Blossoms and the Green Phantom

by Betsy Byars

  Maggie was taking her role as Junior’s mother-for-a-night seriously, and she did exactly what she knew her mother would do. She put her arm around Junior’s shoulder and squeezed him as hard as she could.

  Junior knew the truth when he felt that arm on his shoulder. He waited, cringing, for the words that went with it.

  “No, it isn’t, hon. It’s there to stay.”

  If it had been his mother’s real arm, that might have stopped Junior. But it was just his sister’s. He squirmed out of Maggie’s grasp, spun around and faced her. His hands were on his hips.

  “It is not either there to stay!”

  “Junior,” Maggie began. She reached out. Junior stepped back.

  “It is not there to stay because I’m getting it down.” He jabbed his thumb against his chest.

  “You can’t get it down, Junior. You know Mom doesn’t allow you to get up on a roof anymore.”

  “I’ll do it,” Ralphie said wearily.

  “You try to do everything!” Junior cried, turning on Ralphie. “I’m getting sick and tired of you trying to take over. It’s my Phantom, not yours, and I’m going to be the one to get it down!”

  Ralphie gave another of his be-my-guest gestures, and Junior turned and set off for the chicken house. He did it so fast that there was a gasp of surprise from those he left behind.

  Junior was halfway to the chicken house, out in the middle of the open yard, when he decided this might have been a good time to let Ralphie help if he really wanted to. Before he could do anything gracious, however, Ralphie and Vern rushed up, one on each side, and grabbed his arms. In a sort of lop-sided crouch—Ralphie’s artificial leg held him back—they bore him to the chicken house.

  Everything happened so fast then, Junior was helpless to change the outcome. Vern and Ralphie had their hands out, clasped together to boost him up. His foot went up into their hands. And then—this was so fast, it took Junior’s breath, it was like Superman taking off from the earth—Junior was flung through the air. He landed flat on his stomach on the chicken house roof.

  He lay there, frozen with fear. At the same time the inside of his body—all the important things—seemed to have turned to jelly.

  Junior’s eyes were squeezed shut. He always shut his eyes when there was something he desperately did not want to hear. It never worked, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying it. This time what Junior desperately did not want to hear was the sound of startled chickens.

  Below him the hens were fluttering their wings and clucking to each other, responding to the soft thud they had heard, but it wasn’t that shrill clucking that would wake old man Benson. After a long moment, Junior opened his eyes.

  The Phantom was right there in front of him. He could reach out and touch it. This was a real relief to Junior. He wouldn’t even have to stand up or anything—just give a little tug on the nearest air mattress. He tugged.

  The Phantom bobbed toward him. One of the garbage bags brushed his forehead. Then the Phantom pulled back to its original place. Junior tugged again. Again the Phantom came so close, the garbage bag touched his head. Again it went back.

  “It’s stuck.” Junior breathed these words to himself. Slowly, carefully, he got to his feet. The roof had a steep slope, and Junior did not want to fall off. He glanced down to see if Vern and Ralphie were still there. They were, and so was Maggie. He felt a little better.

  “Hurry!” Maggie hissed.

  Junior put one finger to his lips in a plea for total silence. He took one step. He pulled again. He could see what the trouble was now. The wire between two of the air mattresses was hooked around the edge of the roof.

  He would have to pull and lift at the same time. He got a good grip on the air mattress. His whole body was set to give the biggest pull of his life. He did this at the very moment when the Phantom released itself, just bounced up into the air.

  The Phantom sailed up, over Junior’s head, and onto the ground. Junior went down hard. The resulting bang as Junior struck the tin roof of the henhouse was like an explosion.

  The chickens reacted immediately. There were instant shrieks of alarm and shrill cries. Within five seconds it seemed to Junior that a minimum of one thousand hens were flapping their wings and shrieking at the top of their lungs.

  A dog began to bark at the house.

  “The lights are on!” Vern yelled.

  Ralphie saw a figure in the upstairs window. “It’s old man Benson,” he cried, “and his shotgun!”

  The window was thrown up. The barrel of the shotgun came out. Maggie, Ralphie, and Vern bolted for the cornfield.

  “We’ll be back,” Maggie cried over her shoulder.

  Junior watched them go, and the sight of them disappearing into the rows of corn was the worst thing he had ever seen in his life. Even Maggie’s words brought him no comfort. He knew they would never come back. He never would have if he had gotten away.

  Junior had always hated to be left behind, but there was something terrible and final about this particular desertion. In desperation, he looked down at the ground. It was a long way down. He could jump, but the last time he had done that, he had broken his legs.

  Somebody tell me what to do, he begged.

  It was old man Benson who made the decision for Junior. Old man Benson came out in the yard with his shotgun.

  Junior flattened himself against the roof. Old man Benson crossed the yard and looked at the Green Phantom. He walked around it. He kicked it with his foot. The Phantom responded with a light bounce.

  Old man Benson walked around the yard like a soldier on patrol. He looked behind the barn. He circled the henhouse. Junior did not breathe. Then old man Benson went to the house and sat down in a rocking chair on the porch. Junior knew the double-barreled shotgun was across his knees.

  “Who was it?” his wife called.

  “Some kids.”

  “What were they after?”

  “Some fool thing.”

  “Come back to bed.”

  “I’ll set out here awhile. One of them said they’d be back.”

  Junior let out all his breath in a long, hopeless sigh. He knew then that he would be spending the rest of his life on the roof of old man Benson’s henhouse.

  CHAPTER 16

  Left, Abandoned, and Deserted

  “Are you telling me that you left your own brother on the top of a chicken house?”

  Vicki Blossom had been sitting on the porch steps for over two hours, staring up at the night sky. She had wanted to see the Green Phantom so that she could truthfully tell Junior how beautiful it had been. At the same time she had been listening for the telephone.

  As the hours passed, however, and the phone did not ring and she did not see the Phantom, her feeling of doom had increased. By the time she saw the kids running up the road, she knew the worst had happened.

  She stood up. She made a quick head count. There were only three children running up the road. Junior was not one of them.

  Vicki Blossom could not move for a moment. She just stood there waiting with a heart of lead for the bad news. Even so, it stunned her.

  “You left Junior on the roof of a chicken house?” she asked again.

  The living room light was behind Vicki Blossom, so the children could not see her face, but none of them particularly wanted to. The way she was standing and the fury in her voice said it all.

  Maggie was the oldest of the Blossom children, so she had felt it was her responsibility to break the news, to gasp out the original “Mom, Junior’s on the roof of old man Benson’s chicken house.”

  Vern said, “We didn’t do it on purpose, Mom.”

  “Your own brother?”

  Maggie hung her head in shame. This was the first time in weeks that her mother had been disappointed in her. Even when Maggie fell off Sandy Boy, her mother had praised her for trying with something like “Almost!” Now Maggie was in disgrace and she knew it. What was worse, she deserved it. She had been Junior’s mothe
r for the night, and she had done the most terrible thing a mother could do—desert her child.

  “And why, may I ask, did you let your brother climb up on a chicken house in the first place?”

  “Mom, he wanted to,” Vern said.

  “And you let him?”

  “Mom—”

  “Three big strong kids could not stop one little boy from climbing up on a chicken house? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

  Maggie nodded dumbly.

  “Not one of you had the guts to climb up on the chicken house yourselves?”

  “We offered but—”

  “I’m not interested in your offers, only your actions.”

  They knew then that Vicki Blossom was not interested in their answers either. The three of them stood in silence.

  “And then what? The three big strong kids ran off like cowards? I tell you one thing. If Junior hurts himself because of you, I will never forgive any of you. Never!”

  Ralphie cleared his throat. “What Maggie didn’t tell you, Mrs. Blossom, was that Mr. Benson had a gun. It was pointed right at us. If we hadn’t left when we did, one or more of us might be dead.”

  “You don’t die of rock salt wounds,” Vicki Blossom said, but she didn’t look at Ralphie. She wasn’t through with Maggie and Vern. She stood there, glaring at them, piercing the darkness with her glances. They were the ones she was furious with. Oh, she was furious with Ralphie, too, but Blossoms knew better than to run off and leave another Blossom.

  Ralphie spoke again. He knew Mrs. Blossom had no interest in him, but he couldn’t help himself. He could see from the way Maggie’s shoulders were drawn up that she was getting ready to cry, and he did not want to see Maggie cry. He had seen her brush tears from her eyes with the tips of her braids and that had been bad enough, but if she cried …

  “Mrs. Blossom, I’ll be glad to go back after him,” Ralphie said quickly, “I—”

  “I’m going after him myself, thank you very much.”

  Vicki Blossom came down the steps loudly. It was as if she had on combat boots instead of sneakers. There was a small space between Vern and Maggie, and she went right through it, pushing them to either side.

  She strode past Ralphie without a glance and then strode—there was no other word for the way she was walking—down the road.

  The children were so stunned by her fury that they were a little late starting after her. That was exactly what Vicki Blossom had been hoping they would do—start after her. She spun around.

  She was in the shadows of the pine trees, so it was still impossible to see her eyes, but Ralphie had seen his own mom’s eyes under similar conditions, and he knew what they looked like.

  “Oh no you don’t!”

  The children stopped in their tracks.

  “Oh no you don’t!”

  She managed to put new meaning into the words this time, making it even more of a command. “You stay right where you are, every living, breathing one of you.”

  That took in them all. No one moved a muscle.

  “You left Junior. You deserted Junior. You abandoned Junior. And as far as I am concerned you aren’t worthy to help Junior. Junior doesn’t want your help.”

  All of them knew this was a lie, but no one dared speak.

  “What do you want us to do?” Maggie asked finally. Ralphie hated to hear her voice tremble like that.

  “Can’t you even figure that out? Can’t you do one single thing for yourselves? No, I guess you can’t. You proved that tonight. I gave you a chance to do one simple thing for me, and you proved you cannot do anything, especially when courage and loyalty are called for.”

  She drew in a long breath. “All right. Here it is. Maggie, you and Vern go in the house and sit by the phone and wait for Pap’s call. No courage will be called for. No loyalty. Just sit by the phone and answer it if it rings. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can manage to do that one simple thing without messing up?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you”—she pointed at Ralphie—“you go home.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ralphie said.

  Vicki Blossom turned and began striding down the road again. There was a pause, and then Ralphie manfully took command of the group. “We better,” he said, “do exactly what she said.”

  Maggie hesitated a moment. She was holding her braids against her cheeks, so she would be ready for the tears when they came. Then she called, “Mom, please be careful. He really does have a gun.”

  Without turning around, Vicki Blossom answered, “I can handle Benson.”

  “I’m sorry!” Maggie called.

  This time there was no answer. Maggie turned—she needed her braids now—and ran into the house.

  CHAPTER 17

  Junior and THEM

  Junior had not moved a single muscle except his throat muscle in fifteen minutes. He would not have moved that except that he was desperately afraid he was going to cough, and the only way for him to keep from coughing was to swallow. His swallows sounded, to him, as loud as gulps.

  Fifteen minutes more passed slowly by. Junior had now been stranded on top of the chicken house for a long thirty minutes. Old man Benson had been sitting on the front porch with his double-barreled shotgun, waiting, for the same length of time.

  In those thirty minutes, Junior had come to realize that the roof of a chicken house was a terrible place to be. It was such a terrible place that parents could even threaten their kids with it. “You behave yourself or I’m putting you up on top of a chicken house!”

  Finally, finally, Junior heard old man Benson get up. He heard the rocking chair keep on rocking a little. He heard old man Benson walk to the edge of the porch. Then he heard old man Benson walk across the porch, open the door, go inside, and close the door behind him.

  Junior had spent most of the thirty minutes on the chicken house praying for this to happen. “Please let him go in the house, please please let him go in the house, please please please let him go in the house.” He had added so many pleases, he had lost count.

  So he felt a great moment of relief when his prayers were finally answered. He waited until the bedroom light went out, and then he allowed himself the quiet, muted cough that had been in his throat so long. As it turned out, it was not just one cough, it was a series of coughs.

  Junior clapped his hand quickly over his mouth. The coughs kept coming.

  Immediately he heard a ruffling of feathers beneath him. There were a couple of startled cackles, then the beating of wings, some miscellaneous bruck-bruck-bruckkkkks. He had come to particularly dread those brucks.

  He swallowed his remaining coughs, and the chickens grew quieter. This did not give Junior a lot of comfort, however, because he now understood the situation. Old man Benson thinks we’ve all gone home, but THEY—that was how he thought of the chickens—THEY know better. They know one of us is still here, and they know it’s me.

  Please let them think I’ve gone, he began to pray. Please please let them think I’ve gone. Please please please—

  Junior broke off. His body hurt too much to go through all the pleases again. Even though the pleases had finally worked, he hurt too much.

  Junior was lying on his stomach, and since the roof had a steep slope, Junior’s head was pointing toward the ground.

  His hipbones hurt, his knees hurt, his ribs hurt. His toes really hurt. His toes were hooked over the peak of the roof to keep him from sliding down the slope. When Junior got off the roof, if he ever did, his toes would probably be frozen in this position, for days, weeks even, maybe for the rest of his life.

  Tears kept filling his eyes, but because he was upside down, they couldn’t roll down his cheeks like tears were supposed to do. They dropped off his face between his eyebrows.

  Junior’s left ear hurt too. It was pressed against the roof, and in the thirty minutes that he had spent on the roof, Junior had learned a lot about chickens through that ear.

  It seemed to him t
hat there were three hens who were causing all the trouble, and these three hens were making it impossible for any of the other chickens to sleep. And if the chickens didn’t sleep, Junior couldn’t move, and if Junior couldn’t move, Junior couldn’t get down, and if Junior couldn’t get down—

  Junior broke off. It was exactly like a story Junior’s teacher had read them last year. Junior could hear his teacher saying the last, sad line of the story, “And Junior will not get home tonight.”

  Junior’s mind kept going after his teacher’s sentence stopped. “And if Junior doesn’t get home tonight, Junior will still be up here in the morning when old man Benson comes out to feed the chickens.”

  Junior shuddered slightly at the thought, and the three leaders of the chickens reacted with fluttering wings, more cries of bruck-bruck-bruckkkk. Oh, be quiet, Junior said, go to sleep. Lay some eggs. Haven’t you got anything better to do than squawk?

  Maybe, Junior thought suddenly, I should just go for it. Maybe I should unhook my toes, pull my legs around and jump off the roof.

  That was exactly what he would have done a year ago. But one of the last things the doctor had told Junior was no more jumping off high places. “You land hard on those legs again, and you’ll most likely be right back in the hospital.” Junior would almost rather be up on top of a chicken house than in the hospital.

  And maybe, his dismal thoughts continued, if he let go with his toes, he might slide off the roof before he had a chance to turn himself around. He had a clear picture of himself, arms extended, plunging into the hard earth. Breaking both your arms couldn’t be much better than breaking both your legs.

  Maybe, he thought, and another tear rolled off his eyebrow, maybe I should just do the sensible thing and stay up here for the rest of my life.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Nightmare

  Pap was asleep, and Pap was having a nightmare. In his nightmare he was trapped in a garbage Dumpster, only the garbage Dumpster of his dream was filled with liquid garbage and Pap was drowning in it.

  First the garbage had been up to his chest, then his chin, and now it was over his head. The garbage was like quicksand. It kept pulling him under. It was all Pap could do to come up for air.