Bash thumped me with the wheelbarrow. “What we need is a tree fort.”
I swung the shovel and plopped another load of cow muck into the wheelbarrow. What we needed after a morning of cleaning cow stalls in the milking barn were baths. “Why do we need a tree fort?” As soon as we finished chores, it would be our first day of parole since the cow-riding incident a week ago. Please don’t get us locked up again.
Morning milking was over and the cows, their bellies full of a breakfast of grain, had returned to the pasture for another day of grazing. We got stuck with the messy job of cleaning up after them every morning.
Bash shook a pitchfork full of straw across the empty stall I’d just shoveled and scraped. “So we can have a secret clubhouse. So we can have brave adventures. So we can scout for elephants and rhinoceroseseses.” Bash added a bunch of extra “siss-siss-sisses” to the end of rhinoceros.
I wiped sweat from my brow so it wouldn’t slosh around my rolling eyes. “Yeah, right. You get many elephants and rhinos in Ohio?”
Bash ran the wheelbarrow toward the back door to dump the load on the manure pile that Uncle Rollie would spread later on fields for fertilizer. “Dunno. That’s why we need a tree fort. You can’t spot ’em without a tree fort.”
I moved to the next stall and tugged at my jeans. I must not be eating enough. My pants were slipping. So were my brains for even letting Bash talk about tree forts and elephants in Ohio. “Are you and reality ever on speaking terms?”
Bash bounced the now empty wheelbarrow back across the concrete floor. “You got no ’magination, Beamer. You can’t have fun without ’magination.”
I shoveled another heavy cow pile and slung it into the wheelbarrow. “Just once, I wish you’d think of something real that made sense.”
Bash spread more straw. “Just once, you oughta think of something. Anything.” He leaned on the pitchfork. A corner of his mouth edged into a crooked grin. “If you’d rather, we could watch for bears.”
“Bears?”
“Sure. Black bears wander over from Pennsylvania sometimes.”
I moved to the next stall and heaved gunk at the wheelbarrow. Some of it splattered onto Bash’s jeans. He was too busy talking to notice. “See, we’ll build the tree fort at the edge of the woods and watch for bears. An’ elephants and rhinoceroseseses.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re dry cleaning.”
I shook my head. Logic, I get. But my cousin’s roller coaster reasoning—I don’t even want a ticket for that ride. So why did I keep getting on? “Dry cleaning what?”
“Us, owl breath. The longer we air dry out here, the less chance Ma’ll make us take baths.”
I’d love to scrub off some of the stink of this farm. But a bath before lunch is a little much for even me. I scraped goop from the last stall and tried to figure it out. Building a tree fort would keep Bash out of Aunt Tillie’s sight for a while. And maybe out of trouble. That would keep me out of trouble. And me being smarter than Bash would keep him out of trouble. But still . . .
“When’s the last time you saw a bear?
Bash flicked a bedding of straw over the last stall. “Aw, never. Pops saw one last July. Uncle Jake O’Rusty McGillicuddy Junior barked an’ yipped an’ growled until he chased it away. Bears hardly ever come this far. That’s why we need to build a tree fort—so we can spot one. Or an elephant or a rhinoceroseseses.”
I leaned the shovel against the wall, where it would be waiting for me after evening milking was over. “Bash, trying to find a bear on purpose would be stupid.”
“It’s better’n letting a bear sneak up on you.”
I squinted at the woods across the field. Not even Bash’s imagination could make real elephants or rhinos crash through the trees. But a bear—there was one, a real one, last year. Uncle Jake chased it away.
Once we were inside the house, Aunt Tillie roamed, growling at us to clean, dust, do dishes, and stop making all that racket. When we weren’t working, the Basher read his Bible at me as if it were exciting. Maybe a bear wouldn’t be so bad.
I scratched my head. “Okay, let’s build a tree fort. But what if we see one? Can you outrun a bear?”
“Don’t have to. I only have to outrun you. Ha!” And he ran outside.
“Jerk.” I trotted after him.
The Basher zeroed in on one of the forgotten, broken-down grain sheds that Uncle Rollie meant to knock down years ago. The problem appeared close to solving itself. The roof drooped so much that it almost met the floor, which sagged in an attempt to get away. Weeds and wheat grew between the buckled floorboards that remained. One wall squished outward while another looked ready to crumple into bed for a nap. What was left of two cement steps up into the shed looked more like chunks of chalk melted by rain. The whole thing smelled like a dirty, wet dog.
Bash zipped up the steps and dashed inside.
“I asked Pops a while back if I could have the door.” A big, blue door lay on what was left of the floor. The shed quivered as Bash grabbed the door by its black knob and dragged it toward the opening where it was supposed to be standing. “We can use the old wood too.”
“Farms are like giant boxes of Legos for country kids, aren’t they?” I poked my glasses up my nose and stared into the shaking shed. “Why a door?”
“For a floor!” Bash hopped to the ground, the door teetering on the edge of the doorway. “Grab an end.”
It felt like wood—and left a couple slivers jammed into my fingers—but hefted like cement. We lugged the heavy thing toward the woods, stopping three or four times to rest. We dropped the blue door with a whump in front of a goofy-looking apple tree in a small orchard at the edge of the woods. About four feet up, a thick limb twisted away from the trunk before curling upward. Three other gnarled branches rambled about the first one—the wrinkled hand of an ogre waiting for two elephant hunters to place an old door in its palm. Which, after a great deal of pushing and straining, we did.
Bash pulled off his ball cap and wiped it across his forehead. “It’s wedged pretty tight, Beamer. C’mon, we need hammers and nails.”
We ran to Uncle Rollie’s workshop. “Pops lets me use his tools sometimes. Here, stick these nails in your pocket.”
“Maybe we better go back to the barn and ask.” Bash clanked through toolboxes and clattered out a couple hammers. “Pops doesn’t mind as long as I put ’em back where I found ’em, Most of the time, he doesn’t even know I borrowed ’em.”
“That’s the part that worries me.”
Bash shoved an orange box of nails at me again. “C’mon, we’re losing time.”
“If you’re sure . . .” I emptied two handfuls of long, shiny nails from an orange box and jammed them down my right pocket.
We ran back to the old shed for wood. The pointy tips of the nails scratched at my leg and ripped the bottom out of my pocket. “Yee-ouch!” I howled and hopped and clawed at my leg.
Bash whipped around, nearly whacking me with a couple boards he’d pulled from the shed. “Don’t lose the nails.”
Too late. A cluster of nails cascaded down my pants leg and plinked around my sneaker.
Bash covered his mouth but I could see him snickering. “Guess you better carry ’em in your fists, Beamer.”
We worked at it the rest of the morning. We secured the blue door floor to the tree. We built a wall on the woods side from boards yanked off the tottering old shed. Scrap chicken wire fenced one end while the tree trunk walled the other end. We found a sheet of plywood with a chunk missing for the final wall. We sawed out a few more chunks for lookout windows like in a castle tower. It looked more like a dinosaur with big teeth bit into it. This was better than I expected.
I tugged at my pants. “This is almost fun.”
“See? All it takes is ’magination.”
We nailed together odds and ends until we had three stools, a table, and part of a bunk bed. We hung a sign on which Bash had painted Look Out Fort with some orange tractor touch-up paint.
I wiped my glasses on my T-shirt and put them back on. “What’s the fort supposed to look out for?”
“Not the fort, dork-dork. Us. It’s a lookout post so we can watch for elephants and rhinoceroseseses.”
I peered into the woods. “And bears?”
“An’ bears.”
I shuddered. “Seen any yet?”
“Nope. You scared ’em away with your loud hammering.”
“You hammered too!”
“I pounded nails in a comforting way. Anyway, we’re not looking for bears. We’re looking for elephants or rhinoceroseseses. And I haven’t seen any yet.”
I stomped my foot on the door floor. “Maybe they only come out at night, like the deer.”
Bash jumped off his wood block stool. “Great idea, Beamer!”
“What is?”
“A campout! We’ll catch ’em for sure.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Bash paced around the door floor. “I’ve got a couple sleeping bags in my closet somewhere.”
I slumped onto a grain box chair. “I didn’t say camp out.”
“We’ll call Bonkers ’cause he’s the best with animals. Have you seen his pet lizards? He’s gonna train them to wear vampire teeth and scare the girls.”
“I didn’t say camping.”
“C’mon, Ray-Ray Sunbeam Beamer, let’s go tell Ma we’re camping out tonight.”
“Stop calling me that! I’m not camping out and that’s final.”