The Sparrow Found A House (Sparrow Stories #1) Read online



  The Sparrow Found A House

  Copyright 2013 Jason McIntire

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – Two Smartphones And A Left Shoe

  Chapter 2 – The Changing Of The Guard

  Chapter 3 – Limits

  Chapter 4 – Ben

  Chapter 5 – Out With It

  Chapter 6 – New Friends

  Chapter 7 – The Room With The Red Door

  Chapter 8 – Memorial Day

  Chapter 9 – “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday”

  Chapter 10 – Darkness

  Chapter 11 – Reach Up

  Chapter 12 – The Epic Quest Of Chris And Ben

  Chapter 13 – Aldebaran And False Morels

  Chapter 14 – The Objective

  Chapter 15 – The Summer Of Fence-Sitting

  Chapter 16 – Dear Grandma

  Chapter 17 – Turnaround

  Chapter 18 – The Penalty Box

  Chapter 19 – Salem

  Chapter 20 – Finding Izzie

  Chapter 21 – Buying The Farm

  Chapter 22 – An Unusual Christmas

  Chapter 23 – Hello Goodbye

  Chapter 24 – The Great Raw Potato Battle

  Chapter 25 – Scrabble, For The Glory Of God

  Chapter 26 – Whatever Befall

  Chapter 27 – The March Of Dimes

  Chapter 28 – Exam Time

  Chapter 29 – The Extra Mile

  Chapter 30 – The Order Of The Golden Sparrow

  Chapter 1

  Two Smartphones And A Left Shoe

  Jessie Rivera shifted anxiously from one foot to the other, promising herself that if Chris failed to appear in the next two minutes, she was going home without him. Today wasn’t just any old day at Reliance High School. This was the day their mother would return with their newly-minted stepfather from a honeymoon in Colorado.

  Everything had gone relatively well these last two weeks, with Chris and Jessie in charge of themselves and their two siblings. She wanted to be sure that all continued to go well, right down to the chicken now thawing in the sink at home. The recipe she had downloaded said the chicken would require two hours and thirty-five minutes to prepare after thawing. That didn’t leave much of a margin for error if it was going to be done by six – and if there was one thing she already knew Sergeant Glenn Sparrow valued, it was punctuality.

  Jessie started walking as soon as Chris appeared. He caught up quickly without complaint, and actually began to outwalk his little sister, with furtive glances to the left and right as they sailed across the school parking lot.

  “What’s up with the power-walking?” Jessie panted as she struggled to keep up.

  “Just walk,” Chris hissed, “for our lives.”

  “You’re in trouble with Boomer and Punch, aren’t you?” she guessed apprehensively, skipping steps to stay abreast. The names might have sounded silly to the uninitiated, but no one who had ever seen – or been threatened by – their owners would dare to laugh.

  “Yeah, the ten-cent question goes to Jessie Rivera,” Chris shot back. “Of course I’m in trouble with Boomer and Punch. You know I borrowed that money from them. We talked about it.”

  “We talked about it,” responded Jessie with mounting anger, “and I told you to do anything but borrow the money from those thugs! How much are you into them for?”

  “A bill and a half.”

  “A hundred and fifty bucks? Have you lost your mind, Chris? What are you going to do, pawn your phone?”

  “They already took my phone as security,” Chris responded. “Tonight I’ll go over and see if Marty will loan me the money. He wouldn’t do it to impress my girl, but he might do it to save my neck.”

  “He may save it, but when we get home I’m going to wring it! You just had to go and make waves when Mom and Glenn are coming. Do you want Glenn to think we’re a couple of kids?”

  “Jessie, you’re fifteen and I’m sixteen. We are a couple of kids.”

  “Not for much longer we’re not. Just don’t tell Glenn about this, okay? I’ll help you find a way to work it out.”

  “Can you get me the money?” Chris hoped. “Or at least part of it?”

  “I’ll see what I can raise, but this has got to be the last time you get mixed up with the great-ape social set.”

  Chris stopped suddenly. “Um, Jessie, now would be a good time to come up with at least a down-payment.”

  Jessie stopped so quickly she almost tripped and fell right into the muscled arms of Punch.

  “Yo Tubby,” the giant menace greeted Chris. “And Tubby’s sister. What’s your hurry? We weren’t finished talking to you.”

  The situation was not good. They were on a back street with little traffic at this time of day – a perfect spot for an ambush. Jessie suspected that Punch and his partner had more in mind than “talking.”

  “Hey!” Boomer was suddenly standing behind them, sweating from what had obviously been a brisk run to catch up. “Lose the girl, Punch. Our bizness ain’t with her.”

  “Okay, sweetie.” Punch unhanded Jessie’s arm. “You and your little pink purse have three seconds to vanish.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Jessie stepped over next to her brother, who looked appreciative. Telling Jessie to run and save herself never even crossed his mind.

  Acting brave made Jessie feel a bit of power, so she tried to continue the momentum. “You guys need to back off now. You can’t afford to do this. You’re both one strike from getting expelled.”

  This was not the right argument to use on Boomer and Punch, who simply shrugged at one another. They did look uncertain, though, as they sized up the pair. Beating up some welcher was one thing, but scrapping with his sister was another. “Okay,” Boomer said to Punch, “I’ll deal with Braveheart over here. You keep the lipstick out of my way.”

  With that, Punch latched onto Jessie’s arm again and pulled her away from the action. “Might want to close your eyes,” he snorted.

  Boomer towered over the pudgy and terrified Chris. “You’ve got a rock in your shoe, bro,” he announced. “Take it off.”

  Blank with fear, Chris lifted his left foot and slipped off the loosely-tied sneaker. In one motion, Boomer swept the shoe from his hand and knocked his other foot out from under him. Chris went down with a grunt and stayed there, groveling. “Don’t hurt me, Boomer! I’ll pay you. I know this guy; he’ll give me money. I’ll pay you.”

  Boomer started toward him. “With extra interest!” Chris added. “Fifty bucks!”

  “Good,” Boomer nodded with a smile. “You’re speakin’ my language now. But how’s your friend gonna know we mean business, unless we leave you a little calling card?”

  In an adrenaline-powered panic, Jessie yanked her arm away from Punch and reached for her constant companion and last resort, her phone. But Punch had it away from her before the screen was even unlocked. “Yo Boomer,” he called as he discarded her again. “Look at this. Another phone to go with the one we already got from Tubby.”

  “That’s mine,” Jessie insisted as she reached for it. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “That’s true,” Punch agreed. “But you did sort of co-sign with Tubby, now ain’t that right?”

  Boomer thumbed the phone, then suddenly snapped off the back of it. “Tell you what,” he offered. “We’ll keep half of it with the deposit. You can have the screen.”

  Jessie knew the day was lost. At best, they would be going home short one-and-a-half phones and a left shoe. Chris was back on his feet now, plainly thinking thoughts of desperation. Almost casually and with the back of his hand
, Boomer returned him to the sidewalk with a smack across the nose. Then, as quickly as they appeared, the two troublemakers were on their way, with a warning tossed behind them between snorts. “Don’t you kids come to school again without payment in full.”

  Jessie suddenly became aware that her knees had liquefied. She sank down next to Chris and tried to look as if she was checking on him. “That’s going to be a black eye for sure,” she lamented. “Chris, how do you get us into these scrapes? Mom and Glenn will find out for sure!”

  “So let them find out.” Chris dusted himself off and limped down the sidewalk. “What’s he going to do, throw me in the brig? I could use somebody finding out how those two crooks are terrorizing the school! I’m sick of it! I tell you, I just about lost it with those guys when they started messing with you. Another second, I would have been on Boomer like a cannonball.”

  More like a butterball, Jessie thought to herself as she trailed behind him on still-rubbery legs. “Just don’t go in the door crying about it. If you want me to help you get the money, don’t let Glenn find out.”

  “Okay,” Chris responded, “but I am not going to school on Monday without two hundred bucks, cash. So how are you going to explain what’s left of your cell phone?”

  “I’ll say I dropped it. Probably the same time you ‘fell’ and ‘lost’ your shoe. That won’t really be a lie, exactly. Let’s turn down here and stop by BJ’s Bargains.”

  “Does he have shoes? My foot is starting to hurt.”

  “He has cell phone batteries, really cheap. Which is good, because I only have ten bucks. Can’t think why Boomer and Punch didn’t go through my purse and take that too, the creeps.”

  Jessie and Chris were arguing again as they emerged from BJ’s ten minutes later. “Those shoes were only a dollar,” Chris pouted. “You could have lent me that much.”

  “Oh, quit whining like a baby!” Jessie retorted. “It’s six blocks home. Don’t you know Dad used to walk miles to school in Mexico, on a dirt road, barefoot?”

  “And without a cell phone,” Chris grumbled pointedly. “I would have thought you could at least do without it for one night. I’m going to miss mine the whole weekend.”

  “Which is what you deserve,” Jessie retorted, “for always boiling up the water and then pulling me in with you. I don’t know when you’ll ever learn to think before you go and do things. And we’ll never make it home at this rate. Look, just catch up with me and get home when you can. If I run the rest of the way, there’s still a chance I could get the chicken started on time.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Jessie took off down the street at a sprint. Three minutes later, she collapsed through the side door into the family garage – and nearly tripped over a little boy crawling on the floor. “Moses Rivera!” she shrieked in her best “Mom” voice. “What are you doing down there? Someone’s going to break their neck when they trip over you... or over all this junk! What is all this, anyway? Did you take apart the lawnmower again?”

  “Moe was trying to start the string trimmer,” piped up Katie from her prim perch on the stoop, “and flooded it. I told him to just leave it alone, but he didn’t listen.”

  “What’s that smell?” Jessie wondered suddenly. “That’s gasoline!”

  “It leaked,” Moe shrugged sorrowfully. “We cleaned it up, though – with towels.” He gestured to a soggy pile of car towels in the corner.

  “Okay, this isn’t happening. Moe, get this junk in a box and out of the way before Mom backs the car in over it. And you and Katie do something with those towels. We need to air this place out.”

  Jessie grabbed her phone from her purse as it rang. The new battery, secured with duct tape, was strangely hot to the touch. As she tried to answer it there was a sudden, horrible POP, followed by a puff of smoke and a distinct burning smell. Jessie Rivera was no physics whiz, but even she knew that sparks and gas fumes don’t complement one another. Almost stepping on Katie’s head to get into the house, she rushed the sizzling phone to the sink and threw it in the water with the chicken, where it steamed and smelled of plastic.

  The three of them just stood there and watched it for a minute, drawn from their horror only when they heard the ominous sound of the garage door opening. Almost immediately, that sound was followed by the most terrible crunching and cracking noises, then a car reversing, and two surprised voices. Walking around hissing car tires and pieces of what used to be the family string trimmer, Glenn Sparrow and his new bride entered the kitchen to find a cell phone boiling with a chicken in the sink, and Jessie in a despairing heap on the floor. “This isn’t as bad as it looks,” she attempted.

  Just then the door opened again, and in walked the family’s eldest son, sporting a bruised face and hobbling on one shoe.

  “Actually,” sighed Jessie in resignation, “I guess it is.”