Just Like That

by Gary D. Schmidt

  “There’s a guy out on our front stoop,” I said.

  “What?”

  “There’s a guy out on our front stoop.”

  My mother stopped tying back Emily’s hair.

  “Is he from the army?” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Is he or isn’t he?”

  “He’s not wearing a uniform.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  My mother started tying back Emily’s hair again. “Tell him it’s the first day of school and he should go find someone else to buy whatever he’s selling at seven fifteen in the morning.”

  “Annie can do it.”

  My mother gave me That Look, so I went back to the front door and opened it. “My mom says it’s the first day of school and you should go find someone else to buy whatever you’re selling at seven fifteen in the morning.”

  He shook his umbrella.

  “Young Master Jones,” he said, “please inform your mother that I would very much like to speak with her.”

  I closed the door.

  I went back to the kitchen.

  “Did you tell him to go away?” said my mother. I think this is what she said. She had a bunch of bobby pins in her mouth and she was sticking them around Emily’s head and Emily was hollering and spitting out Ace Robotroid Sugar Stars at every poke, so it was hard to understand what my mother was saying.

  “He wants to talk to you,” I said.

  “He’s not going to—”

  A sudden wail from Charlie, who held up her other yellow sock, which Ned had thrown up on. Ned is our dachshund and dachshunds throw up a lot.

  “Carter, go get some milk,” said my mother. “Charlie, stop crying. Annie, it doesn’t help to make faces at Charlie. Emily, if you move your head again I’m going to bobby-pin your bangs to your eyebrows.”

  I went back to the front and opened the door.

  The guy was still standing on the stoop, but the Australian tropical thunderstorm was starting to get in under the umbrella.

  “Listen,” I said, “my mom’s going crazy in there. I have to go to the deli and get milk so we can eat breakfast. And Charlie’s crying because Ned threw up on her other yellow sock, and Annie’s being a pain in the glutes, and Emily’s bangs are about to get pinned to her eyebrows, and I haven’t even packed my backpack yet—and that takes a while, you know—and we have to leave soon since we have to walk to school because the fuel pump on the Jeep isn’t working, and we only have one umbrella. So just go away.”

  The guy leaned down.

  “Young Master Jones,” he said, “if you were able to sprint between wickets with the speed of your run-on sentences, you would be welcome in any test match in the world. For now, though, go back inside. In your room, gather what is needed for your backpack. When you have completed that task, find your mother and do whatever is necessary to insure that she is no longer”—he paused—“going crazy.” He angled the umbrella a little to keep off the Australian tropical thunderstorm. “While you are doing whatever is necessary, I will purchase the milk.”

  I looked at the guy. He was wet up to his knees now.

  “Do you always talk like that?” I said.

  “If you are inquiring whether I always speak the Queen’s English, the answer is, of course, yes.”

  “I mean the way you say everything like you want it to smell good.”

  The guy shook the rain off his umbrella. I sort of think he meant to shake it all over me.

  “Young Master Jones—”

  “And that: ‘Young Master Jones.’ No one talks like that.”

  “Obviously, some do.”

  “And that: ‘Ob—vi—ous—ly.’ It takes you a whole minute to say it. ‘Ob—vi—ous—ly.’”

  The guy leaned down. “I am going to purchase the milk now,” he said. “You shall pack your backpack. Do it properly, then attend to your mother.”

  He turned to go.

  “Are you trying to convert me or something?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, without turning back. “Now, to your appointed tasks.”

  So I went upstairs and packed the new notebooks and old pens and old pencils and my father’s old science calculator in my backpack, and I put the green marble in my front pocket—all this did take a while, you know—and then I went down to the kitchen where my mother was braiding Annie’s hair and Charlie was sniffing with her arms crossed and Emily was finishing her dry Ace Robotroid Sugar Stars. My mother said, “Where’s the milk?” and then the doorbell rang again.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  Guess who it was.

  His pants were wet most of the way up when he handed me a bag.

  “I have procured the milk,” he said.

  “Obviously,” I said. “Is it one percent?”

  “Certainly not—and mockery is the lowest form of discourse.”

  He handed me another bag.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “The package is for Miss Charlotte,” he said. “Tell her we are most fortunate that American delicatessens are, though parsimonious in their selection of food items that have seen the light of the sun, at least eclectic.”

  “She won’t know what eclectic means.”

  “Copious.”

  “That either.”

  The guy sighed. “The contents are self-explanatory.”

  I took the bags and closed the door. I carried the milk to the kitchen and set it on the table. Then I gave Charlie the other bag.

  “What’s this?” she said.

  “How should I know?”

  “Because you’re handing it to me. That’s how you should know.”

  “It’s something electric,” I said.

  “Something electric?”

  “I don’t know. It’s from the guy standing on our front stoop.”

  My mother looked up from Annie’s braids. “The guy standing on our front stoop? He’s still there?”

  Charlie opened her bag and took out—I know this is hard to believe—brand-new bright yellow socks. She screamed her happy scream. That’s the scream she makes that could stop a planet from spinning.

  My mother looked at the bright yellow socks, then at the milk.

  “It’s not one percent,” she said.

  “Certainly not,” I said.

  My mother dropped Annie’s braids and headed out of the kitchen.

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  About the Author

  Author photograph by Mayma Anderson

  Gary D. Schmidt is the beloved and best-selling author of The Wednesday Wars, a Newbery Honor book; Okay for Now, a National Book Award finalist; and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, a Newbery Honor and Printz Honor book. He is a professor of English at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, and lives in rural Michigan.

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