Summer on the Moon

by Adrian Fogelin

  “I could probably take him,” Socko whispered back, giving himself the benefit of the doubt. “But if someone calls the cops, which one of us do you think’ll get slammed against the squad car door?”

  “But Socko, he did it!” breathed Livvy. “We have evidence.”

  “Tell your dad to send Officer Friendly over.”

  They heard the refrigerator close. The boy turned toward the door that led to the pool. Before Socko could stop her, Livvy sprinted the rest of the way up the driveway. “Hey, you!”

  The guy swung around. Eyebrows raised, he touched himself in the middle of his chest. “Me?”

  Livvy stopped just outside the garage door. “Have you by any chance paid a visit to Moon Ridge Estates recently?”

  “Why? Who wants to know?”

  “Quite a few people, actually.” She spread her feet wide and planted her knuckles on her hips. “Did you spray-paint profanities all over a house in Moon Ridge Estates?” she demanded.

  “No. Why would I?”

  Peering out from behind the bush, Socko could see how the boy’s eyes tailed away from her.

  “What if I told you there was a witness?” Livvy bluffed.

  There was a long pause, and then Socko heard a pop as the guy pulled the tab on the can in his hand. “Get lost, little girl.”

  Although he hadn’t been spotted, Socko shifted uneasily.

  “I said, get lost!” The guy reached out with his free hand and gave Livvy a shove.

  Socko touched the S on Damien’s cap and stepped into view. Hoping his slow walk looked confident, not scared, he strode up to the open garage door.

  “Hey.” He stopped right next to Livvy. “How’s it goin’?” The guy was much smaller up close. Socko was not only taller, he was bulkier.

  “Holy crap!” the guy breathed, falling back.

  Socko took another step toward him, thinking, this must be what it feels like to be Meat.

  The guy raised his voice. “Pete? Trevor?”

  Two more blonds slouched through the door of the garage and stood there, dripping on the concrete floor. “What’s going on, Brad?” asked Pete or Trevor.

  “Your friend vandalized a house in Moon Ridge Estates, my father’s project,” Livvy said. “He isn’t too happy about the damage.”

  Both guys repeated Brad’s eye fade. They were all in on it, Socko thought.

  Brad seemed to expect his two unwelcome visitors to go away quietly now that he had backup—but that wasn’t going to happen. Socko ran his hand over the rusty rings that stained the shelf. “Looks like a couple dozen cans of spray paint should be sitting right about here.”

  One of the blonds turned on Brad. “I told you we shouldn’t of—”

  “Shut your face, Trev.” Brad looked at Socko and Livvy. “You two are trespassing.”

  Livvy let out a sudden, bloodcurdling scream. “Get your hands off me!” she yelled.

  The guys jumped, and then traded confused looks. Socko was just as mystified.

  “Leave me alone!” she shrieked.

  A second door flew open. “Bradley!” A woman in a crisp white tennis outfit stepped into the garage. “What is going on here?” She saw Socko and Livvy. “Is everyone all right?”

  “I’m Olivia Holmes,” Livvy volunteered, her voice perfectly calm now. “My father built this house. A couple of days ago your son vandalized a house in my father’s current project, Moon Ridge Estates.”

  The woman whirled and faced her son.

  Brad opened his eyes wide. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Mom.”

  The woman pursed her lips. She stared at her son hard before turning back to Socko and Livvy. “Unless you have some proof, it’s your word against my son’s—and I trust my son.”

  But not much, thought Socko. He tapped his fingers on the shelf. “Excuse me, ma’am, but should there be cans of spray paint on this shelf?”

  The woman looked at the conspicuously empty stretch of shelf, blanching when she saw the rings of rust. “Bradley!” She turned on her son. “First you get suspended for drinking, then you scratch your father’s BMW. Speaking of your father, do I need to call him and ask what should be on that shelf?”

  “Hey, it was Pete’s idea!”

  “We so kicked butt! And how did you like my scream?” Livvy held her hand up for a high five.

  Socko kept walking, his head down. “What just happened back there? Those guys come right out and admit they did it, and Brad’s mom says there’ll be consequences. Then she gets on the phone with your dad to make sure there aren’t any.”

  “I bet they’ll get grounded, or lose their driving privileges.”

  “Big deal. Is your father gonna call Officer Fricke and turn them in?”

  “I doubt it.” Livvy put a sneaker on the bottom rung of the fence. “It takes forever to get the money if you go to court. Brad’s mom already said she’s going to pay the damages.”

  “But they messed up his property!” Socko jumped down on the Moon Ridge side of the fence. “When I was the suspect your father had a cop at my door in a heartbeat.”

  “The situation was different. Now we know who did it and Brad’s parents are going to pay for the damage.”

  “Oh, I get it. Brad and Pete and whoever don’t fit the description. They have money, so they get off. No wonder jails are full of guys like me!”

  She walked beside him, watching the ground. “You’re right,” she said at last. “They’re guilty. They should be punished. I know my dad won’t call the police, but … we could.”

  “Like they’d listen to us …”

  “Maybe we can get the General to do it.”

  “Oh, crap! The General!” He knew he’d catch it for being gone so long, but maybe once he got past the crackle of complaint, he’d convince his great-grandfather to make that call. It was time for a little of that “justice for all” the General claimed all Americans were entitled to.

  When they reached Tranquility Way, Livvy veered off toward her own house. “I’ll be over in a minute.”

  The first thing Socko noticed as he jogged toward his own house was the vacancy at the front window. The old guy must be pretty mad.

  He slipped inside. The wheelchair stood empty in the middle of the room.

  “General?” His voice echoed, but there was no answer. Then, through the arch that opened into the family room, he saw a few inches of the brown Naugahyde recliner. One scrawny arm and claw-like hand hung down its side.

  “Sir?” Sometime after they’d left, the old man had climbed back into “bed” and dozed off again. Old guys did that.

  Socko crept toward the silent family room and stood in front of the recliner. Not moving at all, the General was the oldest-looking thing Socko had ever seen. He was oddly slumped too, toppled to the right.

  Socko tried to detect motion, but there was none. He felt his own heart start beating weird. The arm that hung down seemed barely attached to his great-grandfather’s body. In fact, all of him looked as if it had been strung together with worn-out rubber bands.

  Socko put a finger on the old man’s shoulder. When nothing happened, he put his whole hand down, feeling the bones under the thin skin. “General, sir?” Socko gave the bony shoulder a shake. His great-grandfather slipped lower in the chair.

  “Crap! Oh, crap! Oh, crap!” The General was dead. But how could he be? He was alive when they’d left—alive and complaining.

  But in all of Socko’s experience, nothing had ever looked deader—including Frankie with a bullet through his heart.

  If the old man was dead, he and Delia had fulfilled their side of the contract. The house was theirs—but Socko hadn’t wanted the stupid house in the first place.

  Eyes stinging, he stared at the crumpled body in the chair. “How could you leave Mom and me alone in this desert? I was starting to like you!”

  He heard the front door open. “What’s for lunch?”

  Socko stood still, his back to Livvy.

&
nbsp; “Socko?”

  He turned away from the body in the chair. “The General … croaked.” He’d tried to make his voice sound strong, but instead it shook.

  “Oh, Socko!” She threw her arms around his neck. A shock wave ripped through him as his face was buried in her hair. Taking a surprised breath, he smelled green apple shampoo.

  She let go fast and stepped away from him. Knotting her hands, she stared at the pitiful body in the chair with tears in her eyes. But the sad look quickly changed and she dropped to her knees. “General?”

  She brought her face to within inches of the shriveled corpse. “Please stop this, General. You’re scaring Socko.” When nothing happened, she stage-whispered, “I’m onto you, you old faker.” Then she spread her hands. “Rise!”

  Socko let out a hoarse scream when the corpse straightened up in the chair.

  “Aw, heck,” said the General. “I was just having a little fun with the kid.”

  Socko was stunned silent, caught between gratitude, embarrassment, and a fury he could almost taste. “You were faking it?” His voice was quiet but hard, the armored-up voice his mother called “attitudinous.”

  “It was a joke, Sacko!” The recently dead General rubbed his palms back and forth on the arms of the chair. “I was playing possum.”

  “That was supposed to be funny?” Socko roared.

  The General pouted. “You two lit out of here without even a howdy-do. You were gone so long I got worried. I don’t know what you’re all worked up about anyway, Sacko. You did it first, pulling that fast one on Livvy.”

  Livvy put her hands on her hips. “Told you playing possum wasn’t funny.”

  Socko collapsed to the floor, where he sat cross-legged staring at the tile in front of him. He hadn’t felt this exhausted since he and Damien made that hour-long crawl up the fire escape chute.

  “Sacko?”

  He heard the whoosh-snap of the recliner being brought back to the upright position, followed by the scuff of slippers. He didn’t look up to see where the General was going. He was done with the old man.

  The corduroy toes of a pair of mole colored slippers slid into his circle of vision and stopped. A bony hand clamped down on his head. “It’s been so long since anyone’s liked me I guess I’ve forgotten how to act. I won’t scare you like that again. Next time I look dead, go ahead and order flowers.” Socko tried to lift his head under the weight of the old man’s hand so he could look up, but the General would not ease up, would not let go. “So, we’ll just forgive and forget, okay, Sacko?”

  “Quit calling me Sacko!”

  He felt the grip on his head relax. “Okay,” the General whispered. The weight of the hand lifted. The old man patted Socko’s head gently one time before coming down with a firm slap. “And now, like the young lady says, what do we have for lunch?”

  Socko stared in disbelief. “What do you think we have for lunch?”

  Socko pushed himself to his feet and went to the kitchen, glad that for once Livvy didn’t follow him.

  He still felt funny about the hug. And smelling her shampoo.

  26

  A GLINT OF METAL

  Those three stupid seconds of hugging Livvy had changed things, big-time. Now, when she knocked and the General made his usual your-girlfriend’s-here remark, Socko felt his face flush.

  The knock had come early this morning.

  The General wheeled his chair around. “Your girlfriend’s here—”

  “Cut it out!” Socko whispered, his face burning. He got to the door first and opened it.

  “Hey, Socko.” Livvy was standing there, wrapping a strand of blonde hair around one finger. Her face was kind of red too. She hurried past him and walked over to his great-grandfather. “Good morning, General.”

  He glared first at her, and then at the plate in his lap. “Get a load of this breakfast!”

  Livvy took a long look at the cold burger and fries on the plate in front of him. “Guess what I had for breakfast?” she asked, sitting down on the floor at the old man’s feet.

  “What?”

  “Matzo ball soup.”

  The General snorted in surprise, but recovered fast. “At least you get some variety. Nothing but reheated burgers and fries around here, with an occasional bowl of Styrofoam and milk thrown in.”

  Socko grabbed his Nintendo and fell onto the couch.

  “Doesn’t anyone cook anymore?” the General grumped.

  “My parents sure don’t. They say they’re too busy.”

  “It’s not like it’s hard. Heckfire, during the war I fixed grub for a whole company—that’s four platoons, which is, oh, about a hundred and twenty men. If I can do it, anyone can do it.”

  “Then why don’t you?” Socko mumbled, pushing buttons.

  Livvy scooted closer to the wheelchair. “Teach me how to cook. I’ll cook for both of us.”

  Socko waited for the old man’s excuse—he already knew the answer would be no.

  “Nah. I’m too old to take the heat in the kitchen. And I got too much arthritis in my hands.” To demonstrate, he made a fist and winced.

  Livvy jumped to her feet. “Tell me what to do. I’ll do everything.” She ran to the kitchen. When she came back, she folded her legs under her and sat back down on the floor with a pencil in one hand, a scrap of paper bag pressed against her knee with the other. She looked up expectantly. “What ingredients do we need?”

  “Depends on what we want to make, doesn’t it?”

  “Apple pie?” Livvy suggested. “Fried chicken?”

  The General raised his wiry eyebrows. “Let’s start with something simple, like SOS.”

  “What does SOS stand for?” she asked, her pencil hovering.

  The old man snorted. “Let’s just call it ‘Slop on a Shingle.’”

  Livvy wrote down the ingredients the General rattled off: chipped beef, milk, white flour, salt, pepper, and white bread.

  It sounded to Socko like the makings of a school lunch.

  “Anything else?” Livvy turned the scrap of paper so the General could read it.

  Feeling invisible, Socko left the Nintendo on the couch and slid out the front door.

  He was spending too much time with Livvy anyway. Besides, he had things he needed to think about, like coming up with a genius idea to get back to the old neighborhood so he could see Damien—having Livvy around all the time was distracting him.

  He jumped on his skateboard and was rolling down the road when he heard the ring of sneakers on the pavement behind him.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped and let her catch up. “Thought you were taking cooking lessons.”

  “Later. We need ingredients.”

  He popped the board up and carried it. They turned down the next unexplored street on the circle, Lunar Lane. “Are we going anywhere in particular?” Livvy asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” She walked along beside him.

  When Socko realized he might get caught watching her, he began looking intently at anything that wasn’t her—which was pretty much the usual. Houses. Pavement. Dirt.

  The houses on Lunar Lane looked as vacant as any of the others they’d passed, but these were more complete than most. Socko was scanning a gray house when an unexpected glint of metal caught his eye. Fear zinged from his scalp to the soles of his feet—it was the rear bumper of a maroon Trans Am.

  It had taken a while, but Rapp had come after him. Had Delia gone back to “messing with Junebug”?

  Livvy touched his shoulder. “Socko? You’re hyperventilating.” She followed his gaze. “What’s a car doing back there?” She took a step toward the house. He grabbed her arm.

  “What?”

  “Wait a sec. Let me think.” He focused his eyes on the ground. Staring at Rapp’s car made his brain seize.

  “Ohmygosh!” she gasped.

  Sure that the next thing he’d see—possibly the last—would be Rapp, Socko raised his eyes slowly.

>   A baby in a sagging diaper had toddled out from behind the house, mosquito bites all over its pale arms and legs. Hugged to the baby’s bare chest was a gray stuffed dog that had probably once been blue. The baby gave them a gummy smile and held out the toy. “Daw-gy.”

  “Emily?” a hushed voice called from behind the house. “Em, where are you?” A woman in shorts and a stained T-shirt rushed around the corner of the house and swept the baby into her arms. The woman was small and looked very young. Suddenly seeing them, her eyes grew wide. “Oh … hi,” she said. “We didn’t hurt anything.”

  “It’s okay.” Socko didn’t know why, but people always said that when things were not okay, and it wasn’t hard to tell things here were definitely not okay. Still, Socko was breathing easier. When he looked again, the car behind the house was just an ordinary maroon car, not Rapp’s chariot of fear. It wasn’t waxed and shiny. It wasn’t even a Trans Am. Only the color matched.

  Livvy reached for the cell phone in her pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Socko asked softly.

  “Calling my dad. They broke into that house.”

  “It’s a baby and a mom,” he whispered back. “And so what if they broke in? What could they steal, the doorknobs?”

  Livvy inhaled sharply. “Socko … look!”

  The man who had stepped from behind the house was big and had several days’ growth of beard. His jeans were filthy, his hands black with grease.

  Livvy took a step toward him. “My dad owns this house. If you leave now you won’t get into any trouble.”

  The woman glanced at the man, then she turned to Socko and Livvy. “We can’t leave. Something’s wrong with the car.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist.

  “Not now, Ceelie,” the man said gently. “Listen, we don’t want any trouble. I’m fixing the car. We won’t be here long.” He closed his hands into fists.

  Livvy looked at the clenched fists, then over at Socko.

  “He’s nervous,” Socko whispered. “They’re in a jam, Livvy.” He raised his voice. “Can we help?”

  “We’ll be fine,” said the man. “We’ll be out of here as soon as I get the car running.”