The Luck of the Buttons (4 page)

Tugs used to think that everyone’s name was in the dictionary, and when she had realized it was only hers, both
Tugs
and
Button,
she felt suddenly fond and possessive of it, as if this book were put here for her guidance alone. She found herself occasionally miffed when other people were using it. This afternoon, though, it was available for her perusal.

In the last two days, Tugs had gotten on the wrong side of G.O., broken Ben Franklin, been reprimanded by Harvey Moore, ruined Mary Alice’s beanbag, and lost Aggie Millhouse’s dog. Lester had called her a rapscallion. Maybe if she knew exactly what that was she could change her course before the Independence Day picnic.

Rascal
was on the next page:
a mean trickish fellow; a cheeky child; a rogue; a scoundrel; a trickster.

Tugs colored, lifting a hand to her face. She was not a cheeky child. She flipped to
rogue.

“What’s the word?” asked Miss Lucy in her quiet library voice, coming up behind Tugs.

“Oh!” said Tugs a little too loudly. “Nothing!” She slapped the book shut and hopped off the stool.

Miss Lucy, the librarian, was the most exotic person of Tugs’s acquaintance. Unmarried, yet not a widow or an old maid, taller even than Uncle Elmer, with wavy sunset-orange hair skimming her belt and a warm whispery voice, she seemed completely unaware of Tugs’s lack of academic prowess whenever she chose books for her.

“The Independence Day patriotic essays are due tomorrow,” Miss Lucy said. “How is yours coming?”

Tugs looked around to see whom Miss Lucy was talking to, and when she realized she was addressing her, Tugs Button, about writing an essay for a contest, she laughed. Out loud. In the library. No fewer than six people shushed Tugs, but Miss Lucy put her arm around Tugs’s shoulder and led her to the library office.

“Here,” Miss Lucy said. “You can use my desk. Just write a page on what you think about our good old U.S. of A. First thing that comes to mind. Oh, and a word to the wise. Our judges, Mrs. Winthrop and Miss Potter, are quite excited about the idea of
progress,
after talking to the man from Chicago who is going to start up a newspaper right here in Goodhue, once he raises the funds for a printing press. Imagine that, Tugs. It will be called the
Goodhue Progress.
Progress. Now, that would make a nice theme for an essay, wouldn’t it?”

Tugs was not familiar with being asked what she thought about anything. What
did
she think about the United States? Tugs looked around the library office. She picked up the small dictionary Miss Lucy kept on her desk and looked up the word
progress.
She studied the portrait of President Hoover hanging on the wall and felt a swell of pride.

When she came out of the office, she felt suddenly shy, and to cover it up, she said roughly, “It’s stupid. Don’t read it.” Then she dropped it in the trash and walked slowly to the door, glancing back and hoping Miss Lucy would retrieve it from the can.

Monday morning, Tugs stayed indoors with
Rootabaga Stories,
trying to avoid Granny, who was in the backyard making war with weeds, and G.O., who was surely out looking for his revenge for the tire incident. She turned the pages, but her eyes were on the front window.

They used to be friends, she and G.O. In third and fourth grade. He was really good at drawing maps, and they’d plotted out a new town. She couldn’t remember now what they’d named it, but it had three movie theaters and a racetrack, and each of their houses occupied the space of an entire block. Then his dad went to prison for robbery, and his mother took up making sculptures from junk, and G.O. had come back to school in the fall of fifth grade thin and mean.

Tugs jumped when she saw a head appear in the window and then at the front door. Aggie Millhouse was standing at her very house, on the other side of her very screen door. Tugs got up so fast, she tripped over her mother’s darning basket, grabbed the floor lamp, which offered no stability, and sprawled with a thud face-first in front of the door.

“Ouch,” said Aggie. “Can I come in?”

Tugs looked up, her hand on her nose.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“I walked,” said Aggie, letting herself in the door and helping Tugs up. They righted the lamp and tried to straighten its shade. The brightness of Aggie’s navy-and-white sailor dress made the room around her look tired and worn.

“I mean,” said Tugs, “how did you know where I live?”

“Mrs. Dostal does my mother’s sewing. Sometimes I ride along when she drops it off. I saw you once when I was waiting in the Buick.”

“Does your mother know you’re here?”

“Nope. I’m supposed to be practicing piano. She was on the phone and I set a roll on the player piano. But as soon as the roll runs out, she’ll know I’m not in there and start looking for me. She’d never think of coming here, though.”

“Are you going to get in trouble?” asked Tugs.

“Nah,” said Aggie. “Come on. We’ve got work to do. Can you walk?”

Tugs’s knees smarted and her nose was sore, but she nodded.

“But you don’t want to race with me.”

“Sure I do. We are the exact same height,” said Aggie. “Our legs are the same length; that’s the secret to winning the three-legged. We don’t have to be the fastest. We just have to step together. It’s always the team that doesn’t fall down that wins. So that’s what we need to practice, not falling down.”

“That
will
take practice,” said Tugs. Then another thought struck her. “What am I going to tell Ned?”

“Well, he must have some friends his own age. Maybe he wants to race with someone else, too, and just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Isn’t there a Stump in his grade?”

Tugs had never thought of that possibility. Ned looked up to her because she was one year older. She just assumed that Ned wanted to do everything she did, because he was, well, Ned.

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to practice.”

“Good,” said Aggie. “Here, I found this braided twine in the bushes in my front yard. We could cut off part of it to tie around our ankles.”

“No!” said Tugs. “I mean, that looks like a perfectly good jump rope, doesn’t it? I’d hate to cut up someone’s jump rope.” And to prove the point, Tugs took the twine and tried to demonstrate its superior rope-jumping qualities. But on the first turn, she tripped. The rope was too short.

“Guess it’s meant for someone shorter than us.” Tugs looked at the rope for a moment. She pulled it through her hand. “If we wrapped it around our legs a few times, we wouldn’t have to cut it.”

“OK,” said Aggie. “Come on.”

Tugs was reluctant to go outside, in case of G.O. coming around. But here was Aggie Millhouse, wanting to race with her.

“Let’s try the alley instead of the sidewalk,” said Tugs. Aggie shrugged and followed Tugs out the back door. They sat on the step and tied their inside ankles together, then stood up.

They put their inside arms at each other’s waists so they could stand shoulder to shoulder. Aggie smelled clean, and Tugs counted back in her head the number of days since she’d last taken a bath. She hoped Aggie couldn’t tell.

Tugs glanced over at Aggie. They really were exactly the same height.

Buttons weren’t generally tall, but Tugs had gotten height from her mother’s side and had had her growth spurt early. When, in the third grade, someone had mistaken her for a sixth grader, she’d been mortified. What if people thought she was really twelve, but she was acting like an eight-year-old? At least now, with Aggie Millhouse just as tall, Tugs felt like she was the right height for her age. Aggie was fast. Maybe she could be, too.

“First we should practice just walking,” said Aggie. “We’ll always lead with our inside legs. The ones that are tied together. Ready, set, walk.”

They took one step with their tied-together feet, but Aggie took a shortish step and Tugs eagerly tried to take a longer stride and fell forward, dragging Aggie to the ground, too.

“Are you hurt?” gasped Tugs. Had she broken Aggie Millhouse already? “And your dress!”

“I’m fine,” said Aggie, brushing off her knees and turning so Tugs could inspect her dress.

“No tears, but it is pretty dirty.”

“Overalls would be more convenient,” sighed Aggie. “Maybe we should try something different. Let’s count. Our together legs will be
one,
and our outside legs will be
two.
”

She pulled Tugs up and they tried again, counting out loud as they went.
One, two, one, two
 . . . They were looking at their feet and concentrating so hard, they didn’t hear G.O. running up behind them.

He shoved Tugs and Aggie hard, laughing as they fell. He stood over them as they untied their legs and tried to pull each other to standing.

“Quit being such a bully,” said Aggie. Tugs gasped at Aggie’s boldness.

“Who’s going to make me?” said G.O., glaring at Tugs. “I’m the one with the busted bike.”

Tugs stared back at G.O. He didn’t look so scary when she stood next to Aggie. In fact, he looked about the same as in fourth grade, only taller with a surlier face. Tugs took a wavering breath. “Can’t you just put a patch on it? It wasn’t on purpose.”

“It’s more fun to watch you squirm,” he said, and sauntered away.

“Rapscallion!” Tugs yelled after him.

“Never mind him,” Aggie said. “We’re getting the hang of this. Let’s go faster.”

They walked up and down the alley, then around the block, chanting
one, two, one, two
and keeping their eyes peeled for G.O.

“Maybe if we win, we’ll get our name in the Goodhue paper,” said Aggie.

“You know about the newspaper, too?”

“Sure. There was a man over for dinner last night.”

“Harvey Moore?”

“Uh-huh. He asked my dad for money to get a printing press.”

“Is he going to give it to him?”

“Yes. He thinks Mr. Moore has a good business plan.”

Tugs concentrated on her
one, two, one, two.
If Mr. Millhouse thought it was a good plan . . .

“Didn’t you think . . . ?” started Tugs, but just as they rounded the corner by Tugs’s house, they heard the rumble of a car behind them. They turned to see Mrs. Millhouse at the wheel, hollering as she screeched to a halt.

“Agnes Lorraine Millhouse, you get in the car this instant.” Aggie bent down to untie their ankles.

“And as for you, Tugs Button, you get on home. You should be ashamed of yourself, luring my Aggie away from the piano. You are a bad influence. Imagine what could have happened to her on the way over here.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Millhouse,” said Tugs. “We’re going to win the three-legged race on the Fourth of July! Aggie’s a real good runner. And I can come over and help her practice the piano double tomorrow.”

But Mrs. Millhouse wasn’t paying attention to Tugs. She was already berating Aggie as she climbed into the car.

“Look out!” Aggie called out the window as Mrs. Millhouse sped off. Tugs spun around and saw G.O. running toward her. Tugs grabbed the rope off the ground and ran for home, leaving the sidewalk and cutting across lawns.

Mrs. Dostal appeared on her front porch just then, with a watering can. Tugs ran toward her.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dostal,” said Tugs, stopping short at the fence between their houses.

Mrs. Dostal looked up.

“Tsk,” she said. “So unladylike.”

G.O. slunk by, scowling at Tugs as he passed.

“Rogue!” Tugs hollered after him. “Rascal! Scamp! Cheeky child!” Then she turned back to Mrs. Dostal.

“So,” said Tugs in her most conversational tone. “You’ve got Mr. Moore living with you.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Dostal. “We take in boarders now and again. You know that, Tugs.”

“Don’t you think there’s something fishy about him?” asked Tugs.

Mrs. Dostal lifted her watering can and held it to her bosom. “Why, Tugs Button. What kind of nonsense is that? Mr. Moore is a perfectly gentlemanly gentleman. He’s going to bring the
news
to Goodhue.
Progress,
it’s going to be called. The
Goodhue Progress.
He’s going to go to church with us every Sunday he’s here, he says. And in exchange for room and board, he’s going to fix Mr. Dostal’s car and teach him how to sail. Besides, I don’t know why I’m telling this to an eleven-year-old.”