Some Kind of Magic

by Adrian Fogelin

  “And…” said Cass.

  I bunched my fists in my pockets. “And everybody got out fine.”

  “Really?” I could hear the relief in Cass’s voice. “If everyone got out, I think it’s okay for us to be there. If they wanted the stuff, they would have come back for it by now.”

  “Yippee!” Cody flung the hat up, then picked it up off the wet grass. “What about the dog?”

  “The dog was fine,” Jus said, giving me backup.

  Cody stared at the hat in his hand, and for a second he looked much older than seven. “Are you sure?”

  “Yup, Ike got out,” I said, grabbing the name of the Seeing Eye dog from that other house fire story.

  “But the name on the dish is Sparky,” said Cody.

  “Sparky was probably the dog before Ike,” Jus said.

  “Yeah. Ike was a golden retriever,” I added, slapping on another lie like it was duct tape. “They all moved to Pittsburgh after the fire.”

  Cody yelled, “Great!” Cass gave me a hug.

  Yup, duct tape can fix anything.

  Wednesday

  (Seven mMnus Four)

  Cass

  Please, Cass…” My sister Lou Anne peered at me with one eye.

  The other one was hidden behind a curtain of blond hair.

  “Please-y, please? Would you watch Missy this morning? I have to study for a test!”

  “If you have to study so bad, how come you had time to straighten and blow-dry your hair?”

  “What do you think the test is on?” She picked up the hand mirror off the bed. “Does this hairdo look sexy?”

  “What’s so sexy about letting your hair hang in your face?” I grabbed my own hair back in its usual ponytail and twisted a rubber band around it. “You just want to get out of watching Missy.”

  “I do not! I’m practicing for my career!”

  I rolled my eyes. Lou Anne had been practicing for her career her whole life—my sister has never worn her hair the same way two days in a row. “Come on, Lou, be fair! It’s your job to watch Missy. I watched her yesterday.”

  She pooched out her lip. “Why won’t you do it? You got nowhere to go!”

  “You’re right!” I snapped my fingers in her face. “And I’m going there now!” I ran down the stairs before she could make her eyes get all shiny, but turned back at the door and skidded to a stop. I yanked the string-and-stuff drawer open and got out the scissors— Mama wouldn’t miss them if I brought them home each night. The ones in the Nowhere sewing table drawer were rusty.

  I trotted down our front steps, the scissors jouncing in my pocket. I felt better about breaking into Nowhere now that Ben had found out about the people who lived there, and I liked having a place that was sort of mine.

  I’ve never had a room of my own. Lou Anne and I share—but the room feels like hers. I’d never paint a room of my own pink, and my room would never smell like hairspray.

  As I cut across the yard going to Jemmie’s, I caught a glimpse of the old rocker behind the rose of Sharon bush where I used to sit when I wanted to be by myself. I trotted over and put a hand on the arm. It wobbled. The joints had gotten loose sitting out in the weather. I hadn’t gone to sit back there for a long time. I hadn’t even thought about it or missed it.

  Sometimes, I guess, things change without your even noticing.

  I glanced at the knothole in the fence between my yard and Jemmie’s. We used to talk to each other through that hole back when she first moved in and Daddy didn’t want me talking with black people. But that was before he got to know the Lewises.

  I sat in my old chair for just a second, my elbows on my knees. The chair felt rickety under my butt, and the sun was hot. Our last summer was ticking away, and I was wasting it!

  I jumped up. Leaving the chair wobbling, I cut around the fence and sprinted up the Lewises’ front steps. Jemmie’s grandmother was dozing in her porch rocker with General Lee, their fourteen-pound tomcat, in her lap. Artie was pushing a toy truck around her feet.

  “Morning, Nana Grace!” I called.

  She startled awake, then smiled. “Oh, hello, Cass. This is some mighty drowsy weather. Go on in. Jemmie’s upstairs reading.”

  I took the steps two at a time and fell into my friend’s room. “Ya ready?”

  Jemmie set down a magazine and stretched her arms over her head. “I guess.”

  Jogging in place, ready to take off, I patted the scissors in my pocket. “I’m going to finish that dress and you’re going to help me figure out how to do it, right?”

  When she nodded, I grabbed her arms and dragged her to her feet. “Come on!” And I shoved her toward the stairs.

  “Where are you two going?” Nana Grace asked.

  “Nowhere!” we said together.

  We were jogging along, kind of easy, when Jemmie looked at me sideways. “Day before yesterday…?” She hesitated.

  “Yeah?” Whatever it was, I knew she wanted to tell me.

  “When Ben blazed out of Nowhere to take Cody off your hands, Big and I played ‘Heart and Soul.’”

  “The race?” I’d seen them do it, playing four-handed as fast as they could. “Bet he won.”

  “Now why do you automatically assume he won?”

  Ever see someone run with their knuckles on their hips? Well, Jemmie can do it. It was her way of letting me know I was getting on her last nerve.

  But then she grinned. “Okay, you’re right. He won. He said the score was one to nothing, so I challenged him to race me back to the neighborhood.”

  We jogged across Rankin, me trying to imagine Justin lifting his feet. “And then he wussed out?”

  “That’s the weird part. He didn’t.” She vaulted the fence and cut into the woods.

  I vaulted after her. “Justin ran?”

  “Yup. And he almost kept up.”

  “Justin ran hard enough to keep up with you?” I stopped.

  She stopped too. The skin on her neck glistened with sweat. “I said, almost.”

  “If he ran that hard, he must really like you.”

  She took off running again. “What is it with you and this boyfriend-girlfriend thing?” she called over her shoulder. “I just thought it was interesting, that’s all.” She leaped over a log and picked up speed.

  I smiled as she flashed away between the trees. I knew something she didn’t. She was beginning to like Justin.

  And I liked the idea of my best friend and Ben’s best friend liking each other.

  Jemmie

  The roof of Nowhere came into sight. Was Big there? I didn’t hear any plinky, out-of-tune piano. As we reached the clearing, a high-pitched voice called, “Hey!”

  “Hey yourself!” I called back.

  Cody was sitting cross-legged on the scorched foundation of the house, surrounded by burned-up stuff. “Look at this!” He held up an old bottle. “Wait.” He wiped it with his T-shirt and held it up again.

  Cass leaned over him, her hands on her thighs. “You’re wrecking your clothes. Does Ben know you’re playing with this stuff?”

  “I’m not playing.”

  “Then what are you doing?” I asked. Looked to me like he was playing—and he was definitely wrecking his clothes.

  Cody stood and brushed off his butt with his filthy hands. Ben would have some explaining to do when his mom tried to scrub those stains—his little brother for sure wasn’t playing video games on the couch.

  Hugging the bottle to his chest, Cody walked slowly around a rickety pile he was building out of the stuff he’d found. He stuck the upside-down bottle on the post of what looked like the end of a metal crib. “I’m building a mom-u…I mean, mon-u-ment.”

  So far his junk-pile monument was about waist high, everything balanced one thing on top of another. He pointed out Ike’s dog dish, the one labeled Sparky. It sat on a bucket inside an empty picture frame. A toy truck, tires burned off, rested on its rims; Cody had parked it on top of a singed sneaker. Some things were too black
or melted to identify. I know I wouldn’t mess with this stuff even if I was wearing old clothes.

  “Some of it is pretty.” Cody swirled a finger along the inside of a metal curlicue. The curlicue was on one of the two heavy pieces of wrought iron he’d leaned together to hold up his monument.

  Cass tossed her ponytail back over her shoulder and took a closer look. “These look like the ends of a bench. The wood slats of the seat must’ve burned away. If we had some wood, we could replace ’em.”

  I gave her a friendly shove. “Ben’s rubbing off on you, girl.”

  That was all it took to remind her that it had been a whole eighteen hours since she’d seen her boyfriend.

  She ran toward the building and I followed her. It was either that or help Cody—and my shirt was pretty new.

  As Cass pushed the door open, Ben and Big looked up. They sat sneaker to sneaker in two stuffed chairs they’d turned toward each other.

  “Hey.” Ben looked like we’d maybe caught them talking about some kind of a secret. I knew for sure when Justin got suddenly interested in the knee of his jeans.

  “What is all this?” I walked around Big’s chair and over to the shelf where the old board games had been. Now it was full of food. A rolled-up Boy Scouts sleeping bag sat on top of the piano. “What’s going on?”

  “Just put in a few supplies,” Big mumbled. “For, you know. Contingencies.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben. “Contingencies.”

  Big got out of the armchair and began to pace.

  I fell into his empty seat. “What kind of contingencies?” I looked at Ben and Ben looked at Big.

  “Okay.” Big held up both hands. “Let’s say things get so bad at home—your home, my home—this goes for any of us. Anyway, say home gets so bad it goes radioactive, or implodes, then I—I mean, any one of us—could come here and hole up, now that we have the place supplied.”

  I hung my legs over the arm of the chair. “You won’t have water or electricity.”

  Cass perched on the edge of Ben’s chair. “Or a bathroom.” So far we’d never stayed long enough to need one.

  “I’m talking emergency response here, people.” Justin played a nervous rhythm on the thighs of his jeans. “Remember the bomb shelters we read about in social studies? How back when Russia was about to bomb the crap out of us, people dug holes in their yards and made underground rooms where they could hang out till the radiation went away in, like, a million years? You think they worried about comfort?”

  “It would be scary here at night,” Cass said quietly.

  He stood in the middle of the hot, dusty room, sweating. “Not as scary as it gets at my house.”

  “You should try talking to them,” I said. Big needed to stand up to his parents, tell them how he felt.

  “You try making them listen!” he shot back, like he’d caught my comment on the rebound. “This is just a backup plan. Those bomb shelters never got used—and this one probably won’t either—but just in case, I’m set. I mean, we’re set. The thing is, if one of us does hole up here, no one can tell anyone.”

  Ben tipped his head back against the seat with a quiet thump and stared at the ceiling. “If Dad asked me flat-out and I lied, I’d be grounded for life. But hey, I’ve been grounded for life before.” He sat back up. “Cass?” he prodded. “You’re in, right?”

  She twisted the end of her ponytail; her dad would kill her if she lied.

  But she nodded. Of course she was in. She always went along with Ben.

  Justin took a deep breath, looking at me last. “Jemmie?”

  I swung my legs, listening to the soft thud of my heels against the upholstery. I always thought Big exaggerated about how bad it was at home, but if camping out eating chips and cold beans and peeing in the bushes was an improvement, maybe he was telling the truth. “Sure. Why not? You’ll never do it anyway.” Watching him flinch, I wished I hadn’t said the last part, but it was the kind of stuff I always said to Big. “Maybe I can bring out an old air mattress,” I added fast.

  “We’ll collect jugs from the recycling bins and fill ’em.” Ben sounded like he was wishing it was his parents who were about to go radioactive so he’d have an excuse to run away to the woods.

  “Don’t forget toilet paper,” I said.

  Big blushed right up to the roots of his hair.

  Justin

  Everyone is thinking about me and toilet paper when Cody wanders in, breaking the awkward silence.

  “It’s too hot in here,” he complains.

  We all think it’s hot, but until Ben says it’s time to go, we’re here.

  May as well do something till he does. I take the wet sponge I brought from home out of the Baggie and start wiping down my piano.

  Cody sits on the floor with the hat beside him, pulls the stack of comics out of the sleeping bag, and begins arranging them in a circle with himself and the hat in the middle. As he puts each one down, he silently lifts the cover and shows me the name written inside, Paul Cody Floyd. I nod each time, then take another swipe at my dusty piano.

  I’ve only got, like, half the top of the piano clean, before the sponge is totally gross. I’m using the kitchen towel on the keys when Cass opens a trunk and pulls out an armload of fabric. “Look, you guys!” She sits back on her heels.

  The girls decide curtains would be a good starter project for Cass before she sews the dress. She holds up two choices of fabric, like a QVC hostess. “Do you want red curtains or blue?”

  Ben and I trade glances. Curtains?

  “Red or blue?” Cass repeats.

  “Blue,” we say together.

  Cass and Jemmie hold the fabric up and stretch it across a window, measuring—turns out they’ll need blue and red to cover all the windows. The old curtain rods still look sturdy enough.

  Together they get the old sewing machine going—seems like Nana Grace has one just about as ancient. And it doesn’t look like rocket science: pump the treadle and the needle goes up and down. After a while, Jemmie gets bored, but by then Cass has the hang of it.

  I’m noodling around on the piano when Jemmie says, “Wonder what’s in here?” I turn and see her tugging at the brass knobs on a chest of drawers with rings on top like someone put a glass of Coke on it about a million times. She leans back hard but nothing happens. “Big?”

  I know she needs my weight again. Is being heavy the only thing I’m good for in Jemmie’s world?

  We each grab a knob. As we pull it out the drawer shrieks. “Sounded like a ghost,” Cody whispers.

  Startled, Cass looks up from the sewing machine. “It sure did.”

  “You guys ever hear of friction?” Ben asks.

  I peer into the drawer, but the stuff inside just looks like more fabric, nothing scary.

  Jemmie folds back the piece of cloth on top. “Tablecloth…napkins.” She digs way down. “What’s this?” She pulls out a paper bag. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” is written on it with a thick Magic Marker—definitely a guy-wrapping job.

  She opens the bag and peers in. “Fireworks!” She plunges in an arm and comes up with a fistful. “Spinners. We had some of these at your birthday, didn’t we, Ben?” She holds out a couple of the thick disks.

  “Nah,” Ben says, writing down a measurement for the extra shelves he says we need. “Spinners are too unpredictable. They take off in all directions. Dad was afraid we’d set something on fire.”

  Cody stares, his mouth hanging open. “Ya think a spinner landed on the house and burned it down?”

  Ben bops the side of Cody’s head with his palm. “Imagination overload!”

  I thought about the newspaper report. All it said was the cause of the fire was “under investigation.”

  “It could have been caused by a spinner,” says Cody, like he’s reading my mind.

  “Yeah, right. Or maybe Zeus zapped the house with a bolt of lightning,” Ben jokes. Before becoming a dinosaur hunter, Cody was big into myths and legends.

  “I�
�ll find out.” Cody puts on the hat and disappears under it, sitting in the middle of his comic-book circle.

  Jemmie gives the bag a shake. “Wonder why they were hidden at the bottom of this drawer.”

  I see Cody’s shoulders stiffen—the word “hidden” has got to be giving him and the hat ideas.

  “Who says they were hidden?” I ask. “They were probably just stuffed in there to get them out of the way.” Jemmie has obviously never been in my room.

  She studies the spinners with their red and blue lightning-bolt wrappers; I study her. Tiny, damp curls stick to her forehead—she’s even pretty when she sweats.

  “They’re probably too old to work anyway.” She drops the spinners into the bag and crams the bag back in the drawer.

  Cody solemnly lifts the hat off his head, his eyes wide. “Yes.”

  No one asks, Yes, what? Up until he found that hat, no one ever paid that much attention to Cody—even with the hat, they can forget about him. I notice the look on his face and the “yes,” because being ignored happens to me too. So, I nod at him, like, Yes, I hear you. Not like, Yes, I believe a talking hat just gave you the scoop about a “Happy Birthday!” spinner that burned the house down.

  After pronouncing that “yes,” Cody sets the hat down as far away as he can reach. Cass works on the curtains. I play the piano. Ben quits measuring the wall and sticks the pencil behind his ear. He and Jemmie start a game of darts.

  I turn when a dart thwacks the board and notice Cody just sitting, an unopened comic in his lap.

  “Hey,” I say to him. “How’s this for a new superhero? Super Hat!”

  “Yeah,” says Ben. “A superhero dedicated to curing dandruff and worldwide baldness!”

  Most days Cody would think that was super funny. Today he just looks spooked.

  I break out a package of Oreos. Cody says he’s thirsty. Ben tells him he isn’t.

  It’s getting hotter and hotter in the garage and we don’t have anything to drink—or any toilet paper. We keep looking at Ben for a signal that it’s okay to go home—he’s gotta be thirsty too.