Boomtown Read online

  It was perfect by the way—the rental house, I mean. With the help of the church secretary, we’d found a cozy three-bedroom house that was walking distance from the church. It had a large backyard with a picket fence, a small garage, and a front porch bordered by flowers. There was a large bay window in the family room, a small kitchen, a pantry, one bathroom, and three bedrooms upstairs. There was an extra room downstairs where I could put a desk and my books for a study.

  I talked to Lars about a plan for unloading. Fortunately, he had clean overalls in his cab to replace the muddy ones he was still wearing. And I found a fresh pair of jeans and shirt in one of our suitcases. In the meantime, the kids were excitedly jumping up and down on the porch and chanting, “Let us in! Let us in!” Janice saved Sarah from having a heart attack by unlocking the front door. The kids ran from room to room, out the back, around the side, back inside, up the stairs, and began to fight for bedroom territory.

  “Sarah and I will take this room at the end of the hall-way,” Ruth announced.

  Jonny answered, “You can have it! This one’s mine!”

  He wanted the bedroom with the window that opened into the branches of the backyard tree. He wasted no time climbing out the window—to the absolute terror of my wife and the delight of Sarah, who insisted on trying it immediately. (That particular tree was the same tree Jonny later used to sneak out of the house for his nocturnal raids—something that turned out for the best in the long run—but I didn’t know about it until much later. We’ll get to that soon enough.)

  After the brief exploration, Ruth released our cat, Effeneff, from his carrier. This was the cat Sarah had “greased” a few years before. It stretched its long gray body, shook out its fur, licked each of its paws carefully, then scampered across the lawn and began to patrol the perimeter of the front steps and porch, looking for mice and shrews. Sarah had given the cat its name; she insisted he was descended from the great lions of Egypt.

  “He’s Fierce and Friendly,” Sarah had said.

  We soon shortened that to “F and F,” and the name stuck. After only a minute or two, Effeneff pounced and captured a shrew and went to find a shady spot where he could play with it in private.

  Janice said, “That’s a good sign. If a cat likes a house, then it’s probably a good place for people too.”

  With help from all of our neighbors, the job of unloading was finished quickly, leaving the more time-consuming job of unpacking and putting everything in its place. As the sun crawled higher in the sky, Edna Kreuger, the widow who lived next door, brought us a huge lunch of ham and cheese on wheat bread, homemade potato salad, bright red apples, and a delicious blackberry pie with vanilla ice cream. The lettuce, potatoes, apples, and berries had been grown in her very own garden, she proudly declared.

  “There’s lots more where that came from!” she said. “You’ll never go hungry with Gramma Edna next door!”

  She turned out to be a faithful member of Boomtown Church, where I’d be preaching that Sunday. Sarah fell in love with her immediately and adopted her as her own grand-mother. We’ve called her “Gramma” ever since.

  Matthieu LaPierre volunteered to fix the front screen door while others went from room to room unpacking boxes, hanging pictures, setting up beds, and organizing the kitchen. The ladies from Gramma Edna’s sewing circle showed up with ironing boards and irons; they smoothed out the wrinkles from our clothes and linens while they got to know Janice better and helped her fill up the dressers and closets.

  Ed Gamelli, the mailman, stopped by at around three o’clock and added our names to his route list. Then at four o’clock we met Leona Peasley, hostess of the Boomtown Welcome Wagon and lead soprano at St. Bernard’s Lutheran Church. She presented us with a straw basket decorated with green and yellow ribbons and filled to the brim with apples, pears, peaches, and several jars of homemade marionberry jam. She handed us an envelope filled with all sorts of things: a welcome letter from the Wagoneers, a note of greeting from the mayor, and coupons from local businesses.

  Leona said, “There’s a coupon in there for a free Family Gutbuster Sundae from Top’s Soda Shop. A free hairdo for Janice when she visits Gertrude’s Beauty Parlor for the first time. There are special offers from the Boomtown Bookstore, the Hobby Center, Bun’s Bakery, Martin’s Mercantile, the Red Bird, and of course, Big Bang Explosives. And speaking of that . . .”

  Behind her she had a large gold-colored box, trimmed in red and green, with the Chang’s Fireworks logo emblazoned on the side. It was about the size of a small steamer trunk with wheels at the four corners and a handle for pulling it along. On the lid and on each of the four panels, in bright red letters, were printed the words Big Bang Boom Box.

  Leona presented it to us with a wink. “Every family who moves to Boomtown receives the deluxe one-hundred-and-fifty- pound box of Chang’s Famous Fireworks as a welcome gift from the factory. You’ve got sparklers, firecrackers, smoke bombs, Roman candles, fountains, spinners, flaming whistles, aerial repeaters, rockets, and mortars. There’s enough firepower in there to relocate your house if you’re not careful!”

  Jonny was the first one to react. “This is for us? All of it? For free?”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Hang on a minute, buster, before you start lighting any matches. We’ve had enough fireworks for one day, don’t you think? Probably enough for a lifetime.”

  “Ah, c’mon, Dad. Just look at it. A hundred and fifty pounds!”

  Leona cut in. “Now, Reverend, don’t look so worried. On every fourth Friday, from May through September, everyone gathers down by the river in Chang Park and shoots off fire-works. It’s all carefully supervised and a real blast, if you know what I mean. My husband will be there—quite a number of adults, actually—and the fire chief with his truck.”

  “And an ambulance? And maybe a few stretchers? You heard what happened at the fireworks factory?”

  Leona laughed. “Sure, I heard about it. You really know how to make an entrance!”

  “Well, I’m not looking for a repeat performance, not tonight anyway. It’s totally out of the question.” My back started to hurt again just thinking about it.

  “Dad!” Jonny complained. Sarah joined in. “It’s not fair!” Even Ruth was pouting.

  Janice came to the rescue. “Listen here, Mr. Button. We’re new in this town and you know what they say: ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ We should join in. We’ll meet more of the neighbors and let the kids have their fun. We’ll be there to watch. It’ll be fun for us too. Please?”

  “That’s right, Reverend,” Leona added. “It’s a great way for the kids to make friends. Just think about it—after this morning Jonny and Sarah are famous! The park will be swarming with kids from the town. I’ll be down there with my family. The whole Welcome Wagon committee will be there. Please say you’ll come.”

  I was almost convinced, but not quite. When in Rome, do as the Romans do? I thought about what the Romans were famous for—it usually involved mass destruction and quite a bit of slashing and burning. After the episode that morning, I wasn’t game for any more of it. But I looked into the eyes of my wife, then the faces of Jonny and Sarah and even Ruth, and figured I didn’t have any choice. That was happening a lot lately.

  “Okay,” I said, “we’ll go, but only on two conditions.”

  Once the cheering subsided, they asked me what they were.

  “Number one, we aren’t going anywhere until we’ve finished moving in. That goes for all of you—especially you, Sarah—all your things put away, your room cleaned up, your bed made.”

  “I will! I promise!”

  “And number two, you will not under any circumstances push any buttons or flip any switches without complete and total adult supervision, and not until I am hiding behind a rock—is that understood?”

  “Thanks, Dad!” Jonny said, pumping my hand. “It’s a deal!”

  “All right, now that’s settled. Let’s get back to work.”
r />   Unpacking continued without further interruption. By the time it started to get dark, all the furniture was in position, all the boxes were unpacked, all the beds were set up, and we still had time before the fireworks show to eat another delicious meal. Gramma Edna and her sewing ladies insisted on feeding us until our stomachs were ready to burst. I could already tell that in Boomtown we’d never starve.

  By eight o’clock I was so tired and sore that I tried to get out of going to the park, but Jonny and Sarah wouldn’t leave me alone.

  “C’mon kids, I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow is Saturday. I have to get ready for my first Sunday. I’m going to stay home. Ruth and your mother can take you.”

  “But you gotta come, Dad! Have you even looked inside the box?”

  I had, actually. The Big Bang Boom Box consisted of two parts. There was a latch that held the lid closed. Once it was opened, the lid contained all the loose fireworks: strings of firecrackers, Roman candles, sparklers, fountains, bottle rockets, and that sort of thing. There were smoke bombs and squirmy snakes and smoke worms and spinning flowers and buzzing fire bees, but there was also something I’d never seen before. It was an army of little tin soldiers (made out of cardboard, of course) that when you lit the fuse, they would go marching across the ground until the fuse hit the main charge, after which their heads would go shooting off and explode with a bang. There were also about twenty fire frogs; light the fuse and they went jumping all over the place, flipping upside down, spewing fire and smoke, and finally disappearing in a blast of green flame and sparks. Those were really something to see.

  But that was nothing compared to the second part. The main box contained a preset fireworks display, complete with launcher tubes and a timed fuse mechanism. All you had to do was set the box an appropriate distance away from spectators, light the extra-long fuse, duck for cover, and watch as the rockets’ red glare filled the air. Pink ones, blue ones, green ones, gold and silver bursts, loud explosions, balls of fire, shooting and crackling and whistling fireworks for almost ten solid minutes. I was forced to admit I was suitably impressed by the display. I marveled at the clever inventors at the fireworks factory who had designed it.

  However, as enjoyable as the fireworks turned out to be, the best part of the evening had to do with the people we met, especially the children of Boomtown who took to our kids like mice to a hunk of cheese. Ruth met some other high school girls who invited her to try out for the cheer-leading squad. Sarah and Jonny were that night’s celebrities and they both went home with a dozen new friends. It was everything Janice and I had been hoping for.

  It started with a boy about the same age as Jonny who came over and introduced himself. “Howdy! The name’s Busy. What’s yours?”

  “Jonathan. But people call me Jonny—or sometimes Jon for short. Your name is kinda weird, though.”

  “What, Busy? Nah, that’s not my real name.”

  “What is it then?”

  “My real name is Bartholomew Zed Gunderson—that’s a mouthful, ain’t it? My initials are B. Z., so my friends just call me ‘Busy.’ Get it?”

  “Sure, I get it now.”

  “My dad’s nickname is the weird one. It’s ‘Lazy.’ Lazy Gunderson—sorta the opposite of mine.”

  “Why do they call him that?”

  “’Cause he flattened our house with a tractor.”

  “He did?”

  “That’s right!” Busy grinned proudly, hitching his thumbs in his pants. “Flattened the house! Flat as a pancake!”

  “You’re making that up,” Jonny said.

  “It’s true! He was out in the cornfield one day. It was hot and he fell asleep—which is no big deal usually; he’s always taking a nap it seems like—’cept this time he was still on the tractor.”

  “What happened then?” Sarah interrupted, getting caught up in the story.

  “Who’s this?” Busy asked.

  “That’s my little sister. She’s Sorry.”

  “Sorry ’bout what?”

  “Sorry about everything, usually. Just wait a few minutes. I’m sure she’ll come up with something.”

  Sarah punched Jonny in the shoulder. “I’m not that little. I’m ten years old. I’m big enough to keep up with any of you farmer kids.”

  “You think so?” Busy replied, sizing her up. “Well, I’m the leader of my gang, and I say we don’t have any girls to go in it. We’ll take Jonny. ’Course we want him, after he blew up the fire-works factory and all. He’s my new captain; that’s what I say.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure ’nough. I need a guy who knows his way around rockets and stuff.”

  Sarah cut in. “That’s not fair! I burned down the fire-works factory too!”

  Busy thought about it for a moment before he answered, “That’s true. I heard you was the one who threw the switch. I’ll have to talk to the other guys about it, but I won’t make any promises. We don’t want to catch no girl germs.”

  Sarah crossed her arms and pouted. “Don’t bother, coo-tie breath. I’ll start my own gang! You’ll see.” She stomped off into the night looking for any girls she could recruit.

  “She’s a real firecracker,” Busy decided. “She always goin’ off like that?”

  “Yeah, pretty much every five seconds. Anyway, you were talking about your dad?”

  “Right, I was,” Busy nodded. “So my dad, he falls asleep on the tractor with his foot jammed on the accelerator and the engine still in gear. The tractor starts to turn in this big circle, you see, right through the rows of corn he’d already planted, right across the field, right through the fence!”

  “He didn’t wake up?”

  “Nah, he was really tired on account of the fact that he missed his morning nap and it was so hot and all. So he just slept right on through, even when the tractor drove through the barn. The doors were wide open—he went in one side and out the other!”

  “Boy, I wish I was there to see that!”

  “Same here. I was in school so I missed the whole thing; so did my brother and sister. My mom was there, though, outside in the front yard hanging the laundry. That’s where she was when he went rolling on by—right through her clean sheets—right over the top of her laundry basket! She started screaming and chasing him across the yard, but still he didn’t wake up till he was halfway through the living room—’course by then it was too late.”

  “You’re joshin’ me!”

  “Nope. There he went, right on across the porch, through the front door, across the living room, into the kitchen, and right out the back!”

  “What’d he do when he woke up?”

  “About the time he was smashing through the kitchen, he opened his eyes and saw what was going on, but before he could get the tractor out of gear, he was in the back yard. There was nothing he could do about it, with this big ol’ gaping hole right through the middle of our house! My mom ran around to make sure he was okay, just as the house tipped over and fell down flat as a penny on a railroad track! Whomp! Just like that!”

  “Wow!”

  “Yep. Ever since then people ’round here call him Lazy.

  Lazy Gunderson, that’s my dad!”

  Jonny said, “You’re so lucky. Your dad is famous.”

  “Hey, your dad was almost killed by a rocket!” Busy answered back. “What could be better’n that?”

  After the boys got to know each other, Busy introduced him to the rest of his friends, and from that moment on Jonny was never to be seen alone. It was always Jonny and Busy and Frank and Rocky and Bobby and Lonnie and all his other buddies as they went fishing or camping or tree climbing or exploring or who knows what else. In fact, I credit those boys for some of what ended up happening, although I share a large portion of the blame. If I hadn’t been so hard on Jonny, maybe he could have trusted me.

  What none of us knew was that there was another new-comer in town that night. We wouldn’t find out until much later, but he was there watching the whole fireworks dis
play from his hiding place in the trees. None of us heard him gasp when he laid eyes on the Big Bang Boom Box—when he saw the picture of Chang for the first time. None of us knew who the mysterious visitor was or what he was doing there.

  But we would find out soon enough.

  CHAPTER 3

  Walt’s Barbershop

  In spite of the late night, Janice and I were up early the next morning. She had a few more things to put away, and I wanted to review my sermon notes before Sunday. We let the children sleep in. They were exhausted after all the excitement of the day before.

  Gramma Edna popped in with some freshly baked muffins for breakfast. We sat and had some coffee while she talked about where to find things in Boomtown. Janice wanted to visit some of the shops, especially Gertrude’s Beauty Parlor, and I needed to get a haircut. I was determined to make a good first impression on my new flock. My hair would be freshly trimmed, and I’d wear my best preaching suit and my favorite tie.

  Gramma Edna provided directions to the local barber-shop. She chuckled and said, “We aren’t the biggest town in the world. For the gentlemen, there’s Walt’s Barber Shop on Bang Street and for you, Janice, you’re already planning to go to Gertrude’s Beauty Parlor on Boom Boulevard. Those are your only choices.”

  Just as she was telling us this, Sarah came barreling down the stairs and jumped into Gramma Edna’s lap. “Oof!” Edna said, almost spilling her coffee. With Sarah on the scene and the other two close behind, Edna could only squeeze in a final word of advice: “Whatever you do, Reverend, if you stop in for a haircut—don’t upset Walter!” I never got the chance to ask her what she meant.