JOSHUA AND HIS GANG Chapter One
1950's. Southwestern Ontario
A TOP AND A BOTTOM AND SOMETHING BETWEEN
All of the gang were sitting around in the empty lot at the end of the block.
Joshua was polishing his glasses with spit and his shirttail. Ingrid was wrapping her incredibly long braids around and around her neck and then holding the ends of them in her teeth. Piya was wondering why Ellen and Lucy, who were twins, dressed alike but did not look at all alike. Bill was biting just a tiny bit off his nails so his mother would not know that he had. John and Sam were sitting comparatively still.
Suddenly Sam shouted. "I'm starving. I want a sangwich!"
"It's not SANGwich. It's SANDwich," said Lucy, precisely, who knew about such things.
"I say sangwich," shouted Sam. He had five older brothers and sisters. He had gotten into the habit of shouting.
"What kind?" asked Ingrid, talking around the ends of the braids in her mouth.
"Peanut butter'n'jam," hollered Sam. "What else?"
"I like peanut butter'n'honey," said Joshua. He was trying to balance his glasses backwards on his nose. The glasses were brand new: he had to get used to all aspects of them before he could just wear them.
"Yuck," said Ellen. "Honey sticks to my braces." She displayed them in a wide grin. Nobody else had braces so nobody else could comment.
"Banana. I like banana on my peanut butter sandwich." John sliced an imaginary banana with an imaginary knife into neat rounds. He did it so cleverly that everyone could SEE the banana wheels falling onto the bread spread with peanut butter.
Ingrid could SEE it so clearly tht she said, "Hey, you're using chunky peanut butter."
"Sure," John grinned. "Doubly peanuty."
"Yuck," said Ellen, "Peanuts – "
"We know, we know!" the rest yelled, "Peanuts stick in your braces."
Ellen was too proud of her braces to be upset. Besides, her mother told her the others were jealous of her braces, even her twin sister Lucy, who had perfectly straight teeth. Ellen felt sorry for her.
"I like lumpy peanut butter if it's on white bread," Bill explained, "but when my mom buys lumpy bread I want my peanut butter smooth."
They all stared at him except for Lucy who was busy trying to pick a knot out of her shoelace.
"What's lumpy bread?" asked Ingrid.
"The kind with seeds. Mom says it's healthy. I say seeds are FOR THE BIRDS," Bill made a face and laughed.
Ellen opened her mouth to say, "Yuck," but decided not to.
Someone shouted, "Bill! Bill!" out a window down the street. "Not for me," Bill said, "She's calling my dad."
"How can you tell?" Piya wanted to know.
"She says Bill different when she's calling me."
"Bill, Bill, Bill," chanted Ingrid in three different tones, but Bill pushed his lips out and shook his head.
"I tell you what I like in my sandwich," said Piya, "Cauliflower and peas."
"Yuck," said Ellen and John and Sam and Bill.
"It's good. My mom spices them and mashes them and puts them inside two flat pieces of dough and then she fries them and they go all crackly and tasty. I love them."
"That's not a sangwich," said Sam.
"Sure it is," said Piya, "It's an East Indian sandwich. Who says a sandwich has to use normal bread?"
"Hey, she's right,/"Hey, she's right," said the twins exactly at the same time. They liked it when this happened and they smiled at each other in a secret, sharing way. They wished they were proper twins and looked alike.
"What do you mean she's right," Joshua demanded.
"Well," said Ellen, "Our mom and dad make all sorts of sandwiches – "
" – for their catering service – " said Lucy,
" – and some are round with filling wrapped up in the bread. And some are puffs with stuff in the hollow. And some are layered – " said Ellen,
" – so sandwiches can be all different shapes and sizes," Lucy finished.
"Seaweed!!!!" Sam hollered and everyone looked at him. "Seaweed!" he shouted again. "My mom uses seaweed for bread."
Everyone stared at him. Ingrid could SEE a peanut butter sandwich with smelly, dripping, green seaweed like the stuff that got caught in her toes at the lake, on the top and the bottom of the peanut butter. It looked AWFUL.
"In sushi," Sam explained loudly. "Mom takes sheets of seaweed and wraps fish and rice up in it and slices it and we eat it. It's a Japanese sangwich."
"SANDwich," Lucy said under her breath. "Will he ever get it right?"
A seaweed sandwich!!!! Everyone had stopped staring and started laughing.
"A sandwich should LOOK like a sandwich," Bill stated.
"Yeah," some of them agreed. Not Piya or Sam, however.
"My gramps favourite sandwich is mashed potatoes," Bill remembered. "I had one when I visited him last summer. It was yummy."
"Mashed potatoes?" asked Ingrid. "What else did he put in it?"
Bill opened his mouth and went, "chomp, chomp, chomp" to show what else his gramps put into the sandwich.
When everyone had stopped laughing – Piya didn't laugh but she giggled – Joshua put his glasses firmly back on his nose and said, "I make fly sandwiches."
"What?"
"Aw, go on."
"Don't be silly."
"Yuck!"
"I do," said Joshua calmly. "I collect dead flies and I put them between little pieces of bread and I squish them flat and – " he paused.
"And WHAT?" four or five of them demanded.
" – and I put them in my aquarium," Joshua finished.
"Oh, for the fish," John groaned.
"That's a different kind of fish sandwich," Ingrid said and Lucy wrinkled her nose at Ingrid to show her she appreciated the joke.
"My dad picks up squirrels that have been killed on the roads," said Ellen, quietly, so that they all listened carefully. "Then my mother makes a loaf of bread as big as the kitchen and I make squashed squirrel sandwiches and feed them to the monster in my closet."
She told them this in such an ordinary voice that it took a moment for them to realize JUST what she had said.
Then they all hooted. Sam picked up a piece of dirt and threw it at Ellen. "You ninny," he screeched cheerfully.
"I make sandwiches with the MONSTERS in my closet and feed them to the SQUIRRELS," said Lucy.
"I used to dream of feeding the monsters in my closet to ANYTHING," shuddered Piya.
"I once made a sangwich with so much inside," yelled Sam, "that we didn't have groceries for three weeks and it took us six weeks to eat it all and when it toppled off the table the house started to fall over and – "
"SAM!!!!!!!!!" the rest of them shouted even louder than Sam was shouting so he stopped.
"Of course we can't forget REAL sandwiches," John said. "I mean what has to be in real sandwiches?"
"What?" asked Lucy.
"Sand, of course."
"Oh, phooey," said Joshua.
"I'm serious," John nodded solmemly. "My dad puts butter on the bread and then he sprinkles sand. He calls it brown sugar but I know it's really sweet sand. That's how the first sandwich got made."
Piya pushed John off the old box he was sitting on. He caught her as he fell and she landed on top of him. Sam gave a yell and threw himself on top of Piya. Ingrid said, "Oh, look, we've got a real, live, human sandwich!!!! John and Sam are the bread and Pi
ya is the filling."
"We'll be the lettuce,/ "We'll be the lettuce," said Ellen and Lucy together and together they leaped on the heap.
"Here comes the salad dressing," called Ingrid and fell on top.
Joshua looked at Bill. "Kid stuff," he said.
Bill shrugged. "I guess I'll be the plastic wrap," he said and joined the pile of wriggling gigglers. Joshua took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt.