My Great-grandfather Turns 12 Today (16 page)

“And,” I heard a voice say as we got closer, “it even has a pair of
scissors!
”

“That’s got to be the prettiest pen knife I ever did see,” another said.

“Cost me ten dollars, it did,” the first replied. “Only one in old Mr. Wilkins’ store.”

Hey!

“Didn’t take him long to turn a profit on that, eh?” Pat whispered to both of us as he shouldered his way up to the table. “The Farrell family,” he said, slapping the five dollar bill down.

“Farrell,” said Mr. Meyer, the banker, writing the name down on a list. “Sean and . . .”

“Pat and Charlie,” Pat said.

“Charlie?” said the young man who now owned my knife. I could see it was one of Mr. Meyer’s older boys, Matthew. He laughed. “Little Charlie? You’ve got to be joking.”

“The rules say any two members of a family can make up a team,” Pat said to Mr. Meyer. “We’re family.”

“I can see now this is going to be
really
hard,” Mark Meyer said.

“Well, that’s the twentieth team,” Mr. Meyer said, pocketing the money. “I expect we might just as well begin.”

“I think I need to visit the outhouse,” Charlie said quietly to Pat.

“No time,” Pat answered. “Come on. And, Michael?”

“What?” I answered.

“Fetch my horseshoes from out of the wagon, will you? I want to be ready.”

“You brought your own horseshoes?” Matthew Meyer asked.

“And a sack to carry home all our money,” Pat answered.

By the time I had retrieved the shoes and returned to the little park, all the contestants were up on the bandstand. Most looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old. Some might have been a little older. They were standing in a line, two by two.

I went over to where the family had gathered. Aunt Mary’s sister Margaret and her family were there, too. I waved at Pat so he could see I had gotten the horseshoes. He smiled and waved back.

“This first round,” announced a fat man in a brown suit and vest with a gold chain going from one pocket to the other, “will follow the same general rules as any spelling bee.”

“Who’s that?” I asked Jerome.

“Mr. Palmer,” he said. “He runs the newspaper.”

“Charlie looks scared,” I said.

“Charlie looks as if he’s about to wet his drawers,” he answered.

“Here,” said Aunt Margaret, stuffing something into my coat pocket. “Mary tells me you had a birthday but no present.”

“No,” I said, “I . . .”

“Keep them,” she answered. “Pictures. Came with some cigarettes your Uncle Kevin bought.”

“Thank you, I . . .”

“What’s that coat made of?” a woman standing behind us demanded. “Is that silk or is it satin?”

“Nylon,” I said.

“Ni-what?”

“Question number one,” Mr. Palmer boomed from the bandstand. “How many states in this great union of ours?”

The two young men at the head of the line looked relieved.

“Really tough,” I muttered to Jerome. “Fifty.”

“Forty-five!” one of the boys said and I laughed.

“Correct!” Mr. Palmer answered and the crowd cheered.

Chapter 26

They Pick . . . Me

Pat and Charlie were next.

“Name the planet farthest from the sun,” Mr. Palmer said.

I leaned over to Jerome. “Mickey Mouse’s dog,” I said.

“What?”

“Pluto. Mickey Mouse’s dog.”

“Neptune,” said Charlie and I figured that was the end of that.

“Correct!” said Mr. Palmer and the crowd cheered.

It went on like that for another hour. There were questions about fertilizer and wind and rain and history and geography and astronomy, and I would have missed almost all of them. For instance, one was to name the last state admitted to the United States. Utah.

Utah?

Fortunately, some of the other families were missing some answers, too. When they got down to only eight teams, Mr. Palmer ended the round and everyone got to take a break. Charlie went scooting off the bandstand. My bet was he was looking for an outhouse.

Pat was beaming when he came over to see us. “Great so far, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Very good, young Patrick,” Uncle Peter said. “Your mother and I are proud of both of you.”

“Is Charlie all right?” Aunt Mary asked.

“Fine, Ma,” Pat answered, “but so far the questions have been awfully easy.”

Charlie was back before the second round began. Instead of questions and answers there was a tug of war, a team at each end of the rope with a large mud puddle between the two teams. The losers were pulled right into it. Mr. Meyer stood next to the water and laughed as his big sons dragged two other young men through the muck.

At the end of the round the Farrell team was still standing and still wearing clean clothes. So were the Meyers and two other families. That round took only fifteen minutes or so.

“We’re going to win!” Sissie gushed out loud. “We’re going to win the money!”

Mr. Meyer overheard her and turned toward the family. “Oh, it’s not over yet,” he said. “Only half way. There’s a lot left yet.”

“He’s got something planned,” I heard Aunt Mary whisper to Uncle Peter. “I just
know
it!”

The third round was a spelling contest and the contestants had to recite poetry from memory, too. It took about half an hour and then only the Meyers and the Farrells were left.

Matthew and Mark Meyer looked awfully confident, considering the fact that Pat Farrell was the best in the county at throwing horseshoes. And Pat looked awfully happy as he and Charlie ran over to us.

“The final round will begin in five minutes,” Mr. Palmer said.

“You still have those two horseshoes?” Pat asked and I nodded. “I just guess I’m ready for them now.”

They were big and heavy and I had set them down by my feet. I reached down to get them and just then Sissie said, “Cousin Michael.” So I was looking over at her and didn’t notice Pat had also bent over to get the horseshoes. When I brought my hand up with them in it, I hit him right in the side of the head and he dropped like bag of potatoes.

He was out cold.

“Cousin Michael,” Sissie said, “that’s Luke Meyer over there.”

“What?”

She was pointing at some little kid running around Mr. Meyer. “He’s my age.”

At the same time Aunt Mary had gasped and Uncle Peter had knelt down beside Pat and began to gently tap him on the cheek with his hand. People were crowding around but I saw Pat open his eyes and he looked pretty spacey.

“Give him air,” Sean growled at the people. “Back away.”

“I’m all right,” Pat said. “I’m fine.” He looked around. He looked lost.

“We’re at the festival,” Uncle Peter said. “You and Charlie are finalist in the contest.”

He stared. Then he blinked. Then he stared some more.

Someone had had sense enough to get the doctor and he pushed his way through the crowd and knelt beside Uncle Peter.

“What happened, son?” he asked Pat.

“Michael hit him in the head,” Catherine said. “Real hard.”

“I . . . .” I began. “I was just . . . . And then she . . . .” I didn’t want to blame Sissie. It wasn’t her fault.

The doctor checked Pat’s eyes and his pulse and he had someone bring the boy a glass of water. “He’ll be fine,” the doctor assured Aunt Mary and Uncle Peter. “But he’ll have one mighty big headache for a while yet.”

“But can he pitch horseshoes?” Charlie asked.

“I can!” Pat said, starting to get up. “I can’t,” he said, falling back down.

“Easy, Pat,” Uncle Peter said. “It’s all right.”

“Then I guess the contest is over,” someone said. I looked over that way. It was Matthew Meyer. He was sporting a big, toothy grin.

“Yeah,” his brother agreed.

“Wait!” Charlie said.

“For what?” Matthew Meyer asked. “Until his chimes stop ringing?”

“We can use a substitute,” Charlie said.

“That’s not in the rules,” Matthew answered.

“That’s not
against
the rules,” Charlie argued. “Ask your pa. Ask him if we can use a substitute.”

The crowd parted and there was Mr. Meyer. “How about it, Pa?” Matthew asked.

“Well, now,” Mr. Meyer said, “I suppose, under the right conditions that might be . . .”

“What conditions?” Uncle Peter asked.

“Have to be a family member, of course,” Mr. Meyer said and Uncle Peter nodded. “And . . . and my boys here would get to pick him.”

“Now, wait . . .” Uncle Peter said.

“Him!” Matthew Meyer immediately said. “In the funny jacket. Him! Him! Him!”

He was pointing straight at me.

Chapter 27

Hoops? Hoops!

“I can’t,” I said, feeling sick because I knew I was going to lose the tournament and that meant losing the farm.

“Never met a Farrell couldn’t pitch a horseshoe,” some man said.

“Or pitch woo,” another answered and a bunch of people laughed.

“Right on both accounts,” Uncle Peter said. “We can toss the shoes and we know how to court the ladies. Now watch as our cousin Michael here . . .”

“Not horseshoes,” Matthew Meyer said. “No one ever said the final round would be horseshoes.”

“But Founders’ Day always has a horseshoe-pitching contest,” Sean said. “Everyone knows that any contest would include . . .”

“A new game,” Matthew Meyer said. “Sweeping the country. All the rage in the cities. Being played up at State.”

“State?” I asked.

“The state college,” Charlie said. “Matthew goes away to school, to college. He’s just home for the summer.”

“You two will like it,” Mark Meyer said. “Matthew and I have been practicing for the last two weeks now, but you’ll get the hang of it real fast.” Then he and his brother and their father laughed.

“I knew it,” Aunt Mary whispered.

“What new game?” Uncle Peter asked.

“You’ll see,” Matthew Meyer said. “Come on. Over to the dance floor.”

A dance contest! Charlie and I were going to be competing in a dance contest?

Aunt Mary stayed with Pat, who still wasn’t ready to stand up, but the rest of us walked over to the other side of the little park where the wooden dance floor had been set up. Spectators lined the perimeter of the floor and the Meyer boys and Mr. Palmer walked out into the middle of it. Mr. Palmer was holding a ball, about the size of a soccer ball or a volleyball only made out of dark brown leather.

“Come along, boys,” he said to Charlie and me. “I’ll explain the rules, as best I understand them. The object here is to take the ball and put it up through one of those, without letting your opponent put it through the other one.”

What was he talking about? I looked to where he was pointing. The dance floor was a rectangle. At each of the shorter ends, a post about ten feet tall was sticking straight up, and about eight feet up on the post a wicker basket with the bottom missing was nailed to it.