Free The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky by Holly Schindler

write later that day, sitting cross-legged on the front walk of Dickerson. “I know you remember the house where Gus and I live. Gus still has the notches in the kitchen where he used his pocketknife to cut into the wall, to show how much you grew. The notches aren’t real sharp anymore, especially the ones at the bottom, because I like to run my fingers over where you used to stand. I smoothed them out pretty good.
    â€œOther things have changed, not on the inside, but the outside. I bet if you’d come back and see it, you’d be so happy, your cheeks would ache from smiling.
    â€œI’m having an open house a week from Friday, and I wish you’d be there.” It’s the first time I’ve ever asked Mom straight-out to come home.
    I’m still staring down at my words, daydreaming about the pride that will wash over Mom’s face as she pulls to a stop in front of our house, when Old Glory starts honking like crazy. I know it’s her—I can recognize Old Glory’s voice as easily as I recognize Gus’s. I fold my letter up in thirds real quick and slip it into my jacket pocket.
    As Irma Jean and Harold climb into the cab, I realize that Gus has filled the bed of Old Glory with cans of paint. There must be fifty of them back there, all in different shades: lavender and sage and pumpkin and lemon and scarlet and navy and dinosaur green, and that’s only for starters. As many colors as there are in a crayon box, it looks like—maybe more.
    â€œWhere’d you get all that?” I ask.
    â€œFrom the hazardous waste disposal,” Gus says. “Can you believe they were free?”
    â€œHazardous waste?” I say through a crinkle in my face. “Isn’t that for dangerous stuff? Toxic stuff?”
    â€œYou can’t throw away wet paint,” Gus says. “So when construction companies wind up with too much of a certain color, they drop it off at hazardous waste. The cans are ours for the taking!”
    â€œWhat do you think you’ll do with it?” Irma Jean asks.
    â€œThe shutters,” I say, getting so excited, my insides burn. “We can paint each shutter a different color—the same way the panes in the windows are all different colors! Oooh—and maybe the railing—and the porch swing—and the front door—the garage door—the mailbox!”
    Gus laughs. “Now, now,” he says. “We’ll have to see how much paint we really have in all those cans first.”
    We drive home as quick as Old Glory can manage. We drop off Weird Harold, who’s anxious to get started on his own projects.
    Irma Jean needs some sort of supply from Gus before she can race up her own front steps. I can’t quite imagine what Gus could have that would help her with curtains, but while I wait for him to come back, I climb into Old Glory’s bed so I can get a better look at all our paint.
    I’m picking up cans to read the names of the colors when I hear the rustle from the pocket of my jean jacket—the letter I just wrote to Mom.
    â€œHey, Gus,” I say, after Irma Jean goes home and he comes back out of the garage, carrying brushes and a tarp. I lean over the side of Old Glory’s bed to hand him my letter.
    He darkens right up when he realizes what I’ve given him.
    In not sure why, though. I’ve been writing to Mom ever since I could hold a pencil. Since Mom sends presents for Christmas and my birthday every year, Gus must know her address. I figure even if
I’ve
never seen a return address on any of my presents, it had to have been on the boxes somewhere in order for them to get to me. So every time I write a new letter, I give it to Gus, and he says he’ll take care of it. I’ve never gotten an answer from Mom, but I’ve never quit trying, either.
    Every once in a while, I even send her a gift. Nothing fancy—mostly school pictures or something little, like a