The In-Betweener Read online

  One Saturday Dad’s best friend, Dexter Harris, took us clamming. We would dig for them in a clam flat, but to get there we first had to pass through a marsh field. While we hiked, Dexter tried to educate us.

  “A salt marsh is an important place in nature,” he explained. “All kinds of birds, plants, insects, and fish live here. This place is teeming with life.”

  Lainie wrinkled her nose. “It smells stinky.”

  Dexter smiled. “That’s the smell of the mud in low tide. You’ll get used to it. So how are you guys doing? Tommy? Everything okay?”

  Tommy chewed his lower lip. “No.”

  “What’s wrong?” Jimmy asked.

  “I don’t like this place,” Tommy muttered.

  We reached a tiny stream. It was a small gap, barely a foot wide. We stepped over easily—everybody except Tommy.

  “I can’t!”

  “C’mon,” Dexter urged. “It’s no big deal. Just step across.”

  “No!” Tommy objected. He looked down, eyes wild with fear and panic. “There’s mud down there! There’s quicksand!”

  “There’s no quicksand,” Lainie assured him. Suddenly her eyes narrowed; she glanced up at Dexter. “Is there?”

  “Probably not, though you do need to be careful,” he told her. “If you’re in the mud when the tide comes in, you could get stuck. I heard one guy got stuck in the mudflat when the tide came in, and the mud swallowed his car.”

  I blinked at him. “Really?”

  He nodded. “But I seriously doubt there’s any quicksand around here. C’mon, Tommy, all you’ve got to do is step over to the other side. It’s not far at all. You can do it!”

  “No!” Tommy cried.

  Jimmy shook his head in disbelief. “What a baby!”

  “Shhh,” Dexter told him. “Making fun of him won’t help. C’mon, Tommy, we gotta move. I promised your mother we’d bring home a bucket of steamers, and she’s going to be mighty mad if we don’t.”

  “I can’t—” Tommy pleaded. So Dexter picked him up and swung him to the other side.

  “Oh!” Tommy gasped, amazed to find himself on solid land instead of getting sucked down into the ooze.

  We continued trekking through the marsh. My brother stayed miserable. The moment we reached the tiniest rivulet, the smallest gap, he halted and wouldn’t budge. Each time Dexter had to lift him to the other side.

  Gradually Tommy began to relax, which was a relief. Now I could stop worrying about him and start to appreciate my surroundings. The marsh was full of birds: gulls and terns and red-winged blackbirds. I loved the feel of the spongy ground and being enveloped by the tall, tall grass. The wind singing through the grass made a soft, high-pitched sound. Down low, beneath the tops of the grass, I felt cocooned and protected from the wind.

  “The marsh is the place where the ocean shakes hands with the land,” Dexter said.

  I loved that thought and wanted to remember it always. I was a kid who loved the sound of words. I marveled at how they could paint a mind picture, how they could work together to create a mood or feeling. When I heard a word or a thought that caught my attention, I wrote it down in a little notebook I kept hidden between my box spring and mattress. I didn’t know it then, but that little notebook would become precious to me. It would serve as a piggy bank of language, words, and ideas I would draw upon again and again as I became a writer.

  Pocketful of Trouble

  MOM ALWAYS EMPTIED our pants pockets before she threw them in the washing machine. She could tell which pants belonged to which kid according to what she found tucked in those pockets.

  My pockets usually contained a small notebook and my Bic pen.

  In Jimmy’s pockets Mom might find rocks, fossils, scraps of rope, carved wood, metal ball bearings, stuff like that.

  Tommy’s: marbles, money, plastic army guys.

  Lainie’s: shells, beach glass, colorful leaves.

  Bobby: acorns, bottle caps, dandelion heads.

  Johnny: action figures and Matchbox cars.

  Emptying our pants pockets before washing them seemed like a sensible idea, but it could be hairy for Mom because she never knew what she might discover. Once when she reached into the pocket of a pair of jeans, she felt something warm and smooth—milkweed silk!

  Another time she reached in and was shocked to feel something wriggling—a tiny toad. Jimmy had found it by the small creek that ran behind our house and stuck it in his pocket. With toad in hand, Mom marched downstairs and gave Jimmy a stern lecture about the mistreatment of animals. She and Dad often preached that “every life is sacred in God’s eyes” and shouldn’t be harmed. They were strict about that.

  Jimmy felt bad—nobody loved nature any more than he did. He had carefully tucked the toad into his front pocket, intending to set it free later, but had forgotten to take it out. Luckily, the toad wasn’t harmed. Mom directed Jimmy to release the creature in the woods, which is what he did.

  Given all that commotion, nobody should have been surprised by what happened a few days later. Tommy found a piece of a wasp nest on the ground, brownish gray, about the size of a tennis ball. He showed it to me; we could see rows and rows of wasp larvae lined up inside the comb. They seemed to be dormant.

  That weekend our family took a trip to Fall River, Massachusetts, to visit Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Fletcher. On Sunday when we got back home, Lainie got out of the car first and scampered to the back door. Peering through the glass, she saw something that gave her pause.

  “What is it?” Jimmy demanded. “C’mon, open the door—I’ve got to pee!”

  “There’s a bunch of big flies buzzing around the kitchen,” Lainie managed, standing on her tiptoes. “No, wait! It’s not flies. I think they’re bees!”

  “Let me see,” Jimmy said, pushing past her. “Hey, they’re not bees; they’re wasps!”

  Staring through the glass, I could see them flying around—a fleet of wasps.

  “Holy smokes,” Dad softly exclaimed. “The house is infested!”

  “So what do we do now?” Lainie put her hands on her hips.

  “Where will we sleep?” Bobby asked.

  “In the woods,” Jimmy told him.

  “But I don’t want to sleep in the woods.” Bobby glanced around uneasily. “It’s spooky out there.”

  “We can stay at Terry and Dexter’s house,” Mom said. “They’ll put us up for the night.”

  “I better call the exterminator,” Dad muttered.

  “Definitely.” Mom nodded. “Call them first thing in the morning.”

  “I will,” Dad promised.

  Jimmy grinned and shook his head.

  “What’s so funny?” Mom demanded.

  “You guys are always saying that every life is sacred in God’s eyes,” Jimmy reminded her. “But the exterminator? I mean, the exterminator’s one and only job is to kill bugs.”

  Mom gave him a murderous look. “Be quiet. I’m not in the mood.”

  By doing some detective work, I was able to piece together what had happened. Tommy must have stuck the wasp nest in his pants pocket and forgotten about it. Before we went to Fall River, he left his dirty pants behind a chair in the corner of his bedroom, so Mom never found them. We were gone for the whole weekend. During that time, the warm air inside the house must have roused the wasplings from their slumber. They must have gotten hungry, hungry enough to crawl out of Tommy’s pocket and start flying around in search of food. I told everyone my theory.

  “Sorry,” Tommy told Mom.

  But she wasn’t having any of that.

  “Don’t ‘sorry’ me, Tommy. Next time remember to put your dirty pants in the hamper so I can wash them.”

  “I will,” he said meekly. “I promise.”

  For the next few days, Mom stayed mad at Tommy. I guess we all did. Still, I felt a stab of stubborn admiration at Tommy’s love of the raw outdoors, not to mention his fearlessness. How many kids would find a nest crammed with wasp larvae and stick it
in his pants pocket?

  Big Brother Shadow

  WHEN I WAS a kid, families tended to be bigger than they are today. My friend Freddy also lived on Acorn Street. He had nine siblings, including a bunch of older brothers. His brother Donny passed down sharp-looking sweaters to Freddy and taught him how to dance to songs by the Lettermen and the Four Seasons, plus how a dab of Brylcreem would keep his hair in place.

  I didn’t have a big brother to teach me important stuff like that. And I didn’t have much privacy, either. There were ten people jammed into our small house, and we only had one bathroom. One! In the morning I had to wait my turn along with everyone else. Now that I was older, I desperately wanted time when I could be alone by myself, with no parents, brothers, or sisters to bother me.

  One Saturday Mom planned a family outing to Benson Wild Animal Farm in New Hampshire. I always liked visiting Benson’s when I was little—they let you pet and feed the animals—but I’d outgrown the experience years ago. Saturday morning my stomach felt queasy when I woke up, which gave me a faint glimmer of hope.

  “I don’t feel good,” I mumbled at breakfast. (True.)

  “Have a bowl of cereal,” Mom advised.

  “I did, but I still feel sick.” (True, sort of.)

  She studied me closely. “What’s going on?”

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up.” (Not true.)

  Throw up must have been the magic words, because Dad immediately lowered the newspaper and stared at me.

  “Did you say you feel like throwing up?”

  “Uh-huh,” I mumbled without looking at him.

  Dad turned to look at Mom. “It’s a long ride up to Benson’s. The last thing we need is a kid vomiting in the car. Maybe he should say home.”

  She took another look at me. “He shouldn’t be alone if he’s sick.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Dad asked.

  She shrugged. “I suppose I could stay home with him.”

  “I don’t feel that sick,” I quickly put in. “Hey, nobody has to stay home and take care of me, okay? I’ll be fine.”

  Dad smiled. “I think he can take care of himself for one day.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not three years old.”

  “All right.” Mom nodded. “You can have soup with saltines for lunch. If you start feeling better, you can work on your Boy Scout stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy chimed in. “Those knots of yours are NOT very good.”

  He grinned at his own cleverness. Anyway, he was right—my knot-tying skills were weak—so I let it pass.

  For the next fifteen minutes I had to sit at the table, careful to continue looking miserable and at the same time hide the joy I could feel rampaging through me.

  “I hope you feel better, Ralphie,” Bobby murmured.

  Jimmy flashed me a sour look. I knew he didn’t want to go to Benson’s, either. “If you’re sick, then my name is Davy Crockett.”

  “I am sick,” I insisted. “I—”

  “Save it,” he snapped.

  I wasn’t sure what I should do while I waited for them to get ready. Get dressed? No. I figured the wisest thing would be for me to climb back into bed, so that’s what I did. After what seemed like forever, I finally heard everybody leave the house. Moments later, our car drove away.

  I sprang out of bed and stared at myself in the mirror. I had achieved the impossible. HOME ALONE. I had the whole day to myself. I walked slowly through the rooms, one by one. Lainie had taped a big NO TRESPASSING sign to her bedroom door, but I barged in and lounged on her bed. Who could stop me? I did the same in Mom and Dad’s room. Then I went to the bunk where Tommy slept. On a whim, I lifted his mattress and found several of my “lost” baseball cards hidden there. Why was I not surprised?

  Pretty soon I had to use the bathroom. On this day I could take my sweet time, which is exactly what I did. For once in my life, I didn’t feel rushed.

  My stomach had made a miraculous recovery, so I went to the kitchen and helped myself to another bowl of cereal. Then I turned on the TV and stretched out on the couch. I couldn’t find anything exciting to watch, but that wasn’t the point. The TV was mine. It was a luxurious feeling to realize that I, and only I, could choose the channel, and nobody would argue with me.

  After a while, I felt a little restless and decided to go outside. None of my friends were around, so I decided to take a stroll down Acorn Street. I felt free and easy. The summer sun warmed my neck and shoulders, casting a bright shadow in the shape of a person ahead of me. I had no particular place to go, so I followed a few steps behind that shadow.

  The shadow pulled me along, and I was more than content to follow in its wake. When he turned left at Moraine Street, I turned left too. When he slowed down, I slowed down. We continued walking. He led me past the Tophams’ house and continued toward town. I wondered where we were heading. Maybe we’d get an ice cream, or some penny candy at the general store. I didn’t much care what we did. In the family, in school, in the Boy Scouts, I had always taken a leadership role, and that could be tiresome. For once in my life, it felt good to be a follower.

  I pretended the shadow was my older brother, a kid with long legs who set a brisk pace. I had to scurry to keep up with him—zigging when he zigged, zagging when he zagged—and I couldn’t have been happier going along for the ride.

  Until he disappeared.

  “No, wait!”

  Thick clouds had swept in, blocking out the sun. The spell was broken; the shadow had vanished. I stood there by the side of the road, unsure what I should do. After a while I just went home.

  I opened a can of Campbell’s soup and stood in the kitchen, waiting for the stove to warm up. My belly made that empty-stomach sound. But another part of me felt empty too. I felt as if I had lost someone important—the shadow of the big brother I never had.

  What I did have was five brothers and two sisters who would soon be marching through that door. So I savored my freedom and devoured my soup (along with a whole stack of Ritz crackers) in front of the TV.

  Boy Scouts

  ANDY, STEVE, JIMMY, and I joined the Boy Scouts. We had to wear green uniforms with weird kerchiefs and funny-looking hats, but none of us minded because the Boy Scouts was tremendous fun. For one thing, scouting was chock-full of dangerous activities. Our scoutmaster taught us how to wield an axe, carve with a pocketknife, and light a match to start a campfire, things we’d never in a million years be allowed to do at home.

  In the beginning we spent time learning how to tie various knots: half hitch, clove hitch, square knot, bowline, and a few others. This skill didn’t come as easily to me as it did to Jimmy. My brother’s hands seemed to have a special intelligence of their own, gracefully threading the rope under and over, making a square knot in a matter of seconds. Jimmy became known as the Knot King in our troop, and instructed all the younger kids in the proper way to tie knots.

  I loved scouting. We got to hike, sleep in a tent, stay up as late as we wanted. We cooked our own food over a roaring fire. When we got home from a camping trip, happy and exhausted, all my clothes smelled like smoke.

  One Friday afternoon Tommy watched Jimmy and me ready our backpacks for a two-night camping trip. I was ten; Tommy was seven.

  “I want to go camping too,” he said wistfully.

  Mom smiled. “Someday you can join the Boy Scouts too.”

  “Can I?” Tommy begged. “Please, Mom?”

  “Seems to me that scouting is a form of supervised mayhem,” Dad said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, Tommy, it might be the perfect activity for a boy like you.”

  “I’m gonna make a bonfire when I’m in the Boy Scouts!” Tommy yelled.

  “It’s not just fooling around,” Jimmy cautioned. “You gotta follow the rules.”

  True. There was a lot more to the Boy Scouts than fun and games. Scouting involved a way of being. It had a particular code of conduct; you were expected to follow certain rules. All
Scouts had to memorize the Boy Scout oath: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

  Our scoutmaster, Mr. Briggs, wanted to grow our troop, so he encouraged us to bring our younger brothers to join. But I felt some trepidation about including Tommy. The Boy Scout oath was: Be prepared. How could you possibly be prepared for a wild child like Tommy?

  * * *

  During camping trips Mr. Briggs had peculiar names for what we ate and drank. Kool-Aid was bug juice. Hot dogs were tube steaks. Some things we cooked were surprisingly delicious—Boy Scout stew, for example. When we returned from one camping trip, I mentioned this to Mom.

  “Is that a fact?” She nodded, thinking. “Say, why don’t you and Jimmy cook Boy Scout stew for supper tomorrow night?”

  That was the LAST thing I’d expected her to say.

  I exchanged a quick look with Jimmy. “Really?”

  She shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  So that’s what we did. I gave Mom a list of ingredients we needed: onions, carrots, hamburger meat. The next afternoon at five o’clock, the whole family gathered to watch Jimmy prepare a place for the fire in our backyard.

  “Can I help?” Tommy pleaded.

  Jimmy sighed. “I guess. Go get some firewood.”

  Minutes later, Tommy returned with a big armful.

  “See?” He grinned. “I can be a real Boy Scout just like you guys!”

  Jimmy lit the match and held it under a cluster of dry twigs.

  “Don’t make the fire too big,” Dad cautioned.

  Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, Dad. We know what we’re doing.”

  The flames flared into a crackling fire; fifteen minutes later there was a bed of hot coals. Jimmy carefully positioned three rocks to hold the pan off the fire. I cut up the onions and carrots and began frying them in the pan. When they were partially cooked, we added hamburger meat and a half cup of water, plus some salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

  “Smells good!” Bobby exclaimed.