Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street (5 page)

Today was one of those days. I'd had fun, but I was tired at the end because the day had gotten twisty.

Mom came to my door. She stood there and whispered, “You asleep, Charlie?”

I said, “Yes, I'm asleep.”

She laughed and walked over to my bed and turned on my turtle night-light.

She said, “Scoot over.”

I did, and she lay beside me and started looking
around my room. She pointed at my collection of leaves in the corner.

I love leaves and pick them up any time I can. I tape them to my walls and the floor. That corner of my room looks like the woods. Billy says all I need in my room is a creek, then I'd really be in the woods.

Mom looked at me and asked, “Are you sad?”

When I didn't say anything, she kept asking me questions.

“Are you mad?”

“Did you have a good day?”

“Do you want to yell? Where have you been all day?”

I finally grabbed my head 'cause it felt like what the tennis ball that Sid bounces against the house must feel like.

I told Mom, “I really want a snack. Maybe a whole lot of crackers and sweet pickles.”

Mom smiled 'cause she knew that's my
favorite thing to eat and I must be okay if I wanted to eat it.

“I'll be back in a minute,” she said.

When she came back, I took the plate from her and munched everything up in a couple of minutes.

“Wow,” Mom said. “You ate that up like you were a vacuum cleaner.”

That made me laugh. She grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of bed. We walked down the stairs out to the porch. I was in my pajamas. Me and Mom sat on the porch and watched fireflies. We swung for a while, then stopped and just listened to the crickets.

Mom said, “So what about your day, Charlie-poo?”

“Mom!” I don't like it when she calls me Charlie-poo.

“It was a crazy day.”

“Well, tell me about it, Charlie.”

I said, “Okay, but it's a story that twists around.”

Mom tucked her feet beneath her and tickled my neck.

“That's okay I've got time for a twisty story.”

The fireflies lit up the front yard just as I began.

So—the twisty story.

“Billy wasn't home when I went around to the side door of his house this morning and knocked for about five minutes. He usually is hanging around there 'cause he keeps his earthworms and things on a built-in shelf right by the door.”

“The doors were open, so I figured Billy and his mom had run out to the store for a few minutes. I decided to sit in the tire swing in his backyard and wait for them to get back…

“Mom, can I have a tire swing put up in the front yard tree? I know if I swing high enough
and fast enough, I can touch the tops of passing cars.”

“No, you can't have a tree swing, Charlie. What about the story?”

“I told you it was a twisty story.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I waited in Billy's backyard most of the morning.”

Mom said, “Most of the morning, Charlie?”

“Well, it felt like most of the morning. I had time enough to build a house for the ants in Billy's backyard and move some of his dad's flowerpots the way I like them.”

“Charlie, you shouldn't touch other people's things.”

“I didn't touch that much, I just decorated Billy's backyard. But the fanny thing happened just as I was about to leave. This big van pulled into Billy's driveway and a bunch of people poured out.”

“Who were they?” Mom asked.

“That's not important right now. What is important is that they had a lot of kids and they looked like they might be fun. Everybody was laughing and piling out of the van.

“Before I could say anything, this man with a big cowboy hat came over and asked me, ‘Where are they?’

“Well, I told him that I thought they had just run out for a minute. He laughed real loud while other people dragged out coolers and all kinds of food. These two teenagers even brought out a badminton set from the van.”

“Wow, Charlie. Looks like Billy's family was going to have a picnic,” Mom said.

“Yep, it sure did look like that. Billy hadn't told me anything about it. I knew I was going to have fun, though, 'cause everybody was so friendly.”

“What were some of the kids' names?”

“There was Keisha, Raymond, Max, Ahmed, and Cinder. Mom, can I change my name to Star Bright? I don't think I'm a Charlene.”

“WeVe talked about this before, Charlie. Tell me more about Billy's family and the picnic.”

“Well, I told everybody to go in and make themselves at home. So all the adults went on in after they had set up all the picnic stuff in the backyard. Somebody accidentally squashed my ant house.”

“I'm sorry about that,” Mom said.

“That's okay. I can build another one. Anyway, the kids were all about my age, so they stayed outside with me. I told them that there were some okay things to see on Magnolia Street.”

“So what did you all do?”

“Well, I was going to wait for Billy, but I think the kids had been in the van too long. They wanted to take a long walk around the neighborhood.”

“So where did you take them?”

“I took them everywhere, Mom. I took them to the ravine and we threw rocks down into it. I took them to the back of the pudding factory. We stood there forever, smelling everything.”

“They enjoyed that, huh?”

“Yeah, Cinder enjoyed it so much she asked if we could get pudding if we knocked on the door.”

“Did you all knock?” Mom asked.

“No, her brother Raymond told her not to be greedy, so we forgot about it. Then we went over to the park and hung around on the playground and stuff. Keisha and Raymond had skateboards.”

“Did you guys have fan?”

“Yeah, we did. I liked all the kids a lot. After we were done in the park, we went to Mo's for tacos and ice cream. Everybody said they had room for more food, too. And that was great 'cause their parents brought a ton.”

“So that's what you did all afternoon.”

“We stayed away for a long time. We left Billy's house a couple of hours before lunch and didn't come back till I saw Dad pulling into our drive.”

“Well, that was about three-thirty this afternoon.”

“When we came back, though, the grownups were barbecuing out back and playing badminton and sitting around the picnic table talking and laughing and dancing.”

“Were Billy and his mom and dad there yet?”

“Nope.”

“So what did you do, Charlie?”

“I played badminton and ate a hamburger and danced like everybody else did. I had a good time. I came home a little before you called me in for dinner.”

“Well, I'm glad Billy's relatives were nice, but I still don't understand the twisty part of this story.”

“The twisty part of the story happened when all the relatives were loading up to leave and Billy and his mom and dad pulled into the driveway.”

“Well, where had they been? Don't tell me that they had gone to the relatives' house by mistake.”

“Nope, they'd gone to the state fair for the day. I only remembered that then.”

“That's too bad that they'd missed the picnic and the relatives.”

“Yep, I thought so, too.”

“You usually have a pretty good memory, Charlie.”

“Yeah, usually.”

“I'm sorry that Billy's family reunion didn't work out.”

“Me too. Billy loves picnics.”

“Maybe they'll plan another get-together.”

“Maybe they will, even though none of the
people were related to Billy's family. It turned out that the people had come to the wrong street arid the wrong house. Their relatives live on Magnolia
Drive.
They'd never been there before.”

Mom started laughing so loud I thought she would scare all the fireflies.

“So, Charlie,
that
was the twist?”

“Pretty twisty, huh?”

“You had some day.”

“Oh, yeah, it was pretty okay. I'm tired now.”

“I'll bet you are, entertaining Billy's not relatives like that. Time to go up to bed now.”

“Okay, but Mom. Can I have a tree swing?”

Mom pulled me toward the door.

“Time for bed, Charlie-poo.”

“Mom!”

Us and the Wind

W
hen the wind blows on Magnolia Street, it can bring just about anything or anyone blowing by.

It's been a fun summer, and even though I'll soon be going to a new school, Billy says I'll like it.

Today we climbed up into the tree in front of my house. We swayed there, enjoying the windy day. All kinds of things flew by us.

We both sat wide-eyed and said, “Wow.”

This is what we saw:

Clothes from people's lines.

A baby stroller full of vegetables.

Garbage can lids and people chasing them.

There was even a big old bowl of popcorn that Miss Marcia had been spray-painting. The purple and red popcorn looked so pretty flying around the neighborhood. We watched it all from our perch in the tree.

Me and Billy started to imagine that we were in the sails of a tall ship. All the things blowing by us on Magnolia Street became big waves of water.

When anyone walked by our sailboat, we called out, “Ahoy!”

Then they just looked all over the place trying to find out where the voices came from. Nobody ever looked up, though. Me and Billy sailed along. We passed islands and dolphins who swam along beside us as we went farther out into the ocean.

Billy yelled, “Sea monster!” when Mrs. Bateman went running by in the funniest-looking
hat I've ever seen. She really did look like a monster in that hat. We were rescued from the monster when her hat blew off and she chased it down the street—I mean, ocean.

Billy said, “I love sailing,” and I knew what he meant as we floated on past Magnolia Street.

When me and Billy were just about to discover a new island, we were brought back to Magnolia Street, the wind, and the tree. We looked down and there he was.

A boy in overalls and a straw hat heard us calling, “Ahoy!”

Squinting into the wind, he looked up at us and yelled, “Who's up there? What are you two doing? Can I climb up, too? How long have you been up in the tree?”

The boy kept asking questions and jumping like a frog every time we answered one. When he ran out of questions, he spun in circles, then flew like an airplane around the tree.

He looked as if he belonged in the wind as he flew around our imaginary sailboat.

I asked, “What's your name, kid?”

The boy stopped flying and jumped straight up and grabbed on to one of the lower branches, then started swinging.

“My name's Lump.”

Lump kept swinging.

Billy said, “Where do you live?”

Lump let one hand go and pointed to somewhere down the street.

I said, “Lump from down the street, huh?”

Lump said, “I live around. One minute I was on my street, the next I'm here.”

Billy said, “I think I saw you in school last spring.”

Well, on most days Billy pretty much thinks the way I do about certain things. I mean, there have been a few times when we didn't see things alike. Most of the time, though…

So when I said, “Lump from down the street,” I think that Lump's name suddenly struck Billy as real funny, because it was only a few seconds later that Billy fell out of the tree laughing.

I worried that Billy might have hurt Lump's feelings, and that isn't like Billy.

But when I looked down through the branches, Billy was sitting on the grass beside Lump and they were talking about dolphins and whales.

I jumped down and sat beside Lump.

I said, “What's up?”

Lump pointed to the wind and all the things blowing by in it. I started to smile. Billy had a big old grin on his face, too. I think Lump is one of those people who make you smile all the time. I have an uncle like that. At family picnics, everybody circles around him and always leaves smiling.

Lump told us that he hasn't lived in the neighborhood long. He came to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle makes pudding and gets paid for it.

I said, “I didn't think anybody could be that lucky. They should save those jobs for kids. I don't think grown people can really appreciate a job like that.”

Billy agreed and nodded his head.

Lump said, “I think my uncle likes it. He's gained a whole lot of weight since he started working there. My aunt keeps trying to get him to start running or something, but he says he'll only run when he's being chased.”

Me and Billy looked at each other and smiled.

We liked Lump.

Soon he was telling us about where he used to live and how it wasn't as windy as it is here on Magnolia Street. He said he never met anybody sailing a boat up in a tree there, either. He
was glad that Billy fell out of the tree, though, and did we know where he could get some really good ice cream?

Just as me and Billy were about to tell him about Mo's Freeze Shack, our heads were covered in blowing newspapers that must have escaped from somebody's recycling bin.

We took the newspapers off our heads and lay back on the grass laughing and listening to the wind howl and watching the clouds rush by until Sid came by on his bike and said, “You all waiting for somebody to drop something on you?”