Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street

by Angela Johnson

  Me and Ashe spent the rest of the day walking around the neighborhood.

  She'd point out different kinds of flowers and tell me what they were called in Latin. I'd point out everybody in the neighborhood and tell her who liked kids and who made the best cookies and muffins.

  Then I took her on a swing through the trees.

  You can tell a lot about someone who can swing from limb to limb without falling or screaming that their arms are falling off.

  Ashley is okay.

  She likes climbing trees and swinging from them almost more than me.

  Ashley asked, when we finally sat down in my front yard, “Who's the lady with all the statues everywhere? She seems real funny. Did you see the upside-down penguin in her front yard? I love her flowers. She puts them in silly planters. There're even sunflowers in a bathtub. I think I'll like her.”

  “That's Miss Marcia. She's an artist and can bake the best muffins in the world. She's great. I'll take you to meet her.”

  And I did.…

  Ashley—I mean Ashe—wandered all over Miss Marcia's studio and rubbed the smooth marble and stone.

  “It's great here. I think I could live in your studio forever—if you had more flowers, and vines growing up the statues.”

  Miss Marcia looked at Ashe for a long time, then said, “Well, why don't you help me out with that? I have a huge backyard full of art.”

  Ashley looked at the sculpture, then me, and smiled the biggest smile I'd ever seen.

  The next few days all we did was collect dirt in wheelbarrows and flowers from different people. Sometimes I'd push Ashe in the wheelbarrow, and sometimes she'd push me. We were having a good time. I found out I really love dirt.

  This is what Ashe said about plants that she got from people: “Pass-along plants are the best you can have. You can get plants that are a hundred years old. My dad has a rose bush that came from a garden that was started about ninety years ago. Just think of all the things these roses have heard and seen, Charlie.”

  I laughed thinking about a rose bush with ears and eyes, but I understood what she meant. All of a sudden the planting seemed more exciting to me, and I helped Ashe anytime she needed me. She said she was planting a pass-along garden for Miss Marcia's sculpture that might last a thousand years.

  Wow!

  When Ashe and I weren't planting, we were swinging from trees or eating peanut butter (my favorite). I told Ashe about Lump and Billy, and she told me about her friend Lily, who can play the piano with her toes.

  Even though Ashe doesn't live on Magnolia Street, I feel like she belongs here.

  We worked all week getting ready for the garden unveiling.

  Me and Ashe made invitations for the party and painted them for what seemed like days. Mom helped by feeding us and not complaining that we were getting paint everywhere. We delivered the invitations on a hot, mosquito-filled evening to everybody I knew in the neighborhood.

  We got some of the neighbors to donate snacks for the party. Of course Miss Marcia would bake muffins, and Billy's mom said she would make strawberry iced tea. Mr. Pinkton made peach pies that smelled so good I wondered if I could wait until the garden unveiling to eat it.

  The only way this whole past week could have been better was if Billy and Lump had here.…

  They would have loved the whole party idea.

  The morning of the garden unveiling was cool and rainy, and Ashe said she hoped it wouldn't keep too many people away. We couldn't wait for the whole neighborhood to see the garden. Even Miss Marcia hadn't looked in her backyard. She'd promised she wouldn't look.

  About ten people with umbrellas showed up to see the garden. They squished down to Miss Marcia's backyard. I really couldn't see anybody's face for the rain hoods and scarves. Ashe and I stood beside each other.

  And the garden…

  Beautiful!

  Vines climbed up sculptures of animals wearing hats. Flowers sat in birdbaths and were planted in marble pigs' ears. And best of all were the moon flowers winding around a statue of a spaceman.

  Everybody clapped and walked around the beautiful, wet garden.

  Ashe kept on smiling.

  Sid didn't go to the garden party. Really, it was probably a good thing he didn't. I had gotten a great idea during the week while I was pushing dirt from here to there.

  I wasn't at home when Sid started to yell.

  I wasn't even going to be at home that night because I was having a sleep-over at Ashe's grandmother's house.

  I was even thinking about moving out of our house and camping out in the woods for a few weeks.

  When I did go home, though, Mom and Dad gave me what they call a good talking-to.

  How would I feel, they asked, if I came home and found all my dresser drawers filled with dirt and planted with vines?

  I didn't even mind having to sit on the porch for a week with Sid growling at me.

  Funny how just a week ago I never thought I'd like gardening.

  ear Charlie, Well, I'm here, and I can't even believe I got here in one piece.

  You know how in the beginning I didn't think camp was such a good idea? I did about everything I could to get the idea out of my mom's head.

  I mean everything.…

  I hid the brochure that had come in the mail about Camp FunWa.

  I cut out the newspaper article that talked about Camp FunWa so Mom wouldn't see it.

  I disconnected the phone when my mom was talking to my grandma about sending me to camp. (That time I got in real trouble, and that was the day Mom decided to send me.)

  Thanks for hiding me in your mom's garden shed the night before I left. (I don't think the groundhog liked me being there too much. I figure he thought he'd lost his hiding place.) And anyway, he about scared me to death. If he had, I wouldn't have had to come to Camp FunWa. What's with that name, anyhow? And how does my mom know how to find me anywhere I hide?

  Well, like I said, we barely got here.

  My mom jumps to conclusions—that's why she thought I'd gotten lost at the gas station.

  But if you talk to her, she'll tell you a different story. I won't tell you not to believe her, but just don't take her too serious, 'cause she's always getting upset about stuff that isn't that important.

  I wasn't hiding when she found me in the bushes behind the gas station between some old cars. See, there was this strange thing I saw when I was coming out of the gas station bathroom. I was pretty lucky to even get out of the bathroom, 'cause the lock broke when I was in there and I had to climb through the vent in the bottom of the door.

  Nobody heard me yelling. I guess that's because I couldn't get the sink turned off. Charlie, I thought I was gonna drown in the Speedy Gas bathroom.

  Water was everywhere.

  I got blamed for that, too.

  Anyway, I followed what I thought was an alien to the back of the gas station. It turned out to be a cat. He was all spotted and kind of nice to share his hiding place with me. Anyway, I was petting him and lost track of time. It's true!

  Mom and the gas station man didn't believe me. Neither did the police. I guess I had been gone for an hour or so.

  Anyway, here I am. At Camp FunWa.

  Charlie, there's a huge lake that surrounds the camp. It's almost like we're on an island. Mom said something about liking the idea that we almost can't get out of camp without taking a boat. There is a way out without a boat. You just have to find it, but they keep us so busy that who has time to find the way out of Camp FunNoi? That's what most of the campers call it.

  I'm glad you went with me to buy all the good junk food to bring here (even if the counselors found my hiding place in the lining of my suitcase and took it away from me). The green bean casserole we had last night was real bad. I mean, on a good day I love green beans, but I don't think those green beans ever had a good day.

  One of the older kids said the only food they ever serve here is green beans, cheese, and mystery meat.

  I do
like all the guys in my cabin, though. So far, we all get along. I think I even made a new friend. His name is Sam, and he can blow even bigger bubbles than Lump can. Don't tell Lump, though.

  I think I'm going to be okay here because of Sam. That is, if we don't get separated from each other. One of the counselors keeps saying he doesn't think we're very good influences on each other.

  Well, I'm used to people saying that about me and most of my friends. Me, you, and Lump wouldn't be friends at all if we listened to that kind of talk. Sam is a lot of fan, and it's not just that he blows milk through his nose when he starts laughing or that he got his head stuck in the fence that leads to the herb garden that us campers planted the second day after we got here.

  We're friends because he laughs with me at all the stuff that goes wrong.

  Sometimes it's not so good that he laughs real loud, though. He probably could have laughed quieter when we got locked in the food pantry in the camp kitchen. We were just looking for a few cookies. I knew they had them in there, 'cause we saw a few of the counselors munching on them when we were supposed to be resting.

  Can you believe it—they were peanut butter!

  Charlie, you know how I love peanut butter cookies. There just wasn't any way I could pass them up. I hadn't seen a cookie in a couple of days. We got fruit for lunch. I think it was supposed to be good for us, so I thought I needed cookies. Sam thought we needed cookies, too.

  So, after everybody had gone to their cabins to rest and the counselors were down by the lake relaxing, we thought we had a clear path to the kitchen. Well, we got into the kitchen okay.

  Then we got to the pantry okay. The key was hanging right by the door. (Why?) We put it back before we went in.

  We got the pantry open okay. Then we saw all the food. Boy, was there a lot of food! We were minutes from all kinds of cookies, dried fruit, and boxes of chocolate when we heard laughing. Sam and I hid behind a big box of canned peaches. We closed our eyes, hoping we wouldn't get caught, so that's why we didn't know until it was too late that the doors had been closed and the pantry light had been turned off.

  I think we could have broken out of there. We sure did try. I don't know why those locks are so strong. Do you think they're trying to keep kids out of the pantry?! They should feed us better at camp.

  Anyway, by the time we had finished a few bags of cookies, me and Sam were so full and so sick of them that I didn't care if I never saw another cookie again my whole life. I think Sam felt the same as I did.

  We would have gotten away with it if Sam hadn't start laughing in his sleep.

  Later he said he was dreaming about everybody wandering around the camp with pants on their heads. I couldn't wake him up and that's how they found us. Surrounded by empty cookie boxes, and Sam laughing in his sleep.

  We're sticking to our stories that everything was all right with us, too. I guess everybody had been looking for us a few hours, and they had been so upset that they'd called our parents. Mr. Ruftis, the camp director, told us our parents had come up with our punishments. It's always good to know my mom is thinking about me. Sam said he wished his parents wouldn't think about him as much as they do.

  Peeling potatoes for the whole camp's meals isn't so bad. I make a game of it.

  Sam says washing dishes isn't that bad, either.

  And mystery meat isn't looking all that bad anymore at old Camp FunWa.

  It's been only four days, Charlie. How is everything on Magnolia Street?

  Lots of wishes that you don't get kisses!

  Your friend,

  Billy

  ear Charlie, How have you been doing way on the other side of the state? Is Magnolia Street still sitting there waiting for me to come back to it? I (Oops—I got to stop writing for a minute to get all this gum off my shirt.)

  Well, Charlie, it's about forty-five minutes later. I was in a little trouble with the gum. Who knew it was so sticky?…I kind of got some in this girl's hair when she tried to get it off my shirt. (It's a good thing the girls will be on the other side of the lake.) Then a counselor tried to help, and it ended up all on his glasses. I'm not supposed to be chewing it. I'll tell you why later.

  (I should probably start chewing a different kind that doesn't stick so much.)

  Camp Margaret is great. I really didn't think I would be very happy here, but Fm surprised at how much fun everything is.

  When my aunt and uncle decided—along with Billy's mom—that it wouldn't be a good idea for us to go to camp together, I thought it might be one of the worst summers in the world. I mean, what would I do without Billy and you! But it's working out.

  Camp Margaret is an art camp.

  I have never painted on so many things in my life—and you don't get yelled at for doing it.

  Yesterday we got to paint each other. It was crazy.

  First everybody had to wear white T-shirts and shorts. Then the counselors sprayed us with water and handed each of us a palette fall of all different colors of paint and a brush. The painting party was on.…

  In the end everyone was just smearing paint on each other and wearing their palettes as hats. I looked like a huge tie-dyed walking thing. For some reason this boy named Pip was covered only in yellow paint. We all started calling him Banana Boy.

  The counselors thought we looked great and took pictures. The fun didn't last long, though. The camp owner showed up with a tour of parents. We found out later we were only supposed to be painting each other's T-shirts.

  The counselors had to go to a meeting afterward. But they were laughing when they came out, and the camp owner just shook his head a lot and took off in his car real fast.

  I love camp.

  Charlie…we have a real live (dead, really) ghost at Camp Margaret. And I saw him! That's kind of why I'm not supposed to be chewing gum.

  It all started on the bus trip out here. Our parents had to drop us off at the huge mall over by Lake Blackhorse. The camp bus would pick us up and take us the two hours to camp. It was fan on the bus—meeting everybody and laughing. There were only a couple of kids who had been to Camp Margaret before. But they told the same story.…

  It was a story about a kid whose parents forgot to pick him up at camp. He stayed there for a few days waiting for them—but finally got tired and went to live in the woods. He liked it so much he decided he would never go back to the suburbs. He lived off berries and wild animals. He grew older in the woods and made a house in a cave.

  His parents would come at the beginning of each summer and try to lure him out of the woods with peanut butter sandwiches (his favorite), but it never worked. He was tricky and would always manage to get the sandwiches but not get captured. His parents finally gave up, deciding he would be happier in the woods.

  Well, the kid grew up till one day the counselors at the camp figured he was about one hundred years old. Even though there had been a lot of sightings of him through the years—running, or swinging from tree to tree—there came a time when no one saw him for a whole summer. Everybody figured the old camper had finally passed on.

  The next summer came and went, then a few more summers after that. But one night during a campfire sing-along, the Ghost of Camp Margaret was seen for the very first time.…

  These two kids who were sneaking out of the sing-along to pour honey in the counselors' hiking boots saw him walking by the entrance gate, a little old stooped-over man in a Camp Margaret T-shirt and a backpack. They say he was waiting for his parents to come and take him home from camp.…

  Now, that pretty much scared me while these kids were talking about it on the bus. I didn't want anybody to know it scared me, so I just laughed with everybody else, even though some of the kids' eyes got as big as mine while the story was being told. So three days later…

  It's a shame sometimes that I have to chew so much gum all the time. (My aunt has been trying to break me of my bubble-blowing habit for a while. I think it's impossible.) Anyway, I started keeping emergency gum hidden in t
he knothole of this huge maple tree by the kitchen. I'd guess it was about two in the morning when I was woken out of a sound sleep by the need to blow a bubble.

  I was kind of sleepy as I sneaked out of the cabin, hopping over Mickey Howard's Bigfoot trap (he thinks Bigfoot lives in the woods). I was really needing to blow a big bubble and really didn't pay attention to much else except finding the tree in the dark when all of a sudden there he was, the ghost camper, with a backpack on, by the kitchen, almost glowing in the dark.

  Charlie, I couldn't even yell for help I was so scared.

  The ghost of Camp Margaret was right in front of me!

  Okay, okay, Charlie, it's not like that time I thought I saw the Loch Ness monster in Krieger's Pond. And it's not like that time I saw the pterodactyl flying over the bridge that runs past Magnolia Street.

  This was different.

  I fell to my knees and crawled real fast back to my cabin. Boy, is there a lot of stuff on the ground you don't notice when you're walking straight up, on your feet. I was really moving, Charlie. I knew nobody was going to believe me about the ghost. I had to wake up somebody. Unfortunately, I woke up everybody. Absolutely everybody in the camp.

  Just as I was about to pull open the cabin door and wake up Mickey, his Bigfoot trap caught me.

  The next thing that happened was a huge blanket was being tossed on me, and about the whole cabin was screaming that they had caught Bigfoot.…

  I kept screaming that I wasn't Bigfoot and that I was about to smother underneath the blanket.

  Mickey kept screaming, “Listen to Bigfoot! He can talk!”

  By that time the whole camp was awake, and all I could think of was how they'd scared the Camp Margaret ghost out of its skin and no one would believe I'd seen it.

  Well, I'm not allowed to chew gum until the end of camp now. The camp director, Mr. Watson, lectured Mickey and me all about imagination and thought maybe painting the fence alongside the stables might help us burn off some energy.

  You know, I get tired of people thinking I need to burn off energy. I think I'd like to keep my energy for a day when I might need it fall strength. (I needed it when the whole cabin was sitting on me thinking I was Big-foot.)