by Joyce Magnin
“Like what? One of your sister’s stupid UFOs?”
We both laugh, and Linda grabs my hand. “Who cares? Come on before it gets dark.”
Polly barks. I look over the edge and see Elaine go through the front gate. She slams it behind her. A black wrought-iron fence stretches across the front of our property. The gate only closes and latches if you slam it, and then it is still a good idea to double-check. Same goes for the side-yard gate. It’s a just-in-case rule because of Jelly Bean being outside sometimes.
Linda and I watch Elaine cross the street.
“See.” I nudge Linda in the ribs. “You can see everything from the roof.”
“It’s like spying,” Linda says. “It’s kind of fun.”
We giggle as a green car, a station wagon, slows down on the street near Elaine. A door opens, and she climbs into the backseat.
“Where’s she going?” Linda asks.
“That’s Diane Rolands’s mother. Elaine is probably going over there to hang out with Diane and Sac and whoever else they hang out with.”
Linda gives me a shove. “Sac? Who’s Sac?”
“Elaine’s friend. Her real name is Sarah, but they call her Sac for some reason.”
Linda shrugs. “Think they’ll have boys over?”
“Who cares?”
Linda does. She is kind of boy crazy. Just about everyone knows she likes Jack DiArchangelo, but she doesn’t know that we know. I’m pretty sure Jack doesn’t know either. And that’s when it hits me. I pick up my binoculars and train them on the park and Scullion Field. Yep, the boys are playing baseball.
“Ohhh!” I say. “You want to go to the park so you can watch your boyfriend play.” I give her another shot in the ribs. Jack plays second base for the Clifton Iron Pigs. He is tall, which is always a good idea for a second baseman.
Linda hauls off and clobbers me in the shoulder. “Shhh, no one’s supposed to know.”
I shrug. “Everybody knows. Even Jelly Bean knows.”
Linda looks hurt. She wrinkles her brow and smashes her glasses into her face again.
“Come on, let’s go,” I say. “Who cares anyway?”
• • •
Linda and I scramble up the bleachers on the Iron Pigs’ side. We sit behind some sets of parents and kids. Linda points toward second base. “There he is.”
Little League spring season is winding down. The Iron Pigs made it into the playoffs. They are in the field, dressed in their red-and-white baseball uniforms. The other team—the Springfield Rockets—are at bat, and from what I can tell, there are already two outs. A big boy, who must be six feet tall, approaches the plate carrying a bat the size of a small tree trunk. He taps the plate and gets into his stance. Our pitcher, Randy Mulligan, makes the pitch.
Smack! Big Boy wastes no time. He hits a pop-up. Jack signals and makes the catch. Much to the thrill and relief of Linda.
She keeps trying to get Jack’s attention, but he never once looks in her direction.
“Why won’t he wave?” Linda asks.
“Because he probably doesn’t even know you’re here. And he’s busy with the game. He’s…concentrating.”
“I guess,” Linda says. We stay for two more innings until she says, “Come on, let’s go home. I need to have my bike home before dark. My dad’ll kill me if I ride at night.”
Instead of making our way through the crowd on the bleachers and making everyone mad, we slip under the back railing and jump to the ground. We head toward home, but when we get to the park gate, I stop cold in my tracks because all of a sudden, I am looking right at Brian—without his binoculars and without his roof. He’s standing there like he’s been waiting for me.
He raises his hand. “Yo.”
Linda grabs my hand. “Don’t say a word. You might be inviting danger.” She sounds just like Officer Wilson when he comes to school and gives us the Mischief Night safety and proper behavior lecture. Boring.
“Aw, he’s harmless.” I hope.
“Hey, Brian,” I say.
“I saw you from over here. I thought you might like to see my truck. I’m rebuilding it… Well, the engine anyway—parts of it.”
Linda squeezes my hand. I can feel her heartbeat. Or maybe it’s mine.
“I can’t,” I say in a hurry. “We have to get home.”
“That’s OK,” Brian says. “Maybe tomorrow. I’ll be working on her tomorrow too.”
I nod.
“Walk ya home?” he asks.
I nod again because I am too nervous to say no and there is hardly a possibility that he has an ax in his pocket.
“Boy, will you catch it,” Linda mutters.
She’s probably right. I’m a little scared my dad might see Brian if he walks us home, but I’m more scared of going to the home of a boy I don’t know. So we head up the hill. I glance at his face and am glad to see that he doesn’t have a murderer’s eyes.
“So how come you go up on the roof so much?” Brian asks.
“I’m staying there now because of my stupid sister.” I’m not ready to tell him about Bud and the sadness in our house and all that stuff. “She’s driving me crazy.”
“Aw, that’s no reason to move to the roof.”
“Is if you have my sister. She has this pig—”
“Pig?” Brian stops walking and pulls my elbow. “What?”
“It’s a guinea pig,” Linda says. “Not an oink-oink pig. Joyce has a flare for the dramatic. I heard my mom say that about you once,” she tells me.
Brian laughs. “So you moved to the roof because of a guinea pig?”
“Kind of,” I say. “It’s annoying, and she’s always…” I look up the street when I hear the ice cream man. “Forget it. Who’s got money for the ice cream man?”
“Not me,” Brian says.
“Me neither,” Linda says.
“Yeah, me neither.”
We start walking again as a bunch of kids push past us to get to the ice cream truck.
“But your folks let you,” Brian says. “Because of your sister’s guinea pig.”
“Yeah. My dad got a little hot under the collar about it. But Mom cooled him down.”
“Moms are good for that sort of thing,” Brian says.
I smile at him. He has a longish face and really bright, blue eyes. He is wearing the same outfit as before—cuffed blue jeans and a green shirt, along with a pair of heavy work boots. We walk to the top of the hill.
“I guess I better get home too,” Brian says. “I’m going this way.”
“OK,” I say. “See ya on the roof.”
“The roof,” Brian says, and he takes off running up Crestview.
I wave.
Linda punches my shoulder.
“Hey,” I say rubbing my arm. “Whaddya do that for?”
“Because he likes you.”
I swallow. “No he doesn’t. Not like that. Not like you like Jack. He just likes me because of the roof thing. It’s just a thing we have. We’re…simpatico.” That is another of my new words. I think it is a lovely one.
Linda grabs her bike from the side yard and rolls it to the sidewalk. “See ya tomorrow.”
“Guess so.”
“Don’t fall off the roof,” Linda calls as she pedals off toward home.
I watch her for a few seconds, then go inside the house. I need to use the bathroom before settling onto the roof. I am not too crazy about climbing down the ladder to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Mom is watching TV and crocheting. She can crochet anything. We have more crocheted things in our house than they’d have in a museum—if there were such a thing as a crochet museum. We have crocheted covers that slip over toilet paper rolls, crocheted Christmas decorations, and a crocheted toaster cover that my dad hates because he worries about fires. We even
have a crocheted toilet-seat cover. It is a blue pond with green lily pads and crocheted frogs. Trouble is, when you push the lid up, the cover doesn’t stay up until you sit down because the frogs stick out and keep pushing it back down. They make Dad hopping mad sometimes.
I wonder what new thing Mom is crocheting.
“Hey,” I say with a wave.
“Hey,” Mom says, not taking her eyes from the TV while her fingers work the yarn. “Thought you were sleeping on the roof.”
“I am. I just want to pee first. Jeez.”
She doesn’t say anything.
I creep like a raccoon past my old bedroom, but Jelly Bean still squeals. I swear, that pig has supersonic hearing. I peek into my parents’ room. Dad isn’t there. Probably locked in the garage working on his secret whatchamacallit. Nobody, not even Mom, knows what he is building. For a few days after we got the word that Bud went missing, I thought maybe Dad was building something for him—like a wheelchair ramp because there is no way to get into the house except up the concrete steps. I see so many pictures of guys coming home from the war with no legs and stuff. The whole thing makes me so angry, but I can’t do a thing about it.
I stand in the hallway and think about the time I broke both my arms at the same time. I was hanging from the monkey bars, and I asked Elaine to give me a push so I could swing. She did. But my hands were so slippery that I fell to the ground. Smash! Both arms cracked. I heard them. And then I didn’t remember anything else until I woke up in the car on the way to the hospital. Dad didn’t make anything special for me, but he did buy me a bunch of fancy straws in all sorts of googly shapes and configurations because both my arms were in casts.
It will take more than straws to help if Bud comes home without legs.
I finish in the bathroom and go straight to the roof. It is dark except for stars and the crescent moon. A perfect night for stargazing. Just like I used to do with Bud. It feels good up here. If I lean back and gaze up at the sky and concentrate only on seeing the stars, I can pretty much feel Bud sitting next to me, pointing at a star cluster, and saying things like, “Right there. That’s Ursa Major.”
The air is warm and thick—humid. I can see lightning bugs flitting around everywhere. I am surprised they fly as high as the roof.
I settle onto my beach chair and look through my binoculars even though I can’t see much except lights in the distance. And I can see the moon, which looks brighter and bigger on the other end of the lenses. It’s like I can reach out and grab it, which makes me think about the moon race that the United States is having with the Russians. According to Dad, our countries are trying to see who can be first to get a man to actually walk on the moon. Wow. Walking on the moon. I imagine that for a few seconds. I imagine wearing a spacesuit and taking a step on the moon. I imagine collecting rocks, and then I laugh because I imagine being greeted by an alien—a little green man—and Elaine saying, “See. Told you so, dummy!”
And then I think about my brother, which I seem to be doing nearly all the time lately. I look at the stars and try to find Cassiopeia’s W, but I’m never sure if I really do. I like to think that I can see the constellations, but sometimes, it’s just too hard to connect the dots.
Five
The next morning, the sound of the trash truck making its way down the alley wakes me from a deep sleep. The big, green trucks are always so noisy, and the men yelling at each other around the cans are annoying.
I look over the edge of the roof, and sure enough, the truck is making its way up our alley. A giant, purple teddy bear is strapped to the front of the truck. It makes me laugh. Then I see one of the trash collectors pull a tricycle from a trash pile. “Hey, this ain’t bad.” But he tosses it into the huge truck jaws anyway.
One of the trash men catches my eye. I wave to him. He waves back and then tosses the Hazels’ can back on their lawn. The men never put the cans back in the right place, but no one argues with them about it. Except Cass Duthart.
I go to the side of the roof with my binoculars and see her come out her back door. I zero in on her chubby, pink face just as Peaches dashes between her legs and into the yard, yapping like crazy. I swear that dog will yap herself to death one day.
A trash man grabs Mrs. Duthart’s can and dumps it in the truck. He shakes and bangs the can like something is stuck inside. Then he tosses it against Mrs. Duthart’s garage door, and that’s when the shouting starts. It’s the moment I was waiting for.
“Hey, you put that trash can back where it belongs,” Mrs. Duthart hollers. “What’s wrong with you, you—” And then she uses a word that would get me grounded for a month of Sundays if I ever used it.
Just like they do every Tuesday and Friday, the men ignore her. Mrs. Duthart grabs the can, crams the lid on tight, and moves it to its proper place in her backyard. Then she sees me. Probably sensed me with her secret cranky-neighbor powers.
“Hi,” I say, still gazing through the glasses. Even though I know Mrs. Duthart hates my guts through no fault of my own. “How are you?”
“What in blazes are you doin’ up there?” she hollers. “You’ll break your neck. Does your father know you’re up there? And what in tarnation are you doing with those binoculars…spying on people?”
“I’m OK,” I say, “and Dad knows I’m here. He let me.”
Then she mutters something I can’t hear over the sound of the truck, but I bet it’s something against my father because Mrs. Duthart thinks my whole entire family is bat-poo crazy.
I’d rather be bat-poo crazy and live on the roof than sad and dismal like Mrs. Duthart, who has nothing better to do than complain and make trouble and collect balls that just happen to land in her yard. I figure she’s collected about a thousand.
Cass Duthart’s yard is now a ground-rule double, although everybody hates that rule because it would take no time to jump the fence, grab the ball, and toss it to second base to get the person out. But, like Mom always says, you can’t fight City Hall. Or Cass Duthart.
After Mrs. Duthart and Peaches go back inside, I put my binoculars back to my eyes and go searching like I’m the lookout on a tall battleship. But I see nothing out of ordinary. Just some folks leaving for work, I figure. I watch Mrs. Wilbur go into her bomb shelter. Then I see Brian.
He holds up a sign: Come over and see my truck.
I scribble on a page of Elaine’s sketchbook: Where do you live?
5136 Crestview.
My heart pounds faster than a squirrel’s, which is 420 beats per minute when it’s riled. Did I do something wrong? I know in my soul of souls that if I asked Dad for permission to go to Brian’s, he’d have one of his conniption fits and probably ground me until I was thirty. And he’d for sure make me come off the roof.
But something comes over me, and for a second, I don’t care if what I am about to do comes with a penalty of death—or worse. Real quick, I write in big letters: OK. My stomach knots like a macramé plant hanger because boy, oh boy, have I ever stepped in it this time.
I peer at Brian through the binocs. He waves like a third-base coach sending a runner on to home plate. I wave back and set the glasses in the milk crate. Then I take a deep breath like I am diving into the creek. There is no way in jumpin’ blue heck I can tell anyone about going to Brian’s house.
Elaine is probably still sacked out. I figure Mom is getting breakfast for Dad. And he is getting ready for work. I climb over the roof edge and down the ladder. The instant my foot hits the ground, I hear such squealing that I jump back onto the lower rung. Jelly Bean. Elaine let her out already.
“Stupid pig,” I say.
Polly is in the side yard because it’s her job to protect the pig. She barks. Not a loud bark. Just one of her Don’t step on the pig barks. She does a great job of being a lookout for Jelly Bean. I sometimes see her nose the pig around and even scoot her toward the steps. Elaine swears on a stac
k of Bibles that Polly even picks the pig up like she’s a puppy and carries her to the front stoop. It might be true, but I’ve never seen it. Just like I’ve never seen any of Elaine’s UFOs.
Mom is in the kitchen whisking eggs in a blue-and-white-striped bowl while Dad sits at the table reading his newspaper, concentrating on the sports pages.
“Hi,” I say. “Phillies win?”
Dad snaps his paper.
Guess not.
Mom spins around on one foot. “Oh, Joycie. How was your first night on the roof?”
“Fine.” I wait for Dad to drop his newspaper and say he is surprised I didn’t break my neck falling off the roof or something like that.
“Hungry?” Mom asks. “Making French toast.”
Uh-oh. Mom making French toast is usually a clear indication that she and Dad are arguing again. They argue a lot these days over pretty much anything, including whether it is more proper to say “Turn off the lights” or “Turn out the lights.”
The arguing is probably the reason Elaine got up early and let Jelly Bean out. Dad still hasn’t so much as let go of a groan, which is pretty unusual. He’s always groaning and muttering when he reads the sports pages, especially since it’s looking more and more like the Phillies could make the playoffs if, according to him, they make the right choices.
“Any UFO sightings last night?” I ask, hoping that question will raise my father’s interest and lower his paper. But no.
Mom says, “Make sure you brush your teeth after breakfast. I have to go over to Mrs. Lynch’s today and sew some hems for her and—”
That’s when Dad lowers his paper. He snaps it with a sharp, loud snap. Aha! This particular silent treatment has something to do with Mrs. Lynch.
I back away from the table, hoping I won’t miss anything but knowing they won’t start again until I’m out of earshot. I can’t hang out in the hallway listening because I have to go to the bathroom.
I hurry upstairs. Pee. Then poke my head into my old bedroom.
“Yo,” I say.
Elaine is sitting on her bed as usual, with her knees drawn up and her sketchbook resting on them. She is holding one of the precious drawing pencils she makes Dad drive clear into the city to buy at a fancy art supply store. Those pencils are the best drawing pencils in the entire universe, according to Elaine.