SALLY’S LANDING, MICHIGAN
Chapter 37
CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS

“If she knew you made me hitchhike with that smelly old Amish guy, you’d be grounded until you get married, ’cept nobody will ever marry you because your feet are too big.” He hurled a football at his brother’s head and hit pay dirt.

“You wait until Boyd Johnson calls Ma. You can bet he noticed us getting off that wagon,” Stretch said. Then he spiked the ball into Joey’s stomach.

“Quit it! I’m telling.”

“Where’s that card you took from the van? You’re really going to get it for that.” Stretch dodged the threat.

Joey took the card out of his pocket. Sarah Underhill was written in neat letters.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I guess I’d better send it back,” Joey said as he examined the card. “Maybe that’s why that goon chased us.”

“And shot at us! Over a library card?” Stretch reached over and drew the shade. He was scared, no doubt about it. “I think that was a real spy, Joey. Not that stupid crap you’re always cooking up in your noodle.”

“Maybe he thinks we took something else, like a gun,” Joey said. “Maybe we should ask Dad about it.”

“Maybe we should go stand in front of Boyd Johnson’s scattergun and tell him to shoot us. We didn’t touch that spy’s gun. He thinks we saw something,” Stretch whispered. “We should write and tell them that we didn’t see nothing.”

“Cripes. That’s not our only clue. What about that envelope I found?” Joey reached into his shirt pocket. “AAU, what’s that? What’s Sumatra Barat? I never heard that name in geography class.”

“Check who it’s made out to, dirtbag. Arthur Holmstead, CIA, Washington, DC. That’s where those spies come from. You know. The ones with poison umbrellas and stuff like James Bond.”

“That’s kind of scary, Stretch. I think we should mail that card back to the library. Dad always says you’ve got to fix your mistakes when you screw up. I’ll do it right after dinner. Maybe they’ll forgive us.” Joey tucked the card under his pillow. “Generally, your ideas suck buttermilk, though.”

The front door slammed shut.

“Dad’s home. Ma’s going to call us to the table, and I will toss my cookies.”

“That’s a bad idea, Joey,” Stretch said. “Ma’s got radar when it comes to twin trouble. She’ll be on us like flies on a cow pie.”

The boys chased dumplings around their plates. They weren’t even kicking each other under the table.

“What’s going on with you guys? Fish not biting?” Dad pointed his fork at them.

“Nope—got nothing, Pa,” Joey answered. Something’s shooting, but nothing’s biting.

“You boys shovel a little of that grub into your mouths,” Mom said. She rapped Joey’s knuckles with her knife handle.

“Got a green apple tummy ache.” Joey nibbled on a biscuit.

“Funny, apples aren’t green this time of year,” Dad observed.

“Can we be excused?” Stretch was already standing.

“Go to your room, no TV.” Mom kept eating and shifted her talk to Boyd Johnson’s dry well. With their parents distracted, the boys snuck away.

Joey pulled his junior printing set out from under his bed. He took his time, doing a really neat job.

SORRY WE TOOK THIS FROM THE CAR. WE DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING.

THE TWINS

Then Stretch quietly entered Mom’s sewing room, coming back with a clean white envelope and a stamp. From the back of the card, they copied the address:

If found return to:

Cedar Creek Public Library

42 James Street

Cedar Creek, Michigan 48131.

Joey slid the library card inside along with the crinkled envelope to Arthur the Spy Holmstead, then he licked the envelope.

“Blah, nasty! What do they use in that glue, anyway?”

“Horse hooves.” Stretch had read this somewhere. Joey turned green.

“Okay, I’m heading out. Cover for me, “Joey admonished his brother.

“You got it.” Stretch arranged the pillows on Joey’s bed and covered them to make it look like a sleeping kid.

It was dusk. Creeping past Boyd the Handicapper’s house slowed his progress. Boyd was a snoop. He watched everything that happened within his eagle-eye vision. Joey jogged the remaining mile to Sally’s Landing.

The blue postal box stood on the corner near Granger’s Market and the gas station. Joey slid the envelope into the mailbox and then headed home, walking along the top of Mr. Dollaway’s brick fence. He was nearly invisible from the street, hidden by the branches of a large elm.

A snow-white van cruised slowly down the avenue. Joey stiffened. Its faulty muffler identified it as the same bad guy from their woodsy adventure. Joey jumped to the ground, falling inside Dollaway’s yard. A low growl warned him he was in danger of losing his shorts to their yappy mutt.

The van pulled into the parking lot next to the market. Joey sprinted through the backyard as Mrs. Dollaway emerged from the back door waving her broom.

“Joey Dodson,” she bellowed.

The van’s driver flicked away the butt of his cigar and strained to catch sight of the fleeing boy. Joey scampered up and over the back fence.

In the distance, the rumble of the van matched his progress as he pelted through the woods, parallel to the road. Roosevelt’s WPA had planted the trees in tidy rows, creating racing lanes for mountain bikes and deer. Joey kept his pace until he saw the Dodson barn looming straight ahead.

As the older, smaller twin climbed through the bedroom window, he bumped his head on the frame propped open with Stretch’s ruler. The boys peered over the sill. The vehicle rumbled by, with its tailpipe dragging and sparks dancing off the asphalt. It slowed in front of their house, then sped away.

Molly Dodson sat on the porch swing next to her husband. A mosquito had landed on her arm, and she was busy swatting at it when the vehicle rolled past the house.

“We know someone with a white van?” Scott asked.

“Tourists, most likely,” she grumbled. “They never seem to know where they’re going.”

“Yup, damn nuisance,” Scott agreed.

“The boys are awfully quiet in there. Do you think they’re dead?”

“Probably killed each other,” he said. They chuckled at that. “Got any of that blueberry pie left?”

Meanwhile, down by Granger’s Market, the mail truck pulled up to the postal box, and the driver scooped all the letters into a canvas mailbag. He was late as usual on his rounds, so he gunned the engine down Beaver Creek Lane toward M-37, trying to make up for lost time. Heading south, he increased his speed to sixty and overtook a slow-moving white van that was belching exhaust smoke and leaving a fireworks display behind.

“Damned shitty drivers.” He shot a glance at the van driver, who held his gaze, challenging him to pass. And he did, because he wasn’t afraid of some cigar-smoking Black guy with half his vehicle held together by a coat hanger, flicking tar at 45 miles per hour.

Anyway, what could he do about it? Shoot him?
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