—Maniac Magee—
by Jerry Spinelli

Chapter 6

 

About an hour later Mrs. Valerie Pickwell twanged open her back screen door, stood on the step, and whistled.

As whistles go, Mrs. Pickwell's was one of the all-time greats. It reeled in every Pickwell kid for dinner every night. Never was a Pickwell kid ever late for dinner. It's a record that will probably stand forever. The whistle wasn't loud. It wasn't screechy. It was a simple two-note job --- one high note, one low. To an outsider, it wouldn't sound all that special. But to the ears of a Pickwell kid, it was magic. Somehow it had the ability to slip through the slush of five o'clock noises to reach its targets.

So, from the dump, from the creek, from the tracks, from Red Hill --- in ran the Pickwell kids for dinner, all ten of them. Add to that the parents, baby Didi, Grandmother and Grandfather Pickwell, Great-grandfather Pickwell, and a down-and-out taxi driver whom Mr. Pickwell was helping out (the Pickwells were always helping out somebody) --- all that, and you had what Mrs. Pickwell called her "small nation."

Only a Ping-Pong table was big enough to seat them all, and that's what they ate around. Dinner was spaghetti. In fact, every third night dinner was spaghetti.

When dinner was over and they were all bringing their dirty dishes to the kitchen, Dominic Pickwell said to Duke Pickwell, "Who's that kid?"

"What kid?" said Duke.

"The kid next to you at the table."

"I don't know. I thought Donald knew him."

"I don't know him," said Donald. "I thought Dion knew him."

"Never saw him," said Dion. "I figured he was Deirdre's new boyfriend."

Deirdre kicked Dion in the shins. Duke checked back in the dining room. "He's gone!"

The Pickwell kids dashed out the back door to the top of Rako Hill. They scanned the railroad tracks. There he was, passing Red Hill, a book in his hand. He was running, passing the spear field now, and the Pickwell kids had to blink and squint and shade their eyes to make sure they were seeing right --- because the kid wasn't running the cinders alongside the tracks, or the wooden ties. No, he was running --- running --- where the Pickwells themselves, where every other kid, had only ever walked --- on the steel rail itself!