On the Road to Mr. Mineo's (9 page)

Mutt's heart pounded as he watched the pigeon swoop around the garage, bumping into shelves overflowing with car parts and empty soda bottles and landing from time to time on a ladder or sacks of potting soil or a crate of old roller skates and mildewed baseball mitts.

All the while, Skipper watched from the doorway, tail a-twitching.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Gerald Wishes He Hadn't Eaten That Dough Ball

Gerald followed Stella down the ladder, one heavy foot after the other.

She was jabbering away about getting their bikes and heading out toward the lake and how they would find Harvey before Levi did.

Stella always made everything sound so easy.

But it never was.

He made a list in his head of the reasons he didn't want to go out to the lake:

• It was kind of a long way out there.

• Part of the road was uphill, and it was hotter than usual today.

• What if they ran into Levi and his nasty friends?

• And what if they
did
find Harvey? How were they supposed to catch him?

• And what would they do with him if they
did
catch him?

So many problems that Stella hadn't thought of.

Stella wasn't nearly as good at thinking of problems as Gerald was.

Now she was running home to get her bike.

Gerald was supposed to get his bike and meet her out front. He wished he hadn't eaten that dough ball. He clutched his stomach and plodded over to where his bike was propped against the fence along the driveway.

He couldn't stop himself from looking at those pale pink words.

W
ORMY
L
IVES
H
ERE

The dough ball felt like a cannonball in his stomach.

He pushed his bike up the driveway toward the road, one heavy step at a time.

Clomp

Clomp

Clomp

Stella was waiting out front, sitting on her dented bike, her curls standing up like springs on top of her head. She grinned at him.

“Let's go!” she hollered as she pedaled up Waxhaw Lane.

Gerald glanced over his shoulder at the garage behind his house.

How he longed to go back up there and sit in the lawn chair and play cards all day.

Instead, he climbed onto his bike and pedaled slowly after Stella.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Little Brown Dog

Ethel ignored the car honking behind her. She was not going to speed up. She was looking for the little brown dog, scanning the roadsides and fields and yards.

Every once in a while, she asked Amos, “See anything?”

He would utter a grumbly “No.”

She stuck her arm out the window and motioned for the car behind her to go around. The car roared by, sending up a swirl of dust.

Ethel made a
hmmph
sound.

Amos mumbled a cuss word.

“Keep your eye out for that pigeon, too,” Ethel said. “If we see the pigeon, that dog is liable to be nearby.”

They drove through neighborhoods and up dirt lanes and down bumpy gravel roads. They drove behind gas stations and circled parking lots and wove through trailer parks.

But they didn't see the little brown dog.

Or the one-legged pigeon.

Amos kept asking Ethel what she was going to do if she found the dog, and Ethel kept saying, “Don't worry about it.” Actually, she wasn't really sure
what
she would do if she found the dog. She just wanted to make sure he was okay.

“Let's go drive around the lake,” she said, turning down the road to Mr. Mineo's.

When she got to the run-down bait shop, she pulled into the parking lot.

“Go see if it's open,” she said to Amos. “Maybe Mr. Mineo has seen something.”

“Aw, that old guy ain't never here,” Amos said. “Anybody that wants to fish is better off digging their own dang worms.”

But he got out and shuffled across the parking lot to the bait shop.

He tried the door.

Locked.

He knocked on the window.

Nothing.

He climbed back into the car, grumbling something about wanting to go home.

But Ethel wanted to find the little brown dog.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Edsel's Hunk of Junk (Again)

On the road to Mr. Mineo's, Luther and Edsel heard a familiar noise coming from under the hood of Edsel's white delivery van.

Sort of a
whirrrrrr-clunk-clunk
noise.

Then swirls of dark gray smoke twisted into the air like little tornadoes on each side of the hood.

“Gol-dern criminy cripes,” Edsel muttered. “I'm ready to push this hunk of junk right into the lake and call it a day.”

Luther didn't say anything. He knew Edsel well. When that vein on the side of his neck started pulsing like that, it was better to keep quiet.

The van putt, putt, putted to a stop.

There was a slow
sssssss
, two puffs of gray smoke, and then nothing but the still summer air.

The buzz of a fly.

Luther clearing his throat.

Edsel pounding the steering wheel.

“This gol-dern hunk of junk.”

Luther and Edsel got out of the van. Edsel opened the hood. The loud squeak of metal echoed across the field of wildflowers on the other side of the road.

Smoke billowed out from under the hood.

There was a brief
tick-tick-tick
sound.

Luther and Edsel peered down at the engine.

Luther checked the oil.

Edsel wiggled the spark plugs.

Luther examined the fan belt.

Edsel fiddled with the duct tape on the radiator.

They tugged on hoses and jiggled wires and poked at stuff.

Then they stood back with their hands in their pockets and stared at the engine, frowning.

“I reckon we're gonna have to walk up to the bait shop and call for a tow,” Edsel said.

“I reckon,” Luther said.

Luther and Edsel looked up the road.

Waves of steamy heat hovered above the asphalt. Queen Anne's lace and wild blackberries grew on either side. The rain the night before had left little puddles scattered here and there. Kudzu snaked its way up a speed limit sign with a couple of rusty bullet holes in it. Up ahead was a neglected peach orchard, the trees dried and brown, the ground littered with rotten peaches. The narrow road ahead of them wound lazily through fields of corn and soybeans.

It looked like a long walk to nowhere.

“Wanna rest up first?” Edsel said.

“Sure.”

Edsel stretched out on the seat of the van, his head on the armrest and his legs dangling out of the door.

Luther opened the back doors, pushed aside the fishing rods and tackle boxes, and flopped down on a dirty canvas tarp with his baseball cap over his face.

Before long, deep steady snores echoed across the Carolina countryside.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Eight Xs and a Toothpick

Mr. Mineo put another
X
on the calendar.

Eight.

He went out front and sat on the bench beside the W
ORMS FOR
S
ALE
sign. Ernie curled up at his feet.

“Maybe I should just give up,” Mr. Mineo said.

“Maybe that dern fool bird has found hisself a new home.”

He sighed.

“Wouldn't surprise me a bit.”

He rubbed Ernie's back with the toe of his shoe.

“He always was a little too cocky.”

He glanced up at the sky.

“Hoppin' around that shed like he owned the place.”

He chuckled.

“He don't even know he's only got one leg.”

Mr. Mineo took a toothpick out of the pocket of his shirt and chewed on the end of it.

“Well, good riddance is what I say.”

He shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth.

“And good luck to whoever's got him now.”

He studied the treetops on the other side of the road.

“Right, Ernie?”

Ernie stirred slightly in his sleep. Mr. Mineo sat in front of the bait shop all morning, chewing on the toothpick and watching the sky.

Finally, he said, “Dagnabbit, Ernie, let's go look one more time.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Mutt whistled and held his hand out toward the pigeon fluttering around the garage.

“Come here, fella,” he whispered.

But the pigeon would not come. He flew up to the rafters at the top of the garage and blinked down at him.

Skipper crouched in the doorway.

Mutt turned to the cat and hollered, “Get on out of here!”

But Skipper stayed.

Then Lola, Emmaline's fluffy white cat, came sauntering over from the yard.

And then Coco, the skinny one.

And Nellie, the orange one.

Skipper and Lola and Coco and Nellie.

Lined up side by side in the doorway of the garage, tails twitching, eyes gleaming. The silence in the garage was thick and heavy.

Mutt looked from the cats to the pigeon.

From the pigeon to the cats.

Silence.

Silence.

Still, still, silence.

Then Mutt lunged toward the cats, flapping his arms and hollering, “Shoo! Go! Get!”

Which made the pigeon flutter wildly around the top of the garage.

Which made the cats leap on tires and boxes and flowerpots and ladders, swatting the air with their sharp claws and getting closer and closer to the one-legged pigeon.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Levi and C.J. and Jiggs Whoop It Up

Levi and C.J. and Jiggs roared with laughter as Stella and Gerald disappeared around the corner of Waxhaw Lane.

“I
told
you she'd fall for it,” Levi said, beaming at C.J. and Jiggs. “She's a ding-dong doodlebrain.”

They slapped each other's backs and high-fived and whooped it up until finally Levi said, “Now we've got to get up there on Gerald's garage and wait for that pigeon.”

The three of them dashed across the street to Gerald's house. They tiptoed up the driveway and along the shrubbery to the ladder.

Levi shot a quick look over his shoulder to the back door of Gerald's house, then whispered, “Come on.”

 

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Stella Wouldn't Slow Down

Stella pedaled and pedaled and pedaled.

Every now and then she glanced behind her at Gerald.

His face was red. His hair was damp with sweat. He huffed and puffed and hollered, “Slow down!”

But Stella wouldn't slow down.

She was going to find that pigeon before Levi did.

No matter what.

She pedaled past the hardware store and the church and on out toward the outskirts of town. She passed the Ropers' small brick house with the big wooden barn.

She passed the dirt driveway that led to the cluster of ramshackle houses where the Raynards lived.

Then she turned down the road that led to the lake.

The road to Mr. Mineo's.

As she pedaled, she scanned the trees and rooftops and telephone wires, searching for the pigeon. But she didn't see him.

She studied the road ahead, looking for Levi and C.J. and Jiggs. But she didn't see them. She was starting to worry that maybe Levi
had
tricked her.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The Story Continues

Mr. Mineo drove his pickup truck on the side roads of Meadville. His fat dog, Ernie, sat beside him with his head stuck out the window, panting in the summer breeze. Every once in a while, Mr. Mineo got out of the truck and rattled a can of birdseed, calling, “Come and get it!”

Meanwhile, Stella and Gerald pedaled their bikes along the narrow road toward the bait shop. Stella looked very determined, searching the trees and rooftops along the way.

Gerald looked very hot and tired. His face grew redder by the minute as he tried his best to keep up with Stella.

Ethel Roper drove her blue-and-white station wagon around the lake, searching for the little brown dog and the pigeon. Amos slouched beside her, grumbling.

Luther and Edsel slept in the white delivery van on the side of the road.

Over on Waxhaw Lane, Gerald's mother yelled at Levi and C.J. and Jiggs to get off her property before she called the police, sending them scampering down the ladder from the garage roof and racing home.

In Emmaline Raynard's garage, Mutt flapped his arms and hollered at the cats, while the one-legged pigeon swooped and fluttered above them.

And the little brown dog trotted up the dirt driveway toward the cluster of ramshackle houses.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Mutt's heart raced.

The cats jumped onto sacks of fertilizer and climbed over car parts and leaped onto rusty paint cans and tractor tires and milk crates.

Mutt tried to grab them, but they hissed and yowled and darted away from him. He tried to grab the pigeon, but it flapped and fluttered and swooped from one side of the garage to the other.

And then suddenly …

… a little brown dog burst into the garage, barking and carrying on like crazy, chasing the cats around and around until they scurried outside.

Then everything got calm and quiet.

The dog sat in the corner of the garage and stared up at the pigeon, his tail swishing back and forth on the cool cement floor. The cats sat out in the yard in the shade of a scrawny dogwood tree, grooming themselves and looking annoyed. The pigeon nestled in the rafters of the garage and cooed softly down at the dog.

Mutt's heart settled down, and he let out a sigh of relief.

But just when it seemed like the commotion was over, all those Raynard kids whose names started with the letter
B
came running from around the side of Emmaline's house. They made such a racket that the dog darted out of the garage, raced across the yard, and scampered off into the woods. Then the pigeon swooped down from the rafters and soared out of the open door, disappearing over the top of the house.