An Ocean in Iowa (22 page)

***

Tom Conway rang the doorbell at the Ocean house while the Oceans ate dinner.

Tom said, “Is Scotty home?”

Maggie answered the door, said, “We’re eating, Tom,” and went back inside.

Tom waited on the curb for Scotty, who came out as soon as he’d cleaned his plate.

“What?” said Scotty, standing on the front porch.

“Come here.”

Scotty crossed his yard to Tom, who stood in the shadows of the sycamore tree.

“It’s gone,” Tom said.

“What?”

“It fell out of my lunch box when they were chasing me.”

***

The following day after school, they retraced Tom’s steps. They looked all over for the grenade. At the construction site, Tom sighed. “My dad’ll kill me. My dad’ll kill me.”

It seemed to Scotty that Tom had shrunk overnight—he’d been deflated.

They were both so busy with their search, neither saw that
Bob Fowler and the other fourth graders had appeared and were straddling their bikes, waiting to be noticed.

Scotty saw them first. “Tom,” he said. Tom turned to look and saw they were surrounded.

Bob Fowler got off his bike and let it crash to the ground.

Oh boy, Scotty thought.

The other boys dropped their bikes in a similar manner. Tom Conway started to cry, for there was no escape.

Bob Fowler made a fist and prepared to hit Tom Conway when Andrew Crow came riding up on his bike.

“What’s going on?” Andrew asked.

“This is between us and them,” Bob Fowler said.

“Maybe. But maybe we can make a deal.”

Fowler had the toughest fourth graders with him. He didn’t need to negotiate. “No thanks,” he said. “Quit your crying,” he said in a snap to Tom Conway.

Scotty bit his lip.

“You can have the other kid,” Andrew Crow said. “But Scotty Ocean’s mine.”

Bob Fowler looked at Tom and Scotty; he looked at his friends; he looked at Andrew Crow, who stood a head taller and who rode a Schwinn five-speed with butterfly handlebars and a black-knobbed gearshift.

“It’s a deal,” Bob Fowler said.

Andrew gestured for Scotty to climb on the back of his bike. Scotty hesitated, then did as Andrew wanted.

At the construction site, the fourth grade boys took turns kicking Tom Conway. Meanwhile, coasting away in the distance, heading toward home, with a sweet spring breeze blowing, Andrew Crow, feeling Scotty’s unspoken gratitude, said to the boy he had saved, “Scotty, you owe me.”

(10)

When Andrew opened the Crows’ front door and saw Maggie Ocean standing in her pink overall shorts and her white, crinkly go-go boots, he looked disappointed. But he held open the screen door anyway. Maggie said, “Hi,” as she walked past, leaving a whiff of her Love’s Lemon Mist perfume in the air. Scotty followed, forcing a smile at Andrew, as if expecting a “Thank you.”

Andrew whispered to Scotty, “Where’s the other one?”

“She won’t come.”

***

In the basement, Scotty could tell Maggie was impressed with Andrew Crow’s secret world. And by bringing her over, he reexperienced the excitement of his initial visit. He saw the stacks of board games, the excellent shag carpeting, and Andrew’s hi-fi stereo all through her eyes. He wanted to say to her, “See, I told you,” but he said nothing and watched her stare, her mouth half open as if stunned, frozen, and he listened as she kept repeating, “Wow.”

Andrew seemed bored by his toys, and disappointed that Scotty couldn’t coax Claire into coming over. He gave the obligatory tour of the back room, turning on the train so Maggie could see that it worked. She said, “It looks like
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
” Scotty was pointing out his favorite parts of the miniature town—the illuminated streetlamps, the smoke that poured out of the steam-type locomotive train engine, the tunnel carved through the Styrofoam mountain—when Andrew abruptly turned off the naked bulb above them.

In the carpeted room, he showed his record collection and pulled back the closet doors revealing the stacks of board games.

“He has every game,” Scotty said.

“Every
good
game,” Andrew clarified.

Maggie said she wanted to play something.

“What?” Andrew said, suppressing a yawn.

“Something, I don’t know, anything.”

Andrew disappeared into the closet and moved boxes around, searching for a game to play. Then Andrew emerged holding Twister.

“How about this?”

Scotty yelled, “Yes!” He’d only played at Tom Conway’s, and the two times he’d been in Andrew Crow’s basement, he’d wanted more than anything to play a game, any game. Twister, the game that tied you up in knots—Scotty could sing the Twister song. A million times each Saturday Scotty watched the commercial between cartoons.

I love Twister, Scotty thought.

Before they could play, Andrew insisted Maggie remove her go-go boots. “Stocking feet or bare feet,” he said, “I don’t care which.”

Maggie hesitated.

Andrew explained, “Don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

Maggie unzipped her boots, which clung tight to her ankles. They were eggshell-white and Maggie had been wearing them nonstop since she got them in February.

Andrew was busy removing his penny loafers, so he didn’t see the first glimpse of Maggie’s ankles, the light pink of the bottoms of her feet.

But Scotty did. He watched as she stretched and pointed her feet, then wiggled her toes.

When Scotty sat down to yank at his shoelaces, Andrew
moved toward him, towering over him. He handed Scotty the Twister spinner board. “Later we’ll trade off, but for now, Scotty, you do the spinning.”

***

“Left foot blue,” Scotty called out. “Right hand red.”

The amazing thing was that Andrew and Maggie were doing what Scotty said. He began to spin faster. He barked out directions.

“Left foot green. Left hand blue.”

In his periphery he could see them moving, hear them giggling; This was fun!

“Get off me,” Maggie snapped.

Andrew rolled off Maggie but didn’t apologize.

“Say you’re sorry,” she snapped.

“But I’m not.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t you get it?”

Twister, the game of knots. Scotty got it.

“I get it,” Scotty shouted.

“Not you, stupid,” Andrew Crow said. Then he spoke to Maggie: “Let’s do it again.” He snapped his fingers and Scotty resumed his spinning.

Andrew stretched over her, around her, his legs wrapped, intertwined, with hers. “Pretzels,” Scotty wanted to yell. But Andrew kept glaring over at Scotty, as if to say “Keep spinning!”

“Right hand red. Left foot green. Right foot green.”

The black needle circled the spinner board. One time the needle was between colors, so Scotty spun again. The black plastic needle going round and round. He called out feet and hands and which color, talking as fast as he could, until he saw Andrew Crow standing before him, his shirt untucked.

“Stop, Scotty,” Andrew said.

And Scotty stopped.

“We’re thirsty,” Andrew said, pronouncing each word with immense care, the same way Mrs. Boyden said words during the weekly spelling test. Andrew repeated, “Thirsty.”

Scotty knew where to find Kool-Aid in a pitcher and paper cups that could be pulled out of a dispenser. Andrew whispered, “Take your time,” to Scotty as he headed toward the basement stairs.

Turning back, Scotty saw Maggie lying back on the plastic Twister sheet, her body surrounded by bright colored circles. The barrette in her hair had fallen out; her cheeks were flushed, her mouth open. She was panting, which reminded Scotty of the Conways’ collie, her tongue hanging down, slobber.

Everyone was happy.

***

Upstairs, Scotty found the Dixie Riddle cups and the pitcher of Kool-Aid.

Downstairs, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” played on Andrew’s stereo. Andrew knew the drum solo and had developed a pantomime imitation, which he’d hoped would qualify for Bill Riley’s Talent Sprouts. Andrew could swing wildly at the air with such precision that one would think that he was the actual drummer for Iron Butterfly.

Scotty hurried to put away the pitcher of Kool-Aid; then he pulled at the basement door only to find that it had been locked. He pounded on the door, but the drum solo on the record drowned out any noise he made. So Scotty sat with his back to the basement door, waiting for the music to stop.

Maggie emerged much later. She wouldn’t look at Scotty. She went home.

Andrew Crow followed after and said, “No one made her do anything.”

Scotty didn’t understand. He handed Andrew a cup full of warm cherry Kool-Aid.

Then Andrew brought his pointer finger up to his nose and sniffed around it. He said, “I’m never washing this finger again.”

***

At dinner Scotty studied Maggie to see if she was upset. When she said what she was thankful for, she wasn’t specific, other than to say she was glad she was alive. Then she smiled slightly. She appeared normal. The same.

The following day she returned to Andrew Crow’s basement, and Scotty wasn’t allowed inside. As he paced in his backyard, Scotty decided Claire had been right—Andrew Crow was trouble. He had destroyed the Barbies; what was he doing now to his sister?

It was Scotty’s fault.

That night at dinner, the Judge was furious at having burnt the pork chops. Maggie’s job had been to remind the Judge to take them out of the oven, but she forgot. She’d been, Scotty decided, probably daydreaming about Andrew Crow. Claire argued that Maggie was only human. But the Judge shouted back, “I told you to remind me!”

As they ate, the Judge continued to yell.

After dinner Scotty walked over to where the new house was being built. Even being several houses away, Scotty could still hear the Judge slamming kitchen cabinets and shouting. It would soon be dark and he had only until the streetlights came on. Then he would have to go home, something he didn’t want to do.

The construction on the exterior of the house was almost complete. Soon they’d install windows and doors, lay down fresh sod, and new neighbors would be moving in.

Scotty walked around inside on the plywood floors. He liked seeing the support beams and the frame. The smell, too, of sawdust. Nice. He picked up an unused nail near the front-door area and tried to think up a use for it. As he imagined driving it through the palm of his hand, the streetlights came on.

Scotty knew he’d better head right home. He started to walk; his shoelaces were flapping on both shoes, so he knelt down near a rock pile and tried tying them. But he couldn’t so he tucked the laces in his shoe. It was then he saw an odd-looking rock, surrounded by a patch of dead weeds. He moved closer only to discover it was Tom Conway’s grenade.

“Scotty!” the Judge shouted impatiently. “Get home now!”

He touched it with his finger.

He looked around to see if anyone was watching.

“Scoootteeee!”

He stuffed it into his pocket.

Then he walked home.

(1)

After a lengthy discussion and on their third vote, the Judge and his children finally reached a decision: kidney shaped. Maggie had lobbied for a figure eight design, but Scotty wanted none of it. Claire negotiated the compromise. The pool would be seventeen by thirty-three feet, mid-sized, but outfitted with every perk: a diving board, a seven-foot blue fiberglass slide, underwater lights, and a small, cabinlike structure that would house the filter and pump and have storage room for water toys and cleaning materials. Their chain-link fence would be replaced with a six-foot wooden-slatted fence giving them privacy.

The Judge explained that it would take six to eight weeks to build. “If we’re lucky, it’ll be ready by the Fourth of July.”

Claire asked how they could be of help.

The Judge advised they stay out of the workers’ way. “Especially on days when they’re digging or pouring the cement.”

Scotty said that he knew a quick way to dig the hole.

Maggie said, “These men don’t need your help. They’re experts.”

And before another argument could break out, the Judge interrupted. “And do you know why we’re getting this pool?”

No one answered, for they weren’t sure.

The Judge said, “Because you kids deserve it.”

(2)

On the morning of the last day of school, Scotty and his classmates cleaned out their desks. While the others threw away most of their contents (and then ran outside for an extended recess), it took Scotty until lunchtime to fill the grocery sack he’d brought from home. He carefully considered each item: his old papers, drawings, colored pencils, a used Big Chief notebook full of scribbles, a box of mostly broken crayons, his green-handled scissors. He decided to save everything.

In the afternoon, while the third, fourth, and fifth graders attended Track and Field Day out on the playground, Mrs. Boyden had an annual awards ceremony for her students. Each year she made sure every one of them was honored for something: “Most Sincere,” “Best Listener,” “Most Improved Reader.”

Scotty waited patiently for his award. He’d been surprisingly well behaved the last several weeks. Mrs. Boyden did not know the reason, nor could Scotty have explained it, but it was a combination of things: a sadness about his mother, elation at the spring weather and the construction of the swimming pool,
and, perhaps most of all, the confidence of having his own grenade, which sat, hidden at home, in his sock drawer.

When Carole Staley won “Best Girl Artist,” Scotty knew he would be next.

As she handed him his “Best Boy Artist” certificate, Mrs. Boyden tried to remember an anecdote she could retell that would send him off into the summer happy and hopeful. All she could think of was his naked portrait, however; so she said nothing other than a remark about how she’d enjoyed teaching him as much as his sisters.

Scotty carefully folded his certificate and slid it into his back pocket.

In the final hour of second grade, Mrs. Boyden rushed to review what she had taught them. “So what else? What else did you learn?”

She pulled down the world map and pointed to places. They called out, “France” and “the Arctic Ocean.” She reminded them of all they had done. “And remember we learned how to tell time? How to read, how to add and subtract, remember?” She concluded that they had covered a great deal, that all her students were smarter than they were when the year started. “I can only imagine,” she said, minutes before the final school bell of the year rang, “what a world this will be if you keep learning at the rate you’ve been learning. Don’t you agree?”