The Kid Who Fixed The Problem With February

By David Loveland

To Hank life was an adventure. In his pursuit of fun, he leads his friends on a hilarious series of escapades that turn the town upside down. When he comes up with a plan to turn February, the most depressing month of the year, into the best time of the year, he catches the town’s elected officials off guard and proves what one kid can do with a little confidence and a lot of guts

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Loveland
• Release date: Jul 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301639434

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The Kid Who Fixed The Problem With February

By David Gray Loveland

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This eBook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared,

provided it appears in its entirety without alteration.

Chapter 1

Back in the days when we lived across the street from the Randall’s, I always thought of them as the perfect family. They were the kind of family that I wished I could be adopted into when I was not getting along with my parents or was fighting with my brother or sister. Although I sometimes dreamed about what it would be like to switch families, I knew that it would never happen. There is no way that I could become the newest member of their family, for I was just a plain looking kid of mediocre abilities, and that was not a term that was ever used to describe any of the Randall’s. If there was one thing that could be said about all of the Randall’s, it was that there was not a bad looking one among them. All five of them did their part to improve the composition of the gene pool in our town.

Hank was thirteen, and like his two older siblings, he had inherited his parents’ good looks and their beautiful, flawless, olive-colored skin. Each of the Randall’s had a perfectly shaped nose and mouth, a full head of dark hair, straight white teeth that never needed to see an orthodontist, and beautiful amber colored eyes that once you saw them made you wonder why anyone would ever settle for brown. Add in that each of them was gifted with natural athletic skills in whatever sport they picked up, and you wondered what more could you do to improve upon perfection in the form of the human body.

What I remember most about the Randall’s, however, was not their perfect complexions, but the aura of confidence that all of them displayed, something that you might expect from people who have been blessed with such good looks and athletic abilities. Hank had an unwavering faith in his ability to take on anything he set his mind to, which was something that I had never seen before in any other kid my own age. He oozed confidence out of every pore, and when we were around him, we all soaked it up and believed we had it ourselves.

A veritable incubator of ideas, he was always coming up with new ways to have fun, even if it meant that he had to redefine the meaning of the word. To Hank, life was an adventure, and in his pursuit of excitement, he did not usually take the safest path or make the best decisions. Hank enjoyed living on the edge, and many of his ideas straddled that imperceptible line that separates having fun from getting into trouble. Despite this, I envied him and wanted to be like him. The closest I ever came to making that happen was when I was around him and soaked up some of that confidence that he exuded. It was a good thing that I got that extra infusion of confidence from him, because without it, I never would have gone along and participated in half of the things that Hank did in his quest for fun.

He had this flair for coming up with some off the wall ideas. His real gift, though, was in the way he would convince the rest of us to go along with whatever he was proposing by acting as though what we were about to undertake was perfectly normal behavior for four teenage kids. His idea of normal, however, was very different from mine. So one day I was curious and looked up the word normal in the dictionary. It said the word meant conforming to a standard, but it did not mention what the standard was, or who sets the standard. So I guess that is why a kid like Hank could set his own standards for what he considered normal behavior.

Chapter 2

No matter how many times in school I took those standardized tests that measure a person’s aptitude for success, I could never escape the fact that, at the age of thirteen, I was destined for a life of mediocrity. I always scored right in the middle of that bell-shaped curve on the charts that reflects the fiftieth percentile rank of kids with average intelligence. Even though my potential might be average, I considered myself fortunate, because that still meant that, despite whatever deficiencies I had, I was better off than forty nine point nine-nine percent of the kids out there.

Anyway, I was not concerned about the rest of the kids on that standardized chart. There were really only three other kids that I needed in my life: my older brother Bill, and Hank and Rick, both of whose families lived on the same block.

As the tests confirmed, I was just your typical normal kid and lived my life that way. I was not the best-looking kid in class, but I also was not the worst one to look at either. I had blue eyes, black hair combed back and parted on the left side, which my parents never allowed to grow long enough to show its natural waves, slender build, skin that sunburned easily, a few pimples, and a mouthful of braces. My grades at school were just average and I did not participate in any clubs or extra-curricular activities. My lack of involvement in school meant that I did not know my teachers, and they did not know me. Years later, if anyone ever had to go back to my old school and ask my teachers the question, What was Dave Gray like? my teachers would have had a hard time remembering me.

I stayed under the radar because my goal in life at that time was to navigate my way through my teenage years without raising attention to myself or doing anything stupid that might embarrass me. Up until the time I met Hank, I had learned most of the lessons of life from my parents and older brother, Bill. Hank was the one, though, who taught me that the normal life that I had been living up until the time I met him was just plain boring. I remember him telling me, You are destined for a life of mediocrity unless you develop more confidence to push yourself and find out what you are capable of doing. Remember, you can take on anything if you just have the confidence to do it. I believed him when he said it, for he was living proof of what you could do if you had some confidence.

After we moved in across the street from Hank, and got to know him, his standards and norms took hold over the group, and I rose to the challenge and participated with him in his quest for fun as eagerly as the other guys did. I do not regret doing any of the things I did when I was around him, because when I acted as one of his accomplices in carrying out some of his ideas it made it possible for me to believe that I had developed the confidence to do anything. It allowed me to imagine that I could rise above the normal rhythms of the mundane life I had been living and escape the mediocrity I was destined for. However, as I found out later once I was on my own and Hank wasn’t around to impart his unique brand of confidence to me, it is a lot harder to rise out of mediocrity when the person that came up with all the ideas and gave you the confidence to carry them out is no longer around.

In the summer of 1966, my dad’s company promoted him to a new position that required us to leave the town that we had grown up in, and move a few states over to start up a new life in a town that none of us kids had any interest in moving to. After hours of driving in the car staring glumly out the window, we started to come to life as we turned onto our new street. My younger sister, Kate, and my older brother, Bill, and I sat in the back seat counting out the numbers on the houses trying to be the first to spot our new house. Six one zero five, I see it, Kate said, just before Dad turned into the driveway of a white two story brick house that had a front yard that was large enough to toss a football across but didn’t look like it would take more than a half hour to mow. After we finished inspecting our bedrooms and the rest of the house, we came back outside and sat down on the front stoop to wait for the moving van to arrive. Bill and I looked up and down the block but did not see a single person outside. The prospects for meeting other kids looked bleak, but Mom had assured us that the block had lots of kids and that they were just inside because of the heat wave that had descended on the area.

Just our luck, Bill said, Mom and Dad buy a house on a block where all the kids stay inside during the day. How are we supposed to meet new friends if they are all hibernating?

I guess you are just going to have to go up and knock on their doors and introduce yourself.

Funny, Bill said, poking me in the ribs.

By the time the movers were finishing up, the sun had dropped down low in the sky and the heat had dissipated to a tolerable degree. That was the signal for the neighbors to come out of hibernation. The family that lived next door came outside, got in their car, and backed up out of their driveway. Bill and I waved but no one in the car turned their heads to look over at us or wave back.

That is the crazy lady and her weird kids so don’t feel bad that she didn’t wave to you. Bill and I turned to see that the voice came from a kid walking across the street towards us.

You mean she is really crazy? I asked.

Nothing dangerous, but let’s just say that she has called the cops on just about every neighbor on the block - except for you guys, but then you have only lived here for a few hours.

Hank walked up into the yard, extended his hand, and introduced himself. Bill and I did the same. The people who lived in this house before you only lasted two years when they decided they had enough of her and moved out, and that is about as long as the couple before them stayed in this house.

So, all we have to do is live here more than two years and we will break the record for staying in the house the longest, Bill said, smiling at the thought.

Hank laughed, Yea, I guess that would have to go down in the record books for the neighborhood.

Anyone else that we need to know about? Bill asked.

Hank proceeded to give us the run down on the neighbors and all of their peculiar habits that made them stand out in his mind. By the time he had finished, we knew that the neighborhood contained a number of strange people to avoid, and only a few girls, who he said were somewhat cute, to watch out for. I wanted to know more about the strange people, but Bill, who was two years older than me, was more interested in learning about the girls in the neighborhood. When it came time to go inside we said our goodbyes and as Hank was about to walk away he asked, Hey, I’m thinking of starting up a neighborhood gang. Are you guys interested in joining?

Sure, who else is in it?

Right now it is just me, but there are two of you, and we could ask the kid down the street. His name is Rick, but he and I don’t hang out together, so I am not sure if he would fit in.

We can ask him and give him a temporary membership to see how he works out, Bill replied.

Yea, that is a good idea.

As soon as we came back indoors, Bill turned to me smiling, Well, I guess we passed our first test.

What is that? I asked.

We wouldn’t have been invited to join Hank’s gang if he didn’t think we were OK.

Chapter 3

Long before the word took on a bad image, we were a gang. The four of us ruled a domain that we called our own and had conquered by foot and bicycle. Compared to the size of territories that people typically fight over, ours did not amount to much. It consisted of two blocks in what was a quiet residential neighborhood. Although we would sometimes venture out to promote our brand of mischief onto businesses and families outside of our borders, our main sphere of influence was everything between the railroad tracks at the end of the street to the woods that bordered Grubb’s farm two blocks over. Despite its small size it defined our world, and like all territory, it took some effort to maintain.

We ruled our territory not with violence or intimidation, but in the power we had in knowing as much as we could about everyone living within our borders. We did not have to patrol the streets or anything like that, for in the normal course of our wandering through our neighbors’ backyards, garages, and sometimes even their houses, we developed a thorough understanding of our neighbors and their possessions. We did not poke around their property to steal anything; it was simply a matter of making sure that we knew what resources were available to us so that we could make the best use of their things when we needed them.

If old man Bailey was not going to do anything with all of those cases of empty soft drink bottles that he stored in his garage, we figured he did not need them, so decided to take it upon ourselves to turn them in to collect the nickel deposit. Those boxes of test tubes sitting in Dr. Carson’s garage probably would have been thrown out if we had not borrowed them and found a use for them. They were perfect cylinders for testing out our first batch of homemade explosives made from mixing together baking soda and vinegar.

In addition to helping us understand what riches our territory contained, roaming around our neighborhood also helped us discover which of our neighbors had their own history of unlawful behavior that they were trying to hide from the outside world. How else do you explain a three-foot long log of petrified wood lying under the bushes in the Smith’s backyard in the middle of Ohio?

Guys, I looked it up in the encyclopedia, Rick said. There isn’t a petrified forest anywhere within fifteen hundred miles of us. The closest one is in a national park in Arizona.

I was kneeling down over the log, marveling at the beautiful colors and striations in the petrified wood and looked up at the others. I bet that means they stole it from the national park when they took their trip out West last summer.

Listen, rather than reporting them to the cops, why don’t we borrow a wagon from one of the neighborhood kids and move the petrified log to one of our backyard’s for safekeeping. Bill said. Maybe when I get my driver’s license next year, we can take a road trip out West and return the petrified log to its rightful place in the national park.

I’ll volunteer my backyard to store it, Hank offered, before Rick could get the words out. We all agreed that Bill’s idea was a good one, and we moved the log across the street to Hank’s backyard for safekeeping.

Because of the difficulties in keeping track of all of the people within our territory, we focused most of our attention on two types of subjects: girls who we were curious about or liked and people whom we thought were strange.

As the oldest in the group, at age fifteen, my brother Bill was more interested in keeping track of the girls in our neighborhood. The rest of us, being two years younger than him, had not yet entered that stage where the lure of girls would subvert all of our other interests. We focused most of our efforts in keeping track of the people whom we considered strange.

Bill was a sandy haired kid with blue eyes and fair skin punctuated by a few freckles on his cheeks. He had a slight gap between his upper front teeth that meant that when he smiled he could look either innocent or devious, depending on how guilty he was feeling about what he was involved in at that particular moment. When he got older and started a family, he grew more cautious and found a host of new things to worry about, but at this point in his life, there was only thing that he was afraid of, and that was poison ivy. He was deathly allergic to it and did everything he could to avoid coming into contact with it.

As the oldest among the four of us, Bill was the most levelheaded. At least he was that way until he turned sixteen, got his driver’s license, and discovered a completely new way to experiment with four wheels. He was the best among us at keeping things organized and on track, and we often deferred to him for advice because we knew we could depend on him to rein us in before our quest for fun got us into trouble.

Despite all of our parents wanting to take credit for guiding us through the difficult early teenage years, Bill was more instrumental than any of them was at ensuring that we did not get into serious trouble. It was for this reason that we awarded him a certain amount of respect that he might not have received had he hung out with kids his own age. While hanging around the three of us may have delayed his development into adulthood, he probably had a lot more fun than any other kids did that were his age.

In our neighborhood we did not have to go far to find people we thought were strange. Our neighborhood seemed to be full of people like that. The funny thing is, when we first met Rick, we were about to place him in that same category of people. It was not Rick as much as it was his mom. Rick’s mom gave us the creeps, and we did our best to avoid going over to his house. Rick and his dad were decent looking guys, although both were a little on the heavy side, yet his mom had this close-cropped haircut that was shorter than either one of them had. With her low monotone voice and masculine-looking clothes she struck us as being peculiar, and if she had not been Rick’s mom, we would have put her near the top of the list of strange people to keep a close eye on. One time I heard my parents discussing Rick’s mom by referring to her as the one who wears the pants in the family. At that time, I did not really understand what they meant by the comment, but I figured that Rick must be a little confused, given the nature of his household.

Rick was as active as the rest of us, but he always seemed to be a little overweight. Whereas the rest of us might be considered lean, he would be considered meaty. Not to gross you out, but he had enough body fat on him that you knew that if you were ever marooned on a deserted island with Rick, he would outlast you once the food supplies ran out.

He had the blondest hair that he brushed back on either side of his face to ensure that he did not cover up his striking blue eyes. He was also the fairest skinned among us, and anytime he scratched his skin or picked at a pimple, which he did quite often, it would leave a big red welt on his skin for the longest time.

Before we moved into the neighborhood, Hank and Rick did not hang out together even though both of them had lived down the block from each other for years. They saw each other at the school bus stop, but other than exchanging a few words to break up the silence between them until the bus arrived; they had very little interaction with each other. Hank said that Rick was a bookworm who spent most of his time indoors. Despite our concerns that Rick might not be a perfect fit for the gang, we invited him to join, if only because three people did not seem like enough to form a gang. Rick made it four and that seemed to be enough people to qualify as a gang.

Rick was nice guy and more normal than Hank made him out to be, yet he had a knack for doing stupid stuff at the most inopportune times. He also had this strange habit that I never quite got used to. His mind had a tendency to wander off and get stuck on a thought or word that had come up in a conversation while the rest of us had already moved on to something else. Every so often, we would be talking and the three of us would look over and see him off in his own reverie. Just calling out his name, Rick! was usually all it took to cause him to snap out of whatever he was thinking about and bring him back on track. This habit of Rick’s drove Hank nuts. He never said so, but I think he thought Rick was a little slow, and he would often try to browbeat Rick into doing something that he did not want to do himself. Bill and I were just as exasperated as Hank was with Rick’s daydreaming, but we were more sympathetic to him, if only because we felt we may have been the closest thing he had to a real family.

Once Rick joined the gang, Hank crossed his family off the list of people he considered strange. There were still a number of other families in our neighborhood, such as the Danson’s and crazy Mrs. Larson next door, whose behavior was strange enough to merit our attention, but the people whom we were most curious about were the Millers.

Chapter 4

Why are they taking so long to get out of the car? I whispered to Hank, who was staring through the binoculars. We crouched down in the dark on the floor of his bedroom, peering over the windowsill at the Miller’s car, which had just driven into their driveway across the street.

I don’t know, he replied. He drove straight in the driveway without hitting the curb this time, so maybe he hasn’t had anything to drink.

Let me have the binoculars so I can see. I reached out for them, even though I knew that Hank never would give them up.

Hold on, he answered, without letting go of the binoculars. They are getting out of the car now. It looks like they are arguing with each other, and Mrs. Miller just threw something at him.

What did she throw?

I can’t tell, but whatever she threw, I don’t think it hit him. It may have landed in the grass. After her wild pitch, Mrs. Miller went straight into the house while her husband walked back and forth across the yard a few times and then gave up searching for what he was looking for and went inside.

Look, he is going inside, I pointed out, getting up off the floor. Let’s go over and find out what she threw at him.

As soon as the Millers went inside, we ran over and searched their yard to try to find what she had thrown at him. Hey, I whispered, holding up the object in my hand for Hank to see, I found it. We hurried back to Hank’s house, and once inside his front door, I showed him what I had found.

She threw the garage door opener at him? Hank asked, with a surprised look on his face.

Let’s see if it works from over here. We raced up the stairs into his bedroom and positioned ourselves back in front of the window in his darkened room. I pointed it out the window across the street at their house, and as soon as I pressed the button, the Miller’s garage door opened. A moment later, Mr. Miller came out the front door with a flashlight in his hand to search the yard for the opener that she had thrown at him a few minutes earlier. Of course, he did not find it, and he never would, for it stayed in Hank’s bedroom across the street. Over the next few days, the Miller’s garage door would inexplicably open and close at various times throughout the day and night, but even stranger was that despite this, they never changed the settings on their garage door.

The Millers had moved into the neighborhood about four years ago and lived directly across the street from Hank. They appeared to be in their fifties and did not have any children, and because they did not socialize with anyone on the block, no one really knew much about them. As often happens to individuals who fail to provide sufficient information to satisfy public curiosity, the Millers were the subject of a host of stories and rumors that over the course of years had come to be accepted as true. Much of our fascination with them was based on our desire to verify the truth behind this neighborhood gossip, some of which we were the source of.

Except for the times when Mr. Miller might get a bit loud if he had too much to drink after a night out on the town, he and his wife were generally a quiet couple. They kept to themselves and preferred that the neighbors do likewise. We did not have a problem with this except on Halloween night when they turned off their front porch lights