awkward trash bag down the back stairs, around the building to the driveway and past a large brown station wagon that he had a hard time imagining Madame Kloochie ever actually drove. He knew for a fact that she had never driven to Boston to visit his mother. He dropped the bag on the sidewalk but not so it would be in the way of the car, just in case.
An engine backfired as a badly dented red pickup truck careened around the corner at the top of the hill and charged down towards him. Under normal circumstances, Zachary could have jumped over the truck before it ever had a chance to hit him, but with his body so sore from everything that had happened in the last day, he retreated behind the front fender of Madame Kloochie’s brown station wagon. He need not have bothered, however, because the truck came to a squealing, if not expert, stop on the street in front of the station wagon. A sign stuck on one dented door read: “Pork ‘ie Farm Market and Pizza.”
Weird name.
And then it occurred to him Madame Kloochie hadn’t been saying “Porky Stanley,” she’d been saying, “Pork ‘ie Stanley.”
He watched as a heavy driver got out of the truck with a stack of six pizza boxes. Not having seen a line of cars parked on either side of the street, Zachary wondered who was having the party. In answer, an old man hurried out of the house next door. Spry for his age, he hustled down the stairs and grabbed the pizzas as though fearing the driver was about to drop them.
“Thanks, Stanley,” he said; then added, “Mount Everest cocoa and caramel…back pocket.”
Seeming genuinely excited, the dark haired boy reached into the old man’s pocket and pulled out what looked to be a large chocolate bar.
“Thanks, Gerald!”
“Don’t drink German soda with that,” the old man warned, climbing his stairs, “unless you want to lose friends.”
Zachary moved gingerly out onto the sidewalk.
“I’m Zachary,” he said, introducing himself to both the driver and the elderly man. He was just getting ready to ask if he brought any bags for Madame Kloochie when the old neighbor spoke up.
“Didn’t see you over there, young fella,” he said. “’Name’s Pill, isn’t it? ‘Heard you’re staying with Flora. You’re a brave one, I’ll give you that.”
“You must have talked to Bret this morning,” Zachary said.
“Not since a day or two ago,” the old man said. “Nice boy, though.”
“Then who told you I was staying here?”
“I’m Gerald Gains, but you can call me Gerald.”
“Nice to meet you,” Zachary said. He decided not to be rude and ask the same question twice, but he really was confused how the old man knew about him.
“I suspect someone at Pork ‘ies might have said something,” Stanley offered. “Madame Kloochie mentioned she had a young friend moving in.” He grinned, revealing the most crooked teeth Zachary had ever seen. “But I could probably have figured it out from all the cleaning supplies she ordered.”
Zachary groaned. It was bad enough to be her slave, but to have everyone in the neighborhood know it somehow made it worse. He wished his uncle hadn’t put him in this predicament.
Holding his tall stack of pizzas, the old man stepped inside his house and, before closing the door, said, “I’m sure I’ll see you again, Zachary.”
Stanley opened his dented passenger door and pulled out a large box filled with milk, cereal, a box of donut pastries, several types of bottled cleaners and at least five large boxes of trash bags. Zachary reached out to grab the box but Stanley wouldn’t give it to him.
“I’m not making you carry this,” the large older boy said. “Your arm’s broken, Bud.”
“You’re the first one to notice, I think,” Zachary said. “I guess you can leave everything in the hallway if you want. I’ll carry things up a few at a time.”
“Naw, I’ll take it up,” the large boy said. “I do it every day.”
“You don’t mind the mess?”
“Better than my parents’ place,” the heavy teenager said. “They’ve got over a hundred pets living right in the house. I don’t like to even sleep there anymore.”
Zachary didn’t know much about pets, but he knew that anyplace worse than Madame Kloochie’s was a house he never wanted to visit. He gave a weak smile and followed Stanley up the stairs. “Pork ‘ie Farm Market and Pizza” was also printed on the back of his shirt.
Stanley balanced the large box on one knee at the top of the stairs and, without knocking, turned the knob and shoved the door open, nearly falling inward in the process. Zachary figured he wasn’t used to having a path cleared in front of the door. The big boy somehow managed to catch himself without spilling the contents of the box and trudged over to place the large box on top of a stack of magazines, newspapers and dirty socks at the end of the couch.
“Thank you, Porky Stanley,” Madame Kloochie said, already reaching her hand into the pastry box.
“Is that how you pronounce it?” Zachary asked as Stanley started to leave.
The heavy boy shrugged.
“People say it both ways. “Twenty years ago it was just Pork Pie Market, but one of the ‘P’s’ on the sign got broken. When my grandparents finally got enough money to fix it, the customers complained, so they got rid of the ‘P’ again.” His job done, Stanley descended the stairs, whistling the whole way. A couple of minutes later, his truck squealed and backfired as it pulled a U-turn and sped back up the hill.
Zachary spent the next couple of hours cleaning out the rest of his garbage-filled room and was thankful it started to smell better as he carted the bags, one after the other, out to the street. The last chore was to scrub out the bureau and unpack, which also meant setting his plants up where they’d each have the proper amount of sun. By the time he finished, it was hard to tell he had a window because plants pretty much blocked its view. He grabbed an empty milk jug from on top of the cluttered dining room table and watered every pot before deciding that food had to come next.
“Could I have a donut?” he asked Madame Kloochie, who was protecting the pastry box like a mother goose would her egg.
“Of course you can, Sweetie,” she said in a soft, friendly voice.
Zachary took two steps toward the living room before noticing her arm had cocked back with a half-eaten chocolate cream donut in hand. Fast as a Little League pitcher, she launched the donut at his head. Zachary ducked but not in time. The pastry grazed his cheek before striking a picture of a panda bear on the further dining room wall. Fortunately, the picture didn’t have a glass frame so nothing broke. Unfortunately, the picture didn’t have a glass frame so a splotch of frosting remained on the bear’s face after the donut fell onto the garbage-covered floor.
“Why’d you do…?”
Zachary paused when he realized Madame Kloochie was shaking with laughter on the couch. Growing angrier by the second, he stared at the mountainous mess around him. Not only was she the sloppiest pig in the world, she had actually thrown a donut to make things worse on purpose!
Finally, after wiping the frosting from his cheek, Zachary said, “Do you think I could have a donut to eat, not wear?”
“No, but there’s cereal and milk,” Madame Kloochie managed to say through waves of giggles. She pulled the unopened gallon jug out of Stanley’s delivery box. Zachary didn’t even want to ask why she hadn’t put the milk in the refrigerator earlier. And he refused to think about the rotten jugs of milk he’d already thrown out.
Of course, there weren’t any clean bowls, or clean dishes of any kind for that matter, so Zachary was forced to wash one. It turned out to be a long, arduous process because he had to avoid getting his cast wet. Somehow he managed, though, and did eat a bowl of cereal on his bed, the only clear place he could find to sit in the entire apartment.
Bret showed up late that afternoon. They worked hard and Bret had to use his inhaler twice, but somehow they managed to clean the dining room, most of the kitchen and moved enough dirty clothes out of the bathroom so that they
could use the washer and dryer. By the time Bret left, every muscle in Zachary’s body ached. He forced himself to thoroughly clean the tub so that he could take a shower. It was worth it, he decided as the warm water cleaned away the stench of Madame Kloochie’s filthy home from his skin.
As he flopped onto his bed, which still had no sheets or blankets, he stared at the picture he’d found. Who was the pretty redhead? And why did his father have a picture of her? As with most things in his life, Zachary had more questions than answers. He tried to focus on the girl’s beautiful smile, but fear of what might have happened to his father crept steadily into his mind. He slid the picture under his pillow.
Where are you, Dad?
On the second morning after arriving in New Hampshire, Zachary woke to the sound of someone yelling his name. He forced his stiff body upright and tried to figure out where the sound was coming from.
“Zach!” the urgent voice came again through the partly open window.
Zachary pushed his spider plant aside and peered outside. Though it hadn’t rained in the last couple of days, Madame Kloochie’s elderly neighbor stood on the roof next door dressed in a bright red rain suit that made his thin frame look puffy. His age-wrinkled face was barely visible beneath a matching red rain cap. Having tied a rope to his chimney, the old man held it like a mountain climber to keep from sliding down the steep slope.
Zachary stuck his head outside.