A Moment in Magic Hour: A Coming-of-Age Story (Magic Hour Series Book 1)

by John Anthony

  Sometimes I still heard her voice, but it was never clear. It was kind of like a whisper, or a faraway voice you could barely make out and had to struggle to hear.

  Grandma was so pretty, like one of those fancy ladies out of a magazine: a fashion scarf tied under her chin, wavy dark hair done just right, and smiling at something just off the edge of the page. It was like she jumped right out of a movie.

  When she talked to people, she looked them in the eye and smiled at them, listening to what they said. Not thinking of nothing else, but really, truly interested. And never once did I hear her talk about herself.

  Then it hit me how much my mom was like her. Almost perfectly and exactly like her. And I thought about what I’d said to Mom this morning, and how I’d acted. It made me sad that I made her feel bad. It made my stomach hurt, so I headed over to the candy counter to get my mind off of it.

  The candy bins in the store were full of root-beer barrels, red hots, gumdrops, and just about any other candy that was important to kids. I propped open a white paper bag on the ledge and added two scoops of cherry sours, figuring that would be plenty for the sleepover.

  The clerk at the front counter wouldn’t take my fifty cents, since Granddad told her not to. I thanked her anyway and walked out of the store, waving good-bye to them both.

  As I swung my leg over my bike, Becky and Lucy were coming down the sidewalk toward me.

  “Hi, guys,” I said, raising my hand.

  Lucy saw me and waved her hands at me. She turned to Becky, probably asking if she could run ahead.

  Becky nodded, and Lucy ran down the rest of the block to greet me—the pigtails on the side of her head looked like they were struggling to keep up with her.

  “Hi, Jack,” she said as she hugged me.

  “What doing, Lucy?”

  When Lucy was younger, she used to ask what doing instead of what are you doing, and Becky would always correct her. Lucy said it correctly now, but I always said it the old way because it allowed her to correct me. I figured it made her feel good.

  “What are you doing, silly.” She laughed at me. Her words came out slowly, but they were clear as a bell.

  “That’s right.” I smiled. “Just out for your walk?”

  She nodded. “Becky says I can have a candy treat. Your granddad has the best kinds.”

  I nodded. “The root-beer barrels are my favorites.”

  Becky caught up, out of breath. “Sorry, Jack, she gets so excited when she sees you.”

  “Well, I get excited to see her too.” I grinned at Lucy and she blushed.

  “I’m getting root-beer barrels, Beck.”

  Becky nodded. “Let’s go get them, silly.”

  Lucy flung her arms around my shoulders again in another hug. “Bye, Jack.”

  “Enjoy your root-beer barrels,” I said.

  I saw Granddad smiling at Lucy through the window, motioning for her to come into the store. Once again, there was Granddad handing out the extra nice to those who needed it.

  “You guys should come next time we take a journey, Becky.” I watched Lucy walk into the store. “If you wanna.”

  Taking a journey was what we called our walks down to Cherokee Park. Our little group of friends loaded up a red wagon with Hostess pies and pop bottles, and walked down the block to the park.

  There we’d plant ourselves on a shady, grassy slope for the afternoon. The Hostess pies would be put in the sun to “bake,” and we’d read the latest comics, or our copies of Ranger Rick that had just come in the mail. Maybe we’d play statue-maker or TV tag, kick the can, or just lie on our backs and look at the clouds.

  At least until we started hearing our moms calling us home, their voices echoing through the neighborhood.

  I always had to hustle when I heard, Jaaaaack. Dinner.

  Becky brushed the dark hair from her forehead with her fingers. She was wearing short sleeves, but kept tugging on the cuffs as if trying to make them longer. Her clothes looked well-worn and had clearly shrunk a bit. It was like she kept trying to stretch them out again.

  “Thanks, Jack. We’ll see what Pop says.”

  I had a feeling their dad would say no. He didn’t seem to allow them to do much of anything, except go out for short walks a couple of times a day. Becky said it was to protect Lucy, but we had no idea what she needed protection from. After all, she had Becky with her all the time.

  “They can be pretty fun.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” Becky pulled on her sleeves again.

  With that, she walked into the store to be greeted by my granddad. I stopped at the end of the building and watched them from the edge of the window.

  Becky wrapped her arms around Granddad’s middle and put her head on his chest as he patted her on the back. Lucy stood by with a sucker resting in her cheek, probably one Granddad had just pulled from his pocket.

  I started thinking about how it was pretty great of Becky to bring Lucy down to Granddad’s store to get her a treat, and to always take her for walks. Lucy was pretty lucky to have Becky watching out for her.

  Chapter Three

  My little sister Heather had orange baby food up her nose, and she was trying to put more in her mouth with an upside-down baby spoon. A glob of applesauce sat above her right eye.

  Jenny, the other one, looked at me and sneezed. Snot ran out of her nose, covering her upper lip. I imagined it being like a snot cannon and chuckled to myself, wondering how far she could make it shoot. She wiped at her nose with the back of her forearm, covering herself in goop.

  Mom rushed in with a wet washcloth for each of them, and in a couple of magical swipes, they were clean.

  This was life with little sisters, and my parents wanted another one.

  I, on the other hand, was a saint at dinnertime compared to those two. I only spit out tomato chunks or raw onions, since they shouldn’t be in food anyway. And sometimes I mentioned that there were disgusting green or orange veggies on my plate. Or if something just looked gross, like slimy mushrooms. Slimy is okay to play with, not to eat.

  I was nice about it, though. I think.

  Pizza was the perfect food, because it had all the food groups they taught us about in school. I didn’t know why moms and dads didn’t realize this. That night we were having pizza, so there was no reason to protest anything on my plate.

  I sat down at the table and hid my hands on my lap. We were supposed to wash our hands before dinner, but tonight I’d skipped it because my hands were clean-ish.

  Mom would always add -ish to the end of words that meant the word was a little flexible. Like if we were going to be late, she’d say, “We’ll be there at one-ish.” Or if Dad asked how much something was, she’d say, “It’s $10-ish.”

  To me, clean-ish meant pretty clean. But I guess Mom didn’t think clean was a word that should have an -ish since she sent me back to scrub the dirt off my hands and from under my fingernails. It was like she had a special radar that sensed my hands were still dirty without even looking at them.

  What’s wrong with a little dirt on my hands? It’s so unfair.

  I dropped back into my seat with a huff since the girls could sneeze out the inside of their head—right at the table—and were treated like it was normal. And they’d even get table-side cleanup. Imagining little waiters in restaurants whose job was to clean up the dirty faces of children every time a spoonful of baby food accidentally went to their eye instead of their mouths, I lifted my napkin to my mouth and laughed into it.

  Dad glanced at me as he grabbed a piece of pizza. “I hear you were mean to your mom earlier.”

  Uh-oh, here we go.

  “Don’t you think you owe her an apology?” His voice was calm, but firm.

  I shoved a big bite of pizza in my mouth and stared at the crust in my hands. I figured maybe he’d forget his question and move on if I didn’t look at him.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom silently shake her head. She put her hand on top of Dad’s as if
to say, He didn’t mean it; let’s just forget it.

  “I think you owe her an apology.” Dad took a bite of pizza, chewed, and swallowed. “Maybe you should go to your room after dinner and think about that.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “That means no sleepover.”

  Curses! This was getting tough. Maybe you owe me an apology for this new-sister business.

  That was in my head, not out loud. I was eleventeen, not stupid.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled as I ripped off another bite of pizza with my teeth.

  There must have been a little more attitude in my apology than I realized, because Dad stopped chewing and looked at me.

  I hung my head and tried to be more polite this time. “I’m sorry, please.”

  Mom chuckled, and Dad snorted and started coughing into his napkin.

  Mom lowered her head to try to get my attention from across the table. “Thank you, Jack.”

  I looked up to meet her eyes and immediately felt better. Her smile did that.

  Dad seemed to be satisfied enough with my apology, and gave me permission to go to the sleepover at Tommy’s that night.

  I was asked to help clear the table while my parents met with my uncle in the living room after dinner. Then I had to play with my sisters in the TV room until Mom and Dad were done with Uncle Steve. After that, I’d be free.

  I wasn’t sure why my uncle Steve was there. I heard Dad say something about a real tore during dinner, but I didn’t know what that meant. I figured that was what Uncle Steve was called. It meant he was showing Mom and Dad lists of things, and having an open house, which sounded like a fun party.

  All of that was adult stuff. I didn’t need to worry about that.

  I focused on what needed to be done in order to go to the sleepover: keeping an eye on my sisters so Mom and Dad could talk.

  For being little people full of snot and poop, my sisters were okay. They always laughed at the goofy faces I made at them, and they could be pretty entertaining sometimes.

  Heather couldn’t talk yet and always looked frustrated when you couldn’t understand the noises that came out of her. It was like words kept falling out of her mouth before they were formed, because she didn’t have enough teeth yet to hold them in.

  Jenny talked enough for both of them, though. Every time she learned a new word, she had to repeat it a hundred times in a row, like she was afraid she’d forget it.

  It was kind of neat that I could finally figure out what she was trying to tell me, though. For so long, my family would try to figure out what she meant when she pointed at something and spilled a mouthful of nonsense sounds. It was nice to finally hear her talking in whole words and short sentences.

  I just wished they weren’t always questions.

  I didn’t dislike my sisters; I just really wanted a brother too. Seeing Tommy with his brother really made me want someone to horse around with. And someone who wanted to do things I liked. Sure, it was nice to have Tommy and Cubby around, but at the end of the day when the streetlights came on, they went home somewhere else.

  “Hey there, sport.” Uncle Steve sounded like the salesman who sold Dad the old used car that was in the driveway. “Another sister, huh? You must be excited.”

  It was like he didn’t even know me.

  Mom walked up next to me and ruffled my hair with her hand, then bumped me gently with her hip to prompt me into responding to Uncle Steve.

  I raised the corner of my mouth, attempting to smile and show some excitement.

  “I’ll be sure to find you a great new house,” he said. “Got any requests?”

  Huh? “New house?”

  As the words passed over my lips, I looked up at Mom and then over at Dad. Their heads both shook in slow motion, but it wasn’t at me. They were letting Uncle Steve know he’d said something he shouldn’t have. He’d let the cat out of the bag.

  We were moving.

  Living somewhere else had never even occurred to me. I had no memory of ever living anywhere else. This was my house, and where we were supposed to stay.

  People actually move to different houses?

  My head spun.

  I did the only thing my brain could think of doing—I ran upstairs to my room and slammed the door.

  Any other time I would have run out to the front yard and crawled under the branches of the pine tree. It was one of my favorite spots in the world, but right then I needed to be in my room.

  My room. My house. They were mine. The walls held my secrets—they knew the moments I laughed, and when I cried. Pieces of me were in the plaster walls under layers of paint, and deep in the cracks and grain of the wooden floorboards.

  My room knew me.

  The notches in the edge of the door, where Mom marked my height on my birthdays. The squeaky spot on the wooden floor that greeted me every morning, and let Mom know downstairs that I was up and about for the day. The sound of the acorns dropping off the tree and onto the roof every fall. The squirrels removing the nuts and leaving the little caps all over the yard, like little leprechaun hats.

  Those were my things. I didn’t expect that someday they’d belong to someone else.

  There was a gentle knock at the door. I’d know that knock anywhere.

  It was Mom.

  She pushed against the wooden door, and her face appeared. The door creaked open further.

  “Are you okay, Jack?” Her voice was soft.

  I sat on my bed clutching my pillow like it was a life preserver on a sinking ship.

  Women and children on the lifeboats first!

  I didn’t realize I was crying until she sat next to me and wiped my cheeks with her thumbs.

  “I know this is all a lot to take in right now, honey.”

  It was, but I didn’t know how to communicate it. I just nodded.

  She pulled me close and wrapped her arms around me. “It’s tough when things change. It hurts sometimes.”

  She was right. I knew things needed to change. The longer I sat and thought about it, the more it made sense. We didn’t have enough room in the house for everybody. My two sisters already shared a room, and when the third one came—forget it.

  But it didn’t make it any easier. I was still going to have to give up my house.

  “We’ll have the whole summer here.” Mom lifted my head and wiped my cheeks again, but the tears had stopped. “And we’ll do our best to make sure that you won’t have to start at a new school, so your friends will still be close.”

  Dad walked into the room. “We can’t make promises like that.”

  When Mom looked at him, her face tightened, and Dad raised his hands as if to say, Okay, I give up.

  “In fact, why don’t you tell Uncle Steve that.” Mom’s voice had a tinge of surprise, like she’d just thought of a fantastic idea. “He asked if you had any special requests, and he’s still downstairs with your sisters.”

  I nodded and wiped at my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Then can I go to Tommy’s?”

  Mom brushed the hair off my forehead, kissed the end of her finger, and touched it to the tip of my nose. “Yes, then you can go to Tommy’s.”

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder as I walked by. I stopped and looked up at him.

  “Things will be okay,” he said.

  He wasn’t one to communicate feelings or emotions very well in words, but his voice always seemed to deliver the right tone that made up for it.

  I nodded and walked down the hallway to the stairwell, turned on the landing, and headed down the stairs.

  Halfway down, I stopped and saw Uncle Steve through the banister. Heather was in his lap, and Jenny was bouncing on the couch next to him. He was playing peekaboo with Heather, and they were giggling at her hearty laugh. The girls really seemed to like Steve.

  I walked down the rest of the stairs and over to the end of the couch. Jenny bounced over to me. Her face looked concerned, and she put both her hands on my cheeks.

  Great. She knows I was crying
.

  Steve looked over at me and frowned. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to spring that on you. I thought your mom and dad would have talked to you already.”

  Heather hopped in his lap, waiting for him to hide behind his hands again.

  “It’s okay.” I plopped down on the end of the couch and Jenny sat down next to me, staring at me. She clearly knew something was wrong with me.

  “Mom said I could tell you that I want the new house to be close to my school and to my friends.”

  “That’s a tough order. I’ve already been looking.” He nudged me with his elbow. “But I’m doing my best. Anything else?”

  I shook my head and motioned to Heather in his lap. “The girls like you.”

  He looked at me and laughed. “Yeah, I guess they do.” He nudged me again. “But they like you better. They always like their brothers better.”

  I raised one of my eyebrows.

  “It’s true.” He was trying to keep Heather from bouncing off of his lap. “You won’t always know it, and sometimes they’ll show it in really weird ways, but they do.”

  I looked at Jenny, who hadn’t stopped staring at me since I sat down. The concerned look on her face hadn’t gone away, and I didn’t know how to make it stop.

  Then she smiled at me.

  I cocked my head and looked at the little wrinkle on her nose. And then I smiled too.

  “Funny thing about sisters. They drive you crazy,” Steve said as he messed up my hair, “but they kind of grow on you.”

  Yeah. Maybe.

  Chapter Four

  Tommy and his family lived in a big old house on the next street over, which was right behind our house. The alley ended right at their garage, so our backyards butted up against each other. It was perfect for those times I wanted to run home in the middle of the night from a sleepover, scared after the three of us—Cubby, Tommy, and I—had been watching monster movies on the little black-and-white TV Tommy had in his bedroom.

  His room was up in the attic, and there were windows looking out on every side of the house. The walls were paneling, and the ceiling was open rafters. Sometimes, if it was a stormy night, we’d play pirates. The thunder and rain against the windows made us feel like we were below deck of a big ship during a bad storm in the middle of the ocean, off in search of buried treasure.