Some Kind of Magic

by Adrian Fogelin

  He scooted a beetle out of the glass and wiped it off with his T-shirt. The music got loud when he shoved the door open. Justin’s shoulders twitched but he didn’t turn around.

  Cody slid onto the piano bench next to him.

  “Hey, Jem—” Justin turned Cody’s way and blinked. “Oh. Hi, Cody.” He nodded toward the open bag on top of the piano. “Want a marshmallow?”

  “Look at this!” Cody shoved the drinking glass into Justin’s face. “I found it buried in the leaves.”

  Justin leaned back for a look. “A dirty glass. Cool.”

  Cody set the glass on top of the piano carefully, right exactly in the center, then stuck a muddy hand in the bag and grabbed a pink marshmallow.

  From overhead came a scraping sound. A dark blob fell past the window, followed by a whoosh-splat. Justin flinched. “What was that?”

  “Ben’s sweeping leaves off the roof.” Cody hit the highest note on the piano. Plink. “Think I’ll go out to look for more stuff.”

  Justin held up the murky drinking glass. “You really think you can top this?”

  When Cody walked out the door, Ben yelled down at him, “Where are you headed?” He rested the broom against his shoulder. “We are not going home.”

  “I know.”

  Ben wiped his forehead with the shoulder of his T-shirt. “You can’t even get into the house. I have the key around my neck.”

  “I’m only going to here.” Cody stepped up on the foundation of the burned house.

  “Just stay where I can see you.” Ben shoved another pile of leaves off the roof.

  Cody looked down. There was that shoe. It was still lying there with its tongue hanging out. Cody took a raspy breath. He knelt down and checked the shoe for dead toes. Empty. He let his breath out.

  He turned in a circle, then stopped. He hadn’t noticed before, but a weird mound sat right behind the foundation.

  Like everything else, it was covered with leaves and branches, but something was underneath it, making the bump.

  He found another stick and poked it into the pile. The leaves were wet and heavy. It took two hands to circle the stick around, making a hole. Suddenly, something went dink, like the dull sound of the broken doorbell at his house.

  Hands on his knees, he leaned forward and peered in. He saw something shiny. Another drinking glass? He reached for it, but the hat slid over his face. “Hey, you gotta let me see.” He kicked the leaves off a corner of the concrete slab, then scraped the surface clean with the side of his shoe and set the hat down.

  He reached into the hole, farther this time, and touched something smooth and cool.

  The lid on the blue bottle he pulled out was rusted tight. He grabbed it with the edge of his shirt, twisted it off, held the bottle up to his nose, and gagged. “Gross!” Whatever was inside smelled like the stuff G-dad rubbed on his knee joints when they ached and pained.

  He tried to screw the lid back on, but it wouldn’t go. He emptied some thick brown goop into the leaves and put the bottle next to the hat.

  He found a stapler and a clock—the kind with hands. A fishing reel with the line all melted and a ceramic dog dish, charred black, but with letters dented into one side. He rubbed dirt off with his thumb and read, “Sparky.”

  He kept digging and finding. Before long the hat had plenty to look at.

  When he stood up from the pile, wet leaves stuck to his arms. He balanced the clock on top of the bottle. Maybe he could stack everything up and make a…He couldn’t think of the right word for what he was going to make.

  He put on the hat and closed his eyes, and the word he was looking for fuzzed into his brain. “Thank you.” He took the hat off again and set it down.

  A split-finger whistle from up on the roof made him jump. “What’re you doing, Detective Dobbs?” Ben had finished sweeping and was sitting on the roof watching him, sneakers dangling.

  “Building a momunent!” he yelled back.

  “That’s mon-u-ment. A monument to what?”

  Cody looked at his ring of discoveries. His eyes settled on the dog dish. “Sparky!”

  “Who the heck is Sparky?” Ben yelled back.

  Cody picked up the dish. “Sparky the dog!” When he set the dish down, his hands were all sooty. Forgetting Ben, he squatted and whispered to the dish, “You were in the house when it burned down, weren’t you?. Was Sparky in there too?” Cody wondered if the family had called for the dog to come when they ran out. Or was Sparky like the shoe, left behind to burn to death? He glanced around. Would he find Sparky’s bones under the leaves?

  A sudden shadow loomed over him.

  “Heart attack!” Cody yelled, grabbing the middle of his shirt.

  “We’ve already been over this,” Ben said, looking down at him. “You’re too young to have a heart attack.” He put a knee down on the slab. “Seriously, why are you stacking all this stuff up?”

  “I already said. Building a momunent.”

  “Mon-u-ment.”

  “That’s what I said.” Cody nudged the bowl toward his brother. “You think the dog died in the fire?”

  “No. Dogs are smart. Bet he went out the dog door.”

  “What if they didn’t have a dog door?”

  Ben kicked at the leaves and a doll’s head rolled out. Half of the plastic face was melted, and through the hole Cody could see the wires that came out of the backs of the doll’s eyes. Cody bit his lips, but he managed a weak laugh.

  “It’s just an old doll head.” Ben picked it up and hurled it off into the trees like he was pitching a softball. “Say, what’s that?” He pointed at a white loop poking up through the leaves.

  Cody knew Ben was just trying to distract him, but he stuck a finger through the loop and fished up a coffee cup. “Look, Ben. It’s Dad’s!”

  “No it’s not.”

  “Yes it is!” It was the same as the heavy white china mug Dad used every morning. “Look! It even says ‘Victor’ on the bottom.”

  “I bet Victor made a million of those mugs.”

  Cody held the mug that was just like Dad’s in both hands. “Maybe the dad who owned this mug died in the fire.”

  “Nobody died in the fire!”

  “How do you know? Bet Dad would. He’s lived around here his whole life.”

  “Yeah—that’s why his whole life is so exciting.”

  “Come on, Ben!” Cody begged. “We gotta ask him.”

  “You know we can’t ask Dad, but I’ll find out about the people in the house, okay? The dog too.”

  “How? How will you find out?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you an answer.”

  Ben

  Jus tagged along with Cody and me when we went home for lunch. As soon as we were in the kitchen, Jus opened the refrigerator. “Got any soda?”

  “Do we ever?” As long as we’ve been best friends, he should have known it was no use, but he still scanned the refrigerator shelves, cruising for something loaded with sugar.

  “Would you get out of there? All we have is healthy junk.”

  “Yeah, but at least it’s cool in here.”

  I shoved him aside and grabbed cheese and tomatoes.

  “Want to wash up?” I asked my brother, like Cody ever wanted to wash up.

  “No, I’m in a digging mood.” He was looking out the window into the backyard.

  “Go,” I said. “I’ll call you when lunch is ready.” He was already black with soot from building his mom-u-nent. A little added dirt wouldn’t make a difference; I’d hose him off before Mom and Dad got home. Besides, digging for dinosaurs would get him out of the house.

  “Wonder where the girls were.” Jus scrubbed his hands at the sink. “I thought they’d show up this morning.”

  “Me too.” I hoped they weren’t already tired of going to Nowhere. I tossed Jus a towel, then handed him a knife and a loaf of Mom’s whole wheat bread and picked up the phone. Cass answered on the first ring. “Where were you?” I asked.
She said she and Jemmie were watching Missy while Lou Anne gave practice haircuts at some nursing home.

  “Missed you,” she said.

  I turned away from Jus. “Yeah, me too.” When I looked back, he was grinning. I rubbed the back of my neck and turned away again. “Listen, you mind if I send Cody over for a while? He’d be glad to play with Missy.”

  She said okay and we hung up.

  The bread knife hovered over the bread. “‘Me too,’ what?” Jus asked.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled. “And would you give me that?” I reached for the knife. The whole phone call he’d only cut one slice and it was fat at the bottom and skinny at the top.

  “You don’t like the way I cut bread?”

  “No.”

  He dropped the knife on the counter. “All I need is practice. At my house the bread comes pre-sliced.” He parked on a stool. “By the way, why’re we getting rid of Cody?”

  “There’s something we have to do and Cody’s got to be out of the way.”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t ask what. Jus is a go-along guy. Sometimes I wish he had an opinion, but his going along with me works most of the time. I cut five slices of bread. “Would you give a shout for the dinosaur hunter? I’ll put everything on the table.”

  “Sure.” He slid off his stool and stuck his head out the door. “Cody, if you’re not having lunch with a T. rex, get in here!”

  My dirtball brother came in breathless, clutching a bone he said belonged to an ancient baby dinosaur. Jus and I exchanged looks, but neither one of us let on that it was just a chicken leg bone. Cody was right about the ancient part, though. Nobody ever ate chicken in our house.

  We built some powerful-thick sandwiches; Cody’s was half mayo, the top slice of bread ready to skid. After we finished, he trotted off to Cass’s with mayo on his chin and the ancient baby dinosaur bone in his pocket.

  I booted up the computer in the den and got Google on the screen. Jus pulled a chair over and fell into it. “What’re we looking for?”

  “The fire. I told Cody I’d find out if anyone died.” I typed in “house fires Tallahassee,” and got 938,000 hits in .36 seconds.

  “Video!” Breathing through his mouth, Jus reached across and clicked the mouse. Flames belched out windows. He leaned in toward the screen. “You think anyone’s inside?”

  “They wouldn’t be shooting video if someone was inside.”

  “Never know. They might.”

  Jus doesn’t have much faith in people.

  The video ended with a frozen shot of smoke billowing. He mouse-clicked again. More flames. “We’re looking for our fire,” I reminded him.

  “Oh, yeah. Only 937,998 more to check out—or we could limit our search. We’re trying to find out if anyone died, right? Add ‘fatalities.’”

  I did and hit Enter. This time we got 132,000 hits in .44 seconds. Still hopeless, but I clicked through a few entries. Nothing about our fire. There were several articles on dead grandparents and babies in cribs, though—good thing I’d sent Cody to play with Missy.

  “Check out this one.” Jus stabbed the screen with a finger. “Seeing Eye Dog Ike Won’t Leave Master, Dies in House Fire.”

  I fell back in Mom’s desk chair. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  He pulled his chair closer. “Narrow it by date. It has to have been a while ago.”

  We decided to go back twenty years, coming forward one year at a time. Doing it that way there weren’t so many hits and we moved faster.

  We were scanning our fifth year when Justin said, “Bingo.” Then he about toppled his chair. “Get a load of the date. It’ll be exactly fifteen years next Saturday. Which is Cody’s birthday.”

  I looked at him. “Also our Uncle Paul’s birthday.”

  Then Jus read the headline. “‘Three Perish in Southside House Fire.’ The little dude isn’t going to be happy about this.”

  I scrolled, he read. “‘Killed in the late-night fire were Rowan Branson, his wife Fran, and their thirteen-year-old daughter, Lucy.’ Holy crap!” He looked at me. “Guess we know why that dress Cass found on the sewing machine never got finished.”

  “And why it’s Cass’s size.”

  Jus read on. “‘The only surviving member of the family was fifteen-year-old Coleman Branson, who was not in the house at the time. The cause of the fire is under investigation.’”

  Jus sighed. “Well, that’s it, then. Nowhere is history. Cody’ll never go back.”

  “Sure he will.” I clicked and the fire disappeared like it never happened. “He’ll go back if we don’t tell him.”

  “Wait. Weren’t we checking this out because he asked?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think anyone had died. That’s a huge deal. I’ll bet my mom and dad knew them. Wonder why they never mentioned the fire…Maybe because it was so long ago.”

  “Didn’t your dad say to stay out of that particular piece of woods?”

  “Yeah, because it was fenced and had a couple of Private Property signs.” I stared at the blank computer screen, beginning to wonder if that was the only reason. “Do we have to tell Cody about this?”

  My friend’s head bobbed. “Seems like it.”

  Fine time for Jus to go and have an opinion. “Why?” I asked.

  “Okay, we won’t—so much for truth, justice, and the American way.” He shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. After all, people die everywhere. Whether we’re hanging out there or not, they’d still be dead.”

  “Indisputably.” I thought for a second about Coleman, the sole survivor. He obviously hadn’t come back in all these years, which meant the building really was abandoned.

  “Do we have to lie to Cody?”

  “No,” I said. “We just won’t mention it.”

  In about ten seconds we were both ready to return to our hideout. Any other day we might not have gone back—the afternoon was heating up—but it was almost like we expected it to look different now that we knew about the Bransons.

  When we passed Justin’s house, he detoured into the empty driveway. “Window of opportunity. Dad was in a good mood yesterday so he emptied Publix, and no one’s home. Let’s stock up.”

  He filled a couple of grocery bags with canned goods. Then he threw in a can opener and a handful of plastic forks and spoons.

  “Your mom won’t notice that all this junk is missing?” I asked.

  “Your mom would. But my mom? The whole cooking thing takes her by surprise, like, ‘What, suppertime again?’ Trust me, she doesn’t have a clue what’s on her shelves.”

  The last thing he did before locking the door behind us was grab his brother’s old sleeping bag out of the hall closet. I didn’t ask why.

  When we reached Nowhere, he moved the board games and wiped the empty shelf down with the kitchen towel he’d swiped. “We’ll put the supplies here.”

  Beginning to unpack one of the grocery bags, I pulled out a little bottle. “Maraschino cherries?”

  “They’re primo on peanut butter sandwiches.”

  I squinted at the fine print on the label. “Sulfur dioxide, calcium chloride, and red dye number forty? This stuff would never get through the door at our house. Mind if I try one?”

  “Help yourself.”

  The lid opened with a pop. I fished a cherry out by the stem, stuck it in my mouth, and groaned, “Red dye number forty is great!”

  We finished off the jar.

  “Wonder if we could paint this place?” I asked. Knowing no one would be coming back made me feel like Nowhere was really ours.

  “I’ll check our garage for paint. If there’s any in there, Dad doesn’t remember it.”

  “What do your folks remember?”

  “The score.” Jus wandered over to the piano, but instead of sitting down he picked up the drinking glass that sat on top of it. I figured he was thirsty, but he kind of flinched, then carried it over to me. “Cody found this.” He forced it into my hand. “Does it feel weirdly cold
to you?”

  “Like some dead person was holding it?” I joked. “You’re beginning to sound like my little brother.”

  Cass and Jemmie were lounging in lawn chairs when we came to collect Cody.

  Cass lit up when she saw me. “Hey, Ben!”

  “Hey, Cass!” I called.

  Jemmie and Jus purposely didn’t look at each other, which I took as an encouraging sign.

  I walked over to the sandbox where Cody and Missy were playing. The water-spotted hat sat in the grass next to the hose. Someone must’ve wet down the sand, and Cody too—he was almost clean. “Nice castle.”

  The chicken bone was sticking out of the top of one of the castle’s sand towers.

  Cody tamped down the wet sand in a yellow bucket with the back of a plastic shovel, then flipped the bucket over and pulled it off. “Ta-da! The last tower.”

  Missy made a fist and smashed it.

  “Hey! I told you not to do that again!”

  Giggling, Missy smashed another tower.

  Cody threw a handful of sand.

  Missy fired back and got him right in the face.

  He grabbed a double fistful.

  “Cool it! You’re the big kid, Cody.” I hauled him out by the armpits. “It’s time to go anyway.” Cass jumped out of her chair and picked up Missy, who was crying.

  Cody twisted in my grip, then went limp. “You done?” I asked, setting him on his feet.

  “I was tired of castles.” Cody dropped the sand and wiped his palms on his T-shirt. He picked up the hat and started to put it on, then stopped. “What did you find out, Ben?”

  “About what?” I felt my palms get sweaty.

  He bounced on his toes. “About the people in the burned-down house?”

  Justin gave me a look, like, We are so busted.

  Why, this time, did short-attention-span-Cody have to remember what he asked me to do?

  Cass quit brushing sand off Missy’s legs. “Were they okay?”

  I looked from Cass to Cody to Jemmie, then back to Cass. I hadn’t planned to lie to everyone, just Cody, and only if necessary, but I could straighten the girls out later. “Uh, yeah. We found a newspaper report on the internet. The fire was fifteen years ago, ancient history.”