It happened again today: the girl, the runt, the wagon.
“Take me now!”
“No!”
“Now!”
“No!”
Thump. Thump.
I yelled from the rocking chair, “Shut up!”
The wagon stopped. They both turned to me, fish-eyed. Then the runt jutted out his chin and thumped the wagon. “You shut up!”
I didn’t have any new lines, so I stuck with, “You shut up!”
That’s how it was going—
“You shut up!”
“You shut up!”
—when I noticed the girl was marching onto my porch. I got ready in case she tried to slug me. But all she did was stick out her hand. “Thank you,” she said with a big smile.
“What for?” I said.
“For telling the brat to shut up.”
I shook her hand. “My pleasure.”
“Do you always butt in like that?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said. “It just sorta came out.”
“Sydney Dodds,” she said. “Two y’s.” She stuck out her hand again.
I gave her another shake. “Lily Wambold. Two l’s.”
“I don’t know you,” she said. “I live over on Clem Drive.”
“I live here,” I said.
She put on a mock-shock face. “Really?”
We laughed.
“So what are you doing all the way over here?” I said.
She cranked a thumb over her shoulder. “Babysitting. My summer curse. My parents both work.”
“Mine too,” I said. “So where does he want you to take him?”
She groaned. “McDonald’s. Every day. All day long.”
“He’s a Big Mac freak?”
“No, he hates hamburgers. He just likes the playground.”
I pictured the nearest McDonald’s with one of those plastic playgrounds. “That’s a couple miles away,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“Too far to pull a wagon.”
“Will you repeat that louder, please. Devon, listen.”
I called, “Too far to pull a wagon.”
Devon thumped. “I wanna go!”
“Just ignore him,” said Sydney.
“Tune him out.”
“Exactly.”
“Cool hat,” I said. She wore the brim low over her eyes, like I do. It said CSX in yellow letters. “That a baseball team?”
“It’s a railroad.”
“Really?”
“My dad drives a freight train.”
Boinnng!
I tried not to act too excited. “Cool,” I said. “My brother and I were born on a train. On the California Zephyr. In the Moffat Tunnel.”
“Double cool,” she said. “Where’s that?”
“Colorado. It’s over six miles long.”
“Wow. Long enough to be born.” She stared at me. “You said you and your brother? So you’re, like, twins?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Triple cool.”
That’s what I used to think, I thought. “At least I never had to pull him around in a wagon,” I said.
As we were laughing, Devon came stomping up the porch steps. He punched his sister in the leg. “I want attention!”
He was so funny with his little fist and pouty puss, we laughed even harder. So he came over and punched me. So I grabbed him and dumped him on his back and gave him the Torture of Big Girl Kisses. I stopped just short of agonizing death, and a minute later he was sitting on my lap, pulling my mouth into funny faces.
Sydney sat in the other rocker. We rocked and talked.
I got Devon my old Legos. That kept him busy on the porch floor.
I made lunch for the three of us. Tuna salad sandwiches for Sydney and me. Peanut butter and marshmallow (ugh!) for the kid.
We talked and talked. Sydney goes to Saint Catherine’s. She told me all about life there. She rides her bike a lot when she’s not pulling the wagon. Her father says if he can get permission, he’ll take her for a ride in his engine for her next birthday. She says maybe I could come too!
I set up the croquet game in the backyard and we did that for a while. I gave Devon my stuffed watermelon to play with.
We talked.
I gave them a tour of the house. Sydney loved the basement, which is mostly my mom and dad’s workshop. They make stuff for their jobs and for us. “It’s like a factory!” said Sydney.
Did I say we talked?
That’s what we were doing when my parents’ truck pulled into the driveway. Sydney looked at her watch. “Ohmygod—I gotta get home.”
I introduced her and Devon to my parents. Devon yanked my finger. “Lil-wee”—that’s what he calls me—“you pull me home.” So I walked them home, me pulling.
When we got there, Sydney was about to introduce me to her parents when Devon punched her. “Let me do it,” he growled. He raised my hand like a winning boxer. “Mommy and Daddy—this is Lil-wee!”
I ran all the way home. I gobbled down my dinner. I biked over to Poppy’s. I burst into the house. “Poppy!” I shouted. “I think my new life just found me!”