“That’s the best place for hide-and-seek,” I tell him. “One time I stretched out on it to hide, and it was so comfy I fell asleep. I was up there hours and Pete and Will couldn’t find me, and Ma was fixing to call the sheriff when I finally woke up. Good thing I never rolled nowhere. Only bad thing about it was the spiders.”
I lead him back outside, where Butch is nipping at gnats in the yard, and down the worn flagstones to the lane. When he sees we mean business about leaving the yard, Butch gets up and trots along after us.
Above us, the sun is a soft ball of yellow egg yolk. Not one cloud in sight, which means it will be hot, and I’m glad when we cross the road and slip beneath the gray sycamores and pass into Pennsylvania’s endless forests. Will told me once that you can walk from one end of Pennsylvania to the other and never once come out from under trees, if you don’t want to. I believe him. There’s a musty smell on the air of rotting leaves and fresh mud. Roots, like old fingers, reach across the deer trail we’re following, which begins to dip down.
“Is it safe to be here?” Frankie asks, eyeing the timber.
“You bet.”
“But no one knows we’re out here, do they?”
“Me and Butch know exactly where we are!”
Ahead, Butch finds a hole. He puts his face in and digs.
Our path bends between a pair of giant white oaks, and that scent on the air grows stronger. I go faster now, wanting to put distance between us and the house. Last thing I want is Pete or even worse, Will, deciding to catch us up. I don’t want to be found out. Not yet.
We follow the scent through a patch of rubbery jewelweed until at last we break onto a sandy bank and find Apple Creek rolling easy and bright, glittering like a green diamond in morning sun. Smooth river stones of pink and orange and pale blue lie scattered along the edge. Above the far bank, the meadow grasses blaze buttery gold in morning sun.
Inside every boy’s head is a magnet that will lead him straight to water. Ours pull us right up to the water’s edge, and we begin following the creek downstream.
“Don’t get too close,” I warn. “You can’t see it, but the bank curves away underneath. If you’re not careful, it’ll crumble and take you with it.”
“Has that ever happened to you?” Frankie asks.
I wonder how he guessed.
“Once,” I say. But I don’t tell him any more.
It was a few years back, after a heavy rain. Creek was high, and I pestered Will into taking me down to see it because I wasn’t allowed to go alone. When the bank collapsed under me, I went in—and under. Will jumped in after me, got hold of me, and kept us both above water, letting the force carry us downstream until he could grab a mesh of tree roots and pull us out. We lay on the bank gasping for air a good long while until he had strength enough to walk again. When we got home, I was sent to bed without any supper, but poor Will got the belt from Dad for taking me to the creek in the first place.
I still feel guilty about that.
Hopkins Bridge slides into view, a rusty skeleton stretching over slow water and banks that sparkle with brown and green beer bottles people have pitched out of their cars as they drove past.
Butch ambles to the shade under the bridge. We follow him. Apple Creek is glassy smooth here and the sand is coarse, like brown sugar. We drop down to eat our biscuits and trade sips of warm orange juice from the jar as the day steams hotter around us. I find it hard to eat mine on account of the butterflies in my stomach, so I give the whole thing to Butch, take a breath, and say the thing I been waiting all morning to say: “Tell me about them stories you write.”
He looks at me.
“What stories?”
“The ones you got published in the paper. The one Ma taped to our fridge.”
Frankie frowns and takes a bite of biscuit. “What do you want to know?”
“How long’s it take you to write them?”
“Depends. Sometimes a day. Sometimes longer.”
“Could you write stories here?”
“You can write stories anywhere.”
On the far bank, the insects are buzzing. I drain the last of the juice from the jar, screw the lid back on, and stick it in the sand.
“I want you to write stories about Pete. I want to get his name in the newspapers and make him famous so he won’t have to go to war when he turns eighteen.”
I’ve said it. My idea is out in the world now.
Frankie’s face is smooth as the creek.
“Pete turns eighteen in a month,” I go on. “If he gets drafted, the Army will send him to Vietnam. I know serving is the most special thing a person can do. Only, I don’t want him going. I don’t want anything to happen to him. Yesterday at the barbershop, Mr. Hudspeth said something that got me thinking. He said, ‘If you’re famous, you don’t have to go to war.’ I remember those words exact. They been burning in my brain ever since. I mean to save my brother’s life, Frankie. Your stories can do it. I know you can write stories about Pete that’ll make him so famous the Army won’t be able to send him to Vietnam, even if they wanted to.”
Frankie’s kept quiet the whole while. Now I wait for him to speak, but all he does is watch with those dark eyes.
From the poplars on the far bank, a jay calls. For a long time, neither one of us speaks and there’s the jay making his sweet sound again and a stray breath of wind blows, carrying the smell of creek mud with it, and all that time Frankie ain’t spoke a word.
“Well, what do you think?” I ask. “Will you do it?”
“You really think my stories can save your brother’s life?”
“Yes, I do.”
Frankie stands up slowly, walks to the water’s edge, where he stoops and picks up one of the smooth river stones. He holds it in city-boy hands, feeling the smoothness of it. When he turns back to me, his eyes have a sudden hardness, like he’s borrowed some from that stone.
“Writing takes time, Jack. I’ll need time to think.”
My heart thumps.
“Pete don’t turn eighteen for a whole month. Ain’t that plenty of time to think?”
He turns out his lower lip and frowns. “And I can’t make anything up. Pete has to be doing things worth writing about.”
“Pete does the most amazing things you’ve ever seen!” I stand up, because Frankie ain’t said no yet and now there’s excitement rising within me, blowing like a hot air balloon. “He runs. He swims. He fights with the boys in town. Hell, he and Will are planning an expedition to find a wrecked fighter jet! Ain’t that exciting enough?”
“Running, swimming, and fighting, no, it isn’t,” Frankie says, shaking his head. “But a wrecked fighter jet, now that’s different. That’s exciting. Tell me more.”
“It crashed on a snowy winter night ages ago,” I say, aware that I’m talking fast now. “This was before I was born, mind you, so I don’t remember it. Will barely remembers it. But Pete remembers, and Pete wants to find it.”
Frankie slowly begins to nod. “An expedition. An adventure. That could work.” He begins pacing beside the creek, shoes snuffing up clumps of creek sand. He passes the stone from hand to hand, and I know what he’s really doing is tossing my idea, turning, feeling, testing. All at once, he stops. The stone falls with a plunk.
“Okay.”
I’m trembling.
“I’ll need a few things,” Frankie says, brushing the sand from his hands.
“Anything,” I say. My eyes are getting watery.
“I need a typewriter.”
“I’ll find one,” I say. “If I have to steal it. What else?”
“A quiet place to write where nobody will bother me.”
“The barn.”
“The barn?”
“It’s perfect! It’s quiet, and you can use Grandma Elliot’s old sewing desk.” The blood is rushing in my ears. I can hardly believe it.
Frankie frowns.
“And I need one more thing, Jack: I need to be there when they find it. I have to be there. The story won’t work if I’m not. You understand?”
I tell him I understand. I begin to sob. Next thing I know, I’ve got both arms around my cousin, thanking him over and over. Frankie don’t know what to say. It’s a while before I quit my blubbering, and by then, the softness has come back to his face.
“Don’t thank me yet, Jack . . . Not until we get a story and get it published.”