Draanen Wendelin Van - Flipped

It was a bargain.

Then they cut down the sycamore tree. And two weeks later Champ died. He’d been spending a lot of time sleeping, and even though we didn’t really know how old he was, no one was really surprised when one night Dad went out to feed him and discovered he was dead. We buried him in the backyard, and my brothers put up a cross that reads:

HERE LIES THE MYSTERY PISSER

P.I.P.

I was upset and pretty dazed for a while. It was raining a lot and I was riding my bike to school to avoid having to take the bus, and each day when I’d get home, I’d retreat to my room, lose myself in a novel, and simply forget about collecting eggs.

Mrs. Stueby was the one who got me back on schedule. She called to say she’d read about the tree in the paper and was sorry about everything that had happened, but it had been some time now and she missed her eggs and was worried that my hens might quit laying. “Distress can push a bird straight into a molting, and we wouldn’t want that! Feathers everywhere and not an egg in sight. I’m quite allergic to the feathers myself or I’d probably have a flock of my own, but never you mind. You just bring ’em over when you’re up to it. All’s I wanted was to check in and let you know how sorry I was about the tree. And your dog, too. Your mother mentioned he passed away.”

So I got back to work. I cleared away the eggs I’d neglected and got back into my routine of collecting and cleaning. And one morning when I had enough, I made the rounds. First Mrs. Stueby, then Mrs. Helms, and finally the Loskis. And as I stood at the Loskis’ threshold, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Bryce in the longest time. Sure, we’d both been at school, but I’d been so preoccupied with other things that I hadn’t really seen him.

My heart started beating faster, and when the door whooshed open and his blue eyes looked right at me, it took everything I had just to say, “Here.”

He took the half-carton and said, “You know, you don’t have to give us these….”

“I know,” I said, and looked down.

We stood there for a record-breaking amount of time saying nothing. Finally he said, “So are you going to start riding the bus again?”

I looked up at him and shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t been up there since… you know.”

“It doesn’t look so bad anymore. It’s all cleared. They’ll probably start on the foundation soon.”

It sounded perfectly awful to me.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve got to get ready for school. See you there.” Then he smiled and closed the door.

For some reason I just stood there. I felt odd. Out of sorts. Disconnected from everything around me. Was I ever going to go back up to Collier Street? I had to eventually, or so my mother said. Was I just making it harder?

Suddenly the door flew open and Bryce came hurrying out with an overfull kitchen trash can in his hands. “Juli!” he said. “What are you still doing here?”

He startled me, too. I didn’t know what I was still doing there. And I was so flustered that I would probably just have run home if he hadn’t started struggling with the trash, trying to shove the contents down.

I reached over and said, “Do you need some help?” because it looked like he was about to spill the trash. Then I saw the corner of an egg carton.

This wasn’t just any egg carton either. It was my egg carton. The one I’d just brought him. And through the little blue cardboard arcs I could see eggs.

I looked from him to the eggs and said, “What happened? Did you drop them?”

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Yeah, and I’m really sorry about that.”

He tried to stop me, but I took the carton from the trash, saying, “All of them?” I opened the carton and gasped. Six whole, perfect eggs. “Why’d you throw them away?”

He pushed past me and went around the house to the trash bin, and I followed him, waiting for an answer.

He shook the garbage out, then turned to face me. “Does the word salmonella mean anything to you?”

“Salmonella? But… ”

“My mom doesn’t think it’s worth the risk.”

I followed him back to the porch. “Are you saying she won’t eat them because—”

“Because she’s afraid of being poisoned.”

“Poisoned! Why?”

“Because your backyard is, like, covered in turds! I mean, look at your place, Juli!” He pointed at our house and said, “Just look at it. It’s a complete dive!”

“It is not!” I cried, but the truth was sitting right across the street, impossible to deny. My throat suddenly choked closed and I found it painful to speak. “Have you… always thrown them away?”

He shrugged and looked down. “Juli, look. We didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“My feelings? Do you realize Mrs. Stueby and Mrs. Helms pay me for my eggs?”

“You’re kidding.”

“No! They pay me two dollars a dozen!”

“No way.”

“It’s true! All those eggs I gave to you I could’ve sold to Mrs. Stueby or Mrs. Helms!”

“Oh,” he said, and looked away. Then he eyed me and said, “Well, why did you just give them to us?”

I was fighting back tears, but it was hard. I choked out, “I was trying to be neighborly…!”

He put down the trash can, then did something that made my brain freeze. He held me by the shoulders and looked me right in the eyes. “Mrs. Stueby’s your neighbor, isn’t she? So’s Mrs. Helms, right? Why be neighborly to us and not them?”

What was he trying to say? Was it still so obvious how I felt about him? And if he knew, how could he have been so heartless, just throwing my eggs away like that, week after week, year after year?

I couldn’t find any words. None at all. I just stared at him, at the clear, brilliant blue of his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Juli,” he whispered.

I stumbled home, embarrassed and confused, my heart completely cracked open.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d traded in my old problems with Juli Baker for a whole new set of problems with Juli Baker. I could feel her anger a mile away.

It was actually worse having her mad at me than having her harass me. Why? Because I’d screwed up, that’s why. I had egg all over my face, and blaming it on her yard had done nothing to wash it off. The way she ignored me, or so obviously avoided me, was a screaming loud reminder to me that I’d been a jerk. A royal cluck-faced jerk.

Then one day I’m coming home from hanging out with Garrett after school, and there’s Juli in her front yard, hacking at a shrub. She is thrashing on the thing. Branches are flying over her shoulder, and clear across the street I can hear her grunting and growling and saying stuff like, “No… you… don’t! You are coming… off… whether you like it or… not!”

Did I feel good about this? No, my friend, I did not. Yeah, their yard was a mess, and it was about time someone did something about it, but c’mon — where’s the dad? What about Matt and Mike? Why Juli?

Because I’d embarrassed her into it, that’s why. I felt worse than ever.

So I snuck inside and tried to ignore the fact that here’s my desk and here’s my window, and right across the street from me is Juli, beating up a bush. Not conducive to concentration. No siree, Bob. I got all of zero homework done.

The next day at school I was trying to get up the nerve to say something to her, but I never even got the chance. She wouldn’t let me get anywhere near her.

Then on the ride home I had this thought. It kind of freaked me out at first, but the more I played with it, the more I figured that, yeah, helping her with the yard would make up for my having been such a jerk. Assuming she didn’t boss me too much, and assuming she didn’t decide to get all gooey-eyed or something stupid like that. No, I’d go up and just tell her that I felt bad for being a jerk and I wanted to make it up to her by helping her cut back some bushes. Period. End of story. And if she still wanted to be mad at me after that, then fine. That was her problem.

My problem was, I never got the chance. I came trekking down from the bus stop to find my grandfather doing my good deed.

Now, jump back. This was not something I could immediately absorb. My grandfather did not do yard work. At least, he’d never offered to help me out. My grandfather lived in house slippers — where’d he get those work boots? And those jeans and that flannel shirt — what was up with those?

I crouched behind a neighbor’s hedge and watched them for ten or fifteen minutes, and man, the longer I watched, the madder I got. My grandfather had already said more to her in this little slice of time than he’d said to me the whole year and a half he’d been living with us. What was his deal with Juli Baker?

I took the back way home, which involved climbing two fences and kicking off the neighbor’s stupid little terrier, but it was worth it, considering I avoided the garden party across the street.

Again I got no homework done. The more I watched them, the madder I got. I was still a cluck-faced jerk, while Juli was laughing it up with my grandfather. Had I ever seen him smile? Really smile? I don’t think so! But now he was knee-high in nettles, laughing.

At dinner that night he’d showered and changed back into his regular clothes and house slippers, but he didn’t look the same. It was like someone had plugged him in and turned on the light.

“Good evening,” he said as he sat down with the rest of us. “Oh, Patsy, that looks delicious!”

“Well, Dad,” my mom said with a laugh, “your excursion across the street seems to have done you a world of good.”

“Yeah,” my father said. “Patsy tells me you’ve been over there all afternoon. If you were in the mood for home improvement projects, why didn’t you just say so?”

My father was just joking around, but I don’t think my grandfather took it that way. He helped himself to a cheese-stuffed potato and said, “Pass the salt, won’t you, Bryce?”

So there was this definite tension between my father and my grandfather, but I think if Dad had dropped the subject right then, the vibe would’ve vanished.

Dad didn’t drop it, though. Instead, he said, “So why’s the girl the one who’s finally doing something about their place?”

My grandfather salted his potato very carefully, then looked across the table at me. Ah-oh, I thought. Ah-oh. In a flash I knew those stupid eggs were not behind me. Two years of sneaking them in the trash, two years of avoiding discussion of Juli and her eggs and her chickens and her early-morning visits, and for what? Granddad knew, I could see it in his eyes. In a matter of seconds he’d crack open the truth, and I’d be as good as fried.

Enter a miracle. My grandfather petrified me for a minute with his eyes but then turned to my father and said, “She wants to, is all.”

A raging river of sweat ran down my temples, and as my father said, “Well, it’s about time someone did,” my grandfather looked back at me and I knew—he was not going to let me forget this. We’d just had another conversation, only this time I was definitely not dismissed.

After the dishes were cleared, I retreated to my room, but my grandfather came right in, closed the door behind him, and then sat on my bed. He did this all without making a sound. No squeaking, no clanking, no scraping, no breathing… I swear, the guy moved through my room like a ghost.

And of course I’m banging my knee and dropping my pencil and deteriorating into a pathetic pool of Jell-O. But I tried my best to sound cool as I said, “Hello, Granddad. Come to check out the digs?”

He pinched his lips together and looked at nothing but me.

I cracked. “Look, Granddad, I know I messed up. I should’ve just told her, but I couldn’t. And I kept thinking they’d stop. I mean, how long can a chicken lay eggs? Those things hatched in the fifth grade! That was like, three years ago! Don’t they eventually run out? And what was I supposed to do? Tell her Mom was afraid of salmonella poisoning? And Dad wanted me to tell her we were allergic—c’mon, who’s going to buy that? So I just kept, you know, throwing them out. I didn’t know she could’ve sold them. I thought they were just extras.”

He was nodding, but very slowly.

I sighed and said, “Thank you for not saying anything about it at dinner. I owe you.”

He pulled my curtain aside and looked across the street. “One’s character is set at an early age, son. The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.” He was quiet for a minute, then dropped the curtain and said, “I hate to see you swim out so far you can’t swim back.”