Crabapple Farm

“Wow! Did ya see THAT! Moms is gonna KILL Mart! Can I go watch? Can I-Can I-Can I?” Bobby chattered excitedly as they walked, for the second time that morning, out the back door and headed for the chicken coop.

Brian laughed, “Moms isn’t going to kill Mart. Or Trixie for that matter,” he hastily added.

“Then what’s she gonna do? She was pretty mad!”

“She’s just going to get them to talk to each other, that’s all.”

Bobby scampered ahead to the coop. The hens squawked and screeched at the disruption, then settled back to pecking at the feed scattered about the ground.

“What good’ll THAT do?’” Bobby crouched down to peer through the wire enclosure at the fuzzy baby chicks scurrying around among the fat brown hens.

It’ll keep me from strangling Mart, for one thing, Brian thought irritably as he leaned against a fence post. I can’t believe that for all Mart’s immense vocabulary, he can be so dense. Ju-das Priest on a pony! He borrowed Donovan Riley’s favorite expletive. Didn’t he pay attention when Dad had ‘the talk’ with him?

 All the signs were right there, in front of his face! Trixie’s increased moodiness, her lower back pain…not to mention the newest additions to the utility room shelf in the way of bright pastel boxes with words like ‘super absorbent’ and ‘plastic applicator’. He mentally chastised himself, chuckling. Oh, wait, that’s right! If it hasn’t got anything to do with food or that pretty girl in Trixie’s class, Diana Lynch, then Martin C. Belden has no clue it even exists!!

Glancing back over his shoulder at the house, he replied, “If Mart and Trixie stop long enough and TALK instead of YELLING at each other, they’ll figure out what’s bugging them both. Then they can apologize for the misunderstanding, because they really do love each other a lot – even though they seem to fight all the time.” He turned back to his little brother as an uncomfortable thought struck. Kneeling beside him, Brian cautiously asked, “You DO know they really do love each other, don’t you Bobster?”

“Sure do!” Bobby looked up from his inspection of the twittering chicks with a sweet, dimpled grin. “They’re just bem-barrassed to say so. But not me!! I say it right out loud all th’ time!” Brian scooped him up with an answering smile, and Bobby threw his little arms around his brother’s neck in the biggest bear hug he could manage. “ILOVEYOU! ILOVEYOU! ILOVEYOU!!” he squealed in delight. “See? That wasn’t so bad! Wonder what their ‘trubble’ is?”

Returning the hug in a more gentle fashion, Brian laughed and replied, “Yeah, what’s their ‘trubble’?”

Several minutes of poultry inspection revealed no new growth, so the brothers were headed back toward the house. Suddenly, Mart burst from the back door with Trixie in tow, tearing off for the storage shed without pausing.

“Hey! What’s goin’ on?” Bobby demanded, taking Brian’s hand and pulling him in the same direction Mart and Trixie were headed. They caught up just as Trixie yanked open the shed door and turned on the interior light.

“Guess what!” Mart enthused. “The entire Riley Regiment will be bestowing their awesome presence upon this humble abode in less than two-thousand four-hundred minutes!! The matriarch of our clan has bequeathed the honored positions of Recreational Director to her progeny…”

“And they’ll BE here by the time you spit it out!” Trixie interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Let me give you the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version, Brian.” She proceeded to fill her brother in on the details of their family friends’ upcoming visit as she hastily sorted through shelves of summer sports equipment and camping gear. “We really didn’t take the time to put all this stuff away in the right places when we dragged it down from the attic this Spring, and now it’s coming back to haunt us! Gleeps!” she ran her hands through her sandy blond corkscrew curls in agitation. “We’ll NEVER get this all sorted in time!”

Mart was pitching footballs, Nerf balls, and snorkels haphazardly over his shoulder and out the shed door. “ And whose responsibility was it, perchance, to relocate the recreational paraphernalia to its seasonal habitat?”

“Yours!” chorused three voices.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right,” Mart mumbled as he dove back into a storage bin and resumed tossing swim fins on the growing pile of toys outside.

“Okay, guys. Whoa! Halt! Cease and Desist! Let’s come up with a plan,” Brian addressed his siblings. “Bobby, you’re good at sorting. You’re in charge of separating the stuff Mart already threw outside into piles – camping stuff, swimming stuff…put all the baseballs, basketballs, tennis and footballs together in a pile of their own. Trixie, you take the right side of the shed, Mart, you take the middle, and I’ll take the left. We’ll put what we take out and want to use into whatever piles Bobby gets started.” He looked around quickly in the small space, snagged a large empty plastic storage bin by the corner and dragged it into the center of the floor. “Whatever we don’t want, we can put in here,” he indicated the bright green box with a flourish.

“The Man with the Plan,” Mart quipped, eliciting chuckles and giggles from the group. “Let’s get started!”

Fifteen minutes later, Bobby was bored silly. Thirty minutes later he made an announcement, all the while glaring at his older brothers and sister.

“I gotta go potty!”

“Thanks for the update, Bub! C’mon, I’ll walk you to the house,” Mart stifled a chuckle, took his little brother’s hand, and hurried him up to the house.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Brian and Trixie dissolved into fits of laughter. Bobby’s ‘ announcements’ were becoming legendary in the Belden household.

“Trust Bobby to make sure we’re all kept well informed!!” Brian wheezed.

A few moments later, in a lower pitch but still sounding curiously like his little brother, Mart was clearly heard from the upstairs bathroom: “MOMS! WE’RE OUT OF TOILET PAPER!”

Shrieking with laughter, Brian and Trixie staggered outside and collapsed weakly on the ground, clutching their sides.

“Oh, Geezie Pete!! It must run in the family! I thought only Bobby could make a natural function sound like a momentous occasion!” Trixie giggled, then sobered somewhat as she recalled her earlier conversations with Mart and Moms.

Brian grinned. Reaching out and tugging on the curl that constantly fell over her forehead, he gently teased, “Yeah? Well, it beats treating it like a national secret, like some sisters I know.”

Trixie blushed and ducked her head, but he followed her movement and held her china blue gaze with he warm, dark chocolate one. “Did you hear us talking with Moms?” she asked in a small voice.

“No, I figured out what was going on all by myself.” He stretched out on the grass and studied the branches of the crabapple tree shading the area. “Actually, your ‘supplies’ on the utility room shelf were a big, honkin’, in-your-face clue. I was looking for the extra filaments for the propane lantern and came across them. Last month,” he emphasized.

Trixie groaned and flung herself down on the grass beside her brother. “Aw, Bri, you could’ve SAID something!”

He shrugged. “Why? It’s a personal subject, and if you wanted to tell me or felt I needed to know, you would have told me. Otherwise, it was none of my business. And anyway, it was bound to happen sooner or later, you know.”

“Wish Mart could’ve felt that way!” Trixie mumbled with a touch of resentment.

Brian lightly tapped her on the head with a forefinger. “Yoo-hoo! Hello! Of whom are you speaking? Of course Mart’s going to want the details, even if it’s none of his business.” He laughed, “Sometimes he’ll want the details BECAUSE it’s none of his business! Look, Trix, we both love you to pieces and take looking out for you very seriously; and now, well, we’re going to take it a lot MORE seriously from now on.” He rolled to his feet and held out his hand to her. “‘Nuff said?”

Trixie smiled at Brian’s use of the old code word from a series of short phrases they had developed long ago to signal when a point was made. “’Nuff said,” she agreed, taking his hand and giving it an affectionate squeeze.

He pulled her up off the ground and into a quick, warm embrace; brushing a kiss across her knuckles and the top of her curly head before releasing her. “Now, let’s quit being all sweet and sappy before we start to rot our teeth out and get back to work, okay?”

“One question first.”

He arched a brow in silent query.

Trixie crossed her arms and rocked back and forth on her heels. “I heard a rumor before school let out about you…and Suzanne Harris.”

A calm, polite mask seemed to slip over Brian’s dark features.

“You did?” he hedged.

“Yessiree, I sure did. So…..”

“So…….what?” he hedged again.

“SO, is it true?”

“It depends on what you heard….”

Losing her patience with her brother’s hem-hawing, Trixie exploded. “I HEARD you kissed her out behind the bleachers! Let me make myself crystal clear: DID you kiss Suzanne Harris out behind the bleachers of Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School ANY TIME during the last school year last year – and by that I mean before, during, or after actual school time; before, during, or after school functions; before, during, or after non-school functions that just happened to occur at the school……”

“Alright! Alright! Alright!” he held up his hands in surrender, slicing a sidelong glance at his determined sibling. “You do realize that this falls under the ‘none of your business’ category, and besides that fact, a gentleman never kisses and tells….” How in the hell did Trixie hear about that mini-fiasco, anyway? he thought irritably. She goes to Sleepyside Elementary!! That whole mess happened at the beginning of the school year, not the end; and I didn’t really even kiss Suzanne anyway… we just sort of bumped noses and mostly missed, so it doesn’t even count as a real kiss…

“Yeah, RIGHT!” Trixie snorted derisively. “If it was such a big flippin’ secret, why were there five – count ‘em – FIVE witnesses who swore you laid a lip-lock on little Miss Suzanne during Assembly on the last Monday of the school year?”

Oh well, that explains how it got around – Suzanne’s five friends had been just around the corner eavesdropping, and started spreading it around she’d been seen kissing, he mimicked their voices in the privacy of his thoughts; ‘that tall, dark, and to-die-for Belden guy.’ NOTHING HAPPENED! He mentally rolled his eyes. Suzanne had been positively smug the next day, and NOTHING HAPPENED!!

Sighing, he flashed his sister a disarming grin. “You know how rumors are, Trix. They’re either completely untrue, or so exaggerated that they may as well be untrue. And besides all that,” he leaned down until his nose nearly touched hers, “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

As he sauntered back into the storage shed, Trixie called to his retreating back, “So, I’ll take that as a yes?”

Laughter floated out of the shed’s open doorway. Once out of her line of sight, he frowned and shook his head resignedly. Yeah, laugh it up Belden. That’s just how rumors get started, and well you know it! Say ‘yes’ and it’s a girl’s reputation on the line, say ‘no’ and you look like a loser. So just be a gentleman, say nothing, and let people draw their own conclusions. Somehow, that just seems to backfire, too.

He sighed again. When did it get complicated? One day there were girls who were my friends and the next if I even speak to a girl more than twice it’s assumed she’s my ‘girl-friend.’ I’m SO glad it’s not like that with Kyla. Even though, sometimes I’ve wondered…well… if maybe…

Another thought had him stopping cold; nearly groaning aloud with embarrassment. Oh, great! Kyla’s bound to hear about this from Trixie! Could this POSSIBLY get any worse? I’m always such a geek around Kyla to begin with, but this latest rumor makes me sound like some wacked-out kissing bandit!

He was saved from further interrogation by the slamming of the backdoor screen.

Helen crossed the yard to the storage shed, the cordless phone in one hand, her handbag in the other. Bobby skipped along beside her, and Mart detoured around the house to the driveway.

“After Mart’s neighborhood announcement, I believe you kids know where I’m headed and why.” Helen’s eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth as she handed Brian the phone. “I’m running to Crimper’s Department store while I’m at it, and Mart’s coming with me to spend some ‘quality time’ with his mother. Hold down the fort while I’m gone, okay?”

Brian accepted the phone and smiled. “Will do, Moms.”

“We’ll be back in an hour; no more than an hour and a half. I’ll have the cell phone on, so……”

“We’ll be fine, Moms. But I’ll call if aliens land in the woods across the road, or we get buried by all this stuff, or if the old mansion at Ten Acres is on fire, or……”

Helen laughed at her son’s light-hearted teasing as she waved goodbye and headed for the minivan, where Mart was impatiently waiting.

“DON’T SAY THAT!” Trixie cried. Her face was white as a sheet and she clutched the doorframe to steady herself.

Her outburst startled Brian. “Say what?” A mixture of concern and exasperation crossed his face as he turned toward his sister. Seeing she was truly upset pulled him up short. “C’mon Trix! I was just kidding!”

Trixie plastered a smile on her face and attempted to shrug it off. “I just get the willies sometimes when people make jokes about accidents, that’s all. It’s no big deal.” She turned back to the collection of camping gear she was inspecting in a show of being busy.

Making a mental note to steer clear of any such inane comments in the future, Brian began discreetly herding Bobby out of the shed and giving him short tasks to keep him outside. When he ran out of ideas, he encouraged him to play with Reddy, who had gotten underfoot and been chased out of the open shed several times.

Twenty minutes later, there was an impressive collection of camping equipment, swimming and snorkeling gear, and outdoor games neatly arranged on one wall of shelves. There was an even more impressive collection of discarded items in the now over-full ‘discard’ bin, which had grown from one plastic bin to several bins and boxes.

“Most of this stuff is still in good shape. Maybe we should give it to charity?” Trixie mused as she helped Brian tape the boxes shut.

“Great idea! I’ll put them over in that far corner for now, and Moms or Dad can take them into town later.”

“HEY!” Bobby shouted from the doorway. “What’s that junk over there?” He pointed a chubby finger toward the left rear corner, near the spot where Brian had placed the leftover sports equipment and toys.

Brian glanced in the direction Bobby was pointing. There were several large boxes labeled ‘baby toys’ and ‘old clothes’ stacked haphazardly up to the rafters, one on top of the other. A couple of the bottom boxes had begun to collapse under the combined weight of the ones on top. “ That’s old baby toys and clothes we can’t fit anymore.”

“You’re not gettin’ rid of that stuff too, are you?” he demanded.

“No, we aren’t, little buddy.” Brian eyed the teetering stack of boxes and bins as he left the small building, noting that the only thing keeping the pasteboard tower from collapsing was the set of old rusty tree pruning saws. Their long telescoping poles were propped at odd angles against the biggest boxes, most likely having slipped over and fallen against them, rather than deliberately being used to keep the boxes from tumbling down.

Trixie came inside to see what Bobby was hollering about. “Are you talking about the stuff in the corner, Bobby? I thought most of that was baby stuff we hadn’t got around to going through yet.” She cocked her head to the side, contemplating the jumble of boxes. “We probably COULD give that stuff to charity, too…”

“ NO WAY !!” Bobby shrieked a protest. “Some of that junk’s MINE!!” A piece of bright green and purple plastic caught his eye. “THAT’S MY DINOSAUR POOL FLOATIE THING!! WHO STUCK IT UNDER THOSE BOXES!? IT’S GETTIN’ SQUOOSHED!!” Quick as a flash, he darted past Brian and grabbed the thin plastic, yanking with all his might.

The small movement made the boxes sway alarmingly.

“BOBBY!” Trixie half-gasped, half-scolded, “Stop it! You’ll knock the boxes down!” She went to his side, trying to move him out of harm’s way.

Bobby paid her no mind, resisted her efforts, and continued tugging furiously at the trapped toy.

One box tipped.

Another shifted.

Yet another slid.

There was an ominous creak in the seconds before Trixie screamed, and the small mountain of boxes came crashing down above their heads.

Brian didn’t think, he simply reacted on instinct. Charging through the doorway, he scooped his sister and brother up in his arms and dove for the far wall.

Reddy chose that moment to dash in ecstatic circles around his legs, causing him to trip and stumble to the floor, still sheltering Trixie and Bobby from the worst of the onslaught with his own body.

Trixie cried out as her palms and knees scraped across the rough concrete floor under the force of their forward momentum.

Bobby screamed as one of the dislodged pruning saw blades sliced across his left arm as it tumbled to the ground.

Reddy yelped in surprise and ran outside, barking furiously.

In the usual manner of freak accidents, it was over in a matter of moments, yet seemed to stretch out interminably. Brian swallowed twice past the panic welling up in his throat.

“Is everybody alright?” he croaked as he quickly but cautiously moved aside, afraid of causing injury by a careless motion.

Bobby’s shrieks were gaining volume. Trixie was issuing a series of muffled grunts. “C’mon, guys! Roll Call!” Brian struggled desperately to keep the anxiety out of his voice, which was quickly approaching hysteria with each passing moment.

“Can’t…breathe,” Trixie panted for several seconds. She lifted herself up on her forearms and began inching over toward her frightened baby brother. “Knocked…wind…out… of…me…you…moose!”

“MY ARM!” Bobby wailed, still facedown on the floor. The raw, open cut on his left forearm was long, deep, and bleeding profusely. The rusty saw blade lay just inches away, blood glistening on its jagged edge and smeared on the floor beneath them all.

“Don’t move!” Brian commanded, some of his sanity returning with his sister’s wisecracking – if winded – remarks. He gentled his voice and tried again. “Just stay still, Trix. Bobby, don’t move, okay? I’m going to wrap up your arm.”

He spoke soothingly, calmly, while his heart pounded frantically. Reaching back between his shoulder blades, he ripped his t-shirt off over his head in one movement, and quickly tore it into makeshift strips. “ You can stay flat and still just like you are now, can’t you Bobby? Just …just like when we’re playing ‘Snow Fort’ in the winter. Remember? We lie still and flat on the ground so we can ambush Mart.”

Having successfully distracted his brother, Brian folded the soft cotton into a pad to staunch the bleeding and secured it with more strips of cotton to keep the pad in place, all before Bobby had a chance to start crying again. That going to need stitches! Brian worried. The poor little guy! He’s still little more than a baby…

“I ‘member what you tol’ me about not movin’ after an accident,” Bobby sniffled while Brian worked, then gave a watery half-giggle half-sob. “I’ll be so still, you’ll think I’m part of th’ floor! I’m a big boy, ya know!” His lower lip began to tremble again, the sobs pouring out. “It HURTS Brian! I think my arm is chop-ed off! I want MOMS!”

“I know it hurts, Bobster; and your arm is NOT chopped off, you’ve just got a cut,” he soothed. “Moms will be home soon, don’t you worry.”

He then turned his attention to Trixie, and felt faint for the first time in his life.

The legs of her shorts were streaked with blood, and she had curled up into a ball on the floor.

Finding a visible injury without moving her was impossible, so he stopped trying and grabbed the cordless phone from the shelf where he’d left it earlier. There had been nothing sharp on the floor, and the old pruning saws; including the one that had fallen, were all accounted for. “Trixie, talk to me!”

While dialing 911, he heard Trixie whisper something. Then the Emergency Operator came on the line, and he calmly and succinctly gave all the details of their situation. He nearly jumped a foot off the ground when Trixie slapped him on his bare stomach.

“Not…injured!!” she wheezed with a furious glare.

“You’re not only injured, but you’re suffering from oxygen deprivation! Trixie, you have blood all over your legs and shorts!” His words had started calmly enough but had ended being gritted through clenched teeth while he hung onto his composure with both hands.

Trixie’s breathing was back to normal, and she turned the full force of her irate laser-blue gaze upon her well-meaning brother. “I’m FINE!! My…protection…didn’t, um, PROTECT very well when you tackled me like a flying ape! And I skinned my hands and knees and wiped them on my shorts! THAT’S ALL!” Her face was beet red from both embarrassment and anger.

A dull flush of embarrassment crept up Brian’s chiseled cheekbones all the way to the tips of his ears.

The discreet cough of the Operator was as clear as a bell through the phone. “An ambulance and paramedics are on their way. Do you want me to stay on the line with you until they arrive?”

“Um, no thank you. We’re fine. Thanks,” Brian mumbled and disconnected. Trixie had crawled through the carnage to lie beside Bobby. She was talking quietly and stroking his hair, playing the ‘ambush’ game with him, explaining this time they were waiting for the paramedics with their bright shiny ambulance. Bobby had bent his legs at the knees and was swinging his feet back and forth like scissors.

So much for staying still! Brian thought ruefully.

China blue eyes met dark-chocolate brown for a full minute, love, trust, and gratitude being given and received without words. Before long the humor of the incident with the operator dawned on them, and they both snorted and began quietly laughing, releasing some of the terrible tension of the last few minutes. Brian handed Trixie the remains of his t-shirt while dialing Moms’ cell phone, then stepped outside to give her some privacy. While she gratefully tied it around her waist, hiding most of the damage and stains, Moms answered the call. Brian quickly stepped away from earshot, wanting to keep Bobby as calm as possible.

When he came back inside, sirens could be heard in the distance……