On the Road to Mr. Mineo's (5 page)

As Ethel crossed the yard, the bird swooped through the opening near the roof of the barn and disappeared inside. The dog ran barking after it.

Ethel shined the flashlight through the barn door. The dog stopped barking.

Ethel stepped inside. It smelled like hay and motor oil and something rotten. She shined the flashlight into the corner of the barn.

She had never seen a more pitiful sight.

The little brown dog, wet and shivering.

“Why you wanna bark like that and wake everybody up?” Ethel said to the dog.

He cocked his head and backed up a step or two. She tossed the graham cracker onto the floor. He darted over and gobbled it up.

Ethel shined the flashlight into the rafters.

The one-legged pigeon hopped from one side of the rafter to the other, cooing softly. Then he hopped into the old barn owl's nest, blinking down at Ethel in the glow of the flashlight.

When Ethel turned back to the dog, she was surprised to see that he was sleeping, all curled up in a pile of wet hay in the corner of the barn.

So she picked up the empty pie tin beneath the ladder to the hayloft and went back to the house to fill it with cold spaghetti left over from dinner.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Mutt Raynard jumped off the front porch onto the rain-soaked grass. The sun was just peeking over the top of Emmaline Raynard's house. The morning air smelled fresh and clean.

He hopped over the puddles in the dirt driveway.

The sound of Earl Jr.'s crying drifted out of Earl and Maude Raynard's windows.

Jackson and Yolanda Raynard's kids, whose names all started with the letter
B
, were yelling in the backyard.

Mutt headed toward the narrow road to the lake.

He used to walk right up the middle of that road just because he could. There were almost never any cars. Once in a while somebody drove up to the bait shop, but not very often. Then one time his father had driven up behind him in his truck. He had slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the truck, yanked Mutt by the collar, and hollered, “Don't you
never
walk in the middle of the road no more. You hear me?”

So Mutt almost never did.

As he got closer to the lake, he looked up into the morning sky.

No pigeon.

When he turned down the path that led to his favorite fishing spot, way back in a secluded cove, he looked up again.

No pigeon.

He sat on a rock by the edge of the lake and waited.

No pigeon.

Before long, he got bored. He should have brought his fishing rod.

The sun climbed higher in the sky. A dragonfly flitted around in front of him and landed on the rock. He tossed a pebble into the lake. It landed with a
ploink
that made the dragonfly dart away.

And then …

… a one-legged pigeon landed on his head.

Mutt grabbed for the pigeon with both hands.

But the pigeon flapped his wings wildly and soared off into the morning sky, disappearing over the treetops.

Mutt stomped his feet.

Dang.

Dang.

Dang.

He was more determined than ever to catch that pigeon.

And when he did, everyone would see that he
had
been telling the truth.

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Morning on Main Street

Luther helped Edsel unload the produce from his white delivery van.

Lettuce.

Onions.

Celery.

Then they set up the checker game on top of the milk crate and began to play. Every now and then rainwater dripped from the awning overhead onto the checkerboard.

They didn't even look up when Tollie Sanborn unlocked the door of the barbershop across the street and went inside.

Old Mrs. Banner, who worked at the bank, parked her shiny Cadillac in her usual spot and clomped past Luther and Edsel in her thick-soled shoes.

She nodded to them as she passed, her mouth set in a thin, sharp line.

Luther and Edsel nodded back.

When she disappeared inside the bank, Edsel muttered, “Battle-ax,” his eyes still on the checkerboard.

Luther chuckled.

One by one, the residents of Meadville came out onto the rain-soaked sidewalks of Main Street to start their days while Luther and Edsel concentrated on their checker game.

Jolene Hawkins carried an overflowing basket of clothes into the Laundromat.

Dwight Malcolm hung the flag out in front of the post office.

Bitsy Patterson hollered “Hurry up!” to her two runny-nosed children as she hurried into the pharmacy.

Cars drove by and windows opened and cats stretched in the morning sun.

Children rode their bikes through puddles along the edge of the street, sending sprays of dirty water onto the sidewalks.

But Luther and Edsel didn't pay much attention to anything except their game.

In fact, they didn't even notice when a little brown dog trotted right past them and turned up the alley, while a one-legged pigeon sat on the rain-soaked awning above them.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Stella Smells a Rat

Stella rode her bike up and down the streets of Meadville, searching for the one-legged pigeon. Gerald rode along behind her.

“Are you looking?” she kept calling back to him.

“Yes,” he kept saying.

But Stella could tell he wasn't.

Suddenly, Stella stopped. “Shhhh,” she said to Gerald. She ducked behind the pecan tree in front of the pharmacy and pointed. Gerald wiped his forehead with his shirttail, exposing his flabby white stomach, and looked in the direction she was pointing.

Levi and C.J. and Jiggs were gathered on the sidewalk in front of the post office.

There was someone with them.

Stella squinted.

Mutt Raynard!

What was
he
doing here?

He almost never came into town.

He stayed out there with all those wild Raynard kids who lived in the cluster of ramshackle houses.

Stella glared up the sidewalk at Levi and the others. “I smell a rat,” she said.

“How come?” Gerald scratched at his splotchy red neck.

“That's Mutt Raynard.”

“I hate him,” Gerald said.

“I bet you anything they're talking about that pigeon,” Stella said. “I bet Levi is asking Mutt to help him. Mutt'll do anything. He's crazy.”

“Yeah,” Gerald said. “He's crazy.”

Stella shook her head. “I smell a rat.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Lie That Levi Loved

Gerald Baxter eats dirt. He crawls up under the hydrangea bushes with a spoon in his back pocket. He hunkers down against the cool, moss-covered bricks of his house and scrapes and scrapes at the dry dirt.

He puts the dirt into his mouth and chews and chews.

“No way!” Levi said when Mutt told him that glorious lie.

Levi loved a good lie, and Mutt told the best ones in Meadville.

“So that means Gerald Baxter has worms,” Levi said, “because eating dirt gives you worms.”

C.J. and Jiggs hooted and hollered and slapped their scabby knees, laughing up a storm.

Then Levi told Mutt about the one-legged pigeon.

Mutt raised his eyebrows.

“And we've got to catch that thing before Stella and Wormy do,” Levi said.

C.J. and Jiggs hooted and hollered again.

“So if you see it,” Levi went on, “catch it and bring it to us, okay?”

“I saw that pigeon,” Mutt said.

“Really?”

Mutt nodded.

“Where?”

“Up yonder by the Laundromat.”

Levi narrowed his eyes at Mutt. “You lying?”

Mutt shrugged. “Maybe it wasn't the same pigeon you're looking for.” He picked at dirt under his fingernails. “There's probably lots of one-legged pigeons around here.”

Levi glanced up toward the Laundromat.

Mutt shrugged again. “Shiny green head. Black stripes on his wings.”

“Come on, y'all,” Levi called to C.J. and Jiggs as he took off running toward the Laundromat.

Then Mutt trotted up the sidewalk toward Luther's Chinese Takeout, searching for the one-legged pigeon.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Amy and That Temper of Hers

Ernie rested his head on Mr. Mineo's scuffed-up brown shoes while Mr. Mineo ate cold macaroni and cheese and rambled on and on about Sherman.

“He's never been gone this long before,” he said, tossing a piece of macaroni onto the linoleum floor for Ernie.

“Amy's gonna be ticked off big-time,” he said. “Her out in that shed day and night, waiting on him to come home and him off gallivanting all over tarnation and back.”

He pushed himself up out of his old plaid lounge chair and shuffled to the kitchen.

“When he does show hisself back in that shed, she's liable to peck him bald-headed,” he said. “You know Amy and that temper of hers.”

He put the dirty bowl in the sink with the others and called to Ernie, “Let's go see if he's back yet.”

They went around the side of the trailer to the shed. The rain had turned the red dirt on the path into gooey red mud. Inside the shed, some of the pigeons pranced around in the chicken-wire cage on the side. Some of them pecked at grains of gritty dirt on the floor. And others sat contentedly on perches.

Mr. Mineo said hello to each one.

Edna

Frankie

Martha

Samson

Leslie

Taylor

Amy

Joe

Christopher

and
Martin

But not Sherman.

“Come on, Ernie,” Mr. Mineo said. “Let's go look for that dern fool bird.”

The pickup truck splashed through the puddles of the narrow road along the lake, past the bait shop, toward Meadville. Mr. Mineo had driven up and down this road three times since yesterday, searching the cornfields and peach orchards. He had turned onto the far end of Main Street, past the dirt driveway that led to the cluster of ramshackle houses, past the Ropers' farm, and into town. He had driven past the barbershop and the post office and the bank and Luther's Chinese Takeout. He had even gone up past the Waffle House on Highway 14.

But he had not found Sherman.

He hadn't told Ernie yet, but his aggravation was turning to worry.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Stella Feels Sorry for Herself

Stella watched as Levi and C.J. and Jiggs headed in one direction and Mutt in the other.

She definitely smelled a rat. But she was hot and hungry and wanted to go home.

By the time she and Gerald got back to Waxhaw Lane, the sun was starting to disappear behind the shiny white steeple of Rocky Creek Baptist Church. They went up to the garage roof to look for the pigeon, but he wasn't there.

So Stella went home to feel sorry for herself.

She sat in the empty doghouse in her front yard. The doghouse had been empty when Stella's family moved in, way back when she was a baby. She had asked and asked and asked if she could have a dog to live in the doghouse, but her parents always rolled their eyes and flapped their hands and then finally told her to stop asking.

When she and Gerald were little, they used to pretend they were puppies living in the doghouse. They ate pretend dog food and scratched pretend fleas and barked at the neighbor's cat when he sauntered across the yard.

Stella had given up any smidgen of hope that she would ever have a dog. But maybe if she couldn't have a dog, she could have a pigeon.

She hugged her knees and sighed.

Why did Levi have to mess everything up?

And what about Mutt Raynard?

Mutt Raynard was crazy.

There was no telling what
he
was up to.

She sat in the empty doghouse until dark and listened to her mother hollering for her from the front stoop. When she finally went inside, she had to go right to her room and say her prayers.

She sat by the open window, feeling sorry for herself and whispering into the night.

She sells seashells by the seashore.

She sells seashells by the seashore.

She sells seashells by the seashore.

The words drifted through the screen and floated across the street and hovered under the streetlights, dancing with the moths. Then they swirled up into the starry sky, where a one-legged pigeon flew above the road on the outskirts of town.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Little Brown Dog

Ethel stared up at the water stain on the ceiling of the bedroom. She had told Amos about a hundred times to get up there on the roof and fix that leak.

Amos snored beside her. The chirp of crickets drifted through the open window. The sweet scent of the honeysuckle that clung to the side of the screened porch swirled around the bedroom and mingled with the crisp, starched smell of the gingham curtains.

Ethel tiptoed over to the window and peered out into the yard, looking for the one-legged pigeon and the little brown dog.

That afternoon, while hanging the sheets on the clothesline, she had realized how much she was looking forward to seeing them.

She waited by the window, hoping they would come.

Amos snored and Ethel waited.

Amos snored and Ethel waited.

Suddenly, the silhouette of the pigeon appeared against the moonlit sky.

It swooped in circles around the top of the barn and landed on the weathervane.

Then it hopped onto the roof and disappeared through the opening under the eaves.

Ethel squinted into the darkness, searching the yard.

She waited and waited.