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Post by RJH on Jun 9, 2014 2:51:51 GMT -5
I figured a diagram of the barn/gym would be helpful
The gym was looking in good shape. The boxing ring was all set up, two homemade heavy and two speed punching bags were hanging from hooks, and now there were a dozen stacks of tires two tires high, arranged in a zigzag pattern. The bicycle frame was attached to hooks and rafters using some of the extra tire inner tubes. An iron bar for pull-ups and other exercises had been placed with one end on the floor of the loft and the other through a hole in one of the walls. “Looks good, men,” announced Mickey. “I think we’re ready to get this started.” “What do we do first?” asked Bonedust. “Oh, I have this book on how to become a good boxer in ten lessons, but I left it at home. We can follow it tomorrow. For now we can just spar and hit the punching bags and whatever exercises you want.” “How are we going to spar with only one pair of boxing gloves?” asked Jay. “We could use the hot water bottles,” thought Johnny. “Stick two or three inside each other, and then our hands in those.” “Good idea,” said Mickey. “Until we get another real pair we can try that. Since that’s your idea, and I have the real gloves, we’ll have the first sparring session.” “If we’re going to be sparring, shouldn’t we see if that board with the nails will hold all our shirts?” asked Jackie. “Right,” answered Mickey. The boys filed into their locker room, the former stable area, and peeled off their shirts and hung them on the nails on the long board they had placed there. The board held up just fine as the boys’ physiques were revealed, six on the skinny side and then Joe. No comments were made as they understood that real boxers wore nothing above the waist, and it was manly to train in the same state. The boys were actually doing themselves a big favor, as they would be substantially decreasing the chance of heatstroke from working out in the hot, enclosed barn with poor air circulation. While Mickey and Johnny sparred, the other boys mostly hit the punching bags. The sparring didn’t accomplish much, as the punches weren’t particularly powerful. The next session was between Jay R. and Bonedust, but the former had to set his glasses aside and consequently was at a disadvantage. Fortunately for Jay, Bonedust’s punches didn’t have the force or aim of a trained boxer. Then Joe and Jackie arranged to have the third sparring session. “I wanna box somebody!” protested Farina, the odd man out. “Farina, we’d probably hurt you badly if one of us big kids fought you,” Mickey tried to reason with the youngest. “Why don’t you continue doing other stuff, like hitting the punching bags?” “I need to get better boxing.” “Look, hit this heavy bag.” Farina punched the bag, and it didn’t move. Mickey then hit it, and the bag moved some. Mickey exaggerated how much it moved. “See? It’s better to wait till you get stronger and bigger.” Farina flexed his bicep, but the muscle bulged like birdseed. He was simmering inside when he heard an offer from Jackie: “Hey, wanna be our referee?” It was an offer to get inside the ring, so Farina was interested. “What do I do?” “Watch out for bad stuff like hitting below the belt, and if someone gets knocked down, count to ten. Just be careful you don’t get hit by us.” Farina accepted the offer, and climbed into the ring. Joe could throw a serious punch, but Jackie was very much faster. Jackie could jab Joe and jump back before Joe could react, and Joe’s stomach was an easy target. Toward the end of the session, a frustrated Joe did his best to ignore a punch in the stomach and threw a wild hook at Jackie. Jackie saw it coming and twisted away, but Joe did land a glancing blow on Jackie’s shoulder. Jackie wasn’t hurt, but he was knocked off balance, and in the course of staggering turned in an unexpected direction and bumped into Farina. Farina had tried to run away, but the force of the bump added to his momentum, and he crashed hard into the middle rubber inner tube rope on one side. He clung to that rope, but hit with such speed that he somersaulted five times. On the fifth revolution his heels caught the top rope, which slowed him down some, but then his toes caught the bottom rope half a revolution later. The recoil from the top rope then spun him back, and since the top rope had been stretched more tautly than the bottom rope, the combination ended up close to the top rope’s original position. This left Farina suspended upside down, his feet caught between two ropes, the other rope against his waist, and his palms barely touching the mattress of the boxing ring. The rest of the gang doubled over in laughter and fell rolling on the floor. Farina was a bit indignant. “Good to see that yo’all so worried I might be hurt.” It took a minute for anyone to recover their breath. “This is why you shouldn’t be in the ring,” declared Jay. “You’re too likely to get hurt.” “I ain't hurt!” bellowed Farina. “Good,” commented Jackie. Jackie patted Farina playfully on the tummy, and Joe patted him on the butt as they climbed out of the ring. For a moment Farina thought they were going to help him out of his predicament, but then he came to his senses. He could twist his feet, but not pull them apart enough to force them through the rubber ropes. He tried to reach his feet with his hands but the rope by his waist got in the way. Farina hung limp and pondered his situation. He could ask for help, but that would be a sign of weakness, and that was the last thing he wanted to do in front of his friends. Was “friends” even the right word? He decided that he had to reach his feet with his hands, and in order to do so had to get the one rope behind his back. Thus he grabbed that rope by his waist and pushed it out, and twisted his upper body around to the side and got the rope behind his neck. A few contortions later and he was back to hanging straight upside-down, but with the middle rope behind his back. The effort was disorienting and he needed to hang still for another minute or two. He could see the gang casually punching the bags but mostly snickering at him. Having rested a couple minutes, Farina tried to reach up to his feet, but his first effort failed. Then with one hand he grabbed the rope behind his back for support, and then was able to lunge and grab the top rope with his other hand. After that it was easy; he got his other hand on the other rope by his feet, worked his hands closer together, and then pulled the ropes apart enough to slide his feet through. Getting on his feet, he shook his head to clear out the dizziness, and then strode to the middle of the barn as if nothing unusual had happened. All in all, it was ten minutes of a rather unique exercise. The gang played along, and Mickey announced, “It’s about time to go home, hope to see you here tomorrow.” They filed into the locker room to retrieve their shirts. The nails were a little over Farina’s head, and when he pulled his shirt off its nail, it ripped. Fortunately, one more rip in that already badly tattered hand-me-down barely made a noticeable difference. Once outside, the gang met Mary and Mango. They had good news; they had earned a dollar and forty-eight cents selling lemonade at two cents a glass. “How’d it go with you?” asked Mary. “Fine,” replied Mickey. “We pretty much finished fixing up the gym and had a good little workout. We’ll get more serious tomorrow.” Mickey gallantly walked Mary home. The others went to their respective homes. Naturally Farina and Mango went together. “Did you really box?” asked Mango. Farina had thought up his response. “I got in the ring with Jackie and Joe, and held my own. Nobody got knocked out.” Mango appeared a little disappointed at that answer.
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Post by RJH on Jun 16, 2014 23:55:37 GMT -5
The next morning after breakfast Farina and Mango drove the wobbly wagon down Goat Alley to pick up Mickey and then Mary, to pick up the items needed for another days selling of lemonade. It wasn’t worth the trouble to straighten the wagon for the trip which didn’t involve hauling lots of heavy objects, so they went slowly and avoided any incidents. Mary and Mango then got off at the lemonade stand and made some lemonade. Farina and Mickey then delivered the promised glasses to Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Anderson. Farina then dropped Mickey off at the gym in Jones’s Barn, and then drove Dinah back home and returned to the gym on foot. All the traveling had made Farina the last to arrive, but he didn’t miss anything important. He was in and out of the locker room within half a minute, and everyone was ready for the day’s activities. Mickey had brought the book his grandmother had given him, “How to Be a Fighter in Ten Easy Lessons.” “According to this book, conditioning is the first step in becoming good boxers. They’re several exercises in here, like push-ups and pull-ups, and sit-ups for the abominable muscles.” The gang went through the exercises with less than spectacular results. After a few minutes one could sense that they wanted to do something else. Sensing this, “Now it’s time for the agility drill,” declared Mickey. He went to the area in front of the wall separating the locker room area that had once been stables from the rest of the barn, where the dozen two-tire-high stacks in the zigzag pattern were. Mickey stepped through the tires easily, as did the rest of the gang except Bonedust, who tripped and fell on his face halfway through. He traversed the course successfully on his second attempt. “Is this really helping much?” asked Johnny. “Yeah,” agreed Jackie. “We’d get trained faster if these stacks of tires were higher.” The logic made sense to everybody, and quickly a tire was added to each stack, and shortly thereafter another. It proved to be a decent workout, though as the stacks grew it was hardest for Farina, who being several inches shorter than all the others had proportionately shorter legs and it was getting awkward hopping from one stack to the next. “I think we need to make the stacks higher,” commented Jackie. Tires were taken from the last two stacks and redistributed over the first ten, and the gang went through the course again. However, as Jackie was hoping, something was a little amiss with Farina, trailing by a large margin and just halfway through when the rest were done. “Hey Farina, that’s cheating! You can’t crawl over the tires; your foot has to hit the floor.” Farina was balanced with his the right leg folded up, sitting on his foot with his shin across the top of two tires on the right side of the tire pattern, and with the left leg down through the holes in the tire stack to the left and between the two tire stacks his right shin spanned, but his left foot was several inches from the floor. His technique was to bring the left leg up to the same folded position and then stick his right leg into the next tire stack hole. As he was pulling each leg in turn out immediately, it did have the effect of mainly crawling along the top of the tires. “My leg isn’t long enough for my foot to hit the floor,” Farina protested. “This is why you can’t box with us,” stated Jay. “You can’t train the same way as us big kids. Until you can, I agree you should just do all the other training exercises by yourself.” Farina saw the others nodding in agreement. He had to do something. “This isn’t fair! The only way my foot can hit the floor is if I put my other leg all the way in.” Realizing his case was lost if he didn’t, Farina braced himself with his hands on the tire his left was through and brought his right leg into the same hole. He lowered himself to the floor, and then let go and spread his arms once his feet were firmly planted. The tire stack came up to Farina’s waist. He looked ridiculous standing there. The gang couldn’t help but break out in laughter at the sight. “See? This is ridiculous. What kind of exercise is this?” Mickey was almost ashamed he couldn’t hold back his laughter, but the cause was more than sufficient. He recovered enough to speak first. “That’s what you’re going to have to do if you want to box with us. I don’t think you’ll be able to keep up with us, and that’s okay because we might you hurt badly if we sparred for real.” Mickey hoped his words might prevent a serious injury, or they might prove motivational for Farina. Either outcome was fine. “I too can keep up with you!” shouted Farina defiantly. He pushed himself up and climbed out of the tire stack he was in, and swung his legs into the next one, dropping in waist deep again. The inner diameters of the tires offered mediocre toeholds to assist Farina in the effort, but he had to be careful as it was easy for his foot to slip off those otherwise. Giving up any pretense of dignity, he persevered in the effort, and completed the course, breathing hard at the finish. “There, I done it!” “Actually, you only did half of that the right way,” pointed out Jay. “Yeah, you need to do the whole thing right, and keep up with us. Let’s go through this again!” Jackie was practically taunting Farina. Jackie led the way through the tires again. The others followed, with Joe and Farina in the rear. Joe was barely able to step through one tire stack to the next, and lagged some behind the rest, but Farina was having a much harder time jumping through each tire stack with both legs instead of one like all of the bigger boys. Farina had decent stamina for his age, and even being two to three years younger than the others would have been able to keep up for quite some time. However, as it was the course was very unfair and he was expending five times as much energy as everyone else. The gang went through the tire course three more times, each time Farina lagging farther and farther behind. He heard possibly encouraging comments like “You can do it!” and “Don’t be a quitter!” as he doggedly jumped into and extricated himself from the waist-deep holes. After the third trip through the boys were working up a respectable sweat, but Farina was perspiring profusely. Clear beads of sweat rolled off his glistening body and splattered onto the floor. The rest of the gang, seeing his apparent exhaustion, naturally decided to run through the course again. Farina doubted he could make it through again, but the prospect of being a labeled a quitter and proving that he shouldn’t try to box against the bigger boys was unbearable. Each tire stack was more and more of a struggle, until his strength finally gave out in the seventh stack. He couldn’t push himself up at all with his arms, and was too tired to step up using the inner parts of the tires as toeholds. His foot slipped after two attempts at that, and he had to give up. Farina was stuck, much to the amusement of the rest of the gang. He leaned back against the tire stack to take some of the weight off his feet. He was condemned to stay there until he rested up enough for his strength to return, or until the gang helped him out. Given the circumstances, Farina figured the latter possibility was not going to happen. “Hey, you look thirsty, want some water?” offered Jackie. “Yeah, Mickey’s book says it’s important to not get dehydrolized,” added Joe. Farina mumbled, “Sure,” and nodded. A few seconds later Jackie returned with the hose, and sprayed Farina in the face. “Hey!” Farina spluttered as he covered his face. Jackie countered by spraying him full force in his chest. When Farina lowered one arm to cover his chest, Jackie lowered his aim to hit direct the water stream on Farina’s stomach, and even used his bellybutton as a target. After a minute of the back-and-forth, Jackie released the nozzle on the hose. “We don’t have any glasses or cups, so you have to drink water this way. Now open your mouth and hold still.” Farina figured his best course of action was to get this over with as fast as possible, so he complied with the instructions. Jackie’s aim proved pretty good, and Farina did manage several awkward gulps of water. This actually made him feel better, and when he had enough water he covered his face again. Again Jackie sprayed Farina in the chest and stomach, but Farina didn’t try to prevent that any more. It actually felt kind of good. Feeling some strength return, Farina managed to turn around, and now the jet spray felt very good on his back. After another minute, Jackie gave up and put the hose back. Farina was a little disappointed that his shower had ended, but now he felt well enough to finish the tire course. He slowly hauled himself out of the seventh stack, and then in and out of the last three. There were some cheers and applause that he didn’t acknowledge as he trudged to the corner near the start of the tire course and against the wall partitioning the main part of the barn with the locker room. There was a small pile of hay there, and with his last bit of energy, Farina turned and fell sprawled out on his back on the hay pile and went out like a light, hoping to dream of revenge.
Image mostly by mtw12055
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Post by RJH on Jun 27, 2014 0:38:24 GMT -5
The gang looked at Farina, passed out from exhaustion on some hay in a corner of the barn.
“Do you think he’s all right?” asked Johnny.
“He’s breathing all right,” pointed out Joe. “You can even tell his heart is beating, so I guess he’s okay.”
“What should we do?” asked Bonedust.
“I think we should leave him alone. Just let him sleep it off naturally,” answered Mickey.
“What if he’s still asleep when we’re ready to go?”
“We’ll wake him of course.”
“What if we can’t wake him?” questioned Jay. “We could take him home in the wheelbarrow.”
“He’s just exhausted. He’s bound to wake up in a few hours at most,” reassured Mickey.
“If he doesn’t wake up easy, seems like we oughta do something to him. Play some kind of trick.” Jackie was ever mischievous.
“Yeah,” agreed Joe, “but what?”
“I don’t know yet. You got any ideas?”
“Come on, let’s the rest of us get back to training,” declared Mickey. “Time for some punching drills. The book says that boxers must have both power and speed, so that’s why we have the heavy and speed bags. There’s also a right form, and you should get in a rhythm.”
Mickey was getting kind of bossy, but the other boys let it go for the time being. They took turns hitting the punching bags and doing the other exercises for hours.
At the lemonade stand, Mary and Mango were doing a good business.
“I think we’ll have enough for the boxing gloves at the end of the day,” noted Mary. “But we’re doing all the work now, so we should get something for ourselves. What would you like?”
“My own pony?” replied Mango.
“I don’t think we’ll have enough for that. Anything more realistic?”
“Like a real jump rope? We have some regular rope in the barn, but it’s not good for jumping.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“What about you?”
“I hadn’t thought about it. There’re a lot of nice things in my house, but my governess won’t let my parents buy me any dolls.”
“What kind of dolls do you like?”
“Oh, princesses and babies … what are you laughing about?”
“Are voodoo dolls for real? I was thinking about a Farina doll.”
“I don’t think those really work. But dolls that look like the boys …” The girls giggled for some time.
A couple minutes later, Red Mike walked by and as casually as he could ordered a glass of lemonade. Something about this guy gave her the creeps as she nervously looked up and down the street to make sure there were other pedestrians within sight. Mike then went around the corner to the car where Blow-em-up Baker and Moonshine Mose were waiting. Mike reported Mary’s reaction, and they agreed the other two would pass by on future days to see her reaction. Then they would make further plans accordingly.
After having napped for close to five hours, Farina woke up. Not wanting to open his eyes just yet, he listened to the noises, grunts and fists hitting bags. Then he remembered where he was. He opened his eyes, sat up in the small hay pile and cleared his eyes. Looking around the gym, he saw Johnny and Jay sparring in the ring, and Mickey, Joe, and Bonedust hitting punching bags. Jackie was hanging by his hands from a bar as if to try pull-ups.
Farina grinned as he made his plan. He stood up and casually walked across the barn. Everyone else ignored him as they were too involved with their own workouts. He picked up the hose, and sneaked up behind Jackie. Jackie did half a pull-up, and was straining to get up all the way, when Farina blasted him between the shoulder blades full force with the hose. The shock of the water hitting his back made Jackie lose his grip and fall to the floor. He turned around to see what had hit him, but Farina kept the hose trained on Jackie so the latter received a gush of water in his face. Jackie tried to block the stream and lunged at Farina. Farina kept his grip on the nozzle and nailed Jackie in the chest and stomach before Jackie got one hand on the hose and the other arm around Farina, sending both to the floor. They wrestled for a good fifteen seconds, rolling along on the floor and getting tangled together in the hose. Finally their antics got Mickey’s attention.
“That’s enough, you two, knock it off.”
Jackie and Farina were of one mind as they both immediately turned the nozzle in the direction of Mickey’s face. After getting splashed, Mickey sidestepped the water stream, and a gush hit Joe in the back before Jackie and Farina adjusted their aim to hit Mickey again. The water that hit Joe startled him into losing his balance, and he grabbed the heavy bag he was punching to keep from falling. However, his weight added to the bag’s proved too much for the piece of rubber holding the bag to the hook it was hanging from, and Joe and the bag fell together on the floor.
Bonedust had stopped hitting the speed bag when he heard the commotion. He alertly jumped back out of the way to avoid getting fallen on by Joe, but in staggering backward bumped into the tire stack on the end, nearest the center of the barn, and fell head-first into the hole formed by the centers of those tires. Kicking wildly, the stack tipped over, leaving Bonedust lodged in a mass of tires.
Hearing all the commotion Johnny and Jay stopped their sparring session, and couldn’t help but laugh at the spectacle. This earned them a modest dousing as Jackie and Farina again aimed the hose together at the new target. Since Johnny and Jay were farther away this last blast wasn’t terribly effective. Another attempt fell short and water landed on Joe. Then water barely dripped out of the nozzle, and Jackie and Farina discovered that Mickey had gone to the wall where the hose was connected and turned off the valve.
Mickey returned to the two troublemakers. “You’re not taking this seriously enough. What do you have to say for yourselves?”
“You’re taking this too seriously,” replied Jackie.
“A man’s entitled to revenge,” was Farina’s answer.
Mickey looked around for support, but wasn’t getting it from Johnny and Jay, who were snickering at Bonedust, who was struggling to get one tire off over his head, and then another. Mickey then looked at Joe.
“You think we could make a shower out of that hose?” asked Joe.
“Aw, just clean this mess up.” Mickey stalked off to pound a speed bag.
Jackie and Farina looked at each other, trapped together by the coiled hose.
“We have to roll the other way to unwind,” declared Jackie.
They rolled in the indicated direction, got unwound some, but then ran against the heavy bag Joe had pulled to the floor.
“Hey, that heavy bag is in the way!” complained Farina.
“You expect me to do something about it?” asked Joe menacingly.
“Um, no, brother.”
Jackie grabbed the nozzle. “Oh, lift your head up, and we’ll unwrap ourselves this way.”
There followed an amazing sequence of contortions as Jackie and Farina unwound the hose from around their bodies, much to the entertainment of Joe, Johnny, and Jay. Nevertheless, it was fun for the smallest two, who got free just as Bonedust crawled out from the last tire he had been wedged in. Jackie and Farina then brought the hose back to the wall and placed it neatly on the floor. When no one was looking Jackie turned the valve back on, sure there would be another occasion to use it.
Johnny and Jay helped Joe reattach the heavy bag with a new piece of tire inner tube, and the training continued for a little while until they all agreed to call it a day. The looks Jackie, Joe, and Farina gave each other as they left the barn made it unnecessary to say that due to his taking revenge Farina had better be on his guard for the foreseeable future.
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Post by RJH on Jul 5, 2014 0:34:57 GMT -5
Upon leaving Jones’s barn, the boys walked the block to see how the girls were doing. It was late Saturday afternoon, and they were getting ready to close for the day.
“We made almost two dollars today,” announced Mary. “A dollar and eighty-six cents.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Mickey. “Let’s get down to the store before it closes.”
The gang made their way to Sam Blank Sporting Goods five minutes before it closed. They bought a pair of boxing gloves for $2.99. Then Mary told them,
“We decided that since we’re doing all the work at the stand, that we’re going to spend some of the money on ourselves.”
She gave two nickels to Mango who bought a nice jump rope with real handles.
“That’s a nice jump rope,” commented Farina. “You know, boxers train by jumping rope.”
“You can buy your own!”
“Easy,” said Mickey. “Mary is right. There are more things we can use in the gym. We can take some shifts starting Monday, and if none of us shows up, you girls keep all the money. Everything is closed on Sunday, and we might not be allowed to sell lemonade then either.”
“I have to go to church in the morning,” noted Mary.
“Are we going to train in the afternoon?” asked Jay. “It might be good not to get overtrained.”
“The book actually mentions that,” replied Mickey. “Let’s take Sunday off and meet up on Monday.”
Sunday went by quietly, as many attended church and had other family obligations. It was a change of pace to wear nice clothes for a day.
Monday got off to a start similar to Saturday. After restocking the lemonade stand and making the promised deliveries the boys were ready for more training in the gym. They did a set of ten sit-ups and push-ups each of varying form, and then it was time for the agility drill. The tires had been left in the stacks they had been in the previous day.
“Are we going to make those stacks two tires high?” asked Farina warily.
“Why would we do that?” responded Jay. “We get trained faster that way.”
“Um, just wondering.”
“Come on, men, five times through the course,” commanded Mickey. Then to Farina, “You do want to build up your strength and stamina, right?”
“Yeah …” Farina couldn’t figure out what to say. There had to be a better way to develop these qualities.
“Look at it this way,” observed Johnny. “If you have to work harder, you’ll get trained faster.”
“Right,” added Bonedust. “You’re lucky we’re doing this.”
Farina didn’t feel lucky, but the circumstances were better than two days previously. Without the run-throughs with the shorter tire stacks, he was starting on an equal footing and should make it farther than before. This proved to be accurate. He kept up pretty well for four laps, but ran out of gas on the fifth. Each tire stack was a struggle, but he persevered and was proud of himself for completing the course. At the finish he was exhausted and his body was completely covered with sweat. He sat down on the floor.
“Took you long enough.” The snide remark came from Jay.
Farina couldn’t stand it any more. “This isn’t fair! It’d be a lot hard for you all if those tires were waist high on you!”
Jackie suddenly spoke up. “Farina is right. Let’s make these higher and run through them again.”
Farina, too exhausted to be suspicious, was grateful Jackie was sticking up for him. The other boys were going along with the idea rather readily, although Joe did shoot a glare at Jackie. While Farina sat on the ground, the others took tires from the last stack and distributed them and a few spares over the first nine. Two leftover tires were placed at the beginning to provide a starting step.
Farina enjoyed the spectacle of the other boys jumping into the stacks with both feet as he had had to. They did get through it fine except for Joe, who seemed to be close to getting stuck every time. While Joe brought up the rear, Farina recovered enough and went to the hose and got a good drink of water. When Joe finally finished, Farina couldn’t resist saying “See what I mean?”
Joe grumbled, “Yeah,” and then added, “Okay, now it’s your turn.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? We went to the trouble of setting up the course just like you asked and now you’re going to blow us off?”
Joe sounded angry, but it didn’t sound quite like true anger, perhaps as if he was pretending. Farina didn’t want to take a chance, and looked around at the others.
“That would be pretty rude,” commented Bonedust.
It was obvious this wasn’t going to go his way.
“I … uh … just meant that I needed a little rest before …”
“You’ve already rested longer than the rest of us,” pointed out Johnny.
The sooner Farina started, he reasoned, the sooner this would be over with. He climbed to the top of the first stack and lowered himself in. When his feet hit the floor he found the stack came up to his chest. He looked out over at the gang, who appeared to be stifling laughter.
“Is there a problem?” asked Joe. “Why’d you stop?”
“Gee, this is really deep on me.”
“So what?”
Rather than waste his dwindling breath on an answer, Farina jumped and pushed himself up the best he could, and was able to get one leg out and then the other, and then he slid into the second stack. He figured he had the energy to make through one more stack, maybe two at the outside. It was more and more of a struggle, but he persevered through the third and fourth stacks. By then he couldn’t get a grip on anything as everything he touched got covered in his perspiration. His feet slipped a few times, but then he managed a foothold and threw his upper body on top of the tires, braced his arms, and dragged himself out of the tires and then dropped into the fifth stack.
He thought he was finished, and was pleased that he had gotten farther than expected, but quitting while he had some energy left was not acceptable. He tried climbing out of the fifth stack and failed a few times, repeatedly falling back. Then one last effort saw him clinging to the tires after he got a foothold for a fraction of the second, and with his last bit of strength he climbed onto the top of the tires, straddling the fifth and sixth stacks.
The sensible thing to do was to slide off to the outside of the tires and be content with what he had accomplished. Surely the gang would be appreciative of his efforts, right?
Farina slid into the sixth stack and got himself stuck. His feet slipped every time as he tried to step up on the insides of the tires, and his arms hadn’t the strength to lift up his body at all.
Farina saw Jackie scoot off to the side, toward the hose. The trapped boy braced himself for a blast of water by covering his face, but to his surprise, the blast never came. Instead, he felt something over his head. When he uncovered his face, he found that Jackie and Joe had placed another tire on his stack, covering him to his shoulders, and were in the process of placing another tire over his head. When this was in place Farina could barely see over the top.
“What are you doing? … Oh, never mind.”
It was obvious what they were doing. The taller boys joined into the prank and added more tires from the ends of the course. They left the tires in the fifth and seventh stacks alone to keep the sixth stack held in place so Farina couldn’t push it over when his strength returned. The wall separating the locker room from the main part of the barn was close behind, so he couldn’t push backward either. In a couple minutes the sixth stack had grown to eight feet high, more than double Farina’s height. Deciding that was high enough, the gang finally burst out laughing.
Hearing the laughter from within the confines of his narrow prison, Farina sighed and looked up at the opening high above his head. It was like being in a manhole with a ladder too slippery to climb. He slumped back and bent and braced his knees against the tire at that level, assuming a half-sitting position where he could relax his body. His arms fit nicely through the openings of the tires then at shoulder level, and he was as comfortable as possible under the unusual set of circumstances.
Farina knew better than to complain. That would be an intolerable show of weakness. He had to admit Jackie and Joe or whoever thought this up was clever, and in a sense they deserved the reward of seeing him captive for a few hours. Maybe he’d be trapped until it was time to go home. Whatever, he closed his eyes and rather than worrying about his situation, his facial expression turned into a smile and he thought about how he might seek revenge.
The lemonade business was brisk again. As Mary thought might happen, none of the boys showed up to help in the sales. It looked like they needed a reminder. In the meantime, she and Mango would take all the profits for themselves.
A little past noon, Blow-em-up Baker strolled by in the opposite direction that Red Mike had come from in a mildly clever attempt to thwart suspicion. Still, Mary felt ill at ease, and was partially reassured to see a few people walking on the nearby blocks. Baker gave Mango two pennies while Mary poured the glass. He thanked the girls and went on his way, around the corner to the car where Mike and Moonshine Mose were now waiting. Baker’s report was similar to Mike’s two days before. They would see how Mose would do in the near future.
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Post by RJH on Jul 12, 2014 0:21:26 GMT -5
It was mid-afternoon when Farina fully regained his senses. Due to the crazy situations he had woken up to recently, he again waited before opening his eyes. He could hear the sounds of the gym, but there was something different, as if the noises were being muffled. Cautiously he opened his eyes, and found that it was pretty dark. There was just light coming from an opening high above his head.
Farina remembered what had happened. He stood up and stretched, his muscles a little sore from the hours of being in that half-sitting position within the tires. He pounded on the tires in front of his face and shouted, “Hey, when are you going to take this stack down?”
Farina only heard some laughter. The sound wasn’t clear to be being confined in the tire stack, but it probably came from Jackie. Farina wondered why he bothered to ask.
The other boys continued their sparring and exercise while Farina just stood there in a puddle of sweat. Then he noticed that he wasn’t all covered in perspiration now, and that the inner parts of the tires weren’t so slippery. He should be able to climb them now, but it would be rough if he fell near the top. He carefully placed one foot each on the inner openings of the two lowest tires and held onto others with his hands. He found it to be most stable when his feet were opposite each other along a diameter. Taking it slowly and moving just one hand or foot at a time, he carefully made his way up the stack.
After a few minutes and three feet off the floor, Farina realized that this was exciting and fun. This type of construction could be suitable as a piece of playground equipment. Maybe not so high, and there needed to be a soft landing area at the bottom in case of slips and falls, but this was so interesting and unique. Farina considered thanking the gang for giving him this opportunity.
A couple minutes later Farina reached the top of the sixth tire stack, but as he was entirely above the neighboring stacks his stack was starting to wobble. Rather than try to climb over the top he figured it was best to push the tires off the top of the stack one at a time until the stack was even with the neighboring ones. Carefully bracing himself with both feet and his left hand with good grips, with his right hand he pushed the top tire out of its position. He took it slowly, moving that tire around an inch at a time, until it started to teeter on the edge of the second-highest tire.
Someone might get hurt if he didn’t issue a warning, so he yelled, “Bombs away!” and then pushed the top tire over the edge. While none of the other boys were next to the tires, Farina’s shout caused Mickey to turn his head in that direction, and a split second later Mickey’s sparring partner, Bonedust, unexpectedly connected with a solid hook to the jaw. Johnny lost his concentration for a moment, and the heavy bag he was punching knocked him sideways and he fell onto Jay who collided with Joe but bounced off and fell in a heap with Johnny.
As the rest of the boys straightened themselves out, Farina carefully climbed down one tire and pushed the next over the top. That and the subsequent tires bounced around, but now the gang was alerted to this development and easily avoided any more similar incidents. In a few minutes Farina was back to where this adventure started, standing in a chest-high stack. He jumped and pushed himself up … and was taken completely by surprise by a blast of water hitting his chest. He tried to use one hand to block the stream, but this caused him to drop back down and get hit in the face with the water.
Farina decided not to thank the gang for opportunity to try out the possible new playground equipment.
“Aren’t you thirsty? You’ve been in there for five hours.” Of course it was Jackie.
The truth was Farina was quite thirsty, but he didn’t want to say so. In fact, he decided it best not to say anything. He opened his mouth as if to gasp, and got a few gulps of water. Then he pushed himself out of the stack and climbed on top of the tires, ignoring the continuous shower. The seventh stack of tires was still intact, having been left in place to keep the stack in which Farina had been trapped in place. He calmly jumped into the chest-deep hole, stood there for a second, and jumped and pushed himself out. The last two stacks now only consisted of two tires and one tire, respectively, as those stacks had been used to build the high tower. Farina completed the course by stepping through the depleted eighth and ninth stacks, and strode to the wall where the hose was connected. Jackie never let go of the hose nozzle, soaking Farina the entire time.
Farina pretended to turn the hose valve off, but instead stepped on the hose. Jackie saw the water flow die down, and turned the nozzle toward his face to get a drink from the dying stream. Farina then quickly stepped off the hose, and Jackie got a strong gush of water in his face.
“Hey!” he spluttered.
Jackie then aimed the hose back at Farina, but this time Farina turned the valve off for real. “How about we settle this is the ring?” Farina asked in a half-serious tone.
“Hey guys, how about cleaning up this mess first?” Mickey’s voice somewhat startled Farina and Jackie. “And enough with these crazy high stacks – let’s just make a longer course with two or three tires each.”
“We could make two courses side-by-side,” suggested Joe, who preferred shorter tire stacks. They wound up making two parallel zigzag courses, one three tires high and the other two tires high.
There was the unresolved matter. “You afraid to come into the ring?” asked Farina.
“The only thing I’m afraid of is hurting you,”’ replied Jackie.
Farina grabbed one pair of boxing gloves left on the floor when the tires were restacked and shoved them to Jackie, and put on the other pair himself. He then climbed into the ring. Jackie looked at Mickey, who counseled,
“He won’t keep pestering us until someone does this. Just don’t hurt him too bad or we’ll get into trouble.”
Jackie nodded, and got into the ring.
“I want to be the referee!” piped up Joe. He clambered into the ring before anyone else could contest his claim. He acted the part. “Men, I want a good clean fight. No hitting below the belt. Marcus of Queensberries rules. Now shake hands, and fight!”
Jackie and Farina bumped gloves, and then Farina unleashed an ineffective barrage of weak punches. For the most part Jackie blocked them, and occasionally threw a slow punch at Farina’s shoulder that wouldn’t do any damage to make it look good. But it wasn’t good enough, as Farina complained,
“C’mon; you ain’t trying!”
“This is what will happen if I try!” Jackie hit Farina with a medium hard punch to the ribs. Even though Farina partially blocked it, Jackie’s greater weight and reach was enough to send Farina to the floor. Farina wasn’t hurt badly, but it did sting some. Jackie found a graceful way to end this. “I should go help the girls with the lemonade.” Jackie took off the gloves and got out of the ring.
“You quitting?” asked Farina as he got to his feet.
“Come on, Farina,” said Mickey. “You need to develop more punching power. And my book says it doesn’t do us good to hold back like Jackie was doing.”
“Here’s an idea,” said Joe. “If you’re mad, take it out on the punching bag.”
Sensing that there was no better option, Farina took Joe’s advice and whaled away on the heavy bag.
“That’s much better,” noted Mickey. “Now can we have those gloves so we can have another sparring session?”
Hitting the bag bare-knuckled felt better, so Farina had no problem relinquishing the gloves. The next match was between Mickey and Joe. Mickey was able to use his greater reach and speed to avoid any damage from Joe and eventually wore him down. A final punch sent Joe reeling backwards into the rubber ropes, and bouncing forward and onto his face.
“You need to be faster on your feet,” was Mickey’s comment.
Joe grumbled “I know.”
The practice continued for another hour before they all called it a day.
Jackie arrived at the lemonade stand, apparently to Mary’s surprise.
“I didn’t think any of you was going to come help,” she said. “It’s getting kind of boring doing this all day long.”
“Well, I’m here now. So I just stand here, pour the lemonade, and take the money?”
“I’ve been letting Mango take the money. She likes to count.”
“Oh, hi Mango.”
“Hi.”
“So how’s it going?” asked Mary.
“Okay,” replied Jackie. “We’re getting better, but we need more practice.”
“Does Farina need the most?” asked Mango.
“Uh … I guess you could say that.”
They sold some glasses of lemonade, and Jackie collected several pennies as his share. He had a vague plan of what to do with what he would buy with his earnings.
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Post by RJH on Jul 19, 2014 0:24:56 GMT -5
Note: there is an updated map in the first post that may help with the geography in this chapter. Maybe I should have put it here. What would work best in case someone in the future reads this from the beginning, and the maps shouldn’t give away spoilers?
The next day was Tuesday, and most of the gang found they had obligations they couldn’t put off. Mickey was forced into taking a dance lesson. There may have been some similarity to boxing in that proper footwork was important, but not enough overall. Farina and Mango had to pick up and deliver laundry most of the day. Farina wished he could have made the wagon not wobbly but it would take the help of a few of his friends to straighten the wagon out, so he contented himself with deciding that his driving skills were rapidly improving. Joe was consigned to cleaning his yard. The lemonade stand was run by several combinations, mainly of Mary, Jackie, Jay, Johnny, and Bonedust.
On Wednesday the activity at the gym picked up. To make up for the light day before, they ramped up the intensity of their exercises. There were the usual conditioning exercises, but faster and with more repetitions, and running through the stacks that were now two or three tires high. They were overdoing it but didn’t realize it at the time. The boys took turns sparring in the ring, except that none of them would box with Farina. They explained that if Jackie could knock Farina down without trying too hard, anyone else would likely hurt him for real if they weren’t holding back a lot on their punches. They kept telling him to work on his punching power hitting the bags, but Farina wasn’t taking no for an answer. He had it in is mind that despite the knockdown by Jackie that more sparring sessions were the answer. His relentlessness got on the others’ nerves, and he was becoming very annoying.
Around noon Moonshine Mose took his turn casually walking down the block. He bought a glass of lemonade and barely drew a reaction from Mary and Mango. He continued on his way, and got in the waiting car around the corner with Red Mike and Blow-em-up Baker. For whatever reason, Mose didn’t instill any suspicion the way the other two prison escapees had, so that part of the operation was settled. Now they had to figure out the ideal time to strike.
Joe had just put on the boxing gloves for a sparring match with Bonedust when Farina complained, “Bonedust already boxed with Jay. It’s my turn.”
“We told you why we’re not boxing you, and we’re not explaining it again.” Joe turned his back, and with a frown Farina’s response was to run his hand back and forth over the top of Joe’s head. This produced a reaction unexpected by all. Joe turned amazingly quickly to his left and hit Farina in the jaw with a thundering right hook.
“NEVER MUSS MY HAIR!”
Farina fell sprawled out on his back.
The rest of the gang looked at Joe in awe.
“You have to do that the next time we see the Tiger Cubs,” remarked Jay.
“But does one of them have to muss Joe’s hair?” asked Bonedust.
“Joe, do you think you can control that, so that if someone musses your hair, you take it out on the Tiger Cubs and not on us?” asked Johnny.
“I don’t know,” answered Joe.
Mickey shook Farina’s arm and there was no response. Jackie got the hose and sprayed Farina’s face with some water, but still nothing.
“He’s really out cold,” remarked Mickey, “but at least he’s breathing the same as last week when he exhausted himself climbing those tires. “I guess we better take him home. We can push him in the wheelbarrow.”
“Why don’t we make that, ‘make sure he gets home’?” suggested Jackie.
“What do you mean?”
“We could dump him somewhere, and see if he can find his way back home. We’ll be close by in case something happens.”
There was widespread snickering at the idea. Jackie apparently had some clever prank in mind.
“You have an idea where?” continued Mickey.
“Well, in the middle of the woods would be too mean, so how about the rich part of town?” suggested Jackie.
That sounded fine to the gang.
“And …” Jackie added with a mischievous grin, “… we could paint something on him.”
Joe liked the idea. “Like what?”
“Something about his failing at boxing?” offered Jay.
“Like ‘F’ for fail?” asked Bonedust.
“’F’ could also be for ‘Farina’,” noted Johnny.
“Like it’s there to remind him what his name his?” noted Joe.
“I like ‘F’,” stated Jackie. He ran over to the can of white paint, brought it over, opened and stirred it. He then proceeded to paint a large white ‘F’ on Farina’s chest.
“That looks great, Jackie,” complimented Joe.
Jackie had another thought. “Wait, I got an idea for his back. Let’s turn him over.”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Mickey.
“You’ll see.” Jackie was in high gear. The flipped Farina over onto his stomach, and he was clearly still out cold. Jackie then painted “KICK ME” in two lines in letters as large as would fit on Farina’s back. Laughter ensued, and Jackie adopted a professorial tone. “The problem with taping a ‘kick me’ note on someone’s back is that he can rip if off when he realizes it’s there. This solves that problem.”
“That second ‘K’ is backwards,” observed Mickey.
“And so is the ’E’,” added Jay.
“I did that on purpose,” retorted Jackie. “It’s funnier that way.”
“Hey,” said Johnny. “This paint is oil based. It won’t wash off with water. You need turpentine or paint thinner.”
“Oh, dear,” responded Jackie in an affected voice. “Is that a problem?”
One second later the conscious boys erupted into laughter.
When the roar died down, Jackie instructed, “Come on, let’s get him in the wheelbarrow.”
They did so, and then went into the locker room to put on their shirts.
“What do we do with Farina’s shirt?” asked Joe.
“Well, we can’t let him have it to cover up the paint when he wakes up,” pointed out Jackie, “so we could just leave it here.”
“I think it’s better that we keep it with us,” commented Mickey. “When we get to his house, we could put it in the mailbox or something.”
“If Mango’s around, we could give it to her!” exclaimed Jackie. “Tell her Farina lost his shirt gambling, but the other guy rejected it.”
“Whatever. Oh, if someone stops us, we need to have a story made up.”
“Like Farina bet us how long he could pretend to be asleep.”
“Okay. But it’s probably better not to be stopped.”
The wheelbarrow barely fit through the loose board in the barn. Jay went ahead as a lookout, and after half a minute signaled the coast was clear. When they exited the barn, it blocked Mary and Mango’s view if they had been looking in that direction, and their course gave the girls a bad viewing angle until the boys were three blocks away. They headed north toward Goat Alley, but instead of crossing it then turned right and went through the fields in back of the school. They continued across the north edge of the park where their fight with the Man-Eating Tiger Cubs of Wildcat Alley had been, and then turned left on a major street, to the east side of which lived the wealthier inhabitants of town.
The gang managed to avoid running into people by going two blocks north and then turning left to the east. They looked for a good spot, when in the third block they recognized someone from a distance.
“Look who’s there!” Joe exclaimed quietly.
“That’s perfect!” agreed Jackie. “But don’t let them see us. It’ll be more fun if they don’t know what’s going on.”
“We can go around the block this way,” suggested Mickey. The gang turned left and went clockwise around the block, stopping one house before the one that had the activity they had seen. Like the other houses in this block, it had a large lawn, and it appeared that no one was home. They laid Farina down gently on the lawn on his back, and then retreated one house back behind a hedge.
“He might not wake up for a while,” noticed Mickey.
“I got this,” responded Jackie. “See that sprinkler?”
Jackie moved the lawn sprinkler into position, and turned on the valve. He got slightly wet when he adjusted the sprinkler so that the water wound land on Farina, but Jackie didn’t mind in the least. It was a hot day and he would dry off soon enough, but he was too preoccupied seeing how the prank would turn out. He raced back to the other side of the hedge with the rest of the boys.
“Look, he’s waking up!” pointed out Joe.
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Post by RJH on Jul 26, 2014 0:47:53 GMT -5
Farina woke up to water splashing on him and tickling his tummy. It felt refreshing for a short while, and then it was becoming too much. There was also a smell of … fresh paint? Something didn’t make sense. He felt it was better not to open his eyes, but the strange sensations continued. He stretched, yawned, and opened his eyes, and found himself looking at the sky. Confused, he got up, and got splashed again. One mystery was explained: the water tickled because he wasn’t wearing a shirt, clad only in his short pants, droopy socks, and shoes. That of course led to another question: what was he doing bare-chested in the yard of a strange house? Especially a big house like this, which was obviously in the rich part of town. The paint smell was explained by it seeming like something was painted on his chest, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
Stepping away from the sprinkler, Farina tried to make sense of his situation. If he was in this part of town, he most likely was picking up or delivering laundry. Could he have been thrown from the wobbly wagon and hit his head? No, he was far too good a driver for that, he was much too far from the street to have been thrown from there, and he certainly didn’t deliver laundry shirtless. There had to be some other explanation.
The whole thing just didn’t make sense. Farina scanned the ground for a shirt, but none was in sight. Had he gone swimming, or boxing? But those activities wouldn’t explain the paint on his body. Something that might would be one of those plays where he played some native African character who used body paint. He rubbed his mildly wet abdomen, and the middle bar of the “F” there didn’t wash off like it might have for a play. Even if he had been in a play, that wouldn’t explain what he was doing here. Plays had always been performed at the school, and that was a lot closer to his house than this area. If he had been visiting someone in this area, he would certainly never come and gone without a shirt even though it was plenty warm not to need one – this wasn’t Goat Alley, and even there it wasn’t common practice – and then take a nap in a stranger’s yard. No, it didn’t make any sense.
And then Farina found the only possibly explanation - he was having another ridiculous dream. He heaved a big sigh of relief at the realization. He recalled how he woke up the last time he had a crazy dream: he had to go home and get in bed, and he would wake up normal. He didn’t have to feel silly traipsing across town painted and half-naked, and in fact this was a lot better than wearing his little sister’s clothes. There was the matter of finding his way home. Having delivered plenty of laundry in the area it wasn’t difficult. He looked at the house number. It was even and much smaller than his own. That meant both houses were on the north side of their respective streets, and he had to go west, to his left and mostly in the direction of the sun.
Farina was set to embark on a mile-long walk when he was struck by the thought, “This is a dream, so I might as well have some fun.” So instead of dodging the sprinkler, he ran back and forth through the water spray several times, jumping over the sprinkler head. He performed some inept cartwheels and somersaults before deciding that was enough.
The gang had a hard time controlling their laughter spying on Farina from the next yard to the east.
Farina went through a break between some hedges and a tree into the next yard to the west. It was quite an unexpected sight both for him and the three girls who were having a tea party. The girls were familiar. Farina turned to his right and looked at the house, and realized that this was the Cartwright estate, where he had made a delivery the previous day. Like usual, a maid had accepted the laundry bundle, so Farina hadn’t seen Peggy then, the oldest of the girls who was now ten. The other two were the Ahearn sisters, another Peggy, aged eight, and Lassie Lou, Farina’s age at six.
Peggy Cartwright’s parents enrolled her in a private school, but she missed playing with the gang and loved to invite those she could over for tea. The sisters, on the other hand, were definitely not wealthy and attended the same school as the gang, and occasionally had hung out with them, but not very recently. All three were shocked at Farina’s appearance, but Peggy C. recovered the fastest and played the gracious hostess.
“Good afternoon, Farina, how nice of you to visit. Please join us.”
Farina considered running, but it would be cowardly to run away from some harmless girls in a dream. In something of a daze, he walked toward the table at which the girls were sitting. The girls whispered among themselves as he approached.
“What’s up with Farina?” asked Peggy A.
“I don’t know,” answered Peggy C. “He brought us our laundry yesterday, so he shouldn’t be here for that until next week.”
“Maybe he’s sleepwalking,” commented Lassie Lou.
“At four in the afternoon?” replied her sister. “And it’s a long way from his house. Hey, maybe he’s hippotized.”
“You mean ‘hypnotized’,” said Peggy C. “Maybe, or something like that. Now that I think about it, I think you’re close, and that someone might be playing a trick on him. Let’s play along and see how long we can keep him here. Of course if my father sees him like that he’ll throw Farina out.”
Farina reached the table, and the questions came quickly.
“Did you forget to finish getting dressed today?” Lassie Lou giggled as she asked the question.
“How did you get wet?” asked Peggy A.
“What are you doing here?” asked Peggy C.
Farina responded by declaring, “The question is, ‘what are you all doing in my dream?’,” emphasizing the “you.” “Your dream?” all three girls asked in response to the unexpected explanation.
“Yes, I’m dreaming. Y’all are pigments of my imagination.”
This was news to the girls, and it took a moment to respond.
“Is that writing on you also imaginary?” asked Peggy A.
“What writing?” Distracted by the girls, Farina had forgotten the paint on his chest.
“That letter ‘F’ on you.”
Farina looked down at his torso, and now could tell that it was indeed an ‘F’ painted on him. “What does that stand for? Did your family paint your initial on you so they would remember who you are?” continued the older sister.
Farina just glared.
“Or is it your grade from school, and you have to show everyone what it is?”
“No! I passed!”
“Instead of dreaming, maybe you’re sleepwalking,” suggested Lassie Lou.
“Do you sleep with your shoes on?” added Peggy A.
“Of course not. Enough of these stupid questions. You girls are all crazy. None of this is real. Now I have to go home and wake up.”
“Oh, but you’ve come all this way,” pleaded Peggy C. “Won’t you please stay and join our tea party?”
“Why would I want to do that? Tea parties are for girls and I’m … not dressed right for that.”
“But since this is a dream, those things don’t matter and no one will ever know,” argued the persistent hostess.
That wasn’t going to persuade Farina, but at that point his stomach growled loudly. It was true that it had been several hours since he had eaten.
“And you can have something to eat!” continued Peggy C. Farina had a well-established reputation of never turning down free food, and Peggy was capitalizing on it. She and the sisters sensed that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“What do you got?”
“We’re having cupcakes and lemonade.”
There was something about lemonade that rang a bell for Farina. Nevertheless, he responded, “No ice cream?”
“I can get ice cream! Girls, get another chair.”
Peggy C. ran into her house before Farina could react. Peggy A. ran to the side of the house where there were more outside chairs, and then called out,
“Farina, can you help me with this? You’re getting so strong it’ll be easy for you.”
There was no way Farina, ever a sucker for flattery, could refuse a request like that. He trotted over toward Peggy and carried the chair, which wasn’t very heavy, over to the table.
“You made that seem like it was nothing,” gushed Lassie Lou. That drew a smile from Farina. The hostess then brought out a quart container of ice cream, an ice cream scoop, four bowls and sthingys, and one more glass. She thought she sensed some movement behind the hedges separating her house from the next one to the east, which confirmed her suspicions that someone was playing an elaborate prank.
“Let’s sit down, everybody. Ice cream is a great idea on a hot day like this.”
This dream wasn’t so bad. Farina was getting more compliments than he ever did when he was awake.
When they had all sat down and were served ice cream, Farina devoured his quite quickly. To the girls’ amusement, he didn’t display the highest standards of etiquette as he helped himself to more, eventually consuming more than double what the girls ate combined. Along the way he ate four cupcakes and gulped down three glasses of lemonade.
Peggy C. was determined to act the polite hostess. “So Farina, what have you been up to this summer?”
Between mouthfuls, Farina managed, “The usual. Hanging with the gang, delivering laundry, and now my folks are making me watch over Mango way too much.”
“Oh, Mango! I forgot about her. How old is she?”
“She’s four now, and a real pest, always following me around and bothering me.”
“We must invite her over for tea. Farina, can you please ask her to come at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon?”
“Oh yes, you must!” agreed Peggy A., and Lassie Lou nodded as well.
“But this is a dream! It doesn’t make any sense to ask her,” reasoned Farina.
“But it would be rude not to tell her we invited her,” countered Peggy C. “How’s this? If this is a dream, you can still ask her and nothing will happen. And if this isn’t a dream, you invite her for real.”
Farina couldn’t find anything wrong with the logic. He didn’t want to be rude in his dream and risk not getting more food, and maybe this meant Mango would be far away from him in his next crazy dream. “Okay, I’ll ask her.”
The gang was losing control. Mickey let out an audible laugh while Joe was peering between a gap in the hedge. Farina’s back was to the gang, with Lassie Lou on his left and Peggy C. on his right, and he was too absorbed in eating the goodies that he didn’t notice, but Peggy A., across from Farina and looking over his shoulder, saw Joe. Joe froze, and then made a motion with his hand across his lips as a signal to keep quiet, and Peggy winked in return. Joe ducked back down.
“Did Farina see you?” asked Jackie, worried that his prank was about to fall apart.
“No, just Peggy, and she won’t squeal on me. This is your best prank ever!”
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Post by RJH on Aug 2, 2014 1:08:59 GMT -5
I decided to put in maps as they are needed.
When Farina finished the last of the ice cream, he let out an enormous burp. The two Peggys and Lassie Lou giggled. “Uh, excuse me,” Farina eventually remembered his manners. “I guess I should be going home now.” As they all stood up from the chairs, Peggy C. said, “Yes. Don’t forget to invite Mango for tea tomorrow.” “I keep telling you, this is a dream and that won’t happen.” Farina was facing the hostess and had his turned to Lassie Lou, who proceeded to kick him not too hard in the butt. Farina spun around, much more confused than hurt. “What did you do that for?” “That’s what it says to do.” “What do you mean?” “It says ‘kick me’ on your back.” Peggy A. came from behind and also gave Farina a light kick in the butt. Farina had an urge to retaliate, but he had been taught never to hit girls, so he announced, “You’re crazy!” Peggy C. came forward. “No Farina, they’re telling the truth. ‘Kick me’ is painted on your back.” Farina reached behind his back. He could reach his lower back, and feel something that wasn’t bare skin. He rubbed the ‘F’ on his chest and realized it was the same material. “Here, I’ll trace the letters for you,” offered Peggy C. “See, this is skin, and this is where the paint starts.” She traced her finger from Farina’s left shoulder to the start of the first “K.” She then traced the outline of the letter, and moved to the “I.” and explained as she went along. Farina was convinced. “Okay, it says ‘kick me’.” “Okay,” and Peggy C. gave Farina a kick while his back was still turned. “You’re all nuts!” Farina ran off in the direction of home. At the hedge between the houses, Mickey said that someone should follow Farina, and that task fell to Johnny and Jay. “Don’t let him see you,” Mickey instructed. Bonedust was left pushing the wheelbarrow. The rest of the gang went through to the Cartwright yard. “Um, Hi Peggy,” said Mickey. “It’s been a while.” “Yes,” answered Peggy C. “Are you going to tell us what that was all about?” “You heard about the fight with the Tiger Cubs?” “Of course. Everybody in town knows about that.” Mickey was hoping that news wasn’t widespread, but kids in this town talked. “Well, we’ve been training, practicing boxing, and Farina got very annoying and kinda got knocked out, and we figured we’d see if he was okay by bringing him somewhere and see if he could figure out where he was.” “And play a gag on him at the same time,” added Jackie. Joe couldn’t keep his eyes of Peggy A. “Hi Peggy.” “Hi Joe.” Joe and Peggy A. sometimes made each other feel awkward. “Uh, yeah,” continued Mickey. “So we dropped him off next door, and when he woke up, he played in the sprinkler.” “Oh, so that explains why he was kinda wet,” responded Peggy C. It’s warm enough to dry quickly, though.” “Yeah. So how was he?” “He certainly recognized us and knew where he was. The thing is, he thinks this is a dream. He thinks that’s the only explanation of how he got where he was and with those letters painted on him.” “A dream? Is that why he stayed at your tea party?” “Yes. He was going to leave right away until we offered him some food. When I said that if it’s a dream it doesn’t matter and offered ice cream, he stayed.” “He had a great appetite,” added Peggy A. ”I honestly don’t know who would win an eating contest between him and Joe.” Joe didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. “Farina got a good deal out of that,” said Joe with a touch of jealousy. “Hey Joe, just come to one of their tea parties, I’m sure they’ll feed you,” commented Jackie. “We need a regular party, not one of those things with dolls.” “Anyway, it was the most interesting tea party I’ve ever had,” concluded Peggy C.” “And the funniest,” added Lassie Lou. “I’ll never forget it.” “We better be going,” stated Mickey. “Nice seeing you.” They said their good-byes, and the boys caught up with Johnny and Jay. Farina was taking him time getting home. After getting a stare from an elderly rich lady and sensing she was about to reprimand him, he ran across the street. He continued avoiding people, and then crossed the busy street into the northeast corner of the park. Staying on the south side of the street where there were no houses, he next came to the school yards. There was some playground equipment behind the school, and he walked across a seesaw, tipping it as he passed the middle. He climbed on the monkey bars, swung around for a few minutes, and hung upside-down from his knees to see if that would clear his head. Nothing notable happened, so he continued west, sprinting across the street Jones’ Barn was on. He stayed on the south side of Goat Alley where there were empty lots, and climbed a few trees along the way. A few minutes later Mary and Mango, through with the lemonade business for the day, met the other boys at that intersection with Goat Alley. Farina was now walking swiftly toward his house. “What’s going on?” asked Mary. “Is that something painted on Farina’s back?” Mickey had to answer. Leaving out the part about being knocked out, he admitted, “Yeah. He got annoying today, so we painted ‘kick me’ on him. It was Jackie’s idea.” Mary didn’t know whether to be appalled or amused. “Make sure he’s okay. I have to go home now.” Mary walked quickly toward her house, not going the extra blocks west toward Farina’s. Mango did know to be amused. Excitedly, she went with the gang and watched as Farina entered the house. Jackie explained what had happened to her, and she was grinning and laughing the whole way through. Then he stuffed Farina’s shirt, which he had been holding the whole time, into the mailbox. He then gave her some instructions. “We didn’t want to steal this, so say you found this in the mailbox. Just give us a minute to get away. Can you do that?” “Yes!” Mango was excited to play even a small part in this. The gang retreated a couple hundred feet, in front of Joe and Jackie’s houses. Farina dashed through the house, past his mother who was preparing dinner, and into his room where he jumped face down on his bed. His mother did notice that Farina did not look the same as when he had left the house that morning. She walked into his room. “Farina! What is going on?” “Ma, I’m having a crazy dream, and I need to go to bed and then wake up.” “You are not dreaming. Now get up.” Even in a dream, disobeying his mother would be a very bad thing. Farina got up and faced her, whereupon she pinched his left upper arm rather hard. “Yeow! What did you do that for?” complained Farina as he yanked his arm away. “To prove that you’re not dreaming.” “How do you mean?” “So that hurt?” “Yes!” “If you were dreaming, how could that hurt?” Farina’s face fell as the realization hit him like Joe’s punch. He suddenly remembered mussing Joe’s hair, and realized he must have been knocked out. The gang painted him while he was unconscious, and took him to the house by the Cartwrights’. How had they done that? Wait, wasn’t there a wheelbarrow in the barn? It didn’t matter that much. “I … uh … don’t know …” “If you’re not convinced, I can pinch you again.” “No!” Farina jumped back, and with vanishing hope cautiously pinched his right upper arm with his left hand. The pain was real, but nothing compared to the realization that he had been making a big fool of himself that afternoon. At that point Mango came rushing in with Farina’s shirt. “Look Ma, what was in the mailbox.” Their mother looked at Mango, and then Farina. “Farina, do you feel okay?” Farina did not want to admit he was knocked out. “Yes, I’m okay now.” “Then would you please explain all this?” Farina found a way to speak only the truth while not admitting he was knocked out. “I was working out so hard I fell asleep and the gang played a prank on me.” It was true that Farina had fallen asleep after a strenuous workout, although that was the previous week. And then he had gotten revenge quickly for being blasted by water from the hose in the barn. This time it might take a lot longer. “Which gang? The one you hang out with, or the one you got into a fight with last week?” Farina was speechless.
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Post by RJH on Aug 9, 2014 2:01:35 GMT -5
Farina and Mango’s mother was speaking. “Farina, snap out of it. Now go outside and wash that stuff off, I don’t want a mess in the house.” Farina stood still, still in something of a state of shock. Mango decided to help out by kicking him in the seat of his shorts. “Hey!” complained the brother. “Mango!” scolded the mother. “It says ‘kick me,’ right? See, I’m learning how to read, and I’m convincing Farina he’s not dreaming.” The mother felt that Mango was getting away with too much, and figured out a good way to deal with it. “Mango, you’re going to have to wash your brother’s back. I have to finish dinner, which neither of you is getting until that paint is completely washed off.” This wasn’t what Mango had in mind, but the tone of her mother’s voice told Mango she had better comply before getting in real trouble. Mango did have an amusing thought, though. “Is Farina going to have to wear a barrel again?” “No, once the paint is gone the smell won’t stay on the skin like the skunk smell did. But Farina, you shouldn’t get that paint thinner on your shorts or shoes, that stuff ruins clothes. Go to your room and put on a towel.” There was no point in arguing. At least wearing a towel was much better than a barrel. Farina grabbed a white towel from the bathroom, went into his room, stripped, and wrapped the towel around his waist. When he emerged, he had come up with an impishly fitting suggestion. “Ma, it would be a shame if the paint thinner got on Mango’s clothes. I think she should be wearing just a towel, too.” “Hey!” spluttered Mango. “That’s a good idea, Farina. Mango, …” Mango recognized that Farina had gotten her, though she probably deserved it. “I know, go to my room and put on a towel.” “Good. Now try to get along while I finish dinner.” When their mother left to go to the kitchen, Mango stuck out her tongue at Farina. He copied the gesture, and turned his back to go outside. Mango quickly stepped up and kicked him in the butt again, and then ran into the bathroom to get another towel and then into her room to change. In the back yard, Farina wet a rag from the hose, and filled the wash tub partway up. Then he poured some paint thinner from a can in the barn on the rag. Not knowing how much he needed, he didn’t use enough at first, and then tried more until by rubbing his chest and abdomen with the rag the white paint slowly smudged and faded. He found what worked best was kneeling in the wash tub so he could rinse out the rag easily and apply more paint thinner as it got used up. The process took a lot longer than Farina had hoped, and from time to time he heard snickering from beyond the fence. When he turned to look after five minutes of effort, none of them were visible. Frustration got the better of him. “I’m going to get you for this!” Then he thought it might have been better to ignore them. The other boys had been peeking over the back yard fence and through cracks between the boards. They whispered among themselves. “That oughta convince Farina he needs to train a lot more before boxing with us for real,” commented Jay. “How is he going to get the paint off his back?” asked Johnny. “I don’t know, but he does seem okay,” observed Mickey. “Wonder what he thinks he can do to us.” Joe snorted. “What could he possibly do to all of us?” “If he does something,” responded Jackie, “I got another gag planned.” “Want to tell us what it is?” asked Bonedust. Jackie thought it over. “Yeah, it will work better if we’re all in on it.” The boys quietly discussed the plan. In another five minutes Mango came outside in her matching white towel, covering her chest to the tops of her knees. “I can still see the ‘F’,” she remarked. “Let’s just get this over with as fast as possible. When I’m finished with my front side, you’ll have to put the paint thinner on like this. You need a good amount, and have to rub hard.” Farina demonstrated his instructions. “So what I am supposed to do while you finish?” “You could just stand there and be quiet. Or hey, you could use your new jump rope.” Mango giggled. “Jump rope in a towel?” “Fine then, just stand there in your towel.” Mango stood still for a minute, and reasoned that since she would be wearing the towel in any case, she may as well have a little fun instead of being bored. Thus she got her jump rope and began jumping rope and counting out loud how many successful jumps she made. She was proud of her ability to count and knowing the letters of the alphabet. It took another fifteen minutes for Farina to finally get rid of the traces of the ‘F’. Then he figured the easiest thing to do would be to lie flat on his stomach with his head on his hands, and Mango kneeling beside him. Mango set to work, but didn’t rub hard enough at first. “The paint’s not coming off.” “Rub harder then. You’re not going to break me.” Mango did rub harder, and the paint slowly came off. After a few minutes Farina realized this actually felt good. It wasn’t the most unpleasant thing for Mango, either, but it got tiring for her. After a quarter of an hour she took a break. “The sooner you finish the sooner we can eat.” Farina had an advantage in that he had consumed so much at the girls’ tea party that he could hold out longer without food than Mango. “I know, I’m just a bit tired. You know the gang is peeking at us over the fence?” “Yeah, I know. Just ignore them and maybe they’ll go away.” Farina realized he had forgotten something. “I almost forgot. Peggy Cartwright and the Ahearn sisters invited you to tea tomorrow.” “Really? I barely know them.” “I wouldn’t lie about that. They’re nice, but don’t wear anything that says ‘Kick me’. It’s at the Cartwright house, that big house where we delivered laundry yesterday. Do you remember where it is?” “Go to the end of Goat Alley, then turn left, and then right.” “Yeah, two blocks both times, plus a little. 968 Cherry Street.” “Thank you.” Mango resumed what was effectively a massage. “I believe you. Pa would whup you if you were lying.” “And then he’d paint “LIAR” on me and make me wear a barrel for a week.” The siblings shared a laugh at that. The gang continued to quietly Farina’s travails, which now appeared to have taken a turn for the better. “He’s getting a pretty good deal now,” stated Jackie. “Yeah,” agreed Joe. “He sure got a good way to get that paint off his back.” The boys stayed for a few minutes, and then decided that there wasn’t anything more of interest to watch. They headed down the street to their respective houses for dinner. It took another quarter of an hour before Mango declared, “There, it’s finished.” “You’d better be telling the truth.” “Here, feel this.” Mango moved her finger in a zigzag pattern across Farina’s back. “Besides, if I was lying, Pa would probably paint “Kick me” on my back and make me wear a barrel for a week.” Standing up, Farina faced Mango, and noticed that despite her witticism, her facial expression wasn’t as cheerful as usual. “Hey, you all right?” “I … my shoulders are sore from all that rubbing. I never did anything like that before and for so long.” A sensation came over Farina that he wasn’t used to – one of brotherly concern. “Turn around, I’ll fix that.” Mango did, and Farina gave her a shoulder rub. In a few minutes Mango announced, “Thanks, I’m good now. Let’s eat.” They went inside, and tired from the day’s activities, sat down at the dinner table. Their father came home, having spent the day doing odd jobs and trying to get new customers for the family laundry business. He stared at his children. “Didn’t you forget something?” Farina and Mango looked at each other, and then simultaneously laughed. Then they went to their rooms to dress for dinner, returning just when their mother was putting the food on the table.
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Post by RJH on Aug 16, 2014 1:07:55 GMT -5
I’d like to thank my mostly anonymous readers. Despite the small amount of feedback there have been enough views for the last several chapters to convince me that enough people are reading this to make it worthwhile for me to keep going.
A large part of this story has been to set up the last two sentences of this chapter, the reference of which should be obvious to anyone familiar with the Our Gang films of 1926. I didn’t expect to take nearly a year to reach this point, but this has proved much harder to write than I had anticipated. I hope it has been worth it.
Farina, Mango, and their parents were at the dinner table. Farina did not want to talk about the day’s events, but now that his father was home, his mother asked, “Do you think we should do something about this?” “Let the boy fight his own battles,” replied the father. “It’ll build up his character.”
Farina nodded silently, and got on with eating. Mango changed the subject.
“Is it okay if I go to the Cartwrights’ for tea this afternoon?”
“You got invited there?” asked the puzzled father. “How did that happen?”
“Farina said they invited me when he was over there today.”
The father turned to Farina. “Why were you there today? Something wrong with the laundry delivery yesterday?”
“No.” Farina wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. “The gang brought me there as part of their gag.”
“Are you sure this invitation is for real?”
“Yes, they were serious. The two Peggys and Lassie Lou.”
“I think it’s a good idea for Mango to spend some time with other girls in town,” commented the mother.
Disagreeing with his wife over such a matter generally was not a good idea. “Fine, have a good time,” said the father.
“Just be back in time for dinner,” finished the mother.
“I will,” agreed Mango.
The next morning, Farina got to the barn first. He made a quick trip to the locker room and back to the loose board, and waited for the rest of the gang to arrive. When they did, he planted his foot against the bottom of the loose board, so when Mickey pushed it, it moved only a few millimeters. Then Farina shoved back hard. Not expecting this, Mickey fell backwards, and knocked over the rest of the gang like dominoes. Jackie had the misfortune of being landed on by Joe and had the wind knocked out of him for a few minutes. Farina got a peek of his bit of revenge, delighted that the result was better than he expected. Then he quietly ran to the far side of the barn and began doing sit-ups, counting them out loud but starting from thirty-one instead of one.
The other boys got up and Mickey cautiously pushed open the loose board. Nothing happened, and the rest of the gang followed him in. They saw Farina innocently doing sit-ups, hearing
“… thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty! Oh, hi guys.”
“Mornin’” answered Jackie as he and the rest of the gang filed into the locker room to get ready for the day’s training session. Speaking quietly so Farina couldn’t hear, Jay declared,
“You know Farina must have shoved that board into you.”
“I know,” said Mickey. “If it was stuck it wouldn’t have snapped back like that.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“We’ll do what we discussed last night,” replied Jackie. “Play it cool so he doesn’t suspeck anything.”
The plan was agreed to. They emerged from the locker room and began a typical workout.
Mary and Mango met at the lemonade stand. Mary had an announcement.
“My governess said I have to take care of Mildred this afternoon, roll her around the neighborhood in her buggy. I hope some of the boys can help you with the stand then; I see they forgot to yesterday.”
“Oh, I can’t be here in the afternoon. I’m invited to tea at the Cartwrights'.”
“How did that come about?”
“The gang took Farina over there when he was asleep, and he told me they invited me. I’d like it if you came too.”
“Well, I can take Mildred there and see what happens. We may as well close down the stand at lunch time. The way the boys have been acting I wouldn’t count on them. You can come to my house then.”
“Thank you, that sounds great.”
Nothing out of the ordinary happened at the lemonade stand that Thursday morning.
Around noon, there was some grumbling about aching muscles, caused in large part by the more intense workouts the previous morning. To deal with the situation, Mickey read from the book his grandmother had given him, “How to Be a Fighter in Ten Easy Lessons.”
“Chapter six talks about the rubdown. This is very important for the healing and prevention of sore muscles. They have some pictures in here. So who wants to go first?”
“I will,” piped up Joe. Joe got up on the wooden table near one side of the barn and lay face down. Mickey gave a demonstration.
“Someone times they use liniment or oil for this, but we don’t have any, but we can use talcum powder. It helps make the rubdown go smoother.” Mickey sprinkled the talcum powder on Joe’s back, and rubbed it in. Joe’s face developed a contented smile. “If your arms and legs are sore, we have to work on those, too,” Mickey continued. Joe’s limbs naturally were sore, and Mickey continued the rubdown on those. Looking at the book, “Now he has to turn over, and we’ll get the muscles on the front side.” Joe slowly flipped over, and Mickey poured the powder onto his chest and stomach, and patted it down more than rubbing it in. Then more rubbing for the arms and legs.
“Okay, that should do it. Who’s next?”
“I’ll go!” offered Jackie.
Jackie hopped up onto the table and got the same treatment Joe had. Jackie’s facial expression indicated that this was an enjoyable experience.
“My turn!” Farina was wary enough not to be the first one to get a rubdown, and he figured it was best not to be last. This was going well, though, and he wanted to claim a spot in the middle.
“Wait a minute, I shouldn’t have to give all the rubdowns, and I’m sore too.” claimed Mickey.
“I think I can do it,” offered Jackie. “Who should I do first?”
Farina felt it was better not to be the first subject for Jackie. “You can do Mickey first,” Farina graciously offered, and then did some push-ups while waiting. Johnny, Jay, and Bonedust had been hitting the punching bags and doing some sparring during the rubdowns.
Jackie exchanged places with and rubbed down Mickey. Jackie did a pretty good job, and a few minutes later it was Farina’s turn.
“Okay, lie down and relax,” instructed Jackie.
Farina lay down on his stomach on the training table just as the others had. Jackie sprinkled a small amount of talcum powder on Farina’s back, and rubbed it in. Then with an evil grin, he opened another packet of powder, the one he had used his earnings from the lemonade stand to buy, and sprinkled that on Farina’s back. Jackie quickly rubbed his hands with baking soda from a box he had secretly brought from home so he wouldn’t be affected by what he was about to inflict on his unsuspecting victim.
Jackie rubbed in the new powder thoroughly into Farina’s back, sides, and the backs of his neck, arms, and legs. It felt good to Farina, and perhaps a bit tingly. “Now turn over,” Jackie instructed. Farina complied, and Jackie dumped more of the new powder onto Farina’s chest and stomach, and patted that down as Mickey had down earlier, and then rubbed it in some. Farina squirmed a little.
“You should hold still,” instructed Jackie.
“But it tingles,” answered Farina, who tried to hold still as Jackie quickly rubbed more powder onto the front sides of Farina’s arms and legs. Farina twitched more and more as the tingling sensation on his back developed into a full-blown itch, and he couldn’t take it any longer.
“THAT STIFF ITCHES!”
Farina jumped up from the table, and immediately went into a long sequence of frenzied convulsive movements in a futile attempt to alleviate the itching. Initially his back itched the most, and he spun around trying to scratch the itches. When he did manage to get a good scratch in, another part of his body would itch more, and when he scratched that, the spot he did itch before flared up more. Farina jumped and shook more and more frenetically as his body reacted to what felt like a myriad of tiny pinpricks. Maybe he could shake the itching powder off. Farina bounced off the walls, posts, the heavy punching bags, and the floor, never slowing down. In fact he appeared to gain speed with every collision. He even spun on his back on the floor at times with an angular velocity never witnessed by the gang before.
“What … did … you … do … to … me?”
Jackie had gotten him good, getting the itching powder all over Farina. There was no escape. With his adrenalin surging to new highs and his arms and legs flailing more wildly, Farina hit one of the heavy bags so hard he tore a hole in, and lots of dirt and sand spilled onto the floor. The gang was amazed, but Farina was far from finished. After more frantic gyrations and desperate scratching all over, he grabbed one of the rubber inner tube ropes of the boxing ring and tore it loose. When he let go, the rubber tube snapped back and hit Bonedust in the butt, stunning him. Farina continued to jump and spin and scratch, and then knocked one of the speed bags loose, spilling the dirt and sand contained within clear across the gym. There was more bouncing around and then he kicked another of the posts for the boxing ring with the bottom of his heel, bending that post to an unusable state.
“Calm down, Farina, you’re destroying the gym,” cautioned Johnny as the gang circled Farina to try to control him.
But Farina was far past listening to reason. His brain wasn’t working on all cylinders, but he knew what group had caused his torment. Without thinking, he launched an adrenaline-fueled right cross that connected solidly with Johnny’s face. It might have broken his nose had not Johnny turned at the last split-second, but the blow was still strong enough to drop him to the floor. Before anyone could react, Farina spun to his right and landed a powerful left hook to the side of Jay’s face, breaking his glasses and sending him to the floor.
Farina’s back was to Mickey, who tried to restore order. “Farina …” However, Mickey was much too slow. Farina spun around with astonishing speed and landed a roundhouse right hand to Mickey’s jaw, and Mickey staggered backwards, crashing into the mounted bicycle and breaking its frame before falling in a heap. Bonedust, still smarting from the snapped rubber rope, was standing next to Mickey, but not for long. Quick as lightning, Farina sent a left jab into Bonedust’s ribs, causing him to crumple and keel over.
Had Farina been able to focus his vision he would have seen fear on Joe and Jackie’s faces, but Farina’s brain was only telling him to complete the mission. As Joe moved slower than Jackie, Farina ran toward Joe first. Joe protected his face with his hands, but this left a large target. Farina drove his right fist as hard as he could into Joe’s stomach. Joe doubled over, and failed to keep his guard up, so Farina was able to land a left uppercut onto Joe’s jaw. Joe staggered backwards into the boxing rings ropes with such force that the rubber ropes and the support poles all came crashing down.
Jackie backed away from Farina but bumped into the stacks of tires. Jackie waved his arms to regain his balance, and saw what was coming. Farina wasn’t good at disguising what he was doing, and Jackie was able to deflect Farina’s left jab aimed at Jackie’s eye. But what Jackie wasn’t prepared for was the lightning-quick one-two combination made possible by Farina’s highly agitated state. Farina’s right hand landed square on Jackie’s jaw before Jackie could react and he went down for the count.
With all the targets disposed of, Farina realized he was still itching. He resumed his frantic scratching, and during the wild gesticulations he smashed the other speed bag off its mooring and then smacked open the other heavy bag. The dirt and sand from both spilled onto the floor, leaving the gym looking like a tornado had hit it. Then Farina spotted the hose, and had the presence of mind to try to wash the itching powder off. He shook so much that it took a few efforts to grab the nozzle, aim it at himself, and pull the handle, but he was finally successful. The itching grew less intense as he sprayed water all over his body. Finally the agony was over, and his mind returned to normal despite his racing heart and heavy breathing due to his intense and unique workout.
Farina was thinking of what to say when he noticed the gym was very quiet. Everyone else lay motionless on the floor, apart from breathing. The magnitude of what he had accomplished suddenly hit him.
Farina had whipped the entire gang. That was one set of plans he would have to keep.
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Post by RJH on Aug 23, 2014 0:42:02 GMT -5
With the rest of the gang knocked out on the barn floor Farina’s only thought was getting back at them for the prank from the day before. He wouldn’t be able to wheelbarrow anyone far away by himself, but he could paint something embarrassing on them. He quickly found the can of white paint that was near where he had been knocked out, by the corner of the locker room near the tire stacks. He opened the can, and stirred the paint with the brush, and paused to determine what to paint. Jay was close by, mostly face down. As a test to see if this would work, Farina painted a large “X” on Jay’s back. Fortunately from Farina’s standpoint Jay didn’t move. The “X” was obvious from some distance, but it didn’t contrast against Jay’s skin nearly as much as the “F” on Farina’s chest had when Farina got a look at himself in a mirror at home the day before. This would do, but it was a pity that the paint wasn’t that which was used to paint the lemonade stand. “Wait a minute,” thought Farina. “What happened to that paint? Didn’t we bring it back here?” A quick look around the gym revealed that the can of black paint was sitting against the wall by the far side of the boxing ring. Farina quickly and quietly got that can and found there was enough paint in that for his purpose. Deciding that if the gang started to wake up, Farina chose to paint Jackie first. Jackie, like the others besides Jay, was face up on his back. Picking a short descriptive word he knew he could spell, Farina painted “BAD” in large black letters on Jackie’s chest. When Jackie didn’t stir, Farina painted the same on Joe, Mickey, Johnny, and Bonedust. Not wanting to leave Jay out, Farina carefully turned him over, ready to bolt if he woke up. But Jay didn’t, and soon was labeled “BAD” like the rest. In Farina’s opinion it wasn’t fair for only Jay to have the white “X” on his back. He wanted to treat the others the same, but his plan would fall short if they woke up when he moved them. Therefore he went to the locker room, took all the shirts and bunched them up. Returning to the main part of the gym, he took the couple towels lying about to prevent the others from covering up the painted letters. He placed the bundle by the pivoting board, ready to make a break for it should the other boys come to. Farina’s luck held out. He managed to turn the others enough to paint white “X”s on their backs, and then carefully laid them back down. The “X”s weren’t perfectly neat, but that didn’t matter, what was important was that they were plainly visible and would be difficult to wash off. The white paint might stick to some of the dirt and straw on the floor, making a mess on their backs, but that didn’t bother Farina at all. It would still be a chore to remove the paint in any case. He saved Joe for last as he was the hardest to turn, but Farina found he could roll Joe partway over fairly smoothly. It was possible that Farina’s adrenalin levels were still well above average and helped him find added strength. As a final touch, Farina swept each of the unconscious boys with the white paint on their stomachs, underlining the “BAD”s. With everything done, Farina grabbed the pile of shirts and slipped out the pivoting board. Outside, he realized he forgot something: to put on his own shirt. Once he did that, he tied all the other shirts together in knots the best he could without tearing them. Since the gang didn’t make his shirt any worse than it had been, he would do the same. Farina then went outside the gate, and looked around. The coast was clear, so he went around the west side of the lot to its southwest corner. With that route he wouldn’t be spotted by Mary and Mango from the lemonade stand, but that was moot as those two had already left for Mary’s house. Also, Farina was sure the other boys would head north to their homes on Goat Alley, so he would be able to see what happened from his vantage point behind them without being spotted. Another look around, and Farina did see someone. It was Officer “Hard-Broiled” McManus, a cop who apparently no one liked and liked no one in return. Farina stepped next to a tree so he wouldn’t be seen by the policeman patrolling the next block. Mickey gradually woke up with an aching jaw. Looking up at the ceiling of the barn, he wondered if he had been knocked out in a sparring match. But that didn’t add up; if that had happened his opponent should be standing, and everyone else was also lying on the floor. He got up, feeling something sticky on his back, and looked at Bonedust nearby, and blinked when he saw the word “BAD” painted on his chest. Mickey looked around the room, and everyone else was in the same condition. Furthermore the interior of the barn looked like a tornado hit it. Looking down, he saw that he was painted as well. He thought he might be dreaming, so he pinched himself. Apparently he was awake. He went around the barn shaking the others, and they gradually came to. Joe felt an unusual sensation when he regained consciousness. His stomach was hurting in two ways: from being punched and from hunger. He wanted to go home and eat, but couldn’t face his mother in his current state. Mickey asked the group, “Does anyone know what happened?” There were some blank looks, and Joe answered, “We got hit by Hurricane Farina.” “What are you talking about?” “What’s the last thing you remember?” “Uh … we were training like usual. Wait, the rubdowns. Now I remember, we got Farina with the itching powder and he went crazy, and … that’s all I remember.” “Well, he knocked all of you out, and then me.” “I never saw who hit me,” commented Johnny. “Me neither,” added Jay, as he found that his glasses had a broken arm. “I never saw anyone move so fast,” explained Joe. “Guess he got you, Jackie, right after he got me?” “Um, yeah.” Jackie. “He was too fast.” “Great idea, that itching powder.” Joe jostled Jackie, shoving him with his shoulder. “Hey, you all thought it would be hysterical! And we learned that when we fight the Tiger Cubs again, we should pour itching powder on Farina and push him into them.” “It was the funniest thing I had ever seen,” agreed Bonedust. “But now …” “Yeah, what are we going to do now?” asked Joe. “Keep calm,” answered Mickey. “First, let’s see if the paint will wash off.” He went to the hose, got a little water on him, and tried to wash the paint off. It smudged a little, and if anything made it worse. “Okay, that’s not going to work. So we need to get some paint thinner. Does anyone have some?” “We painted the shed in our back yard a little while ago,” said Jackie. “I think we have some left over, but I don’t know if it’s enough.” No one else answered. “Okay then, we’ll go to Jackie’s house, and get cleaned up in his back yard. And let’s hurry, because my Ma will kill me if I miss my violin lesson.” “What about the gym?” asked Johnny. “We need to replace the stuff Farina destroyed.” “We’ll worry about that tomorrow.” “That’s a lot of stuff. Do you think he’ll let us use his wagon?” “I don’t know.” “I think he will,” offered Jackie. “He must think he’s gotten even with us.” “Come on, let’s get dressed and go over to Jackie’s house.” They headed toward the locker room. Getting there first, Bonedust announced, “Uh oh. All our shirts are gone.” Also gone were a couple towels that they might have used to cover up the painted letters. “Gee, I wonder where Farina got that idea.” Joe jostled Jackie again. “It wouldn’t have worked otherwise,” explained Jackie. “So now what? I can’t let my Ma see me like this. She says I shouldn’t be fighting, and I could never explain this.” “One thing’s for sure,” declared Jay. “We certainly can’t tell our folks the truth. “It’d be too embarrassing to say we all got beat up by Farina.” “Yeah,” agreed Johnny. “I’d probably die from embarrassment. And nobody would believe that, anyway. We’d just get in trouble for lying.” “Then we have to make up a believable story to tell our folks,” declared Mickey. “How about we say the Tiger Cubs did this?” suggested Johnny. “We could say we were swimming, and they stole our shirts,” noted Bonedust. “And we got into a fight trying to get them back,” added Joe. “And … they held us down and painted ‘BAD’ on all of us to make us look like the bad guys?” “We could say they knocked us out instead,” commented Jackie. “I don’t want to admit I got knocked out,” complained Joe. “We have to decide on one story and stick with it,” claimed Mickey. “So … let’s say they took us by surprise and knocked us all to the ground, and we were stunned enough that we couldn’t stop them from holding us down and painting us.” “Wouldn’t it be strange for the Cubs to have been carrying paint to the swimming hole?” asked Bonedust. “I don’t think my folks would believe that.” “Mine neither,” agreed Jay. “Okay, that’s hard to believe, but do you have a better story?” responded Mickey. Bonedust and Jay thought for a few seconds, and shook their heads. No one else had a better story, either. “Hey, if our story is that we went swimming, we need to look wetter.” Jackie went over to the hose, and under the circumstances, felt it best to spray himself first. The others nodded in agreement, and he turned the water on them, but on this occasion wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of the action. Jackie saw Joe looking very despondent, and wanting to help his friend out came up with an idea. “I just thought of something,” Jackie announced. “It’s a warm day, so someone’s probably drying some clothes outside. Maybe we can find and borrow some shirts or sheets or something.” Joe suddenly cheered up. “Now there’s a good idea! We should have thought of that before. Just borrow the shirts, go home and change shirts, return the ones we borrowed before anyone notices, and go to Jackie’s house and clean up in the when his mother isn’t looking. That way we don’t have be in such a hurry. What could go wrong?”
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Post by RJH on Aug 30, 2014 22:49:22 GMT -5
The events of “Official Officers” do not happen in this story.
Mickey, Joe, Jackie, Johnny, Jay, and Bonedust left Jones’ barn through the pivoting board, and made it to the front gate of the property. They peeked out, and saw nobody was around on the north side of the lot, in the direction of their homes on Goat Alley. They scanned the area, and spotted what they were looking for.
“Over there!” Joe shouted, but not too loud, pointing to a space between two houses in the next block to the north where some lines of laundry were visible in a back yard. They walked quickly to their target, trying not to attract attention, crossing one street and moving a couple houses to the west. No one was visible inside the houses on either side, and they went up to the clotheslines.
“The shirts are all too big or too small, and there aren’t enough of them,” announced Mickey, “but if you add in the dresses …”
“I ain’t wearing no dress!” declared Joe emphatically.
“There could be more wash drying in the next block,” pointed out Jackie.
While that discussion was going on, Farina was dismayed to see that his plan was being thwarted. Running after and shouting at the gang would not be effective. Well, at least it would take some time for them to wash all the paint off themselves, so that was something.
Still, Farina was disappointed that the other boys weren’t going to be publically humiliated like he had been. Then he realized he might have an unlikely ally. He stashed the bundle of knotted shirts through a hole in a decaying tree, and sprinted toward Officer McManus.
“Hey Officer, those boys are stealing clothes off the line over there!”
McManus seemed to be always frowning. If things were peaceful as was usually the case, he frowned because someone might be thinking of breaking the law in some manner. It was unusual for a child to approach McManus, as most of the crime in the town was low-level juvenile delinquency. In any case, his reputation was such that no one would dare lie to him about any matter that might be worthy of police attention. He looked in the direction Farina was pointing, and did indeed see suspicious activity.
The policeman ran toward the potential desperate outlaws and blew his whistle when he got within a couple hundred feet. The gang, upon seeing the charging officer, panicked.
“We can’t let him catch us with this stuff!” declared Mickey. He threw a shirt back on a clothesline, and the others did likewise, and immediately ran away, north to Goat Alley. McManus continued the pursuit, pausing briefly at the clotheslines to see if there was any damage. It looked like everything had been replaced, albeit it sloppily in most cases. Farina followed from well behind, staying out of sight but allowing himself a little jumping for joy.
The shirtless painted boys continued to run to the space between Jackie and Joe’s houses, and then to the shed Jackie had mentioned. Jackie tore through the door, and found the can of paint thinner, but it was only a quarter full, far from enough to remove the paint from the six boys. They scrambled to gather rags and turn on the hose. However, the blasts of the whistle caused Jackie and Joe’s mothers to go outside and see what the trouble was. The two mothers demanded that their sons come to them. Jackie and Joe tried to cover the “BAD”s painted on their chests, but the letters were too large to be obscured completely. When the mothers got over the shock of seeing their sons in this unexpected state, Jackie’s mother asked what was going on. The boys hesitated in answering, and a few seconds later McManus was on the scene.
“Ma’ams, I must inform you that your boys were caught trying to steal clothes off the line at the Spear residence.”
“We weren’t stealing them, we were just thinking of borrowing them,” blurted out Joe.
“And why were you thinking that?” asked his mother.
“So we wouldn’t come home like this, and …”
“So what happened to you? What did I tell you about fighting?”
Joe didn’t want to answer, so Jackie spoke up with the prepared story.
“We went swimming, and the Tiger Cubs stole our shirts, and when we tried to get them back, they jumped us, held us down, and painted those words on us.”
The story sounded fishy to McManus. “Why would they do such a thing? Paint “BAD” on one side of you in black and white “X”s on the other side?”
“I don’t know, they’re evil and crazy.”
McManus wasn’t convinced. He looked at the group of four, Mickey, Johnny, Jay, and Bonedust, sort of cowering in the back yard next to the shed. “Is that what really happened?”
Those boys nodded.
“Y-yes, sir,” offered Mickey.
McManus scowled. “I have more important things to do, ladies,” he said, addressing the mothers. “I’m leaving these rascals in your custody. Now make sure your boys stay out of any more trouble, or it will be hard on them.”
A block away, Mickey’s mother was fretting that her son was going to be late for his violin lesson. He couldn’t have gone directly to the teacher from whatever he was doing with the gang because his violin was still at home. She had gone outside and west up the block toward Jackie and Joe’s houses to see if someone there knew Mickey’s whereabouts when she heard the police whistle. She arrived as McManus was leaving, and asked, “Have you seen Mickey?”
Jackie’s mother answered, “I believe he’s back there.”
Mickey’s mother looked in the back yard, and had a hard time believing her eyes. “Mickey, get over here!”
Mickey was too mortified to move. His mother had to walk over to him as the other boys shied away. She blinked to make sure she was reading correctly what was painted on his chest.
“Well, someone was right; you are a bad boy. You’re late for your violin lesson. Now what is going on here?”
Mickey didn’t want to explain, and thought up a way out of it. “It’d take too long to explain, and I don’t want to be any more later than I already am.” With that, Mickey bolted out of the yard and down the block to his house. He burst through the door, and almost knocked over his grandmother. He had to do a spinning jump out of the way, and crashed into a table, knocked over two chairs, lost his balance, and fell on the floor.
“Mickey, what happened?” asked the concerned grandmother.
Mickey got up and caught his breath. “Thanks to that book you gave me, the gang’s worst fighter suddenly got a lot better. Can’t talk now.”
Mickey ran to his room, put on a shirt, grabbed his violin case, and ran back out, careful not to run into his grandmother. He then ran the several blocks to his violin teacher’s house.
Back at Jackie’s and Joe’s houses, Joe’s mother went inside her house to get the oversize baby clothes while Jackie’s mother confronted her son. “Jackie, you weren’t looking at me or that cop when you told that crazy story. Now look me in the eye and tell me what really happened.”
Jackie looked at his mother, and then turned away, mumbling, “You wouldn’t believe it. Nobody would.”
“Don’t turn away from me, young man. Who did this to you?”
Jackie turned back toward his mother, looked her in the eye, took a deep breath, gulped, and quietly said, “Farina.”
“Farina!?” “See, I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”
Jackie had looked her in the eye, and while the answer appeared preposterous, she felt she had to give her son a chance to explain.
“Why would you all let Farina paint you like that?”
“We didn’t let him. We were training and he knocked us all out and painted us before we woke up.”
“How could Farina possibly knock all of you out?”
“We put itching powder on him, and it made him go wild. He went crazy, and moved so fast we didn’t react in time when he started hitting us.”
“And why would he paint those letters on you?”
“Because I painted him yesterday when he was out. We’ve been playing pranks on each other, and I guess it went too far.”
Jackie’s mother had a hard time believing her ears and eyes. Jackie had never been able to lie to her before when they looked each other in the eye, but the story was so incredible. After a pause for thought, she responded,
“Well, we’ve got to get that paint off you some time. Now here’s a dime. Your Pa and I will find some extra chores for you later. Go to Mrs. Mack’s General Store and get a can of paint thinner.”
“Okay.” Jackie took a step, and then noted, “Oh, I’d better go inside and put on a shirt.”
His mother thought quickly. “No.”
“No? But Mrs. Mack’s store is …”
“I know where it is. Either you’re telling the truth, and you deserve to go through town like you made Farina, or you’re lying, in which case you deserve the same thing for lying to your mother. I don’t mind that you got into a fight. It’s in your blood; God knows how many fights your brother was in. Boys will be boys, and they often do stupid things that result in things like this paint job. But what I will never tolerate is a liar and a thief. You lied to that cop, and were about to take something without permission, even if you were going to return it, which I do believe. Now go!”
Jackie opened his mouth, but had no reply. Then he came up with, “Can’t you just spank me instead?”
“Spanking doesn’t seem to be very effective on you, so we’ll try something more creative. Now don’t make me repeat myself.”
Jackie knew he was defeated. At the end of that conversation Joe’s mother came out of her house with the set of oversize baby clothes.
“Here Joe, you need to learn a lesson about disobeying your mother so you can go downtown with your friend. I imagine you’d like to cover up that ‘BAD,’ so can you put these on.”
Walking the few blocks from his house to the junkyard on Goat Alley was awful but bearable, but going all the way downtown in baby clothes was intolerable.
“Aw, c’mon, Ma, that ain’t right! I’d rather go as I am.”
Joe’s plaintive look made his mother realize that maybe she was being unreasonable. She held the baby clothes back.
“All right, Joe, you may be right. Go as you are.”
Joe was stunned that he convinced his mother to change her mind. All he could say was, “Uh, thank you.”
Joe and Jackie quickly walked away south toward the general store. Jackie noted,
“You realize you just thanked your mother for letting you go all the way to Mrs. Mack's store with ‘BAD’ painted on you for everyone to see?”
It did sound stupid when phrased that way. Joe had to think for a moment, and then answered,
“Would you rather go into town wearing baby clothes?”
That was a tough choice. Jackie decided the best answer was, “I guess not.”
“So there. Now we’ll just go straight to the store, don’t talk to anybody, buy the paint thinner, come straight back home, and clean up. It will be over in an hour. What could go wrong?”
“Didn’t you say that before?”
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Post by RJH on Sept 8, 2014 22:44:21 GMT -5
Jackie and Joe walked up the street toward Mrs. Mack’s general store, with “BAD” painted in black on their bare chests and white “X”s painted on their backs. The trip was eight blocks one way. “I can’t believe this is happening,” said Jackie. “It was your idea to paint Farina,” retorted Joe. “Well, how was I supposed to know he could knock us all out?” “That was also your idea with the itching powder.” “We should have mussed your hair to counteract him.” “That could have worked. Too bad it happened so fast no one thought of it then.” “Yeah. But we should have just gone to my house without trying to hide the paint.” “But I’d get in trouble with my mother for fighting.” “You got in worse trouble this way.” “Let’s just get this over with.” They made it two blocks, and them saw a lady carrying a lot of boxes leaving a store and head their way. “There’s someone coming. Let’s go to the other side of the street,” suggested Jackie. “I don’t want to cross the street a hundred times. That’ll look bad. Let’s just go in a straight line and not say anything. Maybe people will think we’re advertising something, like a circus.” “More like a juvenile detention facility.” Joe’s argument made some sense, and Jackie felt better next to someone in the same situation. Jackie gritted his teeth and kept going. As they got close to the woman, she heard their footsteps, and peeked around the boxes. She was startled, shrieked, jumped, and the boxes flew all over the place. The boys kept on going as if nothing had happened. “Should we have offered to help her pick up her boxes?” asked Jackie. “I’m pretty sure she didn’t want our help,” answered Joe. A few steps later, they peeked over their shoulders. The lady had collected herself and the boxes, and was hurrying away. “I guess you’re right, she just wanted to get away from us as fast as possible,” admitted Jackie.
A few blocks away, Toughy was returning home from running an errand in town. The police whistle had caught his attention, and he was concerned that it might be about him, but was relieved when he saw it was about something else. Still, on his way home he was spotted by Officer McManus as the latter headed back toward the town, and McManus confronted the tough kid. “Hey you, did you and your buddies have a run-in with that other gang today?” Toughy had a puzzled look on his face. “No sir. My mother just told me to buy some fish in town. Why do you ask?” “They said you jumped them after they went swimming and painted words on them. Did that happen?” “What? No, of course not. We don’t bring paint to our fights. I mean …” “You fought with them before?” “Well, a long time ago, I suppose.” McManus snarled. Something was fishy, but now it seemed it wasn’t all the Tiger Cubs’ doing. “Just keep out of trouble, all of you, you hear?” “Yes, sir.” Toughy continued on to his home on Wildcat Alley. He thought, “That gang accused us of something we didn’t do and now the cops are on us. I can’t let them get away with that. I have to find up what they’re up to.”
Mary and Mango went to Mary’s house so Mary could get Mildred and put the baby in a stroller. Then Mango, Mary and Mildred arrived at the Cartwright estate ahead of schedule, but Lassie Lou and Peggy A. were already there. “You came!” exclaimed Peggy C. “I didn’t think your brother was going to tell you.” “Well, he did. He probably wanted me away from him. I’ve been with Mary today, is it okay if she stays?” “Of course!” Addressing Mary, “And this is your baby sister? I’ve never seen her.” “Yes.” Mary rolled the stroller up to the table where the tea party was set up. The girls all had to look at Baby Mildred. “Isn’t she adorable?” commented Peggy A. Lassie Lou disagreed. “I don’t think so.” “That’s rude.” “Oh, Lassie Lou is right,” said Mary. “Mildred isn’t particularly adorable. “I think she’s kind of plain.” “Oh, I guess you’re right.” “Well, have a seat,” Peggy C. brought over another chair. Mary brought Mildred’s stroller to a corner of the table and the other girls all sat down to lemonade and cookies. “So what’s going on with you, Mango?” “Mary and I went into business selling lemonade. We’ve made a lot of money.” “It was originally to raise enough to buy boxing gloves for the boys,” added Mary. “But they haven’t been helping out enough, so we’re keeping all the profits now.” “Good for you,” commented Peggy C. “And speaking of those guys boxing, what happened to Farina after he left?” “When he got home, he thought he was dreaming,” recounted Mango. “So our Mama pinched him, and he got a real funny look on his face when he found out he wasn’t.” “He said he was dreaming to us, too. Glad to hear he got home all right.” “Yeah. But I had to wash that paint off his back. That was hard.” “Boys sure do stupid things sometimes,” commented Peggy A. “A lot of the time,” agreed Mango. “Hey, did Farina say anything about me?” “He said you’re always bothering him,” replied Peggy C. “He’s always teasing me!” “Big brothers always do that,” reassured Peggy A. “Little sisters have to be annoying sometimes.” “Hey!” exclaimed Lassie Lou. “I’m not annoying!” “Well, sometimes you don’t realize it, but it’s no big deal. You’re really a very good little sister.” “And Mango and Farina get along fine when they tease each other,” noted Mary. “I bet they’d miss each other a lot if they were separated for a long time.” “I’m sure I’d be fine for a few days,” responded Mango, “but maybe you’re right.” “From what I’ve seen of you two I’m sure I’m right. Now I’d like to invite you all over for tea at my house some time, but my governess doesn’t like having other kids around. Maybe if I can find out when she’s away for a day.” “It’s not a problem,” said Peggy C. “The parties are usually here because my family can afford the extra food, but moving them around is a good idea.” The girls continued to chat about all sorts of topics for hours.
Jackie and Joe finally got to Mrs. Mack’s store. They quickly darted behind a shelf while the proprietor was taking care of another customer. When that person left, they cautiously moved to the counter where Mrs. Mack’s back was turned. “Mrs. Mack,” started Jackie. “We need …” “Hello boys,” Mrs. Mack turned around and gasped. “What happened?” “We got in trouble and need paint thinner. Here’s ten cents.” Jackie placed the dime on the counter. “Can you please give us a can and we’ll get out of here fast?” “Uh, okay, this one time, but please don’t come here like that again. I run a reputable store and that would be bad for business.” “Sorry, Mrs. Mack,” apologized Joe. “This won’t happen again.” Mrs. Mack hurriedly retrieved a can of paint thinner from a back shelf and handed it to Jackie. “Now go, and try not to let anyone see you. You’ll scare away customers.” Joe peeked out the door, and saw someone coming. He stepped back, but backed into a pyramid of cans, knocking several of them over. “Oops, I’ll put them back up.” However, when Joe turned around and bent down, he bumped into Jackie who was also racing to restack the cans. The collision sent Jackie flying back butt-first into a pickle barrel, while Joe staggered, waved his arms trying to regain his balance, and then stumbled into a shelf of apples, sending many of them rolling onto the floor. Just then a woman entered, gasped when she saw the scene, and quickly exited. “Sorry,” said Jackie as he struggled out of the pickle barrel. “We’ll clean this up.” “No please, go home and get cleaned up,” begged Mrs. Mack. “I can take care of this.” The boys relented, realizing they still had a chance to make things worse. They left the store, much to Mrs. Mack’s relief. On their way home, they got a few disapproving stares, which bothered Jackie more than Joe. There was a minor automobile collision at an intersection when both drivers looked at the strange sight for a second instead of watching the road. A block later a bicyclist crashed into a parked car when he was distracted by the pair. Then a five-year-old freckle-faced boy approached them, pointed, and laughed. Joe snapped. He made a face at the kid, raised his arms as if he were a monster with claws, and growled loudly. The kid shrieked and ran away, crying, “Mommy, Mommy!” “Did you have to do that?” asked Jackie. “That kid was annoying.” “Yes, but let’s get home before anything else happens and we get blamed and get in more trouble.” Not caring what Joe thought any longer, Jackie zigzagged across the street a few times to avoid running into more people. Joe thought about it, and then followed. It was with great relief when they reached the vacant lots in front of their houses.
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Post by RJH on Sept 23, 2014 21:52:31 GMT -5
When the tea party broke up, Mango walked with Lassie Lou and Peggy A. to their house on Goat Alley, and continued west on her own. As she past Jackie’s house she almost got run over by Jackie and Joe. She noted a certain similarity in their appearance to Farina’s the day before.
“What …?”
She was cut off by Joe. “Just go straight home.”
Joe and Jackie continued into Jackie’s back yard, turning around once to make sure that Mango kept going. Mango figured that she would find out what happened sooner or later, and did go on home.
When Jackie and Joe did reach the back yard, they found that Johnny, Jay, and Bonedust had only managed to get one letter off their chests with the small amount of paint thinner that had been there. Johnny had washed off the “B” leaving “AD,” Jay the “D” leaving “BA,” and Bonedust the “A” leaving “B D.”
“Are those supposed to be the initials of your syllables?” asked Jackie.
“What? No, that was just the easiest to get rid of, oh forget it, did you get another can of paint thinner?”
“Yes, here it is, and it took a lot of trouble getting there and back.”
“Never mind that, let’s clean up and get this over with,” was Johnny’s opinion. There was no argument to that, and the boys began unceremoniously washing the remaining painted letters off.
Farina had been keeping tabs on Jackie and Joe, making sure not to be seen by maintaining a parallel route a block away. When he saw them reach Jackie’s house, he retrieved the bundle of knotted shirts from the hole in the decaying tree in which he had stashed them and then went around the backs of other houses on Goat Alley until he reached the fence behind Jackie’s yard. He peeked through a knothole and got to see the end of the other boys washing the paint off their fronts and each other’s backs. The black paint took longer to clean off completely than the white paint did, but somehow that didn’t bother Farina.
After an hour the boys were about halfway done when Mickey returned from his violin lesson. The lesson had not gone well at all, with Mickey being distracted by the day’s events. He even broke a string on his violin, and the teacher said that sounded better than most of the rest of his playing the instrument. Mickey joined in the not-so-joyous festivities, stripping off his shirt and cleaning himself like the rest. Jackie and Joe got their backs washed off the paint last, perhaps because the other kids thought those two were more at fault.
Once clean, Mickey, Johnny, Jay, and Bonedust headed down Goat Alley, with Mickey being the only one with a shirt. The other three would have some explaining to do, though Mickey’s mother had given the other mothers some idea of what had happened when they went outside to find out about the commotion. Farina then threw the bundle of knotted shirts over the fence, and hit Jackie in the head. Farina then ran back home past the back yards before Jackie or Joe could spot him, but it was obvious who had made the throw.
“What are we going to do with this?” asked Joe.”
“I guess we better untie this and give the other guys their shirts back. We’ll get in more trouble if our mothers are watching and we don’t.”
Joe sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
It took Joe and Jackie about ten minutes to undo all the knots. Then the thought struck them that they could finally put on their own shirts, and then they took the other shirts down the block to give them back to Bonedust, Jay, Johnny, and Mickey. Jackie described briefly how the shirts appeared, but all involved just wanted to get the whole thing and the day over with. Tomorrow would have to be better than this.
Two for whom the day was not a disaster were Mango and Farina. Mango happily recounted the tea party to her parents at the dinner table, while Farina was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. After dinner Mango got Farina to tell his story, and he was only too eager to tell her all about his revenge.
“You know they’re going to get back at you again, don’t you?” asked Mango when Farina was finished.
“Of course they will. But today was so worth it, so let them try.”
The next morning after breakfast, Mickey steeled himself and began the walk up Goat Alley. First he came to Johnny’s house. Johnny appeared at the door with an ice pack over his eye.
“Johnny, we have to go get some new equipment for our gym. Can you …”
“Sorry, my eye really swelled up.” Johnny took the ice pack off, and Mickey winced. Johnny continued, “I have to rest at home for a day or two. Good luck with getting everything set up again.”
“Okay, get well soon. We’ll need you in good shape when we run into those Tiger Cubs again.”
Next, Mickey got to Jay’s house. “Hey Jay, ready to go get new equipment for the gym?”
“Sorry,” Jay replied, “I have to go into town to get my glasses fixed. I don’t known when I’ll be back.”
“Okay, see you later.”
Mickey reached Bonedust’s house next. “How you doing, Bonedust?”
“Not so good. Ma thinks I may have a cracked rib, Dr. Pipp is coming over today, and he thinks I might have a cracked rib. I have to take it easy for a few days.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that. Well, rest up and get well soon. We need you.”
Next up the block was Jackie. “Hey Jackie, you up for getting new equipment for our gym from the junkyard?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Everyone else has had excuses so far. Let’s see how Joe’s doing.”
They went up to Joe’s house next door.
“Hey Joe, can you help us get some new equipment for our gym?” enquired Mickey.
“Sure. Anyone besides you and Jackie?”
“No, they all had issues. Now let’s see if we use Farina’s wagon.”
The trio headed up the block to Farina’s house, who was ready to answer the door. Mickey decided to act as if he wasn’t sure Farina knew all of what happened the day before.
“Hey Farina, our gym suffered a lot of damage yesterday, and we need to get a lot of new equipment for it. Can we use your wagon to get some stuff from the junkyard?”
“We don’t need the wagon for laundry today, so yes, we can take it. Where are the others?”
“Johnny has a swollen eye, Jay needs to get his glasses fixed, and Dr. Pipp is going to check on Bonedust to see if he has a cracked rib.”
“Oh sorry to hear that.”
They’ll be fine in a day or two. Besides, everyone wouldn’t fit after we put all the stuff we need in the wagon.”
“All right, let’s get Dinah hitched up.”
The boys harnessed the mule and climbed onto the wobbly wagon. They got just into Goat Alley when Mickey declared, “We need to set the wheels straight so all our stuff doesn’t fall off on the way down.”
“Okay,” answered Farina, “but we have to make it crooked when we’re done.”
“We will,” promised Mickey.
“Don’t we need clamps like Anderson let us borrow?” asked Jackie. “There are a lot of tools in the shed in my backyard.”
Farina turned left and about a block later stopped between Joe and Jackie’s houses. The boys got off the wagon, and Jackie led them to the shed where there indeed clamps like Mr. Anderson had shown them how to use.
“We need oil too, right?” asked Joe?
“Yeah, there’s some here.”
Working together, the quartet tightened and oiled the axles of the wagon. It took the better part of an hour but when they got on and started up, it ran very smoothly.
“Great job, men!” complimented Mickey. They made it up and over the hill to the junkyard easily.
Mary and Mango were left to run the lemonade stand themselves, but they were used to it by now. Mango couldn’t wait to tell Mary everything she knew about Farina getting revenge on the rest of the gang. Mary tried to act disapprovingly, concerned that the boys were going too far and risked serious injury, but broke down into laughter on several occasions.
“Maybe they’ll learn from this and stop before it gets out of hand.”
“I think they’ll keep at it for some time,” opined Mango.
Mary sighed. “You’re probably right.”
The girls then discussed how much longer they were going to run the lemonade stand. It was getting kind of boring, and there had to be other things to do in the summer.
Around noon, Moonshine Mose showed up and bought a glass of lemonade as he did a couple days before, but this time the rest of the block was empty. As he was walking away, he pulled a banana peel out of his pocket, threw it on the sidewalk ahead of him so the girls couldn’t see, and then deliberately stepped on it and fell in a controlled fashion to the ground.
“Are you all right?” Mary asked as the concerned girls came running up to him.
“I … I think so,” responded Mose.
A black sedan quickly pulled up even with the threesome with initials of “M.” The back door opened, and Blow-em-up Baker emerged. Baker grabbed Mango just as Mose, getting up grabbed Mary. The men threw the girls into the back seat, with Mose getting in between them. Baker then opened the front passenger door and got in next to Red Mike, who was driving. The car took off, less than ten seconds after it had stopped for the very efficient operation.
“What is this?” asked a confused Mango.
“I think it’s a kidnapping,” answered a nervous Mary.
Mickey, Joe, Jackie, and Farina took a couple hours to scavenge the junkyard and gather new materials for their gym. Another mattress, some tires and water bottles, and more lengths of metal and wood were loaded onto the wagon. But unbeknownst to them, Toughy was spying on the foursome. He overheard enough of their conversation to determine that they had been training for a future fight with the Tiger Cubs of Wildcat Alley, and that they had to restock their gym.
That wouldn’t do according to Toughy. This gang had lied to the police trying to get his gang in more trouble, and thought that they would become good enough fighters to lick his gang. He would see to it that that didn’t happen. Toughy crept over to Dinah, and examined the harness when the boys were out of sight in the middle of the junk. He took out his pocketknife and cut ninety percent of the way through the four ropes that attached Dinah to the wagon, and then hid behind a tree.
The four boys of the gang loaded the last of their new boxing equipment onto the wagon and got on. Farina and Mickey were in front and Joe and Jackie in back, hanging onto the gear and the side railing of the wagon. Farina pulled on the ropes signaling Dinah to get moving. The mule, who had been just off to the side of the dirt road, trotted onto the road and turned left, headed up the steep hill. A few seconds into the climb, one of the ropes Toughy had cut broke, and then the other three snapped in rapid succession. Two of the ropes Farina had were still connected to the front axle, but that would provide only limited steering. The wagon, rolling smoothly, quickly accelerated down the steep hill – backwards.
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Post by RJH on Oct 5, 2014 23:03:40 GMT -5
“What’s a kidnapping?” asked Mango.
“That’s when the bad guys take someone and keep them until a ransom, that is, a lot of money, is paid,” answered Mary.
“So are we being kidnapped?”
“Just your friend,” replied Blow-em-up Baker turning back from the front passenger seat. “It’s not worth kidnapping poor people because their families don’t have any money to pay a ransom.”
“How do you know my family is poor?”
“Last week we saw your brother walking up that dirt road you live on wearing just a barrel.”
“That’s because he smelled like skunk and our mother didn’t want him stinking up any up more clothes. He doesn’t have a lot.”
“That’s what I mean. A rich family wouldn’t care if one more set of clothes got dirty.”
“So why are you taking Mango?” asked Mary.
“She has a very important part to play in this,” responded Moonshine Mose. “She’s going to take this ransom note to your parents and deliver the ransom money. We’ve seen enough to know that she knows where you live.” Mary read the note. “If you want you’re dotter back, have the girl who delivers this note leave $10,000 in a paper bag on the park bench at 3 pm the day after you get this. If you say anything about this to the cops, you will never see your dotter again. Don’t do anything stoopid, someone will be watching.”
Mary looked at the kidnappers. “That ‘you’re’ should be “your,” with no apostrophe and the final ‘e.’ What you wrote is the contraction for ‘you are.’ And ‘daughter’ is spelled d-a-u-g-h-t-e-r, ‘stupid’ is s-t-u-p-i-d, and that last comma should be a semicolon.”
“Kidnappers don’t need to use good grammar!” answered Baker. “Now do both of you understand the note?”
“I get it,” said Mary. “Mango, do you understand what you have to do?”
“I go to your house, and give this to your parents, and tomorrow they’ll give me a bag with the money and I put it on the park bench.”
“Yes, oh wait, my parents won’t be home. You should give this to my gardener instead.”
“I don’t think I know your gardener.”
“He looks just like Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Anderson.”
“Okay, I got that.”
Then Mary realized there was a problem. “Hold it, it’s Friday afternoon. “By the time my father gets the note, the banks will be closed and they won’t reopen until Monday. He won’t be able to get the money until then.”
“So we have to keep her an extra two or three days?” asked Red Mike, the driver.
“You could let us go now and kidnap me again on Monday.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“Hold on!” cried out Mose. “If we let her go now, she won’t be around on Monday to let us kidnap her again.”
“Oh right,” admitted Baker. “So will we have to keep her the whole weekend?”
“We’ll need more food then,” noted Mike.
“I’ve got it covered,” assured Mose.
The car stopped a couple blocks from Mary’s house.
“Okay kid,” instructed Mose to Mango. “Here’s where you get off.”
Mary gave Mango the note. “Try to stay calm, Mango, and do what they say. I’ll see you in a few days. But remember, you can’t say anything about this to the police either. You’ll probably have to talk to your parents so tell them that the police must never hear about this. Got it?”
“I got it,” declared Mango. The men let Mango out of the car and she headed toward Mary’s house.
Dinah was surprised but didn’t object when the heavy load she was pulling uphill suddenly disappeared. With no driver to give commands, the mule did what she considered the sensible thing. She walked over the hill and then down Goat Alley to Farina and Mango’s yard, nudged open the gate with her nose, went inside the yard, push the gate closed, and nestled down in the hay in the barn.
The wagon, not wobbling since the boys had straightened the axles so well, was speeding backwards downhill at twenty miles per hour before they could decide on any course of action. At that speed, jumping out would cause serious injury, so they held on tight. The wagon shot off the end of the dirt road and entered a thinly wooded region. Looking over their shoulders, Mickey and Farina pulled on the ropes that rotated the front axle. This had a very limited effect, but somehow they managed to avoid all the trees. They did hit some bumps, and some of the gear they had just acquired bounced out of the wagon.
“What’s going on?” yelled Joe.
“I think the ropes were cut!” shouted back Mickey.
“They must have been. They were fine before,” claimed Farina. “Now don’t bother the motorman.”
The wagon emerged from the woods, ran over a curb, and barreled down a road into a business part of town. Several pedestrians jumped out of the way of the backwards moving vehicle, and a few cars had to swerve to get out of the way. One man carrying a huge number of boxes leaped out of the way just in time, sending the boxes falling in every direction. Then the wagon clipped one leg of a fruit stand, collapsing it and sending hundreds of pieces of various fruit rolling down the street.
The street leveled off for a few blocks, but the wagon, now going thirty miles per hour, barely slowed down. It bumped into a ladder being used to paint a sign above the door of a building. As the ladder keeled over, two cans of paint were jarred off, splattering red paint on the suits and dresses of six passers-by, causing the three women to scream. At the next intersection, a man had to run the last half way across the street. Looking at the wagon, he didn’t see the man laying cement in front of him. The pedestrian crashed into the worker, sending them both face-first into the wet cement.
A block later, the left wheels, on the right side of the road, splashed through a mud puddle, splattering four boys waiting at a bus stop. The boys could only shake their fists at the out-of-control vehicle as it sped away. Then the wagon converged on a six-year-old boy riding a scooter.
“Watch where you’re scootin’!” shouted Jackie.
The boy turned around, and fell off his scooter in shock. He lay flat on his back as the wagon passed over him and his scooter, leaving him unscathed. Fortunately the wagon had a large clearance over the ground. “Sorry ‘bout that!” apologized Farina, facing backwards as the wagon quickly left the scooting boy behind.
The wagon sped through another block and encountered another downhill. By this time the police had been alerted, and three cars were dispatched in pursuit. The wagon hit a bump and one of the old tires the gang had gotten from the junkyard fell out, causing one police car to swerve and crash into a fountain. Then one of the wooden boards fell out of the wagon, and a couple of protruding nails caused the second police car to get two flat tires. That car spun out of control and crashed through a bedding store window, causing pillow feathers to fly all over the place.
Farther down town, a long freight train with many boxcars and flatcars was crossing the road on tracks lying on a built-up embankment about three feet high. The wagon hurtled down the road toward the train. Now moving forty miles per hour, the wagon would be at the railroad crossing long before the train cleared. The last police car chased the wagon, but the officers couldn’t do anything to slow down the speeding wagon, and the driver slammed on the brakes five seconds before it would have hit the train. It screeched to a halt, blowing out the front tires, but there was no stopping the gang’s wagon.
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