Free Ask Anybody by Constance C. Greene Page B

“Just plain fierce.”
    â€œI bet.” I watched out of the corner of my eye as the brothers kept pace. They ran with frowning faces, chins and elbows tucked in, eyes straight ahead. Their concentration was terrific. They were in the Olympics. One of them was sure to win a gold medal. Their faces grew more and more flushed as I watched, until they looked like a trio of beets on legs. The littlest one kept losing ground. Even though his legs churned as fast as the other two, he kept dropping farther and farther behind until he was only a dot in the distance.
    â€œDo your brothers have names?” I whispered to Nell. If they had, I’d never heard them. Betty and Rowena sat squinched together on the seat, rolling their eyes at us and Nell’s uncle, keeping their traps shut for once. It was quite refreshing.
    â€œOf course they have names,” Nell said in a snippy voice. “Big guy’s named Harold after my dad. Middle one’s Leo. Little one’s Eddie. Fast Eddie we call him on account of he’s so slow.”
    I looked out the back window. Fast Eddie had disappeared. The other two kept on coming, although the truck was outdistancing them rapidly.
    â€œCan he find his way back?” I wondered, meaning Fast Eddie. He was a small wisp of a boy with pale uneven eyes and thin pale hair that put me in mind of chicken fuzz. I’d never heard him say a word. He was in Tad’s class at school. Tad allowed as how he’d never heard Fast Eddie say a word either, but that didn’t prove anything. They’d make a fine pair, Fast Eddie and Tad. If they learned sign language they might be able to carry on a conversation.
    â€œOh, don’t worry about him,” Nell said. “He’ll be right there, waiting for us on the way back.”
    The pickup pulled into the town dump. It was a bald, flat space at the end of a dirt road, surrounded on all sides by mounds of remains of people’s lives. Piles of big black plastic garbage bags lined the roadway, spilling their contents haphazardly. Seagulls circled, eyeing the orange peels, eggshells, and coffee grounds, looking for a free meal. Three or four rats scuttled away as we hopped out of the pickup. Betty and Rowena let out a series of little piercing screams, but nobody paid any attention so they soon stopped.
    Uncle Joe said he’d stay put. “You need help with anything,” he told us, “just holler. I’m going to get some shut-eye.”
    â€œYou take the left side,” Nell directed us, “I’ll take the right.” I set off, Rowena and Betty bringing up the rear. “What’re we looking for?” Betty said in an irritated way. Betty always got mad when she didn’t have control of a situation. She hadn’t wanted to come to the dump anyway. I’d made her. I’d told her she had to participate.
    â€œWhat we want is nice big pieces of furniture we can fix up,” I said. There were mounds of old tires, a few refrigerators without doors, a lot of auto parts, but no big pieces of furniture. Or small pieces, either, for that matter. No chiffoniers. The smell of burning rubber filled the air. Gulls squalled overhead, dipping, swooping, looking for good stuff too, maybe.
    I saw two plastic garbage pails off to one side. They looked practically new. I ran over to claim them and discovered they were perfect except for each one having a big hole in its bottom. How’d those holes get there? I wondered. And how could they be patched up so the garbage pails would hold garbage?
    â€œLook here!” Nell cried, stumbling toward us, carrying what looked like a rolled-up rug. Which is what it was. “You suppose somebody threw this away by mistake?”
    â€œMaybe there’s something inside,” I said.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œMaybe a person.” I had heard that Cleopatra had herself rolled up in a rug so she could get to see Julius Caesar. That had