Freckled by Tw Neal

Freckled by Tw Neal

Author:Tw Neal [Neal, Tw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781732771215
Amazon: 1732771219
Publisher: Toby Neal
Published: 2018-12-04T00:00:00+00:00


Now that we’re in Hanalei, with flat roads and everything accessible, I get a rusty old banana seat bike at a garage sale and ride to fifth grade at Hanalei School. Bonny’s staying home and doing Calvert, so I’m on my own this time. I’m delighted to find that my old friend, Tita, and her mom have moved to a house right across from the Wai`oli Hui`ia Church in the center of town. I swing by her place in the mornings, and we bike the couple of blocks further to school.

I need money now that I have a place to spend it, with Ching Young Store a mere bike ride away. Doug, our neighbor in one of the cottages and technically the Estate’s handyman, is a heavy-browed man whose name, dark demeanor, and main occupation have lent themselves to the nickname “Drug.”

“Bring me all the magic mushrooms you can find when you’re out in the pasture shoveling that cow shit,” he tells me. “I’ll pay you a dime for small ones and a quarter for the big ones.”

This seems like a great deal when sugar-laden candy bars sell for a quarter. I’m still scared of cows after the Bull Incident at Kala’s house, but the cattle are usually in the pasture across from the pond, so on my manure pickup runs, I check each cow pie for mushrooms before shoveling it out of the grass and into the barrow.

“Magic” mushrooms are small modest umbrellas of almost transparent silver-gray. They’re delicate, and get crushed if put in a bag, so I bring along a glass artichoke jar with a wide mouth for collecting. I’ve known that grownups like to get high and trip out on these since the Forest House, but I’ve never been even remotely interested in trying them myself. I’m scared of being out of control like I’ve seen people acting: silly and giggly, or staring into space seeing things that aren’t there—and with my imagination, who knows what I might see?

Shrooms grow from spores, so I encourage that. If I find an old or dried-up looking cow pie, I’ll sometimes squish a mushroom up and rub it into the surface, leaving it so more can grow.

This goes on a while, and one day I take my jar of shrooms to Drug’s cottage.

“Doug?”

He’s frowning and looks like a pirate as he comes to his screen door in loose surf trunks, scratching his hairy belly. “Whaddaya want?”

I keep my eyes on his face, away from the bearlike pelt of his chest and below. “Your shrooms. Got some big ones in here.”

Doug takes the jar from me, stirs it with a finger. “I’ll count them and get back to you.”

“I already counted them. There are eighteen. Six are the big size.”

Doug narrows cold brown eyes at me, and I squint back. I don’t trust Drug not to cheat me out of a quarter or two.

Doug slams the door and walks back inside. I cock it open and peer in after him. He opens a large wooden box, and a powerful wave of pakalolo reek rolls out to greet me.



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