Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street & When Mules Flew on Magnolia Street Read online

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  For

  Truzetta, William, and Charles

  (and their wonderful worlds gone by)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street

  CHAPTER TWO

  Charlie P.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Sea

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Pumpkin Box

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Water Lilies

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Story That Twists Around

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Us and the Wind

  Maniac Monkeys on Magnolia Street

  You can't tell it by the big, peaceful swaying willow trees at the entrance of Magnolia Street, but the neighborhood is full of maniac monkeys.

  The first time I saw the willows, I thought of picnics underneath them and maybe even some games of hide-and-seek, too. I never thought of maniac monkeys.

  When I first moved to Magnolia Street a few days ago with my brother, Sid, and my mom and dad, I was really missing our old neighborhood on Monroe Street. I missed the chiming of the town hall clock and the smells from the candy factory.

  Mostly, though, I missed my friends on Monroe Street.

  I didn't see one kid on Magnolia Street the day we moved. Mom and Dad said I'd meet friends soon enough and I should worry more about staying clear of the overpacked rooms so I wouldn't break anything in the boxes.

  My brother, Sid, who's twelve, laughed at me and said he didn't think I'd find friends because there weren't any mutants on Magnolia Street. He also said it would be okay if I got in one of the empty boxes and left with the movers.

  Funny.

  When I whined to Dad and Sid got yelled at, he wasn't so funny then.

  He dumped some books out of a box in the living room and crossed his eyes at me. Then he said, “You know, Charlene.”

  My name is Charlene, but everybody calls me Charlie 'cause I like it better. Everybody but Sid, that is.

  Sid laughed. “I wouldn't get too close to those willows you like so much.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because those trees are full of maniac monkeys.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Maniac monkeys, I said.”

  I crawled into one of the empty packing boxes and peeked out. I didn't want Sid sending me with the movers.

  I said, “Prove it.”

  Sid got really sad. He came over, sat by my box, and said the cousin of one of his best friends' aunt had told him that maniac monkeys had been stealing kids on Magnolia Street.

  “Have you seen any kids since we've been here?” he said.

  I knew he was right about that.

  “No.” But what did he think I was—a baby?

  “Don't you wonder where they all are?”

  I said, “I just thought they were all grown up and moved away, or they were all away somewhere like summer camp or something.”

  Sid shook his head and looked at me with that really sad expression again. He patted me on the back and walked away shaking his head. I noticed he'd left the books for me to put away.

  I didn't believe Sid, at least not a lot.

  But when we'd been on Magnolia Street a few days and I still hadn't seen any kids, I began to wonder if Sid might be right.

  I started whining again to Mom and Dad. They said I'd find new friends soon. They said I shouldn't give up hope yet.

  Mom and Dad are usually right, and I know that now, 'cause pretty soon I would meet the boy who would be my best friend in the whole world. But I didn't know that yet, though.

  One morning, I woke up and he was skating in front of our house. He wore overalls and a baseball cap. He skated up and down the sidewalk.

  Hah! Sid was wrong about the monkeys.

  For three days, I sat on our front porch and watched the kid skating.

  He'd wave to me and I'd wave to him.

  On the third day, Sid said, “You'd better go meet him before the monkeys take him away, too.”

  Later that day, Mom came out on the front porch with cookies and juice. This almost never happened because Mom was usually at work, but she was home for the week because we'd moved.

  She called to the skate kid.

  “Come on up, boy with the skates who looks like he might want to eat all these really good store-bought cookies.”

  I was pretty used to my mom when she said things like that, so I wasn't too embarrassed.

  The skating kid rolled to a stop in front of our steps and smiled.

  He said, “I'm Billy.” Then he ate about half the cookies on the plate before I said, “I'm Charlie.”

  By the time Mom came back on the porch, the cookies were gone and Billy was telling me all the things I should know about Magnolia Street.

  The ice cream truck comes every day around two o'clock, and Mo's Freeze Shack up the street has great ice cream, too.

  The fire department opens the hydrants when it's really hot. Everybody stands in the cool water.

  The grownups are okay and hand out great candy at Halloween.

  Billy said, “Yeah, it's okay around here.” I liked Billy 'cause he jumped around when he talked and sometimes even ended up standing on his head.

  I decided to ask him about the monkeys, even though I didn't really believe the story. Where would the monkeys come from, anyway?

  “Are there really maniac monkeys on Magnolia Street? My brother, Sid, says there are.”

  Billy said, “I haven't heard about any monkeys.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. Sounds pretty scary to me, though. Where does your brother say that these monkeys live?”

  “He says that they live in the willows.”

  Billy started laughing so hard he almost rolled off the porch. I started laughing, too. But then I made a decision.

  “Let's go looking for them anyway.”

  The sun was setting on Magnolia Street when me and Billy went looking for the monkeys.

  We went to Billy's house to get what he called monkey-catching gear. We took the sofa pillows and a big vase with dragons on it.

  Billy asked his mom if it was okay. She was at her computer, which Billy said is always a good time to ask her anything.

  Billy's mom said, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  She didn't put up any fight at all.

  He said he once asked if he could paint his bedroom walls with his favorite cartoon heroes. Since she was on her computer, she said, “Do what you want.”

  But Billy wasn't the best artist. Everything he painted had pointed teeth, was green, and didn't wear clothes.

  He had to weed the garden for a whole month.

  We dragged the sofa pillows and vase out the door.

  “What do we need these things for, Billy?”

  “You'll see,” he said.

  I wanted to know now, but I guessed I could wait. Billy was already a lot of fun to be with. He liked finding things out like I do. Everything was exciting to him. Me too.

  So…

 
We dragged the pillows and the vase along the sidewalk to the willow trees at the beginning of the street.

  We sat underneath the beautiful swaying willows with the vase and the pillows beside us and waited.

  Billy said, “If a monkey falls out of the tree, he'll fall in the vase. We won't trap him or anything, but we do want to get a look at him. The pillows are to cushion the monkey's fall.”

  “Pretty good idea,” I said to Billy.

  We listened to the birds singing. The sounds of Magnolia Street were so wonderful we just sat quietly as the sun set through the willow branches.

  I guess me and Billy finally fell asleep underneath the willow tree, curled up on a cushion, waiting for maniac monkeys.

  That man probably shouldn't have shone that flashlight in our eyes like that.

  Billy jumped up screaming, “It's the monkeys!”

  I grabbed the vase, and the next thing we knew was that the flashlight man had a dragon vase on his head and was pretty mad after he got it off.

  He marched us down the street toward Billy's house.

  Billy's mom had left her computer by this time.

  The streetlights had lit up on Magnolia Street.

  My mom and dad must have been taking a break from unpacking because they were there, too, standing beside Billy's mom.

  “Billy, do you think we're in trouble?”

  He didn't say anything, though, 'cause everybody—including the man with the flashlight—was looking at us like we had snakes on us.

  “Here they are,” the flashlight man said.

  My mom started coughing. Then Dad came up real close and looked at us.

  “Thanks for finding them, Mr. Oliver.”

  Then he looked at us.

  “How did you two get fur all over your faces?”

  We both yelled, “The monkeys must have got us!”

  That was the last thing I heard from Billy that night because Mom and Dad walked me home. Fast.

  As I sat in the tub, I figured that me and Billy were probably just about to be carried off by the maniac monkeys when the flashlight man showed up. We missed all the excitement of the neighborhood looking for us.

  I started washing the fur off my forehead and cheeks. Magnolia Street was some great place.

  Sid knocked on the door while I was covering my head with bubbles.

  He whispered through the door, “I told you about those maniac monkeys. You and that skate kid were almost goners.”

  Sid went away laughing.

  I kept washing off the fur and kept smelling something like cherries and glue.

  Weird.

  The next morning, I was hanging upside down in our front tree when Billy came over. He climbed up and hung beside me.

  “So what's up this morning?”

  I started laughing 'cause I figured we probably looked like maniac monkeys swinging upside down from the tree.

  “Let's go skating.”

  I got my bike, and Billy got his skates. After he put his skates on, I pulled him along the sidewalk.

  Billy yelled, “What do you think happened to us under the tree? You don't really think the monkeys got us, do you?”

  I turned and said, “I've been thinking.” But just as I said that, we crashed into the neighbor's shrubs. Mom hollered from the window.

  Me and Billy each had to go to our own porches. We'd only known each other for a day and this was the second time we'd been separated. I wasn't alone long 'cause Sid showed up.

  “What's up, fur face?”

  I said, “I'm on punishment again.”

  “Too bad,” he said.

  I didn't believe he was too sad. I was starting to think that Sid knew more about what had happened last night than he was telling.

  I didn't see Billy until a couple of days later.

  I was lying under his porch eating an apple when he came out of his house.

  I jumped out and scared him. “Where have you been?”

  I gave Billy a bite of my apple.

  “I've been at my grandma's house. She lives way in the country in the middle of nowhere. Mom said she needed a break. So she left me there for a couple of days. She was pretty happy to see me, though, when she picked me up.”

  I patted Billy on the back.

  “That's what happens to me, too.”

  Billy asked, “What have you been doing while I've been gone?”

  “Mostly sitting on the porch, on punishment.”

  “Besides that, I mean.”

  “I've been tracking down monkeys.” Then I told Billy the story…

  I'd spent the days Billy was gone looking for maniac monkeys. I had gone back to the willow tree and sat underneath it.

  All I heard was crickets. I was so comfortable I fell asleep there again. When I woke up, I noticed something was lying beneath me, sticking at my side. Cherry-scented glue stick. Hmm.

  I ran back to my house and up to my room, and sure enough, what I was looking for was missing. I headed for Sid's room and found something covered up on his chair: one of his old teddy bears, shaved on the belly, and the smell of cherries and glue all around.

  Billy looked at me and said, “Sid.”

  I nodded.

  It's going to be a long summer…

  I'm already getting used to Magnolia Street, even though I have a feeling me and Billy might be sitting on our porches, separately, a lot. I still miss the town hall clock chiming and Monroe Street, though.

  But who knows…

  I think that there may be something always happening on Magnolia Street. I mean, even this morning the maniac monkeys attacked again. Boy, is Sid's bike furry. There must have been about a thousand monkeys.

  Oh, well. I guess I'll go with Mom to do a little shopping. Billy is weeding the garden, since he borrowed that vase from his mom to catch the maniac monkeys.

  I have to remind Mom that I need more shorts. I'm growing out of the old ones. I need a pair of tennis shoes, too, and oh, yeah, some more glue.

  Charlie P.

  I love to jump rope up and down Magnolia Street all day long, and lately that's been all there is to do.

  Billy is off at camp for a week and he's already written me three letters. One of them had dirt on it and a picture of Billy standing on his head. I've only known Billy a couple of weeks, but I already miss him.

  What else is there to do?

  Mom said, “One day, Charlie, you're going to jump rope until your feet fall off.” I smiled because she called me Charlie, which I prefer, instead of Charlene.

  Billy's real name is Willem, so he says that he understands how come I hate my name. But his mom only calls him Willem when something gets broken or people show up complaining about him.

  How could Mom have known my feet really would fall off?

  It's true. Here's the story.

  One day, I ran out of the house, picked up my candy cane-striped jump rope, and skipped real slow by Miss Marcia's house. She's an artist who makes statues. She was covered in plaster, sitting on her porch eating muffins.

  “Hey, Charlie. What's up?”

  I walked into her yard past all the statues she's made. People with baskets on their heads and animals riding bikes crowd each other in Miss Marcia's yard.

  I wrapped my jump rope around my waist.

  “Just jumping and stuff.”

  Miss Marcia handed me a muffin, and I sat beside her on the steps while she told me about art and her sculpture. I asked her if she could cover a person with plaster to make a statue.

  She said, “It's not something I'd do. I don't think you could get them out of it, and you'd have to be careful about air holes.”

  I laughed and laughed.

  “Is plaster fun to peel off like school glue is when you put it all over your hand?”

  Miss Marcia laughed, and some of the plaster fell off by her feet. “No, Charlie, it doesn't come off like glue.”

  “Too bad. I like peeling glue off my hand. It's like being a snake and shedding my s
kin or something.”

  I wiggled around like a snake for a while with my jump rope. Miss Marcia started laughing again, and I finished off the rest of the muffins.

  I wiggled out of the yard, then started jumping down the street again. I could still hear Miss Marcia laughing.

  Mom says she will laugh at anything. I think she's funny.

  The next morning, just as I was about to roll out of bed and start thinking about where I'd jump rope that day, Sid came into my room and hit me with my pillow.

  I hate it when he does that.

  “Wake up, Spacey.”

  “Don't do that!” I yelled, loud enough that I hoped Mom or Dad would come up and punish him.

  “There's something for you down on the front porch.”

  “What is it, Sid?”

  Sid bonked me in the head with the pillow again and left.

  Sometimes I wonder if Sid stays up at night thinking of ways to get on my nerves.

  When I finally got up, I ran down the stairs past the kitchen. Everybody was eating, and I knew Mom would make me sit down and have something. I was too fast, though.

  I opened the door to the porch and there it was…

  A beautiful plaster statue of a girl who looked just like me. She had braids like mine and even a dimple in her chin. Best of all, though, she was jumping rope. Well, not really, because she was a statue and that couldn't be.

  I ran over to Miss Marcia's house to thank her.

  When I got there, she was in her yard mixing plaster. She pointed to muffins on the porch, but I'd eaten so many the last time that I couldn't face eating even one more.

  I said, “I like me in plaster.”

  Miss Marcia laughed. “Yeah, I like you in plaster, too.”

  “I guess it was better than my idea of letting you dip me in a big old tub of the stuff from head to toe.”

  Miss Marcia said, “Yeah, my idea was better.”

  I hung around long enough to get covered with plaster from head to toe, anyway. Doesn't do to waste a chance of getting stuff all over yourself. When even Miss Marcia said I was covered, it was time to go home.

  My statue was beautiful. Dad moved her so she wasn't blocking the door anymore. She stood right by the porch swing.

  Everybody who came by our house talked about her.

  “Boy, does she look like Charlie,” my aunt said when she came to visit.