“I live here,” I said.
She put on a mock-shock face. “Really?”
We laughed.
“So what are you doing all the way over here?” I said.
She cranked a thumb over her shoulder. “Babysitting. My summer curse. My parents both work.”
“Mine too,” I said. “So where does he want you to take him?”
She groaned. “McDonald’s. Every day. All day long.”
“He’s a Big Mac freak?”
“No, he hates hamburgers. He just likes the playground.”
I pictured the nearest McDonald’s with one of those plastic playgrounds. “That’s a couple miles away,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Too far to pull a wagon.”
“Will you repeat that louder, please. Devon, listen.”
I called, “Too far to pull a wagon.”
Devon thumped. “I wanna go!”
“Just ignore him,” said Sydney.
“Tune him out.”
“Exactly.”
“Cool hat,” I said. She wore the brim low over her eyes, like I do. It said CSX in yellow letters. “That a baseball team?”
“It’s a railroad.”
“Really?”
“My dad drives a freight train.”
Boinnng!
I tried not to act too excited. “Cool,” I said. “My brother and I were born on a train. On the California Zephyr. In the Moffat Tunnel.”
“Double cool,” she said. “Where’s that?”
“Colorado. It’s over six miles long.”
“Wow. Long enough to be born.” She stared at me. “You said you and your brother? So you’re, like, twins?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Triple cool.”
That’s what I used to think, I thought. “At least I never had to pull him around in a wagon,” I said.
As we were laughing, Devon came stomping up the porch steps. He punched his sister in the leg. “I want attention!”
He was so funny with his little fist and pouty puss, we laughed even harder. So he came over and punched me. So I grabbed him and dumped him on his back and gave him the Torture of Big Girl Kisses. I stopped just short of agonizing death, and a minute later he was sitting on my lap, pulling my mouth into funny faces.
Sydney sat in the other rocker. We rocked and talked.
I got Devon my old Legos. That kept him busy on the porch floor.
I made lunch for the three of us. Tuna salad sandwiches for Sydney and me. Peanut butter and marshmallow (ugh!) for the kid.
We talked and talked. Sydney goes to Saint Catherine’s. She told me all about life there. She rides her bike a lot when she’s not pulling the wagon. Her father says if he can get permission, he’ll take her for a ride in his engine for her next birthday. She says maybe I could come too!
I set up the croquet game in the backyard and we did that for a while. I gave Devon my stuffed watermelon to play with.
We talked.
I gave them a tour of the house. Sydney loved the basement, which is mostly my mom and dad’s workshop. They make stuff for their jobs and for us. “It’s like a factory!” said Sydney.
Did I say we talked?
That’s what we were doing when my parents’ truck pulled into the driveway. Sydney looked at her watch. “Ohmygod—I gotta get home.”
I introduced her and Devon to my parents. Devon yanked my finger. “Lil-wee”—that’s what he calls me—“you pull me home.” So I walked them home, me pulling.
When we got there, Sydney was about to introduce me to her parents when Devon punched her. “Let me do it,” he growled. He raised my hand like a winning boxer. “Mommy and Daddy—this is Lil-wee!”
I ran all the way home. I gobbled down my dinner. I biked over to Poppy’s. I burst into the house. “Poppy!” I shouted. “I think my new life just found me!”
Jake
I walk the creek for stones.
I poke crayfish.
I hunt raspberries.
I still see the guys, but not as much. The name Death Rays is starting to sound a little dumb.
When we met today at the hideout—that word is starting to sound dumb too—Bump said, “I found another one!” He sucked on his licorice wad. “Let’s ride!” he goes.
Bump can be like a broom. He just sweeps you along. A minute later we were all heading for the playground at Hancock School. The goober was alone on the basketball court. He couldn’t bounce the ball twice in a row without losing it. Half of his shots didn’t just miss the basket—they missed the backboard. He wore black socks with green tennis shoes and…well, that was enough for me. “I gotta go home,” I said. “I forgot to take out the trash.” I took off before they could start asking questions. “Hey, Jake!” I heard Bump call.
I guess my bike did the thinking, because before I knew it I was cruising down Meeker Street. I stopped a block away. I parked behind a car. The rubble was gone. Ernie had the four corners staked and was starting to put up the first wall. I couldn’t help smiling—it was already crooked. I saw his hammer hit, then heard it a half second later. It seemed like each hammer hit was saying something. I didn’t know what. I think I stayed there a long time, watching. I think I was doing something else too. I think I was rooting.
Lily
I didn’t wait for them today. I met them two blocks down the street. Devon was still whining, “Take me now!”
When he saw me coming, he hopped out of the wagon and practically tackled me. “Lil-wee! You take me to McDonald’s.”
I picked him up. “Sorry, little dude. It’s too far away and I don’t drive.”
He punched me. “I hate you!”
“I hate you too,” I told him, and gave him a big wet kiss.
He went, “Ouuu!” and scraped it off with his little fist and went running back to the wagon.
“If you take him for a week, I’ll give you my supercool train hat,” said Sydney.
“No thanks,” I said. “One brother is enough.”
Sydney had a bunch of babysitting money, so we went to the dollar store and got Tootsie Pops and temporary tattoos. “On my face!” Devon piped. Before we left the store, he had four Bullwinkle tats on his cheeks and forehead.
“Your mother’s gonna kill you,” I told Sydney.
She shook her head. “Uh-uh. She’s so happy I take him all day, I can do anything I want.”
We went to Bert’s Deli and got hoagies and sodas. Then I suggested we take our lunch to 214 Monroe Drive and eat it there. That’s where my parents are working. They’re building an addition on a house.
So that’s what we did. My parents were sitting on the back steps, just opening their lunch boxes when we arrived. By the time I sat down, Devon was rooting through my mother’s lunch box. My parents laughed. Sydney was mortified. “Devon!” She slapped his hand. The stolen MoonPie he was holding fell to the ground. Devon yelled, “See what you did!”
My mom picked up the MoonPie. She broke it in two and gave half to the kid. It was almost in his mouth when Sydney grabbed his wrist. “What do you say to Mrs. Wambold?”
He glared at his sister. “I say poop-poop to you.”
By the time we were all done laughing, the half MoonPie was in his stomach.
My father mussed the kid’s hair. “You got a handful here, big sister.”
Sydney nodded. “I’m cursed.”
We were all getting down to some serious munching when Devon pulled on my father’s pants leg. “Will you take me to McDonald’s?”
I explained the situation. My parents tried to tell Devon nicely that they had a job to do and couldn’t go driving little kids around to McDonald’s playgrounds every day. When my mother saw Devon’s sad-sack face, I thought she was going to start bawling herself. Then she seemed to snatch a passing thought from the air. She looked at me. “Well, Lily, you know what Dad and I always say. If you want it—”
—make it.
Click! A light went on.
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“Make it!” I said. I turned to Sydney and said it again: “Make it!”
She looked at me. “Huh?”
“We’ll make a playground for him. We’ll do it ourselves.”
I saw the light click on in her eyes. “Hey—yeah!” She looked around. She pointed. “Like…there?”
She was pointing to the empty lot next door. It was like a bare lawn. No shrubs or anything. Just high grass.
“You’d have to ask the owner of the property,” said my dad. “You can’t just go ahead and do it without permission.”
“Do you know who owns it?” I asked him.
He patted the porch step. “Right here,” he said. “These people. Mr. and Mrs. Addison. They own both properties.”
“Mrs. Addison is inside,” said Mom. “Upstairs.”
I jumped up. “Let’s ask her.” I hauled Sydney to her feet. I looked at my parents. “Can we ask her?”
“Sure,” said Dad.
“Who’s stopping you?” said Mom.
We barged into the kitchen, into the dining room, into the living room. Devon trailed us. We stopped at the foot of the stairs. I called, “Hello? Mrs. Addison?”
She came down in bare feet, cutoff jeans, and a T-shirt that said:
STOP GLOBAL WARMING
FART IN A
FREEZER
I asked her about making a playground for my friend’s brother on her next-door lot. She thought for a minute. Then she made a sad smile and said, “Sorry. I’m afraid not.” Because if somebody got hurt, they could be sued, she said. Plus they were thinking of putting in a vegetable garden.
“Poop,” said Devon before Sydney could clamp his mouth shut.
We slunk back to the porch. I flopped down beside my mom. “We struck out,” I said.
“And she had such a cool T-shirt,” said Sydney.
Jake
I watched him again today. From a safe distance. This shack is going to be even crookeder than the last one. Worse than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I kept having an urge to go help him. When my sister and I were little, our parents gave us kid-sized tool belts and started teaching us stuff about building—what kind of nails to use, what a level is for, etc. I could easily show him what he’s doing wrong. But I’m the guy who confessed to wrecking his hut. No way he’ll ever let me near his house again.
It was hot. I was thirsty. But I couldn’t move. It’s like I was hypnotized by those hammer hits. Like a clock. Like a heartbeat. There was no stopping them. All summer long. Through all the paint mess and all the wreckage…bam—bam—bam…. As I sat on the curb squinting through the heat shimmer, one question came through the unstoppable hammering: why?
Ernest Lindop, why are you doing this?
Lily
When my parents came home after work today they seemed hyped up. They both wore big grins and they were aimed at me.
“What?” I said.
“One playground coming up,” said my mom.
I shrieked. “She said okay?”
Dad said, “She said, ‘Sue, schmoo. We’ll get insurance.’”
“What about the vegetable garden?” I said.
“She said they’d rather grow fun than squash. She said they never had kids of their own, and so now they’re going to have some—this way.”
I rushed to the phone to tell Sydney.
Jake
Today I found my old little-kid tool belt in the closet. I took out the carpenter’s level. It was always my favorite tool. I love getting that bubble right in the middle. Then you know—you know—your work is straight.
I waited till after dark. I rode. I parked. I slunk across the grass. I left the level on the ground inside the half-done Leaning Shack of Meeker Street.
Lily
We cleaned up the empty lot—me, Sydney, and Devon. Not that there was much to clean up. Devon’s job was to pick up stones and paper and so forth. Mrs. Addison didn’t have gloves small enough for him, so she made him use a pair of sweat socks, like mittens. She gave him a plastic bag to dump stuff in. He thought he was King of the World. While the King did his job, Sydney and I fought over the lawn mower. It’s a wonder a blade of grass ever got cut. We were almost done when we heard Devon shriek. We ran. He was stiff with terror, pointing at the ground. “Snake!”
I looked. It was a snake all right, but not exactly a python. It was a garter snake like I see all the time in the woods by the creek. I never understood why people, especially girls, are so terrified of snakes. This one was less than a foot long.
I picked it up. Devon gasped. I held it out to Sydney—and a funny thing didn’t happen. She didn’t let out a girly scream and run. She reached out and took the snake from my hand. It squirmed like a worm as she petted its head. Then she lobbed it into the Addisons’ backyard. I stared at her. She gave me a smug grin. We tapped fists. She burped. I back-burped her.
I’m liking this girl more every day.
Jake
Gulp.
I used to think it was just a movie thing. Or a thing people do in stories that you read. Somebody gets nervous and surprised by a question and they can’t talk, all they can do is…gulp.
But it’s not just a movie thing. It’s real.
Okay, back up….
This morning Mom asked me to go to the supermarket for two packs of kiwi fruits, which she needs for a salad tonight. I had just gotten the kiwis and was heading for the checkout when it happened. Somebody whips around with two handfuls of lettuce and bumps right into me, and while I’m staring at the lettuce, the misty thing that keeps the veggies fresh decides to go off and we’re standing so close to it that I’m getting mist on my face and the somebody who bumped into me is saying, “Well, my my, look who it is.” That’s when I look up and get the shock of my life: it’s Mrs. Lindop.
Mrs. Heather Lindop.
Ernest Lindop’s mother.
She waves a lettuce in my face. “Hi, Jake. Remember me?”
That’s when I did it—The Gulp.
Until something like this happens to you, you’ll never know how long a swallow can take. When I was finally able to talk, I said, “Uh…hi….”
Brilliant, huh?
Her smile was so big it bumped into her hoop earrings. “So how’s it going, Jake? Haven’t seen you guys lately. Where ya been?”
“Oh, around,” I said.
I couldn’t believe she wasn’t clobbering me with the lettuce and kicking me in the shins.
“Ernie misses you,” she said.
It took awhile to sink in.
Ernie misses you.
I thought, Is it possible? He didn’t tell her what I said?
“Especially since what happened,” she said.
I did a mini gulp. “What was that?” I said.
“Oh, somebody knocked down Ernie’s clubhouse.” She pitched the lettuces into her cart. “Haven’t you seen?”
“No,” I lied. “We were on vacation.”
“Who would do such a thing?” she said. I was going to answer something like “Beats me,” but I saw that she wasn’t really asking me, she was looking around the ceiling. She was asking the universe. Her eyes came back to me. “So Ernie was pretty sad there for a while.”
That’s not all he was sad about.
“But then”—her face and her voice got peppy again—“you know Ernie. He bounces back. So now he’s busy rebuilding.”
She was looking hard at me now, and for some weird reason I knew exactly what she wanted me to say. So I said it. “Good.”
She nodded. She squeezed my shoulder. “Y’know, I shouldn’t tell you this, because Ernie likes all of you. But”—her voice got whispery, she leaned in—“you’re his favorite, Jake. He likes you best.”
He never told her!
I heard my mouth saying, “I like him too.”
“And the strangest thing,” she said. “Guess what somebody did?”
“What?”
“Somebody left one of those leveler thingies in the hut, t
hat carpenters use.” She laughed. “I guess they couldn’t stand to see the lopsided walls anymore!”
We both laughed.
Lily
It’s a playground!
Well, the start of a playground.
Only two days later and here’s what we have:
a basketball and hoop
a swing set
a pipe
The Addisons bought the ball and hoop and set it up. It’s only five feet high, still way too high for Devon to dunk. But he loves to try—when he can get the ball away from Sydney and me.
The swing set came from my backyard. Jake and I haven’t used it for years, but it was still sitting there. Devon won’t let anybody push him.
The pipe. It’s plastic. Black. Thirty-six inches across. My parents got it from a friend who’s laying a storm sewer. They had ten feet of pipe left over. All my parents had to do was haul it here on the truck and smooth out the edges. It’s perfect—and irresistible—for a little kid to crawl through. Not to mention his big-girl babysitters, who he orders to play the parts of monsters or T. rexes or man-eating crocs chasing him through the Tunnel of Doom.
Devon hasn’t asked to go to McDonald’s in two days.
Jake
Lily’s voice. “Wake up.” She was shaking me. “Wake up.”
“Huh?…Wha—?”
“There’s somebody downstairs. He wants you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” She dragged me out of bed, pushed me. “Go.”
I staggered down the stairs in my underwear. I figured I was still asleep because I dreamed Ernest Lindop was standing in my living room.
“Hi, Jake,” he said. He grabbed my hand and shook it.
It wasn’t a dream hand. It was real.
He looked me over. “I sleep in my underwear too,” he said. I’ve never seen such a big smile so early in the morning.
The voice in my head was saying, Why are you here? To hit me? You hate me. But all that came out was, “Hffffgg.”