Andrew sat in the van and, well, moped. It was exciting to be going somewhere new, but he wasn’t happy to be leaving all his friends.
Bradley, sitting beside him, was fooling around on his iphone, probably doing Facebook. He didn’t care about the move. He was getting ready to go to college soon, and only really cared about his schoolwork, his girlfriend, and the games he played online.
Natalie, sitting on the other side of Bradley, was asleep. She always fell asleep on long trips, and they had been four hours in the car already.
“Kids, this is our exit,” their Dad said, suddenly, slowing down. Ruth leaned over Andrews shoulder and they watched him pull off.
“A Denny’s, Dad!” Ruth said, can we eat?”
Bradley lifted his head up, but his Dad shook his head, “No, we’re almost there, to our new house! Mom can cook us something there.”
Mom didn’t look too happy with this idea, but no one argued with Dad when he was in one of his moods. Andrew wasn’t exactly eager to stop himself, “Where do we go now, Dad?” he asked.
“We drive past the college, then off into the woods.”
The college was pretty, all green lawns and old fashioned buildings. Andrew’s Dad was going to work there, teaching writing.
Their whole life had been turned upside down just four months ago, when their dad had gotten into some religious kick. Suddenly they were going to a new church, getting ready to homeschool, Mom was expecting a new baby… and they were moving.
Not that that last was actually related. Great Aunt Cynthia had, after long years in a nursing home, finally take ill (pneumonia) and, after a couple of weeks of visiting her every day in the hospital, she died. Then her lawyer had contacted Dad and they had found out that he was her heir, and that she had left him this big old house in the country, and a bunch of money.v
Not enough to retire on, but enough so that Mom didn’t object too loudly when Dad asked her to stop working, and that he could take this job at the university teaching writing.
“What’s this, Dad?” Andrew asked. The car had turned off a main road into a subdivision, with a big stone gateway.
“It’s a college suburb,” Dad said, as they all stared out the window at the houses passing by. Nice houses, big houses, on smallish lots. “A lot of teachers and all live here.”
“But why are we going here, Dad?” Ruth asked, “You said we were going to live in the country.”
“We will, sweetheart,” their Dad laughed. “Our road is on the other side of this neighborhood.”
Andrew stared out the window, excited to see where they were going. These houses were so different from the neighborhood he had come from. Each of the houses was different, a different pattern, a different paint scheme. And they each had their own yard, with a fence around it. The kids that lived here must love it! And to think, his new house would be even more ‘country’ than this!
He worried, though, that it would be so far out in the ‘country’ that he wouldn’t be able to make friends. And they would be homeschooling, so he wouldn’t be able to make any at school. Oh, well, Natalie was good at making friends, and some of the girls were sure to have brothers his age or so.
As they came around the corner he saw another moving van, and a family, moving in and out of a house. And then, beyond them, a boy, about his age, standing looking at them. Andrew waved, frantically. Maybe this boy was from this new church his dad was going to take them to. His dad had said that everyone in the church had lot’s of kids. He would love to know someone at the church before he had to go there!
The kid looked startled, then waved, then dashed for his bike. “Dad, Dad, slow down!” Andrew said.
“What?”
“There’s this kid, and he’s trying to keep up with us on his bike. He saw me wave and he’s probably trying to see where we are going. Dad!”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom said. She was always accusing people of being silly. “How can he know who we are, or where we are going?”
Andrew turned and watched the boy, still pedaling away after them, until a bend in the road hid him, and he sat back, disappointed. A new friend, lost already. Maybe he’d be able to bike back down there once he got a bike. But then he’d have to knock on the door, and introduce himself, and everything…
He got distracted with the road, almost immediately, though. It was a cool road, curving, and climbing up this hill. They passed two driveways to their left, which, he could see, led to some nice houses and then, finally, although it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes later, a driveway off to the right, leading steeply downhill through the woods.
He craned his neck, but couldn’t see the house. There were trees, a whole forest of trees, on each side of the driveway which, after a few yards, bent sharply to the left.
Three more interminable bends and then, finally, the driveway leveled out into a clearing and everyone, even Bradley (Natalie having woken up when Andrew yelled about the boy) drew in a sharp breath.
“Cool!” Andrew said and,
“Weird!” Bradley said.
The girls both squealed, but Mom said, “Charles!”
“Well,” Dad said, kind of gulping. “I knew it different.”
They were all staring at the house, of course. It was painted kind of a dark pink. Rather like a raspberry flavored sucker, with white trim. It was a three story house. Or, rather, Andrew thought, two stories and a high attic. The windows were huge, at least the ones he could see, the ones on the second story. The first story had an awesome porch running all along the front of the house and wrapping along the side, and the attic, well, it had some gables with little windows.
And the steps! It had a wide staircase leading up to the porch; really wide with carved handrails on either side.
But the coolest touch as far as Andrew was concerned were the gargoyles. The roofs were just surrounded by them. All fat, naked little demon things with short stubby wings. Andrew had never seen gargoyles like them. For one thing, gargoyles were always made of stone, and these were wood. For another thing, they were all painted. Painted in bright colors, or colors that had been bright when they were painted, Andrew figured. And in all sorts of bright colors. A couple pink like the house, but others were bright green, yellow, orange… the bright blue ones seemed almost calm compared to the other colors.
And these gargoyles were, like, grinning. Smiling grinning, not, you know, grimacing or leering or any of the ‘nasty’ grins, but really grinning… like they were all telling each other some great joke.
And the yard! The front yard was full of lawn animals, or whatever they were called, you know, all made of stone. And not boring turtles and flamingos and all (although there was a turtle) but really cool ones… fauns and centaurs and even a dragon! And, again, these were all painted; in this case more ‘realistically’ if you can call it that with a fantasy animal like a faun.
“This is just so awesome!” Andrew said, and while the other kids didn’t say anything he thought they agreed, even Bradley… who was OK when he wasn’t wrapped up with girl stuff.
“Different!” Mom said. “Charles, that house is down right bizarre. When on Earth was it built?”
“I’m not sure,” Dad said. “It is one of the oldest houses in this area. My great uncle was kind of a strange bird.”
“A strange bird indeed,” Mom said. “His wife died in a lunatic asylum!”
“It was a nursing home!” Dad protested.
“They call them that,” Mom said. “But everyone knows she was nuts.”
“She was very nice,” Dad protested. “I was her favorite nephew.”
“You were the only one who would visit her in… anyway, she was very nice, as you say, but you can’t deny she wasn’t right in the head.”
“She told great stories, Mom!” Natalie protested.
“If you like that kind of thing,” Mom said.
“I like the house!” Natalie protested. “Especially the cherubs.”
“Cherubs!” Andrew said, disgusted at his sisters description. “They aren’t cherubs, they’re gargoyles!”
“Their naked, fat, baby’s with wings,” Natalie said. “That’s a cherub.”
“They have horns!” Andrew protested. “That makes them demons, and demons are gargoyles!”
“Anyway, whatever they are, and whatever the house is like, it is ours now, and we live here, so we will have to make the best of it,” Mom said. “It looks large, anyway. Let’s go in and pick out bedrooms and all.”
Andrew rushed into the house, all excited. Bradley, Mom, and Dad kind of ambled after him, with Ruth clinging closely to Mom’s hand, but Natalie raced with him. Twins, Andrew and Natalie had an odd relationship. They were super close, and super competitive. Right now, for example, they were both looking for the ‘best’ bedroom.
Right inside the house, like in one of those old movies, was a big wooden staircase, like the kind you see the heroine standing on halfway up. Natalie and Andrew raced side by side up the staircase. At the top of the stairs there was a hallway branching off to the right and left, and they split up there: with Andrew darting off to the right, and his twin sister off to the left.
Andrew raced down the hallway opening door after door, and exclaiming over the rooms. They fit with the rest of the house: wood floors, walls, everything. None of them had bathrooms, though, and Andrew wanted to see them all, so he raced to door after door throwing them open with a series of bangs.
He finally found a bathroom at the end of the hallway, one with an old fashioned tub, you know, the kind with the feet. No shower.
He closed the bathroom door and saw that there was one more door, here, at the end of the hallway, and he opened it.
It wasn’t a room, but a stairway, and, for a second he thought of closing the door but then, instead, he darted up the stairs. Two reasons, really. First because he was curious. It was a skinny little wooden stairway, and he wondered where it went. Secondly, because he had this bizarre thought that maybe it did lead to another bedroom, one like in ‘Secondhand Lions’, which was one of his favorite films.
It wasn’t a bedroom, but it was cool anyway. It was a big, long, low attic. Totally filled with stuff, too! Within seconds Andrew was lost in explorations. All this stuff!
The attic ran the whole length of the house, with an aisle all the way down the middle. On either side was piles and piles of stuff… all organized in stacks. At the far end of the attic, where Andrew could barely see, were what looked like bookshelves.
But, nearer, were boxes… actually old trunks, like one sees in movies, with stickers all over them. He went down one stack and saw an enormous trunk that said, “Tahiti”, on it, and sat down, and opened it…
“Andrew!!” Andrew started, hitting his head on a rafter, holding back the curse that wanted to come out. He didn’t curse, his dad would kill him, but he had friends that did and, nowadays, they always wanted to come out.
“Up here, Mom,” he yelled back, frantically putting stuff back in the trunk he had opened. He would have to come up here, later.
“What are you doing up here?” His mom said, her voice appearing above the pile of junk by the stairs.
“Can I have this for my room?” Andrew blurted out.
“Don’t be silly,” his mom said, looking around. “This is an attic, not a bedroom. And all this junk! What are we going to do with it? I wonder if any of it is valuable?”
She looked around, and then started, “Anyway, you have a friend waiting for you outside. I guess you were right,” she said, “that kid on the bike must have been following our trailer. I have no idea how he knew what driveway to come down, but he did, and he asked if you could come out.”
“Your father said you could,” she said, sounding slightly disapproving. “He said that it was good…”
“Thanks, Mom,” Andrew said, darting past her down the stairway. A friend, already!!
“I get this room!” Natalie called to him when he reached the hallway, standing beside a door on the far end of the hallway with a box in her hands, obviously eager to stake her claim.
“Fine, whatever,” Andrew said, dashing down the stairway. What did he care for rooms when there was a potential friend waiting outside, one he wouldn’t have to go ‘meet’ on his own!
The boy was sitting on his bike, with his feet on the ground, just under her window, and he grinned when Andrew came out the front door and race over to him.
“Hey!” Andrew said, sticking out his hand.
“Hi,” The boy said. “I’m Danny, Daniel Rappaport.”
Rappaport? Andrew thought to himself. What kind of name is that? It sounded French. Whatever. He looked nice, anyway. “I’m Andrew, Andrew Smith,” Andrew said. “You live down there, where I saw you?”
“Yes. It was totally bizarre. I had just gotten done meeting this other guy, and then your van goes by.”
“How did you know where we were going?” Andrew asked, remembering the way the boy had frantically chased after them, and how he had tried to get his Dad to slow down the car so he could follow.
“There’s only three houses on this road,” Danny said. “That and the Forest Service station, and I knew you weren’t going there. I’m know kids that live in each of the other two houses, and I was pretty sure they hadn’t moved out, so, I thought you were coming here. I never imagined anyone would come here, though.” Danny added, looking up at the house.
“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Andrew asked, looking back at the house himself. “My great aunt owned it, and she just died, so we got to come live here.”
“Wow. You’re lucky. There’s all sorts of trails and everything out behind the house, going off into the state park. My friends and I camp out there sometimes… not on your land,” he said, hastily, “in the state park. It runs all along this side of the road, except for here, and we just go off into the woods.”
“Wow,” Andrew said. “You want to come in?”
“No, I can’t,” Daniel said. “I have to study.”
“Study?” Andrew said. “It’s the middle of the summer! Oh, are you homeschooled? We’re going to be homeschooled.”
“No,” Daniel said, “I’m studying for my Bar Mitzphah.”
“Bar… Oh? You’re Jewish?”
“Yeah,” Danny said, sounding kind of annoyed. He looked like he was going to say something else, and Andrew was just getting ready to tell him that this was cool, that he had never met anyone Jewish before, when, suddenly, from above their heads…
“Hi!” Natalie said, startling Danny so much he almost fell off his bike. “I’m Natalie!”
“Hi,” Danny said, recovering himself, as Andrew frowned at her. She was leaning out a window just above their heads.
Trust his twin sister to try to be all ‘social’ when he was just making a friend all on his own. She was useful to take to parties and things, where Andrew never knew what to do; but he was doing this on his own!v
“How old are you?” Natalie asked, ignoring Andrew’s frown.
“Twelve,” Danny said, “Twelve and a half.”
“I’m eleven and a half,” Natalie said. “And so’s Andrew.”
Andrew watched Danny’s face as it went from confusion to comprehension, the way people always did when Natalie played the ‘twin’ card. “You’re twins?” Danny asked, wonderingly.
“Yep,” Andrew said, frowning again at Natalie and trying, again, to get her to go away.
“I… I’ve never met a twin before,” Danny said, falling into her trap. Natalie was always getting people to say this, just so she could say…
“Well, now you’ve met two!” Natalie said, grinning.
“Oh, just ignore her!” Andrew said, “She likes doing that to people. You sure you don’t want to see the house? Just real quick?”
Daniel looked at his watch, frowned, and sighed, “I can’t, really,” he said, “I’d love to, but I can’t, not right now. I gotta get home or my mom will kill me…”
“Can you come back tomorrow?” Andrew asked, and Daniel’s face lit up.
“I’d love to. What time? I’m sure my mom will let me come. I’ll tell her I’m helping you move in and all.”
“I’ll save some boxes for you to move,” Andrew said, grinning. “And we can explore the house, and you can show me the woods.”
“So, what time?” Daniel asked, picking his bike up from where it had fallen and getting on it.
“Whenever,” Andrew said. “My Mom and Natalie get up early, and they can just send you to my room if I’m asleep. Anytime, really. You can stay for lunch and all, too, I’m sure my mom will let you.”
“Great,” Daniel said. A few minutes later Andrew watched Danny pedal up the driveway, his heart pounding. A friend! Already!
And Jewish, too. That would be interesting to learn about. Andrew would have to check out a book about Jews out of the library when he got there. Of course, the Bible talked a lot about Jews.
“Have you picked out your room, yet, sport?” Dad asked.
“Not yet, Dad, I was busy meeting my new friend.”
“That was certainly good luck for you,” Dad said. Andrew saw that Dad was carrying a box through a door, so, curious, he followed Dad.
“Is this your room?” he asked, looking at the large room, right off the front porch. Dad was taking the box into a bathroom, a large open room with another of those old-fashioned bathtubs.
“Yup, this looks like the master bedroom.”
“Cool!”
“Actually, yes. It has some excellent cross ventilation and was built right off the porch so it should be, indeed, rather ‘cool’.”
Andrew went back into the living room, and was checking out the formal dining room and kitchen when Natalie found him. “Hey, come on up, I’ve picked a room for you. next to mine.”
“Ok. Just a sec, let me grab a box of my stuff.”
He went and grabbed a box of books and Natalie, having gotten a suitcase with some clothes, led him eagerly up the stairs. They always worked like this. When they both cared, they competed. But when one of them was busy or distracted, the other one ‘picked’ for them… often giving up whatever they would like for the other twin. Natalie was all right.
“What do you think?” she asked, leading him to a room across from hers.
The room itself was like the other rooms, but the window… “This is awesome, Sis! I can see a creek!”
“I thought you’d like it.”
“Kids! Dinner!” Mom called and Andrew ran downstairs with Natalie, very content with his first day in his new house.
—
Andrew awoke, casting a bleary eye around his room, looking for his cell phone, which was insistently buzzing. He crawled off his mattress and burrowed in a pile of his clothes from last night, finally finding it.
“Hello?” he asked, sleepily. He had gotten rather distracted, last night, going through his boxes of books, and found a couple of books he hadn’t even remembered he had, and stayed up way late reading them.
“Oh, hi, Andrew? Did I wake you?”
Andrew’s mind whirled. Who was this. “Danny?” he asked, suddenly sitting up, excited. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry for getting you up?”
Andrew looked outside, “No, no, I should have been getting up anyway. You coming? Are you here?” he asked, getting up and looking out the window. Perhaps Daniel had been too nervous to knock on his door.
“No, no, I haven’t left yet. But there is this other new kid, you know, the one I told you about, the one with the van next to our house. I was wondering. Would you mind if he came too? I mean, I haven’t asked him yet…”
“No, no, that would be great,” Andrew said. “When can you come?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “I haven’t asked him yet. Do you think I should?”
“That would be great!” Andrew said.
“Oh, well, OK… I guess I’ll go do that…”
Andrew stared at the phone. That was odd. “I better go get in the shower,” he said to himself. “Who knows when they will get here? And how do I shower, anyway, in that funny bathtub?”
