Dead End in Norvelt (21 page)

“What do we do next?” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. Instead she showed me the silver whistle she had on a string around her neck. “The secret signal,” she whispered back.

The Hells Angel grabbed a can of gasoline and walked over to the porch of the house and began to slosh gas onto the boards and railing.

I looked at Bunny but she didn’t move. I elbowed her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two fist-size rocks. She gave me one. I nodded. Then she stood up and yelled, “Hey!”

The guy stopped and turned toward us and she threw her rock. It hit the house. He dropped his gas can and I heard his metal lighter flip open.

“Hey!” I yelled, and threw my rock. I had no idea where it went, but in an instant the entire porch burst into flames as if I had thrown a grenade. Bunny was blowing her whistle and the Hells Angel with his wild hair and bushy beard could see me in the firelight.

He pointed at me. “Kid,” he growled, “I’m gonna kill you!”

That was the moment I realized my mask was pushed up on my head and he could see my face, and I could see that he was running in my direction.

“Run for your life!” Bunny cried out, and she took off.

I ran in another direction. I don’t think the Hells Angel followed because I could hear their car take off and peel rubber as it hit the main road.

I slowed down for a moment and that was when I could hear Bunny’s whistle start up again, and then other whistles followed. The Girl Scouts had a system set up, but I didn’t have time to admire it because I knew that the fire department would be called and that fire whistle would go off and wake the entire town and I knew Mom would hop up and the first thing she would do is dash into my room and check on me to make sure my room wasn’t on fire.

I ran as hard as I could with the costume bunched up under one arm. My mask went flying off my face but I didn’t stop. Just when I got past Miss Volker’s house I heard the loud fire whistle. I knew Mom wouldn’t find me in my room. I couldn’t get there fast enough. There was only one thing I could do. I ran to the back of our garage and opened the little door. I ripped the costume over my head and threw it to one side, then I quickly opened the souvenir chest and grabbed the binoculars and ran back out the little door and around the garage and up the steps to our back door and in a flash I was in the kitchen. Mom was just flicking on the light.

“Where were you?” she asked, and I could see the concern on her face because she had been in my room.

“Here,” I said, avoiding the question as I held out the binoculars. “Quick. Which house is on fire?”

She held the binoculars to her eyes, and as she stood at the kitchen sink and scanned the town I slipped down the hall to my room and kicked off my shoes and threw the flashlight on the bed and wiped the sweat off my face with my pillow.

When I returned to the kitchen she was on the phone with Mr. Spizz. The fire had been put out by neighbors almost as quickly as it was started. The house was scorched, but not burned.

By the time she got off the phone I was in the bathroom.

“Good night,” she said.

“Sleep tight,” I said through the closed door.

20

After that night
I just stayed around the house like a good angel. Mom did ask me how I got out of my bedroom so fast to get the binoculars. I gave her that innocent look and just said, “Boy, you must have been in a sound sleep. The fire whistle was going on for a long time before you woke.” That seemed to satisfy her and, like any lie, the fewer details you give the better it is.

But it wasn’t Mom who I thought was going to kill me. I was just hauling a wheelbarrow full of dirt around the side of the house when a huge man roared up the driveway on a motorcycle. He had a long beard combed down the middle and pulled back over his shoulders and tied together in a knot behind his neck. He looked just like the Hells Angel who said he was going to kill me. I’m dead, I thought when he got off his chopper and reached into one of the black leather saddlebags and pulled out a hammer and spike and swaggered in my direction.

I figured he would pick me up, press me against a tree trunk, and drive the spike through my forehead and leave me hanging there while he burned our house down. All I had to fight back with was a pick and shovel, and I was so tired I could hardly lift either of them to defend myself. My only regret was that I hadn’t written down my obituary, but I figured Miss Volker would do a good one. I had read her This Day In History column and July 28 was when Henry VIII had Thomas Cromwell executed, and Robespierre was guillotined, and a U.S. Army bomber accidentally flew into the seventy-ninth floor of the Empire State Building and killed fourteen people. It was already a good day for death, and I was about to go down in history.

“Hey, kid,” he called out, and waved his hammer at me as if he were Thor and about to crush my little head with one massive blow. “Where is War Chief?”

“What?” I yelled back, and got ready to run away.

“Your pony,” he said as he stomped toward me. “I’m the farrier who is here to fix your pony.”

“I thought you were a Hells Angel,” I said.

“I used to be,” he replied. “But fighting all the time and being really drunk and nasty got boring. So now I just take care of animals.”

“Over there,” I yelled back with some relief, and pointed to where War Chief was trying to catch flies in his mouth.

He turned around and grabbed more tools from his saddlebags. Mom was down working at the pants factory, so I just hung around with the farrier. He took off War Chief’s old worn-down horseshoes. “Boy, this sure is overdue,” he said as he began to carefully clip the hooves and peel away the old layers. He filed them down and shaped them. Then he gently went from hoof to hoof and cleaned the frog. After that he nailed new shoes onto War Chief. Finally he went back to his motorcycle and returned with a bunch of carrots. As he rubbed War Chief’s nose and fed him he turned to me and asked, “Is your mom here to pay me?”

This was my chance to escape. “She told me that she was trading me for your work, so you can take me with you,” I said in my polite voice. “I’m more valuable than money.”

He glanced at me and grinned. “I’m sure you are,” he replied. “But it’s a lot cheaper to keep money in my pocket than to feed a kid. I’ll hold out for the cash.”

“I’m sure she’ll pay you,” I said. “She works really hard and is the most honest person I know—more honest than me.”

“She told me on the phone that if she wasn’t here to go to the pants factory,” he said, “so I’ll go down there.”

And then I desperately blurted out, “Do you want to see the igloo I made out of books?”

He looked me in the eye then reached forward and placed his big, soft hand on my forehead. “I think you’ve been out in the sun too long,” he said. “You better go in there and get some rest.”

21

Finally the telephone rang
and in a minute I was back at Miss Volker’s house.

“Who died?” I asked with a little too much enthusiasm.

“No one,” she said, and gave me a cross look. “Drive over to Mertie-Jo’s house and tell her I need more cookies,” she instructed, and waved her hand toward a ten-dollar bill on my desk. “These old ladies really love them for dessert, and since I can’t bake anymore it is the least I can do to help your mom out with those great meals she cooks.”

“Sure,” I replied, and crushed the ten-dollar bill into the palm of my hand. I was eager to visit Mertie-Jo. I loved the way she smiled at me like a dazed sunflower.

It was the first time I had driven by myself and that made me nervous, and then going to Mertie-Jo’s house made me more nervous because I liked her but would never tell her because I couldn’t even say I liked her to myself. Even though I drove slowly to her house I felt as if I had sprinted all the way there because I was kind of sweaty and breathing hard when I arrived. I wiped my hand across my nose and checked for blood as I walked from the car to her porch. I was clean. I rang the doorbell, and when she opened the door and saw it was me she smiled her special smile as her head slowly descended, like the sun setting against the beautiful beach of her tanned shoulder. “Hi,” she said softly. “Nice to see you.”

“Hi,” I chirped, and smiled brightly as if I were a blinding sun that had just risen.

She squinted at me and I knew I was supposed to start a conversation, but it was as if I had suddenly had a total eclipse of the sun and my mind faded to black and became wordless. After a few quiet minutes she raised her head back up and asked, “So, why did you ring my doorbell?”

Her question snapped me out of myself. “Oh, Miss Volker needs more Thin Mints,” I replied.

“Must be my lucky day,” she said, finally delighted by something I said. “I sold a box to Mr. Spizz and one to Mr. Huffer, and now Miss Volker can have all I’ve got left,” Mertie-Jo offered. “We’re moving, and I can’t take them with me.”

“Why are you leaving?” I asked, sounding a little too alarmed.

“My dad needs a job,” she explained. “I mean, it’s been good that I’m making money on the cookies but it’s not enough to keep us going. Everyone in Norvelt would have to eat about a thousand cookies each day in order for us to get by.”

“I’d eat a thousand cookies,” I said. “If you’d stay.”

“It wouldn’t make me feel real good to be the cause of your grotesque weight gain,” she said, and puffed out her cheeks in a chubby way.

“Well, I’m sorry you are leaving,” I said.

“I’m not sorry,” she replied. “Norvelt is kind of dead. We’re moving to Pittsburgh.”

I didn’t know what else to say so I showed her the ten-dollar bill, which was a little sweaty, and said, “Miss Volker will buy all your Thin Mints.”

“Great! Wait right here,” she replied, and closed the door.

In a minute she opened it up and her dad stepped onto the porch with three big brown boxes. “Where do you want these, son?” he asked.

“The trunk,” I replied, and pointed toward the car. “I’ll open it for you.”

“Did you drive here?” he asked as we walked down the driveway.

“Yeah,” I said proudly.

“You must be mature for your age,” he remarked.

“I am,” I said, and proudly puffed out my chest as we reached the car. Then I opened the trunk and when I lifted the lid I let out the most high-pitched girlie scream of my life. “Oh cheeze-us!” I cried out, and jumped up and down with my arms flopping around. “There is a dead old lady in the trunk!”

Mertie-Jo’s dad dropped the boxes and hurried to where I was standing. “Looks like she’s been dead a long time,” he said softly with a puzzled expression on his face. “Why, she’s become a skeleton.”

It was a skeleton. A very white skeleton but wearing a lady’s flowered dress and red shoes.

“Wait a minute,” he said, perking up. “This is a fake skeleton—the kind they have in science class.” He reached into the trunk, lifted it out by its neck, and rattled it back and forth. “Oo-oooo-oooh,” he moaned, and shook the skeleton in front of my face. The jaw broke away and bounced off the toe of my sneaker.

“Ouch,” I said, and picked it up. I turned to look at Mertie-Jo but she was back in the house. Through the kitchen window I spotted her on the telephone, and it didn’t take me long to realize she was probably calling Bunny because faintly I heard her squeal, “Oh cheeze-us!” And then she jumped around with her arms flopping up and down as I had done. She was just like Miss Volker making fun of Mr. Spizz. I felt my cheeks redden and for a moment I felt sorry for him until I touched my nose and there was a little smudge of blood on my upper lip. I wiped Mr. Spizz out of my mind just as quickly as I wiped the blood away on the back of my hand.

Her dad dropped the dressed skeleton back into the trunk. “I’ll just put these boxes in the backseat,” he offered, and I could tell by his hokey voice that he was laughing at me himself. I walked around him to the front seat and slipped behind the wheel.

“Good luck in Pittsburgh,” I said after he closed my door. I wanted him to like me even if Mertie-Jo made fun of me. I started the engine and pressed down on the gas to make the engine roar. The moment Mr. Kernecky stepped back from the car I punched the gas pedal and took off like I was a real man and not some spineless kid who was afraid of a plastic skeleton in a dress. When I got to Miss Volker’s house I stacked up all three boxes on top of each other and carried them as if I were Hercules. It almost killed me.

After I put the cookies in the kitchen I didn’t want to go home, so I began to polish all of Miss Volker’s scuffed-up old-lady shoes. That was when the telephone rang.

“Miss Volker’s house,” I said politely.

“This is Mr. Huffer,” he said, and even though I couldn’t see him I could tell he was in his sad pose. “Tell Miss Volker that an ambulance has just dropped off Mrs. Hamsby. She looks in rather bad shape and her children called to tell me to go ahead and cremate her immediately. I am preparing to do just that in a short while, so if she wants to examine Mrs. Hamsby she needs to get here on the double.”

“Hold on a minute,” I said, and lowered the phone.

Before I could say anything Miss Volker stood up and walked gingerly across the floor in her bare feet. “Which one?” she asked, and stared out the window toward the funeral parlor.

“Mrs. Hamsby,” I replied.

“I sure liked her,” Miss Volker said in a quiet voice. “Ask him if there are any unusual details. If not, tell him to go ahead and later I’ll send you by to pick up the paperwork so I can sign it.”

I relayed the message to Mr. Huffer. “Tell her it looks like she died of natural causes,” he said. “She called the operator and complained of body spasms. The ambulance was sent but they found her expired in the kitchen. Most likely another old-lady heart attack.”

“Go ahead with it,” I said, and he hung up.

Then as I continued to polish the shoes and buff them, Miss Volker walked over to her needlepoint map and stuck a red map pin into Mrs. Hamsby’s roof at A-41. She continued to stand by the map and tidy up the pins, but I knew there was nothing to tidy up. She was just letting time pass as she collected her thoughts.