Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street

by Angela Johnson

  Next we found three nickels tied up in a handkerchief. They had buffaloes on them.

  After that, we found an old watch. It didn't run.

  The only way you could tell we liked everything we found was when we'd say, “Wow.” And we said that a lot.

  Underneath that, we found a book. It had cowboys on the front of it. The pages were falling apart and we were afraid to open it too much, so we laid it down gently beside the other stuff.

  The next thing we found was a note. It was wrapped in wax paper. Billy handed it to me to read, since I was the main digger. The note said:

  Whoever finds this box must share it. It doesn h matter who you share it with. When you have shared the things in this box, you must put your own treasures in it and bury it again.

  Signed,

  Tracy and David

  The note was brown and falling apart.

  And in the bottom of the box was a picture of two kids dressed in funny clothes. The picture was old and a little blurry, but you could still see the kids, and they were smiling.

  Billy pointed at the picture, then pointed at my house across the street. Sure enough, there was my tree and house right there in the picture. There is nothing like digging…

  We put all the pumpkin box stuff back in the box and loaded up to go home.

  Billy thought I should keep the pumpkin box and he should keep the spoons until we figured out what we should do with them.

  I slept that night with the pumpkin box right beside my turtle night-light.

  I dreamed of Tracy and David. I dreamed that they liked the things that me and Billy liked and did the things that me and Billy did.

  Maybe they were diggers, too. One of them must have been, because the box was buried to be dug up. In my dreams, they ran alongside me and Billy. We ate ice cream at Mo's and played and raced around the block for hours. They also got separated a lot and had to go to porch time-out for the whole afternoon.

  The next morning, Billy was at my door.

  “So who have you been thinking about giving the pumpkin box stuff to?”

  I stuffed a doughnut in my mouth and handed Billy one, too. We munched and thought.

  It was going to take us a while to think.

  We decided to walk around with the box and figure it out. We walked up and down Magnolia Street. We looked at the street like we never had before. Who would we give the pumpkin box treasures to?

  I said, “Magnolia Street must have been here a long time. My mom says that the picture in the box is probably sixty years old.”

  Billy said, “I don't think I know anybody that old. Do I?”

  All of a sudden Billy got a big smile on his face, grabbed my hand, and started running toward Mr. Pinkton's. Mr. Pinkton was out in his yard with his roses.

  Billy took the watch out of the pumpkin box and handed it to Mr. Pinkton.

  “For you,” Billy said, and then grabbed me by the hand and ran away. Then he stopped and called to Mr. Pinkton, “So you'll have more time with your fish.”

  When we got to Billy's yard, I smiled at him.

  I dreamed of Tracy and David again that night, and when I woke up the next morning, I knew who we could give the yo-yo to.

  The sun was shining real bright out back when Sid sprayed me with the hose. He laughed for a long time.

  Mom called from the window, “Sid!”

  Sid said, “I didn't do it,” like he always does when he's been caught.

  I made my mind up then. I went to the pumpkin box and handed the yo-yo to Sid. And the look on his face made me so happy. He was real surprised and said, “Why?”

  I said, “'Cause I like you sometimes, and you're a yo-yo, too.”

  I skipped away to Billy's.

  The pumpkin box was great.

  When I got to Billy's house, his mom was on the phone.

  Billy said, “Mom's calling the library. She says the book in the box is real old and the library may want it.”

  We smiled at each other.

  The next night, Billy said he dreamed of Tracy and David, too.

  While Billy skated behind me, I rode my bike to Mo's. I walked up to the counter and handed Mo the nickels. The whole store smelled like cookies and French fries.

  Mo looked confused when I said, “For you.”

  Mo said, “I used to collect these when I was your age.”

  He wiped his eyes, smiled, and said, “Thanks, kid.”

  Being a digger must be the best thing you could ever be in this world. You can find things that nobody ever thought could be found again.

  Being a digger helps people remember gone things.

  Me and Billy have decided to keep the picture of Tracy and David. He will keep it for a week, then I will have it for a week. We will always think about them running and playing on Magnolia Street like us.

  We were swinging from the tree in my front yard, wondering what to put back into the pumpkin box.

  Billy said, “Why do you think they put what they put in the pumpkin box, Charlie?”

  “I don't know. Maybe it was stuff that they found. But it was probably stuff that made them happy.”

  Billy said, “I figure we can take a little time and think about the stuff that makes us happy before we put it in the pumpkin box.”

  And because a serious digger understands these things, I thought Billy was right.

  The Water Lilies

  I could almost smell fall coming as I sat beside Billy on the bus. I think I maybe saw a litde gold and red in the trees this morning. That means IVe spent almost one whole summer on Magnolia Street. Monroe Street seemed far away.

  I know Billy likes to look out the window, so I let him sit on that side. I like sitting in the aisle seat because then you can watch everybody who gets on and off the bus.

  Me and Billy decided to sing the duck song.

  It's real easy to learn, and for some reason it sounds best when you're on a bus or in a small room with a lot of people around.

  I started the song just about the time the bus driver drove over the Magnolia Street Bridge.

  It goes…

  Duck, duck, duck, duck,

  Quack a lot of ducks.

  Duck, duck, duck, duck,

  Drive a yellow truck.

  Billy says that the more you sing it, the funnier it gets.

  He says it really gets funny in the car when your parents start covering their ears and finally say that they will pull the car over if you don't stop that racket.

  So we sang till we almost lost our voices.

  I think that me and Billy have nice voices. When we hit high notes, our voices crack and we really sound like ducks. We should think about starting a band or something.

  Duck, duck, duck, duck,

  Quack a lot of ducks.

  Duck, duck, duck, duck,

  Drive a yellow truck.

  We sang about ten choruses.

  Billy said, “That was pretty good.”

  “Yeah. I think everybody enjoyed it. Especially those people who keep looking at us.”

  A woman with a shopping bag, a man with a tennis racket, and this couple carrying a big picture frame stared at us the whole time.

  Billy pressed his lips against the window.

  He said, “We should have asked them to join in.”

  I swung my legs out in front of me and wondered when they'd be long enough to touch the floor of the bus.

  I said, “You think they would have joined in?”

  Billy looked around, and the woman with the bag frowned at him. I think she thought that he was going to sing again.

  “No.”

  “Charlie, I wish it was colder. I could make wet lips all over the bus window.”

  I guess you can't have everything you want. We just had to be happy that while we were on the bus we were good at singing the duck song.

  We rode to the art museum with the statues outside the doors.

  Me and Billy love the art museum.

  It's one of
the places we get to go to alone on the bus because we don't have to make transfers or wait at bus stops.

  The bus dropped us off right in front of the museum. There weren't many cars in the parking lot, so I knew we'd have most of the museum to ourselves.

  Billy looked at me and I looked at him.

  “Yes!”

  This is what the museum is like when you first walk in it.

  Cool and sort of shadowy.

  You know that you're someplace that is different and wonderful. We come here as much as we can.

  Billy and me walked hand in hand through the lobby. We stopped to read what was showing at the museum that week and what would be showing in a few weeks.

  I said, “Why do we even look at what is showing? We always go to the same place every time.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “We should look at more things in the museum, Billy.”

  “Yeah, you're right. There's a whole lot we haven't seen.”

  We walked by a group of Girl Scouts who were being shown around by a guide.

  Me and Billy headed to our spot. To get there, we had to go by the room that has all the armor and old weapons. Then we had to go by the room with all the headless statues. I like this room, but haven't stayed there much.

  After that, we walked down a lighted hall that has pictures of lots of old men with beards.

  Billy likes this hallway. He always stops and poses in front of some of the paintings. Today was the same as always.

  “How do I look?” Billy said.

  He was standing with his hand in the air and frowning like a bearded man in the painting. The man was sitting on a horse and staring straight ahead.

  “Cool,” I said. “But why do you think the man is frowning so much?”

  “Scratchy underwear,” Billy said.

  We stayed in the hall for a little time making faces at all the men in the paintings.

  I said, “They need to laugh a little.”

  So we laughed for them.

  We marched down the hall laughing as hard as we could, until we got to the door that led to our spot.

  Our spot is a secret place.

  We're starting to think that nobody else in the world knows about it. There's ivy that grows up the brick walls that surround the garden. There are wooden benches that sit beside the walls. But the best part of the garden is the lily pond right in the middle of it all.

  It's so quiet here.

  You forget where you are, and you really forget that you're in a museum full of pictures of frowning old men.

  Billy sat on one bench, and I sat on the bench on the opposite wall.

  I whispered to Billy, “Wouldn't it be nice to be a frog here? We could just hang around the pond and eat flies and sit on the lily pads all day long…”

  “And when we wanted something to do, we could hop through the museum/' he said.

  “We could go in the room that has the huge picture of the water lilies. We could sit there all day and not move,” I said.

  “We'd have to be careful.”

  “Yeah, somebody might sit on us or something,” I agreed.

  “Frogs might only be welcomed out here in the garden.”

  “Too bad,” I said.

  We sat in the garden for a long time and listened to the water and the quiet.

  When me and Billy were done sitting in the garden, we walked back through the door and down the hall past the frowning old men.

  Usually we head for the bus, but today we decided to go sit in the room with the huge painting of the water lilies. We sat on the bench in front of the lilies, and I could almost hear the water.

  I looked at Billy and said, “Ribbit.”

  I love going to the museum.

  When we got back on the bus, we had the same driver, who shook his head at us as we showed him our bus passes.

  He said, “Are you two going to sing that duck song again?”

  I said, “Did you like it?”

  He said, “No.”

  Billy giggled. “Then we'll sing something else.”

  And we did.

  Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit,

  Croaking like a frog.

  Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit,

  Eating flies on a log.

  Oh, yeah, me and Billy should really start a band.

  We sang the frog song through the city and all the way over the Magnolia Street Bridge and back home again, where the trees, I saw, really were turning red and gold.

  The Story That Twists Around

  I snuggled down under my hummingbird blanket and thought how some days are so much fun you wish that they wouldn't end.

  Today was one of those days. I'd had fun, but I was tired at the end because the day had gotten twisty.

  Mom came to my door. She stood there and whispered, “You asleep, Charlie?”

  I said, “Yes, I'm asleep.”

  She laughed and walked over to my bed and turned on my turtle night-light.

  She said, “Scoot over.”

  I did, and she lay beside me and started looking around my room. She pointed at my collection of leaves in the corner.

  I love leaves and pick them up any time I can. I tape them to my walls and the floor. That corner of my room looks like the woods. Billy says all I need in my room is a creek, then I'd really be in the woods.

  Mom looked at me and asked, “Are you sad?”

  When I didn't say anything, she kept asking me questions.

  “Are you mad?”

  “Did you have a good day?”

  “Do you want to yell? Where have you been all day?”

  I finally grabbed my head 'cause it felt like what the tennis ball that Sid bounces against the house must feel like.

  I told Mom, “I really want a snack. Maybe a whole lot of crackers and sweet pickles.”

  Mom smiled 'cause she knew that's my favorite thing to eat and I must be okay if I wanted to eat it.

  “I'll be back in a minute,” she said.

  When she came back, I took the plate from her and munched everything up in a couple of minutes.

  “Wow,” Mom said. “You ate that up like you were a vacuum cleaner.”

  That made me laugh. She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of bed. We walked down the stairs out to the porch. I was in my pajamas. Me and Mom sat on the porch and watched fireflies. We swung for a while, then stopped and just listened to the crickets.

  Mom said, “So what about your day, Charlie-poo?”

  “Mom!” I don't like it when she calls me Charlie-poo.

  “It was a crazy day.”

  “Well, tell me about it, Charlie.”

  I said, “Okay, but it's a story that twists around.”

  Mom tucked her feet beneath her and tickled my neck.

  “That's okay I've got time for a twisty story.”

  The fireflies lit up the front yard just as I began.

  So—the twisty story.

  “Billy wasn't home when I went around to the side door of his house this morning and knocked for about five minutes. He usually is hanging around there 'cause he keeps his earthworms and things on a built-in shelf right by the door.”

  “The doors were open, so I figured Billy and his mom had run out to the store for a few minutes. I decided to sit in the tire swing in his backyard and wait for them to get back…

  “Mom, can I have a tire swing put up in the front yard tree? I know if I swing high enough and fast enough, I can touch the tops of passing cars.”

  “No, you can't have a tree swing, Charlie. What about the story?”

  “I told you it was a twisty story.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, I waited in Billy's backyard most of the morning.”

  Mom said, “Most of the morning, Charlie?”

  “Well, it felt like most of the morning. I had time enough to build a house for the ants in Billy's backyard and move some of his dad's flowerpots the way I like them.”

  “Charlie, you shouldn't touch oth
er people's things.”

  “I didn't touch that much, I just decorated Billy's backyard. But the fanny thing happened just as I was about to leave. This big van pulled into Billy's driveway and a bunch of people poured out.”

  “Who were they?” Mom asked.

  “That's not important right now. What is important is that they had a lot of kids and they looked like they might be fun. Everybody was laughing and piling out of the van.

  “Before I could say anything, this man with a big cowboy hat came over and asked me, ‘Where are they?’

  “Well, I told him that I thought they had just run out for a minute. He laughed real loud while other people dragged out coolers and all kinds of food. These two teenagers even brought out a badminton set from the van.”

  “Wow, Charlie. Looks like Billy's family was going to have a picnic,” Mom said.

  “Yep, it sure did look like that. Billy hadn't told me anything about it. I knew I was going to have fun, though, 'cause everybody was so friendly.”

  “What were some of the kids' names?”

  “There was Keisha, Raymond, Max, Ahmed, and Cinder. Mom, can I change my name to Star Bright? I don't think I'm a Charlene.”

  “WeVe talked about this before, Charlie. Tell me more about Billy's family and the picnic.”

  “Well, I told everybody to go in and make themselves at home. So all the adults went on in after they had set up all the picnic stuff in the backyard. Somebody accidentally squashed my ant house.”

  “I'm sorry about that,” Mom said.

  “That's okay. I can build another one. Anyway, the kids were all about my age, so they stayed outside with me. I told them that there were some okay things to see on Magnolia Street.”

  “So what did you all do?”

  “Well, I was going to wait for Billy, but I think the kids had been in the van too long. They wanted to take a long walk around the neighborhood.”

  “So where did you take them?”

  “I took them everywhere, Mom. I took them to the ravine and we threw rocks down into it. I took them to the back of the pudding factory. We stood there forever, smelling everything.”

  “They enjoyed that, huh?”

  “Yeah, Cinder enjoyed it so much she asked if we could get pudding if we knocked on the door.”

  “Did you all knock?” Mom asked.