Elvis and the Underdogs (20 page)

When we finally hit Hamlin Drive, Alexander pointed to a small, run-down brick house at the end of the street. It had a big front yard of brown, overgrown grass. The shades on all the windows were completely drawn, and pieces of the front walk were cracked. I doubted the doorbell even worked. This was just the kind of house I avoided on Halloween.

“So now what? Are we just going to go up and knock on his front door?”

“Do you always ask this many questions? It's not like I have a whole plan figured out.” I could tell by Taisy's tone that she was tense and a little frustrated with me.

“Yes, I do ask a lot of questions, and as far as a plan goes, maybe now's a good time to come up with one.”

“Benj, it's going to be fine. Relax.”

Well, relaxing was certainly out of the question, but I was hopeful she was right about the everything-being-fine part. I had no choice but to follow Taisy as she walked up the front yard, straight up the steps to the door, where she pushed the bell. I was surprised when it rang.

“I guess my plan was pretty much on the money, though you rang the bell when I had suggested knocking, but it's pretty much the same thing, don't you . . .” I looked at Alexander. “I'm babbling, aren't I? I do that when I'm nervous.”

Alexander told me that he ran through the state capitals when he was nervous. Or he listed all the presidents of the United States in order. Or, if he really wanted a challenge, he listed them alphabetically by last name, which he felt distracted his brain from whatever it was he needed to distract it from. Okay, clearly I wasn't the only oddball of the group. I held my breath while we waited to see if anyone was home.

“Okay, too bad. No one's home. We should go now. We tried. Good effort, team. We'll get 'em next time,” I said, speaking in Taisy's language.

Alexander agreed. “And I second that motion. Should we vote now? All in favor of going home, say ‘aye'!” Alexander and I both said aye.

“Wait, maybe he's in the backyard,” Taisy suggested, ignoring us both.

“Taisy, that's trespassing. We can't just go snooping in someone else's backyard.”

Alexander agreed with me. I turned to Elvis. He was still sulking. “Do you think it's okay to go in the backyard?”

“Well, if the point of all this is to find him, then yes, the backyard would be a good place to start, especially as that's where he most likely is.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, someone is back there. I hear music. Unfortunately, we're still a bit too far for me to get a good smell of him. Of course, my own odious pond smell is getting in the way too.”

“Odious?”

“It's a fancy-pants way of saying yucky.”

I nodded. “You hear music? I don't hear anything.”

“Are you talking to your dog again?” Alexander whispered.

“Uh, yeah, it's another one of my habits.”

Alexander nodded. “I can see why talking to a dog might be beneficial at times, especially since they can't ever disagree with you.”

I nodded back and laughed to myself. If only Alexander knew the real story.

“Wait a second,” Taisy whispered, and closed her eyes. “I think I hear something.”

I'll say one thing about Taisy, she was one gutsy girl. She walked right around the house on her own. Alexander and I had no choice but to hurry to catch up with her. When we rounded the corner, we all stopped suddenly.

Billy had a huge backyard. It was completely overgrown with grass and weeds that were so tall, they came up almost to my knees. Walking across the yard made me feel like we were walking through the wilderness instead of the suburbs, and I suddenly got nervous about the possibility of wild animals hiding among the weeds, just waiting to pop out. Not that there are many wild animals around here, but you never know. At the very back of the yard, there was a large wooden garage. The roof was caved in on one side. All of a sudden I heard the music too.

“This is a bad idea. We should leave. I don't want to be here anymore,” I said, but Taisy was already halfway across the yard, heading straight for the garage. I turned to Alexander. “You know, if we banded together, it would be two against one. Who died and made her team captain of our world?”

“Well, as far as team captain of the world? I'd rather it be her than me or you. No offense, but she's kind of a natural. Plus I'm sort of having fun.”

“You are?”

“Benji, let me explain my life to you. I go to school. I study. I do flash cards. I practice the piano, and then I practice the violin. I do more studying, and then more flash cards. I get to watch a half hour of television on the weekdays and one and a half hours of television on weekends. And I've recently been signed up for tennis lessons, so my dad is showing me videos of Wimbledon champion tennis players who can serve at over a hundred miles an hour. Pretty boring, right? Right. But what's worse is that as cool as this total recall thing I have may sound to you, it's also a huge pain in my butt. Mainly because I can remember every single boring day I have down to the tiniest detail, whether I want to or not. And trust me, I've had a lot of days that were totally forgettable, and I'm stuck with them.”

I thought about the fact that I'd had my share of boring days myself. Lately, even the hospital was a big snooze fest. You've seen one morgue, you've seen them all.

Alexander continued, “But this day so far, hanging out with you and your dog at lunch, watching your dog save someone from drowning who wasn't even drowning, having a girl like Taisy boss me around? Having you guys think my freaky brain is useful for our super-awesome adventure? Well, this is stuff I only dreamed of doing. And frankly, I don't want this day to end. Ever. But when it does, it may be the first time that I'm truly happy that I will never be able to forget one second of it. Although I really hope you won't be too upset if we don't find your lug nut here, and just because we don't doesn't mean it's actually gone forever. It could always turn up later. Maybe. Hopefully. Did you know it's a known fact that people who are optimists live longer?”

I looked at Alexander with new eyes. Instead of looking at our extremely dangerous current situation as nerve-racking and scary, which is how I had viewed it, Alexander saw it as the adventure of a lifetime. And he was right. As useful as his brain disorder seemed, there were probably just as many times when it was no fun at all. Maybe Elvis was right. Maybe I did need an attitude adjustment. Maybe I did need a pack of friends to give me a whole new perspective on the world.

“Well, if you're in, I'm in,” I said.

Alexander beamed. “Should we make up a secret handshake?”

I smiled back. “Maybe we can work on that later, okay? Right now I think it's best if we try to stay close to Taisy. You know, in case she needs us.”

Alexander nodded. “Or in case we need her!”

“Yes, that too.” I laughed. And we both took off toward the garage. As we walked through the tall weeds, I wondered if this was why Billy never wore shorts to school. I turned to check on Elvis. His fur was almost dry but now had lots of stuff caught in it. When we rounded the corner of the garage, we found Taisy crouched down, peering into a window. The music was really loud. I put my hand up against the window and felt the glass vibrating.

“It's not good for your eardrums to listen to music that loud,” Alexander whispered.

“What did you say?” I whispered back.

He frowned and looked back at me. “What? I can't hear you! What did you say? I don't think we have to whisper, because it's got to be even louder inside.”

“What? I can't hear you because the music is so loud!” Now I was practically yelling.

Taisy waved at us to be quiet. I cupped my hands and peered inside too, but the windows were painted completely black. I leaned in and whispered into Taisy's ear this time.

“It sounds like there's a hundred people in there. Those aren't good odds for us.”

“I don't think that's actual people. I think it's the music. I think it's a live album. You know, one of those ones where they record a concert,” Taisy whispered back. “I think I've heard this record before. My dad listens to it.”

Alexander leaned into me. “I've been listening to the words. It's about prison. The song, I mean.”

“I don't think it's a good sign when someone paints their windows black and listens to songs about prison. It means they're hiding something.”

Taisy nodded. “I know, and I can't wait to see what it is.” And with that she crept along the wall. “I'm going to go look for another window.”

Interesting—where I feel someone hiding something means they should have their privacy, Taisy is the opposite. She gets only more determined to discover their secret.

Even though I really wanted to go home, I continued on. I hoped this new spirit of changing my attitude didn't backfire and end badly for me. And by end badly, I mean with me tied up in a garage by a bunch of singing escaped prisoners. As I tried to move, I realized I wasn't going anywhere. Something had me! I turned around and saw Elvis holding on to the back collar of my shirt with his teeth.

“Phew! I'm glad it's just you. What's wrong?”

“What exactly are we trying to accomplish with this particular covert mission? Why aren't we just going up to the garage door and knocking like civilized people?”

“We're trying to see what's going on first. Well, Taisy is. I personally would love to cut bait and leave.”

“I can now smell Billy Thompson in there, so why not just knock and politely inquire if he has your lug nut? Also, you should let him know that listening to Johnny Cash this loudly is not good for his eardrums. Why young people insist on listening to music so loud, I'll never know. One of the little girls who lived on the farm played her pop music loudly too. If I had to pick, I'd go with Johnny Cash over pop music any day.”

“You know this song?”

Elvis nodded. “It's a classic. ‘Folsom Prison Blues' by Johnny Cash.”

“Yeah, I don't know that one. It sounds old. C'mon, let's go find them and see what Taisy wants to do next. I'm not in charge.”

“No. I guess not. So what you're saying is that Taisy has been designated as the alpha of the group, and so you must go along with her wishes. That makes much more sense. Okay, carry on.”

When we rounded the corner, I saw Taisy standing on top of a woodpile stacked along the back wall. She was making her way to a higher window. I've spent a lot of time in emergency rooms, and I've heard of some pretty stupid maneuvers. People standing on top of phone books, which are on top of stools, while wearing high heels to try to change a lightbulb. People climbing out onto roofs to clean out storm gutters. Meaning, lots of bad stuff happens to people when they climb things they aren't supposed to. So I didn't like seeing Taisy up there at all.

“Taisy, come down. It's not safe! You're gonna fall.”

“No, I'm not. I was a gymnast. I have awesome balance. One of you come up here so I can boost you up to look into that vent over there.”

Alexander took a step forward, but I pulled him back by his shirt. “No way. That's nuts. There's risk and adventure, and there's total stupidity.” I looked up at Taisy. “Get down, Taisy. I mean it, or I'm going home right now.”

Taisy jumped down from the woodpile. “Sorry, Benj, I didn't mean to scare you.”

“Maybe we should just go knock on the door?” I suggested. Everyone nodded, and as we headed around the last corner, we spotted a window that wasn't painted black. The shade was pulled down almost all the way, but there were still two inches on the bottom where we could look in. We all got on our knees, cupped our hands around our eyes, and peered in through the dirty glass.

Now, we couldn't see very much, but the first thing I could make out was one of those bench press weight machines. I recognized it because we have a set in the garage for the twins. Then I noticed something on the floor that completely blew my mind.

“Are you seeing what I think I'm seeing?” I asked Alexander.

“I'm not sure, but if you're seeing what I think I'm seeing, I can see why you're asking me if you're seeing what you're seeing, because I'm still unsure if I'm seeing what I'm seeing. I think.”

It had to be fate that Alexander and I had found each other, because weirdly, I understood exactly what he was saying.

Before we could confirm that we were both on the same page, Taisy said exactly what we were both thinking. “Um, am I crazy, or is that part of a leg on the floor over there?”

I nodded my head up and down so hard, I felt my eyeballs shake in their sockets.

“D-d-d-do you think it's real? It can't be real, right?” I asked.

“I don't see any blood,” Taisy whispered. “I mean, it can't be real. Billy Thompson may be a lot of things, but there's no way he's the guy who chops off a leg, cleans up all the blood, and then leaves it lying on the floor like it's nothing.”

“But maybe that's why he plays his prison music so loudly. So we can't hear the people scream,” I said.

“It's definitely not real. I would be able to see it better if someone bothered to clean these windows.” For a moment I was relieved. But then I realized that either way, a leg on the floor was weird.

“Okay, it's not real,” I whispered. “But how much better is it that there's a fake leg lying there on the floor?”

“Well, at least it's got a cool sneaker on it,” said Taisy.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You're more concerned that the leg lying on the floor has a cute sneaker on it? Seriously? Because I could care less about the sneaker that is attached to the leg that is not attached to a body!”

“I wish I could wear high-top sneakers, but they just don't look right on me. I'm too short.” Alexander sighed.