much.”

  Rae and I exchange little smiles. Then Rae says, “Well, thanks for having us in.”

  “You’re welcome,” Melba says. “It’s kind of nice to talk about those old days at the Hurricane.”

  “The Hurricane?” I ask.

  “That’s right. The Hurricane. The old dance hall where you could really dance up a storm.” She smiles. “That’s what the sign used to say.”

  “And hoo boy, didn’t we?” Zachary says. “Those were the days. Now it just sits there empty, jealous of the church on Sundays.”

  The old building. Across from the church. With the sign painted over.

  Dance in the hurricane.

  We quickly say our good-byes.

  As we hurry back to the house, I muster some bravado. “Well, looks like we don’t have to wait for a natural disaster to strike, then! I guess we know what we’re doing tomorrow, even if we have to walk there. Dance in the hurricane! Item three is officially on the agenda!”

  “Edie,” Rae says, tucking her chin. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I am,” I say, feeling a little smug. Is she having doubts over whether we can pull it off? Could I even potentially out-brave Rae?

  “I mean . . .” She laughs. “It’s a nightclub. You don’t go to a nightclub during the day.”

  Ack! My smugness weakens into self-consciousness.

  “Forget tomorrow,” Rae says. “I know what we’re doing tonight.”

  Tonight? So soon? I start to feel the trademark surge of fear. “Oh, but . . .” There are many buts. But it’s dark. But it’s dangerous. But it’s creepy. But, but, but.

  “But what?”

  I take in a big, brave, fear-conquering breath. A drive-the-car, jeans-to-school, I-prefer-Ivory breath.

  “But let’s be extremely quie
t. If my mom catches us, we’ll be locked in the study for the rest of the summer.”

  Chapter 9

  Natural Disasters

  Several hours later, when everyone’s asleep, we are being extremely quiet—or trying to be. The floorboards creak as we creep down the hall and the stairs groan, but the sounds are disguised by all the other old-house noises: pipes pinging, the wind smacking branches into the roof, the eerie moan of the house as it settles down for the night.

  The back door makes a horrible screech when we open it, and we both suck in a breath and stand as still as possible. My ears feel like they’ve suddenly become bionic. I listen for the squeak of a mattress as someone shifts in their bed, or some voices on alert, but the sound I hear is much smaller. A tiny grinding noise. A teensy gnawing.

  Ack! So much for the peppermint-soaked cotton balls—our parents’ first defense against the rodents. This is the sound of a feasting rat!

  Rae and I look at each other and silently scream through gaping eyeballs. My fingers tingle with adrenaline as we scurry out the door and down the porch steps.

  Outside, the air feels not so much alive, but living—a slow pulse, a warm breath, a watching eye. In the distance, frogs croak in unison and crickets chirp in that secret-army way.

  There’s a flash of light across the sky—heat lightning, they call it. For a single heartbeat, everything is as bright as day, and then, just as quickly, the sky is swallowed back up by the night.

  We continue our scurry away from the house, with flashlights guiding our way. I’m afraid. Very afraid. Tremendously afraid. And I can’t believe that I’m doing it anyway.

  We’re close enough that my arm brushes her. “You’ve got goose bumps,” she whispers. “Scared?”

  “Uh . . .” I hesitate. “Maybe?”

  “I know, it’s great, isn’t it?”

  While I marvel at her response, there’s a swooping sound in the sky above us. Leaves rattle and branches sway in its wake, and I freeze. A bat! A witch! Yikes!

  “That was probably an owl or something,” Rae says.

  Or something. I really wish she wouldn’t say that. Let’s just stick with owl. Definitely an owl. An adorable hooty little thing that’s wise and kind, keeping us out of harm’s way.