The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis (9 page)

“SOMEBODY'S CALLING Y'ALL,” Starletta said.

Sure enough, from somewhere out in the woods, someone was calling a name.

The someone was Velma.

The name was Popeye.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “I got to go.”

He raced toward the path at the edge of the yard, with Elvis, Prissy, Calvin, Walter, Willis, and Shorty right behind him.

Popeye's heart was pounding as he ran past the Indian pipes toward the creek. Boo galloped along beside him, ears flapping.

Velma's wrath-filled voice thundered through
the woods, trampling the ferns and crashing into trees.

When he got to the creek, Popeye stopped.

Boo stopped.

Elvis, Prissy, Calvin, Walter, Willis, and Shorty stopped.

“Listen, y'all,” Popeye said. “Don't tell Velma about Starletta, okay?”

Elvis nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

“Maybe,” Calvin said.

Elvis punched him in the arm with a knuckle.

Then Popeye took a deep breath and walked around the curve in the path to meet his fate.

Velma had thumped Popeye in the head.

Thoink!

Like thumping a watermelon.

He'd looked down at his sneakers.

She'd thumped again.

Thoink!

Then she'd let fly with an avalanche of angry words. She'd been looking for him for hours. She'd been worried sick that he'd drowned in the creek.
He had no business hanging around all those wild kids. He'd better get himself on home in a hurry and stay there.

He had followed her back to the house, his head hanging, while Elvis and the others ran off to the Holiday Rambler.

And now here he was the next day, staring up at the heart-shaped stain on the ceiling of his bedroom.

“George V, Edward VIII, George VI . . .” drifted through the bedroom wall from the living room.

“Dead dogs live here,” Popeye whispered.

Boo's ears perked up.

“Dead dogs live here,” Popeye whispered again.

He got off the bed and looked out the window. The once-muddy yard had dried into hard slabs of red dirt. Patches of brown grass and weeds poked through here and there. Every now and then, a grasshopper sprang up and buzzed through the thick, still air before disappearing into the weeds again.

Popeye looked down the road in the direction of the Holiday Rambler. He wished he were in that silver motor home, playing cards with Elvis in the diner booth. Eating potato chips off a paper plate
with his name written on it in crayon. Helping Glory Jewell write country-western songs.

But here he was in his bedroom, listening to Velma recite the kings and queens of England in chronological order.

Popeye flopped back down on the bed.

Pssst.

Popeye sat up. “What was that?” he said to Boo.

Boo ambled over to the window, tail wagging.

“
Pssst
, Popeye.” Elvis's voice came through the open window from the bushes outside.

Popeye hurried over. “Hey,” he whispered.

“Calvin and them rode their bikes to the Quiki Mart, so you and me can go on back to Starletta's without them following us.”

“I got to stay in my room,” Popeye said. “Velma's still mad.”

“Yeah, but guess what?” Elvis said. “She told my dad he could count on Dooley to help him dig out the motor home.
And
. . .” He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. “She said she's going to drive over to Simpsonville today to pick Dooley up at his friend's house and bring them both back to help.” He jerked
a thumb toward the road. “Soon as she leaves, come get me.”

Popeye glanced over at his bedroom door. He could feel it coming.

Another vocabulary word.

quandary:
noun
; a state of uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation

He was about to find himself right smack in the middle of a quandary:

Should he go back to Starletta's with Elvis and find out about the dead dogs?

Or . . .

Should he stay here in his boring bedroom like Velma told him to?

WHEN THE BOYS got to Starletta's backyard, she was sleeping on a blanket, with chickens clucking around her and blackbirds flapping on the garden fence. She lay curled up on her side, her head resting on her hands and her butterfly wings flopping droopily behind her.

Ahem.

Elvis cleared his throat loudly.

Starletta opened her eyes.

Ahem.

Elvis cleared his throat again.

Starletta sat up, blinking in the morning sun.
Popeye and Elvis sat beside her. The blanket was hot and scratchy, with the faint scent of cedar.

“So,” Popeye said, “where are the dead dogs?”

He leaned forward.

Waiting.

Waiting.

“Uh-oh!” Starletta snapped her fingers. Then she jumped up and ran around the side of the house.

Popeye and Elvis raced after her. When they got to the front yard, Starletta was marching in circles in a plastic swimming pool with Yoo-hoo boats swirling in the water around her. Beside the pool, a garden hose spewed water, flipping and slithering around the yard like a snake. Starletta's feet slapped the water, sending waterfalls over the sides of the pool, spilling into muddy puddles in the yard.

“I told you she was cuckoo,” Elvis whispered.

But Popeye didn't think Starletta was cuckoo.

He thought she was eccentric.

eccentric:
adjective
; unconventional and slightly strange

“Where are the dead dogs?” he asked again.

Starletta swished the stick in the pool, splashing Popeye and Elvis. “In a dead dog place.”

“Where's that?”

“Someplace.”

“Someplace where?”

“Someplace.”

“Show us.”

“I only go there on Wednesdays,” Starletta said.

Popeye's thoughts raced. What day was today? Was it Wednesday?

No.

It was Tuesday.

Dang!

“Today
is
Wednesday,” Elvis said, winking at Popeye.

Starletta spun around and glared at him, her fists jammed into her waist. “You must think I'm stupid, little Elvis boy!” she hollered. “You think I don't know what day it is?”

Elvis shrugged.

“Will you show us tomorrow?” Popeye said.

Starletta poked the stick at the boats, making
them bob up and down like sailboats in the ocean. “Maybe.”

“But I might be gone tomorrow,” Elvis said. “Soon as Dooley and them dig our motor home out, we're leaving.”

“What motor home?” Starletta said.

Elvis told her about the stuck-in-the-mud Holiday Rambler. But Starletta stayed firm.

“Only on Wednesdays,” she said.

Popeye scrambled to think of some way to convince Starletta to show them the dead dog place on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.

But he couldn't.

All he could do was hope that the Holiday Rambler stayed in the mud for another day and that Dooley didn't have a miraculous change of character and turn into someone who could be counted on.

POPEYE AND ELVIS raced down the path that ran beside the creek. If Popeye didn't get back to the house before Velma got home, he was going to be a goner.

When they left the woods and made their way through the field toward the house, Popeye muttered “please, please, please” under his breath.

There was one thing he definitely did
not
want to see: Velma's car in the driveway.

There was one thing he definitely
did
want to see: the Holiday Rambler still stuck in the gravel road.

They raced around the shed in Popeye's backyard.

There was the driveway.

Velma's car was not there.

Popeye let out a whoop.

He and Elvis high-fived each other, gasping to catch their breath and grinning.

Then they ran down the road and around the corner.

There was the Holiday Rambler.

Tilted.

Stuck.

The boys high-fived each other again. Then Popeye dashed home to lie on his bed and stare at the ceiling until Velma got home.

Dooley had not let Popeye down. He had not had a miraculous change of character. He had not turned into someone who could be counted on. He had, in fact, disappeared with his friend, Shifty. Velma had driven all over Simpsonville and all over Fayette and everywhere in between looking for them.

“. . . don't know where I went wrong,” Velma muttered under her breath as she cut the crusts off Popeye's cheese sandwich.

Popeye sat at the kitchen table and traced the ivy pattern on the vinyl place mat with his finger. Tomorrow was Wednesday. The day that Starletta went to the place where dead dogs live. How was he going to convince Velma to let him go back to the creek with Elvis tomorrow?

How?

How?

How?

Velma dropped the sandwich onto the paper towel in front of him.

“Um, Velma?” Popeye said.

Velma sank into the chair across from him and lifted her eyebrows.

“Um . . .” Popeye said again.

Velma lifted her eyebrows a little higher.

“Never mind.” He took a bite of his sandwich.

Velma swatted at a fly that had landed on the sugar bowl. “That crazy family's been cooped up in that beehive trailer for five days,” she said. “If I was that poor woman, I'd be in the loony bin by now.”

She rolled up a crossword puzzle magazine and smacked it on the table. “Got him!” She scooped the
fly into her hand and tossed it in the sink. Then she shuffled around the kitchen, putting away the bread and mayonnaise and muttering about all those wild kids and that poor woman who oughta be in the loony bin.

“But then, I reckon she must be needing groceries,” Velma said.

Popeye felt a little flutter.

There was an itty-bitty crack in Velma's hard shell.

He had seen it happen before.

But his years of experience with Velma had taught him to keep quiet and leave her cracked shell alone. He tossed the last of his cheese sandwich under the table for Boo.