Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (2 page)

“My mom has a new boyfriend, did I tell you?”

“I thought she liked the bull rider.”

“No, that's over.”

“So what does this guy do?”

“Ralphie, my mom has fallen in love with a horse detective. My mom could not fall in love with someone who sells hardware or drives a bus. She has to fall in love with a horse detective.”

“Well, I guess somebody's got to.”

“It's like, well, somebody buys a horse and insures it for a hundred thousand dollars. This happens, Ralphie. Then the horse dies. So then this man—his name is Rooney—gets hired by the insurance company to prove it was murder. Which he usually does.”

“You like him?”

“I haven't met him yet, but my mom has told me a lot about how people kill horses and it would make even you sick, Ralphie.”

“Why do you say ‘even you'? I'm human, Maggie, hard as it may be for you to believe.”

“Ralphie, they hook them up to electricity. They suffocate them; one time somebody put Ping-Pong balls up a horse's nose.”

“Yes, that makes even me sick.”

“This weekend he's coming out to the farm, and we have our orders. We are to pretend we are a normal, everyday family, which we aren't!”

“I agree.”

“Maybe we can pretend to be normal for an hour or two, but not for a whole weekend. We Blossoms have never been just anybody.”

“No.”

Ralphie glanced down. There was a flower at Maggie's feet, and Ralphie bent to pick it. He stood with it in his hand, as if deciding what to do with it. Then he leaned forward and worked the stem into Maggie's braid.

Maggie smiled. “That was nice, Ralphie.”

“I'm always nice.”

“You know what I want to do when we get home?” Maggie jumped the ditch and set the turtle on the ground, facing the woods. “Off you go!” she said encouragingly.

What Ralphie wanted to do was collapse on the front porch in a rocking chair. His legs hurt.

Ralphie had an artificial leg—the result of an accident with a power mower three years earlier. He now had the best artificial leg made—a Cat-Cam—but even a real leg couldn't take the strain of pedaling Maggie up and down hills all day.

“I thought we were going to eat supper. Your mom said …”

“Well, we are; but after that I'd like to get Sandy Boy and go—”

She broke off. “Ralphie! Look!”

“Maggie, if it is another romantic turtle—”

“No! Ralphie! Look!” She pointed to the weeds at her feet.

There was an urgency in Maggie's voice that made him forget his discomfort. He moved toward the ditch.

Ralphie shielded his eyes. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“There.”

Maggie bent and reached into the tall grass. She pulled up a stained cloth bag. “Don't you know what this is?”

“Here's my first guess—a stinking bag.”

“Ralphie, this is Mad Mary's bag.” Her voice was low with concern. “This is the bag she carries with her all the time. Ralphie, she collects things to eat in this bag.”

“So?”

“So she would never be without this if … if she could help it. …”

There was a silence. A truck rounded the curve, sounding its horn, and Ralphie moved his bicycle onto the shoulder of the road.

Maggie glanced in annoyance at the truck for interrupting.

“This bag was part of Mad Mary, just like her cane. You remember her cane, don't you?”

Ralphie nodded. He did remember that cane. Mad Mary had loaned it to him and Maggie the night they climbed the tree together. “That was the cane,” he said, “that she loaned us the night—”

“Yes.”

“Let me finish. The night we climbed up in the tree and you kissed me.”

“I did not kiss you.”

“Well, you kissed me back. It's the same thing. You can't deny you kissed me back, Maggie.”

“Ralphie, I'm serious.”

“I am too. Girls kissing me back is very serious to me.”

“Ralphie, this bag was part of Mad Mary. She would never just abandon this bag …” She opened the handles and looked inside.

“Oh, Ralphie.”

Ralphie sighed. “What now?”

“Ralphie, it's a dead possum. Now I know something's happened to her.”

“How?”

“She would never abandon a dead possum. This is her supper. She makes varmint stew out of them. Junior's eaten it.”

Ralphie ran one hand through his red hair. He let both hands come to rest on his hips.

“Ralphie, something terrible has happened to Mad Mary.”

Ralphie was silent. Concern for turtles, for Mad Mary. Even dead possums got more concern than he did.

“Ralphie, we've got to get home fast.”

With a sigh, Ralphie pushed his bicycle onto the road.

Maggie jumped the ditch and sat on the seat of the bicycle. She clutched his thin shoulders.

Ralphie put his weight on the pedal and they started slowly up the hill.

“Does this mean,” he asked hopefully, “that we won't be stopping for turtles?”

“I know the best secret about myself in the world,” Junior said.

“That's good,” Pap answered.

Junior and Pap were on the front porch. Pap was in the rocking chair. Junior stood balancing on the railing, eating a hot dog wrapped in a slice of white bread. Mustard oozed out the end.

Junior's dirty toes curled over the edge of the railing for support. Between bites, his arms waved gently up and down for balance.

“And you'd wish I'd tell you the secret, right?” Junior asked.

“Well …”

“You'd give anything to know, right?”

“Well, not anything.”

Junior stuffed the last of his hot dog in his mouth, and he lost his balance. He swung his arms around, windmill-like, until he was steady again.

He swallowed his hot dog and went on about his secret. When Junior had a secret, he felt more alive, more special, than at any other time.

“There are two reasons why I can't tell you. One, I'm not supposed to tell you anything that would excite you, Mom says, and—”

“Junior, I had one little heart attack.”

“Not a little one, Pap. Remember, I saw it.”

“Well, a heart attack. I think I can take the strain of hearing your secret.”

“You didn't let me finish,” Junior said. “Two, if I told you, it wouldn't be a secret anymore.”

Pap shook his head back and forth. “Junior, Junior, Junior,” he said.

Junior lost his balance for good and jumped down onto the porch. Then he sat and crossed his legs.

“Why did you say, ‘Junior, Junior, Junior'?”

“It just came out.”

“I don't like people to say my name but one time—Junior, like that. It was all right for people to say three Juniors in a row when I was little, but now I just want one at a time.”

“I'll remember.”

Junior pulled a thread on his shorts. The thread kept coming, getting longer and longer. Junior kept pulling. Then he saw that he had pulled out the hem.

He folded the hem back under and patted it in place.

“Actually, my secret came just at the right time. I was getting worried about myself.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“See, my other ideas—my wings, my coyote trap, my UFO—my other ideas just popped into my head, Pap, like magic. Only nothing was popping in my head at all. I thought it had something to do with school.”

“Oh.”

“Like, we have to use our minds. We have to! Mrs. Wilson makes us! If we forget to use them, she points to her head like that.” Junior tapped his temple. “Anyway I was using my mind so much in school that when I got home from school, it just wanted to rest.”

“A mind needs to rest every now and then.”

“Yes, rest, but maybe resting was the wrong word. My mind wasn't so much resting. It was more like it had gone on strike.”

“Right now,” Pap said, “I hope I don't get an idea. I hope I'll sit here till the moon comes up without one single idea coming into my head.”

“I was so desperate I was ready to start standing on my head like Ralphie.”

“Ralphie stands on his head?”

“He says it makes the blood run to his brain and nourish it. He says that's why his brain is so brilliant.”

“Well, it's too late for me to be standing on my head. My brain's got to get along with whatever the body chooses to send it. I—Oh, here comes Mud. Mud, you ready for our evening walk?”

Mud was Pap's dog, a big golden dog with a red bandanna around his neck. Mud had just come back from one walk, but he was ready for another. He waited at the porch steps, wagging his tail, his eyes bright with anticipation. Mud had never turned down a walk in his life.

Pap got slowly to his feet.

“Pap, you didn't let me finish about my brain.”

“Well, come on. You can tell me about your brain while we walk.”

“Can my dog come too?”

“If he behaves himself.”

“He will! Dumpie!” Junior called.

Dump crawled out from under the porch. “We're going for a walk,” Junior told him.

Mud was almost to the pine trees, and Dump ran to join him. Then, as if he thought better of it, he stopped.

“I wish Mud and Dump could be friends,” Junior said. “Dump's willing.”

Mud paused and looked back to see if they were coming.

“We're not going that way,” Junior called.

“Mud smells something.”

“Well, just because he smells something, that doesn't mean we have to go in that direction.”

“You heard Junior,” Pap called. “We ain't going that way, Mud.”

Mud did not move. He was used to taking the lead. He barked once.

“You go your way, Mud. We'll go ours.”

Mud gave them a moment to change their minds.

Then he bounded away into the trees.

“That's better. You shouldn't give in to him all the time,” Junior said. “Mud's getting spoiled. Ever since we carried him into the hospital to visit you, he's been like that. I caught him trying to eat off the table yesterday.”

“He's my pal.”

Junior stopped in sudden alarm. “Oh, let's don't go through the pine trees, Pap; please, you'll see the secret. You'll see the surprise!”

“That's the surprise over there—them boards on the ground?”

“Pap, you looked! Now it's ruined. The secret's ruined!”

“Now, now, I didn't see nothing but some boards lying on the ground,” Pap protested.

“That's it!”

“But I don't know what you call it,” Pap said.

“You don't?”

“No.”

“You didn't recognize it?”

“No.”

Junior put one dirty hand over his heart. “Ah,” he said, “what a relief. My secret is still a secret.”

Pap sneaked one final look at the boards lying on the ground under the pine trees. “Junior, Junior—” he broke off. “Sorry—Junior.”

Pap glanced back at the house. “You think Vern wants to go with us?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he thinks someone wants to kill him.”

“Now, Junior.”

“I heard him say that on the phone. He was talking to Michael. I memorized his words. ‘I'm afraid she'll kill us too. She wanted to kill us last time.'”

“He and Michael were just up to some foolishness. Nobody wants to kill Vern.”

“It didn't sound like foolishness,” Junior said. “It sounded like he was really scared.”

“That's playacting, but I'll talk to him about it.”

Junior squinted up at Pap. “You know something, Pap. I never have to playact. You know why?”

“Why is that?”

“Because my real life is so exciting and so full of adventure that I don't have to playact. I just have to live my life!”

“I'm too old to playact. I just live my life too.”

“And tomorrow is going to be one of the most exciting days I have ever had in my life. Tomorrow is Friday, isn't it?”

“All day.”

“Then tomorrow is when the excitement begins.” Junior grinned. He had no idea how true his words would turn out to be.

“Faster!”

“I—am—not—a—horse.”

Ralphie reminded Maggie of this in what he thought was an extremely nice voice, considering how tired he was of pedaling. Both Ralphie's legs hurt now.

“I know that.”

“Well, gimme a break.”

Ralphie glanced up at the top of the hill. Sweat rolled down his face, dropped off his chin. Every now and then he had to go sideways to keep from stopping altogether—like right now. He turned toward the center of the road.

“Look, if you're going to waste time weaving from side to side like this,” Maggie said, “stop and I'll pedal for a while.”

This insult gave Ralphie a sudden burst of anger and new strength. He gained enough speed to proceed up the hill. It would take, Ralphie figured, at least three more bursts of anger to get them to the top.

Keep it up, Maggie, Ralphie thought. Three more insults and we're home.

Ever since Maggie had jumped the ditch and seen Mad Mary's bag, she had been like a woman driven, a woman who—Suddenly Ralphie made the connection.

“You remind me …” he said, pausing to draw in a badly needed breath, “you remind me of my mother.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“And just how do I remind you of your mother?” Maggie asked coldly. Ralphie's first words to her this afternoon had been, “I had to get out of the house. The ogress is on the rampage.”

Ralphie remembered that unfortunate statement at the same time that Maggie did. He closed his mouth.

“You think I'm an ogress?”

Again, Ralphie did the smart thing and kept his mouth shut.