Josie Bloom and the Emergency of Life by Susan Hill Long

Author:Susan Hill Long
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Published: 2020-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

I found Winky at the ball field. I waited while he used his ever-ready magnifier to read page 67 of All-Time All-Sports—which Mr. Mee himself had ripped (he used a ruler, wicked neat) right out of the magazine. I watched him as he read about the noises and the rules and the schedule, the blindfolds and the specially made ball.

“That oughta cheer you up!” I said when he looked up and let the magnifying glass drop to his chest.

Winky stared at me.

“I mean after the thing with Joe Viola.”

He blinked a whole lot.

“Does it?” I asked. “Cheer… you up?”

Winky stood there counting to ten or something. Then he threw his arms around me, pinning mine to my sides. Then he released me. “Come on!” he said.

We followed the shortcut through the pines and got to Winky’s house in no time flat. I took the porch steps in one stride and got whacked in the head by one of Mr. Wheaton’s pull-up rings, which hang on blue webbing straps from overhead hooks. Mr. Wheaton is something of a fitness fanatic. Winky got the key from where it’s always stashed under the mat, and stuck it in the lock. Wink’s parents keep the house locked even though they are almost always at home. “In case they come looking for me,” is what Mr. Wheaton says about that.

As usual, Wink’s dad was sprawled on the couch, the TV on full blast. Mr. Wheaton sported a muscle-shirt on which was printed I FLEXED AND THE SLEEVES FELL OFF. The message was distended partly by comic design and partly by the fabric being stretched to its limit across Mr. Wheaton’s perfectly round stomach and leaving bare the shady underbelly like an unwholesome Winnie the Pooh. (I said he was something of a fitness fanatic.) Through the open door to the back room, Mrs. Wheaton could be seen sitting up in bed, wearing a flowered housecoat and sewing on a book cozy.

Both the parents froze, as if startled to see children in their house.

“But I love you, Brock!” said a breathy voice out of the TV.

“Turn it off!” Winky said. “Quit stitching!”

I’m telling you, I was surprised by his teacher-like tone. And so must his parents have been because they did what they were told.

“What is it?” said Mr. Wheaton, thudding his stocking feet to the floor and aiming the TV clicker so enthusiastically that the tattooed hula dancer on his bicep wiggled her grass skirt. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wheaton shoved her rolling table aside, casters squealing, and rose from her bed to reveal—like the time-lapse photograph of the Amazon Rainforest we saw in science class—the full length and width of her flowered housecoat.

“I have an announcement,” said Winky.

“Yeah,” I said.

“There’s such thing as the National Beep Baseball League, and I want to join.”

Mr. Wheaton craned his neck over the back of the couch to throw a look at Mrs. Wheaton.

“Well, isn’t that a thing!” Mrs. Wheaton said as she made her way to the couch.

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