Aunt Tillie hollered up the stairs. “Sebastian, bag up the library stuff. It’s bookmobile day.”
I rolled over on my bed and yawned, a Hardy Boys mystery I’d found on Uncle Rollie’s shelf still in hand. We’d finished morning chores. “Morning” still felt like the middle of the night. I scratched at one of the itchy barbed wire digs from a couple nights ago and yawned again. “What’s a bookmobile?”
Bash glanced from that kids’ Bible of his. “It’s a library inside a bus. The library building is in the city. For us out here in the country, they took a big, ol’ bus, ripped out the seats and filled it with bookcases. They drive the library to us.”
“Cool!” Maybe I’d find a tiny bit of civilization after all in this nutty place.
We stuffed a sack full of books to return: fuzzy-bunny and purry-kitty books from Bash’s baby sister Darla, a cookbook from Aunt Tillie, a tractor repair book Uncle Rollie’d used, three novels, and some books recorded on CDs.
There were no books for Bash. “I read lots in the winter and at school, but in the summer, I’m too busy. Except for the Farmin’ and Fishin’ Book. I read that lots.”
I knew what book he meant. “Why do you read that Bible? The words are hard and it doesn’t make sense.”
Bash shrugged. “It’s about farmin’ and fishin’, so I reckon I understand what you don’t.”
I may not have paid that much attention in church, but I knew the Bible had nothing to do with farming or fishing. It talked about a naked guy in a garden with a snake, a zoo on a boat, a shepherd with a slingshot, and Jesus, who gathered up a bunch of disciples at the sea. Outside of a couple decent stories, like Samson the muscleman whacking people with a donkey’s jawbone, the Bible bored me. This further proved that Bash was two pigs shy of a pen.
We dumped the bag of books into a red wagon. Bash let me take the first turn pulling the half mile or so south to Morris’s Corner Store and Seed Emporium, where Bash said the bookmobile parked for two hours every other Thursday. “And we gotta stop in at Morris’s too. Mary Jane might be working.”
I nearly dropped the wagon handle. “Your pesky neighbor, Mary Jane?” Already twelve and turning thirteen in December, Mary Jane acted like that gave her the right to boss us around. December was a long way away and I’d be twelve myself in February.
“Yep. Mary Jane Morris. Sometimes her mom lets her run the cash register. When she does, I like to pile up a bunch of stuff on the counter, have her add it all up, then make her take it off one item at a time while I recount my money each time to see if I have enough yet.”
“Don’t you know ahead of time how much is in your pocket?”
Bash grinned. “Sure. I do it because it drives her crazy. She told me once that sometimes she gets bored sitting there. I like to help. If she catches me outside the store afterward, she clobbers me. It’s really fun!”
I shoved the wagon handle into his hand. “You’re weird.”
The bookmobile was awesome. Books everywhere—rows and rows of shelves just jammed full. A checkout lady sat at a desk crammed near the backdoor. Bash hauled me back there.
“Hiya, Mrs. Magruder. Meet my cousin Ray-Ray. He’s a book nut like you.”
She nearly knocked me over with her smile. “Good morning, young Master Ray-Ray. Any cousin of Bash probably is on his toes. What a pistol he is. Don’t you just love him?”
She’s a book nut, all right. Emphasis on nut. “Um, hi.”
Mrs. Magruder shook my hand until it nearly fell off. “Help yourself. We have plenty of books and there’s more where they came from.”
The adult books bunked on the top shelves and the kids’ books stuffed the low ones. I dropped to my knees and crawled along the carpeted walkway toward the front of the bus, reading the titles splashed on colorful spines as I went. The smells of new books, scuffed carpet, and diesel fumes mixed together in an oddly comforting odor.
I pried loose an action book about a guy who could change himself into a giant fly to buzz around spies. I scooted on hands and knees to the next section of bookshelves, nearly at the front door, when I bumped into a pair of broomstick legs poking out of ripped, red tennis shoes.
“Oops, excuse me.” I looked up to see whoever belonged to the shoes. The kid hadn’t noticed me parked against his shins. He was too busy staring toward the back where my cousin kept Mrs. Magruder bouncing with a list of books Aunt Tillie gave him.
The kid waved. “Hey, Bash.”
I swiveled my head in time to see Bash salute. “Hiya, Jig.”
The kid took off running to greet Bash. Then he went flying. That’s because he still hadn’t noticed me. He thunked right into my ribs and flipped over my back. Arms, legs, books and a baseball cap scattered everywhere. One book zinged into Mrs. Magruder’s hair, which was piled atop her head like a butter pecan ice cream cone. The book dangled from one of the swirls like a pecan about to drip out. I covered my head against the yelling sure to come. Instead, she laughed. It was belly-shaking laughter.
Mrs. Magruder plucked the book from her ice cream cone hair and read the title. “‘I Wish That I Had Duck Feet.’ Well, Jig, darling, you missed my big duck feet. Aim lower next time. Slide a slap shot beneath the desk. That would do it.” This time she laughed so hard that if anything else had been hidden in the ice cream cone hair, it would have shaken loose in a spray.
Bash hooted and slapped his leg. Twice. “Sorry, Mrs. M.”
A skinny girl at the front of the bus snorted.
Bash leaned over the crumpled kid. “Jig, meet my cousin Raymond Boxby. He’s the other dork on the floor.”
Jig, flat on his stomach, looked over his shoulder at me still crouched on hands and knees. “Hey.”
“Um, yeah.”
Bash nudged me with his sneaker. “C’mon, Ray-Ray Sunbeam Beamer, help Jig pick up the books while you’re down there.”
I smacked his foot away. “Stop calling me that. And what kind of a name is Jig?”
“His real name is Jehoshaphat Isaac Gobnotter. His folks named him after his great-grandfather. We just call him Jig. It fits better. And that girl up there snorting, that’s Jig’s twin sister, Jecolia Athalia Gobnotter. We call her . . .”
“Lemme guess—Jag.”
“I was going to say Jackie . . . No, kidding. Yep, you’re looking at Jig and Jag. They’re only nine but okay for little kids. They live in that big yellow farmhouse a couple places down from us.”
Scrawny Jig sported freckles, and hair the color of fire poked from beneath a green John Deere cap. Jag stood just as freckly, just as fire-headed and just as short. She wore a pink play dress imprinted with tiny, purple flowers. When she dove to the carpet to grab up spilt books, the dress swished to reveal long, blue gym shorts underneath.
As Jig scooped books toward him, his eyebrows shot up so far that the bill of his cap raised a couple inches. He plucked my book out of the jumble. “Ooh, you got a book on the Fly Guy. He’s cool. I wish I could fly around like that.”
Jag snorted. “I’d still catch you.”
“Not if I could fly, Possum Girl. Possums just hang there doing nothing.” Jig turned to me. “She swings upside from trees all the time. It’s why she wears gym shorts under her dress.”
Jag snorted again. Apparently, she snorted a lot.
Bash’s eyes started to fire up with that awful glow. Mrs. Magruder saw it too. “Oh, you’re up to something again, aren’t you?”
Bash nodded. “I’ve got a great idea.”
Jig cheered. “Great!”
Jag snorted. “Great?”
I groaned. “Oh, great.”
Mrs. Magruder checked her watch, then started sweeping loose papers into desk drawers. “You’ll have to tell me what happens when I come next week. My word, they think I make it all up when I tell them about you at the monthly librarians’ meeting.”
Bash checked out our books, chucked them into the wagon and then circled us around it. “Jig, Jag, Beamer, how much allowance money do you have?”
I threw up my hand like a traffic cop. “Uh-uh, Basher, your mom said no stopping anywhere after we get the books.”
“Nope. She said no buying RC Cola at Morris’s after the books. We’re not going to buy pop. We’re going to buy flypaper.”
I scratched my head. “What’s flypaper?”
Jag . . . well, you know. And jabbed me with the sharpest elbow I’ve ever felt. “Where’d you get this kid?”
“Ow.”
Bash leaned close as I rubbed my ribs. “Beamer, you know those strips of sticky tape hanging in the barn? That’s flypaper.” He resumed pacing. “We’re gonna buy as many rolls of flypaper as we can, then wrap ’em around Jig. He’s not very heavy. When enough bugs land on him, I bet the combined flapping of their wings will be enough so Test Pilot Jig can fly.”
“Hooray!” Jig squealed.
I threw up my traffic-cop hand again. “That doesn’t make sense. Stop pulling pranks. A bunch of flies and moths and things can’t lift a boy, even one as little as Jig.”
Jag snorted. I flinched in case she’d throw another elbow, but she didn’t. “How do you know bugs can’t lift a boy? Have you ever hitched a bunch of moths to a wagon? They’re strong.”
I moved out of elbow range. “Of course not. It would be stupid.”
Bash the rocket scientist crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air so he could try to look down on me even though I’m three inches taller. “If you never tried, how do you know it won’t work?”
“Well . . . it just wouldn’t. Stop being such a little kid.”
Bash put his fists on his hips and stuck out his chest in his best adult imitation. “Grown-ups are just kids who forgot how to have adventures. When you stop having fun, you’re grown-up.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Our Bible memory verse from last week said, ‘I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete’ (John 15:11). Joy is short for enjoy, Beamer.”
I crossed my arms. “I’ve been stuck with you enough to know that ‘enjoy’ can break my leg. And that you’d probably enjoy that.”
Bash laughed. “You’re funny, Beamer. C’mon gang, let’s go.”
Morris’s Corner Store and Seed Emporium smelled like someone had broken open a couple sacks of flour on the floor and never swept it up. Bash, probably. Bare wood floors buckled beneath racks and shelves loaded with bread, cans, cereals, soaps, root beer mix, balsa wood airplanes, baseball cards and something called paraffin, whatever that might be. Out back leaned a small barn where they kept sacks of seeds.
Behind the counter next to an iron cash register, a girl with chocolate curls glared at us with laser blue eyes. Her hands tightened into two scary fists. I’d run into them before on past visits to the farm. Hoo boy, did I run into them.
“Sebastian Nicholas Hinglehobb, I’m telling you right now, I will make you haul everything back—where it belongs, this time—AND sweep the floors, too, if you pull any pranks. I’m warning you—I’m wearing my pointy-toed cowboy boots!”
“Hi, Mary Jane.” I think Bash gulped. “Nope, no tricks this time. Okay, everybody, money on the counter. We need all the flypaper this much can buy.”
“Small allowance again, I see. All right, that’s thirty-five, sixty, seventy-five, a dollar, one-ten, one-twenty . . .”
By the time she sorted through all the change, we had thirteen packs of flypaper, each package containing four green and gray tubes of the stuff. Mary Jane slammed the packages into a paper bag. “So what’s up with the flypaper? You didn’t take a bath again and your mom has to hang these in your room?”
Jig snapped to attention. “No, I’m gonna fly. Bash said so.”
“You do understand that this is fly paper, not fly-ing paper, don’t you?”
Rocket Scientist Bash crossed his arms and shook his head. “We can’t share all the secret details of our experiment with you, Mary Jane. Just keep looking up. If our experiment goes right, Jig oughta be soaring overtop your store dropping water balloons on you in half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes. It depends on how fast your paper catches flies.” Bash pulled one of the packs out of the sack and studied it. “It’s not crummy flypaper, is it? It might take an hour if you’re selling crummy flypaper.”
Mary Jane clamped her hands to her temples and sighed dramatically. “Oh, Jehoshaphat Isaac Gobnotter, what’s little Sebastian talked you into this time? No, don’t tell me. All I need to know is if you’re aiming water balloons at me, I’m perfectly safe. You’re lousy shots.”
“Bye, Mary Jane.” Bash bowed as we pushed through the screen door, which creaked open and whap-banged closed behind us.
“Don’t slam the door!” Mary Jane hollered.
We jammed the bag of flypaper next to the books in the wagon. Rocket Scientist Bash grabbed the wagon handle. “C’mon, let’s go to my place. I’ll give Ma the books and we can head out behind the barn. Lots of flies back there.”
This could not end well.