Mikey thought. “Maybe.”
Sally was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “My mommy says my daddy’s a deadbeat and some other things.”
“Is that the same as dead?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mikey said, “Do you want a Jolly Rancher?”
“Yes.”
Mikey offered her watermelon or grape or green apple. She took the green apple. She sucked on it silently, and her warm breath became sweet and strange.
The next day, Sally sat next to Mikey once again, even though there were empty seats available, and the day after that, too.
Usually, they didn’t talk very much. The silence between them was easy, companionable. Sometimes, Sally placed her backpack on Mikey’s lap, rested her head there, and slept. Mikey watched her sleeping face morph softly into and out of many expressions, and he tried to imagine what sort of dream produced each different one.
Alice Clancy formed the group, really made it official, the summer between her first- and second-grade year. School had been out for only a week, and already Alice was bored of TV and fights with her older brothers over who got the first or last or largest portion of things.
One afternoon, she wandered into the backyard of the green house just a few doors down the block from her own, after she heard voices and laughter lifting up from behind the house. She caught sight of a ball in the air.
She walked right to the center of things, between two boys wearing baseball gloves, and she stood there with her fists dug into her hips. She was six inches taller than either of them.
“You boys ride my bus,” she said.
She looked back and forth between them. The chubby blond kid punched his fist into his glove. He had round shoulders and a thick neck, and was the tiniest bit dim in the eyes. His nostrils and the thin, pale skin around his eye sockets was chafed pink, as though he cried a lot, or had lots of allergies. He didn’t wear a shirt. His belly was fat but firm, accentuated by a disturbing little outtie.
Alice said, “What’s your names?”
The black-haired, blue-eyed kid said, “Jimmy.” His eyes were remarkable—as bright and interesting as tiny planets.
The blond kid said, “Sam. Why are you at my house?”
“I’m Alice and I live in the only brick house on the street, and we have that big black mutt named Jake.” She paused and jerked her chin over her shoulder in the direction of her house. “Anyways, I have a club and I’m president,” she said. “Looking for members. You guys in or out?”
Sam said, “Who’s in it?”
Alice released an exasperated little noise and scowled at him. “None of your beeswax,” she said, “if you’re not members.”
Sam shoved his thumb toward Alice’s face. “Look at my blood blister,” he said.
Alice said, “Gross.”
Jimmy said, “What do you do in your club?”
“Lots of secret stuff.”
Sam tossed the baseball up and down to himself and said, “Me and Jimmy need to talk it over. We’ll let you know tomorrow.”
Alice returned the following afternoon. Sam reported that they had talked it over and decided that they would join her club if she would let them play with Jake, her big black mutt. Alice said, “Sure, but don’t blame me if he snaps at you. He has some places he doesn’t like when you touch.”
Sam said, “So who else is in the club?”
Alice said, “I’m about to ask some other kids on this street. That little boy, the one who’s a year younger and always sits with the white-haired girl on the bus, the two of them. And that red-haired girl who plays piano during recess.”
Sam said, “Wait, so you don’t have a club, you’re starting one.”
Jimmy added, “Like from scratch.”
“What difference does that make?” Alice said, arms crossed, her tone both pushy and cavalier.
Sam was quiet for a bit. Then he said, “Can I be vice president?”
“What?”
“I want to be the vice president or we won’t be in your club.”
Alice considered this for a moment, then she said, “Fine, sure, whatever.” She turned to Jimmy. “You wanna be something?”
Jimmy blinked. His eyelashes were black feathers framing those blue eyes. He said, “Maybe like treasurer? I’m good at money.”
Alice said, “Okay. We’ll have that piano girl be the secretary, and the other two can just be there unless they think up something special to be.”
Alice, Sam, and Jimmy made their way up Ingram Street and successfully recruited Lynn, Sally, and Mikey. Alice had already scoped out The Gunner House as a potential gathering place, and they held their first official meeting later that afternoon. Alice brought her mutt, Jake, and a slotted spoon in case he pooped inside. “His bowels are rotten,” she explained. Sam dragged in a taxidermied sheep’s head that he had found on the curb just up the block. The place smelled strongly of mildew and cat piss, and dust hung thick and motionless in the hot, hot air above the children’s sweating heads and their eager, happy voices.
Chapter 4
When Sally was eight years old, she and Mikey decided to walk all the way to Gasser Park. It was August. They were the only Gunners who weren’t either enrolled in Bible School at St. Mary’s Parish or away at summer camp in Ellicottville on this particular week.
Sally and Mikey had both been to the park before, but never without a parent. They knew that it was far to walk, but that they would reach the park if they took Ingram to Lakeshore, then followed that east for a long while. They filled a backpack with ham and mustard sandwiches, Fritos, Twizzlers, and a canteen of water. They had all day to make it there and back; Sally’s mother would not be home from work until after five—much later than that if she went out drinking with one of her boyfriends—and Mikey’s father would return around seven. Both Sally and Mikey were already capable at this very young age of letting themselves in and out of their homes using a key. At Mikey’s home, this key lived under the doormat; at Sally’s it was in a fake football-size rock that opened and closed on a hinge.
It took them an hour to reach the park.
Along the way, they talked about the upcoming school year. Sally told Mikey what he could expect from all the different teachers. She told him about the live crab that lived in Mrs. O’Casey’s classroom and all the amazing facts about animals he would learn in her class. How ostriches can run faster than a horse, and that male ostriches roar like a lion. She told him about the strange and unpredictable migration of the snowy owl. She told him about the wood frog, which didn’t hibernate like other animals but instead buried itself in the ground and allowed itself to freeze.
“It stops breathing,” Sally said. “Its heart stops beating.”
Mikey said, “But it’s not dead?”
“Nope,” said Sally. “In the springtime, or whenever it wants to come back into the world, it thaws with the ground and its heart beats again.”
Mikey stopped when they passed a bed of clover along the side of the road, and he showed Sally how to pluck the tiny white-purple petals from the stem, how to bite on the inner tip, which was damp and sweet and edible. Sally loved spending time with Mikey. He never seemed to have a nasty opinion about anything. Like her, he seemed equally satisfied to talk or not talk, and he never asked hard questions. This suited Sally just fine. There were things she didn’t want to talk about, things that Mikey would never think to ask.
It