Untitled: Chapter one/1

Sitting in her seat at Keshula North High School, Madison Summers anxiously waited for the final bell to ring, signaling her freedom. Only five minutes left. Madison nudged Kathleen, who was sitting next to her.


“Have a great summer,” Madison whispered.

“Thanks, you too. Keep in touch okay?” Kathleen whispered back.

“Of course,” Madison said as she began to pack up her things.

As soon as the bell rang, students came spilling out of the brick building. They looked like scurrying ants as they said goodbye to their friends and sprinted to the buses or mom’s waiting car.

To her advantage, Madison lived two blocks from the school so she had no need to rush out and catch the bus. This summer was going to be great. She would hang out with Julie all the time, and have sleepovers and stay up late.

Madison turned the corner and walked to the fifth house on Cumberland Drive. She skipped up the front steps, slid her key in the door and went inside.

“Hello! I’m home!” Madison called as she tossed her book bag in the front closet. She frowned when she got no response.

“Oh well,” she shrugged. Madison headed to the kitchen for something to eat. She opened the refrigerator and peered inside. Her mother’s yucky spinach dip sat in the front, stinking up the rest of the food. She dug in the back for the chocolate chip cookie dough she hid from her older brother Gabe. Her eyes twinkled as she took the tub in two hands, skipping to the counter for a spoon. As if her mother knew exactly what Madison was doing, the phone rang, stopping her in her tracks. Maddie set the tub down and walked to the phone.

“Hello?” she said quietly.

“How was school?” her mother asked from her desk at work.

“Good, it was my last day today” Madison happily shared.

“Well that’s good news huh?” her mother responded.

“Yep.”

There was silence for about a minute before her mother spoke again.

“Well baby cakes I was just calling to check up on you. Me and daddy will be home around 5 okay?”

Madison rolled her eyes. She was too old for that talk. No girl her age called her dad ‘daddy’ anymore. “ kay mom.”

“I would tell you to get your homework done, but you don’t have any. So, be good. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay bye,” Madison said. She hung up the phone and trotted happily back to her cookie dough. She dug in the drawer for the biggest spoon she could find and speared into the cold, gooey dough. She held her doughed-spoon in one hand as she stuck the tub back in the refrigerator with the other. Licking the spoon, she headed through the house to her bedroom.

“G’day Lemons,” she said to her pet turtle as she walked in. She gently tapped the glass. The reptile curled his tiny head up and out of its shell in response, slowly moving itself in the pool of water it chilled in.

Crunching away at some chocolate chips, Maddie sat down on her bed and stared out the window at her neighbor’s house. There was a boy that lived next door, and he was completely in love with Madison. Whenever she went down to swim in her pool, she would catch him peeking at her through the fence. She would call him out and scare him away, only to catch him spying on her again. He didn’t interest her whatsoever because he was really strange, besides the fact that he was 3 years younger than her.

“I mean seriously, I’m a 7th grader, I don’t date younger men,” she said out loud with a flip of her hair.

After going back down stairs and ditching the empty cookie dough spoon, Maddie went downstairs to snoop in her brother’s room. Gabe’s door was plastered with bumper stickers and ‘warning’ signs. Madison ignored the innuendos that stuck to the wooden door, and went inside. Gabe had cleaned his room for once and left nothing but a pair of socks on his floor. Carefully stepping around her brother’s bed, she went to his closet where she knew he kept his secret stash of pixie sticks (and playboys). She fumbled her hand around on the top shelf until she felt the smooth cardboard box she sought. Madison gently pulled the box down and hugging it to her chest, sat down on her brother’s bed. She lifted the lid and set it aside, peering inside the box. Old baseball cards, gum wrappers, ticket stubs, and condom wrappers created a kaleidoscope of colors, from bluest blues to shiny red. She fished through the box searching for the candy she craved. Her fingers closed around the tubes of sugar and she grabbed a few. Madison carefully lidded the box and put it back in the closet. After making sure everything was as she’d left it, she scampered off to her own room.

Shipwrecked--Part Three

“Where am I?” Jack asked as they rolled through ton, passing tiny houses with perfect lawns and pastel colored cars.


“Baltimore, Maryland” Crybaby answered. “This is the hoity toity neighborhood here the squares live. Where do you need to go?”

“I crashed my ship and I need some wood for repairs,” he answered watching a group of kids spill out of an elementary school, laughing and skipping down the sidewalk.

“Okay, I’ll take you to see my uncle Belvedere. He’s a real swell guy, really knows how to fix stuff. Why he always fixes the cars that my grandma hustles,” Crybaby said.

Jack’s face softened, “Are you a pirate too?”

“Nah, I sing. But my buddies are into that, stealing and stuff.”

“Oh,” Jack said with a frown.

“Here we are. Turkey Point.”

A wide stretch of patchy dirt and grass banked around a small lake. There were dozens of cars parked in the gravel parking lot, dust covering the wheel wells and dirt on the rims.

Crybaby rolled on through, past a wide pavilion with young kids dancing on a small stage. Jack cringed at the music and grimaced with every long burst of saxophone.

They continued on through the park, passing ratty houses and tiny trailers. Crybaby slowed to a stop in front of an old sagging wooden house. The siding was rusted and the foundation crumbled in one corner. There were scratchy bushes and shrubs in what passed for a front yard, and miscellaneous tires, toys, and tacky garbage.

Jack wrinkled his nose at his surroundings, slowly climbing off the motorcycle. Crybaby marched on over to the front door and banged his fist on it, the flimsy screen door rapped against the wooden frame. An older woman in tan overalls, knee-high boots, and wild black hair burst outside. She fixed the duck shaped hat that squashed her hair down, as she stepped from the house.

“Who the…Crybaby! Boy where have you been? You’re worrying your grandma to death over here, being gone all the time,” she said, coming over.

“Sorry grandma. Uncle Belvedere around?”

“Yeah out back working on a truck,” she said. She chomped on her gum and smiled wildly through ruby red lips. “Uh, Crybaby? Who’s your friend?” she said, stopping him.

Crybaby beckoned over Jack who cautiously approached, gingerly stepping over the junk in the yard.

“This here’s Jack. I found him on the side of the road,” Crybaby joked.

Grandma came closer to Jack and peered up at him, her mouth in a wide open, toothy grin.

Jack wrinkled his nose, for once appalled by someone else’s breath besides his own.

“Pleasure,” Jack said, awkwardly sticking his hand in her face for a handshake.

She took a step back and shook his hand. “Good to meet you Jack. What were you doing on the side of the road?”

“Narrowly escaping an attack from a ferocious cat,” Jack said seriously.

Crybaby laughed, “A cat? Look who’s a sissy now?”

“Big kitty,” Jack said outstretching his arms in estimate of the animal’s size. “You have no idea.”

“C’mon Jack. Let’s go find you some lumber,” Crybaby said.

Jack dropped his arms and followed, muttering curse words to himself.

They went around to the back of the house, winding through a yard full of old cars, pieces of wood, and miscellaneous tools. A loud drilling was going on in a rusted old shed. Crybaby rapped on the door, and the drilling stopped.

“I’m coming!” A southern voice hollered at them from within. The door swung open and a tall thin man in a blue mechanic’s uniform stood before them. His face and hands were covered in black grease, and his stained red cap sagged to one side of his head.

“Uncle Belvedere, this is my pal Jack. He’s looking for some lumber,” Crybaby said, patting Jack on his shoulder.

“What kind of lumber? Uncle Belvedere asked looking from Jack to Crybaby.

Jack began his business voice, “My ship, the Black Pearl, crashed into some rocks and now I’ve got a rather large hole in the side.”

“Oh you want wood for a boat?”

“Ship,” Jack corrected.

Uncle Belvedere rubbed the back of his neck. I’m gonna have to order some. We don’t carry as much anymore, and I’m assuming you’ll need quite a bit. Might be a few days.”

“What? I haven’t the time to order some,” Jack complained.

“Well you can go into town and get the wood there but they’ll charge you an arm and 2 legs for it. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy to be into hobbling around with one arm for the rest of your life,” Uncle Belvedere said, folding his arms across his chest.

Jack huffed, “I need eight, two by four planks. Also the bolts and screws to fasten it all into place. How much are we talking here?”

Uncle Belvedere’s expression changed as he punched some numbers in his head. “I can give it all to you for 300 bucks.”

“What?! I don’t have that kind of money, I….” Jack looked in his coin purse, jingling around the few sad coins he kept for emergencies. Jack looked up ruefully and said, “I spent it all on rum.”

Crybaby lifted one corner of his mouth and shrugged, “I guess you’ll just have to get a job then Jack. C’mon Jack, I’ll show you around town.”

Jack sighed, zipped up his coin purse and trudged behind Crybaby to explore the wide world of employment.