Gertie, Earl & Endicott 2

Now, I remember it as if it was yesterday. School had just let out for the summer, and the boys of St. Henry Junior High were already dreaming up how they would pass their summer days away. Earl Crawford was no different. This year he decided he was going to join the Apes come heck or high water. As soon as the school bell rang and exhausted Miss Fischer waved them away, he snuck away from campus at a fast clip, his blonde, buzz-cut hair hidden under a low-slung Braves cap. He kept his eyes to the ground and looked neither right nor left. No luck. She spotted him.

“Earl, wait up!”

Earl wrinkled his brow and sped up, but Gertie White caught him up with no problems. She was on the track team.

“Earl, you goober. Didn’t you hear me?” She asked and patted him on the shoulder. Earl glanced around, but nobody was looking at them.

“Oh hey Gertie,” he said.

“Hey,” she responded and fell into step beside him. She was a tall, gangly girl with skin the color of coffee and cream. Her wiry hair started out the morning in two tight braids, but by the afternoon several strands had escaped and sprouted out around her ears like iron shavings stuck to a magnet. She tried not to show her teeth when she smiled because she didn’t want anyone to see her braces, but Earl got an eye full of the sight of them as she broke into a happy grin.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked.

Earl swallowed and kept his head down.

“Nothing,” he said. Jimmy Jackson had told him the Apes were meeting in the stacks at the public library at 3:30 and that if he was serious this time about joining, he should be there. No girls.

“Well, my daddy’s cutting out early today, he said, on account of school letting out and all and he was gonna take me up to Macon for supper. He said I could invite you, too if I wanted,” Gertie said.

Earl could feel his face begin to burn.

“I can’t. My dad says, uh, I’m being punished.”

“Punished? What for?”

“Not cleaning my room.”

“But it’s the first day of summer!”

Earl shrugged. They walked a while in silence, until they came to the corner of Main Street and ended up in front of the fire station. Gertie’s ma was the fire marshall, and a fine woman she was indeed. Six feet of muscled blonde femininity; Jenny White was known for her bravery, temper, arm-wrestling and fondness for kittens. You might meet her if ever your stove caught fire, but for now, she keeps pretty much out of this story.

“What about tomorrow then?” Gertie asked, placing her hand on the brass doorknob. The Whites lived above the garage where they kept the town’s only fire truck. The steel garage door had a small red door inside it, just under the alarm bell.

Earl shrugged.

“I’ll call you,” he mumbled. Gertie gave him a weird look and glanced around. Earl could feel the blush creeping up his neck, but if his friend noticed anything suspicious, she didn’t say so. Instead she slipped inside the fire station and closed the glossy red door. Earl breathed a sigh of relief, hoisted his backpack and headed straight down the road to the library. So intent was he on his destination, that he didn’t notice the small red door open up again, allowing Gertie to slip behind and follow him.