On the Road to Mr. Mineo's (4 page)

When Levi hit Stella on the arm with his famous Knuckle of Death, she let out a yelp. But she was
not
going to cry.

She turned to Gerald. “Tell them to get off your garage,” she said.

Gerald didn't say a word. His face was pale. His chin quivered.

“Go away,” Stella hollered at Levi, shoving him with both hands. Maybe he would fall off the roof and land in the prickery shrubbery below.

Levi pushed her back, and there was another whirl of hollering and punching, with C.J. and Jiggs cheering them on and Gerald watching in wild-eyed terror.

“You're not
allowed
up here,” Stella yelled at Levi.

“He's
my
pigeon.” Levi pointed up into the branches.

“He is not.”

“He is too.”

“He's
my
pigeon,” Stella said. “I found him and I'm keeping him.”

“I found him first,” Levi said.

“You did not.”

“I did so,” Levi said. “You can't keep a pigeon, ninny-brain. You don't know diddly-squat about pigeons.”

“Yes I do.” Stella kicked at a pile of dried oak leaves.

“Name one thing you know about pigeons.” Levi and C.J. and Jiggs poked each other and snickered.

Stella scrambled to think of something she knew about pigeons. She was sure she
must
know diddly-squat. She might even know
more
than diddly-squat. But before she could come up with something, the pigeon fluttered off the branch and disappeared over the rooftops of Waxhaw Lane.

“Now look what you did,” Stella said.

“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Levi said.

“What do you mean?”

“Whoever finds that pigeon first gets to keep him.”

Stella could feel her face burning and her chin quivering.

Don't cry.

Don't cry.

Don't cry
, she told herself.

And then, thank the good Lord, just as the tears started, Gerald's mother banged on the side of the garage with a broom and hollered, “You boys get down off of there and go on home!”

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

Little Brown Dog

Amos wanted to lock the barn door at night and nail plywood over the opening up near the rafters.

But Ethel had a hissy fit.

“That little dog isn't hurting anybody,” she told Amos.

“What's wrong with a dog sleeping in the barn?” she asked him.

“And worrying about a one-legged pigeon,” Ethel snapped. “For heaven's sake, Amos, what's gotten into you?”

When Amos complained that the dog's barking kept him up at night, she snapped, “If that dog is keeping you up at night, then who in the name of Bessie is that old geezer snoring in my bed?”

Amos flapped his hand at her and ambled out to his chair in the shade by the tomato garden.

Ethel puttered around the kitchen. Every now and then she glanced out the window at Amos. Finally, she saw his eyes close and his head droop until his whiskery chin rested on his chest.

When she heard his soft snoring, she opened the cupboard under the sink, pushed aside the dish detergent and spray cleaner and sponges, and pulled out a small bag of dog food.

She shook some into a pie tin. Then she tossed in a piece of sausage from breakfast, a scoop of tuna from lunch, and a slice of bread. She put the bag of dog food back up under the sink and went out into the yard. She held the pie tin behind her back and tiptoed past Amos, who was still snoring beside the garden. Then she hurried out to the barn and set the pie tin on the floor beneath the ladder to the hayloft.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

That Dern Fool Bird

Mr. Mineo frowned as he drove his truck up the narrow road to his bait shop. His fat dog, Ernie, sat beside him with his head out the window, ears flapping in the breeze. Rakes and shovels and tire irons and fishing poles clanged and rattled in the back of the truck. A metal toolbox slid from one side to the other.

“Holler if you see him,” Mr. Mineo said to Ernie.

When they pulled into the gravel parking lot of the bait shop, the truck bounced and squeaked and groaned before it came to a stop, sending a swirl of dust into the still summer air.

Mr. Mineo got out and searched the sky overhead. Then he shuffled across the parking lot in his scuffed-up brown shoes with Ernie waddling along behind him.

The bait shop was made of cinderblocks and mismatched wood and big squares of dented rusty tin. A warped piece of plywood leaned against the front. W
ORMS FOR
S
ALE
was painted on the plywood in squiggly black letters.

Mr. Mineo unlocked the door of the shop and stepped inside. He turned on the old fan on top of the soda cooler. It hummed and whirred and rattled, blowing paper napkins and candy wrappers around the dark, cluttered room.

“Now where did I put that birdseed?” Mr. Mineo said, pushing aside cardboard boxes and stacks of old fishing magazines.

Ernie plopped down with a groan onto his worn, dirty rug by the door.

“Aha!” Mr. Mineo took the top off a plastic bucket and scooped out birdseed with an empty pork-and-beans can. Then he went outside to the parking lot and rattled the can.

“Come and get it!” he called.

He scanned the sky over the bait shop.

He peered onto the roof.

He looked up into the branches of the trees beside the shop.

“I'm so aggravated,” he mumbled to himself.

He went back inside the bait shop and put a big black
X
over the day on the calendar.

Now there were four
X
s.

Sherman had been gone for four days.

Mr. Mineo nudged his dog with the toe of his scuffed brown shoe. “Come on, Ernie,” he said.

Then he went back outside and sat on the bench in front of the bait shop and watched the sky, muttering, “That dern fool bird.”

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Stella Does a Very Un-Stella-Like Thing

Gerald knew he should have been embarrassed when his mother hollered at Levi and his scabby-kneed, germ-infested friends. But instead he was relieved.

He tried not to smile as he watched the boys mumbling and grumbling and stomping up Waxhaw Lane toward town.

Then Gerald got the shock of his life when he turned around and saw that Stella was crying.

Stella never cried.

Gerald felt a little embarrassed.

“Um,” he said.

Stella wiped her nose with the palm of her hand.

“Um,” he said again.

Stella sat with her chin on her knees, sniffling.

Gerald had felt the pain of Levi's Knuckle of Death and cried every time.

But Stella never did.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“I want that pigeon,” Stella said glumly.

Gerald sat next to her and stared at his shoes.

“Levi always ruins everything,” she said.

Gerald couldn't argue with that.

“He's so mean.”

Gerald couldn't argue with that, either.

Then Stella did a very un-Stella-like thing.

She knelt in front of him, put her hands together like she was praying, and said in a soft, un-Stella-like voice, “Will you help me catch that pigeon?”

Gerald blinked. “Um…”

“Please?”

Say no,
Gerald told himself.

Say no,
he told himself again.

“Okay,” he mumbled.

Stella jumped up and let out a whoop.

Then she dashed to the ladder and hurried down, leaving Gerald sitting on the roof, wishing like anything he had said no.

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Luther's Chinese Takeout

On the main street of Meadville, two men played checkers on a plastic milk crate in front of Luther's Chinese Takeout.

One of them was pale and thin with a fire-breathing dragon tattooed on one arm, the flames shooting all the way down to the back of his hand.

That was Luther.

The other one had a shiny bald head and a fat round stomach that hung over his belt buckle.

That was Edsel.

Luther and Edsel played checkers nearly every day when Edsel drove down from Rock Hill to deliver produce to Luther's Chinese Takeout.

Luther was not very good at playing checkers.

“Pay up,” Edsel would say, flapping his palm out toward Luther.

Edsel always climbed back into his white delivery van with Luther's wrinkled dollar bill in his pocket.

He didn't feel bad about taking Luther's money because the next time he came to Meadville, he would bring Luther a case of that root beer he liked or a bag of warm boiled peanuts or a couple of bass he'd caught down at the lake.

Sometimes, a perky curly-haired girl and a solemn red-headed boy stopped by to watch them play checkers.

Stella and Gerald.

Every now and then, they had some burning question to ask, like how to use a ratchet wrench or where to find a compass.

Sometimes Gerald sat on the hot sidewalk, his freckled legs crossed, his face serious, watching the checker game. Stella would grow bored after about a minute and tug at Gerald's shirt, urging him on to something more interesting.

But today Stella and Gerald raced right past Luther and Edsel without stopping.

Across the street, three boys rode skateboards up and down the sidewalk.

Levi, C.J., and Jiggs.

Every now and then one of them would holler a cuss word or spit into the street.

“Troublemakers,” Edsel muttered.

As the afternoon wore on, Edsel beat Luther at checkers three times. Tollie Sanborn came out of the barbershop to turn the crank that closed the awning over the window. Marlene Roseman marched home from dancing lessons in her tap shoes, twirling an invisible baton.

Finally, Luther stretched and yawned and swept the checkers into a shoebox. He folded up the checkerboard and handed Edsel a dollar bill. “Looks like rain.”

Edsel glanced at the graying sky and nodded.

Suddenly, a ruckus started across the street.

Stella and Gerald and those three troublemakers on skateboards were in the alley between the bank and the post office. There was a lot of yelling and name-calling, and then the three troublemakers took off up the sidewalk while Stella hurled gravel at them.

Edsel shook his head and asked Luther what the world was coming to.

Luther shrugged.

Then Stella ran across the street toward them with Gerald following, solemn-faced as ever.

“Have y'all seen a one-legged pigeon?” Stella asked.

Edsel made a grumpy face and said, “No.”

Luther scratched his chin and shook his head. “Nope.”

Then Stella raced off up the sidewalk toward Waxhaw Lane with Gerald hurrying after her.

Edsel made a
hmmph
sound and climbed into his white delivery van.

Luther waved goodbye and went inside his restaurant to make egg rolls.

Overhead, the clouds began to darken. There was a faint, low rumble of thunder. Raindrops began to fall, one by one, onto the streets of Meadville.

Plunk

Plunk

Plunk

And as Edsel's delivery van headed up Highway 14, a one-legged pigeon flew through the summer rain toward a big wooden barn on the outskirts of town.

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Little Brown Dog

Amos and Ethel Roper had argued all day long.

Amos thought Ethel shouldn't feed the little brown dog in the barn.

Ethel thought that if she fed the little brown dog, he wouldn't get in the garbage at night.

Amos said the last thing they needed was a mangy old stray hanging around.

Ethel said that maybe the dog would scare away the mice that had been chewing the wiring on the tractor.

Amos said he never used that old tractor anyway.

Argue.

Argue.

Argue.

All day long.

That evening, they sat on the back porch. The rain had finally stopped and the dark clouds were beginning to drift away.

Ethel loved this time of day. The time between supper and bedtime, when the harsh shadows in the yard softened and everything seemed a little slower. The birds on the fence post out front. The butterflies on the wildflowers along the driveway.

She loved how the morning glories on the vine that wrapped around the clothesline closed up. How the buzz of the bees in the garden gave way to the croak of bullfrogs down in the pond.

Ethel commented to Amos that the mailman had been awfully late that morning. She mentioned that the strawberries she had bought at the farmers' market were way overpriced. She pointed out how that flower box under the kitchen window was starting to tilt to one side.

But Amos didn't answer.

His head was nodding.

His cheeks were puffing out with each breath.

“Come on, Amos,” Ethel said. “Let's go to bed.”

But later that night, they woke to the sound of barking again.

Amos made some grumpy, grumbling noises and flipped and flopped in the bed.

Ethel got up and looked out the window. The moon cast a glow over the backyard. The rain had left little puddles in the dirt under the clothesline.

A bird flew around the top of the barn, swooping and gliding in the moon glow.

Out by the old pig trough, the dog barked.

Ethel slipped her favorite sweater over her nightgown, plopped Amos's old straw hat over her thin gray hair, and grabbed the flashlight on the nightstand. She padded into the kitchen, put on her muddy garden shoes, and tucked a graham cracker into the pocket of her sweater. She flipped on the back-porch light and went outside.

The clothesline cast an eerie shadow across the yard, like a long black snake that slithered through the tomato garden, over the woodpile, and across the lawn chair where Amos napped in the afternoon.