"And now back to… Thundarr the Barbarian!"
The music swelled. With the commercials finally over, they turned their attention back to the screen.
"Haven't seen this one before," his grandfather grunted.
"I have. It's a rerun. The Rat People live down under the ground."
"Kind of like that underground clubhouse you boys built up there in the cemetery?" Timmy was too startled to reply. Nobody, especially grownups, was supposed to know about the Dugout. It belonged to him, Barry, and Doug. They' d spent most of last summer building it; digging a hole deep enough to stand in and wide enough to give them all elbow room, covering the hole with thick wooden planks, designing the trap door, putting in an old stovepipe so that they 'd have air, and then covering the planks up with canvas they'd swiped from the Bowman' s barn and laying sod over the planks and canvas so that it was hidden from view.
Someone walking by wouldn 't have known it was there. They' d worked on it every day, from early in the morning until sundown. The boys were proud of their engineering marvel, agreed that it was the finest clubhouse ever built, and had spent their weekends last fall and this spring sitting inside it, reading comic books and back issues of Hustler and Gallery that Barry had stolen from his dad. Nobody else was supposed to know it existed.
His grandfather winked. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me. I won't tell anybody."
"But how did you know about it?"
"Been taking my evening walk around the graveyard, cause that' s what the doctor said to do, and mostly to give your mom and dad a little time to themselves while you 're doing homework. Few weeks back, I saw a covered stovepipe sticking out of the ground, right between the cemetery and Luke Jones' s pasture. Wondered to myself, what was that doing there? When I walked up to it, I noticed the ground seemed kind of springy under my feet. You can hear those planks thud, even with the sod on top of them. So I poked around some more and found that leather strap sticking out of the dirt. Pulled on it, and low and behold, there 's a secret hideout down under the ground."
"Man," Timmy whispered. "We thought nobody knew about it."
"They don't. Just me. Far as I know. And like I said, I won't tell. Left you boys a present. Didn't you wonder where the card table came from?"
He had, now that his grandfather mentioned it. Timmy had assumed that Barry or Doug rescued it from the town dump, another of their favorite hangouts. Unbeknownst to Timmy, they ' d assumed the same thing about him. None of them had mentioned it, accepting the new addition with the disregard common to all twelveyearold boys.
"Thanks, Grandpa! That's awesome."
"Don't mention it. Though, if you don' t mind, I might stop in from time to time and take a peek at those dirty magazines you boys keep in that box. The ladies never looked like that back in my day."
They both laughed at this, and when Timmy' s mom came into the living room and asked them what was so funny, they laughed harder.
She walked away shaking her head.
"Listen," his grandfather said. "Don't be too hard on your old man, He means well." Timmy frowned. "I know. But weeding the garden sucks."
"It does, indeed. But I used to make him do the same thing when he was your age. He's just trying to do what he thinks is right.
Trying to be a father. That's hard work. And meanwhile, you' re trying to be a boy, and do what you think is right. That 's hard work, too. And those two things, being a father and being a son, they never seem to agree. Certainly didn' t when your father was twelve." Timmy tried to imagine his father at his age, or his grandfather at his father's age, and found that he couldn't.
They watched Thundarr, Ookla, and Princess Ariel kick mutant butt, and both grinned. Outside, they heard Elizabeth calling for Randy.
"Orwell was wrong," his grandfather said.
"Who's that?"
"George Orwell. He was a famous writer. You'll probably learn about him when you get a little older. He wrote a book called 1984.
Took place now, but back then, it was the future, of course. Society was supposed to be a bad place by the year 1984. Not a good time to be alive. But he was wrong. These are the best times of them all."
Ten minutes after Thundarr ended, there was a knock at the front door. Timmy answered it. Doug stood in the doorway, panting and out of breath. His white, mudsplattered BMX Mongoose bike lay on its side in the yard. At twelve, Doug had boobies, just like a girl, the result of too many KitKat bars and bowls of Turkey Hill ice cream. They jiggled as he shuffled his feet. There were dark circles under the armpits of his Tshirt. His thick glasses were fogged, and his forehead covered with sweat. His frecklecovered face looked splotchy.
Doug held up a long, black plastic tube, waving it around with excitement.
"I finished it," he gasped. "Worked on it all night long. You gotta see!"
"Well," Timmy said, "take it out."
Still trying to catch his breath, Doug shook his head. "At the Dugout. Let's get Barry and look at it there."
Timmy glanced back inside. His grandfather was still on the couch, but there was no sign of his parents.
"I can't right now," he whispered. "Dad says I've gotta weed the garden. He's already up there doing it. If I don't help, he's gonna be mad."
"Go ahead," his grandfather said. "This sounds more important. I'll handle your father."
Timmy smiled. "Are you sure? I thought you said he was doing what he thought was best."
His grandfather waved his hand. "Sure I'm sure. Just because he thinks it's for the best doesn't necessarily mean it is. Hell, it' s the first day of summer vacation. Boys your age should be out playing and discovering.
You shouldn 't be working. There'll be enough of that when you're older. You boys don' t know it, but these are the happiest days of your lives. Enjoy them while you can." He paused, coughed, and flexed his fingers as if his left hand had gone to sleep. Shaking his head, he continued. His voice sounded weaker.
"And besides, your mom always says you should be outside anyway, instead of sitting in front of the television watching cartoons and playing Atari. Right?"
"Right!"
"Go on, now. You boys have fun. Later on, I'll whip your butts at Pitfall. I finally figured out how to get past those darn scorpions."
"Thanks, Grandpa!" Timmy started out the door, and then, on impulse, he did something he didn't do much anymore since turning twelve. He turned around, ran over to his grandfather, and gave him a sudden, fierce hug. His grandfather groaned in mock surprise and squeezed back with one arm. He was still flexing his free hand.
"I love you, Grandpa."
"I love you, too, kiddo."
He kissed Timmy's forehead, and Timmy caught a whiff of pipe smokeanother one of Grandpa's secrets, since the doctor and Timmy' s parents had forbidden him to smoke.
"Are you okay?" Timmy asked.
"Sure," he wheezed. "Just a little short of breath this morning. Might lie down and take a nap while you boys are gone. Run on now, before your mom and dad come back inside. And make sure your dad don 't see you leaving."
He ruffled his grandson's hair, which was cut just like Kevin Bacon's in Footloose, which Timmy and his family had seen just a few months before.
"Looks like a porcupine died on top of your head."
"At least my hair is still brown instead of silver."
"Wait till you're my age." His grandfather flexed his hand again. He made a face like he had indigestion.
"You sure you're okay, Grandpa?"
"Positive. Now go on. Get out of here."
"Love you," Timmy called again over his shoulder.
"Love you, too."
Timmy followed Doug outside into the front yard. Timmy' s own BMX Mongoose was parked next to the sidewalk, its kickstand sinking into the grass. The boys hopped on their bikes and sped down the driveway.