The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [15]
Somewhere at the bottom of the jaggedly torn cliff that used to be the next mountain stood my little oasis, the Hole in the Wall, but you couldn’t see it from here. I tried to spot it every time, but it was way back near the V end of the wedge shape, hidden behind slag piles. I was glad nobody could see it, or that might be the end of it. Off on the right side of the gray land skeleton, the town of Kokadjo made a little green nick in the edge of the strip mine. Just like the lip of a dirty ashtray.
That afternoon on my way to Boots Odum’s house, staring at his gore mess made my stomach lurch, like a bowling ball was knocking pins around in there. I bent over with pain. Suddenly my teeth were killing again too. And my leg bones. Stupid growing pains. Had Jed gone through this? Man, I wished we could talk about it. He always knew how to make me feel better, and laugh while he was at it.
Barbie was still far behind, zigzagging up the steep slope using the lowest gears on her bike. She hates sweating. I didn’t feel like waiting to hear her whine. Soon I was way ahead of her on the long coast to town. That gave me extra time to pop wheelies in the Skate Away parking lot. Which helped me forget my miseries. By the time I remembered to watch for Barbie again she was a block away from Odum’s mansion, and I had to pump the pedals to catch up.
Since the house was so fancy I used my kickstand and made my bike use good posture instead of flopping it on the sidewalk.
The place went on forever with porches and cupolas and wings and twists and turns. The front door alone was as big as our kitchen wall. My feet couldn’t resist poking around in the pretty rock gardens. The guy had some major art rocks holding in his daffodils. One looked like a gray rabbit sniffing the air. Another looked like a fox curled around its kit. They looked so real, I thought I saw one move.
“Wow, get a load of that door knocker,” I said. It looked like a lion’s head. I ran up ahead of Barbie onto the stone porch while she pried the egg carton out of her bike rack. I stuck my fingers in the lion’s mouth and knocked his mane about thirteen times. It sounded so cool.
“Sebby, cut that out. You’re embarrassing me.” She was combing her hair, straightening her clothes, and scowling like I was roadkill. “Back off from the door,” she said. “Your breath could drop a yak. You don’t want to give Boots Odum a rude impression when you say hello.”
“I don’t give a cheese doodle what anyone thinks of me,” I said as the giant door started to swing open.
5
I expected to see the walking billboard behind the door, but instead we faced a plump lady around Grum’s age, dressed in a faded housecoat and scruffy slippers, with silver hair cut shorter than mine. Which I couldn’t help but notice since her head seemed to point straight at me, poking out of her shoulders like a turtle’s. Her back was hunched way more than Grum’s. She had the absolute worst case of Not-Enough-Milk-When-I-Was-Your-Age Disease I’d ever seen.
At that moment I decided to love milk and sit up straight forever.
At first I assumed the woman was the housekeeper, but then she twisted her head sideways to get a look at us, and her nose looked just like a dahlia bulb planted in the middle of her face. That woman could only be the mother of Boots Odum.
Her face lit up. “Children!” she said. “Why, I was just telling my Stanley this morning at breakfast how much I miss seeing children. There used to be so many of them running around the gore, coming to visit me. I know they really just came for the candy, but I loved talking to them all the same. I’m Mrs. Odum, by the way. Call me Miss Beverly