by Diane Adams
"You'll have to do it," Rose told Alex. "If I knock on their door, they'll call the police." She gestured at her hairdo.
"The interplanetary police," Alex suggested with a giggle.
"Ha ha," Rose said without smiling. "I wish we hadn't promised Meemaw we'd make friends with this boy." She led the way around the cornfield, so they could knock on the back door, as Meemaw had recommended. "I feel stupid asking some boy if he wants to go on a picnic with two girls he hasn't even met. Betcha his grandparents won't let him, even if he wants to. His grandparents hate our grandparents."
"Why?" Alex wondered. "How could anybody not like Pops and Meemaw?"
"They are kind of strange," Rose admitted reluctantly.
"I don't think they're strange."
"You're just used to them. If you weren't used to them, don't you think you'd think they were strange?"
Alex mulled it over, kicking clods of dirt with the side of her shoe. "Different," she decided. "They're just different from ordinary grandparents. Hey, look!" She darted behind the corn stalks. "Over there! By the fence!"
Rose peered in the direction she was pointing. The boy, Neal, was standing on the foot brace of a shovel, boosting himself at least eight inches taller. His face was pressed against the fence, as if he had discovered a hole which allowed him to view the forbidden garden.
"Wonder if he can see anything," Rose said hopefully.
"Rose!" Alex chastised. "We can't let him spy on the grandparents!"
Rose had inspected every inch of the fence line, searching for a knothole or crack that would allow a glimpse of the garden. She only hoped he had discovered something she had missed.
"Let's sneak up on him," she said, hoping they would get close enough to see the hole in the fence before he heard them approaching. She stepped into the cornfield, and brushed away a cob web, moving between the rows with Alex close on her heels.
They were hot and itchy by the time they reached the other side. "Why didn't we just go around?" Alex hissed with irritation, swatting at the gnats that were buzzing around her face.
"Shh!" Rose cautioned, sticking her head out and peering down the fence line. "I guess he heard us coming and got scared off," she said with disappointment.
"I guess he heard you coming, alright," said a young male voice. "The whole neighborhood heard you coming."
Both girls looked up - Neal had braced the shovel between two large rocks and stood balanced on the handle, right in front of them.
"Scared off," he snorted, crossing his arms like Peter Pan. "I'm gonna be scared of two stupid girls?"
"We're stupid?" Rose retorted, feeling stupid. She shook her head, to try to get rid of the gnats. "You're the one who's about to get arrested!"
"Arrested?" he laughed. "For what? What law did I break?"
"You were looking through a privacy fence," Alex pointed out. "That makes you a peeping Tom, and that's against the law."
He shook his head with disbelief. "You're even stupider than I thought!"
"We were going to invite this snotty boy on a picnic and try to make him feel welcome here," Rose said, lifting her chin.
"We were going to share our grandma's chocolate chip cookies with him," Alex played along. "She makes the best cookies in the entire universe, but he'll never get to taste them."
"Like I'd eat anything your grandma made," he laughed. "It's probably poisoned."
Rose could tolerate people making fun of her, but she didn't allow anyone to make fun of Meemaw. Without warning, she grasped Neal's ankle and tugged hard.
In a show of loyalty, Alex reached for his other ankle, but only managed to catch hold of his sock.
"Hey!" he yelled, flailing his arms. "Leggo!"
Before any of the three could change their minds, Neal fell, pulling them all to the ground.
"I think you broke my leg," he said, scowling at Rose while he rocked from side to side, his fingers wrapped around his calf.
"Serves you right," Rose said, but she was worried.
"He's faking it," Alex told her. "He's scared he's gonna get in trouble, so he's faking it."
"I AM NOT SCARED!" Neal yelled, with a rage that seemed out of proportion to the accusation.
Before either of the girls could recover enough to yell back, something appeared in front of Rose's face. It was small and white and had wings. It hovered briefly, darted into Neal's face, then Alex's, then disappeared, all within the blink of an eye.
"What kind of bird was that?" Rose cried. She had instinctively crossed her arms over her head.
"It wasn't a bird," Alex said, looking around for it. "It was too small to be a bird."
"It was a hummingbird," Rose informed her.
"It was white," Neal said. "There's no such thing as a white hummingbird."
"It could be an albino hummingbird," Rose argued.
"It wasn't a bird, it was a butterfly," Alex said.
"Butterflies don't hover," Neal objected. He turned loose of his leg and stared into the treetops. "It was a moth. A lunar moth."
"A lunar moth?" Rose repeated.
"Lunar, as in moon," Neal explained, rising to his feet and brushing the dirt off his shorts.
"I know what lunar means," Rose growled, standing up too, noting that she had a nasty scrape on her elbow.
"It was so strange," Alex said, still seated on the ground. "The way it buzzed each of us in the face."
"I know," Rose agreed. "Like it wanted to get a good look at us."
"There's a whole bunch of them," Neal said. "In there." He gestured at the fence with his thumb.
"Really?" Rose said with sudden interest. "You could see them?"
"I found a hole in the fence," Neal explained. "I've been watching them all morning."
Rose looked at Alex and Alex looked at Rose.
"What else did you see?" Alex asked.
"Nothing that needed a fence to keep it private," Neal said defensively. "Trees, bushes, flowers, bird houses."
"Bird houses," Rose repeated. They knew about the little houses Pops liked to make. They were occasionally allowed to paint them with bright shades of blue and purple and orange and pink.
"A whole bunch of bird houses," Neal said, taking off his glasses, polishing the lenses with the hem of his T-shirt. "I can't believe you attacked me like that," he added, sounding as if his feelings were hurt.
"I can't believe you said something bad about my grandma," Rose said indignantly.
"I can't believe you found a way to see through the fence," Alex said. "Think you can set the shovel back up, so I can see?"
"Why don't you just go inside the fence and look?" Neal asked. "That's what I'd do."
"We're not allowed," Rose said, even while she tried to wedge the shovel into place.
"You're not allowed to go in your own back yard?"
"It's not really ours," Alex explained. "It belongs to our grandparents."
"It's not even really theirs," Rose said reluctantly. "They're just caretakers." Satisfied that the shovel was stable, she climbed onto it, stretching until she could press her eye to the hole. "All I see is bushes," she complained.
"We probably scared them away," Alex said with a shake of her head.
"Yelling like that," Rose agreed, glaring at Neal over her shoulder.
"You yelled first," he reminded her. "What happened to your hair?"
"Nothing," she snapped, jumping down. "I'm trying to start a new fad."
"At my school, everyone dyes their hair with Kool-Aid," Neal said, making a face.
"At your old school," Rose corrected him.
He stared at her with confusion.
"Aren't you going to go to David City Public School?" she asked, wondering if no one had bothered to tell him.
"Maybe," Neal shrugged. He backed away from the fence and gazed up at the Templeton mansion. "So, do you really live here?"
"I do," Rose said with a touch of pride. "Alex is just visiting."
"Alexandria," Alex introduced herself proper
ly. "And this is my cousin, Rose. Your name is Neal, right?"
He nodded. "How do you know so much about me?"
"Our grandma told us. She said ..." Rose stopped herself, observing Alex's expression. "She said you were going to be visiting your grandparents for a while."
"How would she know? I'm sure my grandparents didn't tell her."
"Because they're such big snobs," Rose said, ignoring Alex.
"I know," Neal said. "But you've got to admit, your grandparents do act sort of strange."
Rose and Alex eyed one another with serious expressions, then they both began to laugh.
Alex stepped up on the shovel and took a turn to peek into the garden. "One thing I think is so weird," she commented, the words slightly garbled as she pressed her cheek against the fence. "How come so many bird houses are on the ground?"
"He probably just didn't get them put up yet," Rose said. "Poor Pops. He's always saying he can't keep up with everything."
"I don't think he's planning to put them up," Neal said, resting his chin on his fist. "They're arranged like a little town, with roads going all around the garden ... at least the part that I could see."
"Yeah!" Alex said, sounding excited. "There's sidewalks and little fences. You can't see any of this stuff from the balcony."
"I want to see!" Rose pleaded, moving up behind Alex, so Neal wouldn't think he got the next turn. She hadn't seen anything like that when she looked through the hole, but she had mostly been looking upwards, hoping to catch sight of the white bird.
"Yikes!" Alex cried softly, jumping down and picking up the shovel. "Here comes Pops! If he finds out there's a hole in the fence ..."
The three children ran to the edge of the cornfield and Neal drove the blade of the shovel into the earth while Rose and Alex looked on with interest. The garden gate opened behind them and Pops came out, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with weeds and grass clumps.
"Howdy Doody, you three," he called cheerfully. "How about that corn? Gonna be as high as an elephant's eye one of these days."
"What should I say if he asks me what I'm doing?" Neal whispered.
"Digging worms," Alex suggested.
"Don't lie," Rose warned them both. "Pops can always tell if anyone's lying."
"Where's the closest place to go fishing?" Alex asked, when their grandfather stopped beside them.
Pops made a funny face while he thought it over. "Depends on whether you're gonna fish for trout or bass. Did you know that trout can ... or is it salmon? Anyhow, one of them swims upstream, which isn't easy." He laughed, and the three children laughed with him. "'Course, you could just go fishing in the creek."
"What creek?" Rose and Alex asked together.
He gave them a puzzled frown. "Haven't you ever been down to the creek?" He pointed to the steep slope behind the garden. "Only takes about five minutes going down. Takes a good twenty coming back up. Does me, anyway."
"Are we allowed to go there by ourselves?" Alex asked.
"Don't know why not. Water's not very deep, even after a good rain."
"What about snakes?" Rose said. She was petrified of snakes. "I bet there's a million snakes around a creek."
"There are no snakes," Pops said with such total certainty, Rose believed him. "And if there's anything else that scares you, I'm sure Neal will frighten it off. Won't you son?"
Neal looked surprised. "Well, yeah," he said.
"We could take a picnic lunch," Alex suggested with enthusiasm.
"My grandma's got turkey for sandwiches," Rose remembered. "Unless you're worried it might be poisoned."
Neal gave her a sheepish grin.
"Their grandma makes the best chocolate chip cookies you ever tasted," Pops told Neal. "You wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity to try them."
"I guess it's better if I don't go home first," Neal thought aloud. "But if they call me to come in and I'm all the way down at the creek ..."
"I'll tell them where you are, if they call," Pops promised. "But I'm pretty sure they won't call till about the time you get back."
"I'll go ask Meemaw to pack us a lunch," Alex said, turning and running towards the front yard.
"Want me to put the shovel over by your clubhouse?" Pops offered, giving Neal an understanding smile. "You won't be needing any worms. 'Bout the only thing you could catch down there is crawdads. Rose, you want crawdads for supper tonight?"
"Yuk," Rose said predictably. She knew it was Pops's way of saying, No more spying!
Neal placed the shovel across the debris in the wheelbarrow. "Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome," Pops said happily. "Have fun at the 'crick!'"
"Isn't he nice?" Rose said softly, staring after her grandfather with a look of devotion.
"He is pretty nice," Neal agreed. "But how come he won't let you go in the back yard?"
"We don't know why," Rose said. "When we ask, they just smile."
"Don't you think that's kind of strange?"
"For sure," Rose agreed. "But you know, strange isn't always a bad thing. I mean, don't you ever get tired of the way everybody dresses exactly alike and has the same favorite color and likes the same stupid movie?" It was her way of finding out whether Neal was one of the popular kids at his school.
"Everybody's scared," he explained.
"Scared of what?"
Neal shrugged. "That people will laugh at them."
"Well, I'm not," Rose said boldly, fluffing her hairdo with both hands.
Neal didn't say anything for a minute. "Maybe you make friends easily so it doesn't matter if you look strange," he told her. "But not everybody is that lucky."
"No, I guess not," Rose sighed. If he knew the truth about how many friends she didn't have, he probably would cancel the picnic. Or just go with Alex and leave her behind.
(( 7 ))