Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street (2 page)

“So what's up this morning?”

I started laughing 'cause I figured we probably
looked like maniac monkeys swinging upside down from the tree.

“Let's go skating.”

I got my bike, and Billy got his skates. After he put his skates on, I pulled him along the sidewalk.

Billy yelled, “What do you think happened to us under the tree? You don't really think the monkeys got us, do you?”

I turned and said, “I've been thinking.” But just as I said that, we crashed into the neighbor's shrubs. Mom hollered from the window.

Me and Billy each had to go to our own porches. We'd only known each other for a day and this was the second time we'd been separated. I wasn't alone long 'cause Sid showed up.

“What's up, fur face?”

I said, “I'm on punishment again.”

“Too bad,” he said.

I didn't believe he was too sad. I was starting
to think that Sid knew more about what had happened last night than he was telling.

I didn't see Billy until a couple of days later.

I was lying under his porch eating an apple when he came out of his house.

I jumped out and scared him. “Where have you been?”

I gave Billy a bite of my apple.

“I've been at my grandma's house. She lives way in the country in the middle of nowhere. Mom said she needed a break. So she left me there for a couple of days. She was pretty happy to see me, though, when she picked me up.”

I patted Billy on the back.

“That's what happens to me, too.”

Billy asked, “What have you been doing while I've been gone?”

“Mostly sitting on the porch, on punishment.”

“Besides that, I mean.”

“I've been tracking down monkeys.” Then I told Billy the story…

I'd spent the days Billy was gone looking for maniac monkeys. I had gone back to the willow tree and sat underneath it.

All I heard was crickets. I was so comfortable I fell asleep there again. When I woke up, I noticed something was lying beneath me, sticking at my side. Cherry-scented glue stick.
Hmm.

I ran back to my house and up to my room, and sure enough, what I was looking for was missing. I headed for Sid's room and found something covered up on his chair: one of his old teddy bears, shaved on the belly, and the smell of cherries and glue all around.

Billy looked at me and said, “Sid.”

I nodded.

It's going to be a long summer…

I'm already getting used to Magnolia Street,
even though I have a feeling me and Billy might be sitting on our porches, separately, a lot. I still miss the town hall clock chiming and Monroe Street, though.

But who knows…

I think that there may be something always happening on Magnolia Street. I mean, even this morning the maniac monkeys attacked again. Boy, is Sid's bike furry. There must have been about a thousand monkeys.

Oh, well. I guess I'll go with Mom to do a little shopping. Billy is weeding the garden, since he borrowed that vase from his mom to catch the maniac monkeys.

I have to remind Mom that I need more shorts. I'm growing out of the old ones. I need a pair of tennis shoes, too, and oh, yeah, some more glue.

Charlie P.

I
love to jump rope up and down Magnolia Street all day long, and lately that's been all there is to do.

Billy is off at camp for a week and he's already written me three letters. One of them had dirt on it and a picture of Billy standing on his head. I've only known Billy a couple of weeks, but I already miss him.

What else is there to do?

Mom said, “One day, Charlie, you're going to jump rope until your feet fall off.” I smiled because she called me Charlie, which I prefer, instead of Charlene.

Billy's real name is Willem, so he says that he
understands how come I hate my name. But his mom only calls him Willem when something gets broken or people show up complaining about him.

How could Mom have known my feet really would fall off?

It's true. Here's the story.

One day, I ran out of the house, picked up my candy cane-striped jump rope, and skipped real slow by Miss Marcia's house. She's an artist who makes statues. She was covered in plaster, sitting on her porch eating muffins.

“Hey, Charlie. What's up?”

I walked into her yard past all the statues she's made. People with baskets on their heads and animals riding bikes crowd each other in Miss Marcia's yard.

I wrapped my jump rope around my waist.

“Just jumping and stuff.”

Miss Marcia handed me a muffin, and I sat
beside her on the steps while she told me about art and her sculpture. I asked her if she could cover a person with plaster to make a statue.

She said, “It's not something I'd do. I don't think you could get them out of it, and you'd have to be careful about air holes.”

I laughed and laughed.

“Is plaster fun to peel off like school glue is when you put it all over your hand?”

Miss Marcia laughed, and some of the plaster fell off by her feet. “No, Charlie, it doesn't come off like glue.”

“Too bad. I like peeling glue off my hand. It's like being a snake and shedding my skin or something.”

I wiggled around like a snake for a while with my jump rope. Miss Marcia started laughing again, and I finished off the rest of the muffins.

I wiggled out of the yard, then started jumping
down the street again. I could still hear Miss Marcia laughing.

Mom says she will laugh at anything. I think she's funny.

The next morning, just as I was about to roll out of bed and start thinking about where I'd jump rope that day, Sid came into my room and hit me with my pillow.

I hate it when he does that.

“Wake up, Spacey.”

“Don't do that!” I yelled, loud enough that I hoped Mom or Dad would come up and punish him.

“There's something for you down on the front porch.”

“What is it, Sid?”

Sid bonked me in the head with the pillow again and left.

Sometimes I wonder if Sid stays up at night thinking of ways to get on my nerves.

When I finally got up, I ran down the stairs past the kitchen. Everybody was eating, and I knew Mom would make me sit down and have something. I was too fast, though.

I opened the door to the porch and there it was…

A beautiful plaster statue of a girl who looked just like me. She had braids like mine and even a dimple in her chin. Best of all, though, she was jumping rope. Well, not really, because she was a statue and that couldn't be.

I ran over to Miss Marcia's house to thank her.

When I got there, she was in her yard mixing plaster. She pointed to muffins on the porch, but I'd eaten so many the last time that I couldn't face eating even one more.

I said, “I like me in plaster.”

Miss Marcia laughed. “Yeah, I like you in plaster, too.”

“I guess it was better than my idea of letting you dip me in a big old tub of the stuff from head to toe.”

Miss Marcia said, “Yeah, my idea was better.”

I hung around long enough to get covered with plaster from head to toe, anyway. Doesn't do to waste a chance of getting stuff all over yourself. When even Miss Marcia said I was covered, it was time to go home.

My statue was beautiful. Dad moved her so she wasn't blocking the door anymore. She stood right by the porch swing.

Everybody who came by our house talked about her.

“Boy, does she look like Charlie,” my aunt said when she came to visit.

“Look at that smile on her face,” our neighbor Mr. Pinkton said.

“Got that rope in her hand just Uke Charlie,” Mrs. Craig said. I was surprised she was
even visiting us from Monroe Street because it was one of my good ideas last summer that made her stop talking to my mom.

Nobody told me that bees wouldn't eat up all the honey that I poured on her porch. I was trying to find their hive. There were always a lot of bees around her house, so I figured they'd come by the millions if I put out honey.

Anyhow, everybody thought Charlie P. (P for “plaster”) was great. I'd watch her for hours and hours.

Miss Marcia sure was a good sculptor. I sent her a thank-you note and some flowers I picked…well, some flowers I found.

Everything was going along just fine after Charlie P. came to live on our porch. Even Sid liked her. Sometimes he'd use her as a hat rack, but I got over being mad after I found out she really did look good in hats.

When Billy came home from camp, he was
really impressed. He said it was even better than his leaf art. He'd glued leaves on everything, then everybody. Camp had been okay with Billy.

Those few weeks that Charlie P. stood on the porch were great.

But one day it got so quiet on Magnolia Street that I got bored. Billy was banished to his room, and after you've read a couple of comics, made a snack, tried on your mom's and dad's clothes, then booby-trapped your brother's room—what else is there?

So I got this idea.

It was one of the best ideas I'd ever had, and I have a lot of them. I'd spent most of last summer in the house because of some of my ideas. That's how good they were.

Well, if you can talk your brother (who doesn't know you booby-trapped his room yet) into moving your statue off the porch to
the sidewalk, that will take care of the first part.

Sid said, “I don't get why you want this moved.”

“I don't know," I said. But I did.

Sid said, “Does Mom know you're moving this?”

I acted as if a horse fly was attacking me and mumbled something Sid couldn't hear as I ran in circles.

Finally, Charlie P. was beside me on the sidewalk.

A bunch of Sid's friends came by and he left with them, but not before they pointed at me and Charlie P. standing next to each other on the sidewalk.

All I'd wanted was to see Charlie P. jump rope beside me. Just once.

I know it sounds funny now, but then…

I mean, she looked so much like me and
everybody was always saying so. And I didn't have a sister, just a brother who teased me and only let me go with him half the time.

Once, Sid told me if you wished for something hard enough, then spun for a minute and jumped up and down twelve times, you'd get your wish.

My wish was that Charlie P. would come to life and jump rope with me.

Well, all that happened was that I found out plaster gets pretty heavy after it dries. And you shouldn't help your wish out by trying to get its leg to bend…

Dad was pulling into the driveway just as Charlie P. fell over (in slow motion) and lost her feet.

Dad came over and stood beside me.

I looked at him and he looked at me, then we both looked at my poor statue. Charlie P. was just lying there with that grin on her face and a jump rope in her hands.

Dad patted me on the head and said, “What's for dinner?” then walked away.

I have such a weird family.

So that's what happened the day my feet fell off.

Dad took Charlie P. to the backyard and dug a hole so she could stand up to her knees. She looks good back there.

Birds land on her, so I hung a feeder off of her. I still visit her, though, when I want to see me.

She's always waiting in the backyard with a big old grin on her face.

One day I'll get Miss Marcia to put her feet back on. Then maybe if I wish hard enough, my jump rope wish for Charlie P. will come true.

Or maybe she'll just hang out forever in the backyard with birds on her head. Which is okay by me, too.

The Sea

B
illy took a crab apple out of his pocket and threw it at the plum tree. A big purple plum fell to the ground. His aim is real good.

“I think I left my favorite baseball cap on the bus, Charlie.”

“You're always leaving something on the bus. Remember last week when you left that box of worms on the back seat?”

Billy grinned and ran over to the plum tree and picked up a big purple plum.

“Yeah, I remember. They were pretty dried up by the time I got them back.”

For the past two weeks, Billy and I have been
allowed to ride the bus that goes by Magnolia Street. We can only ride it together, though, and you wouldn't believe the things and people we've seen on the bus.