A Moment in Magic Hour: A Coming-of-Age Story (Magic Hour Series Book 1) Read online

  A Moment in Magic Hour

  John Anthony

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by John Anthony

  A Moment in Magic Hour

  Copyright © 2016 John Anthony

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited and Formatted by

  Pam Berehulke, Bulletproof Editing

  Cover Design © 2016 John Anthony

  Kindle Edition

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Magic Hour (noun): A special time of day—specifically during sunrise or sunset—when the sun is near the horizon, glowing and golden, emitting a hazy light that makes everything breathtaking and magical.

  For Mom

  Chapter One

  June 1977

  “Did you hear me, Jack?”

  It was like time had slowed down. Mom’s words floated in the air, drifting toward me.

  Stunned, I shook my head.

  “I said you’re going to have another little sister.” She smiled like she always did when she was trying to trick me.

  “Brussels sprouts are good!” she’d say with that same big smile.

  Barf. I already had two little sisters. We didn’t have room for three.

  Scowling, I said, “Why do we need another one?”

  Her eyebrows raised like I’d said something that surprised her.

  This can’t possibly be happening to me. She’s gotta be wrong.

  “Maybe you’re just gettin’ fat.”

  When her smile disappeared and her back stiffened, my face warmed, and I knew what that meant. My cheeks were turning red.

  Um, I didn’t mean it that way.

  “Or maybe not.” I pushed my breakfast around on my plate and kicked the toe of my sneaker against the table leg. “Can I go outside now?”

  She stood up and grabbed her coffee mug. “Go,” she said, “but don’t think this excuses your behavior. We’ll talk about this more when Dad gets home.”

  “So he knows too?” I kicked the table leg again, a little harder this time. Enough to rattle the plates and silverware. “How come you’re telling me last?”

  Mom stopped and sighed, then turned to look at me—and stuck out her tongue.

  Waiting until she disappeared through the kitchen doorway, I giggled into my hand. I couldn’t let her know she’d broken through my tough-guy shell. She was good at that.

  I flew across the dining room toward the front door. After pushing the screen door open, I hopped down the steps and grabbed my bike. It was where I’d left it the night before—lying on its side in the front yard.

  I lifted my leg over the banana seat and kicked off the clump of grass stuck in the metal pedal from when the bike had skipped to a stop. It left one of those gouges in the front lawn that Dad always yelled at me about.

  Oops.

  I planned to ride my bike around the block to my best friend Tommy’s house. He lived in the big house directly behind us, but when I needed to get away from home—like when my sisters were bugging me—I always rode around the block to his house instead of cutting through the yard. It made it feel like I was farther away.

  Tommy was my best buddy. His hair was like a rat’s nest, always tucked under a big baseball cap that he wore cockeyed on his head. He was the first of our gang to get a real grown-up pair of Nikes for his birthday. They were navy blue with a yellow swoosh, and made every other kid on the block jealous. Most of us still had to get our shoes from the kids’ section at Sears or Montgomery Ward.

  He was twelve, and only a year older than me, but I called myself eleventeen to make me sound older. And maybe to get under his skin a little bit.

  Stephanie, his little sister, was six years old. Her hair was the color of acorns, and always tied into a long, flowing ponytail that swayed off the back of her head. A bright colorful ribbon was usually tied on top. She always wore white tennis shoes, and they never got dirty, no matter how long she’d been outside playing. It was like she was a princess right out of a movie.

  But yuck. Girls.

  Mr. Shaw’s lumberyard was right across the street from our house, so as I coasted my bike to the end of the driveway, Mr. Shaw lifted a hand and waved at me. With his other hand, he brushed the sawdust from the top of his head.

  “Hey there, Mr. Shaw.” I tossed up my hand and waved as I turned to continue down our elm-lined street. One of the Minnesota Twins baseball cards I’d clipped with a wood clothespin to the bike frame let out a satisfying thwack-thwack-thwack as it slapped against the spokes in my bike tires.

  About halfway down the block was Old Man Stillson’s house. The apple tree in his backyard always teased the neighborhood kids in late summer with its ripe apples. He tried to keep us away from it by putting up a fence, but fences don’t keep out little boys.

  Becky and Lucy’s house was down a few more on the other side of the street. They were sisters, and never wandered around the neighborhood without each other. Becky was a year older than me, and Lucy about a year younger.

  Lucy was also slower than the rest of the kids. Not in how fast she walked, but in how she thought and said stuff. Like it took her a little longer to find the words she was trying to say.

  Sometimes Becky would bring Lucy over to play with us for a little while. She never got to stay for very long, though, before Becky took her hand and walked her back home.

  Then there was Cubby, with his chubby hamster cheeks and soft voice. His real name was Theodore, and his house was at the end of the block across from the big empty house we all were sure was haunted.

  Tommy nicknamed him Cubby after a kid on Mickey Mouse Club, and it stuck. Being a year younger than me made him the baby of the group, so he didn’t have much to say about it. He was the kind of kid who said he was allergic to something if he didn’t want to eat it—stuff like broccoli and meatloaf. By the end of first grade, the lunch lady had a hard time giving him anything but pizza and french fries. It had been the same ever since.

  And then there was me, with my wavy brown hair and scrawny little arms. My brown eyes must have been the size of silver dollars, because everyone always talked about how big and brown they were. Tommy always said it was because I was full of it. Cubby had no idea what that meant, but I did.

  That was our neighborhood in West Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was like we’d always been here—like time began on this street and that was where it would end.

&n
bsp; The neighborhood was our kingdom, as much a part of us as our fingers and toes. We knew every nook and cranny, and there wasn’t one sidewalk crack that we hadn’t jumped over to avoid breaking our mothers’ backs.

  I pulled in front of Tommy’s but didn’t get off my bike. We never walked up to each other’s front doors and knocked. No, we’d simply ride our bikes up and down the street in front of the house, popping wheelies, skidding, or jumping the curbs. That was the only invite we needed to ask someone to come out and play.

  Sometimes Tommy’s little sister, Steph, would come out before him and ask me for a buck on my bike. I’d usually give her one, but I was kind of hoping she didn’t come outside this time. No, today I just wanted to hang out with Tommy and do boy stuff.

  When she came out, I let out a sigh and my shoulders slumped. She waved at me and shot me a little smile.

  Cubby always teased that she had a crush on me. I’d always see her through the front window, hiding behind the curtains, watching as Tommy and I rode away. I never figured she liked me that way. At least, I hoped not.

  Gross.

  As I smiled and waved back, Tommy came bounding down the front steps behind her. I sat up and my stomach tingled. It always felt good to see your best friend.

  He buzzed past Steph and spun around to face her. “Tell Mom we’re going bike riding, Steph.” And in one slick move, he lifted his bike and slid onto the seat. He always looked a lot cooler doing that than I did.

  “She’s gonna be mad at you.” Steph stood on their front sidewalk as we rode away, her hands on her hips. “You were supposed to take me to the store.”

  “Shoot, that’s right.” Tommy hit the brakes when we were a couple of houses down and slid sideways in some gravel as his back tire locked up. “I gotta take Steph to the store for Mom,” he told me as he shrugged. “She asked me to. She’s gotta work.”

  Tommy and Steph’s dad was gone. He left in the middle of the night about a year ago. Didn’t tell anyone either. It left their mom alone to raise the three of them: Tommy, Steph, and their older brother, Ryan.

  Ryan never really played with us kids. He was in high school, and he worked a part-time job to help their mom with money. He never complained, not like I heard other kids do when they had to get jobs. Ryan was different; he seemed almost like an adult to me.

  Tommy waved down the street to his sister to let her know he was coming back. Then he turned to me. “You wanna go with us? It’ll go quick.”

  I didn’t really want to do anything with anyone but Tommy, but I also didn’t want to go home. “I think maybe I’ll go to Granddad’s store. Check out the new comics.” I kicked my pedal with my heel. “Bike to the park later?”

  “For sure.” He raised his hand to receive a high five, and I delivered it.

  Cherokee Park was where we all hung out. Its trees and grassy green slopes gave us a million ideas for stuff to do when it came to playtime. The park could be anything from the Old West to an alien planet waiting to be explored. Every day could be different, and we challenged ourselves to come up with new worlds and ideas every time we were there.

  We’d also worn down many excellent bike paths through different areas of the park, and between the trees and shrubs. I didn’t think the park attendants cared for that too much.

  “Ask if you can sleep over tonight,” Tommy said. “I’ll ask Cubby too.”

  I nodded, and Tommy rode off toward his little sister.

  When Tommy was with Steph, he seemed so much older than I was. Almost like he was an adult. It wasn’t every twelve-year-old who could be trusted to walk their little sister across a busy street to the grocery store. And not every little kid would want to.

  But Tommy did. I didn’t know why.

  Disappointed, I turned my bike around and pedaled off to my granddad’s drugstore. He always had a way of making me feel better when I needed it.

  Chapter Two

  Down the block and around the corner was my granddad’s drugstore, Thera Drug. The front door was on the corner of the building facing the busy intersection of Smith and Annapolis Streets. When you gave the heavy door a push, the little bell attached to the inside chimed.

  Granddad always peeked his head up over the pharmacy counter and smiled at whoever walked in. If it was me, I’d get a hearty, “Howdy, Shorty!” That’s what he called me.

  I loved having a nickname. It made me feel like I was part of a club, like I was someone special. And to Granddad, I was.

  I stopped inside the door and gave Granddad a salute. He chuckled.

  My mom had told me that Granddad was in the United States Army Air Force during World War II. When I saw an old movie on TV one night, they saluted the military people, so I saluted every time I saw my granddad.

  “I see a new Superman comic there on the rack.” He squinted as he looked toward the comics, then realized his glasses were propped on top of his head and lowered them to his nose.

  I scooted over to the comic rack and spun the display, checking out the different titles.

  Granddad came over and stood next to me, then put his hand on my head. I loved how he smelled of sweet tobacco and aftershave, and he always had hard candy in his mouth that clicked against his teeth when he talked.

  He reached into the pocket of his white pharmacist jacket and pulled out a lollipop.

  “Hear you had a bit of news that bothered you, Shorty.”

  I took the lollipop from his hand and looked up into his face. His eyes were comforting and full of love, and he bent down on one knee to be at my level.

  “I think your mom might be a little upset that you’re not happy about the news.” He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “She called me, thinking you’d be stopping in here.”

  I let out a sigh and my posture deflated. “I just don’t understand why we need to have another girl. I mean, why can’t I have a brother?”

  Huffing my frustration, I looked over at another little boy who walked in with his mother, then down at the lollipop in my hand. It was pink.

  “Plus, I’m worried about all the pink.”

  Granddad let out a laugh and put his arm around me. “I know how it must feel, Shorty. I used to want a brother too.”

  I looked at Granddad and realized, probably for the first time, that he had siblings just like I did. He wasn’t just a granddad. To someone else, he was a son or a brother or a father.

  “But I tell you what,” he said. “When my sister grew up and got married, she handpicked a brother for me.” He looked at me and squeezed me closer to him. “And a really great one too.”

  A customer entered the store and Granddad gave them a welcome smile, then stood up to go help them.

  “And I tell you what,” he said. “Now I’m a little jealous of you, because you’re going to have three sisters picking out brothers for you.” He winked at me. “I only got one.”

  He grabbed the newest Superman comic from the top of the rack, then gently tapped it on the top of my head before handing it to me. “Now, take Superman, go lay in the grass, and be a little boy like you’re supposed to be.”

  He winked at me as he walked away and greeted one of his regular customers with a pat on the back and a smile. I loved how Granddad always treated everyone with the same respect and courtesy.

  Mr. Shaw from the lumberyard walked into the store, and a couple of customers looked at him like he didn’t belong. They didn’t say anything and they weren’t mean to him, but you could tell they thought he was different.

  Mr. Shaw smelled like old cigarette butts. Not sweet, earthy tobacco like Granddad, but sour and bitter. Tobacco stains made the spaces between his teeth look like they were colored in with black crayons, and he had hard, yellow-orange calluses on his fingers.

  But he was polite and kind. He took off his cap as he entered, just like guys in old movies, and gave friendly nods to everyone as he passed.

  I wanted to say hello because I like Mr. Shaw, but I slid behind the comic rack so
he couldn’t see me. I suddenly became aware that if I said hello to him, that maybe the others in the store would look at me the same way they were looking at him, and that scared me.

  I knew Mr. Shaw saw me, but he didn’t say a word about it. I felt bad about it almost right away.

  When Granddad saw him come in, he went out of his way to say hello and chat with him for a few minutes. Mr. Shaw always called Granddad “Doc,” and Granddad always laughed and told him he wasn’t a doctor, to just call him Frank. But Mr. Shaw never did.

  I asked Granddad once why he went out of his way to be extra nice to Mr. Shaw, and he told me that he was making up for the people who weren’t kind enough.

  “Your grandma thought it was terrible when people weren’t decent and kind to each other,” he said. “Especially when there’s someone who needs a little extra nice. A smile is a simple gift, and it could mean the world to the person you give it to. And it doesn’t cost anything at all.”

  It was easy to see the difference it made in Mr. Shaw. Instead of being shy and feeling out of place, he stood taller and prouder, and his laugh was deep and real. He knew he was welcome in Granddad’s store, and would always be treated with a smile. And as a result, the other people in the store started being kinder to him.

  Kindness was kind of sticky, like when I got sap on my hands trying to climb the pine tree in the front yard. No matter what I touched, it got all over it. And kindness seemed to work like that—when you got some on you, it got on everything.

  I started thinking of Grandma just then, and didn’t know how to feel. I knew I was sad, but death didn’t make a ton of sense to me yet. I think that was when it started to sink in, though.

  I still thought of her every day, and not just in the back of my mind, but right up front where I could see her face and her smile. That big, sparkly smile that looked like it didn’t even know what hate or anger was, but wanted nothing but for you to be happy.