“No, her brother Raymond told her not to be greedy, so we forgot about it. Then we went over to the park and hung around on the playground and stuff. Keisha and Raymond had skateboards.”
“Did you guys have fan?”
“Yeah, we did. I liked all the kids a lot. After we were done in the park, we went to Mo's for tacos and ice cream. Everybody said they had room for more food, too. And that was great 'cause their parents brought a ton.”
“So that's what you did all afternoon.”
“We stayed away for a long time. We left Billy's house a couple of hours before lunch and didn't come back till I saw Dad pulling into our drive.”
“Well, that was about three-thirty this afternoon.”
“When we came back, though, the grownups were barbecuing out back and playing badminton and sitting around the picnic table talking and laughing and dancing.”
“Were Billy and his mom and dad there yet?”
“Nope.”
“So what did you do, Charlie?”
“I played badminton and ate a hamburger and danced like everybody else did. I had a good time. I came home a little before you called me in for dinner.”
“Well, I'm glad Billy's relatives were nice, but I still don't understand the twisty part of this story.”
“The twisty part of the story happened when all the relatives were loading up to leave and Billy and his mom and dad pulled into the driveway.”
“Well, where had they been? Don't tell me that they had gone to the relatives' house by mistake.”
“Nope, they'd gone to the state fair for the day. I only remembered that then.”
“That's too bad that they'd missed the picnic and the relatives.”
“Yep, I thought so, too.”
“You usually have a pretty good memory, Charlie.”
“Yeah, usually.”
“I'm sorry that Billy's family reunion didn't work out.”
“Me too. Billy loves picnics.”
“Maybe they'll plan another get-together.”
“Maybe they will, even though none of the people were related to Billy's family. It turned out that the people had come to the wrong street arid the wrong house. Their relatives live on Magnolia Drive. They'd never been there before.”
Mom started laughing so loud I thought she would scare all the fireflies.
“So, Charlie, that was the twist?”
“Pretty twisty, huh?”
“You had some day.”
“Oh, yeah, it was pretty okay. I'm tired now.”
“I'll bet you are, entertaining Billy's not relatives like that. Time to go up to bed now.”
“Okay, but Mom. Can I have a tree swing?”
Mom pulled me toward the door.
“Time for bed, Charlie-poo.”
“Mom!”
Us and the Wind
When the wind blows on Magnolia Street, it can bring just about anything or anyone blowing by.
It's been a fun summer, and even though I'll soon be going to a new school, Billy says I'll like it.
Today we climbed up into the tree in front of my house. We swayed there, enjoying the windy day. All kinds of things flew by us.
We both sat wide-eyed and said, “Wow.”
This is what we saw:
Clothes from people's lines.
A baby stroller full of vegetables.
Garbage can lids and people chasing them.
There was even a big old bowl of popcorn that Miss Marcia had been spray-painting. The purple and red popcorn looked so pretty flying around the neighborhood. We watched it all from our perch in the tree.
Me and Billy started to imagine that we were in the sails of a tall ship. All the things blowing by us on Magnolia Street became big waves of water.
When anyone walked by our sailboat, we called out, “Ahoy!”
Then they just looked all over the place trying to find out where the voices came from. Nobody ever looked up, though. Me and Billy sailed along. We passed islands and dolphins who swam along beside us as we went farther out into the ocean.
Billy yelled, “Sea monster!” when Mrs. Bateman went running by in the funniest-looking hat I've ever seen. She really did look like a monster in that hat. We were rescued from the monster when her hat blew off and she chased it down the street—I mean, ocean.
Billy said, “I love sailing,” and I knew what he meant as we floated on past Magnolia Street.
When me and Billy were just about to discover a new island, we were brought back to Magnolia Street, the wind, and the tree. We looked down and there he was.
A boy in overalls and a straw hat heard us calling, “Ahoy!”
Squinting into the wind, he looked up at us and yelled, “Who's up there? What are you two doing? Can I climb up, too? How long have you been up in the tree?”
The boy kept asking questions and jumping like a frog every time we answered one. When he ran out of questions, he spun in circles, then flew like an airplane around the tree.
He looked as if he belonged in the wind as he flew around our imaginary sailboat.
I asked, “What's your name, kid?”
The boy stopped flying and jumped straight up and grabbed on to one of the lower branches, then started swinging.
“My name's Lump.”
Lump kept swinging.
Billy said, “Where do you live?”
Lump let one hand go and pointed to somewhere down the street.
I said, “Lump from down the street, huh?”
Lump said, “I live around. One minute I was on my street, the next I'm here.”
Billy said, “I think I saw you in school last spring.”
Well, on most days Billy pretty much thinks the way I do about certain things. I mean, there have been a few times when we didn't see things alike. Most of the time, though…
So when I said, “Lump from down the street,” I think that Lump's name suddenly struck Billy as real funny, because it was only a few seconds later that Billy fell out of the tree laughing.
I worried that Billy might have hurt Lump's feelings, and that isn't like Billy.
But when I looked down through the branches, Billy was sitting on the grass beside Lump and they were talking about dolphins and whales.
I jumped down and sat beside Lump.
I said, “What's up?”
Lump pointed to the wind and all the things blowing by in it. I started to smile. Billy had a big old grin on his face, too. I think Lump is one of those people who make you smile all the time. I have an uncle like that. At family picnics, everybody circles around him and always leaves smiling.
Lump told us that he hasn't lived in the neighborhood long. He came to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle makes pudding and gets paid for it.
I said, “I didn't think anybody could be that lucky. They should save those jobs for kids. I don't think grown people can really appreciate a job like that.”
Billy agreed and nodded his head.
Lump said, “I think my uncle likes it. He's gained a whole lot of weight since he started working there. My aunt keeps trying to get him to start running or something, but he says he'll only run when he's being chased.”
Me and Billy looked at each other and smiled.
We liked Lump.
Soon he was telling us about where he used to live and how it wasn't as windy as it is here on Magnolia Street. He said he never met anybody sailing a boat up in a tree there, either. He was glad that Billy fell out of the tree, though, and did we know where he could get some really good ice cream?
Just as me and Billy were about to tell him about Mo's Freeze Shack, our heads were covered in blowing newspapers that must have escaped from somebody's recycling bin.
We took the newspapers off our heads and lay back on the grass laughing and listening to the wind howl and watching the clouds rush by until Sid came by on his bike and said, “You all waiting for somebody to drop something on you?”
Lump looked at me.
I said, “Don't pay any attention to that creature on the bike. He's just this kid who climbs in our house through a window now and then and eats up all our food. My parents feel sorry for him, so they let him stay. We figure he'll go away on his own after a while and catch up with his real family. He says he's related to us, but I think that's just to get birthday presents and things.”
Sid crossed his eyes, parked his bike, and went into the house.
I smiled at Billy and Lump.
A windy day just blows in all kinds of things to do.
Soon me, Billy, and Lump were chasing runaway belongings from all the neighbors down the sidewalks and into all the yards.
Billy decided that it would be fun to wear everything we found. Lump grabbed the first thing that blew by him.
In a few minutes, I was wearing a straw hat with fruit and a horn on top of it and Billy was wearing an apron that said KISS THE COOK.
The strangest outfit of all, though, was Lump's. He was wrapped in a baby blanket and had a green plastic bucket on top of his head. We marched down Magnolia Street. It was just us and the wind.
Miss Marcia waved to us and called, “Got time to visit?”
We ran up her sidewalk and sat on the steps. She was covered in yellow paint.
I said, “This is our new friend, Lump.”
Miss Marcia stopped painting a big piece of plywood.
“Nice to meet you, Lump. Windy, isn't it?” Then she pointed to the marshmallow brownies on the table and talked about trains and her flower garden and how she hoped the wind wouldn't blow it away.
When we'd eaten most of the brownies, we thanked Miss Marcia and marched back down the walk.
Lump said, “I like her. She didn't even ask me my real name like most grownups do. She didn't say anything about our clothes, either.”
Billy said, “Yeah, she's okay. She's not nosy, and she thinks 'most anything we do is funny.”
Lump smiled back at Miss Marcia, who was painting up a storm. He started running down the sidewalk, blanket blowing. Billy and I took off after him.
The wind began to get stronger. We ran up and down the street a few times, but ended up in front of my house.
We lay down in front of the tree and listened to the wind again.
Suddenly Lump stood up.
He said, “If you want to go somewhere you've always wanted to go, all you have to do is spin around three times, put your arms out like you're flying, close your eyes, and there you'll be.”
So me, Billy, and Lump sailed on past the ocean.
But the whole time, if we looked out the corner of our eyes, we could spot the willows that welcome you to Magnolia Street and Miss Marcia's house and Mr. Pinkton's roses. Once, I could even see Sid's bike as a dolphin racing past us in our sailboat. A few times me, Billy, and Lump even caught sight of the tree branches we sailed away in.
Mom came out and snapped an instant picture of us in the tree.
We sailed until the sun started to go down and we all got called in to eat.
We ran up and down the street returning the windy day stuff back to where we thought it belonged, then we said good night to each other and went home.
It came to me now just as I was about to fall asleep that Lump had been looking for us when we first met him. Now he was here with me and Billy, and it's like we've been together forever.
I looked at the picture of us all in the tree. I think it may be a good idea to put the picture Mom took of us into the pumpkin box. Maybe we'll find more things for it later.
I hope I have nice dreams of Billy, Lump, and me on Magnolia Street and hope the wind always brings us wonderful things.
Angela Johnson is the author of many picture books and highly acclaimed novels for young readers, including Toning the Sweep, which won the Coretta Scott King Award, and The First Part Last, which received both the Coretta Scott King Award and the Michael L. Printz Award in 2004. She has also written Songs of Faith; Heaven; Do Like Kyla, illustrated by James E. Ransome; and Gone from Home. In 2003, Angela Johnson became a Fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She lives in Kent, Ohio.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc., New York
Text copyright © 2000 by Angela Johnson
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eISBN: 978-0-307-48794-0
December 2005
OPM
v3.0
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To
Alyssa and DJ
CHAPTER ONE
We Go Fishing
CHAPTER TWO
A Mystery (Where're the Carters?)
CHAPTER THREE
Magic
CHAPTER FOUR
A Friend
CHAPTER FIVE
Billy's Letter from Camp
CHAPTER SIX
A Letter from Lump
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street
chool is out for summer! So today is the first summer-vacation fishing trip for me and my two best friends, Lump and Billy. And here is what I'm taking:
3 baloney sandwiches
12 comic books
3 Big Swooshie Fruit Punch Drink boxes
1 net
1 pound of cheese (the fish love it)
1 can of mosquito repellent
1 fishing pole
1 pail with ice (and it's a good thing Mom's dropping us off, 'cause that pail of ice would be heavy to carry all the way to the river at the end of Magnolia Street)
1 Goober Kids book (I'll share)
I don't think it's too much to take with me, even though Mom said something about how huge my backpack is. We love to fish, even though we're not very good at it.
The fish like us 'cause they love the cheese we put on our hooks.
I could fish all day long. My big brother, Sid, says he doesn't know why we don't just throw the cheese in the water with bread so the fish can make themselves sandwiches. He says we're feeding them, not fishing for them.…
The sun came up a few minutes ago, and I'm done packing. Mom wasn't looking too good, though. She was all huddled over her cup of coffee and she wasn't smiling like she usually does in the morning.
I looked at her feet.
“Mom, are you going to drive us fishing in your bunny slippers?”
She looked down and stared at her slippers like she didn't know how the bunnies got on her feet. The bunnies were a birthday gift from me to her. Mom always wears them. She says they're better than pets because they don't shed fur on the sofa and they don't eat out of the garbage can.
My mom is a little different from most people. I like her a lot.
“Well, I think the girls won't mind driving you and the boys to the fishing hole. They've combed their ears and brushed their noses.”
“Huh?” I said.
“The bunnies are going. Do you think Lump and Billy will like
them?”
“Lump and Billy won't mind. Billy's mom wears a hat with a propeller, and Lump's uncle always wears yellow Hawaiian shirts.”
“Wow,” Mom said.
“Yeah, they all dress pretty cool.”
“Well, I'm glad you think the bunny girls are cool clothing.”
“Hey, I wouldn't have gotten them for you otherwise.”
Just as Mom went to look for her car keys, Lump and Billy fell into the kitchen.
Lump asked, “Are you ready to go fishing?”
“We're ready and waiting,” Billy called out to anybody in the room who might have been listening.
We sang a fishing song till Mom dropped us off on the side of the road and waved good-bye.
A-fishin' we will go.
A-fishin' we will go.
Put down your plate and eat some bait.
A-fishin' we will go.
We make up songs whenever we go fishing, and never afterward remember anything we've sung. We've made up thousands of fishing songs. I think the fish like them, too, even though everyone says the noise scares them.
Me, Lump, and Billy grabbed all our fishing gear and ran down the ravine to the river.
It was a beautiful morning.
We walked for a few minutes along the river. Water bugs danced on the surface, and we listened to katydids calling. We have a special place that's just big enough for us. The bank is sandy, and there's enough room to put all our gear down and still stretch out while we're fishing.
“Great!” Lump said as he started to bait the fishhooks with cheese.
“Nothing like fishing,” Billy said as he pulled out a few comic books and the mosquito spray.
I took the Big Swooshies and put them into the river so the water would keep them cool. It's early in the summer, and the water was still cold. The sun hadn't warmed up our part of the river yet.
I also tied up some loose ends of the net. It got a little torn last time, when Billy got bored with fishing and went looking for elk upriver. Even though Lump said he didn't think elk lived this far south, it didn't stop Billy, who ripped the net catching what he first thought was a bear but which turned out to be an old barbecue.
Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street Page 4