by Betsy Byars
Junior’s dirty toes curled over the edge of the railing for support. Between bites, his arms waved gently up and down for balance.
“And you’d wish I’d tell you the secret, right?” Junior asked.
“Well …”
“You’d give anything to know, right?”
“Well, not anything.”
Junior stuffed the last of his hot dog in his mouth, and he lost his balance. He swung his arms around, windmill-like, until he was steady again.
He swallowed his hot dog and went on about his secret. When Junior had a secret, he felt more alive, more special, than at any other time.
“There are two reasons why I can’t tell you. One, I’m not supposed to tell you anything that would excite you, Mom says, and—”
“Junior, I had one little heart attack.”
“Not a little one, Pap. Remember, I saw it.”
“Well, a heart attack. I think I can take the strain of hearing your secret.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Junior said. “Two, if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”
Pap shook his head back and forth. “Junior, Junior, Junior,” he said.
Junior lost his balance for good and jumped down onto the porch. Then he sat and crossed his legs.
“Why did you say, ‘Junior, Junior, Junior’?”
“It just came out.”
“I don’t like people to say my name but one time—Junior, like that. It was all right for people to say three Juniors in a row when I was little, but now I just want one at a time.”
“I’ll remember.”
Junior pulled a thread on his shorts. The thread kept coming, getting longer and longer. Junior kept pulling. Then he saw that he had pulled out the hem.
He folded the hem back under and patted it in place.
“Actually, my secret came just at the right time. I was getting worried about myself.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“See, my other ideas—my wings, my coyote trap, my UFO—my other ideas just popped into my head, Pap, like magic. Only nothing was popping in my head at all. I thought it had something to do with school.”
“Oh.”
“Like, we have to use our minds. We have to! Mrs. Wilson makes us! If we forget to use them, she points to her head like that.” Junior tapped his temple. “Anyway I was using my mind so much in school that when I got home from school, it just wanted to rest.”
“A mind needs to rest every now and then.”
“Yes, rest, but maybe resting was the wrong word. My mind wasn’t so much resting. It was more like it had gone on strike.”
“Right now,” Pap said, “I hope I don’t get an idea. I hope I’ll sit here till the moon comes up without one single idea coming into my head.”
“I was so desperate I was ready to start standing on my head like Ralphie.”
“Ralphie stands on his head?”
“He says it makes the blood run to his brain and nourish it. He says that’s why his brain is so brilliant.”
“Well, it’s too late for me to be standing on my head. My brain’s got to get along with whatever the body chooses to send it. I—Oh, here comes Mud. Mud, you ready for our evening walk?”
Mud was Pap’s dog, a big golden dog with a red bandanna around his neck. Mud had just come back from one walk, but he was ready for another. He waited at the porch steps, wagging his tail, his eyes bright with anticipation. Mud had never turned down a walk in his life.
Pap got slowly to his feet.
“Pap, you didn’t let me finish about my brain.”
“Well, come on. You can tell me about your brain while we walk.”
“Can my dog come too?”
“If he behaves himself.”
“He will! Dumpie!” Junior called.
Dump crawled out from under the porch. “We’re going for a walk,” Junior told him.
Mud was almost to the pine trees, and Dump ran to join him. Then, as if he thought better of it, he stopped.
“I wish Mud and Dump could be friends,” Junior said. “Dump’s willing.”
Mud paused and looked back to see if they were coming.
“We’re not going that way,” Junior called.
“Mud smells something.”
“Well, just because he smells something, that doesn’t mean we have to go in that direction.”
“You heard Junior,” Pap called. “We ain’t going that way, Mud.”
Mud did not move. He was used to taking the lead. He barked once.
“You go your way, Mud. We’ll go ours.”
Mud gave them a moment to change their minds.
Then he bounded away into the trees.
“That’s better. You shouldn’t give in to him all the time,” Junior said. “Mud’s getting spoiled. Ever since we carried him into the hospital to visit you, he’s been like that. I caught him trying to eat off the table yesterday.”
“He’s my pal.”
Junior stopped in sudden alarm. “Oh, let’s don’t go through the pine trees, Pap; please, you’ll see the secret. You’ll see the surprise!”
“That’s the surprise over there—them boards on the ground?”
“Pap, you looked! Now it’s ruined. The secret’s ruined!”
“Now, now, I didn’t see nothing but some boards lying on the ground,” Pap protested.
“That’s it!”
“But I don’t know what you call it,” Pap said.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“You didn’t recognize it?”
“No.”
Junior put one dirty hand over his heart. “Ah,” he said, “what a relief. My secret is still a secret.”
Pap sneaked one final look at the boards lying on the ground under the pine trees. “Junior, Junior—” he broke off. “Sorry—Junior.”
Pap glanced back at the house. “You think Vern wants to go with us?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because he thinks someone wants to kill him.”
“Now, Junior.”
“I heard him say that on the phone. He was talking to Michael. I memorized his words. ‘I’m afraid she’ll kill us too. She wanted to kill us last time.’”
“He and Michael were just up to some foolishness. Nobody wants to kill Vern.”
“It didn’t sound like foolishness,” Junior said. “It sounded like he was really scared.”
“That’s playacting, but I’ll talk to him about it.”
Junior squinted up at Pap. “You know something, Pap. I never have to playact. You know why?”
“Why is that?”
“Because my real life is so exciting and so full of adventure that I don’t have to playact. I just have to live my life!”
“I’m too old to playact. I just live my life too.”
“And tomorrow is going to be one of the most exciting days I have ever had in my life. Tomorrow is Friday, isn’t it?”
“All day.”
“Then tomorrow is when the excitement begins.” Junior grinned. He had no idea how true his words would turn out to be.
CHAPTER 4
Mad Mary Is Missing
“Faster!”
“I—am—not—a—horse.”
Ralphie reminded Maggie of this in what he thought was an extremely nice voice, considering how tired he was of pedaling. Both Ralphie’s legs hurt now.
“I know that.”
“Well, gimme a break.”
Ralphie glanced up at the top of the hill. Sweat rolled down his face, dropped off his chin. Every now and then he had to go sideways to keep from stopping altogether—like right now. He turned toward the center of the road.
“Look, if you’re going to waste time weaving from side to side like this,” Maggie said, “stop and I’ll pedal for a while.”
This insult gave Ralphie a sudden burst of anger and new strength. He gained enough speed to proceed up the hill. It would take, Ralphie figured
, at least three more bursts of anger to get them to the top.
Keep it up, Maggie, Ralphie thought. Three more insults and we’re home.
Ever since Maggie had jumped the ditch and seen Mad Mary’s bag, she had been like a woman driven, a woman who—Suddenly Ralphie made the connection.
“You remind me …” he said, pausing to draw in a badly needed breath, “you remind me of my mother.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“And just how do I remind you of your mother?” Maggie asked coldly. Ralphie’s first words to her this afternoon had been, “I had to get out of the house. The ogress is on the rampage.”
Ralphie remembered that unfortunate statement at the same time that Maggie did. He closed his mouth.
“You think I’m an ogress?”
Again, Ralphie did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut.
“I’m waiting to hear if you think I’m an ogress. … Oh, Ralphie, hurry up. We’re never going to get home at this rate.”
Ralphie cleared his throat. “No, you’re more like an—oh, I don’t know—an ogrette.”
“Ogrette!”
“That’s a small ogress,” Ralphie went on conversationally, “like a dinette or a kitchenette.”
“Stop this bicycle!”
“Gladly.”
“This minute!”
“It’s stopped.”
Actually the strength that his anger at Maggie had given him had worn off, and the bicycle had pretty much stopped on its own.
Ralphie braced his foot on the road. He waited while Maggie climbed off the bicycle.
“Ralphie, I want to say just one thing to you. This is Mad Mary’s bag, the bag she collects her food in, and inside the bag”—she pulled the handles apart—“is a possum that has—”
“Seen better days,” Ralphie interrupted.
“Don’t try to be funny.”
“Close the bag, please. One look at a dead possum is enough, Maggie. I don’t need to see it twice. And I sure don’t need to smell it twice. Throw that thing away.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“It’s evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Mad Mary may have been kidnapped, and you’re wasting time asking stupid questions and calling me names.”
“Maggie, people don’t go around kidnapping a woman who hasn’t had a bath in fifteen years. Now, throw that bag away and get back on the bike.”
“If I get back on the bike, this possum gets on with me.”
Ralphie breathed in and out twice without speaking.
“And also,” Maggie went on, “you’ll have to take back what you said—about me being an ogrette.”
“I stick by that.”
Maggie’s green eyes narrowed. “Then I’m not getting on the bike.”
“That’s up to you.”
There was a silence. Ralphie was the one who broke it.
“All day long,” he said, apparently speaking to the handlebars of his bicycle, “no, make that all month long, you’ve been taking me for granted. Do this, Ralphie. Do that. Stop here. Start there …”
There was another silence. Ralphie looked up, this time directly at Maggie, who waited for the rest with her arms folded over the dead possum bag.
The flower was still in the end of her pigtail where he had placed it in happier, pre-ogrette times, but it was beginning to wilt.
Ralphie said, “You use me.”
Maggie drew in a sharp breath. This was the first time Ralphie had ever said anything critical to her.
Ralphie could see that she was hurt. Well, he said to himself, she wasn’t a princess. She had to learn how to treat people. Just because she was the most beautiful girl in the world didn’t exempt her from being nice. She should be grateful to him for the lesson instead of looking at him like somebody from the North Pole.
Mud burst out of the woods beside them. His nose was in the air. His eyes shone. He jumped the ditch in one graceful leap and closed in on the bag in Maggie’s hands.
Mud had smelled this bag from the Blossom porch. It was this bag that had drawn him like a leash through the woods, that had separated him willingly from Pap and Junior and Dump.
And this bag was worth all his efforts.
Maggie let out her breath. “Well.”
Ralphie said, “Deep subject.”
Maggie said, “I don’t think that’s funny.”
Ralphie said, “I didn’t mean it to be.”
Mud approached the bag slowly. His eyes were bright with interest. The pungent scent caused the hair to rise on the back of his neck. It was Mad Mary’s scent. He knew that scent and distrusted it.
But mingled with that scent was the smell of death and of things Mud didn’t even know of yet. Mud had never been able to resist the smell of mystery.
He moved closer.
Ralphie said, “So, are you getting on or not? Make up your mind.”
“Not.”
“Maggie—”
“That would be using you.”
She flung the word “using” over her shoulder like an insult. She started up the hill on foot.
Mud, nose in air, followed.
After a minute, Ralphie began pedaling slowly after Maggie and Mud. He kept fifty yards between them; this was enough distance so Maggie couldn’t hear if he was back there or not. He knew she was too mad to turn around and look.
Maggie made the turn into the farm. She crossed the bridge. She still hadn’t looked back.
Ralphie continued to follow. He coasted down the hill and brought his bike to a stop by the Blossoms’ front porch.
Maggie was in the house calling, “Pap! Pap!”
Vern’s voice answered, “Pap and Junior went for a walk.”
“Which way?”
“I don’t know. There are hot dogs on the stove, but they taste funny.”
“Vern, look.”
“At what?”
“Vern, this is Mad Mary’s bag—the one she collects food in.”
“What?” Vern must have jumped up from the table fast, because Ralphie heard his chair tip over.
“We found it beside the road, Vern. Something terrible has happened to Mad Mary.”
“What?”
“I think she’s been kidnapped.”
“Why?”
“It’s just what I think. Something’s happened to her, or she wouldn’t have dropped this bag. And I’m going to find out what!”
Maggie came back on to the porch. Now, for the first time since the argument, she looked at Ralphie.
“Oh, are you still here?” she asked.
“No, Maggie, I’m not here. I went home.”
Maggie sat down on the steps. She held Mad Mary’s bag on her lap for a moment and then shoved it to the side. She looked down at her pigtail and saw the drooping flower in the end. Ralphie thought she might take this opportunity to pluck it out, throw it to the ground, and grind it to death with the heel of her tennis shoe.
Ralphie held his breath.
Maggie sighed. She lifted her head and looked at the trees.
Mud was the only one in motion, but it was slow motion. Mud didn’t want anyone to notice he was closing in on the bag. His nose had started to run.
In a crawl, pulling himself along with his front paws, he reached the bag. He stretched out his head and rested it on the handles. He lay as if he were asleep, but he had never been more awake in his life.
He breathed deeply, trying to puzzle out the various smells. The sounds of his deep inhalations were the only sounds on the porch.
Maggie glanced at Ralphie out of the sides of her eyes. “There are hot dogs on the stove.”
“No, thanks,” Ralphie said. “I’m not all that hungry anymore.” He kept standing there.
Ralphie had fallen in love with Maggie two years ago in a hospital room. She had been sitting on Junior’s bed, her green eyes shining. Even if she hadn’t been telling the story of how she
and Vern had busted into City Jail, he would have fallen in love with her.
He still loved her. He guessed he always would.
He kept standing there. He wanted to go home—he had never wanted anything more in his life—but he couldn’t.
This was what love did to a man, he thought unhappily; it affected the feet. It literally nailed a man to the ground.
He looked down at his feet.
Suddenly Maggie yanked the bag out of Mud’s reach. “No, Mud, leave that alone! Bad dog!”
She gave Ralphie another sideways look. “If you don’t want a hot dog, you might as well go.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Well, go!”
She sounded as if she were talking to Mud instead of a person.
To Ralphie’s surprise and relief, his feet came loose from the ground. And as if he were not taking part in a miracle, as if walking like this were a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence, Ralphie slung one leg over his bike.
“Good-bye,” she called after him.
Without turning around he said, “Good-bye, Maggie.” He was pleased that his good-bye sounded more final than her good-bye.
Legs aching, heart breaking, Ralphie headed for home.
CHAPTER 5
The Crook in the Grass
“Pap!”
Maggie ran to meet Pap and Junior at the edge of the woods. Her braids flew out behind her.
“Pap, something terrible’s happened!”
Pap stopped in place. He put one hand over his heart as if to protect it.
“Your mom?” he said.
“No. No, Pap, it’s Mad Mary.”
“Mary?”
“Yes, Ralphie and I found her bag by the road—you know, her food bag! The bag was there and she wasn’t. I think she’s been kidnapped.”
Pap’s elbows trembled a little as his mind worked over the news. “Mary Cantrell?”
“Yes, Pap, and she’s never without that bag.”
“No, I don’t believe she is.”
“I think she had a struggle with someone, and during the struggle she dropped the bag so she could defend herself and …”
“Mary’s bag.”
“Yes, Pap, and there was a possum in it. Pap, when was the last time you saw her alive?”
