Woodford Brave Read online

  I walked around the crude go-cart, running my finger along its smooth wood and testing the tightness of the bolts. The design was simple but it worked. “She said she wanted to build things,” I said. “She wasn’t lying. She only needs to tie a rope to the ends of the front two-by-four to use for steering. Anne’s done a good job.”

  “Not as good as I could.”

  Sawyer was bragging that he was better at something he’d never even tried. It galled me to the core, and it didn’t help that Aidan was eating it up like penny candy.

  “But you didn’t build a go-cart,” I said. “Anne did.”

  Every ounce of friendliness drained out of Sawyer faster than beer from one of Mrs. Springgate’s jars. “Are you implying that a girl is better than me, Cory?”

  “You’re the one always spouting off that actions speak louder than words. So, yeah. Anne proved she is better than you by actually building a go-cart.” I should’ve stopped right there, but I just couldn’t let it go. “This proves she’s better at building things just like she proved she’s better than you at baseball.”

  Aidan sucked in a breath while Sawyer eyed me as if I’d just declared war on the Major Leagues. He shifted his wad of gum to the other cheek, then spat at the rear wheel of Anne’s go-cart. “You daring me to prove you wrong, Cory?”

  “Just calling it like I see it,” I said.

  “Get this straight, Cory. A dumb Dora like Anne is not better than me. At anything.” His teeth were gritted and I figured it was taking all his willpower to keep from throttling me. “If it’s proof you want, Cory, then it’s proof you’ll get. You with me, Aidan?”

  For a split second, I was confused. Then it hit me like a sucker punch from one of Sawyer’s infamous beanballs. They were planning to build a go-cart. Just the two of them.

  Well, Aidan could go ahead and help Sawyer. I’d build one of my own, too. One that was better than Sawyer’s and Anne’s combined. Then Aidan would be sorry. Sorry that he chose Sawyer over me.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon doodling designs for a cart that would make the Space Warrior proud. Of course, there was no way mine could really have airplane boosters or armored panels, but I liked thinking about how jealous Sawyer and Aidan would be if it could.

  Echo was sprawled on my chest the next morning. As soon as he saw my eyes open, he stood up, stretched, and meowed that it was about time I got up.

  Mom was in the kitchen, sitting at the table. The static on the radio blended with the coffee bubbling in the percolator. Mom said she didn’t care about music, that she only kept the radio on in case there was an important news bulletin. But I noticed that her shoe was keeping time to Glenn Miller’s “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” while she went through a pile of Dad’s letters spread out on the table. They had all come the day before in one big bundle. “He says he misses my meatloaf,” Mom said. “I wonder if he’s getting enough to eat?”

  Her question made me feel guilty about the cornflakes in my bowl.

  “This one mentions your cartoons.”

  “They’re comics, Mom.”

  Mom looked up and smiled. “Your dad said they made him laugh. Isn’t that what cartoons do?”

  “The Adventures of The Warrior Kid isn’t supposed to be funny. He’s battling evil. Just like Dad,” I told her. “And just like the Warrior, I bet Dad is beating the Germans single-handedly.”

  Mom’s smile tightened into a scowl. “I hope you’re wrong, Cory. All I want is for him to turn and run away. Run as fast as he can.”

  I nearly blew milk out my nose. “This is Dad you’re talking about,” I reminded her.

  “I know that, Cory. And I’d rather he was safe instead of trying to prove he’s some kind of hero.”

  Her words made no sense to me. “Dad’s a Woodford and Woodfords are just like the Space Warrior. We never run.”

  I left Mom sitting at the kitchen table, searching for hidden messages written between lines.

  My grandfather’s stony stare followed me across the square on my way to the hardware store. The sun was hot on my head. I got mad every time I thought of Sawyer throwing my cap to Ziegler’s dogs. As soon as Dad came home, he was probably going to ask why I didn’t just jump the fence and get it back. “It’s not that I was scared,” I muttered to Grandpa’s unblinking eyes. “It would’ve been a waste of effort to even try to get it back. Those dogs already had it in their jaws of death.”

  Mr. Franklin was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the Drug Emporium. Keeping a fetal pig floating forever in a jar was suspicious, even for someone who collected old medical paraphernalia. Maybe Franklin was some kind of Nazi scientist. That would explain why Ziegler moved to Harmony in the first place. What better place than a town like Harmony to work on a secret weapon with an evil scientist? I’d have to keep an eye out for Franklin and Ziegler both.

  Anne’s father was weighing nails for a customer when I got to Nichols’s Hardware. Mr. Burke was a little on the dumpy side and had a bald spot on the back of his head. He wore glasses that kept sliding down low on his nose. I didn’t think he looked a bit like Anne, but then people were always saying I was the spitting image of my dad and all I saw when I looked in the mirror was a skinny kid with a cowlick. By the time I found the eyebolts and a few other things I was going to need for my go-cart, Mr. Nichols had come out of the back room and traded places with Anne’s father. I never got a chance to talk to Mr. Burke.

  Hot air slapped me in the face when I went back outside. I squinted from the glare of the sun, missing my cap more than ever as I headed up Catalpa and past Aidan’s house. I knew the grain elevator dumped planks of wood out back. It was just down the street from the VFW so I could check there, too. The alley behind the VFW almost always had a wall of wooden booze crates.

  It was nearly noon before I had everything piled on Dad’s workbench in our garage, and sweat covered every square inch of my body. Aidan’s garage was closed tighter than a jar of Mom’s stewed tomatoes, but I knew he and Sawyer were in there because something crashed and I heard one of them laugh. I couldn’t tell whether it was Aidan or Sawyer. They were starting to sound like identical twins.

  “I don’t care,” I told the cat, who settled near me on a pile of rags. “Not. One. Bit.”

  I was getting used to how he echoed everything I said with a deep-throated mrr-oww of his own.

  I stacked everything on the workbench and then took out the sketch I’d scribbled the night before. My go-cart would have high sides, like a tank. When I closed my eyes I could see it unfold like panels in a comic book. Echo would be my mighty sidekick as we sped down Satan’s Sidewalk in the Kid’s Tank of Destruction. Solid and sturdy, barreling through a ghost ambush, we’d run down a fleeing troop of Nazi spies while bombs exploded all around us.

  “Building something, I see.”

  Mrs. Springgate’s voice snapped me out of my daydream so fast I dropped my pencil. It scared Echo, too. He didn’t look very mighty when he dove behind a box full of Grandpa’s old books.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. Which sounded a lot more polite than how I felt.

  Mrs. Springgate stood in the open garage door, a paper bag full of trash hugged to her chest. She wore a dirty dress without stockings. Most women didn’t wear them anymore, considering silk was needed for parachutes, but stockings would’ve done wonders to cover the blue veins crisscrossing her calves. So would a hat, to hold down the tufts of gray hair sticking up all over her head.

  “You’re like your grandfather.”

  “Yes, ma’am, and if the war’s still on when I’m eighteen, I’ll ship out just like Dad. Woodfords are always ready to battle archenemies.”

  Mrs. Springgate blew a puff of air through her teeth. “Pffft. I’m not talking about the war. I meant building things.”

  I blinked. I didn’t follow her.

  “Building things,” Mrs. Springgate said a little louder, as if I were deaf. “Your grandfather built things.”

  “He did?”
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  Mrs. Springgate plopped the bag of garbage on the ground. “Of course he did. Just look at all the tools.”

  “These are Dad’s,” I told Mrs. Springgate.

  “Now they are, but they were your grandfather’s to begin with. He was a builder, that man. Spent hours in this garage, hammering and sanding. Had a real knack. Not like your dad. Your father didn’t have the patience or the vision. Couldn’t see inside the wood like your grandfather did.” Mrs. Springgate tapped her temple three times by her right eye.

  Dad had always organized his tools. Kept them wiped clean and in neat lines on the wall. But now that she brought it up, I didn’t remember a single time Dad did anything more than hammer nails in the walls to hang pictures. Evidently Grandpa did. Anne had asked what kind of man my grandfather was; now I had something to tell her. She’d probably like that, considering she was pretty handy with a hammer, too.

  “So, tell me about it,” Mrs. Springgate said.

  I blinked at her again.

  “That thing you’re building.”

  “A cart,” I stammered. “A go-cart. If I can find everything I need.”

  Mrs. Springgate looked like she was chewing on her tongue. “Like in those Soap Box Derbies? Follow me.” She turned around just as fast as she changed topics, and started walking down the alley. “Well, come on. And put that in the trash barrel on your way.”

  Echo sailed over the box of rags and nearly tripped me in his hurry to beat us into Mrs. Springgate’s garage. She glanced at the piles of boxes and crates that I’d spent most of a day organizing. “Should be plenty in here you can use,” she said. “Whatever you find is yours as long as you clean up after you dig through it.”

  The idea was almost too good to be true. “I can have anything?”

  Mrs. Springgate was almost out the garage door, but she paused and I saw her face soften. “I know how boys like to build things,” she said, making me think of that box full of kids’ toys I’d put in the wagon. Then she looked at Echo weaving around my ankles. “Found a mouse’s head on my back porch this morning. Your cat’s a good mouser.”

  And then Mrs. Springgate walked back up the crumbling sidewalk, leaving me surrounded by a lifetime of junk. I looked at Echo. He was casually licking a paw and using it to wash behind his ears. “You? A mouser?”

  For once, he didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his back so all I saw was his tail swishing across the floor of Mrs. Springgate’s garage.

  The right side of the garage was full of Mr. Springgate’s things. There was an old rifle that I knew Mom would never let me have. An axe covered in rust. Some overalls and plaid shirts. Toward the front of the garage, near the door, were paint cans. Some still sloshed. I piled what I thought I could use into the wagon and carted it home, pausing right outside Aidan’s garage.

  I heard Sawyer and Aidan having a grand ol’ time in there.

  “Aidan. Is. MY. Friend,” I said, kicking a wagon wheel. I wiped my eyes. It was sweat, not tears. The Kid never cried. Ever.

  Then I rolled the wagon inside my garage to work on my go-cart with no one for company but a stray cat and the ghosts of Satan’s Sidewalk.

  12

  THE COURAGEOUS ADVENTURES OF THE WARRIOR KID AND HIS SIDEKICK

  Dear Dad,

  Boy, Sawyer sure was steamed when Anne struck him out. He can’t get over the idea that a girl is better than him at anything–especially baseball. Serves him right since he acts like he knows everything, but I set him straight. Yes sir–ee. You would’ve been proud of me when I made him eat a huge serving of Woodford humble pie.

  I still don’t understand why Aidan does’t get what a blowhard Sawyer is. Just because Sawyer can hit a baseball doesn’t mean he’s better than everyone. After all, he can’t hit the broadside of a garage with that slingshot he made. I was going to make a slingshot, too, but decided to wait for you so we can make one that Sawyer will be jealous of.

  I cut pictures of Nazi war planes off the backs of cereal boxes and hung them on my bedroom wall right over my desk. I study them every night so I’ll be ready in case one flies over Harmony. Sawyer said it’s a waste of time, but I reminded him that Germans are everywhere. There are even rumors that America was invaded by U-boats that landed right on the coasts of Long Island and Florida. Don’t worry, though. I’m keeping Harmony safe until you get home. I told the new girl about the Mallory Ghosts today, but I know we don’t really have to worry about ghosts so I’m not scared. Not even a little bit.

  I knew if Dad were here he’d tell me Anne was full of pinto beans; that being German was the same as being a Nazi and that spies could be tall and skinny and wear wire glasses that sat crooked on their noses just like Ziegler. Instead, I squared off the rest of the paper, sharpened my pencil, and started to draw the continuing adventure of the Kid.

  “I don’t need a best friend, because I have you for my sidekick,” I told the cat. “You’re the Mighty Echo. Together, we’re invincible.”

  Echo reached out and snagged my pencil with one of his claws, but he didn’t mean anything by it. I could tell from his rumbling purr.

  13

  GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION

  It took two days to collect everything I needed. I half-expected Aidan to mosey over and tell me I could join them, but Aidan and Sawyer kept the garage locked up tighter than a mummy’s coffin. Other than when Mom brought me peanut butter sandwiches and milk, Echo was my only company. He curled his tail around his paws and paid attention as if he might try building a go-cart himself. Telling him what I was doing helped fill the silence. “I’ll use a crate for the body of my cart.”

  True to his name, Echo answered each of my comments with a comment of his own.

  “It’s the wheels that I still need. Most people already donated old tires for the war effort.”

  “Mrr-oww.”

  “I’ll have to look hard to find four that match.”

  “Mrr-oww.”

  “The Germans have ruined everything, haven’t they?” Jackson said, interrupting my conversation with Echo. “Because of them, a kid like you has a hard time finding tires for a go-cart.”

  Aidan’s brother leaned against the garage doorframe, half in the sunlight and half in shadow. His hair was longer, combed back in a ducktail style. Of course, that would be gone by the end of the month when he headed for boot camp. I felt my face burn. Here he was getting ready to go fight in a war, and I was worrying about wheels for what amounted to nothing more than a toy.

  Jackson walked over to the bench and picked up my sketch. “Sawyer’s design isn’t as good as this.”

  “Thanks,” I said, unable to hide my smug grin.

  He put down the sketch and picked up a hammer, testing the weight by tossing it from his right hand to his left. It smacked his palm when he caught it. “Try using wagon wheels. That’s what Sawyer and Aidan are using.”

  Jackson carefully placed the hammer on Dad’s workbench, turned, and walked back across the alley. I wondered if he felt guilty for helping me instead of Aidan and Sawyer.

  I sanded the inside of the crate. It needed to be smooth to keep splinters from digging into my behind. I got into the rhythm of the rough paper sliding across the wood, sounding like the beat of a snare drum keeping time to Les Brown and his orchestra. The swish-swish-swish drowned out the sounds of the occasional car crunching the gravel of Satan’s Sidewalk. Sawdust stuck to the sweat on my forehead, and the smell of raw wood mixed with the stale scent of oil and dirt. I put all my muscle into it, concentrating on filing the splinters into dust. That’s why Anne’s voice surprised me.

  “I knew it!”

  I whirled around, sandpaper held in front of me like a shield, and Echo bolted from his napping spot. Anne stepped aside, letting him pass. “You couldn’t stand the thought of being shown up by a girl, could you, Cory? You’re just as bad as Sawyer.”

  “That’s not true,” I told her honestly. “But I am trying to make a better go-cart than theirs.”

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nbsp; “Yeah?” she asked, studying my face as if she could see the truth written there. I couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes got brighter when her smile wiped the scowl off her face. “Me, too! We should work together.”

  It stung a little, having her offer what my best friend wouldn’t.

  She walked around my supplies, feeling the wood and tapping her fingers on the crate. “This’ll give whoever pushes you a firm base. It’ll make it harder to fall off, too. How are you going to steer it?”

  “A rope laced through two holes drilled in the front of the crate and tied at the ends of my two-by-four axle. I’m using your idea of attaching the front axle to the plywood base using a single eyebolt so the axle can pivot right or left with a tug of the rope.”

  Anne’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You’ve been spying on me!”

  “How else could we find out what you were up to?”

  Anne glared at me a full ten seconds, then grinned again. “That’s okay, because mine is still better than yours.”

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  “It is,” she argued. “Mine could beat yours in a race because the crate will create wind drag.”

  “Is that a dare?” I asked with a voice full of bravado, but inside I worried she might be right about the crate slowing down my go-cart.

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” Anne said, but she said it like it was only a game instead of some kind of battle.

  “Give me one more week.”

  “You’re on! Until then, come and help me with mine.”

  I didn’t want Sawyer and Aidan to sneak in and steal any of my ideas so I covered my cart with an old sheet. Then I closed up the garage and crossed Satan’s Sidewalk to where Anne was pulling her cart across the yard. She tried to act like it was as normal as pulling a Radio Flyer, but I saw her swell with pride. I couldn’t blame her. A go-cart was much better than a little red wagon. Echo rubbed against a wheel, then looked up at me as if to say he approved, too.