Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street (10 page)

“Thanks for the moon flower.”

“You're welcome. Ashley.”

“No, my name is Charlie,” I said.

The hat girl almost fell over laughing, holding her stomach. Then I started laughing. Soon we were both on the ground laughing. Sid went by on his bike and just shook his head.

“My name is Ashley, but you can call me Ashe.”

“Like I said, I'm Charlie.”

Ashe and I sat there and talked for a long time. She told me everything about herself, and I told her everything about myself.

Ashe loves chocolate and can eat it anytime, day or night. She's spending the summer with her grandmother (who gardens, too) around the corner on Pine Street. She lives in Chicago
but really loves it here on Magnolia Street.

She loves music. I love music.

Ashe loves animals, and so do I.

“But most of all, Charlie, I love to garden and save plants.”

Me and Ashe spent the rest of the day walking around the neighborhood.

She'd point out different kinds of flowers and tell me what they were called in Latin. I'd point out everybody in the neighborhood and tell her who liked kids and who made the best cookies and muffins.

Then I took her on a swing through the trees.

You can tell a lot about someone who can swing from limb to limb without falling or screaming that their arms are falling off.

Ashley is okay.

She likes climbing trees and swinging from them almost more than me.

Ashley asked, when we finally sat down in my front yard, “Who's the lady with all the statues everywhere? She seems real funny. Did you see the upside-down penguin in her front yard? I love her flowers. She puts them in silly planters. There're even sunflowers in a bathtub. I think I'll like her.”

“That's Miss Marcia. She's an artist and can bake the best muffins in the world. She's great. I'll take you to meet her.”

And I did.…

Ashley—I mean Ashe—wandered all over Miss Marcia's studio and rubbed the smooth marble and stone.

“It's great here. I think I could live in your studio forever—if you had more flowers, and vines growing up the statues.”

Miss Marcia looked at Ashe for a long time, then said, “Well, why don't you help me out with that? I have a huge backyard full of art.”

Ashley looked at the sculpture, then me, and smiled the biggest smile I'd ever seen.

The next few days all we did was collect dirt in wheelbarrows and flowers from different people. Sometimes I'd push Ashe in the wheelbarrow, and sometimes she'd push me. We were having a good time. I found out I really love dirt.

This is what Ashe said about plants that she got from people: “Pass-along plants are the best you can have. You can get plants that are a hundred years old. My dad has a rose bush that came from a garden that was started about ninety years ago. Just think of all the things these roses have heard and seen, Charlie.”

I laughed thinking about a rose bush with ears and eyes, but I understood what she
meant. All of a sudden the planting seemed more exciting to me, and I helped Ashe anytime she needed me. She said she was planting a pass-along garden for Miss Marcia's sculpture that might last a thousand years.

Wow!

When Ashe and I weren't planting, we were swinging from trees or eating peanut butter (my favorite). I told Ashe about Lump and Billy, and she told me about her friend Lily, who can play the piano with her toes.

Even though Ashe doesn't live on Magnolia Street, I feel like she belongs here.

We worked all week getting ready for the garden unveiling.

Me and Ashe made invitations for the party and painted them for what seemed like days. Mom helped by feeding us and not complaining
that we were getting paint everywhere. We delivered the invitations on a hot, mosquito-filled evening to everybody I knew in the neighborhood.

We got some of the neighbors to donate snacks for the party. Of course Miss Marcia would bake muffins, and Billy's mom said she would make strawberry iced tea. Mr. Pinkton made peach pies that smelled so good I wondered if I could wait until the garden unveiling to eat it.

The only way this whole past week could have been better was if Billy and Lump had here.…

They would have loved the whole party idea.

The morning of the garden unveiling was cool and rainy, and Ashe said she hoped it wouldn't keep too many people away. We couldn't wait
for the whole neighborhood to see the garden. Even Miss Marcia hadn't looked in her backyard. She'd promised she wouldn't look.

About ten people with umbrellas showed up to see the garden. They squished down to Miss Marcia's backyard. I really couldn't see anybody's face for the rain hoods and scarves. Ashe and I stood beside each other.

And the garden…

Beautiful!

Vines climbed up sculptures of animals wearing hats. Flowers sat in birdbaths and were planted in marble pigs' ears. And best of all were the moon flowers winding around a statue of a spaceman.

Everybody clapped and walked around the beautiful, wet garden.

Ashe kept on smiling.

Sid didn't go to the garden party. Really, it was probably a good thing he didn't. I had gotten a great idea during the week while I was pushing dirt from here to there.

I wasn't at home when Sid started to yell.

I wasn't even going to be at home that night because I was having a sleep-over at Ashe's grandmother's house.

I was even thinking about moving out of our house and camping out in the woods for a few weeks.

When I did go home, though, Mom and Dad gave me what they call a good talking-to.

How would I feel, they asked, if I came home and found all my dresser drawers filled with dirt and planted with vines?

I didn't even mind having to sit on the porch for a week with Sid growling at me.

Funny how just a week ago I never thought I'd like gardening.

ear Charlie, Well, I'm here, and I can't even believe I got here in one piece.

You know how in the beginning I didn't think camp was such a good idea? I did about everything I could to get the idea out of my mom's head.

I mean
everything
.…

I hid the brochure that had come in the mail about Camp FunWa.

I cut out the newspaper article that talked about Camp FunWa so Mom wouldn't see it.

I disconnected the phone when my mom
was talking to my grandma about sending me to camp. (That time I got in real trouble, and that was the day Mom decided to send me.)

Thanks for hiding me in your mom's garden shed the night before I left. (I don't think the groundhog liked me being there too much. I figure he thought he'd lost his hiding place.) And anyway, he about scared me to death. If he had, I wouldn't have had to come to Camp FunWa. What's with that name, anyhow? And how does my mom know how to find me anywhere I hide?

Well, like I said, we barely got here.

My mom jumps to conclusions—that's why she thought I'd gotten lost at the gas station.

But if you talk to her, she'll tell you a different story. I won't tell you not to believe her, but just don't take her too serious, 'cause she's always getting upset about stuff that isn't that important.

I wasn't
hiding
when she found me in the bushes behind the gas station between some old cars. See, there was this strange thing I saw when I was coming out of the gas station bathroom. I was pretty lucky to even get out of the bathroom, 'cause the lock broke when I was in there and I had to climb through the vent in the bottom of the door.

Nobody heard me yelling. I guess that's because I couldn't get the sink turned off. Charlie, I thought I was gonna drown in the Speedy Gas bathroom.

Water was everywhere.

I got blamed for that, too.

Anyway, I followed what I thought was an alien to the back of the gas station. It turned out to be a cat. He was all spotted and kind of nice to share his hiding place with me. Anyway, I was petting him and lost track of time. It's true!

Mom and the gas station man didn't believe me. Neither did the police. I guess I had been gone for an hour or so.

Anyway, here I am. At Camp FunWa.

Charlie, there's a huge lake that surrounds the camp. It's almost like we're on an island. Mom said something about liking the idea that we almost can't get out of camp without taking a boat. There is a way out without a boat. You just have to find it, but they keep us so busy that who has time to find the way out of Camp FunNoi? That's what most of the campers call it.

I'm glad you went with me to buy all the good junk food to bring here (even if the counselors found my hiding place in the lining of my suitcase and took it away from me). The green bean casserole we had last night was real bad. I mean, on a good day I love green beans, but I don't think those green beans ever had a good day.

One of the older kids said the only food they ever serve here is green beans, cheese, and mystery meat.

I do like all the guys in my cabin, though. So far, we all get along. I think I even made a new friend. His name is Sam, and he can blow even bigger bubbles than Lump can. Don't tell Lump, though.

I think I'm going to be okay here because of Sam. That is, if we don't get separated from each other. One of the counselors keeps saying he doesn't think we're very good influences on each other.

Well, I'm used to people saying that about me and most of my friends. Me, you, and Lump wouldn't be friends at all if we listened to that kind of talk. Sam is a lot of fan, and it's not just that he blows milk through his nose when he starts laughing or that he got his head stuck in the fence that leads to the herb garden
that us campers planted the second day after we got here.

We're friends because he laughs with me at all the stuff that goes wrong.

Sometimes it's not so good that he laughs real loud, though. He probably could have laughed quieter when we got locked in the food pantry in the camp kitchen. We were just looking for a few cookies. I knew they had them in there, 'cause we saw a few of the counselors munching on them when we were supposed to be resting.

Can you believe it—they were peanut butter!

Charlie, you know how I love peanut butter cookies. There just wasn't any way I could pass them up. I hadn't seen a cookie in a couple of days. We got fruit for lunch. I think it was supposed to be good for us, so I thought I needed cookies. Sam thought we needed cookies, too.

So, after everybody had gone to their cabins to rest and the counselors were down by the lake relaxing, we thought we had a clear path to the kitchen. Well, we got into the kitchen okay.

Then we got to the pantry okay. The key was hanging right by the door. (Why?) We put it back before we went in.

We got the pantry open okay. Then we saw all the food. Boy, was there a lot of food! We were minutes from all kinds of cookies, dried fruit, and boxes of chocolate when we heard laughing. Sam and I hid behind a big box of canned peaches. We closed our eyes, hoping we wouldn't get caught, so that's why we didn't know until it was too late that the doors had been closed and the pantry light had been turned off.

I think we could have broken out of there. We sure did try. I don't know why those locks are so strong. Do you think they're trying to
keep kids out of the pantry?! They should feed us better at camp.

Anyway, by the time we had finished a few bags of cookies, me and Sam were so full and so sick of them that I didn't care if I never saw another cookie again my whole life. I think Sam felt the same as I did.

We would have gotten away with it if Sam hadn't start laughing in his sleep.

Later he said he was dreaming about everybody wandering around the camp with pants on their heads. I couldn't wake him up and that's how they found us. Surrounded by empty cookie boxes, and Sam laughing in his sleep.

We're sticking to our stories that everything was all right with us, too. I guess everybody had been looking for us a few hours, and they had been so upset that they'd called our parents. Mr. Ruftis, the camp director, told us our parents had come up with our punishments. It's always good
to know my mom is thinking about me. Sam said he wished his parents wouldn't think about him as much as they do.