Against All Odds (5 page)

B
oney poked his head into his aunt’s kitchen, afraid of what he might smell there. But his heart lifted when he saw the yellow cookbook open on the counter and whiffed the delicious aroma of refried beans on the stove. “Smells great!” he called out, kicking off his sneakers. “What’s for supper?”

“It’s a surprise,” his aunt said.

Boney gulped. “Oh.” Whenever his aunt cooked up a surprise it was almost always a miserable disaster. He shuffled over to the stove and attempted to open the oven, but his aunt brushed his hand away.

“Go wash your face and hands and run a comb through your hair, young man, you look like you lost a fight with a thousand dust bunnies.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Boney disappeared obediently into the washroom to tidy up. When he reappeared, he presented himself to his aunt for inspection. She examined
his neck and behind his ears, then his fingernails, and even looked between his fingers before deeming him fit for dinner. Boney walked to the table and was just about to yank out a chair when his aunt yipped.

“Don’t scrape the legs across the floor!”

Boney gently glided the chair from the table and sat politely down. His uncle was already seated, reading the newspaper. He flapped it importantly, folding it several times before smacking it down with disgust on the seat of the chair beside him. There, on the front page, was the blurry picture of Itchy. Somehow, his uncle had missed it altogether, no doubt in his hurry to read the business section. Boney moved his hand toward the paper and attempted to sneak away the page.

“Widgets are down 3.2 per cent,” his uncle blustered, causing Boney to retract his hand in alarm. “How’s a man supposed to make a living anymore?”

“Please, Robert,” his aunt scolded. “You’re going to give yourself indigestion. Now close your eyes, you two …”

Boney and his uncle peeked at each other in fear. At least when they knew what was coming they could prepare themselves for the shock. His uncle closed his eyes. Boney used the opportunity to sneak the newspaper page with Itchy’s photo and push it into his pocket before his aunt turned around from the stove. He shut
his eyes while his uncle sputtered incoherently through his moustache.

There was a flurry of pots clattering and the sound of the oven door opening and closing as plates were prepared. Boney could hear his aunt’s high heels clacking sharply back and forth across the linoleum, and then the kitchen fell suddenly quiet.

“Okay, open them!”

Boney and his uncle fluttered their eyes open. His aunt stood before them, wearing a sombrero and holding two plates of steaming burritos, the red pompoms on her hat bobbling merrily back and forth. “Olé!” she shouted.

“Wow …” Boney said. He looked at his uncle, who stared at his wife, unsure how to respond.

Still grinning, she placed the dishes on the table. Boney raised his fork and jabbed at the burrito, as though expecting it to jump off his plate.

“Is this melted cheese?” he asked.

His aunt patted the top of his head. “Only the best for my boys. Now dig in while it’s still hot.”

Boney and his uncle did what they were told, smiling with unexpected delight when they tasted the delicious beans. They dug in with gusto, knives and forks flashing until their plates were scraped clean. When they were finished, they sat back in their chairs,
rubbing their bulging stomachs, their eyes glazed with satisfaction.

His uncle stifled a loud burp. “Mildred, you’ve outdone yourself.”

Boney’s aunt smiled as she clapped the yellow cookbook shut and placed it back in its position on the shelf next to the stove. Boney leaned toward his uncle and whispered, “We’ll have to get her another cookbook for her next birthday.”

Boney’s uncle winked. “I’ve got it all arranged.” He tapped on his belly.

Boney winked back. He asked to be excused, then brought his dishes to the sink before going upstairs to his bedroom. Once there, he took the newspaper page from his pocket, ripped it into confetti, and deposited it in the trash. Then he removed the towel that covered the Tele-tube and placed the tube to his lips. “Are you there, Squeak? Over.”

There was a rustle on the other end of the tube. “Squeak here.”

Boney opened his mouth to speak, but a giant burp erupted instead.

“Ahhh!” Squeak hollered. “Why do you do that to me? We need to find another mode of communication.”

“Sorry,” Boney apologized. “I guess I ate too much.”

“Another dinner disaster?”

Boney patted his stomach. “Actually, dinner was delicious. We had burritos with real melted cheese.” He burped again, but this time turned his head politely away from the mouth of the Tele-tube.

“Lucky,” Squeak said. “I’m thinking of giving my dad cooking lessons for his birthday, but I don’t want to insult him.”

“Yeah, that could be touchy. What was the surprise he had for you?”

“Bread. He made bread today as a surprise to celebrate the flying competition. At least, it was supposed to be bread. It turned out more like a giant white brick. He broke the breadknife trying to cut it. Then he resorted to the circular saw.”

Boney shuddered. “Oh boy.”

“Yeah. But then crumbs got stuck in the saw blade and the motor sparked and burned out. I told him it was somehow appropriate, given my plane’s performance at the competition.”

“Your plane was awesome,” Boney consoled him. “Hey, I think we have some leftovers in the fridge if you want.”

“No … it’s okay,” Squeak said. “I made a box of macaroni and cheese. It’s not so bad if you add frozen meatballs.”

“Speaking of meatballs, have you heard from Itchy?”

Squeak sighed. “His bedroom curtains are shut. I keep trying to reach him on the tube but he won’t pick up. I guess he’s still mad.”

“About what? Samantha Moss? Or his picture in the paper?”

“We can’t prove it’s him.”

“No … we can’t,” Boney agreed. “But do you think it’s him?”

“I don’t know. It kind of looks like him. And he has been acting rather strange lately.”

“And he does love food.”

“Yeah,” Squeak said. “But I’d rather not think about it. I don’t like the idea of my friend being a potential criminal.”

Boney pulled on his chin. “Me neither. Oh well, maybe this will all blow over by the morning.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have to help your dad tomorrow?” Boney asked.

“No. But I’ve agreed to spend some ‘quality time’ with him tonight.”

“Oh.” Boney couldn’t hide the disappointment in his voice. “Okay then. I’ll see you in the morning, I guess. Let me know if you get in touch with Itchy. I’m a bit worried about him.”

“Me too,” Squeak said. “Over and out.”

Boney tossed the towel over the Tele-tube. What was he going to do for the rest of the evening with Itchy angry and Squeak spending quality time with his dad? He grabbed the rubber ball off his floor and began bouncing it loudly against his bedroom wall, over and over, until his aunt appeared in the doorway.

“What are you doing, young man?”

Boney threw the ball toward the wall. “I’m bored.”

His aunt caught the ball mid-flight. “Then get out of that chair and come help me polish silver.”

Boney’s face dropped. “Whaaat?”

“Now.”

Boney dragged himself downstairs to where a mountain of silver cutlery and containers waited on the kitchen table. He groaned, slumped into a chair, and began to polish. “I’ll never say I’m bored again …”

T
he next morning, Boney woke to find Itchy walking across his backyard, wearing his Superman T-shirt. Boney checked his watch: seven-twenty-five. Flipping the towel off the Tele-tube, he immediately called for Squeak.

“Are you there, Squeak? Over.”

There was a moment’s silence and then Squeak’s voice came over the tube.

“Squeak here.”

Boney launched in. “You won’t believe this. Itchy’s walking through my backyard wearing my Superman T-shirt. I spent hours polishing silver last night. I’m not in the mood for this. What’s with him?”

“Why were you polishing silver?” Squeak asked.

Boney grunted. “Never mind. Why’s Itchy up so early?”

Squeak looked out his window into Boney’s backyard. “I don’t know. He doesn’t even breathe before noon if he doesn’t have to. What’s he doing?”

“He’s standing at the foot of the oak tree, staring up at the clubhouse.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Boney said. “Maybe he forgot something after his temper tantrum.”

“Do you think he’s still mad at us?”

Boney pulled on his chin. “Who can say?”

Itchy scuttled like a crab up the rope ladder. Boney looked over to where Squeak stood in his bedroom window. The two friends shrugged at each other.

All at once, Itchy raced back down the ladder, Henry flapping and squawking after him. Itchy jumped the rest of the way down, landing easily on his feet. He looked up at Boney and then sprinted like an Olympic athlete along the house toward the street.

“What was that all about?” Squeak said.

Boney gaped out his window. “I have no clue. But I should just give him that stupid Superman shirt if he loves it so much.”

“And what’s Henry so upset about?” Squeak asked.

“Maybe Itchy tried to eat his food.” Boney leaned closer to his bedroom window, studying the clubhouse.
A darkly clothed figure appeared, climbing down the ladder. “Who the heck is that?”

“This is highly unusual,” Squeak said. “I may be mistaken, but that appears to be Samantha Moss …”

“What’s she doing in our clubhouse?”

“I don’t know, but isn’t that Itchy in my backyard?”

Boney scrunched up his face. “How’d he get over there?”

Squeak shot Boney a look across the divide between their two houses. “It’s physically impossible for him to be back there. We just saw him run toward the street at the front of the house …”

“Unless he ran around the block in less than two seconds …” Boney said.

“Which is physically impossible.”

Boney frowned. “This is totally weird. Come on, Squeak, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Boney tossed the towel over the end of the Teletube, threw on some clothes, and raced from his room, pounding down the stairs in his sock feet.

“William Boneham!” his aunt snapped. “You go right back up those stairs and come down again in a more civilized manner. This isn’t the monkey house at the zoo!”

Boney marched up the stairs, did a pirouette at the top, then minced back down the steps, making sure not to thump on the landing at the bottom.

“That’s better,” his aunt said.

She watched as Boney walked through the living room to the kitchen to put on his shoes. To save time, he stuffed his feet into his sneakers without untying them, crushing the backs with his heels.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his aunt said.

Boney smiled as nicely as he could. “Out.”

She pointed at his sneakers. “You’re going to trip and hurt yourself if you don’t put those shoes on properly, young man.”

Boney exhaled loudly but he didn’t argue. He quickly untied his shoes and put them on properly, then jumped out the kitchen door before his aunt could disapprove of anything else.

“What about breakfast?” she called after him.

“No thanks!” Boney called back. “And I won’t be home for lunch either!” The screen door smacked behind him.

Squeak was waiting beneath the clubhouse.

“Samantha’s gone,” he said.

Boney threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “I barely made it out of the house—my aunt was being so nosy. Did you see which way Samantha went?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t even know if it really was her. But did you see this morning’s paper?” Squeak held up the newspaper.

On the front page was another blurry photo of Itchy, only this time he was running from a doughnut shop with a bag of day-olds in his hand.

Boney ran his hand through his hair. “This is not good.” And then his eyes grew wide. “Oh no, my uncle!” Boney bolted to the front of his house and grabbed the newspaper off the lawn. Tearing the picture of Itchy from the paper, he stuffed it into his pocket so his uncle wouldn’t see it, then replaced the newspaper where he’d found it. “What are we going to do?” he asked Squeak when he returned to the clubhouse.

Squeak pushed on the bridge of his goggles. “We have to find him and make him—”

But before Squeak could finish his sentence, a small figure crashed through the bushes into Boney’s backyard and then back out again, running vigorously along the train tracks behind the houses on Green Bottle Street.

Squeak blinked. “I believe that was Samantha Moss.”

“Come on!” Boney said. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”

Just as he said this, Larry Harry and Jones and Jones crashed into Boney’s backyard, yelling at the top of their lungs. Itchy ran behind them like a mad dog.

“Get him off meeeee!” Larry howled. He turned and threw a Snickers bar at Itchy before smashing through the bushes and running along the tracks.

The chocolate bar bounced off Itchy’s chest and landed at his feet. With a lightning-quick motion, he scooped up the bar and dashed along the garage to the front of the house. Larry Harry and Jones and Jones didn’t look back but kept shouting in terror as they ran down the tracks into the distance.

Boney and Squeak stared in disbelief.

“Has everyone gone completely insane?” Boney said. He turned to Squeak. “Could you slap me, please, because I think I’m having a bad dream and I can’t seem to wake up.”

Squeak gave him a quick slap.

“Ow!” Boney howled. “I didn’t mean for you to really slap me.”

“Sorry.”

Boney rubbed his cheek. “We have to talk to Itchy. He’s out of control.”

“What about Samantha Moss?” Squeak asked.

“She can wait.”

The two boys walked toward Itchy’s house. They were just crossing the driveway to the front porch when Itchy’s father, Mr. Schutz, leapt from the house in his white sequined Elvis costume and jumped into his old blue station wagon.

“Hi, Mr. Schutz,” the boys called after him. “Is Itchy home?”

But Mr. Schutz didn’t even slow down. “Sorry, boys. No time. Got an early date for breakfast with some seniors at the mall.” He revved the engine and put the station wagon in gear. “Elvis has left the building!” he yelled, then tore from the driveway into the street, nearly hitting a police cruiser coming down the road.

The cruiser stopped in front of Itchy’s house and two police officers climbed out. Boney and Squeak turned to leave, but the officers hollered for them to stop.

“Have you boys seen this kid?” one of the officers asked, holding up a grainy security-camera photo of Itchy stealing chocolate bars from a variety store.

Boney looked at the photo. “Uhhh … no, sir …”

Squeak gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs. Then Mrs. Pulmoni stuck her head out her front door like an angry gopher and bawled at the top of her lungs, “You kids tell that red-headed friend of yours to stay out of my yard!”

The police officers glared at Boney and Squeak. Boney shrugged, smiling sheepishly, and was just about to make up an excuse when Itchy appeared at the end of the street.

“There he is!” the officers shouted. They scrambled into their cruiser and streaked off, lights flashing, siren wailing.

Itchy dashed around the corner. And then Samantha Moss entered the scene running after him.

“They’re heading toward the train tracks,” Boney said. “Let’s go.”

The boys ran toward the tracks, cutting through the bushes in Itchy’s backyard. After several hundred feet, they skidded to a stop on the gravel, chests heaving. But Samantha was nowhere in sight.

Squeak wheezed, trying to catch his breath. “She’s incredibly fast.”

Boney panted. “You can say that again.” He shielded his eyes from the sun, scouring the length of tracks, then pointed to a small figure running in the distance. “Over there!”

The boys ran between the rails, Squeak stumbling over rocks and twigs as they went. He gestured at his goggles. “My depth perception isn’t very good.”

Boney suddenly stopped. He grabbed Squeak by the shirt and pulled him off the tracks, crouching down behind a bush. Samantha stood at the edge of the rails, staring at a path that forked off into the trees.

“Is that new?” Squeak whispered.

Boney shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before. And I know every inch of this railway line from Van Ave. to Tulsa Street.”

The boys watched as Samantha reached into a small bag slung over her shoulder. She produced a strange instrument that looked like a compact silver
wand. Holding the instrument in front of her, she pushed a button. Two thin metallic arms with tiny glass orbs on the ends appeared from the device. They began slowly rotating at the end of the wand like the propeller of a small plane, creating a funny purple light as they spun.

“Fascinating,” Squeak said.

“What is it?” Boney asked.

Samantha held the device at arm’s length, moving it in a careful arc through the air. The machine made a small ticking sound, like a Geiger counter, the ticks becoming more frequent as Samantha held it toward the mouth of the path. The ticking grew louder and more urgent, the arms spinning faster and faster until the device began to crackle like raw electricity. After several minutes, Samantha depressed the button and the metallic arms began to slow, the ticking fading as the arms folded neatly back into the device. She stuffed the wand into her bag, stepped off the railway onto the path, and slipped into the shadowy woods.

Squeak turned to Boney, his eyes the size of dessert plates. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It appeared to be some kind of tracking device.”

“Yeah … but what is she tracking?” Boney stood, peered over the bush, signalled for Squeak to wait, and trotted over to the mouth of the path. When he was sure
the coast was clear, he motioned for Squeak to follow. Squeak hustled over. Boney pointed to the path. “It’s new. That’s why we’ve never seen it before. Look at the broken branches on the bushes.”

Squeak studied the branches. “These breaks can’t be more than a day or two old.”

“But look at the ground,” Boney said. “It’s trampled flat.”

Squeak crouched down, peering at the ground. “It appears to be thousands of sneaker prints — and all the same size and pattern. Who could have done this?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” Boney made a motion to leave. Squeak stopped him with a hand on his shirt sleeve and a worried look in his eyes.

“Do you think it’s safe?” he asked. “I mean, it seems illogical to go searching for something we may regret finding.”

Boney clenched his jaw. “What choice do we have? Itchy may be in trouble. We have to help him … no matter how odd he’s been acting lately.”

“But we’re not prepared,” Squeak said.

Boney sighed. “How can we prepare for something when we don’t even know what it is? Consider this a scouting mission. We’ll look around a bit and see what we come up with. We won’t take any unnecessary chances. I promise.”

Squeak raised an eyebrow. “Whenever you start making promises everything goes wrong.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is.”

“All right, maybe some of the time,” Boney conceded. “But this is different. Itchy needs our help. What kind of friends would we be if we just abandoned him?”

Squeak pondered this for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

Boney patted him on the back and began creeping along the path. Squeak followed behind so closely he was practically stepping on Boney’s heels. A twig snapped and Boney abruptly stopped, causing Squeak to slam into him.

“Stop following so closely,” Boney hissed.

“I’m sorry,” Squeak apologized. “It’s a little unnerving in here.”

Boney rolled his eyes. “It’s just the woods. Mr. Spock wouldn’t be afraid.”

“Mr. Spock carries a phaser.”

Boney grabbed Squeak’s arm. “Shhh! Do you hear that?”

Squeak cranked his head around, scanning the trees. “Hear what?”

The two boys listened, hearts pounding.

“I guess it’s nothing,” Boney said, after several nerve-racking seconds. “Let’s keep going.”

Squeak exhaled. Boney hunched low, Squeak mirroring his movements. He looked over Boney’s shoulder. “What could Itchy possibly be doing out here? He’s terrified of being in the woods alone.”

“He’s terrified of everything.” Boney stopped dead in his tracks. “Shhh! Listen!”

Squeak stumbled into him again and scowled, adjusting the goggles on his face. “You’re starting to bug me.”

Boney pointed to his ears and his eyes like a commando. Squeak crouched behind an old tree stump.

“I don’t hear anything,” he said.

Boney put a finger to his lips. “Listen … It’s some kind of weird hum. It comes in waves.”

Squeak cupped his ears. And then his eyes widened. “Yes, I hear it. It has the same cadence as a positronic generator.” He produced a pencil and notebook from his messenger bag and began scribbling eagerly.

The boys listened for a moment longer, the strange hum throbbing softly around them. Boney pointed through the bushes to where a diffuse blue light seemed to be hovering over the ground. “I think it’s coming from over there.”

Squeak finished his calculation, then stuffed his
notebook and pencil into his bag. The two boys inched toward the light, the humming growing louder.

Boney took cover behind a tall bush, easing the branches to one side. “Holy smokes!” he gasped.