The push broom thumped Cody’s shoulder as he marched through the woods behind Ben. “Do I look like a soldier?”
Ben stopped and turned. He cocked his head.
“Well?” Cody marched in place. “Do I?”
“You would.” Ben grinned. “If soldiers were four feet tall, wore detective hats, and shot people with brooms.”
Cody pointed at the two paint scrapers sticking out of his brother’s jeans pockets. “You look like the Wild West.”
Ben snatched the paint scrapers out. “Stick ’em up!”
But Cody swung the broom off his shoulder extra fast. “Bam! Too bad. You’re dead.”
“The shame!” Ben grabbed his chest and staggered. “Killed by a janitor!” He shoved the scraper handles back in his pockets. “C’mon.”
“Hey, hear that?” Cody pointed at the garage, barely visible through the trees.
The notes of the Nowhere anthem drifted toward them. Cody marched ahead of Ben, leading the way to the garage.
When they got there, Ben grabbed Cody’s broom and put a foot on a rung of the rickety ladder leaned against the roof. “Go on inside.” He scrambled up the wobbly ladder.
Cody tipped his head back. “Can you see our house?”
“No. Just trees.”
“Can I climb up too?”
Ben looked down on him. “You heard Dad, no disasters. Besides, I’m not up here to have fun. I’m gonna sweep the leaves off, then see what kind of shape the shingles are in. Go in and say hey to Justin.”
“I want to go on the roof too!” Cody kicked at a pile of damp leaves and bumped something hard. “Wonder what’s under there,” he mumbled.
He found a stick and dug, uncovering a cloudy semicircle sticking up from the mud. He scraped away leaves and dirt until he could pull it out. A drinking glass. It was old and dirty, but not broken. He held it up. “Hey, look!” he yelled, but the only answer was the sound of sweeping. He stared at the glass. How long had it been lying there waiting?
He scooted a beetle out of the glass and wiped it off with his T-shirt. The music got loud when he shoved the door open. Justin’s shoulders twitched but he didn’t turn around.
Cody slid onto the piano bench next to him.
“Hey, Jem—” Justin turned Cody’s way and blinked. “Oh. Hi, Cody.” He nodded toward the open bag on top of the piano. “Want a marshmallow?”
“Look at this!” Cody shoved the drinking glass into Justin’s face. “I found it buried in the leaves.”
Justin leaned back for a look. “A dirty glass. Cool.”
Cody set the glass on top of the piano carefully, right exactly in the center, then stuck a muddy hand in the bag and grabbed a pink marshmallow.
From overhead came a scraping sound. A dark blob fell past the window, followed by a whoosh-splat. Justin flinched. “What was that?”
“Ben’s sweeping leaves off the roof.” Cody hit the highest note on the piano. Plink. “Think I’ll go out to look for more stuff.”
Justin held up the murky drinking glass. “You really think you can top this?”
When Cody walked out the door, Ben yelled down at him, “Where are you headed?” He rested the broom against his shoulder. “We are not going home.”
“I know.”
Ben wiped his forehead with the shoulder of his T-shirt. “You can’t even get into the house. I have the key around my neck.”
“I’m only going to here.” Cody stepped up on the foundation of the burned house.
“Just stay where I can see you.” Ben shoved another pile of leaves off the roof.
Cody looked down. There was that shoe. It was still lying there with its tongue hanging out. Cody took a raspy breath. He knelt down and checked the shoe for dead toes. Empty. He let his breath out.
He turned in a circle, then stopped. He hadn’t noticed before, but a weird mound sat right behind the foundation.
Like everything else, it was covered with leaves and branches, but something was underneath it, making the bump.
He found another stick and poked it into the pile. The leaves were wet and heavy. It took two hands to circle the stick around, making a hole. Suddenly, something went dink, like the dull sound of the broken doorbell at his house.
Hands on his knees, he leaned forward and peered in. He saw something shiny. Another drinking glass? He reached for it, but the hat slid over his face. “Hey, you gotta let me see.” He kicked the leaves off a corner of the concrete slab, then scraped the surface clean with the side of his shoe and set the hat down.
He reached into the hole, farther this time, and touched something smooth and cool.
The lid on the blue bottle he pulled out was rusted tight. He grabbed it with the edge of his shirt, twisted it off, held the bottle up to his nose, and gagged. “Gross!” Whatever was inside smelled like the stuff G-dad rubbed on his knee joints when they ached and pained.
He tried to screw the lid back on, but it wouldn’t go. He emptied some thick brown goop into the leaves and put the bottle next to the hat.
He found a stapler and a clock—the kind with hands. A fishing reel with the line all melted and a ceramic dog dish, charred black, but with letters dented into one side. He rubbed dirt off with his thumb and read, “Sparky.”
He kept digging and finding. Before long the hat had plenty to look at.
When he stood up from the pile, wet leaves stuck to his arms. He balanced the clock on top of the bottle. Maybe he could stack everything up and make a…He couldn’t think of the right word for what he was going to make.
He put on the hat and closed his eyes, and the word he was looking for fuzzed into his brain. “Thank you.” He took the hat off again and set it down.
A split-finger whistle from up on the roof made him jump. “What’re you doing, Detective Dobbs?” Ben had finished sweeping and was sitting on the roof watching him, sneakers dangling.
“Building a momunent!” he yelled back.
“That’s mon-u-ment. A monument to what?”
Cody looked at his ring of discoveries. His eyes settled on the dog dish. “Sparky!”
“Who the heck is Sparky?” Ben yelled back.
Cody picked up the dish. “Sparky the dog!” When he set the dish down, his hands were all sooty. Forgetting Ben, he squatted and whispered to the dish, “You were in the house when it burned down, weren’t you?. Was Sparky in there too?” Cody wondered if the family had called for the dog to come when they ran out. Or was Sparky like the shoe, left behind to burn to death? He glanced around. Would he find Sparky’s bones under the leaves?
A sudden shadow loomed over him.
“Heart attack!” Cody yelled, grabbing the middle of his shirt.
“We’ve already been over this,” Ben said, looking down at him. “You’re too young to have a heart attack.” He put a knee down on the slab. “Seriously, why are you stacking all this stuff up?”
“I already said. Building a momunent.”
“Mon-u-ment.”
“That’s what I said.” Cody nudged the bowl toward his brother. “You think the dog died in the fire?”
“No. Dogs are smart. Bet he went out the dog door.”
“What if they didn’t have a dog door?”
Ben kicked at the leaves and a doll’s head rolled out. Half of the plastic face was melted, and through the hole Cody could see the wires that came out of the backs of the doll’s eyes. Cody bit his lips, but he managed a weak laugh.
“It’s just an old doll head.” Ben picked it up and hurled it off into the trees like he was pitching a softball. “Say, what’s that?” He pointed at a white loop poking up through the leaves.
Cody knew Ben was just trying to distract him, but he stuck a finger through the loop and fished up a coffee cup. “Look, Ben. It’s Dad’s!”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes it is!” It was the same as the heavy white china mug Dad used every morning. “Look! It even says ‘Victor’ on the bottom.”
“I bet Victor made a million of those mugs.”
Cody held the mug that was just like Dad’s in both hands. “Maybe the dad who owned this mug died in the fire.”
“How do you know? Bet Dad would. He’s lived around here his whole life.”
“Yeah—that’s why his whole life is so exciting.”
“Come on, Ben!” Cody begged. “We gotta ask him.”
“You know we can’t ask Dad, but I’ll find out about the people in the house, okay? The dog too.”
“How? How will you find out?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you an answer.”