Joshua and His Gang ; Chapter Nine ;Out of Sorts
On the last Friday before school started Joshua was walking along Elm Street looking sneaky.
A line of trees separated two properties near the very end of the block and made a mini woods. And old board fence that had once been the boundary had fallen over long ago and lay blackly under oily leaves like a boardwalk.
Early in the summer Joshua had been walking through the trees for no reason at all - it was not a shortcut to anywhere. It wasn't a particularly pleasant place - the trees were too low and twisty with gnarly branches so walking under them was not easy. But Joshua liked to walk there. The hidden boardwalk made a bit of a path and the first time he wandered along it he broke off some branches to make the going easier. But he left the trees tangled by the street. He didn't want to clear the way for just anyone.
He was drawn back a few days later and cleared a bit more of a path. That was the day he discovered the boardwalk so he spent time using a stick as a rake to clear away the leaves that had packed and rotted to the consistency of fine soil. In other places they had mulched together in a sticky slippery mess like the paper mache he once made for a school project.
Throughout the summer Joshua came back now and then and worked on the path or just walked up and down. He didn't mention the place to his gang.
On the last Friday before school started Joshua nonchalantly (which in a kid means sneaky) trotted along Elm Street and then ducked into the space in the trees that led to the path. He paused and looked back but no one had seen him except a cat that was lying on the sidewalk but it was too busy licking its armpits to give him a second look.
He walked up and down and he rather strutted so strong was his feeling of ownership. "One day I'll own lots of land and walk all over it," he told himself and he did not know it but he was echoing a great great grandfather who had been a landowner long ago in England.
When he tired of the stroll he turned along a slight break in the trees that he hadn't noticed before. He pushed his way through some bushes and suddenly was looking out on the back corner of a property. He could see the backs of the houses on Orchard Street. He could see Hugh hanging out of the window at the very top of his house.
Joshua watched. Hugh was dropping something from the window. It looked like curly leaves.
Joshua gave a sharp whistle. Hugh looked around.
Joshua did it again but although Hugh seemed to be looking right at him he could not see him, the bushes and trees were that thick,
"Hey, Hugh," Joshua called in a funny voice.
"Who is it? Where are you?"
"A ghost."
"Right. Some ghost. Come on in or I'll go out."
Joshua leaped out from the trees and gave a deep bow. Then he started to laugh and Hugh did also.
"As Sam would say - Idiot numbskull! What were you doing in there?"
"Nothing," called Joshua up to Hugh as he walked along the back gardens, hopped a fence and finally stood underneath Hugh's window. Hugh dropped something again and Joshua tried to catch it. He missed. He picked it up off the ground. It was a wood shaving.
"What's this from?"
"Come up and see."
Joshua did not know how to get to the very top floor of Hugh's house. He had visited the McGregor's many times when they lived there but he'd never gone up into the attic.
He wandered around the second floor opening doors and hoping Hugh's mother wasn't there. He found the linen closet and storage room. Then he found a door that led to a hall and on one side of the hall a door was open and sure enough stairs led to the attic. Hugh was now leaning out the window at the front of the house and once more calling down to someone.
"It's John," he explained, when he had ducked back into the room. "He and Bill were looking for worms in the garden on the corner. I told them to come up, too."
Joshua looked around him. There were piles of lumber and tools and fat bundles of stuff that looked like cotton batting which Joshua knew was insulation.
"What's this?"
"My new room. I get the whole floor to myself."
"Wow."
"I told my parents I would like it more here if I could have my own whole room not just a dinky one downstairs."
"It's up here," Piya's voice came up the stairs and then she arrived on the scene with Bill and John. Ellen and Ingrid and Lucy were not far behind. "We followed the gang," Lucy panted. "Wow." She did not need to be told what the construction on the room meant.
They all looked around and Hugh explained about his own room. "I'm going to have lots of shelves for my things and a bunk bed - at least sort of a bunk bed, my dad's going to make it from his own plans, and I can have people to sleepover. And my own radio. And I can keep it messy if I want." (This was not exactly what his mother had agreed he might do but he was in a bragging mood and he knew that would impress.)
Sam shot into the room. "You never tell me where you're going," he screeched. Lucy covered her ears. "How did you find us?" she sighed.
"The mailman saw you go in here. I met him down the block."
"Well, you're here now," Bill said and he told Sam all about Hugh's room.
"You're spoiled," Sam hollered. He had to share a room with one of his brothers and his eldest sister used one of the drawers in what was supposed to be Sam's dresser. He forgot to remember that he had agreed to this as she gave him fifty cents a month to rent the space.
"So what if I'm spoiled," said Hugh. His mother called him her "spoiled ducks" but she said it lovingly.
"Who is going to be allowed to sleep over?" Joshua wanted to know.
"Whoever I want," Hugh said.
Piya put two of the shavings over her ears and let them dangle. "See my earrings. They smell nice too."
"You can see clear across to the Turnbull's field," said Bill who was hanging out the back window.
"I wouldn't like being so high up," Ellen whispered to Lucy. "What if you sleepwalked and fell out the window?"
"I never sleepwalk," said Lucy.
Sam was trying out the plane on the edge of a piece of wood. "I don't think you should do that," Ingrid advised.
"Mind your own beeswax," Sam shouted and then Hugh looked upset but didn't say anything as Sam continued to chip pieces off a two by four (he was pushing the plane the wrong way). Joshua walked over and took the plane from Sam and shook his head at him.
"It was no fun anyway," Sam yelled and stomped out. John went after him.
"I hate my new teacher," Ingrid said suddenly. "My mother heard she's really strict and gives lots of homework."
"I wish Miss Henshaw hadn't left," Lucy complained.
"She got married and had to move away," Piya explained.
"That always happens," Ellen commented.
"I'm glad school's starting," said Joshua.
"I'm not," said Hugh.
Ellen looked at him thoughtfully. "Don't worry, you won't be alone. You have all of us for friends already."
He still frowned.
"Are you afraid they'll laugh at you 'cause of how you talk?"
"I've gotten so used to hearing you I forget you have an accent," said Ingrid.
"I haven't," said Piya.
Bill started to bite a teeny bit off his fingernails because he was afraid Hugh was going to be offended. He wished the girls didn't always have to say exactly what they were thinking.
"People always make fun of my accent," Hugh said, fitting his back into a slope in the roof so he was standing bent forward.
"We could give you English lessons," Lucy suggested.
"I already speak English," Hugh protested.
"But you talk it funny," she persisted.
"You talk it funny," he shouted. "I'm from England. You're a blinking Colonist."
Lucy closed her mouth in shock. She had no idea what a Colonist was but it sounded as if Hugh didn't like them.
The sounds of John and Sam arguing over something on the front stoop came up and into the window.
"I think I'll go home," Piya said.
They all trooped downstairs after her, Hugh sullenly bringing up the rear. His mother was in the hallway. She'd been listening to the argument out front and wondering if she should interfere. She had also heard the hollering upstairs and one look at the downcast faces of the parade of kids told her nothing had been settled.
Hugh's Mom threw the apron she was wearing over her head in pretend dismay. "What a lot of Sad Sacks," she said, pulling the cloth of the apron down so she could peer out at them. "I know what you all need."
Piya stopped as she was going out the door and everyone had to stop behind her.
"What is that?" Lucy asked politely.
"A good dose of school. You're summer-holiday-out-of-sorts."
"Aw, Mum," said Hugh, but Piya giggled.
"I suggested we play school but no one wanted to," Lucy started to say but Ellen gave her a bit of a push to shush her up and Lucy made a face at her.
"Shall I suggest something to do?" asked Hugh's mother.
Piya and Ellen and Joshua and Bill looked interested but Lucy looked suspicious and Ingrid was biting her lip and Hugh said, "Bridey's law it'll be work."
His mom laughed. "And what's the matter with work. I was going to suggest you hoe the garden. The weeds are bigger than the veg. And I promised the McGregors when we bought the place that we'd take care of the garden and give them some of the produce. After all they went to all the work of planting it."
No one looked enthused.
"Ah, well, don't say I didn't try," Hugh's mother said and went back to her sewing.
"Does she always wear an apron?" Lucy asked.
"I don't know," Hugh said, "I guess so." He had never thought about it. It was just his Mum.
"Don't be so nosey," Ellen told her sister.
"My being nosey is how you learn half of what you do but are always too polite to ask yourself," Lucy said and Ellen opened her mouth to argue back so Joshua said, "Let's make the map."
"What map?" Hugh asked.
"Oh," said Piya, "We've been talking of making a map of this neighbourhood for ages but we've never done it."
"For years," Ingrid said, "We've been talking about it for years."
"We want to put all our favourite spots on it," added Ellen.
"But what good is it?" Hugh asked.
"My mother says it will be a historical event if we do it," Bill told them.
The gang had all moved outdoors and were walking around the house to the front where John and Sam seemed to still be arguing.
"I want to put all the houses on it," Sam was shouting. "What good is a map with only a few places, just the important ones. I want my house on it and it is important."
The gang stopped, astonished.
"Why, we were just talking about making the map of our neighbourhood," Joshua said, amazed.
"Then let's do it." Bill said.
"We can use my good coloured pencils that I just got for school, " Ingrid offered.
"I can get some nice paper from my sister," Sam shouted, not adding that he did not plan to tell his sister he was taking it.
"I got a ruler that will measure to scale," Piya said.
They all looked at her, expectantly.
"From my UNCLE the architect," she told them with a grin.
"Let's get all the stuff and meet on my verandah," Joshua suggested.
"Let's go to the clubhouse," Bill said. For some reason ever since Joshua had told the gang about his mother being able to see into the future Bill was a bit afraid of her and he avoided her if he could.
"We never, ever, ever go to MY house," Ingrid said with a toss of her braids and the gang looked at her in surprise. She sounded quite upset.
"Well you never ever ever asked us," Sam shouted.
"Children, children," chanted Lucy as her mother had done to her and Ellen that morning as they argued over whose turn it was to make the toast.
"Oh stop being so darned bossy," Piya told her.
"Don't you yell at my sister," Ellen told Piya.
"Girls, girls," Joshua said.
"Just YOU be Quiet now!" all three girls turned to Joshua and said.
The entire gang looked at each other. Then they all turned at the exact same moment and each and every one went a separate way. They had all had ENOUGH of each other.
Hugh, stomping back into his house, felt he at last belonged!
A number of things motivated me to make this shampoo from a recipe that, with some critical aforethought, might have had me saying, "whoa, these are some strange ingredients for a shampoo."