On the Road to Mr. Mineo's (2 page)

Stella pointed to the branches overhead. “I want to catch that pigeon.”

“Okay.” Gerald blinked at Stella. His cheeks were fat, like a chipmunk's, and flushed with the summer heat. “But I still hate Carlene.”

Carlene was Gerald's older sister. She painted her fingernails black and argued with a long-haired boy in an old car in her driveway. One time she hollered cuss words at her father right in the middle of the bank.

Stella sort of hated Carlene, too.

“Come on,” she said, hurrying down the wooden ladder to the gravel driveway below.

“Where are you going?” Gerald asked worriedly, peering over the edge of the roof.

“To find something to catch that pigeon with.” Stella went into the garage, squinting into the darkness, breathing in the smell of dampness and mold and gasoline.

She could hear Gerald clomping down the ladder and then huffing and puffing outside the garage.

“I'm not allowed in there,” he called from the doorway.

Stella rummaged through the garden tools, climbed over a rusty lawn mower, and peeked under a torn blue tarp. She stepped over paint cans and greasy car parts. She opened the drawers of a warped and mildewed bureau with missing knobs and poked through the fishing tackle and nails and screwdrivers inside.

“I'm not allowed in there,” Gerald called again.

Stella studied all the things hanging on the walls of the garage.

A bicycle wheel. A wooden tennis racket with no strings. A fishing net.

A fishing net?

“Hot dang!” Stella called out, stepping over flowerpots and old tires to get to the net.

“What?” Gerald called.

Stella climbed onto a sawdust-covered workbench.

“What?” Gerald called again.

Stella grabbed the net, hopped off the workbench, stepped over the flowerpots and old tires, and made her way to the door.

“What?”
Gerald hollered, stomping his foot.

Stella stepped out of the dark garage and into the dappled morning light.

“This!”
she said, thrusting the fishing net toward him.

Then she wiggled her eyebrows and grinned. “I have a good idea.”

 

CHAPTER THREE

When Gerald Fell Off the Roof

Gerald had a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Dread.

Whenever Stella got a good idea, something bad almost always happened.

A dent in the side of his father's car.

His grandmother's embroidered tablecloth left out in the rain.

A stripe of black paint that stayed on his forehead for a long time.

And one particularly good idea that eventually involved a fire truck and a crowbar.

The dread in Gerald's stomach worked its way down to his feet, making them heavy, like cinderblocks, as he followed Stella across the driveway.

Crunch

Crunch

Crunch

And even heavier when he climbed the ladder to the garage roof.

Clomp

Clomp

Clomp

By the time he stepped onto the garage roof, the dread was circling around him like a thick, dark cloud.

“Okay,” Stella said. “Here's my idea.” She pushed at the springy curls that had fallen across her eyes.

“First…” She held up one finger. “We look for that pigeon.”

“Next…” She held up two fingers. “We sit real still so maybe he'll land on the shed again.”

“And then…” She held up three fingers. “We scoop him up with this net.” She waved the net in the air. “Easy peasy,” she added.

Gerald shrugged. “Okay,” he mumbled.

And so they started step one of Stella's plan.

They looked for the pigeon in the tree branches above the garage.

They looked.

And they looked.

And they looked.

But they didn't see him.

Gerald's cloud of dread started to lift a little.

But then Stella whispered three words that brought it back: “There he is!”

Gerald looked where Stella was pointing into the oak branches overhead. Sure enough, a one-legged pigeon with a shiny green neck was perched above them.

“Shhhh.” Stella put her finger to her lips and tiptoed in slow motion over to the lawn chairs. She sat down and patted the seat of the chair beside her. Gerald and his dread sat down.

Then they began step two of Stella's plan. They sat real still so maybe the pigeon would land on the shed again.

They sat.

And they sat.

And they sat.

But the pigeon did not land on the shed again.

And then, just like all the other times that Stella got a good idea, something bad happened.

Stella started spewing out more ideas, and the next thing Gerald knew he was searching the pantry for popcorn to toss onto the top of the shed. The pigeon swooped down out of the tree to peck at the popcorn. Stella looked wide-eyed and whispered, “Help me catch him.” So Gerald tiptoed around to the other side of the shed, and then he fell off the roof.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

Why Mr. Mineo Was Aggravated

On the outskirts of town, in a rusty trailer beside a lake, Arthur Mineo scraped meatloaf off a plate and into a dog bowl.

A very fat dog with a stub of a tail waddled out from under the kitchen table and gobbled up the meatloaf.

“Let's go look again, Ernie.” Mr. Mineo held the screen door open for the fat dog, and the two of them went around the side of the trailer to a weathered blue shed with a slanting roof. A large wire cage jutted out of one side. The door of the shed was made of chicken wire. The sound of cooing drifted through the door.

The soft cooing of homing pigeons.

Mr. Mineo opened the door and stepped inside. He pointed at the pigeons one by one, calling their names.

Edna

Frankie

Martha

Samson

Leslie

Taylor

Amy

Joe

Christopher

and
Martin

“Gol-dern it, Ernie,” Mr. Mineo called out to the dog. “Where in the heck is Sherman?”

Ernie cocked his head and peered through the door with sad, watery eyes.

“I'm so aggravated.” Mr. Mineo stepped out of the shed and searched the sky over the lake.

He walked down to the edge of the water, muttering to Ernie.

“I
knew
that dern fool bird was going to get lost sooner or later.

“I
told
you he was wandering too far from the others.

“I
told
you he was heading off toward Meadville instead of across the lake like he's supposed to.

“He's liable to get into a tussle with a hawk again and lose that other leg.

“Dern fool bird.”

Then he trudged back up to the side of the shed and opened a shuttered window. One by one, the pigeons hopped onto the ledge of the window and soared out into the cloudless blue sky.

“Y'all go find Sherman,” Mr. Mineo called as they flew off across the lake and disappeared behind the trees on the other side.

While the pigeons flew, Mr. Mineo cleaned the shed.

He swept the floor.

He changed the water bowls.

He scrubbed the perches on the walls.

Mr. Mineo had gotten the homing pigeons from his brother, Carl, who went to live in a nursing home a few months ago. When he had first gotten them, he didn't think he would like them.

But he did.

He didn't think he would enjoy taking care of them.

But he did.

When he was finished cleaning, he scooped birdseed out of a bucket with a coffee can and sprinkled some on the floor. Then he went outside and shook the can, calling, “Come and get it!”

The seed in the can rattled.

Mr. Mineo watched the sky. Before long, a cluster of birds appeared in the distance. When they were over the shed, they circled once or twice. Then they swooped down one by one, landed on top of the wire cage, and hopped through the bars of a small window into the shed.

Edna

Frankie

Martha

Samson

Leslie

Taylor

Amy

Joe

Christopher

and
Martin

But not Sherman.

Mr. Mineo whistled for Ernie. Then the two of them ambled back up the path to the rusty trailer, Ernie's stub of a tail wagging and Mr. Mineo muttering, “I'm so aggravated.”

 

CHAPTER FIVE

Gerald Gets Stuck in the Shrubbery

One minute Gerald was there.

And the next minute he wasn't.

Stella peered over the edge of the roof. Gerald had lucked out. He had landed in the thick shrubbery along the side of the garage.

“You lucked out!” she called down to Gerald.

From somewhere in the distance came the tinkling music of an ice cream truck. Stella fought the urge to hurry down the ladder and go look for it. She peered down at Gerald, sprawled on his back in the shrubbery.

He looked a little surprised, his eyes wide and his mouth opened in an O shape.

“You okay?” she called to him.

Gerald blinked up at her. “I can't move,” he whispered.

“Why not?”

Gerald started to cry.

“Stay right there.” Stella scrambled down the ladder and ran around to the side of the garage.

“Whatever you do,” she said, “don't cry.”

Stella's brother, Levi, had a nose for crying kids. He sniffed them out like a coonhound. Then he and his scabby-kneed, germ-infested friends C.J. and Jiggs would laugh and taunt and joke and poke and generally make life more miserable for whoever was crying.

Especially Gerald.

“I can't move,” Gerald whispered again, sniffling.

“Are you paralyzed?” Stella poked at Gerald's chubby white knee.

“Prickers,” he said in a quivering voice.

“What?”

“Prickers.”

Sure enough, the shrubbery that Gerald had had the good luck to land in was filled with prickers. Sharp, mean-looking prickers that grabbed at Gerald's shirt and left angry red scratches on his arms and legs.

“What am I going to do?” Gerald looked at Stella out of the corner of his eye, keeping his head still, his neck stiff.

Stella tapped her chin. “Hmmm,” she said. “Let me think.”

Stella thought.

And Gerald waited.

Stella thought.

And Gerald waited.

“Okay,” she said. “I have a good idea.”

Gerald groaned.

“We'll hold hands,” she said. “And then, on the count of three, I'll pull you out.” She beamed at Gerald. “Trust me,” she added. “I'll do it so fast you won't feel a thing.”

Gerald looked at Stella in a wild-eyed kind of way and said, “But I don't want to.”

Stella jammed her fists into her waist. “You want Levi and those germ-infested friends of his to get a whiff of you stuck in the bushes crying?”

Gerald's eyes grew wider.

“Okay, then,” Stella said. “Let's do it.”

She took both of Gerald's hands in hers.

“On the count of three,” she said.

“One.

“Two.

“Three.”

Stella tugged.

And tugged.

And tugged some more.

It took a lot more tugs than Stella thought it would. She tried to ignore Gerald's hollering and just concentrate on tugging.

Finally, Gerald was free. He lay on the ground beside the shrubbery in a scratched-up, torn-shirt heap. Stella stood over him, her hands on her knees.

His eyes were closed.

“Gerald?”

He opened one eye.

And then the other one.

“Okay, good,” Stella said. Then she raced over to the garage and started up the ladder to look for the one-legged pigeon.

 

CHAPTER SIX

Gerald Finally Says No

Gerald blinked up at the sky.

He took a breath in.

He let a breath out.

He was still alive. But he was all scratched up and ached from head to toe.

Stella poked her head over the edge of the garage roof and whispered, “That pigeon's back.” Her curly hair stood out around her head like a lion's mane.

“Leave me alone,” Gerald said, examining his scratched-up arms.

“I have another idea,” Stella whispered down to him.

Gerald sighed.

“We'll make a trap,” she said.

Gerald picked leaves out of his hair, pretending like he didn't hear her.

“We can use the trash can and prop it up with a stick and tie a string to the stick and put some birdseed under it and…”

Gerald limped over to the back porch. He dabbed at his arms and legs with his shirttail while Stella yammered away about her cockamamie idea. He wanted her to go home.

Stella came down the ladder and disappeared into the garage.

Gerald pretended not to notice.

A few minutes later, she came out of the garage with a long wooden dowel and skipped over to the ladder. “Come on,” she called as she scrambled back up to the roof.

Gerald heaved another sigh.

Then he plodded, stoop-shouldered, to the ladder and climbed up to the roof to join Stella.

*   *   *

They spent all afternoon working on the trap that Stella had designed. But they had a lot of problems.

The trash can wouldn't stay propped up with the dowel.

The dowel was too long.

The trash can was too big.

Then Stella tried to convince Gerald to climb over the fence to the yard next door and borrow a little birdseed from Mildred Perry's bird feeder.

“Come on, Gerald,” Stella said. “Please?”