The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester (2 page)

Owen scooped Tooley up and held him close to his face.

“You’re not sad, are you, fella?” he said. He examined the frog. His shiny skin. His yellow throat. His froggy toes.

Owen glanced over at the hedge to make sure Viola was gone, then whispered to Tooley, “You want a
live
bug?”

Tooley wiggled a little bit and placed a webbed foot on Owen’s cheek.

“Me and Travis and Stumpy will find you some big ole juicy ones,” Owen said. Then he took Tooley over to the back porch and placed him in the outside frog house, a plastic tub under the stairs. The outside frog house was just like the inside frog house, only bigger, so Tooley had more room to swim. Owen had put a log in the tub for Tooley to sit on and added some magnolia leaves that floated on the water like lily pads.

On his way over to Tupelo Road, Owen worried about Tooley.

He wouldn’t eat.

He didn’t jump like he had at first.

He didn’t swim like he had at first.

His eyes didn’t seem quite as shiny and his skin didn’t seem quite as smooth.

But mixed in with the worry about Tooley was some thinking.

Owen kept thinking about that noise he had heard last night.

That thud.

That crack of wood.

That tumble, tumble, tumble sound.

Something had fallen off the train.

Owen was sure of it.

He had planned to dash down to the tracks first thing this morning and look for it.

But then Viola had crawled through the opening in the hedge and stuck her nosy nose into his business and said all that stuff about Tooley being sad and now he had to find some live bugs. But he couldn’t stop thinking about that noise or wondering if he was right about something falling off the train.

And if something
had
fallen off the train, what in the world could it be?

“How much do bullfrogs eat?” Travis said.

Owen cupped his hands over the cricket. “Got him!”

He dropped the cricket into the jar. “That’s five,” he said. “That should be enough.”

“What about this?” Stumpy held up a fat, muddy worm.

“Nah,” Owen said. “I don’t think frogs eat worms.”

Stumpy tossed the worm into the flower bed and wiped his hand on his shorts.

“Maybe we could build a cage for Tooley,” Travis said. He took his baseball cap off, swished it around in the water in the birdbath, and put it back on. Dirty water ran down the side of his face and dripped onto his shirt.

“Y’all get out of my garden!” Joleen Berkus hollered out the window.

The boys ran through the garden, trampling marigolds and tripping on cantaloupe vines, until they reached Stumpy’s yard.

Joleen Berkus had moved into the house where Owen used to live. She had torn down Owen’s fort and made a garden. She had hauled off all the car parts on the back porch and put a rocking chair there. She had painted right over
JESTER
on the mailbox and stenciled on
BERKUS
in perfect black letters, and now she spent the livelong day hollering at Owen and Travis and Stumpy every time they set foot in her yard (which used to be Owen’s).

“Maybe we could build a cage,” Travis repeated as they flopped down on Stumpy’s front steps to examine the crickets.

“What kind of cage?” Owen said.

“A cage in the pond.” Travis tapped on the side of the cricket jar.

A cage in the pond?

Hmmmmm.

That wasn’t a half-bad idea!

“We could use that chicken wire in the barn,” Owen said.

“Yeah!” Stumpy said. “Bugs and stuff could get right through it.”

“And we could make a door so we could take him out,” Owen said.

And so the boys planned.

They planned how big the cage would be and where they would put it and where they would get the things they would need to build it.

All afternoon they planned.

And the more they planned, the better Owen felt about Tooley.

Owen had been so busy planning, he had forgotten about the noise.

The thud.

The crack of wood.

The tumble, tumble, tumble sound.

But that evening at the supper table, he remembered.

“I’m going outside,” he said, pushing his chair back with a scrape and heading for the door.

His father didn’t even look up from his pork chop.

His mother said, “Be back before dark.”

Earlene squinted over at him from the sink and muttered something under her breath about bad manners and green beans.

The two dogs, Pete and Leroy, leaped off the porch after Owen, and the three of them raced across the yard, into the woods, and along the path toward the train tracks.

Owen had explored every inch of the woods and fields around his grandfather’s house. The main path zigzagged around trees and boulders to the middle of the woods. Then it forked. The path to the left led to a field full of weeds and pricker bushes, then continued on down to a tilted, rotting dock at Graham Pond.

The path to the right led around the pond to the train tracks on the other side.

Owen was not allowed to go down to the train tracks.

Travis and Stumpy were not allowed to go down to the train tracks.

Owen and Travis and Stumpy went down to the train tracks nearly every day.

They had put about a million dollars’ worth of pennies on the tracks for the train to flatten (and a few nickels and quarters, too).

One time Stumpy had put a liverwurst sandwich on the tracks, and when they went back the next day, not a crumb was left.

They had walked right up the middle of the tracks all the way to the main road and back again.

They had put their ears against the metal rail to listen for the train.

But the train only came late at night.

“Come on, boys,” Owen called to Pete and Leroy when he got to the end of the path at the tracks.

The two dogs trotted along behind him, sniffing at every tree and rock and pricker bush.

Owen looked up the tracks.

Then he looked down the tracks.

Nothing unusual.

Just the same stuff he saw nearly every day.

The mound of red dirt that ran beside the tracks.

Gravel.

Weeds.

A few rusty soda cans.

A broken bottle.

Nothing unusual.

“Shoot,” Owen said out loud, making Pete and Leroy look at him and cock their heads.

Owen had wanted to find whatever it was that had fallen off the train all by himself. But maybe he should tell Travis and Stumpy.

Owen and Travis and Stumpy had always been good at finding stuff together.

But then there was the problem of nosy Viola, lurking around, following them, spying on them.

He would have to wait until just the right time to tell Travis and Stumpy.

“Come on, boys,” Owen called again to Pete and Leroy.

Then he headed back up the path toward home, with the two dogs trotting along behind him.

“Shhh.” Owen pressed a finger to his lips and motioned for Travis and Stumpy to duck behind the barn door.

He peeked through a crack in the warped boards.

Viola was tromping across the yard, swinging a Girl Scout canteen with one hand and pushing at her glasses with the other.

“Dang,” Owen whispered. “She’s coming this way.”

Travis jabbed a finger up toward the hayloft.

Owen nodded.

The three boys dashed across the dirt floor of the barn and scurried up the rickety ladder to the loft. They flopped down on their stomachs, their cheeks pressed against the hay-covered floor, and waited.

“I know y’all are in there, Owen.” Viola’s irritating voice drifted into the barn.

Travis poked Owen with an elbow and Stumpy made a little snort noise. Owen flapped a hand at both of them and mouthed, “Be quiet.”

Viola’s sandals made a slapping noise as she entered the barn and stopped at the bottom of the ladder.

“I know y’all are in here.” That irritating voice slithered up the ladder and circled around Owen.

Dang! That girl sure was annoying.

“What are y’all doing?” The voice pounded Owen on the back of the head.

The slapping sandals moved away from the ladder and shuffled over to the corner of the barn.

“What’re y’all building?”

Owen lifted his head the teeny tiniest bit and peered over the edge of the loft. Viola was rummaging through the stuff that he and Travis and Stumpy had spent all morning gathering. Rolls of chicken wire. Tomato stakes. Baling wire. Twine. Old door hinges.

Viola poked at a roll of chicken wire. “I know what y’all are building,” she said.

Travis pursed his lips and glared down at Viola.

Stumpy’s eyes grew big and round as he looked at Owen in a
What now?
kind of way.

Owen crawled to the rear of the loft until he got to
a milk crate full of old tractor parts. He grabbed a greasy rubber fan belt, a handful of rusty nuts and bolts, and a broken gauge of some sort. Then he crawled back to the edge of the loft and began flinging the things down to the barn floor, trying to get as close to Viola as possible without actually hitting her.

The bolts made pingy noises as they hit garden tools and engine parts and ricocheted off the wheelbarrow and the lawn mower. The gauge skidded over the dirt floor and hit the wall of the barn with a crash, followed by the tinkle of broken glass.

The fan belt landed right on Viola’s sandal. She jerked her foot away and gazed coolly up at Owen.

“Y’all are building something for that sad old frog,” she said, giving her glasses a nudge up the bridge of her nose with her thumb.

“His name is Tooley and he’s not sad,” Owen called down from the loft.

Viola picked up the fan belt and twirled it around her finger. “Frogs don’t have names.”

“Says who?” Travis hollered down at Viola.

Stumpy pushed some hay off the edge of the loft. “Yeah, says who?” he said.

Viola brushed hay out of her hair and glared up at
the boys. “Says me and anyone else on the planet with half a brain.” She tossed the fan belt onto the pile of chicken wire. “Frogs don’t have names and don’t want names. Frogs want to be frogs and live where frogs are supposed to live.”

“Oh, yeah?” Travis said.

“Oh, yeah?” Stumpy said.

“Your mother’s calling you,” Owen said.

As soon as the words left his mouth, Owen’s stomach clenched up into a ball of angry. Why did he have to go and say that again?

First of all, he said it all the time.

Second of all, Viola never even blinked an eye when he said it, so what was the point?

And third of all, Viola’s mother never called her. Viola’s mother never did anything but sit on the porch in her bathrobe looking at magazines. The only time Owen had ever seen Viola’s mother step one foot off her porch was the time she went to the flea market and came back with a bunch of tiki torches. Viola had told him the tiki torches were for a Hawaiian luau party. Owen had peeked through the hedge every day for nearly a week to see the Hawaiian luau party, but all he ever saw was a pile of tiki torches and a barbecue grill full of rainwater.

Viola pushed aside the tomato stakes with the toe of her sandal. She inspected a tangled roll of baling wire. She squinted through her thick glasses at the rusty door hinges.

“Y’all are building a cage,” she said.

Owen hurried down the ladder and grabbed the door hinges from her. He jammed them into his pocket and said, “Go away.”

“Yeah, go away.” Travis jumped off the last rung of the ladder and stood between Viola and the pile of stuff, his feet spread, his arms folded, his chin stuck out.

Stumpy jumped from halfway down the ladder and landed on the barn floor with an
oomph
.

“You don’t really need hinges, you know.” Viola nodded toward the baling wire. “And staples would work better than that wire.”

“Staples are for paper, you ninny,” Travis said.

“Yeah,” Stumpy said. “Staples are for paper, you ninny.”

But Owen stayed quiet. He was trying to keep his irritation from getting the best of him and turning him into a foot-stomping baby.

But it was hard.

Because he knew Viola was right about the staples.
And he knew she didn’t mean staples like the little ones for paper. She meant those heavy-duty kind like his father used to staple plastic over the windows in the winter at their old house on Tupelo Road.

“I know where there’s a staple gun,” Viola said, grabbing her canteen off the hay bale.

She turned to Owen and looked smug.

Owen hated it when Viola looked smug.

More than anything, he wanted to say “Where?”

But he knew that Viola wanted him to say “Where?”

Which was why she was looking so smug.

So instead of saying “Where?” Owen said, “Rocket.”

Rocket
was the secret code word that he and Travis and Stumpy had made up to ditch Viola. They had agreed that if one of them said “Rocket,” they would all run as fast as they could to their hiding place down by the train tracks.

So that’s what they did.

They ran as fast as they could out of the barn, across the yard, down the path, through the woods, and around the pond. They crossed to the other side of the tracks, pushed their way through the scrubby bushes, and crawled up under the branches of an enormous rotten
oak tree that had fallen years ago and landed against a pine tree, forming a perfect tepee.

The boys were gasping and laughing and high-fiving each other when Pete and Leroy came sniffing through the brush, tails wagging, noses sniffing.

“Uh-oh,” Owen said. “I hope Viola didn’t follow them.”

Owen crawled out of the tree tepee and looked around.

No sign of Viola.

Good, he thought.

Then the time had come.

He was going to tell Travis and Stumpy about the thing that had fallen off the train.

The boys looked all afternoon. They combed the woods. They tromped through pricker bushes. They waded along the edges of the pond, their feet sinking in the gooey mud.

They found a plastic milk crate with the bottom broken out.