When Ratboy Lived Next Door

by Chris Woodworth

  It was a big machine that had a sort of typewriter attached, and the letters were all scrambled up but in a different order than on a typewriter. The machine had a small pot of melted metal, and when Mother hit enough keys to fill up a line of type she would send the line through the machine. The melted metal would be molded into a line of type. That’s how it got its name, Linotype. Then she’d type the next line and it would follow.

  I knew all that because our second-grade class had taken a field trip here. Mother had typed every student’s name and they’d gotten to take the molded letters home. I still remember our teacher, Mrs. Howard, saying, “Lydia, we won’t do yours. You probably have tons of these at home.”

  I’d just smiled a stupid smile while my heart sank. I would have given my eyeteeth to have one of those little metal names made by Mother. I wished I could go back to that moment and say, “No, Mrs. Howard. My mother never cared enough about me to let me come watch her work or type my name for me.”

  “Hello, Lydia.” Mother brought me back to the present.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She wiped her hands on a rag and said, “I’m so glad you came by. I was thinking about our conversation last night and, well”—she gave a little laugh—“cooking is proving more difficult than I thought.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “But then you already know that,” she said wryly. “Anyway, I may as well be honest here. I’ve never had to cook before. You see, Philip … my first husband … You, of course, know about him.”

  I stayed silent.

  “Well, he was a fantastic cook. He owned a restaurant and brought dinner home every night. Wasn’t I smart to marry someone like him?” She smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “When your father and I married, we ate at the Oasis most nights. Then Nanna came and took over. I actually looked forward to being the cook for the first time in my life, but everything takes so long! Why, half the time I forget to thaw the meat and by the time I get anything on the table it’s late.”

  She pulled her chair around from the Linotype to face me and sat down. “So! I wondered if you had any suggestions.”

  “You mean you want me to cook?”

  “Oh, no. You have enough to do.”

  Well, at least she noticed that!

  “Lydia, would you be terribly disappointed if we had, say, lunch-meat sandwiches some nights? Oh, I know it’s not what Nanna would fix but—”

  “Nah, I wouldn’t mind.” Nanna never let me eat it, but I had baloney with cheese and ketchup with Rae Anne at Mrs. Ogle’s house.

  “Good! And I was thinking that maybe we could eat at the Oasis some nights.”

  “That’s fine. The Oasis would be fine.” It was my favorite place to eat, but I didn’t want to act too eager.

  “Well…” she said.

  I also didn’t want to be dismissed by some sort of queen who ordered her subjects to come forward, then shooed them off, so I said, “I have to go now.”

  “Lydia?”

  I turned back, careful not to be hopeful. She just wanted to ask me something else. Maybe she wanted me to go buy the lunch meat for supper. She didn’t want me, I reminded myself.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I thought maybe you might stay and have a snack with me. Oh, don’t worry—I didn’t cook one! I thought you might run over to the restaurant and get us a piece of pie.”

  I steeled myself. “No, I have to go now.”

  “Oh, well, some other time, then.”

  I opened the door and heard the horn blast. I thought it was saying, “Fo-ol! Fo-ol!” I wanted so much to stay. But I had to stop expecting her to be a mother to me. I had to close my heart to that, because it wasn’t ever going to happen. Staying with her now would only hurt more in the long run.

  * * *

  Mother and I went back to the way we were before our fight. Not friends but not enemies, either. Dinnertime got a whole lot better. She began looking on the backs of canned goods for easy recipes. She found a tuna noodle casserole that wasn’t bad. We also had baloney-and-cheese sandwiches—twice!

  We had our best meals at the Oasis. I’d order a burger and fries, while Mother and Daddy ate something that I hated such as soup beans and corn bread. The best part of eating at the Oasis was seeing Elliot. He worked hard as a busboy, cleaning off tables, mopping up spills, and washing dishes. There he was, right out in the open, where I could watch him as much as I wanted. Even if we didn’t exactly carry on a conversation, it made me feel better.

  On Saturday night, while Daddy was paying the bill and Mother was in the ladies’ room, Elliot came over to clean our table. He said, “Hey, Lydia.” Just like old times.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  He dropped a fork on the floor, I thought on purpose. When he leaned down to pick it up, he whispered in my ear. I leaned into him to hear what he was saying. He smelled like soap and his breath tickled my ear as he whispered. I straightened up and took a big gulp of air to clear my head.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I asked if you got one of Big Joe’s special burgers with cigarette ashes on top.”

  “I must have. It was mighty tasty.” I managed to get it out in a normal voice.

  “I’ll tell him how much you liked it.”

  We both laughed. It felt good to laugh with him again.

  He got serious. “Willis told me how you’ve been reading to him. Thanks.”

  Before I could answer, Daddy came up and slapped Elliot on the back. “Hey, neighbor. How’re things at the Merrills’?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  “Good, good. Well, Ladybug, we need to scoot.”

  Mother returned at that moment and said hello to Elliot. I slowly stood. I wasn’t ready to leave him or that warm feeling, but Daddy put one arm around me, the other around Mother, and walked us to the door.

  I turned back and peeked over the top of Daddy’s arm to get one more look at Elliot. He was looking right at me, making a funny face and silently mouthing, “Ladybug?”

  I laughed out loud, feeling better than I had since forever.

  14

  “You remember the rules, right?”

  “Yeah,” Willis said as he eyed the front of the library. He seemed awfully nervous. Well, the library always made me nervous, too.

  I pulled open the heavy door. Cool air and the musty smell of old books blew into our faces. Willis looked at me and chuckled with excitement. I smiled, not because the library had that effect on me, but because I’d never seen him look really happy before.

  We’d finally finished the raccoon book and Willis had told me he’d always wanted to hear the story of Tom Sawyer. I promised to check it out, but he insisted on coming, too. I wasn’t at all anxious to have him and Mrs. Green in the same room, what with her thinking he was my boyfriend, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Inside the library, though, he got a wary look on his face. I looked over at the tall front desk with George Washington’s picture hanging behind it. There was an American flag just off to the side. I guess it did look a little imposing. But, boy, if he was overwhelmed now, he should have been here before Mrs. Green ran the show.

  I found The Adventures of Tom Sawyer soon enough. Willis reached for a book, then lowered his hand quickly. He looked around as if worried that he’d get into trouble.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “Pick one and take a look at it.”

  He pulled a book off the shelf and reverently opened it. Then he looked at me with disgust on his face. “There ain’t no pictures in here!”

  “Well, no. Books for our age don’t usually have pictures. We can get other books, though.”

  I took him to the little kids’ section. He flipped through a couple of books and I think he would have liked them, but pride kept him from admitting it.

  “These are for babies!”

  “Yeah, they’re for younger kids. But some of them are pretty good. I wouldn’t mind checking out one
for myself.”

  Willis snorted as if to say I was the biggest liar on the planet.

  “Okay, if you don’t want any of these, how about one like the book we had on raccoons? They’ve got photos in them.”

  He brightened up again. I was turning to the reference section, when who should I see standing there but Mrs. Green. I was scared she’d say something embarrassing, but she just gave me a big wink and went on replacing books on the shelf.

  Willis decided on a book about insects, with lots of pictures. Then we went to the front desk.

  Mrs. Green came over and said, “Good morning, Lydia!”

  “Morning,” I mumbled. This was the part I dreaded.

  She held out her hand to Willis and said, “And good morning to you! I’m Mrs. Green.”

  She squeezed Willis’s hand and he was too surprised to pull back.

  “And what is your name, young man?”

  “Willis.”

  “Oh! You must be Willis Merrill! I remember when you moved into town, and I’ll bet you’ll never guess how I remember such a thing.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “I remember because I heard you had a pet raccoon and I said to myself, How interesting! How exotic! I’ve never had such an unusual pet. Now cats, oh, I have cats coming out my ears! And two dogs and a pet hamster in the summer. You see, my sister’s a teacher and they keep a hamster in their classroom, but she travels in the summertime so I keep Recess for her. Recess is the hamster’s name. They had a contest in her class and that’s the name that won. Isn’t that a cute name?”

  “Uh, yes, Miz Green,” I said, hoping she’d stop her yammering.

  “Tell me, Willis, what is your raccoon’s name?”

  “Zorro.”

  “Zorro? How perfect! Oh, what a clever boy you are to name your masked pet after a masked crusader.”

  Willis actually seemed to stand a little straighter. He didn’t smile, but his expression softened into one that didn’t spell trouble.

  “Listen to me rattle on! Now, which one of you is checking this book out?”

  “I’m the only one with a library card, Miz Green,” I said.

  “Well! We can’t have that!” She whisked the cover off her typewriter and sat down, rolling a card into the machine. “You both need library cards! Willis, tell me your address.”

  Willis’s head shot toward me as if he wasn’t sure what to do.

  I mouthed the words “It’s okay.”

  And for the second time since I’d known Willis, he looked really happy.

  * * *

  “So I get to keep this?”

  “Yes, Willis,” I said for the hundredth time. “It’s your card. You can check books out of the library all by yourself.”

  “And they won’t ask me if I can read ’em?”

  “They don’t care if you can read. They just care that you bring the books back two weeks later, okay?”

  We were close to the Oasis when he said, “Can I stop at the restaurant and show Elliot?”

  “You can show Elliot. You can show the Pope. You can even show President John F. Kennedy. I don’t care!”

  “No, I think I’ll just show Elliot.”

  He said goodbye and shot into the Oasis. As much as I would have liked to see Elliot, I was glad for the break from Willis.

  I walked home to get my bike. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was feeling restless and wanted the wind to blow all thoughts out of my mind.

  There are only so many roads you can travel in Maywood. After a while I ended up downtown and saw Mrs. Merrill and Beth come out of the Laundromat.

  “Hey, Beth! Hey, Mrs. Merrill! Doing some laundry?”

  “No, no laundry.”

  “Mama wrote lots of words and put them on the wall in here. Want to come see?” Beth pulled on my hand.

  “Sure I do.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I wanted to be polite. I let Beth lead me inside.

  Mrs. Merrill pushed her bangs off her face, looking flustered. “I just hung a little sign up to let folks know I’m doing hair now. At my house. While Boyd’s at work. A little part-time job, you might say.”

  The sign gave directions to her house and said that the cost was whatever you wanted to pay. It also said Mrs. Merrill did hair only in the mornings.

  “Wow! Ain’t that something! And to think Nanna was your first customer.”

  Mrs. Merrill turned her face in that shy way she had.

  “I didn’t know you could get a beautician’s license here in Maywood.”

  “Oh! You can’t!” she said. “I’m not a real beautician at all. That’s why I can’t charge a set price. Without a license, I can only take what people offer me.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “It’s real important that you don’t tell anyone I’m a beautician, Lydia. I’m just—” She stopped for a minute. “I’m just doing this on the quiet. To earn a little extra money.”

  “Well, I won’t tell anyone about it,” I said, wishing I hadn’t said anything at all. Why was she doing it if it was such a big secret?

  She seemed satisfied with my answer, though.

  “Beth, come along,” she said. “We have to get home.”

  I said goodbye and hopped back on my bike. I turned right at the library and heard someone call my name, but I didn’t see anybody. It was probably Bobby Wayans. He lived a block away.

  “Is that you, Bobby?”

  “Nah, it ain’t nobody but me, Lydia. Look up.”

  I did, and there stood Willis on the roof of Esther’s Dry Goods.

  “Willis Merrill! What do you think you’re doin’?”

  “Come up and I’ll show ya.”

  “How do I do that? There’s no ladder that I can see.”

  From Main Street, the building was three stories high, but the roof stair-stepped to the second story. There was a room added on next to the alley, which was one story high. Willis was on the second story. He jumped to the first.

  I yelled, “No!” thinking he’d break his danged neck, but he only jumped onto an upside-down burn barrel. Then he ran to the edge of the first story. Next to it was a telephone pole with metal spikes driven into the side for repairmen to climb. Willis took a leap from the building onto the pole and climbed as far down as the spikes allowed, then dropped to the ground.

  He was so proud of himself, and I could tell he wanted me to be, too, but I said, “Do you realize how dangerous that is? You could have broken your neck.”

  “But I didn’t. Come on!”

  “I’m not climbing up there.”

  “Climbing up is the easy part.”

  “I know that. But I’d have to swing like an ape to get down!”

  “What if I made it easier to get down?”

  Sometimes I wondered why I’d taken on this project of giving Willis “special handling.” Being around him was so tiring.

  “How about you just tell me what it’s like up there. And why you were up there to begin with.”

  But he had already moved down the alley. He came back with two old busted-up crates that he stacked next to the building. Then came an old tire that he propped on top of them. Together they reached almost to the first roof.

  “There! You can climb up the pole, but when it’s time to come down, you can swing over the side, land on the tire and climb down the crates.”

  “It looks awful rickety,” I said, even as I parked my bike. Being bored can have a strange effect on you. It gradually seemed like an okay thing to do—till I got to the telephone pole, that is.

  “The spikes are too high. I can’t reach.”

  Willis suddenly grabbed me under the arms to lift me. “Ahh!” I yelled in surprise.

  I lost my balance and my arms flew around in the air. I finally grabbed Willis’s head. He couldn’t see, so we staggered into the alley, where we both tumbled down.

  “Dang it, Willis!” I lay there panting, but he was already up brushing himself off.

/>   “Next time tell a person if you’re going to grab them, for heaven’s sake!”

  He blinked and said, “Okay.”

  “You scared me to death, you know.”

  “Okay. You ready to climb up now?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “I’m gonna grab you now.”

  “Okay, okay. Sheesh.”

  This time I was ready and easily grabbed the spike. I climbed up the pole and jumped onto the first floor, with Willis right after me. He leaped onto the overturned burn barrel and reached a hand down for me. That’s when I realized that I had yelled at him and this time he hadn’t fought back.

  Maybe being around him wasn’t all that tiring.

  * * *

  We were on our stomachs looking over the edge of the building, which wasn’t too comfortable, it being a tarred roof and all. I didn’t complain, though, because Willis was enjoying it so much.

  “Ain’t it somethin’ up here?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty. You can see a lot of the town.”

  “Right below us is an apartment. See that door over there?” He pointed to what looked like a shed built right on top of the roof.

  “What’s the shed for?” I asked.

  “Ain’t no shed. You go through its door into the apartment. Wouldn’t it be somethin’ to live there? You could just walk out onto the roof whenever you pleased.”

  It made me nervous that we were on private property. “Maybe the folks who live here wouldn’t like us being on their roof.”

  “Door’s locked and they’ve never come out before. Probably aren’t even home.”

  He rolled back over onto his stomach. “It feels safe up here—like nobody can hurt you.”

  “Like on your roof at home?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know about that?”

  “I saw you one night. I’ve been wondering about it ever since.”

  “Does your pa drink alcohol, Lydia?”

  “Daddy? No.”

  “Elliot says it makes good men act bad. He says it makes bad men act crazy. Like I said, alone on a roof, nobody can hurt you.”

  It bothered me to think that Willis had a daddy who could hurt him.

  Before I could say anything, he said, “Does this town have fireworks on the Fourth of July? ’Cause this’ll be a great spot to watch them from.”