Some Kind of Magic

by Adrian Fogelin

  It’s about two when Jemmie’s pocket begins playing music. She fishes her cell out.

  I can hear Nana Grace’s voice. “Where are you, child?”

  “I’ll be right home,” Jemmie answers. “Sorry, guys. Gotta go.” Not looking at all sorry, she slides the phone back into her pocket.

  “I’ll walk you,” I say, surprising everyone, especially myself. I figure they’ll all want to come along—Cody sure does—but Cass says she has a couple more seams to sew on a curtain and Ben says he and Cody are sticking around for right now. Then he and Cass shoo us toward the door like they want the two of us to walk home together. So we walk out. Together. Alone.

  Jemmie doesn’t talk. I don’t talk.

  This is awkward.

  She watches her feet. “Want to run again?”

  “‘Want’ and ‘run’ do not belong in the same sentence.”

  I’m dredging my mind for some non-dumb topic when Jemmie asks, “Would you really spend the night out there in the woods?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “But the constant yelling at home? It’s hard to take.” I hold up a hand. “And don’t tell me to talk to them. I’ve tried, but it’s like I’m not even there. I talk, but they never listen.”

  “My mom’s not the best listener either.”

  Okay, she’s being sympathetic, but I know she doesn’t get it. “No, really. My parents take not-listening to a whole new level. Sometimes I have this nightmare where I’m talking but no sound comes out.” I move my mouth like I’m shouting, then I realize that I probably look like my goldfish, Xena, blubbing silently on the other side of the aquarium glass.

  I glance at Jemmie, but she’s not laughing at me. I jam my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “Can I tell you something?”

  Her eyes shift my way. “O-kay.”

  “Yesterday Butler said I have what it takes to be a musician.”

  I want her to say, “Way to go, Big!” I want her to be happy for me.

  She watches her sneakers.

  “Glad to hear it, Big,” I say for her. “You definitely have the talent.” I wait for her to contradict me.

  She seems to be building up to it as the silence stretches. She takes a deep breath…opens her mouth…and says, “You do.”

  I was so expecting a put-down, I almost ask, Do what?

  “You’re good. Really, really good. But being a musician is a hard life.”

  Of course it is—I’d never get lucky and pick something easy.

  “My dad was a musician,” she went on. “He painted houses to earn money and played on the side. He was always on the phone looking for gigs, trying to catch a break. It’s not enough to be good. You have to hustle.”

  I kick at some leaves. “Hustle, huh?”

  “Yes, hustle—and even then it doesn’t always work out.” Her arm bumps my sweaty arm and she pulls away fast. “But the first thing you have to do if you’re going to make it is believe in yourself.”

  We both know someone who really believes in himself. Suddenly I’m doing Leroy. “I’m the piano guy, and I’m gonna fly. Play arpeggios just like the pros.”

  “What?” She stops walking and rests her knuckles on her hips. “Leroy brags too much, but put a ball in his hands, he can back it up. He believes in himself. How about you, Big? Do you believe in yourself?”

  “Yeah.” I swallow hard. “Yeah, I do.” I’m surprised to hear myself say it, but I think it’s true when it comes to my music. “So who do I convince next?”

  I want her to say, “Me.” But she’s not Cass, and I’m not Ben.

  “Your parents, of course. Have they ever heard you play?”

  “Not much,” I admit. “My mom stayed for a lesson once. And, my dad? Never.”

  “Start there. Make them listen.”

  “What do I tell them? ‘Put on some long pants and walk through these stickers, I have something to play for you’?”

  “No. Bring them to my house. They can drink sweet tea and listen to their son. The musician.”

  She actually winks at me before she takes off.

  Wow. That was unexpected.

  Thursday

  (Seven Minus Three)

  Cody

  Cody climbed up on a chair and wiggled a family photo album off the shelf. It was the oldest. Before him, before Ben—even before Mom. He had just opened it to the middle when his dad came down the stairs.

  “Hey, Sport!”

  “Hey, Dad!” His father’s hair was wet from his shower, not yet pulled into a ponytail, and he was in just his drawers. His yesterday-greasy coveralls hung on a hook in the kitchen. Mom thought he should put on a clean pair every day, but Dad always said, “Why bother? Every day’s grease day at the garage.”

  Dad pulled out a second chair. “You’re up early.”

  “You too.”

  “Looking at pictures? Those are old ones, from when I was a kid. Why the sudden interest?”

  Cody nodded at the hat, which sat next to a vase of Mom’s roses. “Looking for Uncle Paul.”

  “Well, you found him.” Dad pointed at a picture of two kids in swim trunks. The taller boy had his arm around the shorter one’s neck.

  “The big kid’s strangulating the little one,” Cody said, although both boys were grinning.

  “They’re just horsing around. Uncle Paul’s the little guy. The one with the tomahawks on his swim trunks is his best bud, Cole.”

  “His best bud sure is a lot bigger than he is.”

  “Cole was a couple years older. Paul always hung out with older kids.”

  “Kinda like me with Ben’s friends.”

  “Kinda.”

  Cody leaned on his elbows. “Looks like they’re having a good time.”

  “Oh, they always had a good time.” Dad stared at the picture, shaking his head.

  Cody’s finger skipped from photo to photo. “Uncle Paul…Uncle Paul…Uncle Paul.” The next three pages were full of those same kids: Uncle Paul and Cole doing a double-cannonball off the tower at Wakulla Springs. Uncle Paul and Cole standing on the peak of a roof waving their arms. Uncle Paul and Cole on bikes, each with one foot on the seat and the other leg straight out to the side.

  “They called that trick ‘the peeing dog,’” said Dad.

  Cody snorted a laugh.

  Dad folded his arms on the edge of the table and leaned in too. For someone looking at the peeing dog trick, he sure looked sad. He glanced up, then nudged the hat with one knuckle. “Still wearing this?” he asked.

  “Of course. I’m Detective Dobbs.”

  “Bet your head gets hot.”

  “Kind of does,” Cody admitted. He touched his prickly buzz-cut. “But I don’t wear it all the time. Like now? I’m airing my head out.”

  “Good. You don’t want to get athlete’s head.”

  “What’s athlete’s head?”

  “The same as athlete’s foot, only at the other end.” He waved Cody in close like he was going to tell him a secret. “It rots your brain.”

  “Da-ad.”

  “All right, there’s no such thing as athlete’s head, but maybe you should put the hat up for now. You can take it down again when you’re big enough to see out from under it.”

  “That’s okay.” Cody liked being Detective Dobbs. Ben and everybody else listened to Detective Dobbs. Nobody listened to plain old Cody. Maybe when he was seven they would. But probably not.

  They heard the swish of slippers zombie-walking in the hall upstairs.

  “Sudoku,” they said together.

  Mom would need her coffee and her puzzle to wake up her brain when she stumbled into the kitchen.

  Dad looked at Cody, then down at his own tiger-striped boxers. “One of us is going to have to get the paper in his pajamas.”

  “Me.” Cody climbed out of his chair. “Grown-ups aren’t allowed outside in their pj’s.” Plus, the neighbors wouldn’t know Dad’s boxers were his pj’s. “You do coffee.” Cody jogged out the front door and ju
mped off the top step.

  Without the hat he could see up. He watched a couple of squirrels chase each other along an oak limb, then jump to the next tree.

  He was still squirrel watching when he heard a tap-tap-tap. On the other side of the window, Dad mouthed, Su-do-ku.

  Sudoku. Cody trotted to the end of the driveway and looked in the green newspaper box—one time he found a bird’s nest in there with two babies. Today, just a paper. He was about to reach in when he heard a voice say, “You gonna think about it?”

  He peered around the mailbox. Jemmie and Leroy were walking toward him down the street. Leroy had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a basketball tucked under his arm. Seemed like they were talking serious—Cody could tell they didn’t notice him. “Hi!” he called out.

  Jemmie waved and gave him a big smile.

  Leroy didn’t look as happy to see him. “Hey, Detective Dobbs!” He popped the ball at him. It hit Cody in the chest and rolled along the gutter.

  “No hat today.” Cody pointed at his bare head. “So I can’t catch. Like usual.”

  Jemmie scooped up the loose ball and dribbled it ahead of her. “You don’t need a magic hat to catch a ball,” she said. “You just need to practice.”

  Cody jogged along beside them. “Where are you guys going?”

  Leroy tapped his chest with a thumb. “Summer school, though I ain’t no fool, then basketball camp, where I’m the champ.”

  Dribbling the ball with one hand, Jemmie punched Leroy’s shoulder with the other.

  “Where are you going, Jemmie?” Cody skipped; they were moving pretty fast. “You don’t have to go to summer school, and you’re already a champ.”

  “Me?” She gave Cody a sly smile. “Nowhere.”

  “You’re going there now?”

  Jemmie glanced at Leroy, then raised her eyebrows at Cody. “Right now I’m walking Mr. Didn’t-Study to summer school.”

  “Why?”

  Leroy grinned. “She has the hots for me.”

  “You wish!” Jemmie took off, driving the ball out ahead of her.

  Leroy jetted after her like the two of them were tied together with a really short rope.

  “Sudoku,” Cody reminded himself, and he turned around.

  Justin was standing at the end of the driveway, the newspaper in his hand.

  “Hey, Justin!” Cody called. “How’s it goin’?”

  Justin stared past him, watching the runners like he hadn’t even heard the question.

  Justin

  After Ben’s mom goes upstairs to get dressed for work, I pick up her unfinished sudoku puzzle.

  I hate sudoku, but I dig right in, figuring out where to put a missing three. Doing the puzzle is like digging my nails into my palms the time I wiped out bad on my skateboard and took all the skin off both knees. A small pain can kind of distract you from a big one.

  I think about how I suck at sudoku so I won’t have to think about Leroy and Jemmie.

  Cartoons are on in the next room. Cody laughs. I scribble in a couple of numbers. Ben stumbles into the kitchen, his eyes barely open. He peers over my shoulder and points at a seven. “That should be a nine.” He’s not even awake and he’s better than I am at sudoku.

  Ben is finishing off a broccoli quiche when his parents walk back into the kitchen. Instead of her usual flowing skirt, Mrs. Floyd wears what she calls her “office manager disguise”—a blue suit. Putting on my “happy disguise,” I give her a big smile. “Have a good day,” I tell her.

  Mr. Floyd is in boxers, a white T-shirt, and red socks. He steps into the greasy coveralls that hang by the door and jams his feet into a pair of rotted-out Nikes.

  Mrs. Floyd kisses the top of Ben’s head, then mine. Before following her out the door, Mr. Floyd turns back to Ben, points a finger, and says what he says anytime he leaves Ben in charge. “No disasters.”

  “Same to you, Dad.”

  As soon as we hear the car drive off, Ben yells, “Cody? I’m fixing your cereal.”

  “After this cartoon.”

  “Pouring the milk…”

  “Not yet! It’ll get soggy!” Cody skids through the door. “No you’re not!”

  Ben shrugs. “Why would I? You’re seven minus three. Do it yourself. But hurry up. We want to go to Nowhere before it gets too hot.”

  When we get to our hideout it’s silent—and I’m relieved.

  Cody goes back to work on his monument.

  Ben scrambles up the ladder with a hammer in his hand. Before long he’ll find something to bang on, but for now he sits on the edge of the roof.

  I climb up after him. Why not? The girls’ll show up soon and I’ll noodle around on the piano and keep my back to Jemmie, but for right now we’re two guys sitting on a roof, our legs hanging.

  Ben tosses the hammer from hand to hand. As it slaps his palms he looks around. “It’s almost like we’re in the middle of the wilderness.”

  A semi shifts gears out on Rankin. “Maybe not the exact middle,” I say.

  “Close as we’re gonna get.” He lies back on the roof. “You think there’s real wilderness anywhere anymore?”

  I’m pretty sure this is what Mr. Butler calls a “rhetorical question,” which is a question you don’t need to answer, like “What are you, crazy?” or “How’s it going, Justin?”

  Ben squints up at the dead limb over our heads. “Sooner or later that branch’ll come crashing down.”

  I lie back on the roof too.

  Ben laces his hands behind his head. “Remember the Sword of Damocles?”

  “Sure, the sword dangling by a thread over the guy’s head.” Cody was big on that legend for a while. I think he just liked saying “Damocles.”

  Big as it is, the limb we’re lying under is nothing compared to the other swords I have hanging over my head.

  “Cody’s awful quiet,” says Ben. “I wonder what he’s up to?” But he doesn’t bother to look.

  I prop up on an elbow. Below, at the edge of the clearing, Cody is standing on his toes balancing something on top of his monument. “That stack of stuff is beginning to look dangerous. Nothing is attached to anything else. It’s, like, the Junk Pile of Damocles.”

  “Cody’s not much of a tool user.”

  “He wouldn’t mess with that stuff if he knew what happened to the family who owned it.” I lie back down. “Speaking of that, I thought we’d at least tell the girls.”

  “I did too,” Ben admits. “I meant to, sometime when Cody wasn’t around, but Cass was so relieved. Now if we told them it would be like we lied.”

  “I thought you told Cass everything.”

  “Not everything.”

  I fold my hands on my chest and stare past the dead branch at a hot blue sky. “I kind of think we should tell them.” I glance over at him. “Cass is sewing a dead girl’s dress. Didn’t it kind of creep you out when she tried it on?”

  “We can’t bring Lucy Branson back, Jus, and it’s not like she died wearing that dress. Why screw things up by telling? We all need this place.”

  All is an exaggeration. He needs it. I need it. The rest of us would be happier somewhere else. Jemmie, for instance, would rather be with Leroy.

  Ben sighs. “I could fall asleep up here.”

  Me too. The warm roof feels good through my T-shirt, just like the road did when I had that delusion Jemmie might like me.

  Down below, I hear someone coming, crunching through the leaves. “Hey, Ben!”

  He sits up. “Hey, Cass.”

  When I lift my head, Cass is standing on the bottom rung of the ladder. Jemmie’s on the ground behind her. “Can I come up?” Cass calls.

  Me, Ben, and Cass on the roof together? Awk-ward. “Hold on. Let me come down first.”

  Also awkward—Jemmie watching my big butt come down that ladder.

  But I make it to the ground and we both watch Cass scramble up.

  She parks herself real close to Ben on the edge of the roof, the white soles of he
r sneakers flashing as she swings her legs back and forth. They hold hands.

  I stuff my hands in my pockets. “This reminds me of the black-and-white movies my mom likes.”

  Jemmie looks at me like I might be crazy. “Yeah? How?”

  “There are the stars and then there are their goofy friends—they’re what’s called ‘comic relief.’”

  She glances up at the hand-holders on the roof. “I guess we’re the goofy friends.”

  “We’re for sure not the stars.” Then I think of a different movie, the one that played first thing this morning. Jemmie and Leroy, running down the street together. In that one they’d be the stars.

  Me, on the sidewalk with my mouth hanging open?

  Comic relief. Definitely.

  Jemmie

  With Cass and Ben on the roof and Cody building his monument, that left me and Big. I challenged him to a game of Monopoly.

  He didn’t have to do a thing but roll the dice and move his token.

  I stood on the rickety chair and dug the Monopoly box out of the pile on the shelf.

  I wiped off the dust and set up the board. I even let him choose his token first—he chose the boot. This was a really old-time Monopoly game.

  “Your turn,” I said now, putting the dice in his hand for, like, the fifth time. All he had to do was drop them. I waited, listening to the thunk of Cass swinging her heels against the side of the building. That girl had it easy.

  She didn’t have Leroy bugging her to “think about it.”

  She wasn’t playing a stupid board game with Big, wondering why, for one second, she’d almost liked him. “Could you just take your turn before we both die of old age?”

  He sighed, and the dice plopped out of his hand. One rolled under the edge of a dresser. I slid it out and added the two together. “Nine.”

  The boot limped along until it landed on the question mark of Chance.

  “Here.” I handed him the top card.

  He read it and shook his head. “Figures.”

  “What figures?”