As I said before, they were brother and sister. Tenspeed was eleven years old, but Jinx was only ten. Tenspeed was the taller than any of us. He had blue eyes and blond hair that what was always a mess. That was partly due to the fact that he always wore some sort of baseball cap and that he never combed it except when he got his school picture taken or his grandmother came to visit.
His real name was Nathan Benjamin Smittel. He got the nickname Tenspeed because he received a 26-inch, ten-speed bicycle when he was just six years old. All he wanted for his birthday that year was his first bicycle. Most kids would get a small 20-inch bike at that age. But his dad thought he could save some money by buying one large bike, one time, and let Tenspeed grow into it. Tenspeed couldn’t even get on the thing.
His sister, Mary Elizabeth, was almost a spitting image of her brother except she was several inches shorter than Tenspeed, and very careful about her hair. It was always clean, combed and perfect. She got her name Jinx because she was always making a mess of our best plans. Wherever we went or whatever we would do, Jinx would do or say something really stupid and foul up the works. But we still liked her. Even though she was a girl, she could keep up with the boys.
“Come on, you guys,†Booger urged. “Let’s go!†This was classic Booger: he was always the first to jump into anything. His eagerness was his virtue. His stature the drag on it’s success.
The rest of us were coming along, yet still milling about. Earl had this effect on us. There was never hurry with him. And it rubbed off on us. Things seemed to slow down around him. Sure, we would get to the Kendrick house, but all in good time.
“We’re coming,†I replied lightly.
We all agreed it was better to approach the Kendrick house indirectly. So we did not return the way we came to Earl’s house. We took the long way around. We would arrive at the house from its backside shielded by the short grove of apples trees that bordered the home. Then circle around as necessary. Taking the long way also gave us time to speculate who was moving into the old spooky wreck.
But once more, I’m getting ahead of myself. You should know something about me.
