Nana came out and asked us if we planned to moon around all day, because if we did she had some windows that needed washing. We got off the porch and started walking, but we couldn’t go to Nowhere since the guys were probably there. Instead we found ourselves back at the place we’d walked to together most days for two years. Monroe Middle.
Leroy was somewhere inside, trying to multiply fractions, but the windows that faced the track were empty. Even though we’d walked over slowly, we were way too hot. Cass’s freckled cheeks were bright pink.
There was a little shade right next to the school. We stood with the toes of our sneakers jammed against the brick wall and rested our foreheads on the cool window glass. “Third period algebra,” I said, peering into a classroom.
“The desks sure look small,” Cass puffed.
“The room too.”
“We were in that class just last week,” she added. “There’s my desk.” Our desks were together at the start of the year, but we talked too much and I got moved. I stared at the desk that had been mine—and then the one right behind it. Big’s.
Cass cupped her hands above her eyes and peered through the glass. “We’ll never be inside this box again.”
“Not unless they have class reunions for middle school.” Still, for a second I imagined Big twenty years from now, sitting in that small desk at a reunion. Would everyone know his name because of his music, or would he be just a guy working in some fast-food place wearing a paper hat?
Cass turned and slid her back down the wall until she was sitting on the ground. “Maybe I could talk to Justin.”
I slid down too. “About what?”
“Ben.” She glanced at me like she was hoping I’d say it was a great idea. When I didn’t, she let out a sigh. “Maybe you’re better off without a boyfriend.”
I sang out, “Amen, sister!” and lifted my palms the way Nana Grace does when she really agrees with someone.
Cass stared at our legs stretched out in front of us; from the knees down they were in the sun. She bumped my ankle with hers. “We need to shave our legs.”
“Big-time.”
She bumped my ankle again. “It used to be easier when it was just you and me, wasn’t it? Jemmie and Cass, the girls who liked to run.”
“Chocolate Milk.” It sounded silly saying it now, but that’s what we called our running team of two when we became best friends the summer before seventh. I wiggled my toes; since we weren’t going to Nowhere, we both wore flip-flops. “After we shave we should paint our toenails.”
She wiggled her toes too. “What color?”
Lou Anne had every color in the universe and she didn’t mind sharing. “I’m thinking purple.” Purple was our favorite.
“Not everything has to change, does it?”
“Like what?”
“Like purple nail polish and us being best friends.”
“No, we’ll always be best friends with purple toenails. Except on the track, where we’ll still have purple toenails, but I’ll beat you if it’s a sprint.”
“And I’ll beat you if it isn’t,” she said. “Wonder what the competition will be like at Leon.”
“Tougher.”
“That’s okay, we’re tough.”
“Super tough.”
She stared across the raggedy grass at the dusty track we’d run so many times, a plaque with our names on it should be wired to the fence. I stared too. It felt the same as looking into our old classroom. Monroe Middle was a place we didn’t belong anymore.
Suddenly she smiled. “Hey, running for Leon? Maybe we’ll win gold at State.”
Saturday
(Seven Minus One)
Ben
I woke up to the sound of Mom singing in the kitchen. “‘Almost heaven, West Virginia…’” Everything was great in her world.
Pulling on my jeans, I looked out the window. It had rained all night with lots of thunder and lightning, but now the sun was out and birds were chirping, all happy. As I slouched down the stairs Dad started to whistle.
“Could you all quit it with the cheerfulness?” I said as I walked in the kitchen. “It’s too early.”
Dad raised his eyebrows. “Good morning to you too, Bud.” Mom kept right on singing about West Virginia while she worked on her sudoku.
“Forgot your shirt,” said Cody, looking up from his boring bowl of cereal. “And I can see your drawers.”
When I didn’t smile, he got it. This was not the day to mess with me.
As he dipped up another spoonful of soggy cereal, I thought about our walk home from Nowhere yesterday, how he kept insisting that the hat said Uncle Paul had burned the house down. “Maybe not on purpose,” he said. “But he did it.”
So, basically, my brother was getting his information from a hat, my girlfriend wasn’t speaking to me, and my best friend couldn’t keep his mouth shut. And it was still the first week of summer vacation, so it was just possible things would get worse.
Cody sat there watching me, the jiggles going up his legs. Then he got this weak smile. “It’s seven minus one,” he said quietly.
“So?”
Mom quit singing and looked up from her sudoku. “Happy day-before-your-birthday, Cody.” Then she glared at me.
“Is there going to be a cake?” Cody asked.
“Of course. I ordered you a special surprise cake from Publix.”
My brother hooked his sneaker toes behind the chair rung and leaned toward her. “Shaped like a what?”
She leaned toward him too. “Shaped like a surprise.”
“It’s not a train, is it?”
“That was your last birthday.” She glanced at the hat on the table. “Something you’ve gotten interested in lately.”
Cody looked at it too. “Will it have gray icing?”
Mom stopped with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “Did Ben tell you?”
I held up both hands. “Hey, don’t look at me! I’m the only one who can keep a secret around here.”
Cody bounced his heels again. “The hat told me.”
Mom picked up her pencil, but stopped. “Are your pants on fire, young man?”
Cody actually looked down to check before he said no.
I snagged a bowl of hummus from the refrigerator and a bag of pitas from the pantry.
I set the bowl down on the table, hard. Mom glanced at the wobbling bowl like she was going to say something, then over at the clock on the stove. “I’d better get ready for work.”
“The hat cake was your mom’s idea,” Dad said quietly as she went up the stairs. “Personally, I liked last year’s train a whole lot better.”
“How come?” Cody asked.
“Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of the hat.”
“Me either.” I fell into a chair and dug a pita into the hummus. “His imagination’s been going weird places ever since he found it—weirder than usual, I mean.”
Dad rested his arms on the table. “Why are you in such a good mood, Ben?”
I shrugged, then stared at Cody, warning him to keep his mouth shut. “Couldn’t sleep. That was some storm we had last night.”
“What storm?” Cody spun in his chair and stared out the window. A big shiny puddle sat in the low spot on the driveway.
Dad rolled his shoulders. “Guys? I’m not going to work today. I’m headed over to G-mom and G-dad’s, to do an oil change, eat cookies, and swim in their pool. Who wants to ride along?”
“Me!” Cody’s hand shot up. “I’ll go!”
I shoved another bite of hummus and pita in my mouth.
“How about you, Ben?”
I grunted a no.
“Seriously, what’s up with you today?” Dad asked.
Cody leaned toward Dad. “Girlfriend trouble.”
I kicked him under the table.
“Girlfriend trouble?”
Why did Dad have to say everything so loud? The last thing I needed was Mom to get into the act.
“Sorry to
hear that, Ben. You want to talk?”
“No.”
“Sometimes it helps to get a little advice from an old pro.”
“An old pro? Dad, you married your one and only girlfriend.”
He tipped his chair back and folded his hands over his stomach. “Yup. My record is perfect. No girlfriend trouble ever.”
“You should come with us,” Cody said to me.
“Yeah,” said Dad. “Moping around won’t do you any good.”
“I’m not moping! I’ll read or something.”
“Suit yourself.” Dad nodded at my brother. “More cookies for us,” he whispered. “Plus, we can work on our awesome cannonballs.”
Dad got up from the table and stretched, his rising shirt showing off his hairy belly—something to look forward to if I take after him. “Put on your swimsuit, Cody. Meet me back in this kitchen in five and we’ll hit the road. I’d appreciate it if the hat stayed here.”
“Check,” said Detective Dobbs, and he trotted up the stairs.
Dad looked at me like he was about to launch into a lecture. Instead he stood and pushed his chair in. “Feel free to change your mind.”
I was still eating hummus when Cody slapped down the stairs in his red swim trunks and flippers. “Do you really need to wear the flippers in the car?” I asked.
“They’re not for the car.” Cody banged out the door.
When Dad came in wearing his trunks, I pointed out the window. “This is the kind of stuff I put up with every day. I think I deserve a raise.”
But Dad just smiled at Cody stomping the water out of the puddle. “At least he’s not wearing the hat.”
Just like that, I was brother free, but still stuck in park. I glanced down at my bare chest. I’d put on a shirt and then think of something to do. I took the stairs two at a time, but slowed when I came to Cody’s open door. The hat hung on the bedpost, the postcard still jammed under the band.
I walked in, lifted my uncle’s hat off the post, and dropped it on my head. It landed covering one eye but I nudged it up, then glanced at myself in the mirror over his dresser. “Not bad.” I walked toward myself, checking the hat out. It wasn’t sitting quite right, so I pinched the crown, lifted it, and put it on again. I ran the brim between my fingers. “Pretty sharp.” It fit me way better than it fit Cody.
Bet Cass would like the way I looked in it. If Cass was speaking to me.
I took the hat off, about to hang it back up, when I saw the package on the dresser—a birthday present for Cody. I was amazed Cody hadn’t torn into it. Then I noticed it was from Aunt Sandy. That explained it.
Leaned up against the box was an envelope. I set the hat down on the package and picked up the white envelope. It was muddy, the stamp crooked. No return address, but the postmark, which was smudged and smeared, said “Wichita, KA.”
Who did Cody know in Wichita? And who, other than me, would threaten him with monkeys flying out of his butt?
I looked up, considering. There, reflected in the mirror, was the monkey-butt threat and the back of the postcard that stuck up from the hatband. The writing was the same.
I saw my eyes go wide in the mirror. The birthday card was from Uncle Paul, and he was in Wichita.
My hands started to shake. It wasn’t addressed to me, and Cody would open it tomorrow. For him it would be no big deal, just one more happy birthday. For me? Maybe it would explain things, things that still bugged me three years after they happened. When Uncle Paul lived with us, he and I were together all the time. Like Cody tags along after me, I tagged along after Uncle Paul. While he was here it was like I had an older brother. Then he left—“disappeared,” if you listen to Cody.
Looking back, “disappeared” is really what it felt like.
“Hang in there, Shotgun!” on a postcard didn’t make up for it. I’d explain all that to Cody when I told him I’d opened it. I thought he’d be okay with it. And if he wasn’t, I’d remind him why Cass wasn’t speaking to me.
I took a deep breath, opened the flap, and slid the card out.
A sad-eyed puppy stared back at me. “FOR A BIG BOY ON HIS SIXTH BIRTHDAY.” That’d get Cody—it kind of got me too. Even though Cody was named after him, Uncle Paul didn’t know how old he was.
I opened the card, prepared to be disappointed by seeing just a signature, but inside was a long note.
When I looked up from the note, my eyes in the mirror looked spooked—like Cody had looked spooked pretty much all the time since finding the hat.
Shotgun. Nobody called me that but Uncle Paul.
The note said he’d be right here if we lived anywhere else. And then there was that comment about disasters ruining your day. Maybe Cody was right about Uncle Paul. Maybe he had burned that house down. “By accident,” I muttered. But that was the excuse you give when you hit a line drive through somebody’s front window. When three people die, who cares if it’s an accident?
I thought about accidents, about how they could take you by surprise, but how sometimes you could see them coming. Like G-dad always says about Cody, he’s an accident waiting to happen.
Seemed like lately things had been blindsiding me—like the truth about Nowhere leaking back to Cass. I could have prevented that disaster by telling her the truth up front.
Yup, do nothing about an accident waiting to happen, and eventually it does. Suddenly I thought about the Sword of Damocles branch hanging over the roof of Nowhere. If I kept on thinking about it and doing nothing, it would fall on the roof, and why let it happen when I could prevent it?
Taking one last look in the mirror, I straightened the hat. “Come on, Super Hat. Let’s go avert a disaster.”
Justin
The soundtrack in my head is constant, like the Muzak at the grocery store, only with a better playlist.
One time I asked my older brother if he heard music too. He said no; he heard an announcer’s voice saying, “Duane Anthony Riggs has just pitched his third perfect game of the season for the Tampa Bay Rays!”
Right now the tune in my head is pretty sad—a slow drip in a minor key, but it’s the right soundtrack for what’s going on. Ben is mad at me for telling Cody, mad at Cody for telling Cass, and just mad in general. Plus, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Thunder and rain pounding the roof kept waking me up. I dozed off solid just as it was getting light. The clock by my bedside says nine fifteen. Usually I’d be at Ben’s by now or he’d be here.
Yup. He’s mad.
The old cat sleeping on my chest is purring in his sleep, setting a steady rhythm.
As I rub my hand across the Giz’s bony ribs, I imagine his soundtrack. “Electric can openers,” I whisper. “A symphony of electric can openers.”
I press a few chords into Gizmo’s furry back, playing him like a piano. Slowly his eyes open, and he gives me that look cats do almost as well as girls, the one that says, Whatever you’re doing, cut it out. He stands up, sways on his rickety legs, and starts sharpening his claws on the front of the US Army T-shirt I wore to bed.
After a couple of light plucks, he digs in.
“Yow!” I want to throw him across the room, but I guess I deserve it for treating him like a keyboard.
I dress quick and ease past my parents’ bedroom. The door is open, the bed a mess, but Mom isn’t in it so she probably made it to work.
Downstairs, no one’s in the kitchen. I check the view out the front window. Dad’s car is gone. He’s between sales trips, so I’m guessing he’s whacking a golf ball at Jake Gaither Golf Course.
I eat some cold pizza, drink one of Mom’s Diet Sprites. What to do? Where to go?
Not Ben’s. I could go straight to Nowhere and play some piano, but what if Ben’s already there? I step out into the steamy heat. The rain that fell down is going up again. The air’s all thick like in a bathroom after a hot shower.
I think, cool air, in-tune piano, Jemmie’s. She isn’t thrilled with me either, but when is she ever? It’s worth a try. And maybe I�
��ll tell her, yeah, I’ll get my parents over for a concert, although it probably won’t happen. Sometimes just getting the two of them in the same room is a major feat of engineering.
When I get to the Lewises’, Cass and Jemmie are in their usual spot on the porch swing, two dripping glasses of sweet iced tea on the railing.
They glance up from the books in their laps. Cass bites her lip. She probably wants to ask about Ben, but all she says is hi.
Jemmie looks kind of startled.
I nod at the open books in their laps. “Required reading?”
Jemmie snaps back to the same old Jemmie. “You think I’d read about some old man and the sea for fun?”
When it comes to required reading I’m the last holdout.
“Go on in.” Jemmie nods toward the door. “The piano’s right where you left it.”
That’s my invitation to leave. Instead I stare at her. The music in my head squeals to a stop. Jemmie has these flecks of yellow in her brown eyes. Have I mentioned that?
I notice the flecks because she’s staring back—bet I have pizza sauce on my face or something.
“Go on,” she says again. “Nana Grace has been asking where you’ve been.”
Inside, Nana Grace is running an old T-shirt over the piano. “Just shinin’ it up for you.” She gives the wooden lid that covers the keyboard one last swipe, dusts the bench for good measure, then folds the lid back, exposing the keys. “Go on, child. Play me something.”
As I sit down, I take a quick look at myself in the mirror over the piano. No pizza sauce on the face. Nothing new in the zit department. I look okay—at least for me.
Nana Grace watches me slide the bench forward. I put my right thumb on home base, middle C, and strike the note. I know she’s waiting for me to play, but I always start with that one note.
“Mmmm…mmm,” says Nana Grace as the note dies out. “Can’t nobody play C the way you do, Justin Riggs.”
“Thanks.” I can’t get my parents to even notice my music. All I have to do is play middle C to get Nana Grace’s seal of approval.
Some Kind of Magic Page 14
