Kung Fooey

by Graham Salisbury

  Julio’s screen door slapped shut behind us. “Let’s go get a front-row seat.”

  Back at my house, Streak leaped all over me as Julio and I headed through the garage toward the kitchen door. “Hang on, girl. I’ll be right back out.”

  Julio waited in the garage with Streak. Stella made Julio nervous, unless Mom was home. But Mom was still at work.

  Darci and I went in the house.

  Clarence was sitting at the kitchen counter reading Stella’s driver’s manual.

  Darci and I dropped our backpacks on the floor.

  Clarence looked up and lifted his chin, Hey.

  “Are you taking Stella out to practice again?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Now?”

  “Soon as she comes back out.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Changing into her driving clothes.”

  I studied him. “Driving clothes?”

  Clarence chuckled.

  Darci and I went back outside and plopped down next to Julio and Streak. We didn’t have to wait long.

  Stella’s driving clothes were a light blue shirt, white shorts, and running shoes. She glanced at us, the bright sun making her long hair shine like gold. “What are you doing?” she said.

  I shrugged. “Hanging out.”

  Darci couldn’t hold it back. “We want to watch you drive.”

  Stella shook her head. “No. You can’t. Go find something else to do. You’ll make me nervous.”

  Darci and Julio started to get up.

  But I didn’t move. Good that she was nervous. I owed her for making me shrink.

  I leaned back on my hands and smiled.

  Stella made a fist and ground it into her palm. “You want some of this, Stump? You want some Texas Nice?”

  Stella had come to live with us from Texas. She said they didn’t put up with fools like me there. Fools got Texas Nice, every time.

  Me and Darci hadn’t seen what Texas Nice was yet, but whatever it was, I didn’t think Stella would show us with Clarence around.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  Stella murdered me with her eyes, then huffed and slipped behind the steering wheel of Clarence’s big pink car.

  Clarence went around to the other side and ducked into the passenger seat.

  Stella started the car and gunned the engine.

  Varrroooom!

  Julio and Darci took a step back.

  Stella glanced in the rearview mirror. A loud squeal came from the tires as she screeched out of the driveway.

  Clarence grabbed the dashboard as Stella bounced to a jolting stop halfway into the weeds on the other side of the road.

  Ho!

  Julio and Darci froze.

  Streak scurried back into the garage.

  Dust rose around the car as it sat there idling. Stella looked grim, her hands gripping the wheel.

  I jumped up and down. “Yee-haw!”

  The car jerked forward. A foot. Another foot.

  Then the engine died. Stella covered her face with her hands.

  “I told you this would be good!” I shouted to Julio. “I told you!”

  Julio was still speechless.

  Clarence blinked and reached over to touch Stella’s shoulder. He said something.

  Stella nodded and dropped her hands from the steering wheel. She looked over at us.

  I covered my mouth and pointed at her, making like I was laughing.

  “Don’t,” Julio said, grabbing my arm. “She might make that guy come get us.”

  “I know kung fu,” I said.

  Stella started the car.

  Clarence motioned for her to head slowly up the street. He hung on to the dashboard with one hand.

  Stella jerked the car forward and got it going smoothly. She drove up the street about as fast as I could walk. Julio, Darci, and I followed them. Streak came out of the garage and trailed us, too, but kept her distance.

  “I can’t believe Clarence lets her drive his car,” I said.

  Clarence loved his car. He was always inspecting it for scratches and nicks. He even carried rags in his trunk to wipe dust off the paint. The car was a classic.

  So why would he let Stella even touch it?

  Stella picked up speed.

  We started jogging to keep up. Streak was feeling braver now, running ahead, barking.

  Up the street, Willy and Maya were tossing a Frisbee around. Stella and Clarence headed toward them. Willy and Maya moved to the side of the road, and Stella drove past without hitting them.

  “What’s going on?” Willy asked when we ran up.

  “Clarence is teaching Stella how to drive,” I said. “She drove into the weeds down by my house. Come on. We’re following them.”

  We jogged after the pink car, keeping up as it drifted from one side of the road to the other. Streak backed off.

  “Stella’s not too good yet, is she?” Maya said.

  “Clarence is going to kill her if she hits anything,” I said. “Even if she just scratches the paint.”

  Stella must have been feeling pretty confident, because when we got up by the park, she was going fast enough to get a ticket.

  We slowed to a walk, breathing hard.

  Julio stopped. “We’re getting too close to Tito’s house. I hope he’s not home.”

  We all knew not to go any closer, so we headed into the park, watching out for the pokey burrs that stabbed into our feet. The park had a rusty swing set and a metal slide.

  “Throw me that Frisbee,” Julio said, running out into the field.

  We all made a big circle and tossed it back and forth, except for Darci, who went for the swings. Streak tried to steal the Frisbee a few times and finally got it. It took all four of us to get it back.

  A few minutes later, Stella and Clarence cruised back down the street on the other side of the park. Stella was driving like a real driver, except she was going too fast. When she got to the stop sign, she stopped with a jolt. Then she put on the blinker, turned the corner, and zoomed around the park again.

  Clarence nodded at us as if everything was just fine.

  “Man,” Julio said, watching Stella speed past. “She got a lead foot. If that was my car I’d be chewing my fingernails.”

  I humphed. “Was me, I’d hide the key.”

  Stella and Clarence sped by three more times before heading home.

  We started to run after them but quickly slid to a stop.

  Tito was sitting with his friends Bozo and Frankie Diamond in somebody’s yard between us and our street.

  And all three of them were looking right at us.

  Tito was grinning his what-can-I-do-to-these-punks grin.

  I looked for a way out.

  There wasn’t any. “What should we do?”

  Julio frowned. Meeting up with Tito was never fun. “Go knock on doors until somebody lets us hide in their house?”

  Willy laughed.

  “I don’t get it,” Maya said. “How can you be afraid of a doofus like him? Come on, guys, do like what Mr. Purdy always says—soldier up. Tito’s not that smart.”

  “It’s not his brain that worries me,” I said.

  “Follow me. I’ll protect you.” Maya grabbed Darci’s hand and headed down the street.

  “This should be interesting,” Julio mumbled.

  “I know kung fu,” I said, only this time no one laughed. I snapped my fingers for Streak to follow me.

  Tito, Bozo, and Frankie Diamond were sprawled on the grass like cats in the sun. Tito was still grinning.

  Bozo gave us his most criminal stink eye.

  Frankie Diamond, like always, just looked amused. I didn’t get that guy. He was calm and cool; his hair was always perfectly combed; he wore a nice shiny silver chain around his neck. Sometimes he was friendly. Not like Tito at all. Still, they liked each other.

  We tried to pass by like nothing was up.

  “Heyyy,” Tito said, smiling even bigger when we go
t close. “It’s the Coco-dork gang. Whatchoo punks doing in my neighborhood?”

  Maya and Darci kept walking and didn’t even glance at him.

  “Hey, tough girl,” Tito called. “Be nice. Tito might ax you out someday. You might be my girlfrien’… when you old enough.”

  Maya turned, stuck her finger down her throat, and pretended to gag. Gak!

  Frankie Diamond threw back his head and laughed.

  Tito grinned. “You never know, ah?”

  Maya and Darci kept on going.

  But when we tried to pass, Tito put up his hand.

  We stopped, even though he was lying on the grass and we were out on the street. We could have run for it.

  But we weren’t stupid.

  Tito hooked his finger at us. “Come, punks. Talk to Tito. I’m bored.”

  Maya turned and walked backwards. “He’s not bored. He’s nobody. Don’t listen to him.”

  Tito liked that. “Hey, girl,” he said. “When this nobody talks, everybody listens.” He grinned at us. “Ain’t that right, little punks?”

  Julio, Willy, and I nodded. Yeah, sure, Tito, whatever. It was either that or get beat up at school.

  Tito tapped the grass with his hand. “Come. Sit.”

  We sat.

  Maya and Darci left us to our fate.

  Tito pointed his chin toward Streak, who lay on the grass next to me, panting. “What kind dog that? Chihuahua, or what?”

  I shrugged. “Just a mutt.”

  “Tito,” Bozo said. “Ax um if it bites.”

  Tito looked at me. “Well?”

  “She won’t bite.”

  “She? How come you didn’t get a boy dog? Only girls get girl dogs.”

  I shrugged. “I like this one.”

  Frankie Diamond made kissing sounds and snapped his fingers for Streak to come to him.

  Frankie was sitting cross-legged, and Streak jumped into his lap. He scratched her chin.

  Tito yawned and stretched. He kicked me, not hard, just enough to get my attention. “Who’s that goofball in your class, wears those black boots? Where he came from?”

  “He just moved here from Hilo.”

  Tito nodded. “Hilo. Never been there.” He thought a moment. “What’s with those glasses? He like be one cop, or what?”

  “He’s weird,” Julio said.

  Willy nodded. “Different.”

  Tito stared at Willy. “You diff’rent, too, haole boy. You know that, right?”

  Willy looked away. He knew that haole boy meant white boy. “Uh … yeah. I guess.”

  “Whatchoo mean, you guess?” Bozo spat. “If Tito say you diff’rent, you diff’rent.”

  “Leave him alone,” I snapped.

  Bozo popped up. “What?”

  Ooops.

  Tito raised his hand. “S’okay, Bozo. I got it.”

  Bozo sat back down slowly, his cold gaze burning into me.

  Frankie Diamond just sat there scratching Streak’s chin, her eyes closed. Happy dog.

  Tito looked at me. “So, the boy-cop got a name?”

  “Benny Obi.”

  Tito nodded. “Can he fight?”

  “What?”

  “I said, is he a fighter like me or a sissy like you?”

  If just for five minutes I could be the Incredible Hulk. Ho, man, would I have some fun.

  “He knows kung fu,” I said.

  Tito smiled, his teeth bright white in the sun. “Ahhh, kung fu … good, good. Kung fu is good.”

  Bozo humphed. “You know kung fu, too, ah, Tito?”

  Tito spat on the grass. “I know something better. It’s called I-broke-your-face fu.”

  Bozo fell back on the grass laughing.

  Tito turned to me again. “We going see whose fu is better, ah?”

  “Weird stuff went on around my house in Hilo,” Benny Obi told us the next day.

  Julio, Rubin, Willy, Maya, and I were sitting on the grass at recess, like always. This time, Benny had come, too. He stood looking down on us wearing his shiny police glasses.

  We squinted up at him.

  “Ghosts or spirits or night marchers or something, I don’t know because I never actually saw them, but for sure they weren’t people, because people couldn’t do what they did without heavy machinery.… I say they, but it could have been an it … I don’t know … I mean, how can you tell?”

  Huh?

  “What are you talking about?” Julio said. “Make sense.”

  Benny Obi tapped a finger on his chin. “I wonder if it was an it. Huh. I tell you anyways.… See, we lived outside of town, and all around us was like ranch land with cows and wild pigs and all that, and there was this dirt road by my house that ran up into the country above our place, and one day I woke up and looked out the window and there it was, in the middle of the road, right by my house … a giant boulder.”

  He looked at us, letting his words sink in.

  “Was big, I tell you, too big for one or two or even five guys to put there, like the size of a refrigerator.” Benny shook his head. “Must have weighed a ton.”

  Julio smirked and whispered, “Freaky deaky.”

  If Benny heard, he was unfazed. “Maybe a bulldozer could put it there,” he went on. “Or a front-end loader, if it was a big one. But nobody ever heard any heavy machinery like that in the night, so how did that giant rock get there?”

  “Obake,” Rubin said. “Ghosts. Only way.”

  Benny pointed at Rubin. “You got it. Obake.”

  Julio looked at Rubin like, Are you serious? You really believe this stuff?

  Rubin frowned. “Well, how else would you explain it?”

  “So what happened?” Willy asked. “Did you just leave it in the road?”

  “My dad got some of his friends. One of them worked for the county, and he drove up a county front-end loader and pushed the boulder to the side of the road. He was real nervous doing it, too, because he believed it was ghosts who put it there and he didn’t want the ghosts to get mad and come to his house and do something weird.”

  Rubin’s eyes got big. “Like what?”

  “Like put a skeleton in his kitchen, because he heard obake do that sometimes.”

  “They do?”

  “Yeah, for real, they sit a skeleton in a chair like it’s eating breakfast and then you wake up and find it at your table. Man, that would freak … me … out!”

  Maya yelped out a laugh. Benny looked at her and wagged his finger. “You should show respect for what you don’t know, or else obake might come to your house, too.”

  “You know what?” Maya said, getting up. “I just remembered I was supposed to hang out with normal people.”

  Maya left just as Tito, Bozo, and Frankie Diamond walked by.

  “Hey, tough girl,” Tito said. “Last night I saw you in my dream.”

  Maya turned to walk backwards. “Yeah? I saw you in my nightmare.”

  Frankie Diamond nearly fell over laughing.

  Tito grinned. “She pretty quick.”

  “Lucky she’s a girl,” Bozo mumbled.

  When Tito noticed Benny Obi, he stopped and stared. Seconds ticked by.

  I held my breath.

  Finally, Tito turned, spat, and walked on.

  “Ho,” I whispered.

  “I hate when he does that,” Julio said. “You can’t tell if he going jump you, or what.”

  Benny Obi went on as if nothing had happened. “Like I was saying, my dad and his friends pushed that boulder off the road into the weeds, and that night when I tried to sleep I couldn’t because I kept listening for noises outside … but then I fell asleep sometime around three o’clock, and when I woke up the next morning I ran outside to look at the road … and there it was … again!”

  He shook his head, then pulled off his dark glasses, cleaned them on his T-shirt, and put them back on.

  “Holy moley,” Rubin said.

  Benny nodded. “Obake. Only answer.”

  Willy’s mouth
hung open.

  I wanted to ask Benny Obi if the boulder was still in the road when he moved away, but I was too spooked. Already I might get nightmares. I heard stories of weird stuff like that all the time. Ledward was full of them. Clarence, too, if you got him going.

  Benny looked over to where Tito, Bozo, and Frankie Diamond were sitting in the shade of a monkeypod tree. “Who are those guys?”

  “Stay away from them,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “They’re trouble, that’s why,” Julio said. “That one guy, Tito—the one who stared at you—he could ruin your day, if he wanted.”

  Benny studied Tito a moment longer. “I’m not scared of him.”

  Willy shivered. “You should be.”

  “Really,” I said. “He’s not your friend. He’s mean.”

  “Tito knows kung fu, too, I bet,” Julio added.

  “So?” Benny said, keeping his eyes on Tito.

  Julio shrugged. “Just saying.”

  When Darci and I got home after school, we found Clarence in our driveway, washing his car with a fat sponge and a bucket of soapy water. The garden hose gurgled water by his feet.

  “How come you’re doing that?” I asked. “It wasn’t even dirty. It’s never dirty.”

  “That’s because I keep it clean.” Clarence squirted soap off the hood, then went over and turned off the spigot.

  He came back and crouched down to run his finger over a scratch on the front fender. It was so small Darci and I had to move up close to see it. “Did Stella do that?” I asked.

  Clarence nodded. “I going fix it now. Like see some magic?”

  “Sure,” I said, crouching down next to him. Clarence was big, like Ledward.

  Darci shook her head and went into the house.

  Clarence gave me a grin. “Man stuff, ah?”

  “Man stuff.”

  I followed Clarence to the back of the car. He opened the trunk. Inside, it was as clean and neat as Frankie Diamond’s haircut. Not a thing out of place.

  Clarence looked in a cardboard box and pulled out a can. He held it up. “Scratch remover.”

  “I thought you had to paint over scratches.”