Eleanor Roosevelt's in My Garage! Read online

  The plane lurched.

  “Hold on there, missy!” yelped Mr. Selff. He regained control.

  Olive flopped back against her seat. “Bah,” she muttered, crossing her arms.

  Mr. Selff circled back toward Rolling Hills. We found ourselves flying above Pewey Park once more.

  “Okay, kids, time to write!” he shouted. “What should we say?”

  “I know! I know!” shouted Olive. “How about: ‘Come to the Save the Park Protest at Pewey Park Today at Ten o’Clock. We will have posters, candy, balloon animals, a parade, mermaid swimming, and much, much more!’ ” She patted herself on the back. “Good, huh?”

  “Not bad,” shouted Mr. Selff, “but skywriting has to be short.”

  “And truthful,” shouted Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “ ‘Save Our Park, Rally at 10,’ ” I suggested…er…shouted.

  “Boring!” shouted Olive. She was able to lean forward just enough to say something in Mr. Selff’s ear.

  He gave her a thumbs-up.

  “What’d you tell him?” I shouted at her.

  But before she could shout back, Mr. Selff pushed a button. Billowy white smoke started puffing from the plane’s exhaust.

  “Brace yourselves!” he shouted.

  We dropped.

  Mr. Selff banked left, forming the last letter. Then he flipped off the smoke switch. Circling, we did a fly-by so we could admire our message.

  “Very nice!” shouted Mrs. Roosevelt.

  We came around.

  Beside me, Olive cheered.

  I burped.

  TOMMY TUTTLE WAS WAITING for us when we got home. The second I climbed out of the Buick, the sneak leaped out of our lilac bush and ran up to me.

  “Amelia Earhart, HA!” He did the big HA! right in my face.

  I stumbled backward. Hadn’t I seen the kid bicycling away earlier? And why didn’t he brush his teeth more often? Pee-ew, his breath stank like bacon jerky.

  “What do you want, Tommy?” I asked.

  “Yeah, what’s all the HAing about?” said Olive.

  “I know who she is.” He pointed to Mrs. Roosevelt. “She’s Amelia Earhart.”

  “Wrong. HA!” retorted Olive.

  “But I saw her. She was flying in an airplane.”

  “So?” I said. “I was flying in it too, but that doesn’t make me Amelia Earhart.”

  “Or me,” added Olive. She pointed at Mr. Selff. “Hey, maybe he’s Amelia Earhart….HA!”

  Behind her, Mr. Selff cracked up. He started wheezing and guffawing and pounding his cane on the front walk.

  I stared at him. Seriously. It wasn’t that funny.

  Mrs. Roosevelt broke in. “We do not have time for such a nonsensical conversation. May I remind you that we have less than an hour until the protest rally?” She turned to Tommy. “I am not Amelia Earhart. Now, please excuse us, we have important work to do.”

  “But I looked it up on Factopedia,” he argued. “After I saw you in that plane, I went home and searched ‘women from history who flew airplanes.’ Amelia Earhart was the first hit.”

  Olive put her hands on her hips. “Oh, yeah?” she said. “Well, guess what, Mr. Giant Snoop Head? Factopedia is not a reliable source.”

  “What? That’s not true!” argued Tommy.

  “It is true. Anyone can edit it, which can make the entries all wrong.” Olive patted herself on the back. “You’d know that if you’d gone to technology camp like me.”

  Tommy’s cheeks turned red.

  “HA!” I said right in his face.

  He went limp. Seriously, it looked like somebody had let out all his air. He balled his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. A strip of bacon jerky fell to the grass, but he didn’t bother to pick it up. He just slumped away. When he reached the sidewalk, though, he turned back. “I will uncover the truth,” he declared.

  “Arrr-woof!” replied Fala. He gobbled down the dropped piece of jerky.

  * * *

  ***

  An hour later, we pulled Olive’s wagon—piled high with signs and posters—into Pewey Park. Mr. Selff was driving and had offered to take us, but honestly, it was a lot faster to walk.

  It was a pretty nice morning. Yellow dandelions freckled the thick green grass, and a soft breeze rustled through the branches of the big shade trees. Bees buzzed in the flowers. Butterflies flitted around. And Fala joyfully lifted his leg on Mr. Pewey’s bronze boots. I shook my head in disbelief. In just a few hours, all this could be gone.

  Buh-dop! It was my phone again.

  I looked over at the bulldozers.

  Chuck waved.

  Buzz bared his teeth.

  I tapped out a lie…I mean, reply.

  Mrs. Roosevelt was taping posters to tree trunks. Olive and I helped by piling up all the picket signs we’d made the night before. Obviously, Mrs. Roosevelt had stayed up and made more…lots more.

  “Why so many?” asked Olive.

  “I expect a crowd after all our communication efforts,” replied the First Lady. “And I am positive they will want to join in our protest.”

  I sure hoped so.

  Mrs. Roosevelt strode briskly around, checking up on our work. Finally, she said, “It is time.”

  “But nobody’s here,” I said.

  “Not yet,” replied Mrs. Roosevelt. “But I have great faith in the good sense of the citizenry.”

  She picked up a sign, raised it high, and began marching back and forth in front of the statue. “Save Pewey Park!” she chanted. “Save Pewey Park!”

  Olive congaed along behind her. “Pewey-Pewey-Pew-ee! Pewey-Pewey-Pew-ee!”

  Even Fala got in the act. He frisked after them wearing a little sign that read “Whatever is asked of us, I am sure we can accomplish it.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt had obviously made that after we went to bed too. Geez, did the woman ever rest? And how did she come up with such lame poster slogans? There wasn’t a single exclamation point on any of them!!!

  That was when Mr. Selff finally arrived. “You wouldn’t believe the traffic on Keystone Street,” he said. “A motorcyclist and a jogger.”

  He hobbled over to the pile of protest signs and plucked one out.

  Olive had made it.

  “Pretty good likeness,” said Mr. Selff. He got in line behind Fala. “Save Pewey Park! Save Pewey Park!”

  “Come on, Nolan,” called Olive.

  “Raise your voice!” declared Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “What are you waiting for, son?” asked Mr. Selff.

  For a giant bald eagle to swoop down and carry me away, I thought. What was the point of marching around all by ourselves? Still, I reluctantly grabbed a sign and followed along.

  “Save Pewey Park!”

  “Pewey-Pewey-Pew-ee!”

  “Arrr-woof!”

  Oh, brother.

  We marched back and forth.

  Up and down.

  Around and around.

  On the other side of the baseball diamond, Chuck and Buzz watched us. They laughed so hard they had to pound each other on the back.

  It was pretty humiliating.

  Just then a group of little kids wearing bright yellow T-shirts and name tags shaped like bulldozers shuffled into the park. I groaned. Oh, geez, not the Pitter-Patter day campers.

  Their counselor, Miss Missy, clapped her hands. “Look over there, boys and girls. Do you see what I see? Bulldozers!”

  A boy named Paulie stuck out his lower lip. “I don’t like bulldozers. I like digger trucks.”

  “Me too,” said a boy named Braydon.

  “I like roller trucks,” said a girl named Ava.

  “Me too,” said Braydon.

  “Dump trucks!”
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  “Cement trucks!”

  “I like corn!” cried a kid named Clarence. “I eat corn every night.”

  “Me too,” said Braydon.

  Miss Missy blew a strand of hair out of her sweaty face and started arranging the kids on the grass. “Crisscross applesauce,” she said. “Pretzel legs. On your gumdrops.”

  “I’m hungry!” cried Paulie.

  “Me too!” cried Braydon.

  Olive elbowed me in the ribs. “Told you we should have handed out candy.”

  “We’ll have snacks later, boys and girls,” chirped Miss Missy. “But now we’re going to watch the bulldozers do their work. Won’t that be fun?”

  “It’d be funner if it was digger trucks,” grumbled Paulie.

  “Or corn,” added Clarence.

  The park was really starting to fill with people now. It seemed like practically everyone in town was there. I scanned the crowd and saw Mr. Treble and Mrs. Bustamante and Mr. Jolly. Alden Wurlitzer was there in his new high-tops. He waggled his fingers at Olive. She waggled back. And there was Alex in a clean White Sox shirt and C. J. McCabe and the shoe-store sales guy and—of all the rotten luck!—Heather Lynne. I pretended not to see her.

  Mr. Selff puffed out his chest. “Guess my skywriting did the trick.”

  “That and my Kidschat post,” said Olive.

  “It was the mystic chords of democracy,” Mrs. Roosevelt corrected them. She turned to me. “Nolan, help me hand out the picket signs to our fellow protestors, won’t you?”

  I swear she practically skipped over to the pile. Her eyes were glowing brighter than Olive’s new shoes, and her smile was so big it showed her crooked teeth.

  “Good moooorning, Rolling Hills!”

  Mayor Selff, wearing a gold construction hat and carrying a matching gold shovel, bounded past Mrs. Roosevelt and the protest signs. She took the band shell’s stairs in a single leap.

  “Are you ready to break new ground?” she cried.

  The crowd cheered.

  “I’m sure that, like me, many of you thought this day would never come,” continued the mayor. “But here we are at last, embracing progress and transforming Pewey Park into…” She paused dramatically. “The Selff parking lot!”

  The crowd cheered again.

  And Mrs. Roosevelt dropped the sign she’d been holding. “It seems I have made a mistake. None of these people have come to protest. None are here to save the park.”

  “It doesn’t look that way,” I said. I felt awful—for me, for the park, but most of all for Mrs. Roosevelt. I mean, she really believed all that stuff about speaking up and making a difference. It must have hurt that it wasn’t working.

  “Nobody came to our protest!” wailed Olive.

  “I guess you really can’t beat city hall,” I said.

  Mrs. Roosevelt shook her head sternly. “I will not believe that.”

  I didn’t want to believe it either. But it was hard to ignore the truth when pretty much the whole town was over by the band shell shouting “Progress! Progress! Progress!” Geez, even Fala had joined the crowd, but that was mostly because the day campers were gnawing on dino-grahams and the dog was giving them the Treatment.

  The mayor stepped back onto the grass. She lowered her shovel. “One the count of three,” she cried. “One…two…”

  “Three!” shouted the crowed.

  The mayor dug deep into the dirt.

  At the same moment, the bulldozers started up.

  Mayor Selff held her shovelful of dirt high so everyone could see it.

  And so the photographer from our local newspaper the Rolling Hills Doings could snap her picture.

  The bulldozers growled. Waiting. Eager.

  My heart started to pound. Any second now, the mayor would give the signal and the big trucks would move across the lawn, destroying everything in their path.

  It couldn’t happen.

  Somebody had to do something.

  It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

  “Stop!” a voice shouted. “Put down that shovel!”

  “Who is that?” cried the mayor. “Who’s shouting?”

  I looked around.

  Olive was staring at me openmouthed.

  So was Mr. Selff.

  Even Fala looked up from the sticky fingers he was licking.

  Only Mrs. Roosevelt was nodding and smiling.

  And that was when it hit me.

  The person shouting…was me!

  I DON’T KNOW WHERE courage comes from, exactly. The only thing I really know for sure is that when the bulldozers started up, I knew I had to stop them. I shoved my way through the crowd and took a giant step right into the mayor. Then I stood on my tiptoes until our noses were almost touching and I said, “Stop this…now!”

  Mayor Selff backed up. She made herself smile. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

  “But I don’t want a Selff parking lot,” I said. “I want a park. Pewey Park. A place to play and rest and—”

  “Skateboard!” called Olive.

  “I can’t reverse the decision,” said the mayor.

  A colony of flapping bats formed in my stomach. “Yes you can. You’re the mayor. You can do anything you want.”

  The mayor shrugged. “My hands are tied. As the town’s elected official, I am simply acting on the citizens’ will. Obviously, they approve of this project. Just look at the enthusiastic turnout.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go join your grandmother over there and be quiet.”

  Be quiet?

  I stood there, frozen. What was happening to me? What did I think I was doing? Then it occurred to me: Maybe this was one of those “moments of truth” that happen to a person sometimes. You know, one of those all-important times in your life when you have to decide what you’re really made of. Whether you’re going to follow through with something you believe in or make it easy on yourself, turn around, and run the other way.

  Behind us the bulldozers revved.

  I took a deep breath and turned to the crowd. “Some…um, many…of my best memories belong to this park. Or, er, belong to me in this park,” I stammered. “When I was little, my mom and dad would bring me here all the time. My mom played catch with me, and my dad pushed me on the swings.”

  I felt a weird catch in my throat. I wished my dad were here now, rooting me on.

  “Hey, what about me?” cried Olive.

  “Those were the days before my sister was born,” I added. I smiled. “Good times.”

  “Humph,” snorted Olive.

  I went on. “I bet lots of you have had good times here too. Like you, Mr. Treble.” I pointed at him. “Remember all those concerts your accordion group gave in the band shell? You sure looked like you were having fun.”

  Mr. Treble nodded.

  “And you, Mr. Jolly. Weren’t some of your prizewinning roses growing up the park’s trellis? Just over there. You donated them, right?”

  “They were Golden Celebrations, in honor of my wedding anniversary,” he said.

  I scanned the crowd. “How many of you played in the state bocce ball tournament the day Rolling Hills become the Illinois champs? What a great day that was, huh? And it happened right over there.” I gave a nervous laugh. “And I bet practically everybody here has picnicked or played Frisbee on this lawn. I bet some of you have even sat and read a book in the shade of the big trees.” My eyes found Mrs. Bustamante. “I know you have.”

  The corners of the librarian’s mouth turned up.

  “So why do we want to lose all this? Sure, parking lots are convenient and all, but Pewey Park is…well…” I cast around for the words to express how I felt. “It’s…it’s the heart of our town.”

  After that, I went quiet, like everything I’d been thinkin
g and feeling had tumbled out and I had nothing more to say. My arms dropped to my sides and I let out this big sigh. Suddenly, I felt awkward. Everyone was just standing there looking at one another. Even the day campers had gotten quiet.

  Then Mr. Treble turned his eyes away from me and walked stiffly off.

  Mr. Jolly stared at his shoes. He untied them, tied them, and untied them again. After a second, he walked away too, laces flapping.

  So did Mrs. Bustamante, and Mrs. Cordero, who I knew for a fact was captain of the bocce ball team the year it won the championship.

  Lots of other people just turned and walked away too.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting. But it wasn’t that. I sat down on the grass and pulled my knees up to hide my face.

  The bulldozers growled.

  Olive came over and tapped me on the shoulder. “You okay?”

  I pushed her hand away. “Fine.”

  There was a pause. “It’s not your fault no one came to our protest. You were awesome sauce, Nolan, with sprinkles on top. Wasn’t he, Ellie?”

  “Mrs. Roosevelt,” insisted Mrs. Roosevelt. “And you were very courageous, Nolan.”

  “I’m proud of you, son,” added Mr. Selff.

  I got to my feet. Officer Nittles was directing people to a safe area marked off with yellow caution tape. We joined the crowd, but I didn’t have the heart to stick around and watch. “Let’s go,” I said. “It’s over. We lost.”

  Suddenly, a loud grinding noise came from the bulldozers. Black smoke puffed from their exhaust pipes. Side by side they crept forward, their blades churning up everything in front of them. From where I stood, I could see Chuck clutching the big steering wheel and grinning ear to ear. In the next truck, Buzz drew back his lips to show his teeth. He reminded me of a wolf. A hungry wolf.