Trying to be a father. That's hard work. And meanwhile, you' re trying to be a boy, and do what you think is right. That 's hard work, too. And those two things, being a father and being a son, they never seem to agree. Certainly didn' t when your father was twelve.' Timmy tried to imagine his father at his age, or his grandfather at his father's age, and found that he couldn't.
They watched Thundarr, Ookla, and Princess Ariel kick mutant butt, and both grinned. Outside, they heard Elizabeth calling for Randy.
'Orwell was wrong,' his grandfather said.
'Who's that?'
'George Orwell. He was a famous writer. You'll probably learn about him when you get a little older. He wrote a book called 1984.
Took place now, but back then, it was the future, of course. Society was supposed to be a bad place by the year 1984. Not a good time to be alive. But he was wrong. These are the best times of them all.'
Ten minutes after Thundarr ended, there was a knock at the front door. Timmy answered it. Doug stood in the doorway, panting and out of breath. His white, mudsplattered BMX Mongoose bike lay on its side in the yard. At twelve, Doug had boobies, just like a girl, the result of too many KitKat bars and bowls of Turkey Hill ice cream. They jiggled as he shuffled his feet. There were dark circles under the armpits of his Tshirt. His thick glasses were fogged, and his forehead covered with sweat. His frecklecovered face looked splotchy.
Doug held up a long, black plastic tube, waving it around with excitement.
'I finished it,' he gasped. 'Worked on it all night long. You gotta see!'
'Well,' Timmy said, 'take it out.'
Still trying to catch his breath, Doug shook his head. 'At the Dugout. Let's get Barry and look at it there.'
Timmy glanced back inside. His grandfather was still on the couch, but there was no sign of his parents.
'I can't right now,' he whispered. 'Dad says I've gotta weed the garden. He's already up there doing it. If I don't help, he's gonna be mad.'
'Go ahead,' his grandfather said. 'This sounds more important. I'll handle your father.'
Timmy smiled. 'Are you sure? I thought you said he was doing what he thought was best.'
His grandfather waved his hand. 'Sure I'm sure. Just because he thinks it's for the best doesn't necessarily mean it is. Hell, it' s the first day of summer vacation. Boys your age should be out playing and discovering.
You shouldn 't be working. There'll be enough of that when you're older. You boys don' t know it, but these are the happiest days of your lives. Enjoy them while you can.' He paused, coughed, and flexed his fingers as if his left hand had gone to sleep. Shaking his head, he continued. His voice sounded weaker.
'And besides, your mom always says you should be outside anyway, instead of sitting in front of the television watching cartoons and playing Atari. Right?'
'Right!'
'Go on, now. You boys have fun. Later on, I'll whip your butts at Pitfall. I finally figured out how to get past those darn scorpions.'
'Thanks, Grandpa!' Timmy started out the door, and then, on impulse, he did something he didn't do much anymore since turning twelve. He turned around, ran over to his grandfather, and gave him a sudden, fierce hug. His grandfather groaned in mock surprise and squeezed back with one arm. He was still flexing his free hand.
'I love you, Grandpa.'
'I love you, too, kiddo.'
He kissed Timmy's forehead, and Timmy caught a whiff of pipe smokeanother one of Grandpa's secrets, since the doctor and Timmy' s parents had forbidden him to smoke.
'Are you okay?' Timmy asked.
'Sure,' he wheezed. 'Just a little short of breath this morning. Might lie down and take a nap while you boys are gone. Run on now, before your mom and dad come back inside. And make sure your dad don 't see you leaving.'
He ruffled his grandson's hair, which was cut just like Kevin Bacon's in Footloose, which Timmy and his family had seen just a few months before.
'Looks like a porcupine died on top of your head.'
'At least my hair is still brown instead of silver.'
'Wait till you're my age.' His grandfather flexed his hand again. He made a face like he had indigestion.
'You sure you're okay, Grandpa?'
'Positive. Now go on. Get out of here.'
'Love you,' Timmy called again over his shoulder.
'Love you, too.'
Timmy followed Doug outside into the front yard. Timmy' s own BMX Mongoose was parked next to the sidewalk, its kickstand sinking into the grass. The boys hopped on their bikes and sped down the driveway.
'Did anybody else see it?' Timmy asked.
Doug shook his head. 'My mom's still passed out.'
'Why are you so out of breath?'
'Catcher was waiting for me when I went by. He came flying out of the driveway and almost bit my ankle.'
Catcher, the bane of their existence (along with the occasional hazing from the neighborhood bullies Ronny, Jason and Steve), was a black Doberman pinscher that belonged to the Sawyer family. The Sawyers owned a dairy farm along the road between Doug 's house and Timmy's. Bowman' s Woods bordered the other side of the road. The boys had to pass through Catcher 's territory any time they went to Doug' s house or vice versa. The dog was usually near the farmhouse, but when they rode their bikes by, no matter how quietly, some sixth sense alerted him to their presence. If he was untied which was oftenhe' d charge down the driveway, barking and growling. Each of the boys had ripped sneakers and torn socks as a result, and Barry had a scar on his calf from when the dog had latched onto him almost two years ago. It was one of the few scars on Barry of which the other boys could actually identify the source.
'I hate that dog,' Timmy mumbled as they reached the end of the driveway.
'Yeah. One of these days we'll teach him a lesson.' Timmy nodded. Over the last few weeks, he'd been formulating a plan to do just that, but he hadn't yet told the other boys about it.
The Graco home, a onestory, threebedroom rancher with two acres of land, was built on the side of a hill. The garden was at the rear of the property, near the top of the hill, bordering Barry 's parent's home and Bill and Karen Wahl's housean elderly couple with no children left at home. Normally, Timmy and Doug would have just gone through the backyard and up the hill to Barry 's. But with Timmy's dad in the garden, pulling weeds that Timmy was supposed to pull, they followed his grandfather's advice and took the long way around.
Pedaling out into the road, they turned right onto Anson Road, a narrow twolane stretch of blacktop that cut through the countryside, giving drivers a back road shortcut from Route 516 to Route 116. They followed that to the edge of the Graco ' s property, past the acre lot his father had turned into a hillside pasture, complete with a small, twostall barn for their one cow and two sheep. To the left was Laughman Road, which led to Doug 's houseif you made it past Catcherand on their right was a narrow strip of woods. 'Our woods,' the boys called it, though technically, it belonged to the church. Passing these, they turned right again onto Golgotha Church Road, an even narrower road that went straight uphill. On their left stretched the cemetery. The bottom of the hill was filled with old graves and crumbling crypts from the 1800s. The upper portion of the hill and beyond was covered with newer, more durable monuments. On their right lay the woods and Timmy 's parents' property. The trees kept them hidden from Randy Graco's sight.
This was their playgroundthe woods, the cemetery, the Dugout. Occasionally, they made an excursion to the town dump to find treasures or shoot at the rats with their BB guns, or went over into Bowman ' s Woods to catch minnows and crayfish in the creek and shoot water snakes, and once a week they rode their bikes into Spring Grove to buy comic books at Mr. Messinger ' s newsstand (they left their BB guns at home, then), but for the most part, they were content to not stray from the cemetery and surrounding forest. Over the years, this area had served as everything from the Death Star to a pirate ship to Amazonian jungles complete with imaginary dinosaursto the battlefields of World War Two.
This was their world, and they ruled it; three kings who would never grow old, but remain twelve forever. Summer was just beginning, and the days were long and endless, and their cares and fears seemed like small
