Out On A Limb

By E. R. Yatscoff

Big Bill and Squirt are back and bound for trouble. Egghead, the bald, cranky old landlord who reigns supreme over his building has threatened Bill's family with eviction more than once. The family constantly lives on the edge, at Egghead’s whim. Egghead kills neighborhood cats and hates humans--especially kids, notably Bill. Taunting Egghead has become a past time, a source for entertainment for Bill, but a thorn in the old man's side. With his friend Squirt, they scheme to build a tree house in the willow to escape the summer heat; however, the tree shades Egghead’s favorite picnic table. The ambitious project requires smarts, speed, and stealth. If they drive Egghead to distraction he may even forget to lock his dirt-floor garage, where he does plenty of mysterious midnight digging. The neighbors believe a lot of secrets lie under the dirt and maybe more than just missing neighborhood pets. A dangerous cat and mouse game ensues with the boys forgetting that the old cat still has claws.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E. R. Yatscoff
• Release date: Jan 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9780986967856

E. R. Yatscoff

Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award finalist, John Bilsland non-fiction award, Canada Book Award Winner and Author Shout 2023 honorable mention. Most mysteries and suspense novels have to do with cops, lawyers, and PIs. My protagonist is a firefighter and is the first firefighter pulp fiction in Canada. True grit and reality are my writing tenets.My juvenile/middle grade/chapter books have no magic wands, wise talking creatures, vampires, or parallel worlds. I write stories about children, not so much specifically for children. Many adults enjoy my writing because of this. My stories are about unassuming boys who get in trouble and must prove themselves and show the world they have hearts of lions. There's fighting, conflict, loyalty, bullies, integrity, and courage. I've read samples to Grade 4 and 5 students and garnered excellent reviews.I was born in Welland, Ontario and now live in Alberta. Backpacked the world on the Hippie Trail and lived in Australia. I've worked as a paperboy, grocery clerk, sales rep, all types of construction work, painter, mink ranch hand, assembly line rubber factory, cherry picker, freelance astronaut (no offers), boilermaker apprentice, delivery driver, father, coach, and career firefighter and officer for 32 years. I've also played drums in the Black Gold Big Band for 8 years.I retired as fire captain with Edmonton Fire Rescue, a large Canadian metro fire service. I live in Beaumont, Alberta with Gloria, whom I met on a freighter/passenger ship from Jakarta to Singapore. I've climbed the Great Wall of China, been down and out living in Australia, honeymooned with Gloria during the Grenada Revolution and saw Maurice Bishop, snorkeled with a marlin, almost smuggled a Playboy into Communist Russia, tossed eggs at an Aussie PM, was in Havana when Fidel shocked Cubans and stepped down. My wife made a pot of tea for the Queen of England in N.Z.I travel widely, do a bit of fishing and boating, drink demon rum, manage a writers group, do occasional renos, and sit on my butt outside in the good weather reading a decent book. My writing work consists of travel articles, YA, juvenile, how-tos, and has garnered several awards. Check out my website for some excellent short stories.

Book preview

OUT ON A LIMB

by

E.R.Yatscoff

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 E. R. Yatscoff

Second edition June. 2022

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9869678-5-6

The author would greatly appreciate a brief Smashwords review

Young Reader

Ransom Out On A Limb The Far Bank Archie's Gold (excerpt below)

Young Adult

VooDoo Bully The Blob...In My Shoes

All ages

The Rumrunner’s Boy (Crime Writers of Canada - Arthur Ellis award Finalist 2019)

Firefighter crime series

Fire Dream Man On Fire Final Response (summer 2021)

Crime/Thriller/ Suspense

Teeth Of The Cocodrilo Services Rendered (2022)

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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

This book is a work of fiction. Certain locations and people figures are mentioned but all other characters and events are imaginary. Any similarities are coincidental.

Dedication

To Bill Stuart.

A toast to the boys of summer and carefree adventures without the burdening yoke of parents.

Also a special thanks to my writer's group; Edna G., Tim P, Savanna H., and Ray S.

Thanks to my son, Joel, for the cover art

To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.

-Anatole France, French novelist (1844 - 1924)

Chapter 1

CRAZY OLD MAN

"I know you’re plottin’ something," I said to my best friend Bill Stalart.

Bill was also Egghead’s arch-enemy. Yeah, like Lex Luthor to Superman, but without superpowers. Unless one considered Egghead’s slippers.

We sat on the bottom of the long wooden stairway beside Bill’s ground floor suite. The stairs ran up the side of the yellow-stucco apartment building to the one suite above.

Like puttin’ an egg in a microwave. Ever do that? asked Bill, nudging me with an elbow.

He was talking about Egghead, aka Mr. Morella, the rotund man pushing a gas mower across the front section of lawn. Bill’s green eyes were wide in expectation and his intense expression made me think of a hyena patiently waiting for a lion to leave its kill.

Uh-huh, really does look like it could blow today, I said, fascinated by the man's unsightly head. I recalled cleaning the mess from trying to speed up a three-minute egg. But to see a human head explode...well, that was something else entirely. The clean up would take an awful lot of paper towels.

Looks like he poured oil in the wrong hole again, said Bill, studying the man closely.

Blue smoke belched from the machine, coughing and sputtering like a diesel truck needing a tune-up.

Egghead’s baldhead seemed to throb with every push and pull on the ancient mower. Blue veins on the sides of the old man’s head swelled with his effort. His double chins wobbled as he sucked in air. Three coils of skin, like fleshy ropes, wound back around his head from one ear to the other. An abnormally hot April sun baked down on him, creating thin rivers of sweat that forked around his large ears to stain his blue shirt collar. He usually let the yard grow wild until he got the inclination to cut it back. Sometimes the grass grew as tall as a barley field, nearly hiding the mower.

He may be going down for the count here, I said.

After every swath he’d pause to wipe his sweaty brow with a ratty rag he yanked out from his back pocket. He lacked eyebrows to divert the torrent from his eyes. All throughout his wiping he’d stare at us for a time before returning to his task.

He’s giving us the evil eye, said Bill.

The deathly, cold look was pure horror movie stuff. His eyes were as black and unblinking as a snake’s. Bruised rings circling them were just like a Zombie’s.

Uh, then what’s the stink eye? I asked.

It’s like the evil eye, but it means he’s comin’ to get ya.

I shuddered.

Something’s gotta happen, said Bill.

Okay, maybe his head wouldn’t actually blow, but he could faint, hit the ground, and knock himself out, then fall under his mower. Sliced and diced. If an accident did happen, Bill and I would swoop in like superheroes to finish the lawn--for a price. It would be a big job requiring a substantial fee. There was only grass on the front and Bill’s side of the building, but there was a lot of grass, probably like three regular-sized yards.

And if it does happen?

Ten, fifteen bucks, right? I replied.

We slapped high fives. It was a fair price based on what Bill charged his customers. Of course, we’d try to squeeze him for fifteen, but ten became the bottom line for a five and five split.

It was hard to judge Egghead’s age. Not only was he bald, but his entire body appeared to be hairless, smooth as if he’d been dipped in a chemical bath. Not a nose thread or spiraling ear hair in sight. As the owner of the building, he was also the caretaker in every sense of the word. He did everything no matter how tough the task. His sacred space occupied the other entire half of the building with his suite upstairs, diagonal from the Stalarts', and his dirt-floor garage below. A young married couple lived above Bill but we hardly ever saw them.

The mysterious dirt floor in the garage sure raised a lot of speculation about what lay below it. Bill and I believed it hid plenty of secrets. No one in the neighborhood seemed to know much about Egghead as he’d lived here long before any of the neighbors.

Old Mr. Oleskiw, a neighbor of thirteen or so years told us his suspicions. Morella’s likely got a treasure of loot buried under the dirt. Might be some kind of Commie gold from when Mr. Morella came to Canada. Rumor was he fled Yugoslavia during the Bosnia war. I see a light in there sometimes at night. Then he gave us a look holding all the intrigue in the world. Sometimes he digs in there.

The treasure in our minds somehow became riches beyond belief. Egghead guarded his garage as if the Holy Grail itself were inside. The only time the wooden garage doors remained partly opened for any length of time was when he cut the grass or hoed the garden. The few times when he happened to leave it ajar and unguarded for a minute or two, Bill and I'd stroll past, real slow, for a long look. The old man didn’t have a car so nothing inside blocked our view. Sure enough, there were sections of the floor that looked recently disturbed making it tempting to sneak in some night with a shovel. The only thing stopping us was our lack of invisible powers, the heavy padlock, and fear.

I been thinkin’ about him and got some stuff in mind, said Bill.

Such as?

He held up a hand. It’s still brewin’.

I thought he might be plotting another mean joke on Egghead. Bill once got his kid brother, Johnny, to jump on his shoulders and pencil a jagged line high up on the stucco wall. Bill said it drove Egghead to distraction, going so far as calling in a builder, making sure the building didn’t crumble.

Egghead leaned heavily against the handle to bull the mower forward with robotic steps; planting his weight on one foot, then another. Even so, the old man never forgot to keep one eye targeted on us like an armed Hellfire missile.

Bill’s mom said Egghead gave her the creeps. The look maybe couldn’t stop a small car, but it did occasionally stop a kid on a bicycle. The longer the stare, the more uneasy we’d become. Strange how that look could make a person feel guilty as if he knew every deep dark secret in our souls.

Bill figured him for a one-time prison warden. Mr. Oleskiw mentioned Morella might have been a death-camp guard. Bill nodded at that revelation, validating his suspicions. You’d want a face like Egghead on all your guards. Scary having a guy like that in the neighborhood. I couldn’t face those inky eyes for more than a few seconds before feeling myself tremble and quickly looking away. I think he disliked my hair; bright as an orange peel, short-cropped, and bristly, it was my constant nemesis; a beacon atop my pale freckled face, attracting all manner of comments. Carrot Top is the most common.

My mom gave me the hair and fair complexion that tended to burn in the sun. My father added a short, wiry build, so I was always a year or so behind in height compared to other kids. Down a quart as my father would say. My nickname became Squirt--somewhat better than Leonard. Only my parents called me Leonard, or sometimes Lenny. If there existed such a thing as reincarnation, next go-round I’d choose tall parents with Latino complexions.

Bill handled Morella’s ‘evil eye' well enough. He could meet those eyes longer than I could. The old man always blamed Bill and his younger brother, Johnny, for every problem around the building. Last January, some kids rounded up a few dozen Christmas trees which were set out on the street for garbage pickup. The kids tossed the trees into a huge pile right on Egghead’s driveway. Bill wished he’d thought of that one. As usual, the grouch came directly to the Stalart’s door, grumbling and complaining, and the usual threat to throw the family out, which always tended to unnerve Bill’s mom. Bill’s father, a pipeline worker, died in a gas explosion about five years ago.

The mower began to cough and sputter like a wounded animal.

Bill nudged me sharply. Check that out, Squirt!

Egghead slowly tilted himself down onto all fours to unclog long, wet grass from the mower’s side chute--with the engine still running. The dark blue case containing glasses he rarely wore, slid out of his shirt pocket.

My eyes widened. He’s crazy! He hadn’t read the manual and the number one rule of machinery repair--turn it off. Even cats only have nine lives.

Our backs stiffened, anticipating this just might be the final time he would tempt fate.

Bill cackled like a crow. That's gonna hurt. We may have to get out the rake.

And a plastic baggie for several fingers.

But Egghead dodged another bullet. He tugged out a clump of wet grass causing the motor, to roar to full power again. His hands patted the grass in front of him, feeling around, finally clamping onto the glasses case that