Sister+Brother=Trouble, Frank Murphy [red scrolls of magic .txt] 📗

Chapter 1
Lemon Avenue

Frank stood at the end of the driveway. He looked out across the street. Lemon Avenue. It didn’t seem so dangerous. And it didn't seem so far to the other side. He thought about how fast he could run from where he was standing back to where his house sat. He knew he could cross the street faster than that, before any cars came. He knew he could do it. But his mom didn’t allow him and his older sister Kathleen to cross the street without an adult.
“Frankie!” his sister called out from the backyard.
Frank turned. He looked back again at the blacktop street. “One day!” he thought.
Frank practiced how fast he could run, heading to the backyard. His sister called out again, “Frankieeee!” Frank ran over the driveway. He pushed the fence gate open. He ran past the first house on his right. (That was where his grandparents lived.) He zoomed by the kumquat tree on his left. He chugged his legs faster and past the front yard of his house. He turned the corner and reached Kathleen. She was sitting on the bottom step of the backdoor. She had three tin cake pans halfway filled with mud. Freshly made mud pies!
“Here. You add the last layer to this one,” said Kathleen. If Kathleen was wetting and mixing dirt Frank was there! “Ya’ know, I was thinking Frankie. We always make these great mud pies. But they never get eaten,” Kathleen said.
“Yea. So?” Frank replied.
“Well, I was thinking you could eat a slice.”
“What? No way. It’s dirt.”
“What if I went into the kitchen and got the frosting mom puts on her cakes?” Kathleen asked.
“That Betty Crocker stuff?” Frank asked. “The white frosting?” His eyes opened wide.
“Yes!” Kathleen said.
“Hmmmm. Okay, but only if you spread a lot on top!” Frank said.
Kathleen jumped up. She snuck into the kitchen. She opened the screen door very quietly. She came back out with a butter knife and the can of frosting. She popped off the lid. She pushed the knife into the frosting. She carefully covered one of the mud pies with the fluffy white stuff. Then she cut a triangle shaped wedge of the pie and held it out.
“Here you go!” she said.
“Ummm…do I have to swallow it?” Frank asked.
“Yesssss!” Kathleen said, grinning. “The frosting will make it yummy!”
Frank turned the piece of pie upside down in his hand. “What are you doing?” Kathleen asked.
“If I’m gonna eat this. I want the frosting to be on my tongue. Less dirt, more frosting hits my taste buds!” Frank explained.
“Okay! Smart!” she said.
Frank opened his mouth, moved the slice of mud pie into his mouth, and…WOMP…chomped down. He chewed quickly and…GULP…began swallowing. Kathleen waited. She waited some more. Then, Frank stood up and started jumping up and down. He was trying to just focus on the taste of the frosting, not the dirt. He had white frosting and wet dirt crusted on the edges of his mouth. He looked up. And there she was… His mom was standing at the screen door, hands on her hips.
“WHAT is going on?” Mrs. Murphy asked.
Frank stopped jumping. Kathleen stood up, holding the can of frosting behind her back.
“We’re making mud pies, Mom!” Kathleen said. “And Frankie decided to eat one.”
“Frankie!” Mrs. Murphy said.
Frank tried to say, “Mom!” but all that came out was a piece of half-chewed wet dirt.
Mrs. Murphy shook her head back and forth and giggled a little. “It’s time for dinner. Come in and wash your hands,” Mrs. Murphy said. “And Frankie, you wash your face too.”
Frank looked at Kathleen. She stared back with a grin, a grin that went with having two horns, a tail and a pitchfork.
Kathleen had won again!

Chapter 2
Flashback - Baby Frank

Frank’s whole family (his dad, his mom and Kathleen) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But Frank’s family moved to California. And that’s where Frank was born. Kathleen was a year and eight months old when baby Frankie came home from the hospital. And she couldn’t wait to get into trouble with her brand new brother.
Frank was only a few months old when Kathleen started dumping things into his crib. Then she started dumping things into his playpen. Dolls, spoons, cookies, blocks – it didn’t matter, if she could pick it up, she tossed it into Frank’s playpen.
One day, she found something flat, round and shiny. It was copper colored. And it was small. Kathleen flipped a penny into Frank’s playpen. Now, the first thing a baby will do when he is able to pick something up is stick that something in his mouth. And that’s exactly what baby Frank did. Then…he swallowed it.
Kathleen stood and watched Frank. She noticed that he started gagging. Then he started turning purple. She ran to get her mom and dad. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy knew that something was stuck in Frank’s throat. They got in the car and rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the nurses and doctors rushed Frank in. They told Mr. and Mrs. Murphy that a penny was stuck in Frank’s windpipe and it was moving its way toward his lung. They didn’t have time to operate. They used a brand new device. It looked something like mini-pliers. It reached down into his throat. It grabbed a hold of the coin. And the doctor pulled that little penny out – just in the nick of time. Baby Frankie survived!
This would mark one of the ONLY times Kathleen ever got caught getting Frank into trouble.

Chapter 3
The Kid Next Door

Frank and Kathleen were surrounded by all kinds of interesting things and people. They had two dogs, Hilde and Heidi. They were German short hairs. There was their grandpa and grandma. They lived in the house that sat on the front of their property. There was the kumquat tree that grew along the side of the yard. And there was the large family that lived next door. Frank and Kathleen were never quite sure exactly how many kids there were. But one kid stood out above all the rest in the family. His name was Leon. Leon was five years old. He had curly blonde hair. And he was strange.
One day Leon walked up to the fence and called out, “Hey! Ya’ wanna see something?”
Frank and Kathleen looked up from their mud pies. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Leon was standing at the fence wearing his underwear. And only his underwear.
Kathleen whispered, “Frankie, he’s wearing tighty whities – that’s all!”
“Oh my gosh!” Frank said.
“What do you want, Leon?” Kathleen asked.
“You guys dare me?” Leon asked.
“Dare what?” asked Kathleen.
“Ya’ dare me to eat this bug?” Leon asked.
Kathleen and Frank stood up and walked over to the tall fence. They were both very happy that fence separated his yard from theirs.
“Ummm. No! We’ve seen you do it before!” Kathleen said. (And they had seen him do it before. Leon had eaten lots of dead bugs. He was always trying to impress everyone by eating different insects.)
“Yea. But this daddy long leg is still alive! Ya’ dare me?” “Still no!” Kathleen said.
“Yea. It’s gross, Leon!” Frank said.
But Leon stuffed the spider, moving legs and all, into his mouth anyway. He chewed it up. Crunch, crunch, munch. And then…he swallowed it. He licked his lips and screamed, “BLAHHHHHHHH!” Then he ran away.
“Weird!” Kathleen said.
Frank said, “Yea!” and thought to himself, “Man, he doesn’t even need frosting!”

Chapter 4
Grandpa and Jesse James

Kathleen and Frank weren’t in the mood for mud pie making anymore after watching Leon eat a daddy long leg. They walked up to their grandparents’ house. Their Grandpa was sitting in his chair on the front porch. He was always sitting on the porch, chewing tobacco. That means he was always spitting out a mouthful of brown, smelly juice in between every couple of sentences when he told a story. And their grandpa’s stories were long and adventurous. On this day their grandpa started telling a story about the Wild West outlaw Jesse James.
Grandpa Murphy said, “I used to hold the reins of his horse for him. (Spittooee!) Jesse James walked into the bank to get some of his money. He came out with a bag full of coins. (Spittooee!!) He flip, flip, flipped me a gold coin and said ‘Thanks kid!’ (Spittooee!!!)”
“Was he stealing that bag of coins, Grandpa?” Frank asked.
“(Spittooee!) Nahhh! If he were stealin’ it, he wouldn’t a had time to flip me one a those coins, would he?” Grandpa answered.
“Oh. Okay!” Frank said.
“(Spittooee!!) Mmhmm,” Grandpa said. Then he nodded off and fell asleep.
“How old is grandpa?” asked Frank.
“I dunno. Sixty?” Kathleen said. “Why?”
“Cuz I’m trying to figure out if he’s telling the truth about Jesse James. When was the Wild West?”
“I dunno. You can look it up in the library when you start school,” Kathleen said.
Frank was starting kindergarten in September. Now he had something to look forward to in kindergarten. He could research Jesse James. The only reason he was excited about school before was he knew his mom would finally let him and Kathleen cross Lemon Avenue. They were going to have to be able to cross Lemon Avenue to walk back and forth to school. Baldwin Stocker Elementary was on Baldwin Avenue and it sat on the other side of Lemon Avenue.
“Ya’ think mom will let us practice crossing the street soon?” Frank asked.
“No, it’s only July,” Kathleen said.
“Oh,” said Frank.

Chapter 5
The Dogs, The Kumquat Tree and The Lemon Tree

The next morning Frank was up early. He looked out the window into the yard. He saw Heidi and Hilde running in circles chasing their own tails. And they didn’t even have tails.
The whole property was surrounded by fencing. In the front there was a white wooden large gate, with chicken wire attached. The gate was supposed to make the dogs stay on the property. It didn’t really work. Hilde and Heidi were German shorthairs – and German shorthairs are fast! They were always jumping five feet into the air, over the fence and down the street. They would race away with their tongues flapping out. It was like they were chasing some invisible wild animal. When this happened, it was the only time Frank was glad