Jelly Bean Summer

by Joyce Magnin

  A few kids are ahead of us in line, including Beezo, Rat, and Joey.

  “Hey,” Beezo says. “Cool UFO. Did it go back to its planet after the show?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Didn’t you see it last night? It took off around midnight.”

  “Did not,” Rat says.

  “Is that what that strange light in the sky was?” the Candy Lady asks, staring straight at me.

  “Get outta here,” Beezo says. “That was just a fake UFO made from junk.”

  Linda shrugs. “Think what you want.”

  Beezo grabs his bag of red dots and caramel swirls.

  Rat orders seven Swedish Fish, six caramel swirls, and a pack of Sugar Babies.

  Mrs. Walker has all the candy in boxes on three shelves inside a glass case. All you have to do is point to what you want, and she’ll drop it into little white bags. Sometimes, she gets a little cranky and yells if we are taking too long.

  Joey is just kind of standing there. Then he says to me with a twisted-up face, “Are you for real? Was that a real spaceship?”

  “Sure was,” I say. “Gone now though.” Then I change the subject. “My dad is planning a big surprise tonight for the Fourth of July. Everyone is invited to meet in our alley.”

  “What kind of surprise?” Rat asks.

  “Don’t know,” Linda says. “Just have to come and see.”

  “Hey, maybe it’s another flying saucer,” Beezo says.

  I ignore him and ordered Linda’s ten red licorice whips.

  “And a box of Dots,” Linda says.

  “And a box of Dots.” I roll my eyes.

  Mrs. Walker wraps the long, thin whips around her hand to make them more manageable and then pushes them into the bag.

  Linda grabs them.

  I ask Mrs. Walker for ten caramel swirls. She drops them into a bag, and then I pay for the candy.

  “You buying for both of you today, Joyce?” Mrs. Walker asks.

  “Yes. It was part of a deal.”

  “You and your schemes,” Mrs. Walker says.

  Linda and I jump on our bikes and pedal for home.

  “You can have my book collection,” I say.

  “That’s stupid. You ain’t going.”

  “I am too. I’ll find a way.” I hit a small rock, and my front wheel wobbles. “You’ll see. Just do me a favor and tell Elaine that I really am sorry.”

  “She knows it.”

  “Then how come she’s acting so mean?”

  “‘Cause it’s hard to get over things. Like when you broke the door on my Easy-Bake. Remember?”

  I smile. “Yeah. You were pretty sore at me. But it was an accident.”

  “I know. But I was really mad. But then I got to be OK with it. My door was still busted, but we were still friends. Jelly Bean is still dead, but you and Elaine are still sisters.”

  Without any pockets, I have to hold the candy bag and the handlebars at the same time, and I can feel the bag getting wet from my sweaty palms. I hate sweaty palms. “She won’t ever get over it.”

  And neither will I.

  But I have to try.

  I ride ahead of Linda. I pedal harder when we hit the hill. It is so much easier going down the hill. I let go of the handlebars and stretch my arms out and soar. I’m a bird.

  Twenty

  Finally, after waiting all day, the time comes for the grand unveiling of my dad’s latest invention. Even Elaine can’t resist. She joins the rest of us—practically the entire neighborhood. Well, our whole block anyway. We are all waiting in the alley for my father to come out of the garage with…well, with whatever he’s been hiding. It’s pretty exciting. I can feel it in the air. Folks are used to my father doing crazy things, but still…you never know what to expect.

  Linda’s parents are there. Mrs. Costello is wearing a red-and-white-striped shirt and blue shorts. She looks like an American flag. She and Linda’s dad are standing next to Joey Patrillo’s parents. Linda is hanging out near me. Her mom obviously forced her to dress for the Fourth—red-and-white-striped shirt, blue shorts, white sneakers. Sheesh.

  The DeLucas are there—all nine of them—seven kids and two parents. Even Cass Duthart is standing near her fence. The big, old sourpuss bellyacher. Even she finds it hard to stay away. All in all, I’d say it is a good crowd, prepared for pretty much anything.

  Elaine stands off to the side, a little faraway from the main crowd. I don’t dare bother her—talk about a sourpuss.

  Brian is walking down the alley. He spies Elaine and heads straight for her like he’s steel and she’s a magnet. They stand kind of close. I can’t bear to watch.

  The sun is pretty much down. Venus blinks into place as the sky turns grayish-purple with streaks of clouds, the color of my mother’s silvery pie tins. It is almost time to head to Clifton Field for the fireworks display. My father better not make us miss it. Some of the other people in the crowd are getting restless.

  “Come on, Magnin,” calls Nick DeLuca Senior. “We gotta get to the field.”

  “Yeah,” Mrs. Costello says. “We want to see what you got cooking.”

  Then it happens. The garage door opens a couple of inches, and then BAM, Dad pushes it open the whole way. It slams against the ceiling and rattles the tracks.

  “Happy Fourth of July,” Dad says.

  I crane my neck to try to see what he has been hiding. But all I see is a strange mound, something covered by a large canvas tarp. That has to be it—for sure. I glance at Elaine and Brian. She is actually smiling, and I figure that’s a good thing. Even if it is because of Brian and his googly eyes.

  Dad pushes the contraption onto the driveway pad.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” he says. “Boys and girls. In honor of this day of independence and in the hope that our sons and brothers, our daughters and sisters will all come home soon.” He looks at Brian. “And in honor of those who won’t be back. I present—”

  A fanfare of trumpets blares from our house. Mom is standing at the dining room window. She must be working the portable CD player. Dad rigged up some speakers so they’d blast out loud.

  “It gives me great honor to present the Cannon of Freedom and Liberty.” Dad looks so proud with his chest puffed out and a smile as wide as all outdoors. It is nice to see him smile—really smile.

  He snaps off the canvas, and lo and behold, there it is. A cannon!

  An actual cannon with a long, copper barrel with a diameter about the size of the large Skippy jar. The whole thing is on wagon wheels. My father has built a cannon.

  I lean in to Linda. “Now that’s cool.”

  No one else moves or does anything. Then slowly, clap by clap, the crowd applauds and cheers.

  “Does it work?” hollers Nick DeLuca Senior.

  “It sure does,” Dad says.

  “Is that thing even legal?” calls Mr. Costello.

  Dad doesn’t answer him. “Follow me,” he says instead.

  Dad pulls the cannon on a rope like it’s a kids’ pull toy and heads down the alley. The whole crowd follows behind. We all light our punks, which are sticks made of bamboo and coated with horse manure or sometimes sawdust. Dad likes to say they’re all horse manure because it makes people screw up their faces and say, “Ewwwww.” Anyway, in the dark, the punks are like fireflies, and we follow Dad down to Scullion Field. Linda says he’s the Pied Piper. I smile and glance over at Elaine. She has her punk, and she’s walking with Brian. Dad pulls the cannon through the gate and out into the center of the field, right onto the pitcher’s mound.

  “Sit on the bleachers,” Dad says in a loud voice. “Sit on the bleachers. Don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “He’s not going to fire that thing,” Mr. Hazel says.

  “I hope not,” Nick Deluca Senior’s wife, Ann, says. “But he just might. He’
s a nut.”

  “Sure, he’s going to fire it,” says Nick. “And he ain’t a nut. The man’s a genius.”

  I guess in a way, my dad is a genius—the way he can build the things he imagines. And he might be a nutjob too. I know that he is going to blast that cannon into the night. I wonder if it’s his way of trying to send a signal to Bud. Like somehow the blast will make it all the way to wherever my brother is, and he’ll hear it and say, “That’s my dad.”

  Elaine and Brian sit next to each other on a top row. Real close. Their knees touch. I wonder if she knows he’s leaving soon. I wonder if he’ll tell her I’m planning on going to Arizona with him.

  The next thing I know, my mother is standing on the pitcher’s mound with my father. She raises her hands to quiet everyone, and then she bursts into song.

  “O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain…”

  Pretty soon, the whole crowd is singing along with my mom.

  After the song, Dad pulls a box of stick matches from his pants pocket. “Now this should work. I couldn’t really give it a proper test but here goes.”

  A gasp filters through the crowd. The cannon is, of course, pointed away from the bleachers. The barrel is nearly raised to point straight up toward the moon.

  Dad lights a long fuse. He grabs my mom’s hand, and they run for dear life toward the bleachers.

  And then…

  KA-BLAM!

  The sky lights up with the prettiest firework colors—red and blue and yellow. And then another one. KA-BLAM! More colors rain down. Red in the shape of an umbrella.

  Then Dad runs out and shoves something in the barrel and lights it again. And again. And again.

  About ten minutes later, Dad runs out of fireworks, and my mother starts singing again, this time “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Which she doesn’t do very well. Happy Fourth of July.

  Mom hugs Dad. I think he’s crying a little because he wipes his eyes.

  “That’s it,” Dad says. “That’s the show.” Smoke still pours out of the cannon barrel. And I am so proud of my dad.

  The crowd applauds as Dad takes a graceful bow. The bleachers clear quickly as folks make their way to Clifton Field through the lingering gray smoke for the real fireworks display.

  “Wow, Dad,” I say. “Where did you get fireworks?”

  “Customer paid me in fireworks for installing a water heater.”

  Good old Dad. He often gets paid in cookies and fudge, but this is the first time he’s gotten paid in fireworks.

  Dad puts his arm around Mom. “Should we go to Clifton?”

  She shakes her head. “This was enough for one night. Let’s just go home.”

  I give a quick look around. I don’t see Elaine or Brian.

  “You go ahead to the field, Joyce,” Dad says. “Just don’t stay out too late.”

  “OK,” I grab Linda Costello’s hand, and we run toward Clifton.

  “My father says your dad is crazy,” Linda says.

  “Yep. He sure is.”

  Twenty-One

  A few days after the big Fourth of July extravaganza, I go to my bedroom—the one inside the house—and make a discovery. Jelly Bean’s cage is missing. There’s just a picture of her in a silver frame sitting on the table where her cage used to be. It makes me stop dead in my tracks.

  “Where’s the cage?” I ask Elaine, who is drawing as usual.

  “Basement,” is all she says.

  “What are you drawing?”

  “None of your business.”

  I try to sneak a peek. I’m pretty sure she’s drawing Brian.

  I pull a pair of shorts from a drawer. My blue shorts with the red Italian ice stain from when Elaine and I went to Rosatti’s and got Italian ice, and my paper cone had a rip and the cherry ice leaked out. For a second, it makes me think about how much I miss my sister and wish she would come back to me. Then maybe I could change my mind about Arizona.

  “I might go to Brian’s house today,” I say as I slip the shorts on. “He might be finished fixing the truck. Wanna come?”

  “No.”

  “He might be getting ready to drive it around the Park and then to Arizona.”

  “I don’t care.”

  But I think she does care.

  I swallow twice because I’m thinking about telling Elaine that I plan to go with him. I guess I’m staring at her because she says, “Take a picture. It will last longer.”

  “Just thinking,” I say. “Maybe I’ll go with Brian to Arizona. How would you like that?”

  Elaine laughs a little. “You’re crazy. Dad will never let you.”

  “Maybe I won’t tell him.”

  And I sashay out the door. That’s what Mom would say I did. Sashay. It means to walk casually, like you just don’t care what people think, but you use exaggerated movements with your hips and shoulders. It’s kind of uppity.

  • • •

  Polly and I run over to Crestview. Brian is out back as usual, working on the truck. Only this time, the truck is running. It’s kind of sputtering, but still, it’s the first time I’ve heard the truck run. It must be music to Brian’s ears. I also hear the flying saucer music coming from the garage, and it makes me feel…something. I’m not sure what exactly, but the closest I can explain is to say that the music makes me feel homesick. I figure Brian must really like it.

  “You got it working,” I say. “That’s terrific.”

  “Yeah, sorry I haven’t been around much…you know, up on the roof and stuff. I’ve been pretty busy.”

  Brian doesn’t sound excited. Instead, he sounds like the music makes me feel: homesick.

  “It took a few days to rebuild that carburetor. But it works great now,” he says.

  “So I guess you’ll be getting ready to drive it to Arizona.”

  “Yeah, s’pose so.” He looks at me like he wants to say something else, but he changes his mind and says, “Elaine doing better? You know, with…everything.”

  “She’s just drawing as usual, and I’m not sure if she’s doing better. I think my dad took Jelly Bean’s cage away.”

  “That’s good,” Brian says. “Good to get rid of reminders, except…my dad still has some of Mom’s clothes hanging around and…”

  He rubs the truck fender.

  “And you have Mike’s truck,” I say. “Guess it’s hard to get rid of the things that matter.”

  “Yeah.” Brian looks into the engine. “Yeah, sure is.”

  “So when are we leaving?” I ask.

  “We?” Brian says. “You still want to come with me? You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Polly lets out a loud bark.

  “I thought you might change your mind on account of…” He looks at me. “Never mind.”

  “So when?” I ask. “So I can plan.”

  “Tomorrow is the tenth. I’ll drive her around the Park. You know, for Mike’s birthday.” He taps on something in the engine. “And for Bud.”

  My stomach goes wobbly. “I’m ready.” But I can feel my face turn red from my neck to my cheeks. I blush like that when I’m scared or nervous, and in that moment, I am both.

  “How far is it to Arizona?” I ask.

  “Two thousand, three hundred and forty miles…give or take. I figured it out on the map.”

  Wow. Two thousand, three hundred and forty miles. I gulp air. That’s far. I’d never been any farther away from home than Charleston, South Carolina.

  I watch him fiddle with a few things under the hood. “Dad says he’s got the gas money, but it’s not too late to go by bus…if I want.”

  “Guess I’ll be over tomorrow,” I say.

  • • •

  I head straight back to my house, with Polly close to my knees. She knows when something is up, and I have t
he distinct impression she does not want me to go—but I have to. I have to leave now. I don’t think I can live another day in the same house with Elaine when she won’t forgive me. When things will never, ever be the same.

  The first thing I do is find my mother. She is working with her African violets. She pulls dead leaves from them, only they aren’t always completely dead. Mom has a way of sitting the leaf in a shallow glass of water, and in a few days, the leaf grows roots.

  “Mom,” I say. “I was just wondering something.”

  “What’s that?” she says without looking at me.

  “I was…I was wondering when the army will find Bud.”

  She stops her work and looks out the window like she’s looking clear to Vietnam. She takes a breath and says, “I don’t know, Joyce. All we can do is hope it will be soon.”

  “But they’ll find him, right, Mom? They’ll find him.”

  Mom puts her hand on my cheek. “Sure. Sure they will.”

  “OK. I was just checking.”

  “You should have lunch,” Mom says.

  I pour myself a glass of iced tea. “Is Elaine better now?”

  “For the most part. Letting Dad take the cage was a big thing. She’ll be fine soon.”

  After eating my peanut butter sandwich, I go to my room upstairs. Elaine isn’t there. Maybe she went over to Sac’s. Her sketchbook is on her bed. I am forbidden from ever opening her sketchbook.

  I sit on her bed and open the large tablet. The first page has pictures of Jelly Bean. The page after that has pictures of eyes and flying saucers. And then there is a page of Brians. She drew him really well. I knew right away it was him. And there is a page of Buds and more Jelly Beans.

  Then I find a page of me. Me and the side-yard gate. It makes my stomach hurt. I find a pencil on the table and I write across the page. “I said I was SORRY.” And then I add seven exclamation points.