"A book that is resplendent with humor, irony, thoughtful introspection, and well-paced plotting." —School Library Journal
"An engaging story with a lively, thoughtful-provoking cast." —Kirkus
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About the author: Joe Cottonwood is the author of four award-winning novels for children including the best-selling Quake! His novels for adults include Famous Potatoes and Clear Heart. He has published a book of poetry, and he has written numerous songs. He has worked as a plumber, electrician, and carpenter and currently makes his living as a building contractor. His home is in La Honda, a small town in the mountains of California.
Boone Barnaby
a novel by Joe Cottonwood
Smashwords edition Copyright © 2009 by Joe Cottonwood
Previously published in 1990 by Scholastic, Inc. as The Adventures of Boone Barnaby. For this current edition the author has abridged a few boring paragraphs and corrected a few errors in the text.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Chapter One: Babcock
I live in San Puerco, California. It's a little town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There are just a few people and a whole mess of big trees tall enough to trap the fog blowing in from the Pacific Ocean. It's so quiet here, ducks sleep on the street. Banana slugs suck on our windows. Just about everybody has a wood stove and a pickup truck — except my dad. He has a computer and a Volkswagen bus.
The day after Labor Day, the morning of the first day of the new school year, I had just one thought on my mind: soccer. We had a team; we had a coach, an assistant coach, a league to play in; but we only had ten players. First day of school, I might find a new kid, a speedy kid, a strong kid who could run like lightning and kick like thunder. Our team is The San Puerco Thunderbolts. Last year, we never won a game. We were always playing ten against eleven. My dad said maybe we should pick a new name: The San Puerco Doormats. He was joking.
If there was a new kid in town I'd probably already know it, but as my dad says, you never can tell who — or what — is going to come out of the woods. And we have a lot of woods. Redwoods.
First thing I saw in the schoolyard was Danny with a wicked grin on his face.
"Guess what I found," he said.
"A Thunderbolt? Number eleven?"
"Nope," said Danny. "Not a Thunderbolt. A raindrop, maybe. Round and soft and wet. And when it hits the ground, it goes plop." Again he grinned.
"Who?"
"Him." Danny pointed across the playground where I saw a new kid, a fat kid carrying a briefcase. The fat kid was black.
Danny's brown. I'm white. And that's about all there is to say about color. It's never been an issue with Danny or me.
"Aw, Danny," I said.
"Come on, Boone," said Danny, still grinning. "Let's have some fun."
Sometimes Danny thinks it's fun to step on worms or throw stones at squirrels. When he gets that way, I tag along so I can try to stop him. I could just leave, but he's my friend and my soccer buddy. He's like a half-trained puppy tearing into a shoe — you can't teach him not to chew, but you can try to interest him in something he's allowed to have, like a bone.
Danny was sauntering across the asphalt around some girls skipping rope. I followed. I made up my mind to keep my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets, at least until I could find out what he had in mind.
The fat kid was kneeling over some pebbles next to a garden where a couple of straggly red flowers were blooming. He picked up a shiny white rock and rubbed it between his fingers.
"What's that?” Danny said.
"A pebble," said the fat kid, looking up.
"Dsh," said Danny, which is something he says a lot, and what it means is — well, it can mean anything. In this case, it meant "Duh. Of course. Tell me something I don't already know."
But the fat kid didn't know what it meant. He only stared at Danny, looking slightly nervous as if he knew what Danny was leading up to and had been through it many times before on many other first days of school.
"Dsh dsh," said Danny.
"What?" said the fat kid.
"The pebble," said Danny, grinning. "A gold nugget?"
The fat kid stood up. "Quartz," he said. "Milky quartz." He opened his briefcase — sproing went the latches — and dropped the pebble inside.
"You collect quartz?" asked Danny.
The fat kid pulled a blue handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his forehead and upper lip. He was sweating. "I collect everything under the sun," he said.
"Dsh," said Danny, nodding. I know what he meant: Nobody at our school carried a briefcase, and nobody in the whole world who we had ever met carried a handkerchief in his pocket. Then Danny, grinning again, said, "You collect candy bars? Doughnuts? Pecan pies?"
"All right.” The fat kid suddenly smiled. He didn't relax, but he smiled. He looked as if he knew exactly what Danny was up to now, and though he may not have liked it, at least he was ready for it.
Danny stopped grinning. He hadn't expected the kid to smile at him. "Dsh," he said, which I think meant he didn't know what else to say.
"Look. I'm the fat kid," said the fat kid. "And you must be the bully."
Danny stepped forward. "I ain't no bully," he said.
"Sorry."
"Take it back!"
"Is that an order?"
"Yes!"
The fat kid looked at me. I still had my hands in my pockets. "Danny," I said. "Ease up." I couldn't think of any bone to throw him.
Danny wouldn't back down. He was right in the fat kid's face. "He called me a name," he said. "Take it back."
The fat kid sighed. He shrugged. He set down his briefcase. "No," he said.
Danny pushed him in the chest.
The fat kid didn't budge. Danny, in fact, stepped backward as if he'd pushed off against a wall. He stepped up again. He was making fists.
Again, strangely, the fat kid smiled.
Danny hit him in the belly. The fat kid said, "Oof," but then he made a move like falling on his side while rolling out his legs, which caught Danny at the ankles and tripped him to the ground. Quicker than I would've thought a fat kid could move, he was sitting on top of Danny in the garden between two ragged flower stalks.
Danny couldn't even wiggle. About a dozen kids were standing in a half circle around us. "Lemme out," Danny squeaked. "I can't breathe."
The fat kid stood up and brushed off his pants. "Sorry," he said.
"Dsh," said Danny. "What's your name?"
"Babcock."
"What's your first name?"
"Babcock."
"Well then what's your last name?"
"Babcock."
"Babcock Babcock?" Danny shook his head. "Dsh."
"No. Just Babcock. That's all."
"But you gotta have more than one name."
"Says who?"
Danny shrugged. "Dsh," he said.
"And what's your name?" said Babcock. "Dsh?"
"No. Danny." He smiled. "And this is my buddy Boone," he said pointing at me.
"Hello Boone. Buddy Boone. Hello Danny Dsh."
"Hello Babcock," I said.
"Dsh," said Danny. Then he grinned. "Hey Babcock," he said. "You play soccer?"
"No."
"Wanna try?"
Babcock smiled, and this time it was real.
When the bell rang, the principal came out and read the names of who belonged in what classroom. Danny, Babcock, and I were in the same class, which was no surprise. There's only one teacher for each grade at my school, and some grades have to double up. As my Dad says, "Small town, small school, small minds." But I don't think he means it about the minds.
Our teacher was Mrs. Rule. Everybody knew she was strict but fair. She had taut black skin and flashing eyes. She kept her hair in a bun with not one hair hanging free. Her clothes never wrinkled. I never saw her sweat. Danny said once, "I bet her caca don't even stink."
Mrs. Rule called the roll. "Elizabeth Abrams?"
"Here."
"Susanna Ardale?"
"Here."
"Babcock?"
"Here."
A giggle ran through the girls in the class.
Mrs. Rule shot them The Look. Immediately, they were silent. She had one of those looks that could split boulders.
"Mr. Babcock has only one name," she said to the class. "We will have to get used to that." She turned to Babcock. "Would you like to explain why you only have one name?"
"No," said Babcock.
"Do you mind if I expla— "
"Yes," said Babcock.
"Hmm," said Mrs. Rule. She gave Babcock the same look she'd given the giggling girls.
Babcock met her eye. He had the same unrelaxed smile on his face that I'd seen him give Danny just before the fight.
Not a sound in the room.
Mrs. Rule clucked her tongue. I suppose it was like Danny saying dsh. It could mean anything.
I saw sweat gathering on Babcock's upper lip.
Then to my surprise Mrs. Rule looked down at her attendance list. "Boone Barnaby?" she said.
"Here," I said.
Score one, I thought, for Babcock.
Babcock came to soccer practice wearing the same clothes he'd worn to school. His pants were already dirty from the scuffle he'd had with Danny. Everybody else on the team was wearing shorts, cleats, and shinguards.
"You got any shorts?” Danny said.
"No," Babcock said.
"Dsh. You'll need some."
"Why?"
"For soccer. Everybody wears shorts."
"Why?"
"Because, " Danny said. “ You get hot."
"Not me," Babcock said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
The first thing at practice, the coach always tells us to take a lap. We run in a bunch except for Dylan who always falls behind — sometimes, way behind if he gets distracted by a lizard or a bumblebee. Dylan is the coach's son. It's not that he's slow. He's like a butterfly. You never know what flower he'll light on next.
The coach arrived, late, and immediately said, "Okay team, take a lap."
"What?" said Babcock.
"A lap," the coach said. "Who are you?"
I said, "This is Babcock. He wants to join the team."
"Do you?" the coach said.
"Well, sir, Danny said you needed another player. I thought I'd try it out."
The coach looked him up and down, from sweating forehead to fat body to long pants to leather shoes. Babcock was still holding his briefcase.
The coach shook his head. "You try us out," he said. "And we'll try you out. Now take a lap."
"Lap what?” Babcock said.
"Run," I said. "Around the field."
Babcock groaned. But he set down the briefcase and started to jog. His cheeks bounced as he ran.
We ran in a bunch with Dylan slightly behind and Babcock way back, looking like he was going to die. Then as I kept on running I saw Dylan stop, reach down, and pick something up. He stood there, examining it, as Babcock lumbered up to him. Babcock stopped. He studied the item in Dylan's hand. Then they both set off jogging, slowly, at Babcock's pace, talking and looking at whatever was in Dylan's hand.
We milled around and kicked some balls. The coach, whose name is Walt, paced back and forth. Walt has a white beard and looks about a hundred years old, but he says he's forty something. He rides around on a big black Harley Davidson motorcycle.
When Dylan and Babcock finally arrived three minutes later, Walt said sarcastically, "Thank you for joining us again."
Babcock wiped his face with a blue handkerchief.
Dylan said, "We found a dead dragonfly."
"Damselfly," Babcock said.
"Dragonfly," Dylan said.
"Babcock," Walt said, "I would say that speed is not your greatest asset. Would you agree with that?"
"Depends, sir. Slow, yes. I'm quick, though."
Walt frowned. "You're slow. But you're quick." He shook his head. "I suppose you're also stupid. But smart."
"My father would probably say so, sir."
"Let's try you at goalie."
"Hurray!” Dylan shouted. He'd been our goalie, and hated it.
"Yes, sir," Babcock said.
"Call me Walt."
"Yes, sir."
"Get in the goal, and we'll try some shots."
"Yes, sir," Babcock said. He looked around the field. He didn't move. "What's the goal?"
Walt turned his face to the sky. "Great galloping banana slugs!" he said to the clouds. "Why me?"
Jack was just arriving. Jack is a hotshot high school soccer player who helps Walt as assistant coach.
"Jack," Walt said. "This is Babcock. He's trying out for goalie. He's slow and quick and stupid and smart and, I suppose, short and tall."
"No, sir," Babcock said. "Regular size. I'm fat, though."
"Fat and skinny, I suppose," Walt said.
"No, sir. Just fat." Babcock smiled.
"I'm not arguing," the coach said. "Jack. Would you show Babcock where the goal is, and what he's supposed to do?"
Jack took Babcock to the goal. Walt was mumbling to himself, "Slow but quick. Gimme a break."
We lined up to practice penalty shots. Babcock stood in the goal. Jack stood behind the net. "Shoot," he said.
Dylan shot. The ball rolled straight to Babcock, who bent over and picked it up. "Is that it?” Babcock asked.
"Throw it back," Jack said.
Danny took a shot. His kick rolled toward the corner of the goal. Babcock leaped to his left and blocked it.
"Hey," Jack said.
Then it was my turn. I sent a perfect shot in the air toward the corner. Babcock jumped like a flying cannonball, stretched out both arms, and caught the ball in his fingertips.
"Outstanding!” Jack said.
Walt turned his face to the sky. "Thank you, great galloping banana slugs," he said to the clouds.
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Chapter Two: Damaged Goods
After practice I walked home. I passed a couple of garbage cans that had been knocked over by dogs. Paper cups and Styrofoam meat trays were blowing along the street. There's a pack of wild dogs in town. People from over the hill bring their unwanted dogs here and abandon them. Some of them die. Some get adopted. And some learn to raid garbage cans and go wild.
My mother was making pizza. My sister Clover was practicing cartwheels on the rug. My little brother Dale was racing matchbox cars down the stair rail.
My mom said, "Tom's late." Tom is my father. "He hasn't called. We'll just go ahead and eat without him. Hurry up and change your clothes, Boone."
I went to my room. As I took off my shorts, I noticed out the window a foot, attached to a leg, on the back porch. I stepped into the hallway and looked out the window of the door to get a better angle of view and saw two feet in jogging shoes, one untied, and two legs in blue jeans. I assumed that they were attached to a body and that the body was sitting against the door down below the window where I couldn't see it.
So I opened the door.
A man's body fell at my feet. Now his head was in the hall, his legs still on the porch.
Was he dead?
No. Breathing.
He was asleep. He smelled like a broken bottle of whiskey. His name, I knew, was Damon Goodey, though most people called him Damaged Goods, or Goods for short. All the kids knew him. Grownups pointed him out as an example of how we might turn out if we messed up our lives. And now he lay at my feet. His mouth hung open; his nose needed wiping; his breathing was slow and raspy-sounding.
I ran back to the kitchen. My father had just arrived home and was hugging my mother. They hug for about a minute, and you can't interrupt them. What was odd about this hug was that he was only holding her with one hand, while the other was carrying a red five-gallon can. When they finished, my mother said, "Why aren't you in your clothes, Boone? Dinner's ready."
"Goods," I said. "Damon Goodey's here."
My father frowned. He set down the can. "What does he want?"
"He's asleep."
"Where?"
"In the hall."
"The hall?"
My mother said, "Do something, Tom. Dinner's ready."
I followed my father. I was still in my underpants. Dale and Clover followed me.
Goods hadn't moved.
"That does it," my father said. "Give me a hand."
My brother, my sister, my dad, and I all picked Damon Goodey up by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the porch. He was soft but heavy, kind of like moving a mattress. My dad slammed the door and locked it. Goods never opened his eyes.
"Wash your hands. All of you," my father said. "I've had it with this town. I'm calling the sheriff."
I asked, "What will they do?"
"Arrest him, I hope. Move him, at least."
"Won't he be mad?"
"I should think so."
"Couldn't he just stay on the porch until he wakes up?"
"No."
"We could carry him out to the side of the road."
"I'm not touching him again."
"Don't you want to help him?"
"No."
"You want him to go to jail?"
"Yes."
My dad went to the bathroom and washed his hands. Then he dialed 911.
"Dad. Don't. He'll blame us. He'll be mad at us."
"Fine. I'm mad at him." And he started speaking into the phone.
I ran down the hall and through the kitchen and out the front door and around the outside of the house to the back porch. I didn't think it was fair of my dad to call the sheriff without even trying to help him. Damon, I saw, had rolled over on his side. I grabbed his shoulder with both hands and shook it. His head rolled back and forth. His eyes opened for just a moment, then closed.
I shook him again.
His eyes opened for two seconds. Then shut. Then opened again for five seconds. Blinking. Then shut. His lips moved. "Water," he mumbled.
I got the hose. "Hold this," I said, and put it in his hands. "I'll go turn it on."
He held it. I turned on the hose faucet. Unfortunately, I turned it on a little too fast, and water shot out the end of the hose into Damon's face.
At least, it woke him up.
He was sputtering and dripping. And furious.
"You have to go," I said. "The sheriff's coming."
"You called the sheriff on me?"
"No. I didn’t. I'm telling you so you can — "
"I'll get you for this."
He tried to stand up but didn't quite make it. His legs buckled.
I backed away.
"You tried to drown me," he said. "You leave me alone. You ever call the sheriff again, and I'll get you. I will."
He stood up. The porch was wet where he'd lain. His clothes were soggy from the hose.
"I didn't do it," I said. "I'm trying to help you."
"I'll get you," he said.
Heading for the street, Damon Goodey shuffled slowly, shirt untucked, face unshaved, hair uncombed, shoe untied. He was, as my father had often said, one sorry mess of a man. And now, he was my enemy. All for trying to help him.
I put on my pants and went to dinner.
My father was mad. "You shouldn't have wakened him," he said, passing me the pizza.
I was mad, too. "You always said we should help people," I said, taking two slices.
"Did he appreciate it?" my dad said.
"No. Now he hates me."
"There. See?"
"Now Tom," my mother said, "you don't help people just because they'll appreciate it."
"That's true," my father said. "But do you think you really helped him?"
"Yes," I said. "Now he won't go to jail."
"But by not sending him to jail, aren't we telling him that it's all right to be a drunk?"
"I never said that."
"Aren't we saying that it's all right for drunk drivers to slaughter people on the highway?"
"I never said that, either."
"No. You didn't. But I'm saying that the first step to curing a problem is to make the person face up to the fact that he has a problem. Sometimes, sending a person to jail is a way to make a person realize he's not just a drinker, he's a drunk.” My father chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Of course, in Damon's case, I don't think it would work."
"Why not? You just said — "
"Some people are beyond help. Some people are just plain bad. "
My mother said, "Alcoholism is a disease, Tom."
"Yes," my father said. "But he's not just an alcoholic."
"Those are just rumors," my mom said.
"What rumors?” I said.
"Things you go to jail for," my dad said. "But never mind."
Clover said, "Why do they call him Goods?"
"Never mind," my father said.
"It's short for Damaged Goods," I said.
"What goods?” Clover said.
"Never mind," my father said.
Clover said, "Once he told me, down at the lake, he said, 'Hey, little girl, I've got the goods.'"
My dad slammed his hand down on the table. The pizza jumped. "That does it," he shouted.
"What goods?” Clover said again.
"Don't ever go near that man," my father shouted.
Clover looked frightened. "I won't," she said. And then, stubbornly: "What goods?"
"He wants . . . He’s got . . .” My father waved his arms. He seemed to want to say two things at the same time, one with each arm. Finally he brought his left arm down. Gesturing with his right, he focused on one answer. "Stolen goods," he said. "I knew it. It isn't just a rumor. He steals things, then he sells them at that bar. I'd like to see him in jail. I'd like to see that Puerco Pub shut down. Damon Goodey is scum. Now he's bringing his sleaze to my daughter."
My mother said, "Calm down, Tom."
Sometimes my father gets to ranting and raving. I could see that this was going to be one of those times. He was waving his arms again, this time above his head. Then he brought his fists down and pounded them on the tabletop — the plates rattled — as he said, "I hope a giant meteorite falls out of the sky and lands right on that bar — that Puerco Pub. And crushes it. And burns it to dust."
"Tom!" my mother shouted.
My mother almost never shouted. We all fell silent. My father looked a little sheepish.
After a few moments, I said, "Walt goes to the Pub."
My dad said, sarcastically, "Well, I hope he won't be there when the meteorite hits. We wouldn't want to hurt the soccer coach."
I said, "Emma goes there." Emma is Danny's stepmother, sort of.
"All right all right," my father said. "Lots of people go there. Mostly good decent people. And a few jerks. And their wild dogs."
My mom said, "You aren't mad at the Pub, Tom. You're mad at Damon Goodey."
My dad said, "Damon Goodey is the Pub. He's always there."
My mother said, "Every town has a bar, Tom."
"Not like this town," my father said, spreading his hands toward the view from the dining room window. You can see down the road where a man is living in a converted school bus with chickens scratching in the yard.
"You love this town," my mother said. "You know you do. That's why we live here. That's why you put up with that long drive to work. We've got the country, the mountains, clean air, wonderful redwood trees . . ."
"And no gas station," my dad said.
I said, "Did you run out of gas again?"
"Yes. But this time I bought a five-gallon can and filled it with gas. I'm going to keep it in the garage. That way, next time I'm low on gas, I can fill up before I leave, since I always seem to forget when I'm over the hill." He looked around the table. "So why is everybody giggling?"
"There's one other thing you seem to forget, Dad," I said. "You bought one of those cans last time you ran out of gas. Now you have two."
"Really? I don't remember that."
"That's another reason you love this town," my mom said. "No gas stations. No McDonald's. No shopping mall."
"Yes," my dad said. "I love it. And that's why I hate that bar." He was calm now. "What a town. What a ramshackle sorry mess of a town. Which I happen to love."
San Puerco does look run down. Most of the houses look ready to collapse if you slammed the door too hard. Except ours and a few other new ones.
"And the people!" my father continued. "A whole town full of cranks and dreamers. Who I also happen to love. A bunch of misfits. They'd get run out of the suburbs even if they could afford to live there. Which they can't. The soccer coach drives a Harley. Where did we get these people? Out of a population of five hundred — and that includes children, ducks, and wild dogs — out of that tiny population we have five nuclear physicists. And twelve poets. Twelve. "
One of those poets is my mom. And one of those nuclear physicists is Walt, my soccer coach. He works over the hill at a place where they smash atoms to see what's inside. Most people in town work over the hill — over the mountain, really — in the Silicon Valley where the air is smoggy, the roads are ugly, and you can't even see any stars at night. My dad works over there. He's a computer engineer. He moved here when he married Mom. They couldn't afford the houses over the hill. Now, I don't think they'd live there even if they had the money. Like my mom said, Dad does love it here. Sometimes I hear him get up at three o’clock in the morning and go for a walk. He says he's going to check if the stars are still there. He has a friend across town who has an observatory in his back yard. They sit out there, look at the sky, and mostly I think they just talk.
My father says he doesn't need a whole lot of sleep. Sometimes he stays up half the night doing work on his computer.
One thing about my father: He's absent-minded. Like with the gas. Which makes me think, sometimes, that he does need more sleep.
My mother was laughing to herself. She said, "Tom, if this is a town for cranks and dreamers, you qualify on both counts." Then she patted his hand.
Dale, my little brother, couldn't fall asleep. His room is next to mine. I could hear him rolling around on his bed, kicking his feet against the wall. I was sitting up in my own bed. Whenever he kicked the wall, it shook against my back.
The shaking was giving me a headache. Finally I went to Dale's room. At the same time, my mom decided to go in there.
"I can't sleep,” Dale said.
"Keep trying," my mother said.
"How?” Dale asked.
"Just lie quietly. Sleep will come."
"But how?"
I wondered: How? How do you explain sleep? Here's a problem even grownups can't answer. You can explain how to kick a soccer ball: You move your foot this way, and the ball goes that way. But you don't move anything to fall asleep.
My mother said, "Try thinking about something nice that you're going to do tomorrow."
"I did. I thought about taping pennies to a paper airplane to make it go faster. Now I want to get up and try it."
"Stay there," my mother said.
"Close your eyes," Clover said. She'd been standing at the door, listening.
"Why?” Dale said.
"So you can sleep," Clover said. "You have to close your eyes to go to sleep."
"Nuh-uh," Dale said. "I sleep with my eyes open."
"No you don't," Clover said. "I've seen you. They're closed. Always. Everybody sleeps with their eyes closed."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh."
"Do you sleep with your eyes closed, Clover?"
"Yes."
"Do you, Mommy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Do you, Boone?"
"Yes. Always."
"Hmm." Dale closed his eyes. "I'll try it."
Back on my bed, I heard no more kicking of the wall. I turned out the light, but now I couldn't sleep. I was thinking of all the billions of things you have to learn in this world and how sometimes, somebody forgets to tell you one. Nobody ever told Dale that people sleep with their eyes closed, not in the three years he's been on the planet. And by this time nobody would think to tell him because we expected him to already know it. He might have gone through the rest of his life not knowing to close his eyes.
Maybe there's something that somebody forget to tell Damon Goodey, some simple thing like closing your eyes to go to sleep — like, maybe, that alcohol is poison —and that's why he's the way he is.
It's scary. What if there's something they forgot to tell me? Already today I've learned that a person can be slow but quick, and that a person may not always appreciate being helped, and probably some other things that I can't even think of right now. Every day I learn new stuff. What if I miss something?
Maybe that's why my father doesn't sleep much. He goes over to the observatory to learn all the stuff he slept through when he was a kid.
I closed my eyes.
I wondered, if I go to sleep now, what will I miss? The passing of the stars and planets. The rising of the moon. The rush of the wind over the trees, the coming of the fog. Maybe, some night, the crash of a meteorite.
I don't know whether I'd been sleeping or not, but the next thing I knew I could sense the presence of somebody standing by my bed. I opened my eyes, and it was my father.
"I'm proud of you, Boone," he said.
"For what?"
"For wanting to help people. Even a worthless scum like Damon Goodey. You have good instincts. I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"You didn't yell at me. You were yelling at the Pub."
"I shouldn't yell. I should do something about that place."
"What can you do?"
"I don't know. But I'll think of something."
Then he kissed me goodnight.
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Chapter Three: Soliciting a Pledge
The next morning at school when I walked into the classroom, Mrs. Rule was stalking something with a flyswatter. She slapped. She missed. It was something big. It darted from the top of her desk to the ceiling to a shut window where it banged against the glass. Mrs. Rule followed. I sat down.
It was a bright orange dragonfly.
It came to rest on an unoccupied desk. Babcock was just walking into the room. Mrs. Rule crept up to the desk and raised the swatter. Babcock spotted the dragonfly, and a look of horror came over his face. He leaped across a desk. He crashed into the dragonfly's desk and fell to the floor. The dragonfly zipped across the room, found an open window, and disappeared into the sunshine. Mrs. Rule put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot.
"Mr. Babcock!" she said. "What is the meaning of this?"
Babcock was lying on the floor, clutching his side where it had struck the desk. "Sorry," he said. "I slipped."
At soccer practice, Walt ran us through some drills, then called us together for a meeting. "Your first game of the season is this coming Saturday." He stroked his beard as he spoke. "Babcock, you'll be goalie. Dylan, you're a fullback. And no daydreaming when the ball is coming toward you. Boone, halfback. You're our setup man, Boone. You're a good passer and great at positioning the ball, but you lack that killer instinct. Unlike Danny. Danny, center forward. Boone will set you up. You punch it in. Geraldine, you too — you're a killer. Be up there with Danny."
Geraldine is the only girl on our team. We call her Hairball. That's what she looks like. A head of curly, tough, black hair about the size and shape of a basketball. She stands on the grass during a game twisting a finger through a lock of hair as if soccer is the last thing on her mind — sometimes you can even hear her humming a song — and then suddenly the ball comes her way and she blasts it.
"One more thing," Walt said. "I just got a letter from my cousin in Australia. He's got a soccer team over there. He challenged us to a match. In Australia. Anybody interested?"
"Yeah!" we all shouted.
"I thought so," Walt said. "Anybody ever been to Australia before?"
"No," we all said.
"Well, let me tell you. Those kids over there are born with cleats on their feet. They sleep with soccer balls in their cribs. They suckle their babies on Gatorade. They don't learn to walk, they learn to dribble. Get the picture? They're good. If you guys want to look decent against them, we'll really have to work."
Dylan said, "How do we get there?"
"We fly," Walt said.
"Who buys the tickets?” Dylan said.
"We do."
Danny kicked the dirt. "Dsh," he said. Danny's father doesn't work much. He gets Food Stamps. They don't even have a phone. Or a car.
"We have to raise money," Walt said. "I know your father can't afford the tickets, Danny. It may be too much for some of the other kids, too. We'll have to raise a whole lot of money. Like, thousands of dollars."
Dylan said, "We could have a bake sale."
Danny groaned. "Dsh, Dylan. Can we make thousands of dollars on a bake sale?"
"We could if we baked marijuana brownies," Dylan said.
"Dylan!” Walt screamed.
"Hey yeah!” Danny said. "We could — "
"Forget it!” Walt shouted. "And I'll try to forget I ever heard that idea. Dylan, I want to have a talk with you when we get home. Great galloping banana slugs. Any other ideas?"
Hairball, with one finger twisting a lock of hair, said, "We could have a kickathon. Get people to sponsor us. Pledge money, so much per foot."
"That's lame,” Dylan said. "Who's going to get excited about sponsoring to see how far we can kick a ball?"
"Got a better idea?" said Walt.
"I might," Babcock said. "What we need is to perform a service. Something that needs to be done. If we want to get sponsors to pledge money, I mean people besides our own parents, we have to offer something useful."
"Like what?” Walt asked.
"What I've noticed," Babcock said, wiping his forehead, "is that nobody cleans up around here. The garbage trucks come and they empty the garbage cans, but nobody cleans the streets. The ditches are full of trash. We could clean it up. We could ask people to pledge, say, ten cents a pound. We could get a scale and weigh how much trash each person brings in, and that's how much their sponsors would pay for. So, for example, if I collected fifty pounds of garbage, and somebody had pledged me ten cents a pound, he'd owe me five dollars. If I got ten people to pledge ten cents a pound, they'd owe me a total of fifty dollars."
"That sounds like a lot of work,” Dylan said.
"Work," Babcock said, "is how you make money."
"Babcock," Walt said smiling, "you're a born capitalist. I think you've got a good idea. Nobody can say no to a kid who wants to clean up the garbage. There are two hundred and fifty houses in this town. There are eleven of you. I want each of you to get twenty pledges. That means knocking on doors. I'll get a scale. We'll make signs. Hey. I know. We'll call it The Trashathon."
I told my dad we were going to Australia and I wanted him to pledge twenty cents a pound to our Trashathon.
"Australia? Trashathon?" he said. "My congratulations to your coach. Those are great ideas for that old hippie to come up with."
"Don't call him names," I said. "And it was Babcock who thought of the Trashathon."
"Hippie is not an insult," my father said. "A hippie was a person who believed in Peace and Love. What's wrong with Peace and Love?"
"Hippies were crazy," I said. "They took drugs."
"So do doctors," my father said. "So do basketball players. Anybody can be stupid. I'll pledge ten cents a pound."
"Aw, Dad," I said. I felt strangely dizzy. "Make it twenty."
"Ten's firm," he said. "If you want more money, collect more trash."
Instead of answering him — or maybe it was a kind of an answer — I suddenly turned around and puked into a wastebasket. I felt as if somebody had kicked me in the stomach.
I spent the next day in bed with the flu.
Friday I returned to school only to find out that all the other kids on the team had their twenty pledges. They'd knocked on every door in town except for Miser Tate's. A few people had turned them down (including Danny's own father, which wasn't a surprise); a few people were out of town; but most had pledged something in the neighborhood of ten cents a pound. The lowest pledge was a nickel; the highest, a quarter.
Which left me with nobody to get a pledge from. I could work my butt off and collect a hundred pounds of trash, and all I'd have to show for it would be my father's cheapo pledge of ten cents a pound.
"Well," Danny said with a snicker, "you could always try Miser Tate."
I groaned.
Babcock said, "Who's Miser Tate?"
"His name is Meyer Tate," I said. "I went to his house once on Halloween. He gave me a cup of water."
"Does he have money?” Babcock asked.
"Sure," I said. "He owns a bunch of houses. All the houses on his street. Like Danny's."
"Yep," Danny said. "He's our landlord." Danny's house leans to one side and would fall over except that it's propped against the trunk of a redwood tree. He says that every morning he has to dust the termite wings off his kitchen table before he eats his cereal. There're a couple of old junker cars in his yard which were there when he and his father moved in and which Tate refuses to have hauled away. The faucets drip. The toilet rocks back and forth when you sit on it. Tate's other houses are the same way, except for the one he lives in himself.
"So what's to lose?” Babcock said. "You could try him."
"There's signs on his gate," I said. "NO TRESPASSING. KEEP OUT. NO SOLICITORS. NO MISSIONARIES. BEWARE OF DOG. Except, he doesn't even have a dog."
"So you're scared?” Babcock said.
"I went there on Halloween," I said. "I ought to be able to do it in broad daylight." I didn't mention that I'd only done it on Halloween on a dare. And it was spooky walking up his driveway. Tate didn't waste his money on outdoor lighting. "Still," I said, "I think it's a waste of time."
"I'll come with you," Babcock said. "If you want."
I wanted.
Babcock and I walked across town to Meyer Tate's. On the way we had to pass the lake in the center of town. It's just a small pond surrounded by blackberries, poison oak, and some scruffy cottonwoods. About a dozen ducks live there, and one mean old goose who sometimes comes out in the road and attacks dogs or people or even cars. Once my dad made the mistake of honking his car horn at the goose, and the goose started honking back and pecking at the bumper. Our old Volkswagen bus had spoken his language, and whatever it said, he didn't like it. It took ten minutes to get by him.
At the corner of the pond next to the road, the teenagers like to gather with their trucks. They brag, play loud music, drink beer when they can get it, and haul logs. They try to see who can chain the heaviest old redwood log to the back of his truck, spin his wheels, make a huge cloud of dust, and drag it.
As we walked toward them now, the biggest pickup of all was growling and bucking, trying to budge a gigantic old hulk of a log.
Babcock stopped and watched for a moment. He shook his head. "Who buys big trucks, I wonder?" he said.
"Short people," I said. I'd asked that same question to my father, and that's what he said. And it's true. The biggest man in town, Elmer Thompson, a logger, drives a little Honda Civic. When he gets out of that tiny car, it looks like one of those clown acts at the circus — you wonder how he ever fit in there. But the smallest driver in town, who happens to be Jack Bean, our assistant soccer coach, has the biggest truck, the one we were watching — a one ton Dodge with tires the size of tractors and a motor that could drive a freight train. He calls it the Beanstalk because it’s up so high he needs a ladder to climb into the cab. As we watched, he managed to shake the log over about an inch.
"Hurray!” I shouted.
Jack saw us. He waved.
I waved back.
Babcock wasn't looking. His head was turned toward the lake. His eyes were following something. I saw his lips move just a fraction as if he was saying something, but I could hear no sound. Then Babcock held out his hand. Again his lips moved, and again I heard no sound.
A glorious green dragonfly alighted on his outstretched hand.
Now Babcock was moving his lips constantly. Slowly he pulled his hand close to his body until the dragonfly was just in front of his face. The wings quivered, sparkling in the sunlight. The body flashed with green fire.
Babcock stretched his hand out again away from his body. His lips stopped their silent movement.
The dragonfly rustled its wings, and was gone like a bullet.
"Wow!” I said. "How do you do that?"
"I talk to them," he said.
"I couldn't hear anything," I said.
"They can," he said.
We walked on. We passed Danny's house and climbed the hill toward Meyer Tate's. A couple of dogs started following us.
There was something I wanted to ask Babcock. I said, "Is your father a nuclear physicist?" It wasn't such a weird question when you remember that we already have five nuclear physicists in town, and also when you consider Babcock's interest in science, or at least in rocks and dragonflies.
"No," Babcock said. "He runs a car repair shop in Pulgas Park."
"For Volvos?"
"For anything."
My dad's name for Pulgas Park is Volvoville because that's what everybody seems to drive over there.
I said, "Was it your dad who named you Babcock?"
Babcock stopped walking. I think he needed a rest anyway. The hill was a hard climb. The dogs, seeing that we'd stopped, started sniffing out some blackberry bushes.
Babcock looked me in the eye. He said, "My dad didn't name me Babcock. I am Babcock."
"So," I said, "what's his name?"
Babcock didn't say anything for a few moments. Then he shrugged. "All right," he said. He smiled. It wasn't an entirely friendly smile. "You want to know about my name."
"I guess that's what I was poking around about," I said.
"I guess,” Babcock said with an exasperated sigh. "All right. My father's name is Thomas Babcock. So he didn't have to name me Babcock. I get that name automatically."
"Didn't he give you any other name? Is it horrible? Percy? Egbert? Arvid?"
"No no. He didn't give me any other name. My mom and dad left it blank. They wanted me to choose my own name when I was old enough to talk."
"Can they do that?"
"Sure. You can name a kid — or not name him — anything you want."
"So what did you choose?"
"At first I thought about Donald. Only I pronounced it Dongle. After Donald Duck. I mean that's how little I was. But my parents kind of discouraged me from naming myself after a cartoon. So then I wanted to be Big Bird. Big Bird Babcock. But they kind of discouraged that one, too. Then I saw The Wizard of Oz and decided to name myself Dorothy. You can imagine what they thought of that idea. By this time I think they were sorry they ever gave me a choice, so they started suggesting names. Like, Bret. Bret Babcock. They liked that. I hated it. I hated every name they came up with. So finally, I came up with a name of my own. I told them I wanted to be Two One Five Five Two."
Babcock smiled to himself.
"So is that your name?” I said. "Two One Five Five Two?"
"No," Babcock said. "The people at the county office wouldn't let us change the birth certificate. It's too late. I can never have another name."
"But we could call you that. Do you want to be called Two One Five Five Two?"
"No." He shook his head. His cheeks jiggled. "Not anymore. I'm quite happy to be who I am. Babcock. Just plain Babcock." He started walking again. The dogs followed. "But when I get older," Babcock said, "I'm gonna have a rock and roll band. And we're gonna name it Two One Five Five Two."
We came to Meyer Tate's gate with all its signs. It was locked.
"You sure he doesn't have a dog?” Babcock asked.
"Don't worry," I said. "He hates dogs."
We climbed over the gate leaving the dogs behind, walked up the driveway past his shiny white Mercedes, and knocked on the door. There was no doorbell. No doorknocker. He wasn't going to encourage visitation.
The door opened.
"What do you want?"
Meyer Tate had white hair. Thin lips. He was dressed in a bathrobe — at four o’clock in the afternoon.
Suddenly I realized that I hadn't given a single thought to planning what I was going to say. I searched for words. My mind went almost blank.
"It's . . . us," I said.
"Oh really?" he said.
"We — uh — came."
"Yes?"
"We're having. A. A Trashathon," I said.
"A what?"
"A pledge," I said. "You put it on a scale, and then we tell you the garbage."
"What?"
"A scale. We weigh the pledge. For money. I mean, we tell you the trash. We need the garbage for Australia. It's soccer, you know."
Tate looked over at Babcock, who was laughing so hard, he had to hold his sides or else I think they might have shaken loose.
Tate said, "Are you boys playing some sort of a joke on me?"
"No," I said.
"We want to pick up garbage," Babcock said. "Clean up the town. It's for our soccer team. We're trying to raise money. We're asking everybody in town to pledge so much per pound to one of us. In this case, Boone here wants a pledge. Then however much garbage he collects, you pay for."
"Did you see the sign on my gate?” Meyer Tate said.
"Yes," Babcock said.
"It says NO SOLICITORS."
"Yes sir," Babcock said.
"But I'll make an exception," Meyer Tate said. "I approve of boys cleaning up the town. I'll make a pledge."
"Thank you," I said. "How much can I put you down for?"
"One cent."
"Okay," I said. "Thank you."
You were supposed to get people to sign pledge cards, but for one penny I wasn't going to bother. I turned to go. I saw Babcock standing there. He wasn't moving, but his face was getting sweatier and sweatier. Then he exploded: "That's an insult. One cent! He could collect a whole ton of trash, and you'd only owe a few bucks! Why bother? You're supposed to motivate him. He's providing a service. You're supposed to make it worth his while to do all this work. How much do you think he can get? A hundred pounds? It could take him all day to find a hundred pounds of trash. And you'd only owe him one dollar! You expect him to work all day for one dollar?"
I looked at Meyer Tate. I expected to see him slamming the door. Instead, he was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at Babcock. His bathrobe was slipping open. His chest was hairy and gray.
"Young man," he said, "what is your name?"
"Babcock, sir."
"Babcock. Hmm," Tate said, filing the name away in his mind.
"Let's go," I said.
"Wait," Tate said. "I like your spunk, Babcock. I think you understand business. Motivation. Free enterprise. Unlike most of the people in this town. They don't like me. And do you know why they don't like me? It's because I know how to make a profit. I know how to make a deal. I know how to use a deal to my own advantage."
"They might like you better," Babcock said, "if you made a decent pledge to help clean up the town."
"I will," Tate said. "By golly, I will. I tell you what. I'll pledge one dollar a pound. Go ahead. Get a hundred pounds. Don't worry, I can add. But I make one condition. You have to collect it on this street. After all, I own it. I might as well get my own street cleaned up for the money. I only hope your friend is better at picking up trash than he is at explaining the meaning of Trashathon."
"It's a deal," I said. "Sign here."
"Just a minute," Babcock said. "Do you mean one dollar plus the one penny you already pledged? For a total of one dollar and one cent?"
Tate pulled his bathrobe closed. He gave Babcock a look that reminded me of Mrs. Rule. He shook his head. I think he was already regretting that he'd made the pledge. But then he smiled. His lips were crooked as if he wasn't used to doing it very often.
"All right," he said.
And he signed the pledge for one dollar and one cent per pound.
Walking back down the hill from Meyer Tate's house, we checked out the garbage in the ditches. So did the dogs. Mostly it was soda cans and candy wrappers, but down at the bottom across from Danny's house there was a double mattress that probably weighed thirty pounds. And if it rained between now and the Trashathon, it would weigh even more.
"Maybe we could get Danny to soak it with a hose," Babcock said.
My father was late for dinner. We waited a half hour, then went ahead and ate without him. At last, at eight o’clock, he arrived.
"Ran out of gas," he said, and he hugged my mom.
"Did you buy a five-gallon can to keep in the garage?” I said.
He didn't answer for a minute until he let go of the hug. Then he said, "Of course not. I've already got two."
That night I awoke in darkness. I could hear my dad clumping around in the closet. I looked at my clock: two thirty-two. I got up.
The light from the closet nearly blinded me. My father was pulling on his Nikes.
"Going to the observatory?” I said.
"Yep."
"Can I come?"
He looked up from the knot he was tying.
"Not tonight," he said. "School tomorrow. You need your sleep."
"So do you," I said. "You have to work tomorrow. You'll run out of gas again."
"No I won't," he said. "I just filled it today."
"Were you listening to a tape when you ran out of gas?"
"Yes."
"Were you singing?"
"Probably. I don't remember."
He has about two dozen tapes of old rock and roll. He calls it do-wop. He sings along with them in falsetto. I'm sure that's why he runs out of gas — he's too busy singing to look at the gas gauge. I just hope none of my friends ever hear him.
"Meyer Tate pledged one dollar and one cent to the Trashathon," I said.
"Really? That's amazing."
"But I have to collect it on his street."
"That seems fair."
"You want to raise your pledge?"
"No."
"This weekend, can I go to the observatory?"
"I'll ask Patrick."
"You won't forget?"
"Of course not." He finished tying his Nikes. "Wait a minute," he said. "So now you're going to collect all your trash on Meyer Tate's street?"
"Right."
"So I'm paying ten cents a pound to help Tate clean his street?"
I hadn't thought of that. I had to laugh. "Thanks, Dad," I said. "And I'm sure Meyer Tate thanks you, too."
It was just as Tate had said. He certainly did know how to make a deal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Four: The Game
Saturday morning we had our first soccer game of the year. We play all our games over the hill in Pulgas Park. They're willing to let us into their league, especially since they always beat us, but they aren't willing to drive to our town. My dad says they're afraid we'll steal the hubcaps off their Volvos, but I think he's kidding.
Danny and I rode over with Jack Bean in the Beanstalk. Now that's the way to make an entrance to a soccer game. As we jumped down from that high cab, every kid on both teams practically drooled with envy. On our side of the field were parked the Beanstalk, Walt's Harley, a dented Ford Econovan, a rusty Toyota, and a Chevy pickup with lumber racks. On the other side were three shiny Volvo station wagons, a Mercedes, a sleek Jaguar, and a new Buick Cutlass Supreme.