The Painted Ponies of Partequineus and The Summer of the Kittens

by Peter H. Riddle

  “Jimmy’s my best friend,” I said, really quietly. Dad looked over at me, and I just sat and looked out the window. Dad put on his turn signal, and when the light changed he turned left and pulled over by the side of the road.

  “Were you out at the club flying field?” Dad asked.

  “Nope. Jimmy’s new plane lands on water, so we were out near Canning where Mr. Morris knows this farmer who has a pond.”

  “Do you think you can find it?”

  “I think so. It’s just past Hillaton.”

  Dad started the car again and we drove out to Church Street and across the dykes and after only two wrong turns I found Mr. teStroete’s farm, and we drove through the cornfield to the pond. We put Jimmy’s plane and radio and stuff in the trunk, all except for the wing, because it was too big to fit. We put that in the back seat. I felt really bad to see the plane all banged up, but Dad said he thought it could be fixed.

  The blackbirds were all gone. And the corn was just corn.

  “Jimmy’s lucky to have such a good friend,” he said as we drove back to the highway to go home.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “You, of course,” Dad said.

  I’ve made up my mind. Today was a good day, even though Jimmy’s in the hospital and the plane crashed and everything. I’m sad about that, but I think my Dad and I are all right again.

  July 28th

  Hey, Diary!

  You’ll never guess what we did today. Dad and me.

  I was up early ’cause I wanted to find out how Jimmy was, but Mom said I had to wait until at least nine o’clock before I could call and ask, and while I was having breakfast I heard Dad down in the basement doing something with his power saw. I asked Mom what was going on, and she said she didn’t know, but that he’d been down there since about six-thirty. I finished my cereal and went to take a look.

  When I got to the basement, I found Dad piling up a bunch of flat boards, all cut to the same length. Off to one side were some two-by-fours, and Dad was wearing his tool belt that has all the pockets in it for nails and stuff and a loop for his hammer.

  “What are you building?” I asked him.

  “You’ll see,” he said. “Want to help?”

  “Okay,” I said, surprising myself. Before yester-day, I would have said no. Before yesterday I wouldn’t even have bothered to ask what he was doing.

  “Help me carry all this stuff upstairs and out to the back yard,” he said.

  “But what’s it for?”

  “Just be patient.”

  I looked at the clock when we walked through the kitchen with our arms full of wood, but it was only a little after eight so I couldn’t call to find out how Jimmy was yet. It took us two more trips to get everything out into the back yard, where we stacked it all under the maple tree. Then Dad got his ladder out of the garage and leaned it up against the tree. I looked up and saw where he had nailed some wide boards between the biggest branches. They were arranged in a kind of square pattern, like the beams in the ceiling in our basement.

  “When did you do that?” I asked.

  “Yesterday morning, while you were out flying with Jimmy.”

  “What’s it for? Why won’t you tell me what we’re doing?” Instead of answering me, Dad took a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and unfolded it and handed it to me. On it was a sketch of the tree with a kind of a platform in it and some measurements. And sitting on the platform was a drawing of a girl. Me. Okay, so it was only a stick figure, but Dad had drawn long hair on it like mine and a smile on my face.

  “Is this for me?” I asked.

  “I thought maybe you might be missing your elm tree,” Dad said.

  I looked really closely at the drawing. “This is so cool!” When I looked up again Dad was smiling, but he looked kind of sad too, all at the same time. I couldn’t figure out how that could be.

  “Up you go,” he said, pointing to the ladder. “Find a place to sit where you won’t fall off, and I’ll hand you some boards. Just lay them across the framework, and then we’ll nail them in place.”

  I hate to admit it, being as how he’s my best friend and all, but I forgot about calling Jimmy. Dad and I spent all morning nailing boards to make a floor up in the tree, me sitting on a fat branch and him on the ladder. He showed me how to hammer in the nails nice and straight, and how to hold the hammer out near the end of the handle, “Not close up by the head, like a girl,” he said. He was teasing me.

  I only bent a few nails.

  Next he got his power saw out of the basement and cut up some two-by-fours into short pieces, and we nailed them to the trunk with huge spikes so I could climb up and down without a ladder like I did in the elm tree before it got sick and had to be cut down. It was past lunchtime when we finished.

  We built the platform even higher up than the branches of the elm tree had been, and I could see not just over the fence, but even across the roof of Mr. Harding’s house and all the way across the dykes to Port Williams, and almost to Grand Pre in the opposite direction. I could see the tower residence at the university and even a little bit of the one-oh-one highway south of town.

  “I wish Jimmy could see this,” I called down to Dad. And that reminded me. “Oh my gosh, I forgot to call and see how he is. Do you think he’s home from the hospital yet?” I climbed down as quick as I could and ran inside. Mom was standing at the sink.

  “Are you ready for some lunch?” she asked.

  “I have to find out about Jimmy first,” I told her.

  “I called Mrs. Morris myself,” Mom said. “They’re bringing him home this afternoon. You can go over and see him later if you want.”

  Dad came in and went down in the basement, and I sat down at the table. “Mom, there’s something really bad wrong with Jimmy, isn’t there?”

  “He just had a dizzy spell, that’s all,” she said, only she looked away when she said it, the way she always does when she’s trying to hide something from me. I heard Dad on the basement stairs then, and he came up carrying a big thick rope and some pulleys.

  “What’re those for?” I asked him.

  “For Jimmy,” he said. “We’ll build him an elevator so he can go up in the tree with you.”

  We had lunch and then worked on our project some more, only I couldn’t help as much because Dad had to cut some new boards and make a kind of framework for the pulleys and figure out how to mount them. I didn’t understand exactly what it was all about. He talked about “mechanical advantage” and about how the pulleys would make it easier to lift Jimmy up, even though he weighs more than I do. At least he used to, before he got sick and started to get skinny.

  “He’ll be able to do it himself,” Dad promised. “He has really strong arms from making his wheelchair go.”

  I thought back to when we got out of the van at Mr. teStroete’s barn, and I wasn’t so sure that was true any more.

  I was getting really excited over being able to share my tree with Jimmy, and how his world was going to be as big as mine now. Only I was kind of bored, too, because there wasn’t anything I could do to help.

  “Why don’t you go over to Jimmy’s house?” Dad said. “Call first to be sure he’s home.”

  “Can I tell him about what we built?” I asked. “Will you have it finished by the time I get back?”

  “Probably not. I still have to make a seat for him and rig up the ropes, and test it to be sure it’s safe and strong enough. But you can tell him. It will give him something to look forward to.”

  I thought about that as I hurried inside the house. Jimmy has lots to look forward to, doesn’t he?

  I called Jimmy’s house and Mrs. Morris said he was up and feeling pretty good. The doctors told him he’d have to stay inside for a couple of days, but that it was okay for me to visit, and so I did.

  “I feel really bad about your plane,” I told him. We were sitting on the back deck, Jimmy in his wheelchair and me on the top of the picnic table.

  �
��Them’s the breaks,” he said in a hillbilly accent. “Thanks for bringing all of my stuff home with you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I’d never seen Jimmy crash a plane before, although he said he did it lots of times when he was first learning how to fly. I thought he’d be really sad, but he didn’t act like it.

  “Can you fix it?” I asked.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure I’ll bother.”

  “How come?”

  “Might not be enough time,” he said.

  “It’s only July,” I said. “Lots of summer still left.”

  “Yeah,” he said, kind of sad, I thought. Then he shrugged and sort of shook himself a little. “How’re the kittens?” he asked.

  I stayed at Jimmy’s house for almost an hour and we played some Scrabble, and then he wanted to show me his new marbles. They were dark blue and dark green and black, and so shiny I could see my face in them, and they reminded me of the blackbirds’ eyes, and that kind of scared me.

  I could tell he was getting tired so I made an excuse about Mom wanting me home early and left. Dad wasn’t still working in the back yard. Mom said he had to go to the hardware store for something to finish building Jimmy’s elevator, and then I remembered that I hadn’t told Jimmy about the tree.

  I wonder if Jimmy will ever go flying again?

  July 29th

  Dear Diary,

  Not such a good day today. It rained, so we couldn’t work on the tree platform. After lunch I took Veronica over to Mr. Harding’s house to show him how well she’s doing. He wasn’t out on his porch and I knocked on the door, ’cause before I left Mom called him on the phone and asked if I could go visit him, and he said yes. He didn’t come to the door to let me in, though. I heard him say “Come in!” and I turned the knob and pushed the door open and went inside.

  He was sitting in his big recliner, and I noticed something funny. He looked kind of small. That was strange, because when he was yelling at Jimmy that day when Maggie ran through his fence, when I was still a little bit scared of him, I thought he was really big.

  There was an empty glass and a plate with part of a sandwich on it next to him on his end table. The sandwich was kind of shrivelled up and looked like it had been there for a long time. There was a funny smell in the room too, kind of like when our bathroom needs cleaning, only I was polite and didn’t say anything about it.

  “I brought Veronica for you to see,” I told him. I walked across the room and put her in his lap. “She’s exactly one month old today.”

  He lifted her up and petted her a couple of times, then pried her mouth open and looked at her tiny teeth. Then he looked in her ears and eyes and poked around her belly a little bit.

  “She seems fine,” he told me. “It’s time to start giving her some solid food. The others, too.” His voice sounded a little bit funny, sort of mushy as if he was having trouble saying the words, but I could understand him okay.

  “What kind should I get?” I asked him.

  “I’ll write it down for you. You can buy it from the veterinarian.”

  “She uses the kitty litter box all the time now. Jesse does too, but not Thomas, so Mom still has to wash the towels every day. Do you think maybe something’s wrong with him? ’Cause he won’t use the kitty litter, I mean?”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “He probably just hasn’t learned yet, but if you want to bring him over, I’ll take a look at him.”

  “Can you come to my house?” I asked, and he just looked at me kind of sad.

  “It’s best if you bring him here,” he said.

  I picked Veronica up and headed for the door. I started to open it and was going to wave goodbye to him, and he was trying to get up out of his chair, only he couldn’t. And he said “Hanna?” in a sort of quiet voice, “will you do me a favour, please?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “There’s some fruit juice on the top shelf of the refrigerator. Would you pour me a glass?”

  “Okay.”

  “The glasses are in the cupboard on the right side of the sink.”

  I left Veronica with Mr. Harding and went into the kitchen. I got the juice out of the fridge and a glass out of the cupboard. The glass wasn’t very clean, so I decided to wash it first. I turned on the water, and while I waited for it to get hot I looked around. There were spots on the floor where it looked like some food had been spilled, and there were dirty dishes next to the sink. Something was bothering me about the fridge, and I checked it out again and saw that there was almost nothing in it, not like ours that has lunch meat and vegetables and salad dressing and all kinds of leftovers all the time.

  When the water was hot I tried to find some dishwashing soap, but there wasn’t any - at least not under the sink, where Mom always keeps ours - so I just rinsed the glass out and wiped it dry and filled it with juice. I took it back to Mr. Harding, and he said “Thank you” and drank it really fast at first, then choked and spit up a little on the front of his shirt.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No. Do you still want to bring Thomas for me to see?”

  I told him “Uh, huh,” and I picked up Veronica and headed for the door, and just before I went out I looked back. There was this immense tiger sitting beside Mr. Harding’s recliner, not growling or anything, just sitting there all calm and peaceful as if it was waiting for something to happen.

  That tiger scared me more than any of the ones that ever chased me.

  I took Veronica home. I put her in my room and got Thomas and took him down to the kitchen where Mom was making an apple pie for dessert.

  “I’m going back to Mr. Harding’s to show him Thomas,” I told her.

  “That’s nice, dear,” she said in that kind of voice that says she isn’t really listening, and I just stood there waiting for her to notice me. Finally she did.

  “Is something on your mind, Hanna?”

  “I think Mr. Harding’s sick,” I told her. She asked me why, and I told her about how I didn’t think he was getting enough to eat, and how he acted like he couldn’t get out of his chair, and that his house was dirty and smelled funny.

  I didn’t tell her about the tiger, although I wanted to.

  She kept on cutting up apples for the pie, and when I didn’t leave she said, “Why don’t you ask him if there’s anything we can do for him.”

  “I already did that, and he said no.”

  “Well then, I guess it isn’t our business.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just stood there and looked at her. Finally I said, “I think he’s sick” again.

  Mom looked at her pie and she looked at me, and she put down the knife she’d been using to cut up the apples and said, “I’ll go with you, and we’ll see.”

  When I knocked on Mr. Harding’s door, he didn’t say “Come in” like the last time, so I knocked again, and then once more. When we didn’t hear anything, Mom opened the door and we went inside. Mr. Harding was sort of slumped over to one side of his chair. He wasn’t asleep, ’cause his eyes were open, but he was breathing sort of fast and there was a really bad smell in the room. Mom said something to him but he didn’t answer, and she told me, “Hanna, take Thomas back home and stay there. I’ll look after Mr. Harding.” So I did.

  About ten minutes later an ambulance came down our street and stopped in front of Mr. Harding’s house. Two men got out and went to the door, and a few minutes later one of them came out again and got a stretcher that was on wheels like the one Mr. Morris put Jimmy on at the hospital, and he rolled it up to the house and took it inside. A little while later they came out again, and Mr. Harding was lying on the stretcher all covered up with a sheet except for his head. His eyes were closed, and they wheeled him to the ambulance and put him inside and drove away.

  Mom came home after that.

  “Is he okay?” I asked her.

  “
He’s going to the hospital,” Mom said. “They’ll take good care of him there.”

  I felt really sad about that, only I felt kind of good too, because if I hadn’t decided to take Veronica for Mr. Harding to see, maybe nobody would have known he was sick. And I was glad I didn’t listen to Mom when she said it was none of our business. I took responsibility, which is the most important thing I learned from Mr. Harding, maybe even more important than how to take care of kittens.

  Dad was home for supper. He almost always is any more, and Mom told him she had to go next door to Mr. Harding’s house after we ate. He asked why, and she said she was going to do some cleaning. Dad looked at her kind of funny, and she told him about the ambulance coming and everything. And then the most amazing thing happened. Dad said he’d go too and help. Dad never offers to help do any cleaning around our house. After we had our pie Mom gathered up some cleaning stuff, like tile spray and powdered cleanser and a bucket and a scrub brush, and I said, “Can I help too?”

  I’m pretty good at cleaning.

  Mom and Dad did Mr. Harding’s kitchen first. Mom washed the dishes and I dried them and put them away. Dad scrubbed the floor with a big bristle brush while Mom cleaned the sink and the counter, and I wiped out the fridge with a damp cloth. Then we worked on Mr. Harding’s bedroom until that was cleaned up. Next I followed them to the bathroom so I could help, but Mom looked inside and then told me not to go in or even look.

  She said I should see if I could find Mr. Harding’s vacuum cleaner, so I did. I ran it over the rug in the living room and the runner in the back hall, and even the scatter rugs in the dining room and the two spare bedrooms. By that time Mom and Dad were done with whatever they had to do in the bathroom, so I vacuumed the bath mat in there too.

  It was really late when we finished and I was pretty tired, but it was worth it because Mr. Harding’s house looked a whole lot better, and smelled better, too. But the most important thing was, Mom and Dad worked on it together, and me too, and they talked while they worked, and Mom seemed almost happy, at least part of the time.