Alfie should have known it was a trick. A dirty, dirty trick.
He lay on his back on the hardest air mattress in the world staring at the ceiling, which he couldn’t see. The cellar was so dark, he wouldn’t even be able to see his hand if he held it right in front of his face—although he hadn’t tried it because he didn’t dare let go of the blanket that he clutched for dear life around his chin.
The cellar smelled like dirty socks and moldy peanut butter. What had Mamm been thinking? Everybody knew mold was poisonous. Willie Glick even said so. And Alfie was sure a spider had crawled across his hand not one minute ago.
The ceiling creaked as if it was going to fall on him and his brother. Or maybe it was a ghost sneaking around upstairs waiting for Alfie to go to sleep so he could attack.
“Benji?” Alfie whispered, risking pulling his hand out of the covers to tap his twin bruder on the arm. Benji responded by rolling over and jabbing his knee into Alfie’s side.
It will be fun, Mamm had said. You will love sleeping down there. It was the first time that Mamm had lied straight to his face. At least he hoped it was the first time. How many other lies had she told him? Had his hamster really run away?
Alfie was not happy that Benji could sleep through anything, even a ghost attack. “Wake up.” Alfie shoved his bruder so hard that Benji slipped off the air mattress and thudded onto the cement floor.
“Hey!” Benji protested. “Stop it.”
“We’ve got to make a plan,” Alfie said, pulling the covers tighter around himself. It was almost summertime, but how hard would it have been for Dat to build a small fire in the stove so his youngest sons didn’t freeze to death? Alfie heard some shuffling on Benji’s side, then Benji fell hard onto the mattress as if he’d tripped trying to find it in the dark. His hard fall bounced Alfie into the air—not far, but high enough to wake all the spiders lurking under the mattress. There was a small pop and a hiss, and Alfie slowly started to sink. “Benji, what did you do?”
Benji sat up again. “I didn’t do nothing, but I think there’s a hole in here.”
They both fell silent. A low hiss came from Benji’s side of the air mattress, and no doubt about it, they were sinking like a leaky boat.
Mamm had told them not to turn on the electric lantern unless it was an emergency because it wasted the battery. Their mattress was flattening like a pancake, Alfie had probably already been bitten by a spider, and he was going to die from mold poisoning. As far as he was concerned, this was an emergency.
Alfie felt around the edge of the bed until his hand found the lantern. He flipped the switch, and the cellar flooded with light. There were some spooky shadows in the corner where monsters could be hiding, but Lord willing, the lantern would keep them safe.
“Come on, Alfie,” Benji said, rubbing his eyes. “I want to sleep.”
“You popped our mattress. Mamm said not to jump on it.”
Benji sat cross-legged on the slowly shrinking mattress, squinting into the light. “I didn’t jump on it. I fell.” Benji was still wearing the trousers he’d worn during the day with nothing on top.
Something shiny in his back pocket caught the light. “What’s that?” Alfie said.
Benji twisted his body to look at his pocket. He reached back and pulled out a fork. “This is in case I woke up and wanted a piece of pie. Then I wouldn’t have to go upstairs to get a fork.”
Alfie rolled his eyes. “You still have to go upstairs to get a piece of pie.”
Benji grinned, reached down to the other side of the mattress, and lifted a plate from the floor. On it was a thick slab of snitz pie from dinner last night, and Benji had somehow missed squishing it when Alfie had pushed him off the bed. He stuck his fork into the slice and took a bite.
“Me,” Alfie said, motioning for Benji to give him some.
Benji picked up the pie with his fingers and shoved it toward Alfie. Alfie took a big bite. “You didn’t need a fork.”
Benji frowned. “I guess not.”
“And it poked a hole in our bed.”
Benji frowned harder. “I didn’t think of that.”
The mattress continued to hiss, and Alfie and Benji continued to sink. Alfie growled. They’d die if they had to sleep in the cellar for the rest of their lives. He picked up Benji’s pie and took another bite. “We’ve got to make a plan, and it has to be super secret.”
Benji’s eyes darted from left to right, and he smiled so wide, Alfie could see the gap where one of his back teeth was missing. “What kind of plan?”
“We need to get our room back.”
Benji stopped smiling. “But Mamm and Dat kicked us out.”
“Look, Benji, our air mattress is dead, and when it gets all the way to the ground, the spiders will start crawling on us. And Mamm killed a mouse in here just last week.”
“Mice are cute, and spiders eat bad bugs. Mamm said so.”
“It’s so dark. What if Mamm forgets we’re down here and leaves us in the cellar forever?”
Benji nodded, eyes wide. “The window is too high to crawl out.”
“We need fresh air. It stinks down here.”
Benji took the last bite of his pie and stuffed his fork back into his pocket. “But Mamm and Dat have to sleep in our room because Mammi and Dawdi are in their room. Dawdi can’t climb the stairs since his stroke.”
Alfie scratched his head. “We can’t kick Dawdi out. He can’t hardly even talk.”
Benji got sort of weepy all of a sudden. “I love Dawdi so much, but Mamm says he can’t remember who I am.”
Alfie shook his head. “He remembers, all right. Just cuz he don’t say nothing doesn’t mean he doesn’t know us. He smiles with his eyes. Yesterday I heard him say jah.”
“I miss him. He used to tell us stories and help us catch pollywogs.”
“He’ll do that again, Benji. Mamm says he’ll get better if he does his exercises every day. That’s why he’s living with us, so Mamm and Dat can help him.”
Benji slumped his shoulders. “We’ll never get our room back.”
Alfie scrunched his lips together. “We have to get rid of Andrew.”
“Andrew? Why Andrew? He’s my favorite bruder, next to you.”
Alfie sighed. “We have to get rid of all three of them. Mamm wants to turn Andrew’s room into a sewing room when he moves out, so we’ll still be in the cellar. Abraham and Austin will have to go too. Then we can have their room.”
“But how do we get rid of all three of them? They’re way bigger than us,” Benji said.
Alfie couldn’t help but agree. Their three older bruderen would never take orders from Benji and Alfie. “They should move out and get their own houses. That’s what Aunt Beth says.” Alfie leaned his head close to Benji’s. “She told me not to tell anyone.”
Benji licked up the crumbs on the pie plate. “I don’t see how to get them to move out.”
“We need a plan.”
“A really gute plan.” Benji fished a piece of wax from his ear. “We could play a trick on them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most boys move out when they get married.”
“You mean we can trick them into getting married?” Alfie said, a slow smile growing on his lips.
Benji nodded. “We could find Andrew, Abraham, and Austin each a wife. But I don’t know who.”
Alfie looked up to the ceiling like he always did when he thought deep thoughts. A long, thin cobweb dangled directly over his head. He squeaked, slapped at it, and scrubbed his hand across the blanket to get rid of it. They had to come up with a plan or he was going to have an attack of the heebie-jeebies. He didn’t know exactly what the heebie-jeebies were, but you could catch them from spiders and girls. That’s what Willie Glick said. “We need to think of somebody right quick. I hate this cellar.”
“We should do Andrew first because he’s the oldest.”
Alfie heaved a sigh. “He doesn’t like anybody in Bienenstock. He said so him
self.”
“What about Mary Coblenz? She’s new in town, so Andrew hasn’t met her.”
“Who is Mary Coblenz?”
Benji pulled the fork from his pocket and twirled it in his fingers. “She’s living with Bitsy Weaver—you know, the fraa who paints her hair. And she”—Benji looked around to make sure no one was spying on them, leaned close, and lowered his voice—“she’s going to have a baby.”
Benji leaned too far and bonked Alfie in the forehead. Alfie pulled away and rubbed his sore head. “There’s no need to whisper.”
“That’s how Mamm said it, like it was a secret. I didn’t think it was proper to say it out loud.”
“Ach, vell, girls have babies all the time. If it’s that big of a secret, why did Mamm tell you?”
Benji shrugged. “She didn’t. She was talking to Aunt Beth. They never think us little kids listen.”
The more Alfie thought about it, the more he liked the idea. “Mary Coblenz is a gute choice. She’s already going to have a baby, so that would save time for all of us. It wonders me if we won’t get rid of Andrew in three or four weeks.”
Benji chewed on his bottom lip. It was what he did when he was thinking real hard. “We’ll need some supplies. Walkie-talkies and binoculars for sure and certain.”
“We can break our piggy banks.”
“But I like my piggy bank. He smiles at me.”
“Benji, do you want to get our room back or don’t you?”
Benji sniffed and swiped the back of his hand across his nose. “I guess so.”
“Dawdi has binoculars. He won’t care if we use them.”
“How do you know? Dawdi can’t even talk.”
“He won’t care,” Alfie said, with a confidence he didn’t really feel. He hoped Dawdi didn’t care, because Benji would never go along with the plan if he thought it might upset Dawdi.
Benji pressed his lips together and looked sideways. “We could ask Mammi Martha.”
Alfie squished his face into a terrible, awful frown just so Benji would know what he thought of that idea. “We can’t tell Mammi Martha. She told Mamm we stink.”
Benji looked up to the ceiling and thought about it long and hard. “Let’s ask Dawdi. Sometimes he gives me secret messages with his eyes. I’ll know if he says yes.” Benji slid off the air mattress, which was now so low not even a small child would trip over it. “I’ll sneak upstairs and get a paper and pencils so we can write down what we need.”
“Nae, Benji. What if Andrew found our plans? Or Mamm? We have to memorize them and keep our lips shut. The only people who can be in on our secret are you, me, and Dawdi. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Alfie and Benji shook hands. They could always count on each other—brothers to the death.
Alfie smiled to himself. They’d have their room back before harvest time.
Chapter Three
“Alfie Benaiah Petersheim, get that cat off my table!”
Andrew hadn’t even walked in the house yet, but he could hear Mamm loud and clear in the kitchen. The neighbors could probably hear her too—not that this was anything unusual. Mamm tended to raise her voice to one of her boys on a regular basis. She had mostly quit shouting at Andrew, Abraham, and Austin since they’d grown up and didn’t get into much mischief anymore.
But the twins, Alfie and Benji, were another story. If they were awake, they were either making trouble or planning trouble, and Mamm was diligent about keeping all that funny business under control. She ruled with a firm hand, knowing that if she let up for even a minute, they’d probably kill themselves trying to do something stupid like lighting a fire in the house or scaling the barn roof in their underwear.
Grinning, Andrew’s bruder Austin poked Andrew in the ribs with his elbow. “It sounds like the twins are in trouble again.” Austin was twenty-one years old and didn’t seem to have a care in the world—especially if Mamm was mad at someone else besides him.
“Don’t even think about it,” Mamm growled, loudly enough to spook the chickens in the yard.
Abraham folded himself onto the porch step where he sat to take off his muddy boots. Of the three older bruderen, Abraham was the tallest—six-foot-three—and even though he was twenty-two years old, he hadn’t shown any signs of stopping. He’d grown an inch last year. “I think it’s gotten worse since Mammi and Dawdi moved in.” Abraham was quieter and more pensive than either Andrew or Austin. He noticed things like why Mamm was in a bad mood instead of just when she was.
Not that Andrew hadn’t noticed it too. Mammi and Dawdi had moved in a couple of weeks ago after Dawdi’s stroke, and while Mamm and Dat were happy, even eager to help, two new guests in the house hadn’t been easy on anybody.
Andrew and his bruderen left their muddy boots by the door and filed into the house. Mamm held the broom aloft, pointing the broom head in Alfie’s direction. The kitchen table stood between Mamm and Andrew’s twin bruderen, Alfie and Benji, and Alfie was wrestling with the sorriest cat Andrew had ever seen. It was black and white with lopsided whiskers and one ear split right down the middle. Part of its tail was missing too. Alfie held the cat at arm’s length to avoid getting scratched, but the cat hissed and bared its fangs while trying to claw its way up Alfie’s arm.
“Get that cat out of my house this instant,” Mamm said, raising her broom in case of an attack.
“But, Mamm, he’s so cute,” Alfie said, forcing a smile before shoving the cat in Benji’s direction.
Benji took the cat from Alfie and cuddled the pitiful animal close to his chest. The cat hissed and scowled, but surprisingly, it didn’t go for Benji’s throat. Maybe it didn’t like the way Benji smelled. Or maybe it did. The cat stuck out its tongue and licked Benji’s wrist. “He’s lost, Mamm. We need to take him back to his rightful owner,” Benji said.
Mamm blew a strand of hair from her eyes. “You need to take him behind the barn and put him out of his misery, that’s what.”
Benji’s mouth fell open. “You want us to kill him?”
Mamm half sighed, half growled. “Nae. I don’t want you to kill him. Just take him back to the woods where you found him and let him loose. He can take care of himself. And whatever you do, don’t feed him.”
Benji gave Mamm a sheepish grimace. “We opened a can of tuna fish.”
“Ach,” Mamm said, throwing up her free hand, but Andrew knew better than to think she’d surrendered. “He still has to go. You know the rule. No pets allowed. Look what he did to my table.” Her voice rose in irritation. “Look what he did to my chair.”
Andrew wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but the table was dotted with little flour paw prints, and stuffing poked out from the upholstery on one of the old kitchen chairs. “I can make a whole new set of chairs for you, Mamm,” Andrew said, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
Abraham nodded. “He could make the finest chairs you ever saw, Mamm.”
Mamm waved away the suggestion. “We don’t need new chairs. What we need is a kick in the seat of the pants and to be rid of this cat.”
“But, Mamm, someone loves this cat, and we need to help him find his home.” Alfie’s eyes filled with tears, and Andrew might have thought he was truly upset if he didn’t know any better. Alfie was very gute at turning on the tears when he really wanted to get Mamm’s attention.
Apparently, Mamm wasn’t fooled either. “Save your tears for your sins, young man.”
Austin dampened a piece of paper towel and started wiping the paw prints from Mamm’s table. “You can search all over town, but you won’t find anyone who loves that cat.”
Benji seemed a little more sincere than Alfie. “He’s one of Gotte’s creatures.”
Mamm wasn’t about to give in, but she wasn’t completely insensitive to the poor animal. “All right. You can take him to the animal shelter in Shawano, but I don’t know how you think you’re going to get there.”
“We don’t have to take it to Shawano,” Alfie said, scratching at wha
t looked like a mosquito bite on his arm. “This is Bitsy Weaver’s cat. If Andrew will drive us, we can take it back tonight.”
Mamm’s face became a brewing storm. “You knew it was Bitsy’s cat all along?”
Alfie bit his bottom lip. “Well, um, jah . . . I suppose.”
“Why did you carry on and on like you didn’t know?” Mamm said.
Alfie shrugged, widening his eyes in artificial innocence. “You never asked us.”
Mamm gave Alfie the stink eye and chased him around the table with the broom. Alfie ran for his life, and they both ended up laughing by the time they’d made a complete circle around the table.
“Alfie Petersheim, don’t think you can pull your shenanigans on me,” Mamm said, laughing and frowning at the same time.
Andrew couldn’t help but smile. It had always been that way with Mamm. She did her share of shouting, but there was affection behind every word. All her sons knew that Mamm loved them enough to give them correction, even if it meant ruining her singing voice.
“Now get to Bitsy’s before I tan your hide,” Mamm said.
Benji turned to Andrew. “Will you take us tonight?”
Andrew glanced at his brothers. Why didn’t the twins ever ask Abraham or Austin to do things for them? It was one of the consequences of being the oldest. “I suppose. We can go after dinner.”
Mamm stomped her broom on the floor. “Go now, Andrew. I want that cat out of my house. You have an hour before dinner.”
Alfie drew his brows together. “But, Mamm, that won’t give him enough time to . . .”
Mamm started sweeping the floor. The cat had apparently been there too. “Enough time to what?”
“Nothing,” Alfie said quickly, as if he wanted Mamm to forget he’d said anything.
“Then get going.” Mamm tapped Alfie’s bottom with the broom, then caught Benji as he passed.
“I’ll sweep, Mamm,” Andrew said, nudging the broom out of her hands. She moved as if her back was hurting her again. Either that or Mammi Martha had really gotten on her nerves today.
Mamm took back her broom and gave Andrew a peck on the cheek. “You’ll do me a better service by getting rid of that cat. Austin can sweep.”
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