HUGH AND THE CAPER
It wasn’t until two days later that the
gang saw Hugh again.
Joshua thought Hugh might be feeling badly
about almost crying in front of them and was likely avoiding the gang. So when he saw Ellen in the corner store and
she was staring at a just-put-up circus poster and hugging herself he thought
about Hugh and telling him about the circus.
"I’d forgotten it was coming!"
Ellen said, dancing on one foot and then the other. "I forgot it was
coming. Oh, I can hardly wait."
Joshua stood with a dancing-around-Ellen
and looked at the bright yellow and red poster. He read the large print. He read the small print. Then he read the little box in the lower
right hand corner and he wanted to dance too.
"Look at that," he whispered to
Ellen because he was afraid he might shout. "Look at that, will you!"
Ellen looked. "Oh," she said but
she was not all that interested. She
liked to watch the daredevil motorcyclists ride up the side of a huge barrel
but she didn’t care that they were going to raffle off one of their
motorcycles.
"It’s likely an old one," she
told Joshua but he was so excited he barely heard her and would not have cared
– in fact, he would likely have preferred an old bike, it would carry the
excitement of its history.
"I’ll tell the gang," Ellen
said.
"I’ll tell Hugh," Joshua said.
Ellen stopped on her way out of the store
and Joshua, who was hurrying along behind her, crashed into her.
"Oooomph," they both said. "Who’s Hugh?" asked Ellen.
"You know, the new kid in the
neighbourhood. That English boy."
"Why do you want to tell him?"
Ellen wanted to know. She had seen the smile he gave Ingrid and the memory of
it made her wrinkle her nose.
"I don’t know. Maybe he’s lonely and would like to come
along with us."
Ellen went to the right to find Lucy and
Ingrid and Piya and Sam. Joshua started
off down the street to the left to tell Bill but then when he got to Orchard
Street he turned there and decided to tell Hugh first.
He was worried about having to walk up to
the McGregor’s old house and ring the bell. He was nervous about doing something new – he’d never called on Hugh
before – but mostly he was scared to see the changes in the McGregor’s house. He didn’t like change. He’d liked Mr. and Mrs. McGregor and their
pretty grown-up daughter even if she was "still unmarried and living at
home" as Bill said his mother said. He didn’t want to see new furniture and another car in the driveway.
But he didn’t have to go up to the
door. Hugh was sitting on an old tire
in the front yard. Mr. McGregor had
buried it half way in the ground and painted it white and then drawn his house
numbers on it. The 4 and the 2 had worn
completely away but you could still see part of the 8. Hugh was straddling it
like a horse.
"Hi," Joshua said.
"Hi," Hugh answered.
"Want to go to the circus?"
Joshua asked.
"Where and when and ‘ow much?"
Hugh asked in a funny voice and then laughed, "That’s what my mum will say
when I ask her. For myself – I’ll just
say – Yeah,"
Joshua laughed. "Well, for her – the answers are it starts Friday night up
at the Park and it costs to get into the tents but you can walk around the
midway for free. Sometimes they’ll let
you take a peek into the tents without paying."
Hugh was pulling a thread in the top of
his socks and Joshua wondered if the circus did not appeal to him.
"We could win a motorcycle," he
added.
"What?" asked Hugh, perking up.
"We could win a bike. The Daredevils are going to raffle off one
of their bikes. Boy, would I ever love
to have a bike the Daredevils rode." He curled his fists around imaginary handlebars and curved his back
toward them.
"My uncle has a motorbike back
‘ome," Hugh said, his voice quiet. "He took me out couple o’ times. It was grand."
"You can play on it if we win
it," Joshua said.
"Who’s we? Your gang?"
"I guess."
"How’s the raffle work?"
Joshua looked at Hugh curiously. He thought everyone knew about raffles.
"You buy tickets."
"I know that. I mean, is it for
real?"
"Of course," said Joshua who had
no idea if it was or not or even what Hugh was talking about.
"Well, that’s fine then, isn’t
it. So all we have to do is weight the
odds by buying enough tickets to make sure we win. How much are they?"
"A nickel each. Six for a
quarter."
"Aye. And how many are they selling?"
"I – I don’t know," Joshua
faltered.
"Well, we’ll just buy steady then,
won’t we. How much money have we?"
Joshua ran the toe of his sneaker along
the edge of the tire.
"I don’t really know. I’ve got two dollars and something."
Hugh made an explosive sound and fell
backward off the tire onto the ground. Joshua leaned over in startle and concern. "Are you hurt?" he started to ask and then realized
Hugh was laughing.
"You are silly," Hugh said when
he could manage to talk. "You’ll
need hundreds of dollars to win the bike."
Joshua shrugged. He could BUY a bike if he had hundreds of dollars. Winning could take a lot less.
Hugh was strangely quiet for a
moment. He lie on the ground, staring
at the sky, his fingers tapping on his chest. He seemed to be thinking. Then
he scowled and looked toward the house. He seemed to come to a decision.
"Right – we’ll just have to get
several hundreds of dollars." He
sat up and hugged his knees.
"How?" Joshua wanted to know.
"We could always nick it," said
Hugh. "That’s what my gang would
have done, likely."
"Nick?" asked Joshua, not sure
he had heard correctly.
"Nick. Steal. Lift." Hugh
replied calmly.
"Oh," said Joshua, "Uh, no,
I don’t want to steal it."
"Guess you’re afraid, right?"
asked Hugh, squinting his eyes.
"You’re darned tooting I’m
afraid. Besides, we’d get caught."
"Not using my methods," Hugh
said. He’d heard someone say that in a
radio play and it sounded good then and it sounded good now. And he was rather amazed and a bit impressed
by a boy who could say straight out he was afraid to do something. "But I guess if you don’t want to steal
then we can’t. I’d need a trained bunch
to carry that off. My gang could have
done it in a jif." He missed his
gang, he did. He wondered what they
would say if they could hear him giving them such a reputation. They would have had a right good laugh.
"Right – so we don’t nick the
money. I’ll think of something. I’ve got an idea," he began to say but
then a car turned into the drive and he stood up and put on a sullen look as he
headed back toward his house.
A nice looking lady got out of the
car. "Is this your friend, then,
Hughie?" she asked, smiling back at Joshua.
"Just a kid," Hugh said and
slouched into the house. Hugh’s mother
shrugged at Joshua and followed Hugh.
The next afternoon the entire gang was in
the used car lot. It had rained in the
night and it always smelled like metal and grass after a rain beside the old
railway tracks. So the gang often chose
this spot to gather at such a time.
Ingrid was having her hair braided in
three plaits instead of two by Lucy to see how it would look. John said it was unbalanced. Joshua and Bill and Sam were trying to
figure out how to get money for the raffle tickets on the motorcycle. The carnival opened in three days time. Piya was pulling grass between her toes and
letting the flower ends stick to make foot bouquets. Ellen had a sore ear from swimming and was just lying quietly
against the side of the old Volkswagen.
"You’re blinking hard to find!"
Hugh yelled as he suddenly appeared around the weed tangled fence of the junk
yard.
"Ooooh," said Ellen, holding her
ear. She’d jumped as he hollered.
The gang looked at him and nodded or said
hi. Joshua moved over on the running
board of the almost rusted away VW so Hugh could sit but he plopped down by
Bill’s feet and put his face down inside his shirt and rubbed his sweaty
forehead with the cloth. Then he came
out again and beamed at them.
"The bike’s good as ours," he
announced and waited happily for the response. He was not disappointed. Only
Ellen remained where she was but even she looked interested. Everyone else gathered around with various
comments, "How?" "Really?" "Aw,
you’re kidding," they said. Sam shouted, "Cricket soup!" and
punched the air with his fists in his excitement.
"We’ve kidnapped a dog," Hugh
announced. "That little white one
in the blue house just around the corner from me. The ransom we get for it will pay for the raffle tickets."
The gang was speechless.
"You kidnapped the Widow Taylor’s
dog?" Ellen asked into the
silence. "You kidnapped
Sweetums?"
"If that’s the name of the dog, then
yes, WE kidnapped it," said Hugh.
"Where is it now?" Joshua asked. Everyone else seemed to have gone numb with shock.
"In your garage. In the rabbit cage."
"My garage?" Joshua stared.
"Yes," said Hugh. "The lady next door to us told me where
you lived and I went to call on you and tell you about my plan. You weren’t there but your mum told me where
I ought to be able to find you. Then,
when I was leaving, I went along your garage and I saw the cage and all the
rest of the junk in there so I guessed you didn’t put your car in as well.
Then, when I went and got the dog I put him in the cage. He’s real quiet. He ate the meat I gave him and just sat down and looked around."
Hugh stopped for breath. The entire gang was still in shock.
"I don’t believe you took Mrs.
Taylor’s dog," Ellen said and put her head back against the car and closed
her eyes.
"She could have a seizure," Piya
gulped. "She’s old."
"I did it for you blokes," Hugh
said, starting to realize the gang was not exactly thrilled with his
efforts. "And I thought up the
wording for the ransom note but someone else has to write it out because I
can’t write clearly and it has got to look right proper."
He dug a sheet of paper out of his pocket,
smoothed it out, and held it for the gang to see. It read, "IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR DOG AGAIN PUT $100 IN $2
BILLS IN A PAPER BAG AND LEAVE IT ON YOUR FRONT STOOP WHEN YOU GO TO BED
TONIGHT. DO NOT TELL ANYONE AND IF YOU
DO AS YOU ARE TOLD YOUR DOG WILL BE BACK TOMORROW MORNING. IF NOT – TOO BAD FOR YOUR DOG.
Piya said, "Oh," and started to
cry. Ingrid was chewing furiously on
her braids. Lucy jumped up and tore the
note out of Hugh’s hand and ripped it to pieces. Bill started to bite his nails and did not even care if his
mother would notice.
John said, "I don’t want a bike THAT
bad."
Joshua didn’t know what to say. Hugh looked mad and sad both at the same
time.
Then Ellen said, "You must be pretty
mad at your parents for making you move."
They all turned to stare at her.
She nodded her head slowly because her ear
was now hurting worse than ever. "I know how you feel. When we moved here from just across the city
I was so mad at my mom and dad I failed my first spelling test just to show
them. And I hid my braces for a week
and pretended I’d lost them"
Lucy looked at her twin in
astonishment. "You never told ME
all this."
"You wouldn’t have understood. You
didn’t mind moving like I did." She closed her eyes again. "Oh, my ear."
Hugh turned away from the gang and rested
his arms against the roof of the Volkswagen while he stared across the old
railway tracks. Monarch butterflies
were like hairbows dancing in the air.
"I’ll take Sweetums back,"
Joshua said to him. "I’ll pretend
he ran away and I found him."
"It’s a girl," Ingrid said
around her braids, slowly but distinctly. "Sweetums is a girl."
Hugh gave a huge sigh but did not say
anything. Joshua left and Bill went
with him.
The rest of the gang continued to sit
quietly in the warm smell of grass and metal. Piya stopped crying.