by Joyce Magnin
“Is your mother or father at home?” he asked.
But I didn’t answer because Dad was standing behind me in a flash. Like he sensed something. He snatched the envelope from the soldier, who tried to speak but didn’t get the chance because Dad pulled the door closed. A lump formed in my stomach because I had the sneaking suspicion that we were about to get some pretty bad news.
Dad read the telegram aloud. It informed us that Private First Class Arthur Robert Magnin had been reported missing somewhere in Hanoi. My father’s brow crinkled like an autumn leaf. My mother stood there. Staring. Elaine didn’t say a word. Neither did I. Not for a whole minute or two until I blurted out, “What do they mean missing? How can he be missing?”
Dad pushed the telegram into Mom’s hand.
“It could mean many things,” Mom said with a shaky voice. “So we’ll just hope and pray that Bud will come home safe and sound very soon.”
And that was all she said.
Dad patted my head. He smiled at Elaine and then walked upstairs. I heard his bedroom door close. Mom went up after him. Elaine just sat on the couch with Polly.
I ran outside, feeling like the house was too small and hot. The peach tree was in full bloom. Tiny, green peaches were forming under the flowers and pushing the blossoms to the ground. While I stood there not knowing what to do, one of the buds tumbled to the ground.
My news—the news about me moving up to the roof—isn’t going to make Dad sad the way the news about Bud made him. But I still wanted Mom to wait until after supper to tell him his youngest daughter has moved to the roof.
I look around the table. Yep. No smiles.
Mom still hasn’t told Dad about me moving to the roof. I figure she’s waiting until after he’s had his fill of meat loaf.
Saying grace before a meal—well, supper mostly—is a ritual we never forget. I don’t think I could eat supper if it hadn’t first been prayed over. It’s the same prayer every night. I figure God is pretty sick of it—if God gets sick of things.
It was Elaine’s turn.
“ThankyouLordforfoodwetaketodousgoodforJesus’ssakeamen.”
Grace has become one long word.
We all dig into the bowls and pass them around. Peas, mashed potatoes, applesauce. Dad divvies up the meat loaf as usual.
“Had a funny thing happen at work today,” he says.
Good. When Dad tells stories about work, it means he’s in a good mood.
“And what’s that?” Mom asks as she scoops peas from the serving bowl and plops them on her plate.
Dad is munching meat loaf. “I found something in Mrs. Watson’s toilet.”
“Ewwwwww, Daaaaaaaad,” Elaine says. “We’re eating.”
He smiles. “No, no, wait until I tell you. She called me because her lavatory was clogged.”
Dad often uses fancy plumbing vocabulary—lavatory is fancy for toilet. I swallow my mashed potatoes and turn a listening ear because I, for one, want to know what was clogging Mrs. Watson’s plumbing.
“Had to take the whole thing apart,” Dad says. “Snaked it out good, and then…” He sets his knife and fork on his plate and raises his arms and says with a clap, “Up it came.”
“What, Dad?” I ask. “What came up?”
I glance at Elaine. She looks like whatever was clogging Mrs. Watson’s toilet is now clogging her throat.
“A trout,” Dad says. “I figured it for about a pound and a half. This big.” He holds his hands about six inches or so apart. About half the size of Elaine’s flying saucer.
I laugh. “That’s impossible. How can a fish get caught in a toilet?”
Dad picks up his utensils and goes back to work on his meat loaf. He shakes his knife in my direction. “I figure it got into the sewer line and swam into Mrs. Watson’s john. It was too big to make it into the bowl, but here’s the really strange part—”
“Oh, Art, there’s more?” Mom mixes three peas into her forkful of potatoes.
“It was still alive,” he says.
“Oh no,” Mom says. “What did you do?”
“Gross,” Elaine says. “Dad, stop talking about it.”
Dad looks at Mom and then at me. “What could I do?” he says. “I cracked it on the head with my hammer and tossed it in the trash. I wasn’t about to bring it home for supper.”
That’s when Elaine loses it. She starts to cry, drops her fork, and dashes away from the table, sobbing, “That poor fish. That poor, poor fish. Father, how could you?”
I hold back a laugh.
“Art,” Mom says. “You know how sensitive Elaine is. Things like that will give her nightmares.”
Dad poked at his food. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her. I’ll talk to her later.”
Sheesh. Elaine really is sensitive and gets upset easily. I think it has to do with her being an artist. But seriously, what else was he supposed to do with the fish?
With Elaine gone from the table, Mom must think it’s a good time to tell Dad about my roof thing. She pulls her fork from her lips and rests it on the side of her dish. “Joyce Anne has decided to move onto the roof for a little while.”
I swallow. Hard. I cringe and close my eyes, waiting for Dad to blast me from one end of the house to the other, like I was shot from a cannon. Silence. I open my left eye and look at him, trying to see if his face is getting red. I open the other eye. That’s when he hollers.
“She what? She can’t live on the roof. It’s dangerous. It’s dirty.”
“But, Dad,” I say. “It’s not that dirty, and it’s not even that dangerous. I’ve been up there lots of times. You taught me how, remember?”
“She’s got a point,” Mom says.
“I don’t care. That’s no place for a girl to sleep. What if she wakes up and walks right off the roof? What then, little girl? You’ll break both legs and probably your neck. I forbid it.” Then he slams the table with his big, meaty fist, stands up, and finishes hollering.
“The roof is no place for a girl. Not at night. It’s one thing if you go up there to fetch a ball or something, but you will not sleep there. And what will you do if the tar men come, huh? What then?”
“But, Dad, I’m sick of Elaine and her stupid UFOs. I hate her stupid pig that squeals all the time. I can’t stand her, and besides, I already moved my stuff up there, and I won’t fall off. I’m not a dummy like Elaine says I am.” I take a huge breath. “I made my camp in the middle, so even if I do wake up and start walking, I’ll wake up. It’s not that easy to fall off the damn roof with that edge around it.” I cover my mouth with my hand. I have never, ever said a cuss word to Dad before. But he doesn’t even flinch.
“We don’t say damn,” Mom says.
“Well, I just did.” I look straight at Dad.
“And I didn’t think of the tar men,” Mom says. “If they come around, you’ll have to move back to your room.”
I hadn’t thought of them either. Tar men have a way of just showing up with their stinking, black cauldrons of boiling tar, which they spread on the roofs to keep them from leaking. But I refuse to let that stop me.
“I’ll move down if they come and then move back up once the tar is cooled and dry.”
Dad is fuming like one of the tar men’s cauldrons. But I figure sometimes Dad likes to fume—not so much about what is happening at the moment but because underneath, he’s fuming about other things—like a crotchety old customer who gave him a rubber check. Or, worse, like his only son is missing.
He is really mad at the world, not me. I figure this day is one of those days, even though for at least a couple of minutes when he was telling us about Mrs. Watson’s toilet trout, he seemed in a better mood. Maybe that’s why Mom thought he might not go berserk. Boy, was she wrong. Steam is coming out of his ears and his nostrils. He takes a deep breath and nearly s
ucks all the air out of the kitchen.
“Now, Art,” Mom says. “What harm can it do? She won’t fall off. And if the tar men come, we’ll get her down in time.”
Dad sits back down and picks up his fork. He stabs a piece of meat loaf and then another and then another, and I have to wonder who he is really stabbing. “Fine. Have it your way. She falls off and breaks her neck, it ain’t my fault.” Then he looks at me. “And don’t go near anyone’s antennas or skylights.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” I say before he can say anything else. I jump up, kiss his cheek, and dash straight to my room. Well, my old room. The one Elaine has already entirely taken over. I need a couple more books, and I am planning on swiping her flashlight in case the batteries in mine die and I need to see in the dark.
Jelly Bean squeals the instant I close the door. She always sounds like someone is sticking her with pins. Elaine is sitting on her bed with her music blaring. She is drawing in her big sketchbook with her fancy pencils.
“Hey,” I say.
“I can’t believe Dad,” she says without looking up from her book. “That poor fish.”
“It was funny. A fish in the toilet.” I move closer. “Whatcha drawing?”
She shrugs.
“Little green men with big bug eyes and pear-shaped heads?”
“None of your business. Why are you here anyway? Did Dad put the kibosh on the roof? I heard him hollering at you.”
“Mom straightened him out.”
“So how come you’re not up there then?”
“I need a couple of things.”
“Well, get them and get out.” She goes back to her drawing. I try to sneak a peek, but she keeps it hidden. And that’s when I remember Brian and the way he was writing signs to me. Elaine’s sketchbook would be really handy for signs. I could write nice, big messages. She keeps an extra one under her bed, but how can I sneak it out of the room without telling her about Brian? All I need is for her to find out about him. She’d tell Mom, who’d tell Dad, and then Dad would go all berserk again, and he wouldn’t calm down. He’d probably climb onto the roof and throw all my stuff down and forbid me from ever, ever going on the roof again.
I open the closet. Elaine keeps her camp flashlight in there, but it’s probably buried under the pile of dirty clothes crammed inside.
“Hey,” Elaine says. “What are you doing?”
“I need a flashlight.”
“You got your own.”
“Aw, come on,” I say. “Let me take yours too. Just for backup.”
Jelly Bean squeals even louder. Elaine opens her cage, which is right next to her bed, and lifts her out. She hugs the rodent to her chest and strokes her head. “Shhh, it’s OK. The creep will be gone soon.” Jelly Bean wiggles around until her little white-and-brown body is snuggled under Elaine’s chin.
“So,” I say. “Can I take it?”
“Yeah, just don’t break it.”
I dig through the mound of smelly clothes and locate the flashlight. I test it. It shines bright. I click it off. But I still need the sketchbook. There is no way in jumpin’ blue heck she will give me her spare. Sketchbooks are like sacred or something to Elaine. She has stacks of them filled with drawings and paintings and little doodles and scribbles. She loves flowers and birds and mountains and cows and spaceships and, of course, eyeballs. Lots and lots of eyes. They’re creepy.
I need to get her out of the room. I lean against my dresser, considering the situation. A diversion is needed. If I were a spy, I’d have a smoke bomb. But as luck would have it, I don’t have to do anything because the phone rings downstairs. Please let it be for Elaine. Please. I cross my fingers and wait, and then a few seconds later, Mom calls. “Elaine, it’s for you.”
“The phone,” I say. “Mom just said it’s for you.”
“I heard her,” Elaine says as she gently sets Jelly Bean in her cage.
I wait a little bit until I’m sure she’s gone. Then I slide under the bunk like Mickey Mantle sliding into second and snatch the sketchbook. Perfect.
It’s too risky to carry it downstairs and outside, so I open the window screen and toss it out into the side yard. Then I dash down the steps with my pillow, the flashlight, and a copy of The Field Guide to the Stars and Planets crammed inside the pillowcase. “See ya,” I say.
Dad is in his chair watching the news. I pause for just a second and watch the TV. They’re talking about the war. I hate the news. All of it.
I swallow and look back at my father. I figure he’s missing Bud. The other day, Dad and I were driving down Baltimore Pike, and he had to pull over and cry a little after hearing an old song on the radio. It was some old-timey song—“Old Danny Boy” or “Oh, Danny Boy.” He pretended he wasn’t crying. Said he had to check to see if the trunk was shut. But I saw him back there wiping his eyes.
“See ya,” I say again.
Dad doesn’t say anything. I think it’s because he is holding his breath.
I miss Bud too. I’m worried about him too, but I never say it out loud. I guess I don’t want Dad to worry that I’m missing Bud at the same time he’s missing him. Sometimes, it’s possible to have too much worry under one roof.
Four
From my perch on the roof, I have a clear view of the sky, steel blue on the fringes but bright and blue like a robin’s egg for the most part. There isn’t a cloud to be seen, and that’s a good thing because I don’t want it to rain. Not on my first night under the stars on top of the world. With plenty of daylight still to go, I sit on the beach chair and peer through my binoculars, hoping to see Brian. Now that I am armed with Elaine’s sketchbook, I can write larger messages. I scan the horizon and then bring the glasses around in time to see Linda riding down the sidewalk on her bike. I watch until she rides onto my lawn and I can’t see her anymore. I jump up and dash to the edge of the roof. “Linda, come on up.”
“You come down.”
“No. Come on up. It’s great.”
I know Linda is scared, but she has to at least try. “Come on. You’ll be OK.”
“The peach tree is in the way,” she calls.
“Just get on the other side. No big deal.”
Then I hear her holler, “Owwww.”
I look over the edge. “What’s wrong?”
“Stupid tree poked me in the butt.”
I laugh. “Don’t take it personal. Just climb up the ladder.”
She makes her way up, shaky at first, but she makes it. I help her off the wooden ladder and over the roof edge. I will admit that even for me, that part of the climb is scary. I have to take a deep breath every time.
“Hey,” I say.
Linda looks mighty nervous. Her legs are shaking.
“It’s OK,” I say.
“I’ve never been on the roof before.”
I take her hand. “Come on. Closer to my camp.”
“Whatcha doin’?” she asks. I think she’s trying to keep her cool.
“You can have my chair.”
“Nah, I’ll stand.” She still sounds pretty scared. “I just came to ask if you wanted to go down to the playground.”
“No, not now. I’d rather sit up here.” I glance toward Brian’s roof. Could Linda be trusted with such top-secret information?
“How come? You ain’t doin’ nothin’ but sittin’ up here.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?” Linda smiles and smashes her glasses into her face.
“Can you keep a secret?” I whisper.
“Sure. What gives?”
I spill the beans—every single one. I tell her about Brian and the signs and how I am waiting on the roof for him to come back.
“No kidding? You’re brave. How do you know he’s not a nut or an ax murderer or somethin’?” Linda pushes her hand through her curly hair and unt
angles a knot.
“I just know,” I say. “I think he’s nice.” I pick up my binoculars and look toward Brian’s roof. “Shhh, he’s back.”
“Like he’s gonna hear,” Linda says and then laughs a little. “Jeez.”
She tries to grab the binoculars from me, but the strap is secure around my neck. “Hey, you trying to strangle me?”
“Better me than him. Let me see.”
“OK, OK. Hold your horses.”
I slip the binoculars off and give them to her. She looks. “Where?”
“Over there.” I point toward Brian’s roof.
“Where? All I see is sky.”
“Give ’em to me.” Not everyone knows how to use binoculars right off.
I find Brian in the sights and wave. He holds up a sign. Hi!
I help Linda focus the lenses, and she finally sees him. “Oh, he’s kind of cute.”
“See, I told you. Keep watching while I write a sign.”
I write: Hi, Brian. What are you doing? Then I hold up the sign.
I take the binocs from Linda.
Brian is writing, and then I read: I’m gonna work on my truck.
Linda grabs the binoculars. “Truck? He’s got a truck?”
I shrug. “Guess so.”
I write OK and hold it up.
“How old is he?” Linda asks. “Probably at least sixteen if he has a truck. And, boy, will you catch trouble for making friends with a teenager.”
“Nobody knows, and I don’t think he’s sixteen.”
“He’s older?” Linda says with a touch of Oh my God in her voice. She shields her eyes and looks toward Brian’s house.
“No, I think he’s younger. Fifteen.”
Linda laughs. “Fifteen, sixteen. You’re still gonna catch it.”
I look through the binocs again, but Brian has already left his roof.
“He’s gone.” I snag my cooler of iced tea and take a drink. I invite Linda to help herself, but she shrugs it off.
“Probably went to work on his truck,” Linda says. “So now you can go to the playground with me.”
“I don’t know. I might miss something.”
