Some Kind of Magic

by Adrian Fogelin

  “Wonder what this place was used for,” Jemmie said. “It’s kinda small to be a house.”

  “A garage, maybe?” Ben folded his arms and stared at the building. “Probably not. No bay door. A workshop? Who knows? Who cares? With a few tools it won’t be hard to get in. This place’ll make a great hangout.”

  Cody slid off my back. “And Detective Dobbs led the way!”

  “Way to go, Dobbs!” Ben high-fived his brother.

  “Wait!” I said. “We’re going to break in? Somebody owns this place.”

  Detective Dobbs looked back and forth between me and Ben.

  “Come on, Cass,” said Ben. “Lighten up.”

  “Yeah, lighten up,” his little brother echoed, but he didn’t sound as sure.

  Justin scratched an ear. “Has anyone but me noticed it’s really hot and buggy here?”

  “Bet it’s cooler inside.” Ben shoved a hand in his pocket, dug out his pocketknife, and studied the closed knife. “Wish this thing had a screwdriver.” He slid it back in his pocket.

  Jemmie began walking heel to toe around the building, counting the size out in flip-flops. “Sixty-eight feet—my feet, that is.” She glanced up. “I wonder where the house is.”

  We all looked around.

  No house, but there was a big open spot where the sun came through and lit up the brambles extra-good.

  Whistling, Ben disappeared around the side of the building.

  I crossed my arms hard. “I don’t think we should do this.” But no one was listening.

  “Needs work,” Ben called. “But it looks good and sturdy.” I heard a scraping sound. Ben was dragging down a broken branch that hung over the edge of the roof.

  He came back around front and squinted up at a dead tree that stood real close to one wall. A silvery branch hung right over the roof. “That limb’s gotta go!”

  Justin jerked the padlock on the door. “Anybody got a piece of wire? Maybe I can pick this.”

  “You know how to pick a lock?” I asked, hoping he didn’t.

  “I saw someone do it on TV. It didn’t look hard.”

  Cody set the hat down on the gray cement step by the door, pressed his palms together, and bowed. “Thank you, O Magical Detective Dobbs Hat.”

  Swept along by Ben, everyone was getting excited. Everyone but me.

  If we got caught breaking in, Ben would be grounded, but he was used to that. Jemmie would get what Nana Grace called a “come-to-Jesus talking-to.” Justin’s parents wouldn’t even care.

  Nobody but me had a father who would kill them if they got caught breaking into a place that wasn’t theirs.

  Besides, breaking in was wrong. Somebody owned the building and the stuff inside it. I hoped it’d be too hard to get in and they’d get hot and tired and give up.

  “Voilà!” Justin held up a rusty nail he’d found in the dirt by the steps and stuck it in the lock.

  “Hey, Ben!” Jemmie called. “This shutter’s kind of loose.”

  Maybe I should head home. I turned and saw Cody wandering away, kicking through the leaves. When he reached the open spot where the sunlight fell through the trees he yelled, “Ouch!” Hopping on one foot, he grabbed the toe of his sneaker.

  “You okay, Cody?” By the time I trotted over to him he was scraping the ground with his sneaker, raking the damp leaves away.

  “What’re you…?” he mumbled. He grinned when he saw me. “Hey, Cass! Take a look. I found a sidewalk.”

  “A sidewalk?” I dragged a sneaker along the edge of a long concrete slab, walking away from Cody, step after step until it ended. Then I realized, all I’d done was reach a corner. When I dragged a foot along that edge, it went on and on too. “Cody, I think you found the house.”

  He blinked at me. “What house? There isn’t any house!”

  “Not anymore, but I think this is a foundation.” I cleared another patch of the slab with my sneaker. Instead of being light gray, this concrete was dark, like pencil lead.

  Cody held up a charred piece of wood. “What’s this?”

  I dropped to my heels in a squat, suddenly scared. “Cody? This house burned down.”

  “It did?” he squeaked.

  Walking toward me, he kicked a blackened shoe out from under the leaves and stopped dead. “What if there’s a burned-up foot in that?” he breathed. He inched away from the shoe, then sat down cross-legged and stared at it.

  “Ben?” I headed back over to the garage. “Ben, can I talk to you?”

  He gave the shutter one more hard pull, then let go. “What about?”

  “Cody and me found the house—what’s left of it, anyway. There’s a foundation and charred wood all around. The place burned down to the ground. I think we should get out of here.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged a shoulder up to wipe sweat off his face.

  “Really?” I didn’t expect him to give in so easy.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, he announced, “Okay, people, we’re heading out to eat and get some tools.”

  “No, Ben. Cody’s scared.” I put a hand on his arm. “I don’t think we should come back.”

  Ben twisted away from me, grabbed the magic hat off the step, and strode over to his brother. “What’s up, Detective Dobbs?”

  Cody looked small, sitting with his arms around his knees. “You…feel…anything, Ben?” he whispered, still staring at the shoe.

  “Yeah.” Ben lifted the front of his T-shirt and wiped his face. “I feel hot and hungry. Let’s go home, grab us some lunch, pick up a few tools, and see what’s inside this building you and the hat found.” He dropped the hat on Cody’s head.

  Cody sat under the hat, breathing slow, his striped T-shirt sticking to his skin. “The hat says it made a mistake. This isn’t where it wanted you to go. It says it will take you to the real place tomorrow.”

  “We’ll help you find the real place,” I said, jumping right in. I knew there was no real place, but I for sure didn’t like this one.

  Ben nodded toward the building. “Cody, tell the hat we like this place fine.”

  Cody pushed the hat back, but it fell over his eyes again. “Let’s ask Dad if it’s okay.”

  “I’m in charge of you this summer, remember? And I’m telling you it’s okay. This place was abandoned years ago.” Ben lifted the hat, then set it back on Cody’s head like it was a crown or something. “Thanks to you, Detective Dobbs, summer is looking up! Now, come on!” He hauled Cody to his feet. “We got things to do.”

  I pointed back at the burned shoe. “Ben? What about that?”

  “Yeah, what about that?” Cody echoed.

  Ben slung his arm around Cody’s shoulders, turned him away from the shoe, and started walking. “See, this is what happened. The shoe was in some closet when the fire started.”

  “Oh no!” Cody tried to turn back, but I saw Ben’s fingers tighten on his brother’s shoulders.

  “Don’t worry. The guy who owned the shoe ran out in his bare feet, and he was fine. In fact, everyone was fine.”

  “Except the shoe,” Cody said.

  Ben stopped and turned Cody toward him, his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “You do know shoes are just things, right, and that it’s no big deal if they burn up?”

  How would Ben know for sure that the guy who owned the shoe got out? But Cody was nodding—and I was too.

  It’s easy to believe a thing when you want to. And we both wanted to believe Ben.

  Cody

  All Cody could see of his brother from where he sat on the hood of Dad’s latest project car was the butt of his jeans and the soles of his sneakers. Kneeling on the garage floor, Ben was digging around in one of Dad’s tool drawers.

  “Screwdriver.” Ben’s arm jetted out and slapped the tool into Justin’s open hand.

  “Screwdriver,” Justin repeated.

  While Ben clanged around some more, Cody hung the hat on the hood ornament, a pointy silver star that stuck up between his knees.

&
nbsp; Out went the arm again. “Pliers.”

  “Pliers.” Justin grabbed the next tool.

  “Duct tape.”

  “Duct tape.” Justin shoved the roll of tape over his chunky wrist. “Why duct tape?”

  “You can fix anything with duct tape,” said Ben.

  Cody sniffed. The garage smelled like motor oil—a Dad smell. “Ben, are you allowed to borrow Dad’s tools?”

  More clanging. “Crowbar.”

  “Crowbar.”

  Cody bounced his heels against the grille of the car.

  Ben stood, boosted himself onto Dad’s workbench, and grabbed a can of WD-40 off a high shelf. Dad had so much junk, he had shelves up to the ceiling. “Catch, Jus.”

  The can hit the floor and rolled under the car.

  Looking down between his own feet, Cody watched Justin belly-crawl under the car.

  “I hope this stuff isn’t like soda,” Justin mumbled.

  Ben jumped down and pointed at Cody. “Bust a move, Detective Dobbs! Get into some long pants, sneakers, and socks. Go!”

  “But I’m hungry,” Cody whined.

  “Don’t give me that. You just ate lunch.”

  Cody sighed, then picked up the hat. He swung his leg to one side of the throwing-star hood ornament and slid off the car.

  He thought about the burned shoe as he walked through the garage door and into the house, wondering again if there might be burned-up toes inside it. He felt kind of barfy, like the time he ate a whole bag of Cheetos watching a baseball game with G-dad.

  Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and settled the hat on his head. “Something really bad happened there, didn’t it?” Cody whispered.

  He didn’t hear an answer, but it seemed like the weather inside the hat suddenly turned damp and cold.

  “Thought so.” He wanted to go back to not knowing stuff he knew now. Back to being plain old Cody. He took the hat off again and turned around on the step. The closet door was just across the room. He could put the hat back on the shelf.

  But plain old Cody without the hat was like a tail on a dog, always wagging behind. Detective Dobbs led the way.

  He sighed, put the hat back on, and trudged up to his room.

  Jemmie

  It isn’t legal,” Cass said as we walked toward Ben’s house. “We’re breaking in!”

  “Like anyone cares,” I shot back. “Nobody’s been there for years.” Both of us had changed into long pants and shirts with the sleeves rolled up. I’d ditched the flip-flops and put on sneakers—my toes were still itchy from this morning.

  “Seriously, Jemmie. Don’t you think it’s wrong?”

  “We’ll probably take one look at the junk inside and close it up again. You know Ben won’t let it rest till he sees what’s in there.” Even though Nana Grace says ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ I wanted to see too.

  My friend’s face lit up. She waved both hands. “Hi, Ben!”

  Ben and his brother were sitting on the steps of Big’s porch. Ben’s school pack leaned against his leg. A metal bar stuck out the top. Cody’s detective hat sat in his lap.

  “Justin’s putting on long pants,” Cody whispered as we trotted up.

  “I wouldn’t mind if yesterday’s T-shirt went too,” I said, plopping down next to Cody.

  Cass perched on the porch rail. Watching Ben, she swung her legs, flirting. I noticed she didn’t say a word to him about not liking the break-in.

  “Awful quiet in there,” Ben whispered, looking back at Big’s front door.

  “His parents can’t fight all the time,” Cass whispered back.

  “Why’re we whispering?” I whispered.

  “So they won’t hear us.” Cody leaned in closer and cupped his hand to my ear. “His parents are dangerous.”

  The door flew open and Big stumbled out, along with a whiff of bacon and a few notes of someone singing off-key.

  “Everything okay in there?” Ben asked.

  “Dad’s on a cooking rampage.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Ben slung a pack strap over his shoulder. “The apron and singing thing.”

  “Pretty much.” Justin thumped down the steps.

  I jumped off the top step to the ground. “What’re you two talking about, aprons and singing?”

  Big rolled his eyes toward Ben. “You had to go and bring that up?”

  “Well?” I nudged his shoulder with my fingertips—he was wearing a clean shirt.

  He stared for a second at the spot where my fingers had been. “Yeah, well, when Dad’s trying to get back on Mom’s good side, he turns into the psycho chef and puts on her “Kiss the Cook” apron. He clangs pots and pans around, sings in French—crap like that.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said.

  “Actually, it’s pretty scary. After cooking and singing comes the next fight. Things are either crazy-good or crazy-bad at my house. We don’t do normal.”

  I pointed at his clean shirt. “You play golf?”

  “Golf?” Big glanced down and read the letters, upside down. “‘A REAL SWIIIIIINGER!’ Double-crap. It’s my dad’s.” His ears turned pink. “We have laundry issues.”

  He needed a Nana Grace at his house, and not just for laundry. She’d straighten out his parents too.

  Embarrassed, Big said, “Let’s do this thing,” and broke into a jog. Fine by the rest of us. The pack slapped Ben’s back as we jogged down the street.

  But in a few seconds Big slowed to a walk. “On second thought, what’s the rush? We have all summer.” I could hear him breathing through his mouth. Big doesn’t have much run in him.

  We climbed over the fence and cut into the woods.

  At first we couldn’t even find the garage. We went to where we thought it was, but it wasn’t.

  Big rested his hands on his thighs, panting. “All right, who moved it? Cass?”

  My best friend crossed her eyes at him.

  We circled back and tried again. A couple of times Ben looked at Cody like he was going to ask him to put the hat on, only that would be like saying he believed in magic hats.

  After a while, Cody disappeared under the hat, but it didn’t help.

  “Bet we went too far,” I said. It was awfully hot to be chasing around after a building nobody could find, not even the hat.

  Just then Cody whooped. “Hey! There it is! Straight ahead, guys.”

  Dark and solid between the trees, I don’t know how we missed it. It was suddenly there, like someone had just plopped it down.

  “Way to go, Cody!” Ben tried to give Cody a high five, but ended up high-fiving the hat Cody held up.

  “Way to go, hat!” Cody whooped, sticking out his skinny chest—since he’d found the hat, Cody was feeling pretty good about himself.

  Ben turned back to the building, his knuckles on his hips. “It’s bigger than I remembered.”

  “True,” Big agreed. “Usually things seem bigger when you think about them, but not this time.”

  Cody danced from foot to foot, proud about finding the place with the help of the hat. “I bet there’s a lot of cool stuff in there!”

  Cass hugged herself. “But none of it is ours.”

  “True,” said Cody, swinging the other way. “None of it.”

  Ben dug through the pack and came up with a screwdriver. He rammed it into one of the screws that held the metal hasp to the door. Big watched—like Ben needed an audience to use a screwdriver. I wasn’t about to stand around and watch Big watch Ben. I grabbed the crowbar out of Ben’s pack and worked the flat end under the edge of a shutter. “Come on, Cass. Help me.”

  Four hands would’ve fit fine on the crowbar, but Cass folded her legs and sat on the ground. Cody copied her. She twisted the end of her ponytail around her hand. “I think this is called breaking and entering.”

  While I yanked on the crowbar, Ben messed with the first screw, but he couldn’t budge it. “Rusted in tight.” He held out his hand and Big slapped a can of WD-40 into it. Ben sprayed the scre
ws and handed the can back.

  I clutched the crowbar in my sweaty hands and pulled hard, but nothing happened. “Put the can down and get over here, Big, I need your weight.”

  He looked stunned—sheesh, I didn’t mean it like that.

  “One megaton, coming up.” He put the WD-40 on the step.

  I slid my hands down the warm metal bar. “Grab ahold.”

  He gripped the free end in both hands.

  “On three,” I said. “One…two…three.” We leaned back and the nails made a little squeak, but they didn’t pull free. “Again, Big! We’re getting it!” This time we threw ourselves back hard, but the crowbar popped loose and flipped out of our hands.

  Big went down, flat on his back. I crash-landed on top of him, my cheek mashed against his neck, feeling his pulse. I took a sharp breath. Up close, Big smelled sweet, like cherry Kool-Aid.

  “Sorry,” he gasped. “Sorry. I didn’t know the power of my own weight! Sorry if I’m sweating on you! Sorry!”

  “It’s okay.” I pushed up on my arms. I’d never been this close to him—or any guy—unless I was stealing a ball.

  I dusted myself off like it was no big deal. “Let’s try again, but this time, hold back a little.”

  We tugged at the crowbar again, but standing next to Big was different now. I kept wondering about the cherry Kool-Aid smell and feeling like we were still touching. “How are you doing with those screws, Ben?” I asked.

  Ben thumbed the last screw down into his pocket. The lock was still locked, but the piece of metal that attached it to the door frame swung loose. “We’re good to go.” But Ben didn’t open the door. Now that it was time to see what was inside, he was stretching it out.

  “You want to bet the big prize turns out to be a push mower and a couple of dented garbage cans?” said Big.

  Ben grabbed the doorknob, then hesitated. “Cody? You wanna do the honors? You led us to this place.”

  Cody walked over to the door slowly. He gripped the knob, let the hat drop over his eyes, and froze.

  “What’re you waiting for?” Ben asked. “Permission from the hat?”

  I nudged his shoulder. “Do it!” I said. Even in pants and long sleeves I was getting bitten up. I lowered my voice. “This is the hat speaking.”