Junonia (13 page)

But before a full week had passed, a shift occurred. Arguments between Mitch's mother and grandmother leaked out from behind closed doors. And doors were slammed. Cherry sighed a bit too loudly and too often, her pleated face working like a mechanical toy, her chest heaving. And Papa Carl went off alone—fishing or running errands in his truck. He'd disappear for hours. Mitch longed to go with him but felt overcome by his growing shyness and was reluctant to ask. One afternoon, as he wandered aimlessly around the yard, Mitch came upon Papa Carl, surprising them both. In the seconds before Papa Carl looked up and forced a smile, Mitch caught sight of him leaning against the back side of the tool shed, head drooped forward, eyes closed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, as if by doing so he'd stop some unbearable pain.

After an awkward moment, Mitch said, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and took off for the house, ashamed.

Cherry said to no one in particular, “Someone's been sitting on the sofa with a wet bathing suit. Again.”

Papa Carl said to no one in particular, “I'm going out. I don't know when I'll be home.”

Cherry: “Last I checked, groceries weren't free.”

Papa Carl: “I could kill Wade Sinclair.”

Cherry: “This house seems smaller by the minute.”

Mitch started to daydream about the house next door. The
empty
house next door. It seemed to him to provide a good solution to a mounting problem. He and his mother could move in. Papa Carl and Cherry would have their house back, but they'd still be close. Mitch needed them close, right now. Despite the tension that enveloped all of them like a caul, he loved his grandparents and knew they loved him.

His thoughts about the house may have begun as a whim, but they'd become serious. Firm, possible; a decision. He'd start to make the house his own, little by little. And so he swept the stoop and cleaned the birdbath and sat under the back porch and carved his initials into the front-porch railing, thinking that each thing he did would somehow bring him closer to ownership. If he could believe the impossible truth that his father had left him and his mother, then he could believe that this house was there for the taking. Didn't it make sense that after something horrible happens, something better should follow?

The morning after he carved his initials into the porch railing, Mitch checked the local newspaper to see if there were any nearby houses for sale or rent. He wanted to get an idea of how expensive the house next door might be. He found nothing, so he tracked down his grandmother. She was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables at the table. Her pale, veined hands worked expertly.

“Cherry, what does a house around here cost?” Mitch asked. “To rent or to buy,” he added.

Cherry looked up, her paring knife poised in midair. “I don't know, exactly,” came the slow reply. “I really don't.” Her voice had an edge of testiness to it. She resumed chopping.
Chop, chop, chop
.

Mitch pressed on, “Do you know what's going on with the house next door? The white one. I think it's empty.”

“House next door?” Cherry came down hard with the knife, and a piece of celery shot across the room like a bullet. “I don't even know what's going on in
my
house. How would I know about the house next door?” She directed a withering look her grandson's way.

Mitch's throat knotted. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Silence.

Cherry bomb, thought Mitch, eyes skimming the floor for the celery piece.

Again:
chop, chop, chop
. Then: stop.

Little disturbances rippled across Cherry's face. “No,
I'm
sorry.” She sighed, and her sharp, pinched expression turned soft. “That house has been vacant ever since we retired here,” she told him. “I think the owners are from Madison. I've seen a man over there once or twice, checking on things. A yard service cuts the grass, if you want to call it that. More like dirt and weeds. That's about all I know.” She paused, then laughed wearily. “My patience is wearing thin, but I shouldn't lose my temper with you. You're only twelve. I tend to forget that.” She reached out and touched his hand, a feathery touch. If his eyes had been closed, he might not have felt it.

The sky was ice blue. The air was motionless. The sun hammered down. Mitch took a quick swim, dried off, then spent a good part of the day under the porch of the vacant house, hiding from the world. To get under the porch, he'd slide a broken, latticed panel aside just far enough, so that he could squeeze through. Then he'd pull the panel back into place, crawl over to the foundation, and sit.

His interaction with Cherry bewildered him. How come, he wondered, it's so hard to love all the people I'm supposed to love? He squinted out through the diamond-shaped pattern of the latticework. His mind turned fast, from Cherry to his father. He wondered when he'd see his father again. He wondered: Is he thinking of me right now?

Without realizing it, Mitch had brought his finger—the one with the splinter—up to his mouth and was playing it against his teeth. The finger hurt when he thought about it, and when he really concentrated on it, it hurt a lot. The tip was red. He'd decided to keep the splinter. He reasoned that the splinter was part of the house, and so, now, part of the house was embedded in him. And didn't that make it more likely that the house would eventually belong to him and his mother? The splinter would be his good-luck charm. He ran his finger under his T-shirt, lightly touched his heart, and wished.

Suddenly, a squirrel appeared at the panel. It moved its head from side to side in small, jerky increments, then darted off. “Lucky, stupid little thing,” Mitch whispered.

“Mitch!”

He heard his mother calling him. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled forward so that his face was against the latticework. He watched her.

“Mitch!” She broke through the row of lilacs that divided the two yards. She looked uncertainly up toward the house, down toward the lake. Appearing defeated, she threw out her arms, then let them drop to her sides. She stood completely still for a moment, turned, and headed back in the direction of Papa Carl and Cherry's.

He didn't want her to know where he was, so he waited until she was out of sight before he followed her, calling, “Mom! Here I am!”

After lunch, and again after dinner, he headed for his spot under the porch. Both times he brought things with him. After lunch, he brought hand clippers to trim some of the weeds at the edge of the porch, a can of root beer, and an old, stained cushion, from his grandparents' garage, on which to sit. After dinner, he brought duct tape to repair, as best he could, the broken latticework, and another can of root beer. He also brought a photograph he'd taken from one of his grandparents' albums.

In the photograph, Mitch and his parents were standing close together, arms entwined, with Bird Lake in the background. Everyone was smiling. Mitch remembered the day from the previous summer as a twinkling jewel of a day. They'd fished, swum, eaten outside on a blanket. Mitch and his father had played catch with a football, too, every chance they could (Mitch was trying to perfect his spiral), even after the sky had been drained of light and the ball had become ghostly, almost invisible.

Using the duct tape, Mitch fastened the photograph to one of the boards above him, the underside of the porch. He could see the photograph if he wanted to, by leaning back and looking up.

As the sun lowered, a weak puddle of light slanted closer, creeping across the dirt into his realm. Soon everything would be dim and blue and quiet, like a bigger version of the dusky place—his room—under the porch. He didn't mind being here, alone. This particular solitude was becoming familiar to him, and not unpleasant. After a while he grew oddly calm, and just as he had gotten perfectly settled, comfortable on the old cushion, something happened.

It was the slamming of the car doors that he heard first. One-two-three-four. Then a large dog tore past him, down to the lake, and ran back, responding to its name: “Jasper! Jasper, come!”

The air was electric.

“We're really here,” he heard a boy say.

“That didn't take very long,” said a girl.

“Let's unload the car before we do anything else,” said a man.

“We'll go down to the lake together,” said a woman.

“Listen to your mother.” It was the man again. “I mean it.”

Minutes later, footsteps could be heard directly above him. These people, whoever they were, were on the screened porch, separated from him by mere inches. A couple of the boards creaked and sagged with their weight. He felt a clutch of fear. His heart beat faster, faster. He sat, barely moving, pinned to the cushion by what was happening.

“Hurry, hurry,” said the boy.

“It'll be okay, Mom,” said the girl.

The dog barked and paced across the porch, his nails clicking on the floor like drumbeats.

“I'm ready,” said the boy. “Let's go to the lake.”

“Just a minute,” said the man.

“I can't believe this is ours,” said the girl.

Mitch held his breath. His skin was slick with sweat. He felt the girl's voice, her words, throughout his entire body. He had been scared, and now he was indignant, too.

I can't believe this is ours
.

No, it's not, he thought. It's mine.

“Are you Martha Boyle?”

Martha nodded.

“You don't know me,” said the woman at the door. “Olive Barstow was my daughter. I was her mother.”

Martha heard herself gasp. A small, barely audible gasp.

“I don't know how well you knew Olive,” said the woman. “She was so shy.” The woman reached into the pocket of the odd smock she was wearing and retrieved a folded piece of paper. “But I found this in her journal, and I think she'd want you to have it.”

The rusted screen that separated them gave the woman a gauzy appearance. Martha cracked open the door to receive the pink rectangle.

“That's all,” the woman said, already stepping off the stoop. “And thank you. Thank you, Martha Boyle.”

The woman mounted a very old bicycle and pedaled away, her long, sleek braid hanging behind her like a tail.

Breathing deeply to quiet her heart, Martha remained by the door thinking about Olive Barstow, unable for the moment to unfold the paper and read it.

KEVIN HENKES
lives in Madison, Wisconsin. His novels include
Bird Lake Moon, The Birthday Room, Protecting Marie, Sun & Spoon, Two Under Par, Words of Stone, The Zebra Wall
, and the Newbery Honor Book
Olive's Ocean
. Among his acclaimed picture books are the Caldecott Medal winner
Kitten's First Full Moon
, the
New York Times
bestsellers
Old Bear, A Good Day, Lilly's Big Day,
and
Wemberly Worried,
the Caldecott Honor Book
Owen
, and the beloved
Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse
. You can visit him online at www.kevinhenkes.com.

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The Year of Billy Miller
(available September 2013)

Illustrated by the author

“Billy Miller's second-grade year is quietly spectacular in a wonderfully ordinary way. Sweetly low-key and totally accessible.” —
Kirkus Reviews

Olive's Ocean

Winner of a Newbery Honor

“Characters and setting are painted in with the deft strokes of an experienced artist.” —
Kirkus Reviews

Junonia

A
School Library Journal
Best Book of the Year