by Geof Johnson
“Gina, how much longer are you going to stay in the condo,” Carl asked.
“One more year. I’ll finish my master’s degree next spring.” She looked at Evelyn. “That is, if it’s okay with you.”
“Of course it is. I’m certainly not going to be using it anytime soon.”
“Mom, what are you going to do with it when Gina moves out?” Rachel asked. “You’re not going to move back, are you?”
“No, I’d rather stay here, if that’s all right.”
“We want you to stay here with us,” Carl said.
Jamie was relieved. He’d never thought about his grandmother moving away.
“I’ve been giving it some thought,” Carl continued. “Maybe you should think about selling it and buying a condo here. It would be a good investment. You could easily rent the condo out during the summer and fall, and if you ever decide to move into it, you’ll still be close.”
“I’ll think about it,” Evelyn said. “The rental income would be nice.”
* * *
Yes, Thanksgiving was looking good for Jamie, until Fred discovered Gina. Fred came over early Thursday evening, and Jamie nearly had to push her out the door to get her to leave. She seemed awestruck by Jamie’s beautiful, friendly cousin, and she was determined to follow Gina around like a little puppy, leaving no space for Jamie. She practically sat in Gina’s lap.
Right before bed on Saturday, Jamie complained to his grandmother. “Fred’s hogging Gina.”
“It’s okay, Honey. She’ll have time for you tomorrow,” she said.
Sunday morning, Jamie had Gina all to himself, and he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
“Jamie, Fred told me a little secret,” Gina said, sitting next to him on the couch. “Do you want to hear it?”
“No.”
“I’m going to tell you anyway. She said that you’re really her boyfriend, but you don’t know it yet.”
“I’m not her boyfriend.” He narrowed his eyes.
“Why not? She’s pretty and fun, and she likes you.”
“Fred’s bossy, and she kicks me all the time.”
“Ah, but you’re not denying that she’s pretty.”
Jamie looked at Gina open mouthed. “But —”
“Too slow on the denial! Gotcha.” She hugged him with one arm and mussed his hair with her other hand. “You think she’s pretty, you think she’s pretty,” she sang.
“No!” Jamie squirmed. “I wanna be your boyfriend.”
“That’s so sweet, but we can’t. We’re cousins. Guess it’s going to have to be Fred or nothing.”
“Okay, nothing.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that in about ten years.” She laughed. “You’ll be singing a different tune.”
Chapter 15
Kindergarten was good for the kids. Fred managed to make it to the end without hurting anyone else, Rollie began reading and Jamie made more buddies, but none as close as his two first best friends, Fred and Rollie.
As soon as summer vacation started, the moms got together and decided to sign Jamie, Fred, and Rollie up for swim lessons. Lisa offered to drive, since she had the van, but Carl went with them whenever possible, hoping to somehow will athleticism into his reluctant son.
Rollie took to it right away, just as he had with baseball. He was practically swimming the very first day. Fred wasn’t far behind, driven by her fierce firecracker determination not to be outdone by a boy, especially Rollie or Jamie. Unfortunately, Jamie wasn’t much competition, as he was one of the last kids to graduate from the beginner class.
Carl found it frustrating to watch. It was as if his son didn’t care. That is, until Jamie found out you couldn’t go off the diving board unless you could swim to the side. Rollie and Fred had a blast, diving with the other kids, while Jamie was stuck in the shallow end. That was all the motivation he needed to finally get the hang of it.
The kids weren’t exactly diving, though. It was really jumping, one cannonball after the next, with the occasional twist or turn for variety, and the requisite “Mommy, watch me!” shouted in midair. The mothers didn’t watch. When you’ve seen one cannonball, you’ve seen them all.
People watched Jamie, though, especially after his first dive. Carl looked on apprehensively as his son ran down the diving board, hopped on the end, and flew, arms straight like Superman, in the longest, most perfect arc Carl had ever seen. Carl jumped up, pumped his fist and said, “Yes!” then looked around and sat, feeling his face flush.
On Jamie’s next dive, a few of the other parents clapped. One mother told Carl he should sign Jamie up for the dive team. Not diving! Carl thought. That’s not a sport. A real sport involved grunting, grass stains, and maybe a little blood. Diving was…well… clean. And the boys wore Speedos. Ugh.
The other kids tried to get fancy and see if they could spin one full turn on a dive, but Jamie, amazingly, could spin almost three full turns. Not diving, please not diving. Please be good at football or something.
* * *
Later, while Carl talked with some other parents, the three friends swam together at the edge of the pool in a section that was just over their heads, treading water.
“Watch,” Jamie said. “I can do it without moving my arms or legs.” He was perfectly still, but his head stayed above water.
“You’re touching bottom,” Rollie said.
“No I’m not.”
“You’re using your arms,” Fred said.
“No. Swim under and look for yourself.”
Fred and Rollie ducked under water with their eyes open and saw that Jamie’s legs were together and his arms were by his side, as if he were standing at attention, feet about ten inches from the bottom.
When they surfaced, Rollie said, “How do you do that?”
“I just think about it.”
“I can do it, too,” Fred boasted, but when she stopped paddling, she sank. She popped back up and spluttered. “Doesn’t work!”
Rollie tried, too, but got the same result.
“Hold my hand,” Jamie said. “Think about floating and nothing else.” The three kids held each other’s hands. “Stop kicking, Rollie. Just think.” Gradually, Rollie and Fred stopped thrashing, but stayed afloat, smiling broadly.
“Do you feel that?” Rollie asked.
“Yeah,” Fred said. “Like something warm and tingly in my hands.”
Jamie felt it, too. Something in the back of his mind told him There is magic in a triangle.
* * *
Jamie wasn’t particularly good at swimming or baseball, but he was good with animals, especially dogs.
“Jenny Stone called,” Rachel said one Saturday in June. “Do you kids want to go walk Sassy and her baby with her?”
He was out the door in a blink of an eye, off to get his friends.
Ten minutes later, Rollie was holding Sassy’s leash when Fred said, “It’s my turn now!”
Jenny looked at her watch. “Not quite, Fred. Rollie gets one more minute.”
Jamie didn’t care if he held the leash or not. He liked walking beside Sassy, and you could tell by her dog smile that she liked it, too. They rounded the next corner, Sassy’s ears perked up at the sound of a deep, ferocious bark, and the largest dog any of them had ever seen tore straight at them, fangs bared in a terrifying snarl.
“Oh my God!” Jenny screamed, picking her baby up from the stroller and shielding it from the onrushing beast.
Fred and Rollie tried to hide behind Jenny, but Jamie calmly stepped forward, extended his hands and said, “Hello, Ralphie.” The enormous Rottweiler skidded to a halt, sat on his haunches, and after a brief moment, began to wag his tail, tongue out. Jamie patted his head and said, “Good boy.”
Jenny stared, wide-eyed. “Ralphie?”
Sassy was having none of it. She hid behind Jenny, but Fred and Rollie came out to pet the dog, too. “How do you know his name?” Jenny asked
“He told me,” Jamie said.
J
enny looked at his tag. “You’re right, it’s Ralphie. You must’ve met him before.”
“No ma’am.”
“Dogs always tell him their names,” Fred said.
Jenny looked at them with a bewildered expression. “You are the funniest kids I’ve ever met.”
* * *
“Looks good, Carl.” Larry wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’ll be a big hit at the birthday party next weekend.”
“Looks like the kids approve,” Garrett said, watching Jamie, Fred, and Rollie scramble into the now-finished clubhouse.
“Thanks for helping, guys,” Carl said.
The kids climbed into the top floor of the two-story structure, which looked like two cubes stacked on top of each other, each about six feet high, just tall enough for Carl to stand up inside without hitting his head. The bottom cube sat about two feet off the ground and was open, with half walls all around, making it look like a fort. A small door on the right led to a short stair.
The top cube was enclosed, had a shingled roof, windows on three sides, and a ladder going to the bottom floor that could be accessed through a trap door. The whole structure was built onto the right side of the playset, and the platform where the slide was attached led to a door on the top cube, so the kids could climb the stairs and either go down the slide or turn right into the clubhouse.
Both floors were wired with an electrical outlet and a ceiling light, and Carl built a small table for the top floor. Jamie’s Gramma made the curtains and Rachel bought three kid-sized plastic chairs to complete the furnishings.
“Daddy, can we eat up here?” Jamie yelled from the top floor window.
“Not now. It’s almost suppertime.”
“Can we watch TV, too?” Fred said.
“There’s no cable for the TV, but if you had a DVD player you could watch movies.”
“Cool!” Rollie said.
“I want a DVD player for my birthday present,” Jamie said.
“Jamie, you’re in your birthday present,” Carl said.
“Oh.”
“Then I’m gonna ask for one,” Fred said. “We can watch movies and eat snacks and play games and play dress up and —”
“No dress up!” the boys said together.
As the kids continued fussing, Carl picked up his tools and headed for the house, whistling a happy tune. Evelyn passed him, carrying a tray of lemonade and cookies to the clubhouse. “Aren’t you worried about spoiling their dinner?” Carl asked.
“Sometimes you have to make exceptions. This is a special occasion.”
* * *
The following weekend, the combined birthday party for Jamie and Fred was the biggest one yet. Because they now had school friends to invite, over thirty kids came, each with one or both parents. Fred’s parents rented a bouncy castle, which apparently was a must now at birthday parties. The new clubhouse was a huge hit, and Carl grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.
“Fred’s not very happy that you invited Elizabeth Stallings,” Lisa said as she helped Rachel fill drink cups for the kids.
“Well, we had to reciprocate,” Rachel said. “She invited Jamie to her party.”
“I think the worst part was when he gave Elizabeth a tour of the new clubhouse. Fred was so mad, I thought her hair was going to catch on fire.”
“It looks like it already did.” Rachel laughed. “She’s just jealous, that’s all. She’ll get over it and have fun.”
That Elizabeth Stallings thinks she’s so special, Fred thought. She won’t leave Jamie alone! And Jamie’s encouraging her. He had found a butterfly and gotten it to land on Elizabeth’s finger, and she just had to show everyone. That’s our special trick. That’s not for anybody else, especially Elizabeth. Well, Fred would show her. Jamie wouldn’t pay attention to Elizabeth anymore when he saw Fred’s scary new trick. I’ll go up to the platform and get outside the hand rail.
Fred climbed the stairs to the platform and grabbed the hand rail with her right hand. There was just enough of a ledge on the outside edge for a toe hold, if she held on tightly. She carefully stretched her right foot onto the edge and pulled herself all the way out. She did it! She was hanging on with two hands and her toes, nothing behind her but air, and when she looked down, the ground looked frighteningly far away.
I’d like to see Miss Prissy Perfect Elizabeth do that. But it wasn’t any good unless Jamie was watching.
“Fred, get down from there!” her father said, but she ignored him.
Not ’till Jamie sees me. Is he looking? “Jamie, look at me!” Did he hear me? She tried to look over her right shoulder to see if he was in the gazebo, but couldn’t get a good look, so she let go with her right hand to better turn her body around. But as she did, she lost her grip, and the last thing she remembered was the sight of the rail receding as she grabbed vainly at thin air.
* * *
“Jamie didn’t want to go,” Rachel said, sitting on the deck with Lisa and Carl. “He said he didn’t want to go swimming if Fred couldn’t go.”
“What a good friend,” Lisa said. “They really do love each other.”
“You’re just saying that because you want it to be true,” Carl said, “because you two are such good friends.”
“I think it’s true, too,” Rachel said. “Since before they were born.”
“That’s nonsense. Rollie didn’t want to go, either. Garrett told me he took him to the pool by himself on Monday, but he didn’t have any fun.”
“Well, Fred insisted that Jamie be the first one to sign her cast,” Lisa said.
“But she made Jamie mad when she drew hearts all around his name.” Carl grinned.
“Did her headaches go away, yet?” Rachel asked.
“They’re mostly all gone,” Lisa said. “We were more scared by the concussion than the broken arm, that’s for sure.”
“But she’s going to be really popular now. That’s the first time any of those kids have seen somebody taken from a party in an ambulance.”
“That scared the crap out of me,” Carl said. “So why aren’t the kids at your house watching your new TV?”
“I don’t know,” Lisa said. “Larry spent most of his bonus on a giant TV and surround sound system for the basement so Fred would have something to do, and they’re up there in that clubhouse watching movies on her little DVD player.”
Just then they heard Rollie from the clubhouse. “Ow. Stop, Fred!”
“Well, at least she hasn’t lost her spirit.”
* * *
Renn stood on the barren hillside, just as he did every year at this time, looking at the three mounds, the smaller one the size of a child. He had no tears for them, not since the plague that had taken them, only bitterness and anger.
The soil was too thin to support much vegetation, except for the occasional clump of weeds sprouting here and there among the rocks. He drove his dragon’s head staff into the ground and a wave of green spread immediately from it, as ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond. The grass spread as far as he could see, and flowers began to sprout, flowers of all colors, a riotous carpet covering the sad, stony landscape.
He paused for several long moments to admire his work, and, satisfied with the result, pulled his purple cloak about him, stamped his staff on the ground again and vanished.
Chapter 16
Fred and Rollie ate lunch with Jamie. Carl asked, “How would you kids like to play soccer?”
“What’s that?” Rollie asked.
“It’s a sport. You kick a ball and run around.” He scratched his chin. “Maybe I’d better show you.” He turned on the family room computer and searched videos. “Here’s a good one. Watch.”
The three kids watched the short video of two professional English teams, which was mostly highlights of impressive goals and fancy dribbling.
“Hey, that’s perfect for you, Fred,” Jamie said. “You can kick people and not get in trouble.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
�
��It’s only one day a week,” Carl said. “Saturday mornings, starting in two weeks.”
“If it’s on Saturday, then I can’t go,” Fred said. “I’m starting tap dance lessons.”
“Oh, right,” Jamie said. “That’s just ’cause my cousin Gina did tap dance. You wanna be just like her.”
“Nu uh.”
“Yu huh. You were gonna do ballet, remember? If Gina played football, you’d wanna be a football player.”
“That’s enough, Jamie,” Evelyn said from the kitchen.
“I wanna do soccer,” Rollie said.
“Great!” Carl said. “I’ll talk to your dad.
But, just like everything else, Rollie took right to soccer, and Jamie was just sort of there, more interested in the snacks and friends than the sport. Jamie was popular with the other kids, though, with his knack for finding wildlife. The day he found the garter snake was a memorable one, when the game stopped completely, not because all the kids were scared of the snake, but because they wanted to play with it.
* * *
One rainy Saturday morning in early September, Evelyn said to Jamie, “How would you like to go work at the food bank with me today? Grannie Darla will be there.”
“I wanna play with Fred and Rollie.”
“Fred has tap dance lessons and Rollie’s off with his mom.”
Jamie still looked unsure. She said, “I’ll take you to get a hot dog and ice cream afterwards. It’ll be fun.”
Ice cream was the deal maker. “Okay.”
* * *
The food bank, Jamie came to find out, was run by Grannie Darla’s church. Grannie Darla worked up front, helping people with their paperwork and putting their food list together. Gramma worked in the warehouse, filling the food bags and putting them in an old beat up shopping cart with a wobbly front wheel.
They put Jamie right to work. He would wait with Grannie Darla until she had a food list together, then he’d run it to the back, where he’d help Gramma push the cart around the warehouse, pulling cans of food and other stuff off the metal shelves and placing them in the cart. Then he’d push the cart back to the front, where he’d help an older man load the groceries into the people’s cars.
