Tarantula Shoes

by Tom Birdseye

  He put the pizza back down on his plate and wiped the sweat from his forehead. (The air-conditioning still wasn’t working.) “Shoes made out of gold, I guess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Dad! They’re Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers for junior high.”

  Mom shook her head. “I was afraid this was going to happen. Brand-name peer pressure.”

  “What’s spear pressure?” Justin asked Ellie.

  Ellie shook her head. “I don’t know. Do you want your olives, Ryan?”

  I gave her two olives off the slice of pizza on my plate, hoping that would keep her quiet. “But everybody will be wearing them,” I explained.

  “Everybody?” Dad asked.

  “Well, a lot of people.”

  Mom let out a sigh. “We’ve spent most of our money getting here, Ryan. There are things that need to be done to the house, like fixing the air-conditioning.” She glanced at Dad. “There’s no money for expensive shoes, and even if there was, I don’t think—”

  “But Mom,” I said, “this is important.”

  Mom took a drink of iced tea. “We have to consider the whole family, Ryan,” she said.

  Ellie stuck an olive into her mouth, then smiled at me as she chewed. “Mmmm,” she said. “I like olives.”

  Justin nodded. “Me, too.” He looked over at my pizza slice.

  I plucked another olive off my pizza and tossed it onto Justin’s plate. “Eat and be quiet,” I suggested, knowing good and well my advice was a waste of breath.

  “Thank you,” Justin said with a big grin.

  “I know it’s a lot of money,” I said, turning back to Dad. “But these are really great basketball shoes.” This he’ll understand, I thought. Dad loves basketball and played for Macinburg High School in the Kentucky State Tournament back in 1973.

  Dad picked up his pizza slice and took a big bite. “You heard your mom,” he said through the wad of dough. “Too expensive. We’re not stockbrokers, you know.”

  Yeah, yeah. I’d already heard the speech a million times about how hard it is to make a living in the construction business.

  “But you said coming to Kentucky we’d have more money,” I reminded him.

  “You don’t get a check for a million dollars when you cross the state line, Ryan,” he said. “It takes time, and work.”

  Here came the speech on hard work. I’d have to listen for the next ten minutes.

  But Justin tapped me on the shoulder before Dad could get started and said, “If you say thank you to someone, don’t they have to give you more olives?”

  I quickly picked the rest of the olives off my pizza. “But I need a pair of Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers,” I said, dividing the olives equally between the twins.

  “Need?” asked Mom.

  “A spaceman is coming to visit,” Justin said. He grinned and stuck his finger through the hole in the sliced olive I’d given him. “Ellie and me heard it on the radio we found in the little closet.”

  Mom smiled at the twins. “Really!” she said, as if she believed every word of it. They both nodded, eyes wide with excitement.

  “Yes, need,” I insisted, trying to keep the conversation on track.

  Ellie took a slurp of milk. “The spaceman is from another planet. His name is Quando.”

  “Pleeeeease,” I begged, looking back and forth between Mom and Dad. “Just this once?”

  “The spaceman wants to come live with us,” Justin said. “Can he, Dad?”

  “Sure,” Dad. said, and for a second I thought he was talking to me about Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers. But he was talking to Justin. “How big is this spaceman fellow?”

  “Pretty please,” I said, a little louder this time. “I promise I’ll never ask for anything like this again for as long as I live.” I was beginning to feel desperate.

  “Quando’s not too big,” Ellie said. “He could sleep in Ryan’s room, on the top bunk.”

  “I don’t have a bunk bed,” I reminded her between clenched teeth. Anger began to creep up my spine. “We sold it in Arizona before we moved, remember?”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Mom said. “There is another family that has just moved here, too—the Websters, from Mississippi. They live on Sycamore Street, just like we do, only a couple blocks away, right at the top of the hill. I met Mrs. Webster at the grocery store. She was so friendly! I invited them over for a barbecue tomorrow night.”

  “A party!” Ellie said.

  “I love parties!” chimed in Justin. “Let’s have lots of soda pop and then we’ll have a burping contest. I like to burp, see!”

  Justin let out a big belch. Dad laughed. Mom said, “Now, Justin.” But she was smiling when she said it.

  “I can burp good, too!” Ellie said. “You want to hear?”

  “No!” I shouted. Couldn’t everybody see there were more important things to talk about than burping? “Just shut up, will you!” Then I turned my anger on Mom and Dad. “You made me come here! You owe me a pair of shoes!”

  The table went silent, and I knew that I’d blown it. In my family, you can speak your mind, but in no way are you supposed to shout it.

  “To your room,” Dad said in a calm but very firm voice.

  I tried to backpedal. “But … I didn’t mean … I just wanted to talk about the Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers,” I pleaded.

  “Forget the shoes, Ryan,” Mom said. “To your room.”

  “But it’s not fair,” I whined, forgetting that whining is useful only when you’re the youngest in the family. Otherwise it just makes things worse.

  “Ryan,” Mom and Dad said at the same time, and I knew that it was hopeless. When they use that tone of voice, especially when they both use it and at the same time, any chance to argue a point is history.

  I got up from the table and stalked toward my pink bedroom, glaring at the twins as I went.

  Curtain climbers! Yard apes! Rug rats!

  They both smiled and waved, a black olive stuck on the end of each finger.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ninety-Nine Dollars and Ninety-Nine Cents

  The next morning, Dad unboxed the TV and hooked it up to cable. I turned the set on, fished around for a station, and what was the first thing I saw? You guessed it: NBA All-Star Hoop Richardson and that ad for Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers.

  “Hey, Dad, come see this,” I called out, thinking that maybe if he witnessed a pair of shoes like that in action, he might change his mind.

  “Shoes don’t make the ballplayer, Ryan,” was all he said after watching for two seconds. Then he went back to working on the air conditioner.

  Disgusted, I turned the TV off and wandered outside to shoot a few baskets. The hoop mounted on the garage was a good one, but I couldn’t seem to hit, especially like Hoop Richardson. I was sure it was because this rim was in Kentucky, not Arizona, and my shoes were discount bargains, not Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers. So I went for a bike ride down the Sycamore Street hill, around the curve, and over the bridge. It felt so good to go fast that I did it again. At the bottom of my second run, I saw Telly and Aaron skipping rocks in the creek, now both wearing Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers.

  Everywhere I looked, there were my shoes. It was obvious. I had to have a pair. I had to.

  When I got home, I offered to help unpack boxes—in that stuffy, hot old house, no less. As we worked, Dad still kept saying things like “That’s just too much money for a pair of shoes.” And Mom kept agreeing. “Entirely too much.” I was beginning to get really depressed.

  Then luck turned my way. Dad had finally gotten the air conditioner going. We were all standing around the vent saying “Aaaaah,” enjoying the cool air, when Gordon came rushing into the house—without knocking, of course—and yelled, “They’re on sale! Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers are on sale at Four-Star Sports!”

  Gordon and I jumped on our bikes and flew down the Sycamore Street hill, around the curve, over the creek bridge. Sure enough, there they were in the display window of Four-Star Sports, Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers, still sitting high and mi
ghty on that plastic pedestal, but now with a big sign that said, One Week Only! $99.99

  The lady in the shoe department, Mrs. Marcosa, said that at that price they were going fast. “The sale is just on the sizes we have in stock. No layaways. Better hurry.”

  I checked the boxes of Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers she had stacked neatly on the counter. Only one had my size—seven—printed on it.

  Gordon had pulled a small black book out of his back pocket and was running his finger down a column of figures, studying it carefully. “My bankbook,” he said when I asked.

  That did it. Now Gordon was going to buy a pair. I rode home and told Mom and Dad about the sale.

  And they finally gave in. Dad broke down first and said, “Okay, okay. We’ll give you the money we were going to spend on a new pair—forty dollars. If you want to earn the rest, if that’s how you really want to spend your time and your money, go ahead.”

  Then Mom let out a sigh and said, “I guess you’re old enough to make your own decisions, Ryan. Just try to be responsible about them, okay?”

  “Yes!” I yelled over my shoulder. I was already halfway out of the living room, headed for the land of pink to check my own little bank account. “YAHOO!”

  I tossed my plastic piggy bank on the bed, yanked the rubber stopper from its belly, and dumped my savings out on the blanket.

  “Twenty-one forty-five,” I announced to myself a moment later. “With the forty dollars from Mom and Dad, plus my savings, I only need …” I got a piece of paper and started subtracting: “Ninety-nine ninety-nine minus twenty-one forty-five … minus forty …”

  Then I remembered the sales tax Mom and Dad would have had to pay on forty-dollar shoes. How much was it in Kentucky?

  “Six percent,” Dad said, rolling his eyes when I reminded him that they would have to pay that at a store anyway. “But don’t forget that you have to pay the sales tax on the entire ninety-nine ninety-nine.”

  It took a few tries and Mom’s calculator, but I finally figured it all out. The total on the Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers, including 6 percent sales tax, would be $105.99. Mom and Dad would throw in $42.40 altogether. That and my $21.45 added up to $63.85—which, subtracted from $105.99, meant that I only had to come up with $42.14. Those Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers were beginning to look downright cheap!

  I was still sitting on my bed, recounting and calculating, thinking of ways that I could earn $42.14, when Mom knocked on the door and said, “Come on out, Ryan. The Websters are here.”

  Oh yeah, the barbecue. I carefully put my money back in Piggy, then walked out into the living room to find myself looking straight into the biggest, greenest pair of eyes I’d ever seen in my life.

  Girl eyes.

  “Hi there,” the girl said, and for the first time I thought that a southern accent might be a beautiful thing. Those two ordinary, regular old words—hi and there—suddenly sounded smooth and warm and perfect, like a rock you’d want to add to your collection.

  Then the girl said, “My name is Bobbie Jo.” She smiled at me, and I could swear I felt my heart skip one complete beat.

  CHAPTER 7

  Fried Ham, Cheese, and Bologna

  Bobbie Jo’s family, I quickly found out, had moved from a place called Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to Macinburg. “Frog hopped” was the way Bobbie Jo put it. Her dad worked for some company that seemed to think living in one place for more than a year was bad for your health. “I’ve been in seven different schools since kindergarten,” she said.

  I smiled, thinking more of Bobbie Jo every minute. Not only did she have those incredible green eyes and a pretty smile, but she also knew what it was like to be ripped away from everything you know, forced into a place where you don’t want to be, faced with swirlies and weird neighbors with dogs name Colonel and junior high school one year too soon. She understood how I felt.

  Wrong. “I love getting into a new town,” she said. “New house. New school. New friends. Moving is great! Don’t you think so, Ryan?”

  Everybody looked at me.

  “Well … uh,” I said, suddenly feeling like a spineless worm for ever complaining.

  Which I didn’t like one bit.

  Which I blamed on Bobbie Jo.

  Suddenly her eyes didn’t seem so green, her smile so pretty, her southern accent so warm and smooth and perfect. What did she know, anyway? She’d moved so many times, she’d probably left her brain in the ladies’ room at some rest stop. Now that I’d taken a good look, she was two cards short of a deck: pea-brained, pug-nosed, and, to top it all off, not from Arizona!

  But the twins thought Bobbie Jo was the best thing to come along since dinosaurs. She talked to them, asking questions about starting kindergarten, their stuffed animals, and if they liked their hamburgers with onions or not. Before I knew it, the three of them were sitting in a little circle out on the back lawn, chatting away like they’d known each other for centuries. I acted like I was helping Dad and Mr. Webster light the charcoal, but I was really listening to what they said.

  Ellie told Bobbie Jo all about the gila woodpecker that pestered us in Arizona. It used to steal dry food from our neighbor’s cat’s dish and stash it in our pants pockets when the laundry was hung out to dry. We found it when we got dressed in the morning. “It took us a long time to figure out how that food got there,” Ellie said, as if that was surprising.

  Justin told Bobbie Jo that he thought Dad’s face felt just like a cactus in the morning before he shaved. “I used to rub it and say, ‘Daddy’s cactus! Daddy’s cactus!’ ”

  Bobbie Jo laughed, acting like these were the best stories ever told. I shook my head. Moving a lot obviously chewed up a person’s mind.

  Of course, the twins got around to telling Bobbie Jo all about their “space radio” and Quando’s visit.

  Bobbie Jo went on as if she believed them, saying, “Wow! I’ve never met an alien before, but I’d be happier than a flea at a dog show if I did!”

  The twins lit up at this lie. Ellie said, “I like the way you talk.” Justin said, “Me, too!”

  Bobbie Jo laughed even harder. “It’s a special gift they give you when you grow up in the South. But outsiders can learn how if they work real hard at it. You want to give it a try?”

  The twins bounced up and down. “Yeah! Yeah!”

  Which is about when I checked out of their dippy conversation. I had more important things to do than watch my brother and sister practice saying “Hi, y’all” and “That’s a who’d-a-thought-it” and “It’s so hot out, the tomatoes mighty near gonna stew on the vine.” Instead, I had to concentrate on how I was going to earn $42.14 before the One-Week-Only Sale on Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers ended at Four-Star Sports. Maybe Bobbie Jo thought she could just float right into junior high like a boat on the Mississippi River, but she’d find out different soon enough.

  I looked over at her as she switched from fairly stupid speech lessons to completely dumb songs. As I was soon to hear—over and over and over again—there were more idiotic tunes in the world than “On Top of Spaghetti.”

  “Fried ham, fried ham, cheese, and bologna,” Bobbie Jo and Justin and Ellie all sang, as if the whole neighborhood was dying to hear.

  “And after the macaroni,

  We’ll have onions, pickles, and peppers,

  And then we’ll have some more fried ham,

  FRIED HAM! FRIED HAM!”

  Good grief!

  CHAPTER 8

  Junior High Insurance

  I set to work as soon as possible earning the money for my Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers.

  Dad paid me two dollars to clean out the basement and three more to wash the station wagon—so dirty, a pig in mud would have looked cleaner—then wax it. Mr. Jackson, who lived next to us, hired me to dig up all the weeds along his rock wall. An old lady down the block said she’d pay me to water her flower garden while she was gone for two days to visit her son in some town that sounded dangerous. “Hazard, Kentucky,” she called it. Mom paid me a doll
ar to scrub under the kitchen sink.

  I worked like crazy, not even taking time off when Gordon invited me to go swimming on Tuesday at Wrennington Lake. I saved everything I made, every penny. I didn’t buy one pop or candy bar, not a single pack of baseball cards, not even a sausage burger at Ernie’s Eatery. It all went into Piggy. I counted and recounted at the end of each day.

  I dropped by Four-Star Sports each day, too, and checked up on my size-seven Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers. Mrs. Marcosa got kind of tired of pulling them out of the box and showing them to me, but she still smiled and said, “Sale’s on until Saturday! Get the money and they’re yours!”

  Eleven dollars. Thirteen fifty. Seventeen, then nineteen. By my count, first thing Thursday morning I was twenty-two dollars and seventy-five cents closer to my goal. Including my savings and the money Mom and Dad were pitching in, I needed only $19.39 more!

  But I was out of jobs. I asked Mom and Dad for more work. But they said, “Sorry, not right now.” Which made me mad. They’d gotten good jobs for themselves and now had run out of anything for me. I went to ask the folks on my block again.

  No help there, either. Nothing.

  I branched out, covering the entire neighborhood, knocking on every door, asking, nearly begging. The sale on Slam Dunk Sky Jumpers ended in just three days!

  At Bobbie Jo’s house, though, I hesitated on the front steps, thinking maybe I wasn’t that desperate. She’d visited the twins twice more since the cookout, telling them stories and teaching them songs, listening to their never ending Quando stories. Just having her in the house made me feel weird and confused inside. I’d find myself staring at her, wanting to see those green eyes sparkle, that smile of hers. But then she’d make a comment about the way I chew my food—“Like a cow!”—or talk about how excited she was to be going to junior high, and I’d want her to leave. Who knew what she’d say if I told her why I was looking for a job? So I turned away from Bobbie Jo’s, deciding I’d hunt for aluminum cans to cash in instead.