The Book of Bright Ideas Read online

  Winnalee’s sigh sounded half like a groan. “Fine. Then we’re gonna waste more time resting, because my arms are gonna fall off.” We sat down alongside the road, the long blades of grass tickling our bare legs, the sun hot on our backs. “Sorry about that, Ma. Button ain’t insulting you. She’s just a scaredy-cat.”

  I didn’t want to talk about me being scared, so I talked about Mike instead. “You think him and Freeda will get married?” I asked, thinking about what Aunt Verdella said, how she thinks that they’re falling in love and, if they do, she bets me and Winnalee could be flower girls and throw rose petals on the aisle for them.

  “I don’t know,” Winnalee said.

  “Do you want them to?”

  Winnalee screamed, waving her hands. “A wood tick. Get it off me!” I grabbed the little round tick crawling up her leg and tossed it in the grass.

  Winnalee stood up and picked up her ma. “Let’s get going. My arms aren’t rested, but I don’t want those damn ticks crawling on me.”

  “Do you want them to?” I asked again, as I slung our adventure bag over my shoulder.

  “No, I don’t want ticks crawling on me. I told you that!”

  Winnalee was crabby, which probably meant that she didn’t get enough sleep, because Ma said that makes kids crabby. “No, I meant do you want Freeda and Mike to get married.”

  “I like Mike,” she said. “He’s funny, and he likes the shows I put on for them. He makes good hamburgers too. But I heard Aunt Verdella say something to Freeda about them maybe getting married, and Freeda said, ‘Like hell!’ so I think that means no.”

  Winnalee stopped and pointed. “Button, look! A stop sign! That’s gotta be Marsh Road. Come on!”

  We were panting by the time we got to the stop sign. “Look, there it is!” Winnalee said, pointing to the white sign. “Now we go left. We’re almost there, Button!”

  But we weren’t almost there. We walked and walked and still didn’t come to a road on the left, only on the right. “I have to pee,” I told Winnalee. “Bad too,” and she told me to go in the ditch. I never peed outside before, but Winnalee said it was easy if you kept your legs spread enough when you squatted. “Otherwise you’re gonna pee on your leg or your shoes.”

  “You watch for cars!” I told Winnalee, even though we hadn’t seen even one car yet. I set down our bag and hurried into the ditch. “Why you going so far? No one’s gonna see you,” Winnalee said.

  “They might!” I yelled back, as I slipped just far enough into the woods that the brush and tree trunks could hide me.

  “You’re gonna get wood ticks on your butt!” Winnalee called, sounding a bit scared herself. I looked down at the ground, checking for snakes, or bugs, or anything else that might bite my bare butt, then, seeing none, I pulled the elastic of my pink skirt up high around my arms and pulled the snaps on my costume, which were tucked between my legs.

  I’d just started peeing—tiny sprinkles of pee wetting my ankles, no matter how far I spread them apart—when I heard the rumble of a motor. “Oh shit!” I said out loud, then gasped. Not just because somebody was coming, but because I swore. “Winnalee?”

  The rumble turned into a roar. “Somebody’s coming!” Winnalee yelled. I saw the orange and pink of her dancing dress coming through the woods. I hurried to pull up my underwear, wincing as I felt a couple drops of warm pee between me and my undies. I didn’t bother with the snaps, but just pulled my pink skirt down where it was supposed to be.

  We moved away from the leaves I’d wet and crouched down so whoever it was wouldn’t see us.

  We heard brakes squeal and rocks spit into the ditch, as whoever it was stopped. Winnalee’s eyes got wide, and it was her turn to say, “Shit.”

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” a mocking voice sang out.

  “It’s Tommy!” Winnalee said. She got up and marched right out to the road, me following her.

  “What are you doing here, Tommy Smithy!”

  “Lookin’ for you kiddies.”

  I gasped. “They know we’re gone?” Scared buzzed in my ears.

  Tommy leaned over the dusty black door of his beat-up truck. “Nah. Rudy sent me to check on Verdella and you kiddies, since he’s still busy with the pipes. She’s snoring on the couch. Never even opened her eyes when I came in. So I looked around the place and didn’t see you kiddies anywhere. Didn’t take no genius to figure out where you’d gone.”

  “He’s gonna tell, Winnalee,” I whispered. My legs felt like they were made of Jell-O, and the smell of the exhaust chugging out of Tommy’s truck was making me sick to my stomach.

  Winnalee shot me a look that said, “Shut up,” then she turned back to Tommy. “We’re just taking a walk. So what?”

  Tommy scratched his greasy forehead. “So what? Not sure that’s what Button’s ma or aunt would say.”

  Winnalee tipped her head back a bit. “Button’s ma is at work, and her aunt is snoring on the couch.”

  “I could stop and tattle to your sister,” Tommy said. “Wouldn’t mind an excuse to stop by and see her.”

  “Freeda isn’t even home, dummy. Her and Mike went skinny-dippin’.”

  The minute Winnalee said that, Tommy’s ugly eyebrows shot up. “You don’t say.”

  “Come on, Winnalee,” I said, not bothering to whisper this time. “Let’s go home.”

  Winnalee tugged her arm out of my grip. “No way! I got this far, I’m gonna keep goin’.” She hoisted her ma up higher, then started walking. Fast. I didn’t have any choice but to tag after her.

  “Go away, Tommy!” Winnalee shouted, as Tommy clanked his truck in gear and started coasting alongside of us.

  “You stupids,” he said. “You know how long it’s gonna take to get to Fossard’s and back? It’s almost four miles, both ways. That is, if you do get back.” Tommy made a creepy sound like a Halloween ghost.

  Winnalee’s steps slowed, but they didn’t stop.

  Tommy stopped his truck. I wanted to turn around and see what he was up to, but Winnalee told me to just keep walking and ignore him. We didn’t walk more than ten steps before his truck was rolling again. “Okay,” he called out his window. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  I could tell that Winnalee wanted to stop and ask him what the deal was, but she didn’t. She just kept walking and ignoring him.

  “I could be coaxed to drive you there,” he said.

  Winnalee stopped. “Why would somebody who isn’t even nice offer to do that?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Well,” he said. “You kiddies have given me a bit of a problem here. Rudy sent me to check up on things, I came lookin’ for ya, and found ya runnin’ off. I don’t bring you home, and my ass is gonna get chewed out.”

  “Don’t say you saw us, then,” Winnalee said.

  “Ain’t gonna work,” Tommy said. “He asks about you girls, and I say I didn’t see ya at the house, then he’ll ask why I didn’t look for ya. And if I say I did see ya, then I’d be lying. Course, there’s a solution to our little problem, you know.”

  “What’s that?” Winnalee asked.

  “Well, I could drive you two kiddies over to Fossard’s, then drop you off back home, tell Rudy everything’s fine, and no one would be wiser.”

  I got happy over his solution, because I was mighty thirsty.

  “So what’s in it for you, Tommy Smithy?” Winnalee asked.

  “What?” he asked. “Who said there’s anything in it for me?”

  “Stop acting like you don’t know what I mean. I can tell by the naughty look in your eye that you got something up your sleeve.”

  Tommy spit on the gravel, so close to Winnalee’s feet that she backed up. “You ain’t as dumb as you look, kid.”

  “So what’s the deal?”

  “Well, seems to me that if I help you get a glimpse of some pretty little ladies, you should help me get a glimpse of a pretty little lady too.”

  “You want to see the fairies with us?” Winnalee ask
ed.

  Tommy shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I guess you are as stupid as you look.”

  “What’s the bargain?” I asked. “We ain’t got all day.”

  “Well, neither do I, so I’ll tell it to ya straight. You tell me where Freeda and Mike are skinny-dippin’, and I’ll take you to Fossard’s.”

  “Don’t tell him!” I said. “He wants to see Freeda naked!”

  It was Winnalee’s turn to roll her eyes. “Freeda don’t care who sees her naked, Button. Come on.”

  I didn’t have any choice but to follow Winnalee around Tommy’s truck. He wouldn’t let us in, though, until Winnalee told him that Freeda and Mike were going to Crystal Lake.

  Tommy drove fast. So fast that Winnalee had to grip her arms around the urn so her ma wouldn’t go flying off the seat. And when he turned down the dead-end road, Winnalee crashed into me, and the door handle jabbed into my side.

  At the end of the drive, a tall, square house stood on a hill. The door was boarded shut, and the windows were broken, jagged triangles of glass glinting in the sun, like shark’s teeth.

  “Where’s the bomb shelter?” I asked.

  “It’s here, but you can’t see it till you get to it. It’s cut on the other side of that hill, right there. Underneath those red pines.”

  “Who cares where the bomb shelter is,” Winnalee said. “Where’s the beck?”

  Tommy brought the car to a stop, and Winnalee and I had to push our backs against the seat to keep from cracking our heads on the dash.

  “The beck is straight that a-ways about fifty yards. Right through those trees,” he said, pointing at an angle off to the left of the house. “I’m giving you ten minutes, then I’m honking the horn. You ain’t back here in that time, and I’m leavin’ without ya. And take that creepy urn with ya when ya go too.”

  As much as I hated Tommy Smithy, I was glad he was here, as I looked over at the hill where he said the bomb shelter was.

  Winnalee opened the car door. “Come on, Button!”

  We ran fast across the grown-over yard. Winnalee, because she wanted to hurry to the beck, and me, because I wanted to get past the bomb shelter.

  “Keep going!” Tommy yelled to us. “Farther!”

  When we got to the woods, Winnalee stopped. “Hear that, Button?”

  “What?” I yelled, sure she’d say she’d heard the scraping of a shovel.

  “It’s running water! The beck!” Winnalee sounded like she was gonna cry.

  It didn’t take us long before we saw the silver sparkle of water showing through the trees. We hurried as quickly as we could, me in the front so I could hold the branches away, since Winnalee’s arms were wrapped around the urn.

  “Let’s make a lot of noise, Button, so the fairies wake up!”

  I called for the fairies too, but I didn’t shout like Winnalee, for fear that what we would wake up was Fossard’s ghost.

  The beck sat low, trees close to the edge leaning over the sparkly water, like they were bowing. Winnalee stopped, her eyes looking up and down the bank of the stream. “Hello?” she called out. “Come out, please. We won’t hurt you. We just want to see you.”

  The breeze, or a little animal, ruffled the leaves to the side of us, and Winnalee turned fast, sure that it was a fairy who’d made the rustle. “Did you hear that? Over there!” Winnalee rushed toward the noise, and I followed.

  “Come on, fairies! We only have a couple minutes. Just one peek?”

  Winnalee and I spun in slow circles, straining our eyes as we searched the underbrush for them. Then, all too soon for Winnalee (but not too soon for me), Tommy’s horn sounded.

  “Shit!” Winnalee said. Her pretty face crumpled, like she might cry.

  “We’d better go, Winnalee.” I felt sad for her, so I added, “Next time we’ll come right before dark, then we’ll see them for sure.”

  “But I want—” Just like that, Winnalee stopped, her pink mouth opening into a wide-open smile. “Look!” I looked where she was pointing, right above water that was so bright it hurt my eyes, and I caught the flicker of two tiny, rainbowy wings. There one second, then gone the next.

  “Did you see that? Did you?”

  Her voice was as soft as a sleepy baby’s sigh when she spoke again. “They’re here, Button. We’ve found them.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that all she’d seen was the wings of a dragonfly.

  Aunt Verdella was still sleeping when Tommy dropped us off. We snuck in the house as quietly as we could, drank three cups of water each, then got out the egg-salad sandwiches Ma had put in the fridge for our lunch and the box of Lay’s from on top of the fridge. We’d barely sunk our teeth into our sandwiches when we heard Aunt Verdella groan.

  “Girls?” she called. We hurried into the living room as she was trying to get up. “Oh, there you are.” She rubbed her head. “Good Lord, those pills make me goofy. Help Auntie get up, will you, so I can use the bathroom?” When we went through the kitchen—me and Winnalee propped under her arms like crutches—and Aunt Verdella saw our plates on the table, she said, “That’s my girls. I knew I could count on you to be good while Aunt Verdella slept.” I was glad she could only see the top of my head, since Aunt Verdella once said that you can always see guilt written on someone’s face.

  18

  I knew right away why Aunt Verdella was smiling when we packed up the few baby sweaters and old junk that didn’t sell at the community sale that second Saturday in August. She’d had her tables almost full, and she had sold almost every single thing, but for what was in the little box she carried. That meant that she probably had enough money now to buy Hannah Malone’s plot and gravestone.

  “I wish I’d have made money today,” Winnalee said. She looked like a sad clown with her droopy lips and the skin around them stained red from cherry Kool-Aid.

  I sighed one of those quick little sighs that people sigh when they get irritated. I’d told Winnalee that we should get busy making pot holders, since Aunt Verdella got us more loops, but she said, “Maybe tomorrow,” she was sick of making them for now. Every day for two weeks she said the very same thing, until it was too late, so I just made some without her when I was at home.

  Aunt Verdella stopped at my house first, and Freeda’s truck pulled in right behind us. Aunt Verdella looked in her rearview mirror. “Oh, I thought Freeda was going off with Mike to Porter today.”

  “She was, but then she wasn’t. He came,” Winnalee said, “but then they got into a fight. I heard Freeda tell him that she doesn’t need his clingy shit.”

  “Oh dear,” Aunt Verdella said.

  Aunt Verdella got out of the car, and while the ladies talked, me and Winnalee danced in the grass in our dancing costumes. Finally, Aunt Verdella asked Freeda to take Winnalee home with her. “I’ll stop by in a bit. I want to talk to Jewel about something first.”

  “No fair!” Winnalee said.

  “Evelyn, maybe you should play outside for a while,” Ma said, as she opened the front door.

  “Oh no, she can come in, Jewel,” Aunt Verdella said.

  Aunt Verdella and I followed Ma into the kitchen. Ma set her bags on the table.

  Aunt Verdella grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to stand by her chair. She gave me the same happy-secret look she gave me over the past few weeks every time Winnalee was around and we couldn’t talk about our plan out in the open.

  “It looks to me like somebody’s got a secret!” Ma said with a smile.

  Aunt Verdella ha-ha-ed, but then she got serious. “I don’t know if Button told you what happened a while back, with Tommy knocking over Winnalee’s urn and spilling some of her ma’s ashes, but…well, I decided right then and there that I’m gonna use my TV money to buy Winnalee and Freeda’s ma a headstone and a plot. I’ve been saving up every dime I make at the sales, all month, and I think I have enough now!”

  Ma was leaned over, putting milk away in the refrigerator. She popped up and blinked at Aunt Ve
rdella. “Your TV money?”

  “Oh, Jewel, if you’d have seen her face when her ma’s ashes spilled, well, you’d understand why I’ve gotta do this. Wasn’t that the saddest thing, Button? That’s why I couldn’t give up my Saturdays at the community sale when you and Freeda would invite me along on your outings. I’d talked to Mr. Parkins at the funeral home in town, and he gave me a rough idea of what a stone and a plot would cost here, and he didn’t figure it would be much different in Hopested, so I knew I had to earn a bit more money for the surprise and, of course, the cost of the trip itself.”

  “What does Rudy say about this?”

  “He says it’s my money, and I should do with it what I want. I believe I’ve got enough now. Mr. Parkins gave me the name of a funeral director over there. A Mr. Hamilton, who will order the stone for me and set me up with a plot. Rudy’s gonna drive me over there.” Aunt Verdella gave me a grin, then said to Ma, “And, Jewel, I’m hoping that you’ll let Button go with. This little girl has worked hard making pot holders, and she’s given just about every cent she’s made to Hannah Malone’s burial fund, so I think it would be nice if she could go along. Winnalee is Button’s best friend, and I know how much she’d like to help pick out a stone and plot for her little friend’s surprise. I’d watch over her good, Jewel. You know I would.”

  “I know that, Verdella,” Ma said. She looked over at me, and I didn’t say nothing out loud, but in my head I was begging her to say yes. Not because I wanted to pick out one of those plot places, or one of those creepy Halloween stones, but because I wanted to help make Winnalee and Freeda happy. I also wanted to go away with Aunt Verdella and Uncle Rudy on a long car trip and stay in a motel like fancy people do.

  “I don’t see what harm there would be in her going along,” Ma said.