by Jeff Tapia
We yawned and asked, “What happens if you ever fall asleep out here?”
“I’ll show you,” Fitz said.
He didn’t fall asleep or nothing, but he did stop fiddling with the control panel for the first time during our whole trip, and almost right away what sounded like a smoke detector went off and made us nearly jump clean through the roof. Fitz smiled and pushed down a different mushroom, and the screaming stopped.
“That’s what happens,” he said. “I stop workin’ this here panel for fifteen seconds, that alarm goes off. Which’ll wake you up no matter how loud you’re snorin’. Way back a long time ago, you had to keep a foot pedal pushed down the whole time. Called a dead man’s pedal. And if you let up on that thing, bang, the train stopped.” And Fitz made the sound of brakes screeching. Urrrrrrrrchchch!
“Speakin’ of which,” Fitz said, “I reckon it’s about time we start slowin’ her down.”
“Aww!” we complained.
And Fitz said, “All good things must come to an end.”
And we looked at him and said, “Except hot dogs.”
And Fitz said, “Hot dogs?”
And we said, “Yeah, because they got two ends!”
Fitz laughed at that one so hard that he had to wipe his eyes afterward. “You two kids are all right.”
Then he started playing his control panel with both hands, and we felt ourselves slowing down a bit and could even feel the weight of the train pushing up against the back of our seat. And before we knew it, Mr. Buzzard’s yellow pickup came into view.
Fitz stopped the coal train right in front of Maggie’s Crossing. We had imagined it was gonna be some great big flashing deal, but it was nothing more than another deserted dirt road with at most a jackrabbit running across it.
“Let’s hustle down outta here before Maggie catches wind of us,” Fitz said, and reached over and opened the door for us.
We took our school bag and climbed down, and when our feet touched the ground, the first thing we noticed was how still the earth was and not all vibrating like up on the train. Then we noticed how there was one sizzling hot wind blowing out there, with nothing around to stop it. No trees, no buildings, no nothing. Luckily we didn’t see no lady in boots and a shotgun neither.
Fitz leaned out the window and said, “Been nice travelin’ with you two kids!” He tipped his hat again that said MILES on it that we never learned how come, and we said “Thanks, Fitz!” Then Fitz disappeared from the window, and we stood out next to Mr. Buzzard’s truck and shaded our eyes and watched the train slowly pull away.
“Okay now, Stella. Jimmy. Time to crack the whip,” said Mr. Buzzard.
But we weren’t about to move before we found out how many cars our coal train had, and we’d already counted thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six . . .
“Okay, now, I ain’t kiddin’. You don’t wanna be late to Dixie’s, do ya?”
Of course we didn’t. But we was up to seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one . . . and there still wasn’t no end in sight.
“I’ll go without you. I will, now. Just take that school bag of yours and head right on out . . . All right, then, here I goes. Openin’ the door to my pickup . . .”
We heard his door moan worse than a haunted house, but we still didn’t move none, since we were already up to hopper number 125 and counting.
“Okay, kids, listen, now. I’m climbin’ right on in. And diggin’ for the keys . . . Now, where’d I put them keys, anyhow?”
We shouted when we busted the record at 133, and there was still even some coal train left to go. And it wasn’t until we counted the caboose as number 145 that we yelled, “Okay, Mr. Buzzard, we’re coming!” and scampered off to his pickup.
“Good thing, too,” Mr. Buzzard said. “’Cause I was just about ready to pull off without ya. Now, get here in the cab. It’s too hot out back.”
That was fine with us, as much as we loved sitting out back in an old tire. But we were already overheated, and so we climbed up in through the driver’s door because the other one didn’t work anymore. Pops always said Mr. Buzzard’s truck was held together by wire and a prayer.
Mr. Buzzard tried starting his pickup, but it wouldn’t start. And it really did look like he was praying there, bent over the steering wheel like that with his eyes closed. Pops also said that Mr. Buzzard himself was about as handy as a back pocket on a shirt.
“It’s hot in here,” we said.
“You two kids just hold on to your saddle. Once we get goin’, I’ll turn this place into a meat locker.”
Mr. Buzzard turned the ignition and pumped the gas pedal and whacked the dashboard and blew the horn and pumped the gas pedal and turned the ignition and whacked the dashboard and kept whispering something to himself about hail Mary. And long after we thought it was ever gonna be possible, his pickup started, and it was shakier than the train we were just on.
“See there? What’d I tell ya?” Mr. Buzzard said. “Now, watch this.” He slid a knob on the AC over to the blue side, and almost immediately little pieces of ice started flying out of the vents. He wasn’t kidding about that meat locker. And then we were off.
“We should be at Dixie’s either in under thirty minutes or over sixty minutes, depending on if the truck breaks down.”
That ended up being about the last thing we heard. Because once Mr. Buzzard’s truck got going, it stopped being so shaky, and the air cooled down nice, and we got good and comfy on the beat-up old seat we were sitting on, and Mr. Buzzard turned on the radio and picked up a nice soft song about highways and heartaches. From all the excitement we’d been through that day, we were as beat as two eggs in a mixing bowl, and the next thing we knew, we were back in Wymore, and there was some drool on our chins, and our school box wasn’t in our school bag anymore.4
“SO, HOW WAS YOUR DAY?” Mom asked. We noticed she sounded awful chipper.
We said, “Day?” And we made faces at each other for not knowing what we should say. Until finally alls we said was, “Oh, not much.”
But Mom pressed us like a pair of pants. “It was Train Day, though, wasn’t it?”
“Train Day?” By then it was clear to us that we should’ve spent less time being mad at each other and more time preparing for Mom’s call.
“You know, only your favorite day of the week?”
And we said, “Oh, that Train Day. Yeah . . . It was Train Day, Mom.”
“Well, that’s nice to hear,” Mom said. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re welcome!”
“How many cars were there?”
That was an easy one. At least it should’ve been, since we set a new record. But on account of being nervous, we jumbled the numbers all up. “Four hundred fifty-one.”
“Four hundred fifty-one?! Are you sure about that?” Mom asked.
“Five hundred forty-one!” we corrected ourselves incorrectly.
“Come, now,” Mom said.
We were getting more cornered than a triangle. But then we saw our bulletin board full of presidents and thought we had a way out. “Mom?”
“Yes, dears?”
“Can we tell you something?”
“You know you can always tell me everything.” Boy, was her voice sounding sweet.
“You promise not to get mad?”
“Well, that will depend, of course. But I’ll try.”
So we took a deep breath and said, “It’s about our summer homework.”
Mom laughed. “Is that all?”
“Well, it’s just that we’re not getting very far on it.”
“I’m certain you’ll both do just fine. You should go talk to Grandpa Chester. He’s got the memory of an elephant. In fact, he helped your Pops and me when we had to take that test.”
We told Mom we’d be sure and talk to Grandpa Chester the very next day. So long as he’d talk to us, that is.1 And for the rest of our conversation, we did our best to talk about the presidents and were never gladder about that summer h
omework than just then.
It seemed like Mom was happy to talk about presidents too. She even told us some funny stories about them, like how George Washington had his horse’s teeth brushed every day, and how Thomas Jefferson once got sent a thousand-pound hunk of cheese. She even knew that Millard Fillmore installed the first bathtub at the White House.
Our phone call swam along like a fish, and before we knew it, it was time to hang up. That was a relief, because we didn’t enjoy fibbing to Mom like that for so long.
Mom must’ve been waiting for that very moment. “Oh, before I go, what was the name of the engineer again?”
We said, “You mean Fitz?” And then we said, “Oops!” and covered our mouths like a hole in our britches.
But in the sweetest voice we ever heard her speak, Mom just said, “I’m glad you had such a good time.”
YOU NEVER WOULD’VE believed your own eyes had they seen the bustle and enterprise that swept through Wymore like a dust storm the following day. Truth be told, we had a hard time believing our eyes ourselves.
We were up in Old Tom Wood, flicking ants off our bare knees and reciting the presidents, and Jimmy was sucking on a nickel because that was Secret Trick #3 on how to get a loose tooth to fall out. And on account of that that’s where we were, we missed it when the phone rang at Mabel’s. It was Pops calling with good news. And the good news was that he liked the looks of the dingsbums all right and that he’d be on his way to Wymore no later than last week, by which he meant as soon as possible.
That was when we heard our names being hollered like the roof was on fire. We jumped right off Old Tom Wood like a pair of frogs. And that was how Jimmy finally got that loose tooth out1 because upon landing he banged it on his knee just like how he got it loose in the first place. Jimmy stuck it deep in his pocket, and we ran off to Mabel’s faster than a lit fuse.
We didn’t even make it in the screen door before we were met by a stream of grandmas and grandpas on their way out. “What’s going on?” we asked.
For an answer what we got was a paper place mat. We didn’t know what to make of it until Grandma Ida appeared at the door with her dishrag on her shoulder and told us to turn it over.2 When we did, we saw the words “Operation Beautification” wrote up at the top and underneath it a list of things to do as long as a garden hose. That was something we wanted to be a part of, so we asked, “How can we help out?”
Grandma Ida smiled and mussed up our hair some and cracked her gum loud as a bat hitting a ball and said, “Help out? We put you in charge!”
And the next thing we knew, she produced a clipboard, and we clipped the place mat to it. We thought it would’ve been nice to have a whistle hanging around our necks like a coach, but unfortunately we didn’t have one.
Grandma Ida told us it was our job to make sure Operation Beautification was running smooth and all our grandparents were doing their jobs right. We said we could do that. But before we went to make our rounds, Jimmy smiled real big for her and showed her the lost tooth.
“Make sure you tuck it under your pillow tonight,” she said. Then she dug around in her apron pocket and pulled out a quarter for each of us.
“Thanks, Grandma Ida!” we said. And off we ran.
We spent the next few hours overseeing the beautification and renovation of the Wymore town square. We saw to it that our grandmas had a fresh supply of soapy water and piles of rags to wipe off the clunkers clean as spit, right down to the side-view mirrors and whatever fenders still remained. We made a point of showing them Jimmy’s tooth and collected three dimes and two nickels each. We helped our grandpas pump air into the flat tires until each one looked as big as a belly. Then Jimmy opened wide, and we took in two quarters and eight pennies.
From there we walked over to Grandma Elsie, who was busy pulling weeds out of the cracks in the sidewalk. She flashed us a green thumb, and Jimmy flashed her a smile that was good for four nickels.
Back in the middle of the square, Grandma Pearl prospected another rusty nail out of the ground. That gave us an idea. We told her them nails of hers might look real good in a little display case. We told her she could call it “Ancient Artifacts from Wymore.” You should’ve saw the way her face brightened up like stars in a nighttime sky. Then Jimmy smiled, and we collected over a whole dollar just from her alone.
We wanted to visit Grandpa Bert next, but him and his broom was circulating the dust better than a fan. So we kept our distance and just called out to him to keep up the good work, even though that meant giving up a nickel or a dime. But we did go over to the old appliance store and help Grandpa Jarvis spruce up his storefront window. We put price tags on the rusty stove and the icebox that was missing a door. And after we were done, Grandpa Jarvis went behind the counter and got his cigar box and pulled out a quarter for each of us. When we smiled and he spotted Jimmy’s missing tooth, he added another nickel.
From there it was back across the street to where four of our grandpas were sitting side by side on a bench like birds on a telephone wire. They were scrubbing rust from the missing letters to the hotel sign, each of them using a different method. The S grandpa was using baking soda, and the T grandpa was employing vinegar, and the L grandpa was utilizing aluminum foil dipped in water, and the E grandpa was applying lemon juice and salt. Orange dust fell to their feet pretty as snow. They were arguing over whose method was working best, and the only way we could get them to stop was by showing them Jimmy’s tooth. None of them wanted to look stingy, so we walked away with a handful of coins.
Over at the beauty parlor, Grandma Francine was trying out different wigs on the bald lady mannequin in the window. She had it narrowed down to one wig called “Halo Curly,” one named “Spiked Expression,” and one wig referred to as “Bed Head.” We liked that one best because that was how our hair looked most of the time. But even though we were the ones who were supposed to be in charge, Grandma Francine eventually picked “Halo Curly” and pulled it onto the dummy’s head like a winter cap. Jimmy smiled, and she gave us both a quarter.
A few doors down, Grandpa Virgil was out giving the stripes on the barber pole a fresh coat of paint while Grandpa Homer held the three different cans of color for him.
“You ain’t staying in the lines, Grandpa Virgil,” we said.
And Grandpa Homer said, “I keep telling him the same thing!”
That made us laugh, considering how Grandpa Homer ain’t seen lines or nothing else for years now.
But Grandpa Virgil said, “Once this pole is spinning again, you won’t know the difference.”
“You think you can get it to work again?” we asked.
“If you run over to Ickler’s and find me an oil squirter, I will.”
So you see, being in charge ain’t nothing to snuff at because we were off once more at a full run. And while we were at the hardware store, we got another idea. We took an empty jar from a shelf and twisted off the lid and blew out the dust inside of it and sneezed. Then we poured all our coins into it and twisted the lid back on. After making our delivery to Grandpa Virgil, we went around to the back kitchen door at the café, where we heard Grandma Mabel’s knife thwacking on the butcher block.
We walked in and saw her working at the prep table before she saw us. And we just reached out with our jar and said, “Here, Grandma Mabel.”
And Grandma Mabel asked, “What’cha got there?”
And we said, “Tooth Fairy money. So you don’t have to close down.”
If we had known she was gonna go and turn on the waterworks like that again, we might’ve kept the money for ourselves and sent away for a pair of x-ray glasses we saw advertised in the back of an old magazine. But it was too late.
Once Grandma Mabel got her face mopped up with the corner of her apron, she went to her big white fridge and brought us each back a chocolate pudding she called a dusty miller.3 And we smiled because it had been a real long time since we’d had one of them.
So we whispered something to ea
ch other and then took the jar of coins back off the table, and Jimmy dug around in his pocket and pulled out his tooth and added it to the jar. “You can keep whatever the Tooth Fairy gives you for it,” we said.
Then we left fast as we could before Grandma Mabel got teary on us again.
WE TOOK OUR DUSTY MILLERS and sat out on the bench right next to Grandpa Chester. Desserts ain’t never taken us long to eat, and soon we were done and swinging our legs some, since our feet didn’t touch the ground. Eventually we got up the nerve and asked Grandpa Chester, “Who’s winning?”
Usually he’d just say a team name, maybe the score. If you were real lucky and happened to ask him during a commercial break, he might tell you what inning it was. So our surprise couldn’t have been bigger when Grandpa Chester pulled the radio from his ear and clicked it off with his thumb and said, “It don’t matter. Ain’t nuthin’ but a game.”
“We always thought you liked baseball, Grandpa Chester,” we said. Breathed baseball would’ve been more like it.
“I do,” he said. “But I ain’t so interested in who wins and who loses. Be it the Turkeys, the Roadrunners, or the Hyenas.”
“Them ain’t no baseball teams.”
“Ain’t they, now? Well, then, what are some?”
So we named him several, and then a couple more. Then when he griped at us for stopping halfway, we came up with three more on top of that.
Grandpa Chester nodded his head and said, “You’ll get there.”
And we asked, “Get where?”
But he didn’t tell us where. Instead he said, “The real reason I listen to baseball is to stay fit.”
And we laughed because we thought he was pulling our drumsticks. How do you stay fit sitting on a bench all day with a transistor radio at your ear?
We were about to say as much, but Grandpa Chester got his say in first. “Honus Wagner. Otherwise knowed as the Flying Dutchman. 1900. 580 plate appearances, 201 hits, 45 doubles, 22 triples, 4 homers. Exactly 100 runs batted in. 38 stolen bases, 41 walks. Striked out a mere 17 times. Batting average of .381.” And right when we thought he was finished, he added, “Oh, yeah, and he got hit by a pitch 8 times. Though I have to admit I couldn’t tell you where exactly.”