The Odds Get Even (7 page)

“How would I have known that?” Boney answered indignantly.

Squeak pointed at Boney’s sock feet. “Where are your sneakers?”

“In that heap somewhere.” Boney waved the Blaster at the mound of rose bushes. “I’ll get them in the morning when I clean up this mess.”

“What’s that on your pants?” Squeak timidly asked.

Boney looked at the giant stain the Blaster had left on his jeans. “It’s
water
, Squeak! Geez! Can we get on with it?”

Squeak nodded as he and Boney walked to the kitchen door. Squeak expertly unfolded the paper clip into a straight piece of wire and began jimmying the lock. Within seconds, the mechanism clicked and the door swung easily open.

Boney shook his head incredulously. “Thanks,” he whispered, slinking into the house. “I’ll talk to you upstairs.”

Boney snuck through the darkened kitchen to the hall, then up the wooden stairs to his room, careful to avoid steps three, seven, and nine—the ones with the loudest creaks. In his bedroom, he changed into his pyjamas and placed the Blaster beside his bed. He made a mental note to carry the water gun with him at all times—fully loaded—then uncovered the Tele-tube.

“Mission accomplished,” he sighed with relief.

“What about the rose trellis?” Squeak’s voice filtered back.

“I’ll get up early tomorrow and fix it.”

“And the Elvis costume?”

“Delivered under the wire.”

“Amazing,” Squeak marvelled. “I have to confess, I had my doubts as to whether you would make it. Still, your aunt is going to be furious when she sees her roses.”

“Yeah, I know. But there are more pressing issues. I saw the ghost again.”

“What?”

“I went to the haunted mill while I was waiting for the cleaners—you know, Mr. Martini can barely see through those glasses. The ghost spoke to me.”

“What? What did it say?”

“Boney? Is that you?” his uncle softly called, opening the bedroom door.

Boney threw the towel over the Tele-tube and leaned on the windowsill, trying to look casual.

“Get to bed. I don’t want your aunt finding you up.”

“Yes, sir.”

His uncle waited until Boney climbed into bed. He watched as Boney turned off his bedside lamp and stood in the doorway for several minutes until he was satisfied his nephew would stay put. “Now, no more nonsense. We’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

When his uncle finally left, Boney exhaled.

“That was close.”

T
he next morning, Boney was jolted awake by the sound of his aunt’s shrill cries out in the yard. He checked his alarm clock. He’d slept in! Throwing the covers to one side of the bed, Boney raced from his room, stumbling down the stairs to the kitchen. When he opened the door, he saw his aunt and uncle standing before the violated trellis, his uncle’s expression more confused than the mangled roses, his aunt’s pulled like saltwater taffy into the very picture of tragedy.

“Why, why, why?” she moaned, her eyes searching the heavens, her hands wringing.

His uncle held up Boney’s sneakers in his hands. There was no way Boney could talk his way out of this one.

“I’m sorry. It was an accident.”

His aunt stood, dabbing her eyes with her red gingham tea towel in the most mournful way.

“Oh my, my, my,” was all his uncle could say.

“I’ll fix it,” Boney promised. “Your roses will be fine. You’ll see.” He reached down to lift the trellis but the wood snapped in his hands, splintering on top of the mangled roses.

His aunt burst into tears all over again. She staggered to the house, her face buried in her apron.

“Oh my,” his uncle said again. He looked at Boney with a mixture of grief and befuddlement. “Oh my, my, my.”

SQUEAK WAS WAITING on the stairs when Boney shuffled up the walk for school. He didn’t even bother ducking when the paperboy tossed the morning paper his way.

“I heard the whole thing,” Squeak confessed.

“I’m so stupid,” Boney said, slumping down on the stairs next to his friend.

“It was an accident. You didn’t know the trellis was structurally compromised. You were just trying to help a friend.”

Boney sighed glumly. “I don’t think my aunt will ever speak to me again.”

“I’ll help you fix the trellis,” Squeak offered. “My
dad has lots of tools, and leather gloves—they should protect our hands from the thorns.”

“Thanks.”

“Everything will be okay,” Squeak consoled him. “You got the Elvis costume back, just like you said you would, and there’s still the Invention Convention.”

Squeak placed his skinny arm around Boney’s shoulders. The two friends sat thoughtfully for a moment. Then Squeak turned his goggled face to Boney.

“Can you imagine Itchy working as a clown in the circus?”

Boney thought about this for a minute, then slowly nodded his head. “Yes…I think I can.”

The two boys burst into laughter.

“He wouldn’t even need a wig,” Squeak said.

“Or a nose,” Boney added. “Or the big clown shoes!”

Squeak stood up. “Come on. We’ll be late for school. And you know Itchy’s late enough as it is.”

The boys shuffled along the sidewalk, dodging to one side as Mr. Peterson zipped by on his bike, bell jingling merrily as he passed. They clumped up the stairs to Itchy’s house, but before they could knock, the door swung violently open to reveal a terrified Itchy and an angry Elvis standing on the threshold. Itchy’s red hair
looked as though he’d been up all night, running it through a blender.

“Uhhh…what’s up?” Boney asked.

Itchy’s father assumed one of his famous poses, hip stuck out, arm stretched in the air, one finger poised. “Notice anything…peculiar? Anything…out of the ordinary?” He tossed his greasy hair and struck another pose.

Boney squinted at the white outfit, the same white outfit that had been covered in fake blood only hours ago. There
was
something peculiar about it. It was sparkling clean, that was for sure. Sparkling white, not a trace of the blood from the night before, not a single, itty bitty speck to remind them of their failed attempt at tarring and feathering the mail thief…not a single, little…

“Sequins!” Itchy’s dad cued him at last.

The boys stared at each other in horror. As if the rose trellis debacle wasn’t enough!

“I don’t know what you boys did, or why,” Itchy’s dad continued, in a trembling, heartbroken Elvis voice, “but it’s gonna take a hunk o’ hunk o’ love for me to get over this.” He gritted his teeth then pouted, holding his hand up in true Elvis style. “Four thousand sequins. The pain. The love.”

“We’ll fix it, Mr. Schutz,” Boney pleaded with Itchy’s dad.

“Four thousand sequins,” Itchy’s dad repeated as he made his exit from the hall.

Boney stared at Itchy’s tragic face. “It must have been the chemicals in the dry-cleaning process,” he explained. “Mr. Martini said he had to use extra-strength stuff to get all the blood and grass stains out of the suit. And he’s blind as a bat. He can barely see. He probably just kept using stronger and stronger chemicals and didn’t even notice the sequins were melting off the suit.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Itchy finally rasped, shaking his head. “My dad will never let me live this down.”

“We’ll fix it right away. I’ll get out of school—I’ll ask my aunt and uncle.”

Itchy just stood there, muttering and shaking his head. “Four thousand sequins…”

L
ater that morning, Boney stood atop a rickety stepladder, trying desperately to affix his aunt’s broken rose trellis to the wall of the house.

“Look on the bright side,” he mumbled, his mouth spiked with nails as he teetered on the stepladder. “At least we got out of school.”

Squeak nodded in agreement from his lawn chair, where he was helping Itchy replace the sequins on the Elvis outfit. “My dad didn’t even ask for an explanation.” He positioned a sequin carefully on the sleeve, holding it in place with his thumb as he pierced it through the middle with the needle to affix it. “You can almost smell where the sequins should go if you look closely enough.” Squeak held his goggled face inches from the fabric, secured the sequin, then raised his head thoughtfully. “I still think we should get a mascot.”

Boney’s hammer tapped an erratic rhythm against the trellis. “What do we need a mascot for?”

“They’re good luck,” Squeak said.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!” Boney shouted, the nails shooting from his lips and plinking down the ladder to the ground. “These rose thorns are murder!”

“I told you to wear gloves,” Squeak sighed.

Boney gripped his hand in pain. “I can’t work with your dad’s gloves on. They’re too big.”

Itchy just shook his head. He was sitting in a lawn chair next to Squeak’s, his own eyes trained on the pant cuff of his dad’s outfit, clumsy fingers fumbling with the sequins and needle and thread. He didn’t bother to look up any more when Boney screamed, it happened so often. “Four thousand sequins,” was all he said.

Boney retrieved the nails and started hammering at the trellis again. “We need to think about our invention. That’s more important than a mascot right now.”

“What happened with the ghost?” Squeak asked.

“Ghost?” Itchy gasped, finally looking up from his work. He had sequins stuck all over his hands and face like sparkly fish scales.

Boney shot Squeak a cautionary scowl over his shoulder.

“You know,” Squeak blindly continued. “You said it
spoke to you. You never told me what happened.”

“What are you talking about?” Itchy demanded, pushing his sewing to one side, sending sequins fluttering brightly to the ground.

Boney stared at Itchy. He wasn’t going to mention the ghost at all, given the situation. “It’s nothing,” he said, turning his attention back to the trellis.

“WHAT ABOUT THE GHOST?” Itchy shouted, jumping to his feet.

“Okay!” Boney shouted back. “Just remember, you wanted to know!”

“I don’t believe you,” Itchy launched in before Boney had a chance to explain. “We’re up to our necks in it,” he waved wildly at the trellis and at Squeak, sewing sequins, “and you’re still running around looking for ghosts!”

“I was killing time while your dad’s suit was at the cleaners,” Boney said, defending himself.

“Oh, right!” Itchy snapped. “So, somehow this is
my
fault?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“He didn’t say that,” Squeak corroborated softly.

Itchy held his hands in the air. “I don’t want to hear about it,” he fumed.

“But you just said you did,” Boney replied.

“Oh, yeah, isn’t that just like you to twist my words
around,” Itchy accused him, clawing at his hair. He stormed back to where his sewing lay draped over the back of the lawn chair. He counted the sequins on the pant cuff furiously. “Fifteen!” he raged. “What’s four thousand minus fifteen?”

Squeak opened his mouth to answer but Itchy cut him short.

“It’s a lot—I can tell you that! We’re going to be sewing until we’re forty just to fix this mess.”

“Actually,” Squeak piped up, “if we keep going at this pace, it shouldn’t take us more than a few weeks.”

Itchy collapsed in his chair, pulling the leg of the costume into his lap. “What did the ghost say?” he whimpered.

“Do you want to hear about it or not?” Boney asked.

“Go ahead,” Itchy conceded. “You’re just going to tell us anyway.”

“Fine.” Boney sat on the top rung of the ladder. “When I was down at the mill the first time, I saw the glasses.”

“Glasses…?” Itchy repeated in confusion.

“You know…
the
glasses. I told you about them before.”

“The wire rims from the story,” Squeak added.

“So what, you found some stupid old glasses,” Itchy scoffed.

“They were by the firepit,” Boney continued, ignoring
Itchy’s anger. “When I went to take a look at them, the wall started moaning.”

“So…” Itchy groused.

“So, it was the ghost,” Boney asserted. “It flew out from behind the wall and chased me. And then last night, while I was waiting for the cleaners, I went again, and this time it talked to me.”

“What a load,” Itchy said, but his eyes were wide with fear.

“It’s not a load!” Boney insisted.

“What did it say, then?”

Boney mimicked the sound of the ghost as best he could. “GET OUT! Get out of my mill!”

Itchy snorted. “Obviously, it knows you.”

“It’s all very exciting,” Squeak said. “I can’t wait to test the Apparator at the Old Mill…once we actually build it.”

“Well, you can count me out,” Itchy retorted.

“You don’t have to come. Squeak and I will test it out.”

“Fine.”

“I’m hoping the rare earth magnets will arrive in the mail today,” Squeak said.

“Good,” Boney said. “We can start building the Apparator as soon as they arrive.”

Itchy shook his head angrily. “What about my dad’s costume?”

“We’ll work on that too,” Boney assured him.

Itchy grumbled into the cuff of the suit.

“Hey, look! I have one whole row done!” Squeak announced, holding up the sleeve of the costume.

“Great,” Itchy grumbled. “Only 3,952 more sequins to go…”

T
hat evening after supper, the Odds gathered around the table in the clubhouse. Itchy’s old tire now hung by a rope from the east branch. Boney had placed it there as an apology to Itchy for the way things had turned out with his father’s costume.

The rose trellis was fixed as best as it could be, patched with old pieces of wood found in Boney’s garage. The sequins would take much longer. Itchy sewed ceaselessly, muttering inaudibly, working by flashlight when the sun started to set.

Boney lit a candle and placed it to one side of the table. Squeak produced the schematics for the ghost detector, unrolling the paper and holding it flat with small pebbles from his pocket.

“Gentlemen…may I present the Apparator.”

“We’ve already seen it,” Itchy said.

Squeak ignored him, picking up a box from the floor
and opening the lid. “Shall we check the inventory?” He handed Boney a small piece of paper with a handwritten list. Boney began to read as Squeak pulled the equipment from the box.

“Capacitor.”

“Check.”

“Twelve-gauge copper wire.”

“Check.”

“Toggle switch.”

“Check.”

“Bakelite handle.”

Squeak produced a black plastic handle from the box. “Check!”

“Weller forty-watt iron.”

“Check.”

“Ion detector.”

“Check.”

“Deans ultra-connectors and rare earth magnets.”

“Check and check!”

Squeak arranged the items neatly on the table. “This is going to be the best invention ever.” He rubbed his hands together, then began assembling the Apparator—soldering connections, coiling copper wire, fitting pieces together.

The boys assembled and sewed, undisturbed by bullies or emergencies of any kind. There was a brief moment when they believed they were being assaulted
by eggs, but it turned out to be a shower of acorns from the oak tree that supported their clubhouse.

Eventually, Boney’s aunt called him in for bed. The work had to stop for the night, but Boney complied without protest, being extra specially good so as to win his aunt’s favour. He had even asked for a second helping of soup casserole at dinner that night, telling his aunt it was the best casserole he’d ever eaten.

THE NEXT MORNING when Boney climbed up the ladder to the clubhouse, Itchy was already there, sewing sequins. He wore a knit vest, striped in wild greens and oranges and browns. One armhole was wider than the other, and the vest looked too large.

“My mom’s taken up knitting,” he explained when he saw the look on Boney’s face.

Boney pulled the Blaster from his waistband and placed it on the table next to the box that housed the half-finished Apparator. He picked up a leg of the Elvis costume and began sewing sequins. He sewed a few to the cuff then cleared his throat. “I was thinking…we should have stuck to our original plan.”

Itchy stopped, needle poised in the air. “What plan?”

“The plan to lure Larry Harry and Jones and Jones to the Old Mill.”

Itchy lowered his sewing in his lap. “We’re not doing anything of the kind.”

“We still need to get back at them.”

Itchy held up a sleeve. “Haven’t we made enough mistakes already?”

“But our original plan was foolproof. Nothing can go wrong. We don’t have to borrow anybody’s costume or anything. We just lure Larry and Jones and Jones to the mill and let the ghost do the work.”

Itchy rolled his eyes. “And how are we supposed to lure those creeps to the mill?”

Boney opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by a sudden clattering from Escape Hatch #1.

“Hold still,” Squeak could be heard saying before his head appeared at the top of the ladder, red face sweating behind his gigantic goggles. “I figured out our mascot problem,” he proudly announced.

“What mascot problem?” Boney asked.

“Ta-da!” Squeak said, producing Snuff through the hole in the clubhouse floor.

“Squeak, no!” Boney shouted as Snuff exploded from Squeak’s hands, snapping and snarling like the devil unleashed. The dog lunged across the clubhouse and leapt on Boney’s leg, grabbing the cuff of his pants and
pulling Boney to the floor with a horrible thump. Boney reached for the Blaster, but his arm hit the supply shelf on the wall, tearing it down and sending empty cracker boxes and peanut butter and jelly jars flying across the clubhouse. Itchy sprang on his dog in a flurry of sequins, only to send the cutlery drawer springing from its spot on the table, the box with the Apparator sliding dangerously close to the edge, knives and forks and spoons crashing in a silver heap to the floor. Snuff yelped as several spoons hit his back, and he began snarling and snapping with even greater fury, convinced Boney had thrown the cutlery.

“Snuff, no!” Squeak yelled as Boney kicked and cursed, until all at once he grabbed the Blaster and fired, sending the surprised dog skittering with a yelp down Escape Hatch #3.

“Snuff!” Itchy cried, looking down the hole where the dog had disappeared. But there was only a puff of dirt in the air where Snuff had hit the ground.

“There he goes!” Squeak said, pointing down the street to where Snuff was running furiously toward home.

The boys gazed around the clubhouse. It looked as though a small tornado had touched down.

“Perhaps Snuff isn’t the best mascot for us after all,” Squeak conceded.

Boney looked at his torn pants in disgust. “He put
a hole in my cuff. You know he hates me, Squeak. Why would you even try to bring him up here?”

“I was hoping he could get to know you and you could be friends.”

Boney gestured with the Blaster. “We’ll never be friends.”

“Not if you keep shooting at him,” Squeak sniffed.

“He really isn’t good for much,” Itchy admitted.

Boney pulled himself up from the floor, securing the Blaster in his waistband. “Just forget about the whole mascot thing, Squeak. Look at this mess!”

The boys began cleaning the clubhouse, reaffixing the supply shelf to the wall with twice as many nails as before, organizing the cutlery drawer to its former condition, and checking the Apparator to make sure it hadn’t been damaged. They even found a piece of plastic and covered the reference library bookshelf, just in case. When they were done, Boney and Itchy collapsed on the clubhouse floor. Squeak continued to work on the Apparator.

“I can’t take it any more,” Itchy sighed. “First Larry Harry wrecks our lives, then my dad’s costume gets ruined, and now Snuff trashes our clubhouse.”

“I told you, we’re going to get Prisoner 95 once and for all,” Boney insisted.

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Itchy said. “Running after ghosts in spooky old haunted mills is crazy. We’ll just end up hurting ourselves, or getting beat up even worse than we already do.”

“We
will
need to go to the Old Mill,” Squeak said, grinning broadly, “because the Apparator is finished.” He tightened a screw on the handle, then held it up for the others to see. “Gentlemen, may I present the $500 prize-winning entry at this year’s Invention Convention.”

The Apparator glistened in the light, its black handle shining, its clear tube wrapped artfully in copper wire. On the handle was a small red switch and hand-painted letters that read “
The Apparator
.”

“It looks great,” Boney said. “We can test it tonight.”

“I thought you were grounded for life,” Itchy said.

“I’ll ask for three helpings at dinner tonight, if I have to. My aunt will let me do anything after that.”

Itchy folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t care. I’m not going to the mill.”

“Fine,” Boney said. “Stay here by yourself. But don’t cry to us when the mail thief comes looking for you.”

Itchy’s mouth flapped up and down in futile protest. “This is so unfair.”