Summer on the Moon

by Adrian Fogelin

  She looked up at him. “No, the fighting. My parents fight all the time now.”

  Livvy’s idea of a fight couldn’t come close to the battles between Damien’s mom and her boyfriends. “So, go somewhere else. Close a door. You have a bedroom, right?”

  “It wouldn’t help! The walls are cardboard.”

  “Your dad builds houses with cardboard walls? Nice.”

  She didn’t seem to notice his sarcasm. Instead she hugged herself. “This morning’s fight was the worst. That’s part of why I showed up so early at your house.”

  He stared at the hole in the toe of his left sneaker; it was definitely time to make an exit. He glanced over at his house, then sat down cross-legged on the pavement across from her. “Yow!” He quickly shifted his position so that just the seat of his shorts and the soles of his shoes touched the driveway. “Your legs must be asbestos.”

  She almost smiled.

  “So. What was the fight about?”

  “Money. Mom acts like we’re broke.”

  “Wish my family was broke the way your family’s broke. You own all these houses, right?”

  “True.” She took a deep shaky breath and sat up a little straighter.

  “Okay … so … problem solved.” He got to his feet.

  She popped to her feet too. “You want to take a look at the vandalism? It’s somewhere near the clubhouse.”

  “It’s on Quarter Moon. The cop told me,” he added when she looked at him funny.

  She dusted off the butt of her shorts. “We’d better tell the General first.”

  Wasn’t it his job to say that? “You getting tight with the old guy?”

  “I like him. He’s nice.”

  Nice? The word must have a different meaning in “the Heights.”

  22

  THE DEFENSE

  Your dad thinks this is worth two thousand dollars?” A couple of small glass panes in the front door were smashed. The rest of the damage was in the form of spray paint spewed across the garage doors.

  “Does it matter what it’s worth?” Livvy watched him closely. “Don’t you think it’s just wrong to do this to somebody’s property?”

  “Sure. Whatever.” He turned away and started walking.

  “You think vandalism is okay?” She got in front of him and blocked his path. “Socko!”

  “What!”

  “Just tell me why you did it.”

  “Did it?” He looked over his shoulder at the blast of four-letter words on the garage door. “What makes you think I did it?”

  “Yesterday the real estate agent saw someone running away as she pulled up, a kid in a black T-shirt.”

  “Then it couldn’t have been me, could it?” He started walking again. “I was with you when she cruised by.”

  Livvy hurried to catch up with him. “You were, weren’t you?”

  “Exactly what did you try to talk your dad out of?”

  “Prosecuting you! I told him that with your childhood … and, you know, where you come from … your family and all … I told him he should let you off.”

  “But I didn’t do anything! And what do you know about my childhood? You’ve never even met my mom. She would kill me personally if I messed up like that.” Angry, he was walking fast, but Livvy just lengthened her stride.

  “I was standing up for you, all right? I was trying to help!” He dropped the board on the ground to skate away, but she grabbed his arm. “Sorry! I made a mistake! I jumped to the wrong conclusion.” She let go and turned away. “Oh, forget it.”

  He only realized they were in front of the skeleton house when she walked through the door frame and sat down on the steps.

  Socko stood with one foot on the skateboard, pushing it back and forth. This was his chance to split. But sitting with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, she looked as defeated as Mr. Marvin in his chair in the lobby of the Kludge.

  “So you made a mistake, big deal. I’ll get you back for it later.” He left the board at the curb and joined her on the stairs. It was her turn to smart-mouth back, but she didn’t. She didn’t say anything. What was he supposed to do now?

  “See those beams?” he asked, pointing up. “I walked across one of them the other day.”

  She blinked slowly and then tipped her head back. “Get out!”

  “Yeah. I did it barefoot. Those are my socks over there.” As soon as he pointed them out, he wished he hadn’t. They were shriveled and dirty. But Livvy didn’t waste any time checking out his socks. Instead, she bounded up the steps. When she got to the landing, she sidled over to the edge and stared at the floor below. “It’s a long way down, isn’t it?”

  “Nine, ten feet, easy,” he said, following her up the stairs.

  She placed the sole of her right sneaker on the beam, then the left.

  “I didn’t say you had to try this.” Wishing he was holding a two-by-four for balance, Socko eased out onto a beam a few beams away from the one she’d chosen.

  “You know, this is sort of like walking a balance beam.” She took another step and looked over at him. “Like in gymnastics?”

  “I guess.” The only “gymnastic” equipment at Grover Cleveland was half a dozen dingy gray mats so old the padding inside had turned to concrete.

  Livvy balanced carefully on one foot and raised her other leg. “Ta-da!”

  “Would you be careful?” Even though she’d given him the whole first-aid lecture the day before, she was a little bit like Damien in the stupid-risk department.

  “No worries. I took five years of gymnastics.”

  Socko scuffed out to the middle of the span and lowered himself cautiously, his heart pounding, until his butt was safely parked on the beam. Livvy stepped toward him from beam to beam, walking lightly on the balls of her feet, then sat on the beam next to his, facing him.

  Why hadn’t she just sat down where she was? She was sitting so close now that if he swung his legs, he’d kick her.

  Up close, she wasn’t like Damien at all. She was a girl, and her girl-ness was beginning to get to him. “I better go now … gotta check on the General.” He pressed his palms against the beam, about to get back on his feet, but decided that if he tried to stand he’d probably get down the same way he had the last time. He already knew it would be painful, why add embarrassment?

  Luckily he thought of another way. Before the city tore it down, he’d spent a gazillion hours at the park near the Kludge, messing around on the rusty jungle gym, hanging by his hands and knees, kicking his feet over his head in a flip dismount. The beams were a little close together for that move. Besides, that would be like showing off. He decided to keep it simple.

  Reaching to her left, he grabbed the beam she was sitting on and let his body drop so that he hung for a moment by his arms, then let go.

  “Not bad.” said Livvy as the beam she was sitting on twanged. Socko had barely straightened up from his own landing when the soles of her sneakers hit the floor. “Yes!” She threw her arms up over head. “I really stuck my landing.”

  It was definitely time for him to split. Just then the phone in her pocket began playing something classical. He was turning away when he felt a tug on his belt loop.

  “Wait!” One finger in his belt loop, she hit the Talk button on her phone and pressed the cell to her ear with her free hand. “Oh, hi … Of course, Mother.” She rolled her eyes skyward. “But Mother, I didn’t storm off! I just went away … Now? Nothing.”

  Socko whispered, “Ask her if she heard from the cop.”

  Livvy’s finger slid out of his belt loop. “I know … but do you guys have to fight about everything?”

  Socko circled Livvy, trying to get her attention. “Ask!” he hissed.

  She covered her eyes with her hand. “It’s scary when you two fight.”

  “About the cop?” he whispered.

  She put a finger to her lips. “By the way. Did you hear back from that policeman?”

  He waited to hear t
he news. It felt like red ants were walking on his arms.

  “Okay,” Livvy said. “Good to know.”

  Socko opened his eyes wide at her.

  “Sure. Chinese is fine … I don’t know, just get me some dim sum … I love you too.” Livvy thumbed the End button and slid the cell into her pocket. It rang again instantly, this time with a little jingle of bells. She whipped the phone out of her pocket and turned away from Socko. “Where’ve you been, Izzard-Lizard? I’ve been trying to reach you since forever!”

  He stood stunned. “Hey!” He stepped in front of her. “About the cop?”

  “You’ve been cleared.” She turned away again.

  He turned with her. “So—I’m off the hook?”

  “That’s what ‘cleared’ means.” She looked annoyed, but after watching him for a second, her look softened. “Izzy? Two minutes. Don’t go anywhere.” She hung up and pocketed the cell. “Of course you’re off the hook. You didn’t commit the crime.”

  He sat down on the curb hard.

  “Socko?” She sat next to him. “What’s wrong?”

  He leaned forward, holding his head in his hands. “You ever know anyone who’s been sent to juvie?”

  “Juvie?”

  “Juvenile hall? Kid jail?”

  “No. I guess not.”

  “I have. Plenty.” He stared at the patch of road between his sneakers. “Some of them didn’t even do the stuff they got sent up for.”

  She put a hand on his back, then quickly folded her hands and squeezed them between her knees. “Are you sure they didn’t?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure! Your dad wanted to nail someone for the damages, so why not me? I fit the description.”

  “Not ‘someone,’ Socko. He wanted to nail the perpetrator.” She slipped the phone back out, punched a button. “Izzy?”

  Disgusted, he stood up and walked away. When she followed him, he picked up his skateboard, but listening to her talk to her friend, he wished he’d skated on ahead. He felt like he was eavesdropping on a personal conversation as she described what had happened with her parents. But they didn’t get far before she came to a sudden stop. “Is that Daria’s voice? Is she at your house?” The eager glow Livvy had been giving off since Izzy called dimmed. “Sure. No problem. We’ll talk later.”

  Livvy closed her cell and slipped it into her pocket.

  Their houses were just ahead. He expected her to follow him inside, invited or not.

  Instead, she turned up her own driveway.

  “So … bye.” He walked backwards until she disappeared into her house.

  Socko and the General played Rummy 500 at the kitchen table, a Nature Channel show about meerkats on in the background.

  “Another player wouldn’t hurt,” the General grumped. “What about that girl across the street? Maybe she’d pay attention to the game.”

  “I’m paying attention.” Socko turned away from the five meerkats who were standing tall on their skinny back legs.

  “Maybe we can talk Delia Marie into joining us,” said the General as the multicolor car pulled into the driveway.

  Delia plunked a bag of apples down in the middle of their game. “Take a look at these babies! Three dollars and twenty-nine cents for twenty-six apples, I counted them! That’s less than thirteen cents each!”

  The General lifted the bag off the rummy discard pile. “Bet you didn’t buy ’em at Donatelli’s.”

  “Don’t even talk to me about Donatelli! He’s been robbing me all these years. I found this discount grocery store right near Home Depot—it’s like a Home Depot of food! I got two-for-one family-size boxes of Cocoa Puffs and ten packages of Ramen noodles for a buck ninety-nine.”

  “Welcome to America, Delia Marie.” The General picked up a card and inserted it in the fan of cards in his hand. “But next time, buy bananas. These pearly whites?” He tapped one of his unnaturally white teeth. “Glued to my gums. One good bite and you have an apple with teeth.”

  “Thanks for the mental image!” Delia carried the groceries into the kitchen.

  A car pulled into the driveway across the street. In a moment a thin woman in a long black skirt and a red blouse climbed out, a plastic sack over her arm. Must be Mother, Socko thought. Balanced on high heels, she stood as straight and skinny as a meerkat. The bag with slashy Chinese characters printed in red on the side looked like it outweighed her.

  “Do either of you know what dim sum is?” he asked, watching the woman walk up to the house.

  23

  ONE HUGE RAT

  Socko and Livvy lay on their stomachs at the edge of the empty pool. The early morning sun cast a sharp shadow across the floor of the blue concrete hole.

  “That is one huge rat!” Livvy breathed.

  Socko took his eyes off the animal and stared at her—she had to be kidding. It was definitely an opossum. Even living in the city all his life, he knew that.

  The opossum rambled to the deep end of the pool, tried to scrabble up the wall, then slid back down. “It’ll never get out that way,” said Livvy. The opossum lay quiet for a few seconds. “You think there’s something wrong with it?”

  “Maybe it’s overheated or something.” The animal tottered to its feet, then stumbled out of the shadow. In the sunlight its fur had a greasy shine.

  “Did you see rats that big when you lived in the city?”

  She wasn’t kidding; she really thought it was a rat. Socko decided to string her along. “Oh yeah, we had ’em that size and bigger. Not in our apartment, but around the Dumpsters and stuff.” He didn’t want her to think they’d had rats personally. But even though Delia had kept their place clean, rats came in now and then from other apartments. Sometimes he’d wake up to the snap of a springing trap, followed by the scream of a rat that was only half-dead—another thing he’d never tell Livvy about.

  “I’ve seen rats at the pet store.” Livvy rested her chin on her folded arms. “But they weren’t this big, and they were cuter.”

  He wished Damien were here. Damien knew how to take a story right up to the edge. “This is a different species. Ratus giganticus.”

  Livvy looked suspicious. He kept a straight face. Ratus giganticus walked into a side wall, then shook itself.

  She knelt up. “I guess you’ll have to teach me to skate somewhere else.”

  “We can’t just walk away and leave him in there.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “I don’t know, Socko. It might be rabid.”

  The opossum yawned, showing off sharp yellow teeth.

  “But if we don’t help it get out, it’ll starve or die of thirst.”

  “You’re right.” Livvy dug for the cell in her pocket. “Let’s call someone.”

  “Who? The rat suicide helpline?” Socko jumped into the pool, the smack of his sneaker soles reverberating off the pool walls. The opossum whirled around to face him. Socko held out his hands. “It’s okay, man, it’s okay.” The opossum puffed up until every hair stood on end. Socko was within three feet when its mouth gaped and it let out a hiss.

  Socko fell back a step.

  “Give it up, Socko. It’s not worth getting bitten!”

  Socko didn’t want to get bitten, but he didn’t want to give up either. “Wait. Genius idea.” He ran at the short wall and vaulted out of the pool. “I’ll throw something over it.”

  They found a dusty blue tarp near one of the heaps of dead trees.

  “How are you going to do this?” she asked.

  “You know, toss it over him and wrap him up.” He and Damien had never been much into planning. They got an idea and they did it.

  “What if it runs out from under the tarp and bites you?”

  “I won’t get bit!” Socko jumped back into the pool and held the tarp out in front of him. Advancing inch by inch, he tried not to step on the plastic or rattle it. Unexpected sounds seemed to incense the opossum.

  Although it was hissing and flashing its yellow teeth, he noticed that the animal was backing steadi
ly toward the wall at the deep end. Socko began to feel sorry for it. “Hey, I’m not trying to mess with you. I just wanna get you outta here.”

  Livvy danced along the edge of the pool, following the action. “Don’t let it squinch itself up against the wall! You won’t be able to get the tarp over it. Socko, it’s about to squinch!”

  “Go over there and make a loud noise. Scare him my way.”

  Livvy dashed to the edge at the deep end. “Happy birthday to you!” Her thin, high-pitched voice cut through the air. Socko wished he could cover his ears. And he wasn’t the only one. “Happy birthday to you!” Her singing enraged Ratus giganticus so much, it charged.

  No time to think, Socko flung the tarp over the opossum and fell on it. Hoping he hadn’t landed on it too hard, he knelt, bunched the blue plastic around the animal, and picked it up.

  “Good work!” Livvy reached out. “Pass him to me.” Her blonde hair riffled in the wind, brushing his arm as he handed up the heavy bundle of crumpled tarp. Walking to the shallow end to climb out, he could feel the place where her hair had touched him.

  By the time he reached her, the way-to-go look in her eyes was gone. She stared up at him through her bangs. “He isn’t moving, Socko. At all.”

  It’s playing possum, Socko thought. This is so cool! “I forgot. The bigger species of rats have weak hearts.”

  “You mean you killed him?”

  “Guess we’d better check.”

  While he scouted for a good place to lay down the opossum, Livvy followed him anxiously. “If he’s alive, he’s got to be suffocating inside this tarp!”

  Socko wanted the opossum to wake up someplace where he’d feel at home. But when it came to natural habitats, there weren’t many choices around here. He settled for a spot near one of the heaps of bulldozed trees. Wildlife liked brush piles, and this was a brush pile on steroids.

  Livvy set down the bundle and stepped back. “You do it.”

  When Socko unwrapped the animal, it lay on its side, paws curled against its chest. Saliva foamed in its open mouth.

  Livvy dropped to her knees. “It looks really dead.”

  “It can’t be!” Socko’s knees hit the ground too. “It isn’t bleeding or anything.” He’d seen plenty of dead animals on nature shows dangling from the jaws of a big cat or a bear; he’d seen Frankie dead in the alley behind the Kludge. There was always blood.