“It’s not that simple …” She put her hand on the doorknob, then rested her forehead against the door. “Oh, Socko. I don’t want to live in a car.”
“You got two nice ones to choose from.”
She slipped into the kitchen without looking back.
“Just trying to cheer you up,” he told the closed door. “Sorry.”
28
LOOKS LIKE A FUNERAL
The next morning Socko grabbed Damien’s hat off the doorknob. He turned it around in his hand until the S faced him. He hadn’t thought about Damien all that much lately. “Been busy,” he said under his breath, and put the hat on. He crept out of his bedroom, then hesitated in front of the closed door next to his, pretending for a second it was Damien sleeping in there.
“It’s okay, Em,” said a woman’s voice from inside the room. “Go back to sleep.”
His mother and great-grandfather were drinking coffee at the kitchen table. “Still sleeping?” Delia whispered, pointing up.
Socko nodded.
“And tonight they’ll be someplace else,” said the General, but Socko noticed that he was keeping his voice down too.
Delia heaved herself to her feet and put her cup in the sink. “Walk me out,” she said to Socko. At the car she pressed a crumpled twenty-dollar bill into his hand. “Give this to Ceelie for groceries. Don’t tell the General.”
Socko was hiding the twenty in his pocket when the sun peered over the edge of the earth and an orange light raked across their dirt yard. “Hey, Mom! Check out the lawn!”
“Goodness!” Delia had been watering the dirt for days, using the “gentle showers” setting on the sprinkler head so she wouldn’t dislodge the seeds. Now, seemingly overnight, a million tiny blades had sprung up and were standing straight and green. “It isn’t a lawn yet,” she said, hugging herself. “But it’s a start. It’ll be the best lawn in Moon Ridge Estates.”
“It’ll be the only lawn in Moon Ridge Estates.”
His mother punched his arm. “Smart-mouth. With Luke here there’ll be more. But ours will still be the best.”
“Because it’s ours?”
“Right.” She stared at the cloudless sky and frowned. “The TV says it’s supposed to rain today. Doesn’t look like it, though. Our lawn could use a good, deep soak. If it doesn’t rain this morning, go out and water it good, okay?” She tapped the S on Damien’s hat and climbed into the car.
“What was that for?” Socko asked as she rolled down the window.
“Rain. And the Olsons. Junebug too.”
“What’s wrong with Junebug?”
“Same old same old. Forget I mentioned it.”
Just then, Livvy and her mother came out of their house. “Good morning, Marsha!” Delia called. “Thanks again for the towels.”
Mrs. Holmes waved and got into the car. Livvy hurried across the street. “Look!” She showed Delia and Socko a silver key. “It’s to the house next to yours.”
“More neighbors,” said Delia with a contented sigh.
“My parents and I talked last night and it’s okay about the map in our garage.” Livvy put the key on the kitchen table and helped herself to a bowl of cereal. “They’re moving to a different office. A smaller one,” she admitted, stirring the oaty clusters into the milk. “So I guess it’s not totally okay. But at least now I know there’s a good reason why I’m not going back to Haworth. It was a relief to find out that they weren’t just messing with my life.”
“Money?”
“Temporary cash flow. We all have to make a few sacrifices, but Dad says everything’s going to be okay.”
“Can I take a look at the map before they move it?” he asked.
“Sure.”
She finished her cereal, washed the bowl and spoon, and set them in the drainer.
Crossing the street, Socko checked the sky. In the time since his mother had driven away, the TV’s prediction of rain had become more believable. A ceiling of clouds hung low over Moon Ridge Estates. It seemed to flatten the already flat landscape.
Livvy rolled up the big garage door and turned on the bank of lights.
All of Moon Ridge Estates appeared in crisp black and white. Although the proportions were different, it looked a lot like his map. He found Full Moon Circle and traced it until his finger reached Tranquility Way, where it hung a left. “We live here.” It took another minute for him to find what he was looking for. “Hey, here it is!” he whooped.
“Here what is?” She pulled her hair back with one hand and took a closer look at the spot he was pointing to. “Oh, that …”
The Wildlife Area abutted the golf course and was almost as big. The whole area was textured with little symbols. “Trees?” he muttered, matching the symbol to the key. The only trees he’d seen there were lying dead on the ground. “Did they move the Wildlife Area?”
“No.” She let her hair slide out of her hand. “The partners decided an eighteen-hole golf course would be better for sales than a nine. Dad had to go back to the county commission and get a variance.”
“Holy crap! He bulldozed it?”
“He’s a developer. It’s part of his job.”
“Did you see what it looked like when it was a forest?”
“I never saw Moon Ridge at all before we moved here. But I’m sorry! I know how much you like nature.”
Socko shrugged off the hand she put on his arm and strode out into the rain that had just begun to fall.
While rain pelted Moon Ridge, the General taught them to play a card game called Crown and Anchor. They bet saltines. Socko didn’t feel like talking, and Livvy didn’t seem to either. “You two are about as much fun as a toothache,” the General grumped. “I almost wish the Olsons were still around getting underfoot instead of next door.”
Although Livvy always seemed to want to prove she was the best at everything, she was less than her usual competitive self. But since Socko couldn’t be bothered with trying and the General was on a losing streak, she managed to build a tower of saltines six inches high.
It was early afternoon when Livvy’s pocket began jingling classical music. She slid out her cell. “Yes, Mother?” She listened a minute. “Be right there.” She pushed away from the table and stood. “Gotta go. The partners are coming for dinner tonight.”
“Tell them there’s nothing left to bulldoze,” Socko called after her.
“Nothing but Holmes Homes,” the General observed as Livvy dashed out the door into the falling rain.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the partners putting her folks out of business.” The old man began divvying up her saltines. “The only money Moon Ridge has made so far came out of my pocket.”
“Her dad said it was just a temporary cash flow problem.”
The General frowned at the last saltine in his hand, then dropped it on Socko’s pile. “Shutting down the whole shebang would fix that.” Socko kept on playing, but he barely noticed as all the saltines migrated to his great-grandfather’s side of the table.
Manuel’s old car crawled into the driveway at five. Delia’s face appeared and then blurred as the one working windshield wiper swatted the rain away. Socko expected her to use the button on her keychain to open the garage door since it was raining; instead the headlights went out and the lone windshield wiper stopped in mid-swish. The car door opened.
A long red spear emerged first. Popped open, it became a tiny umbrella—it must have come with the car. Delia rolled out. Although it was raining so hard the drops bounced off the umbrella, she just stood there.
“The grub isn’t even good when it’s dry,” the General complained as rain fell into the open top of the bag that hung on her arm. “Is Delia Marie having a stroke?”
Socko ran out in the rain. “Mom?” He blinked the rain out of his eyes.
She didn’t even look at him. She just stared into the rain. He crushed himself up against her under the umbrella to keep the rain out of his
eyes and looked too.
He had never given it much thought, but their yard ran downhill to the road. In this heavy rain the edge of the driveway had become a swiftly moving river. When it reached the street, the river turned, spilling along the curb until it poured through the metal grate that covered the storm drain.
The lawn they had spread and stomped and watered and exhorted to grow had become a flotilla racing down the driveway, a million tiny green sails. Moon Ridge’s best and only lawn was disappearing beneath the road.
Socko stepped into the rushing torrent. Sprouts swirled around his ankles. Some clung to his socks, but most whirled by, dancing their way to the drain.
He felt a warm hand on his arm. “Come on, Socko. We’d better go inside before the burgers get any more waterlogged and we have to listen to himself.”
“But … our lawn …”
“I know, I know.” She linked her arm through his. Already soaked, they walked slowly up the path.
“In case you missed it, the lawn just washed away,” Delia announced when they stood dripping inside the front door.
“It was bound to happen,” said the old man. “At least you gave it a try.”
Delia wiggled her feet out of her sopping sneakers. “And I’ll give it another one too. There’s plenty more seed at Home Depot. We are going to have a lawn!”
The General gathered the cards as Delia thumped into the kitchen. “You’ll have a lawn if the whole shooting match doesn’t go up in smoke,” he wheezed. He cocked his head toward the driveway across the street. “Behold. The partners.”
Three unfamiliar black cars sat parked at Livvy’s, the rain glistening on their perfect paint jobs. The General rapped the edge of the deck of cards against the table. “Looks like a funeral to me.”
29
CLICK
When Livvy didn’t show up to bug him first thing the next morning, Socko walked over and knocked on her door. He wasn’t going to make a habit of it or anything, but he was worried about what the owners of the three black cars had had to say.
She slid out the door, closing it behind her. The dirty pink shorts she wore were the ones she’d had on yesterday.
“How’d the meeting go?” He gave her a thumbs-up and raised his eyebrows.
She answered with an emphatic thumbs-down, her eyes shiny.
Socko looked away, embarrassed. He spotted a flattened cardboard carton leaning against the wall of the garage—which reminded him of something. “Are you throwing that box away?”
“I guess.”
“Can I have it?”
“Sure … but why?”
“I’ll show you. Follow me.”
He dragged the piece of cardboard as they walked, having second and third thoughts about what was probably a stupid idea. “So what went down at dinner?”
“We ate.” Livvy shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “After dessert Mother sent me upstairs. I went, but only partway. I sat in that blind spot where the staircase turns and listened to what they were saying. Oh, Socko! The partners are getting ready to pull out!”
The General had been right. “That’s tough,” Socko said.
“Tough?” She gave him a wide-eyed stare. “It’s a disaster!”
It was bad, sure, but disaster? “It’ll be okay. Your parents’ll find other jobs.”
“They don’t have jobs! They have a company. No more company, and they’ll have to lay off all their employees.”
“What employees?”
“My dad’s finishing out a couple of contracts on other projects. He has his people there, but that work will dry up soon, and then they’ll all be out of a job. I don’t know what we’ll do. My dad owes so much money.”
Socko listened to the scratch of the cardboard as he dragged it down the road. This was way bigger than not having the rent—and he thought he could cheer her up? Fat chance.
They had reached the part of the development cratered with future basements. Socko stopped beside the largest mound of excavated earth. He stood the cardboard on edge, then let go. “We’re here,” he announced as it landed flat on the ground.
Livvy didn’t seem to notice the dirt mountains. Instead her eyes went to the nearby fence they’d climbed a few days earlier. “We’re not going after Brad and his friends, are we?”
He shook his head.
“And please tell me we’re not going over to Lorelei Meadows to admire the grass.”
“Nope.” Suddenly either of those options sounded less dumb than what he had in mind. He stared at the flattened cardboard box he’d felt so lucky to find. Forty-gallon hot water heater. Energy Star. The printed words glared up at him.
“So … why are we here?” She was looking at the flattened box too, a puzzled look on her face. Damien popped into his head. Damien was the friend who would have gotten the connection instantly. Damien was used to making do, pretending every piece of trash was something else. With Livvy staring at the cardboard, it turned from a genius idea back to what it really was. Garbage.
“Hey!” She dropped to a squat and ran a hand across its surface. “I bet if we dragged this to the top of that pile of dirt we could ride it down.”
Surprise and then relief flooded his chest. “And why do you think I brought it here?”
Livvy picked up the cardboard and balanced it on her head. Holding it in place with both hands, she ran halfway up the hill, then started to slide. “Aaaaah!” Never letting go of the cardboard, she dropped to her knees and careened back down the clay slope.
The edge of the cardboard slammed into Socko’s stomach, knocking him down. He sat with his legs out straight, serious dampness creeping through the butt of his shorts.
Livvy unfolded her legs so they stuck out straight too. From knee to ankle each shin was striped with mud.
Socko figured she’d give up after checking out her muddy self. Girls weren’t into getting slimed. Instead, she jumped to her feet. “Come on,” she said.
“Was that a smile? Did I detect a smile?”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
With each failed attempt to scale the clay mountain, the sliming got worse. Socko rolled. Livvy belly-skidded. She pushed herself to her knees and looked at the red clay stains on her formerly white blouse—then tried again.
“Queen of the Hill!” she crowed when they finally reached the summit. “And King!” she added.
They rested the cardboard Livvy had carried up the hill on both of their heads. Each of them held onto an outside edge with one hand. They weren’t in a hurry to try out the cardboard sled. It had taken them so long to scale the mud mountain, and they’d be at the bottom again in one quick slide.
Socko looked down at the massive shadow of the hill with the two of them, tiny mountaineers, on the top. The shadows of their legs and arms were spindly. The cardboard, caught edge-on by the sun, was reduced to a single line.
“Click,” said Livvy softly.
Socko’s short hair made a gritty sound against the cardboard as he turned his head. “Click?”
“You know, like taking a picture? Izzy and I made it up. We say it—said it—when some moment was worth remembering.”
“And this is a click?”
She pointed to their shadows. “We look like hieroglyphics.” She did an Egyptian thing with her arms, bending them at sharp angles, the cardboard resting on her head.
He Egyptianed his free arm, watching the shadow do the same. “Click,” he whispered, then felt kind of stupid. “Let’s try this baby out.” He set the cardboard down on the flat top of the mound. “You sit up front.”
Livvy climbed on and gripped the leading edge of the cardboard.
Socko sat down behind her, one leg on either side. “Now, I guess we … sort of … inch forward.” He dug in with his heels, trying to propel the cardboard forward.
She stretched her long legs out past the edges of the cardboard and dug in too. When they lurched over the edge, she let out a little scream. “That was anticli
mactic,” she said when the cardboard sled hung there like a bug on flypaper.
The words were barely out of her mouth when the cardboard began to slide.
Socko tapped Damien’s Superman S just as the slow creep turned to an avalanche of speed. When they hit level ground at the bottom of the hill, he slammed into Livvy’s back, ripping the cardboard edge from her hands. She skidded off the sled on her knees, then stood, checked out her legs, and shrugged. “What’s a little more mud?” She looked up the hill. “Too bad it was over so fast.”
Their slide had smoothed out the tiny watercourses cut by rain, squeegeeing the clay flat and leaving a dark, shiny path. “It would be even faster if we went down again,” said Socko.
“Come on!” Livvy grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet.
It was faster. Way. And this time when they hit the level ground they skidded farther. “Again?” he asked.
They rode the cardboard sled until it was so soggy it fell apart. “We’ll snag another big box before the next rain,” he said as they walked away.
“Hope it rains before the partners put my dad out of business. Who knows where I’ll be after that.”
“It’s not definite. They haven’t pulled the plug yet.”
“Yet,” she repeated.
Livvy looked as worried as she had when they’d set out from her house—and a lot muddier. So much for cheering her up.
They hosed off in Socko’s yard. The water in his sneakers bubbled between his toes with each step as they squelched into the house.
The General made them put towels on the kitchen chairs before they could sit. “How’d that meeting go last night, young lady?”
Behind Livvy’s back Socko zipped a finger across his own throat to let his great-grandfather know how it had gone—and to shut him up, but it was a little late for that.
“Terrible. The partners might pull out.”
The General drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. “I was afraid of that.”
“I want to help my parents, but they think I’m too young to even know about it!”
“Strange times we’re living in. Strange times. Used to be kids were expected to help. Once, back when I was a kid during the Depression my mother gave me four cents to buy bread at Lewis’s General Store. Ma knew it cost five but she only had four. It was my job to get that bread.”
Summer on the Moon Page 17