Blossoms and the Green Phantom

by Betsy Byars

“My brother hurts himself a lot.”

  “Mine too. He’s accident-prone.”

  Vern sighed with relief. At last he and Michael had something in common—accident-prone little brothers. Vern threw his leg over his bike and shoved off. “I hope he wasn’t trying to fly off the roof again.”

  Michael paused to say, “Your brother flew, f-l-e-w, flew off the roof ?”

  “Tried to.”

  “Wow.”

  Vern glanced at Michael as he pulled up beside him. He wasn’t ready to add that Junior had landed at the feet of some policemen who had come to notify the family Pap had been arrested. Michael had been impressed by Vern’s friendship with Mad Mary and his brother’s flight off the barn. That was miracle enough for one day.

  Vern bent over his handlebars. He had to pedal hard to get up the hill because his balloon tires were low. Michael pulled ahead easily but waited for him on the crest of the hill.

  Vern pushed his bike over to Maggie. “What’s going on?” he asked in a low voice.

  Maggie wiped more tears on the ends of her braids. “Junior thinks he’s a failure.”

  “Junior?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s never thought that before.”

  “Well, he does now.”

  “What’s he failed at?”

  “Everything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like his invention.” Maggie pointed to the air mattress–garbage bag invention, which could be seen through the barn door.

  “That’s his invention?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s invented air mattresses?”

  Maggie shot him a look of such fury that he stepped back. He glanced at Michael to see if Michael thought he’d been stupid. Michael gave him a look of understanding. Vern realized he and Michael had big sisters in common too.

  “It is a flying saucer,” Maggie announced.

  “Oh, well. I guess that figures.” Vern turned to Michael. In a low voice he said, “Usually his inventions look better than that. They don’t always do what they’re supposed to, but they look good. You should have seen his wings. They were neat.”

  “Shh!” Maggie said.

  Vicki Blossom was on her knees now, by Junior, wiping his tears on the hem of her shirt. “Now,” she was saying, “Junior Blossom, you get this through your head. You are not now, never have been, and never will be a failure.”

  She paused to smooth his hair back from his face and straighten his clothes. Then she tucked his shirttail in. Every time she did one of these things, Junior felt a little better.

  “You are not a failure and neither is your UFO. You are going to have the best flying saucer in the entire world. That is a promise—a promise from one Blossom to another.”

  There was nothing in the world more binding than a Blossom promise. An awed stillness came over the Blossoms in the group.

  Vicki Blossom got up. She turned Junior around and pulled him against her. They were facing Vern and Michael and Maggie and Ralphie. Then she made the promise even more binding.

  “This boy,” she said, and she hugged Junior hard, “this boy is going to have the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most spectacular UFO the world has ever seen.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Back at the Dumpster

  Pap came to his senses slowly. He was lying on his back in the Dumpster. His head was propped up on one side, and his feet were propped up on the other. His arms were outstretched.

  For a moment Pap didn’t know where he was. He lay quietly, blinking his eyes open and shut on the unfamiliar sights in front of him. Then he remembered that sickening, cartwheel lunge that had sent him over the side of the Dumpster. Remembering it made him dizzy all over again.

  He moaned, “I’m killed.” He closed his eyes in despair. “And my neck’s broke.”

  Tears squeezed from his eyes. He lay for a moment, too miserable to move. Then, slowly, he put one hand to the back of his neck. He rubbed his spine gently to see how bad the break was. After a minute, he turned his head slightly from side to side.

  “Well, my neck may not be broke,” he conceded, “but my knees are. Bound to be.”

  He pulled himself up into a sitting position, with his legs straight out in front of him. He looked at his aching knees for a while before he tried to bend them. He could feel them throbbing against the legs of his pants. He pulled his right leg up, then his left.

  “Well, they still bend, but I know they ain’t going to bear my weight.”

  It took Pap five minutes to get to his feet. Then he had a moment of dizziness so great, he had to sit down on one of the bags of garbage. He bent forward and hung his head between his swollen knees.

  As soon as Mud heard Pap stirring around in the Dumpster, he came out from under the truck. He gave that one questioning bark.

  “I hear you,” Pap said weakly.

  Mud barked again.

  “I hear you! Let me get over this dizzy spell.”

  Mud approached the Dumpster slowly. He paused to figure out the situation. His head was turned to the side. He whined softly.

  “Yes, I’m in here,” Pap said.

  Suddenly, in a blaze of inspiration, Mud began to dig. Red dirt flew in an arc behind his back.

  “That won’t do no good,” Pap said. “You can’t tunnel through solid metal.” He turned his neck from side to side again, testing it.

  Mud kept digging.

  Pap raised his voice. “I said that won’t do no good, Mud. Quit it.”

  Mud stopped digging and sat, his paws in the hole he had started. A good tunnel had been his only solution to the problem, and he waited for Pap to tell him what to do now.

  Five minutes dragged by, ten. Flies began to buzz around Pap’s head. He waved them away.

  “Ain’t nobody coming with some garbage?” he moaned. He lifted his head, clasped his hands over his chest. “Please, please, somebody come with some garbage.”

  There was a noise in the corner of the Dumpster. Pap had forgotten about the puppy, and he looked around.

  The puppy was there, watching Pap from his nest of trash. “I can’t coax you out,” Pap told it. “I’m half killed.”

  The puppy wagged its thin tail.

  “I was going to call you Dump if I got you out of here,” Pap said.

  Again the puppy wagged its tail, setting the garbage around him in motion.

  “But it’s no need to call you anything now. Plus, you’re the one got me into this.”

  Now the puppy’s body went into motion. He squirmed with pleasure.

  With one hand on his sore neck, Pap looked around. “And the big trouble is that there ain’t enough garbage in here. There was enough to break my fall, thank God, but not enough to climb out on.”

  He sighed. “Maybe somebody’ll come along.” He batted a fly away from his face. “The world changes, but one thing that don’t change is garbage. People always have had garbage, and they always will, and sooner or later somebody’ll decide to get rid of theirs, and you and me will get out of this mess.”

  At that moment, Pap heard a car. He lifted his head. He couldn’t believe it was true. “They’re here,” he said. He began to struggle to his feet. “Somebody’s already come!” He grabbed the top of the Dumpster and pulled himself erect. His arms trembled with the effort.

  He looked out of the Dumpster for the first time since his fall. A car was there—a two-tone Buick—but it had not pulled over by the Dumpster.

  The car was parked just off the road.

  Pap called, “Hello! Hello!”

  There were two people in the Buick, but neither one heard him. The windows were closed, and the engine was running.

  Pap changed his call to “Help! Help!”

  Still they did not hear. The man and woman had pulled off the road, apparently, to finish an argument. He was yelling at her and she was yelling at him.

  “People in the Buick! Hello! Hello!”

  The fight continued. The man
was slamming his fist against the steering wheel for emphasis. The woman was shaking her head.

  Pap extended both arms over the side of the Dumpster in a pleading gesture. “Please, couple in the Buick, please, look where I’m at. Help me! Please!”

  He began pounding his hands on the side of the Dumpster. That got the woman’s attention, and she turned and glanced out the window. She was frowning, and even without the frown she would have been an ugly woman. With it, she was the ugliest woman Pap had ever seen in his life.

  “Please! Help me!” he begged her.

  The woman kept frowning at him through the glass. Pap made a gesture begging her to roll down her window. She turned and said something to the man. To Pap’s shock, the man began to drive off.

  “Wait, wait! Oh, please don’t leave me in this Dumpster. Please don’t go! Help!”

  The Buick pulled onto the road. It disappeared around the bend, and the sound of the engine faded.

  In the silence that followed, Pap rested his forehead against the rust-flecked Dumpster. He sighed deeply. After a long moment he turned and looked down at the bag of garbage he had been sitting on.

  It had taken on the shape of Pap’s body, like a beanbag chair. Pap sat down slowly. He took out his old handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  The banging on the side of the Dumpster had sent the puppy deeper into the loose garbage, but now he started crawling out on his belly.

  “Ugly women,” Pap told the puppy, “never have cared for me.” He wiped his face again. “And right now I don’t care for them neither.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The Secret Ingredient

  Junior had never been on the receiving end of a Blossom promise before, and he had not realized how awesome it would be. Oh, he had always known that a Blossom promise was sacred, that it was the way knight’s promises used to be. That was why he had always been very, very careful not to make one.

  Like one time he had stood at the top of White Run Falls with an inflated garbage bag under each arm. Icy green water pulled at his feet. From the bank Vern had said, “I’m tired of waiting. I don’t think you’re going over the falls. I don’t think you’ve got the guts.”

  “Oh, yes, I do,” Junior had answered.

  “Blossom promise?” Vern had asked.

  Junior would have given anything to have said with a sneer, “Yes, Vern, Blossom promise,” but he knew that if he did, he would have to do it.

  Even though the falls were a lot higher than he had thought, even though the rocks were a lot craggier and the water a lot colder, even though the garbage bags were leaking valuable air out under his arms, he would have had to go.

  “Blossom promise?” Vern asked again.

  Junior’s lowered head was his answer. Vern had gotten up with a snort of disgust and started home. Later, Junior had folded up his shrunken garbage bags and followed.

  The Blossom promise had made Junior stop crying completely, at least it made his eyes stop. His chest was still shaking with an occasional leftover sob every now and then. Every time Junior’s body shuddered, his mom hugged him.

  Vicki Blossom was now looking at Maggie and Ralphie and Vern and Michael over the top of Junior’s head. Although Junior could not see her expression, he knew from the length of the silence that it was a serious look.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was serious too. “You,” she said, and just the way she said it let Junior know every one of them better do what his mother said. “You are going to help Junior with his flying saucer, do you understand me?”

  Ralphie pointed to himself and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, you too, Ralphie, Junior may need you. I’m including all of you.” She looked at Michael. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name—”

  “Michael,” Vern said quickly.

  “Michael. Junior needs every single one of you. Now, Junior will be in charge tonight. I want that clearly understood. Junior is in charge, and you four will do whatever he tells you to do.”

  If anybody other than a Blossom had said that to Ralphie, he would have answered, “You aren’t my boss,” but he acted differently when he was with Maggie and her family.

  Junior’s chest shuddered with what was to be his last sob. There was no reason to cry now. He had everything he wanted out of life. He could not have worked it out better if he had sat down with a pencil and a piece of paper.

  He was in charge and they would do what he told them. His mother was wonderful at arranging things.

  “This is Junior’s UFO—”

  “It’s known as the Green Phantom,” Junior interrupted. Then as he saw them glance at the barn, he added quickly, “Well, it’s not green yet, but it will be when I spray paint it. I’m not going to do that till the last minute. Just before it goes up, I’m spraying it”—he paused for effect—“Day-Glo green.”

  He could feel his mom nod. She rested her chin on the top of his head.

  She said, “The Green Phantom is, as of right this minute, the first priority in the Blossom family, is that understood?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “It is even more important, Maggie, than our riding.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Then she said, “Now what exactly do you need, Junior? You tell them what you want them to do.”

  “I only need one thing. Everything else is done. I’ve wired the air mattresses together myself. I’ve tied the garbage bags where I want them. I’ve filled the whole thing up with air—I used the bicycle pump. That was just so I could see how it was going to look. Now I only need one thing.”

  “What is it, Junior? Tell us and we’ll get it.” It was Vern who spoke this time. Now that his mother had included Michael in the project, he figured they couldn’t lose. After all, Michael and his family had every single thing there was in the world. Michael’s father’s workshop was like a hardware store. Michael’s room was like the sporting goods department at Sears. “If we don’t have it, we can probably borrow it,” Vern said.

  “It’s only one thing, but it’s a very, very, very important thing,” Junior said. This was the secret ingredient, the word so secret he had written it in the corner of his list and then turned the corner down.

  “What?” Vern asked.

  “You might not think of it as important, but it is very, very, very—”

  “All right. We’re begging,” Ralphie said. “What is this thing that is so important?”

  Junior felt that the moment was now right for his revelation. Everyone was ready. Everyone was waiting. One of them was even getting impatient.

  Junior said the secret word. “Helium.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ticks and Things

  Mud barked. This was a series of sharp barks, different from that single questioning bark he had given from time to time. Pap lumbered to his feet.

  “What is it, Mud? You see something?” Pap peered over the side of the Dumpster. “I don’t see nothing. What do you see? I—” Then he broke off.

  A jogger came around the bend in the road. Pap’s heart leapt at the sight. “Over here! Over here!” he shouted.

  He beckoned the approaching jogger with both hands. As the jogger came into closer view, Pap frowned. The man had on earphones.

  Pap raised his voice and his arms. He waved his arms over his head.

  “Help! Help! Help!”

  The man did not glance in the direction of the Dumpster. He kept running in rhythm, arms to his chest, a weight in each hand.

  “Help! Look over here! Help!” Then Pap broke off and said the words Mud had been waiting for. “Go get him, Mud! Go get him!”

  In an instant, Mud was running for the road. He caught up with the jogger and began barking at his heels. The man turned and with one practiced kick, caught Mud on the side of the head.

  There was a loud yelp of pain.

  Pap yelled, “Mud, you all right?”

  Mud came back into view slowly. He was shaking his head. He went directly under the truck. “Mud?
” Mud looked at Pap and shook his head again, trying to rid himself of the sharp pain in his ear.

  Pap said, “There ought to be a law against them earphones, and there ought to be another law against joggers kicking dogs. You all right, Mud?”

  Mud rested his head on his paws. One eye was closed, and one ear pulled back in pain.

  “Well, you tried. I thank you for that.”

  Slowly, Pap sank onto his garbage bag chair. He reached down his hand to Dump. Pap had now been in the Dumpster for so long that he and Dump were friends.

  The friendship had come slowly, because it was Pap’s way to let the dog make the first move. Pap would make conversation, but Dump had to come on his own. Finally, Dump had crawled out of his corner on his belly.

  “Come if you want to, don’t come if you don’t” was all Pap had said to him.

  Before long Dump had been at Pap’s feet, and Pap had picked him up. When the jogger came by, he had been in Pap’s lap, allowing Pap to pick ticks off his head.

  “Let’s see, Dump,” Pap said, taking Dump on his lap again, “where were we—tick number nine, and I believe that’s the last of them.”

  Pap twisted Dump’s ears around, checking for stray ticks. “One more, baby tick. There. That’s the lot.”

  Pap scratched Dump behind the ears. Pap always knew where dogs liked to be scratched. He got it right first time, every time. Mud liked to be scratched on his back, just above the tail. This was a behind-theears dog.

  As Pap scratched, Dump lifted his back leg and made scratching motions in the air.

  “You’re a nice little dog,” Pap said. “Good dog.”

  Outside the Dumpster, Mud heard the words “Good dog” and it set his tail in motion too. It was instinct, however, not happiness that wagged Mud’s tail. Mud was miserable. His eye hurt and his ear throbbed, but what hurt most was the knowledge that Pap had another dog in the Dumpster. Mud gave one of those sharp single barks that urged, insisted actually, that Pap notice him.

  “I’d help you if I could, Mud,” Pap said with a sigh. He kept scratching Dump.

  A flea moved behind Mud’s ear, and he scratched it without getting up. He just twisted slightly and scratched with his back paw. Then he rested his aching head back on his paws.