Owen and Eleanor Move In Read online

  Owen and Eleanor Move In

  Copyright © 2018 Sparkhouse Family. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Email [email protected].

  First edition published 2018

  Printed in the United States of America

  25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

  Paperback ISBN: 9781506439723

  Hardcover ISBN: 9781506449364

  Ebook ISBN: 9781506439747

  Written by H.M. Bouwman

  Illustrated by Charlie Alder

  Designed by 1517 Media

  eBook developed by Kris Vetter Tomes.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Bouwman, H. M., author. | Alder, Charlie, illustrator.

  Title: Owen and Eleanor move in / by H.M. Bouwman ; illustrated by Charlie

  Alder.

  Description: First edition. | Minneapolis, MN : Sparkhouse Family, 2018. |

  Summary: Eight-year-old Eleanor is very unhappy when her family moves into

  a duplex, so she asks her new neighbor, seven-year-old Owen, to help her

  escape to her old house.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017037049 (print) | LCCN 2017049466 (ebook) | ISBN

  9781506439747 (Ebook) | ISBN 9781506439723 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Homesickness--Fiction. | Moving, Household--Fiction. |

  Friendship--Fiction. | Family life--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.B6713 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.B6713 Owe 2018 (print) | DDC

  [Fic]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017037049

  V81163; 9781506439723; JAN2018

  Sparkhouse Family

  510 Marquette Avenue

  Minneapolis, MN 55402

  sparkhousefamily.org

  Chapter 1

  Eleanor

  To begin with, Scrumpy the Fourth went belly-up somewhere between the old house and the new house. And Scrumpy the Fourth was almost brand-new, because Scrumpy the Third had keeled over only last week. “You poor little thing,” Eleanor said to the dead goldfish. She tugged against her seat belt to curl over the fishbowl on her lap. “You kicked the bucket, you bought the farm, you bit the dust, you crushed up your chips—”

  “That’s not right,” said Eleanor’s older sister from the front seat. Alicia was in sixth grade and knew everything. “Crush up your chips is wrong.”

  “It is not wrong,” said Eleanor. “If you crush up your chips, then your chips are dead.” Alicia couldn’t really argue with that. Crushed chips were no good, unless they were on top of corn-and-bean hot dish.

  The car stopped. Eleanor climbed out. “See?” she said to her mom, who had been driving. “Scrumpy’s a goner. That’s another reason whywe shouldn’t move.”

  Eleanor’s mother sighed.

  Eleanor’s dad stood in the doorway to the new duplex, next to her big brother Aaron, who was in high school. They were the same height, but Aaron was skinnier.

  Dad said, “Come in! We’ve already put the beds together.”

  Mom and Alicia took bags of clothes from the trunk and walked up the steps into the new apartment. Eleanor marched slowly and majestically along the sidewalk, carrying her fishbowl and humming the tune from Star Wars. The old, old Star Wars. The one with Princess Leia. Eleanor was glad to be wearing her glitteriest skirt. Dead Scrumpy the Fourth deserved some honor.

  Alicia and Mom went into the house with Aaron. Dad came down the steps toward Eleanor. “I’m sorry, honey. Will there be a funeral tonight?”

  Eleanor stopped humming because she had suddenly thought of something. “We can’t do a funeral here. It needs to be at the old house, in the backyard. With Scrumpy One, Two, and Three.”

  Dad said, “We don’t own the old house anymore. This is our house now.”

  “Our duplex,” said Eleanor. “And not even ours.” She studied the two-family house. It was yellow. Their old house was blue. Eleanor hated yellow. She loved blue. She hated duplexes. She loved houses. Houses stood all by themselves with no one living above you. Houses were where you didn’t have to be quiet and worry about waking someone up when you played superhero.

  She’d already been warned about superhero.

  Houses were places where you could nail gears and pulleys to your wall and no landlord got mad at you (except maybe Mom and Dad). She’d been warned about nails and pulleys too.

  Houses might have a bedroom just for you, on the second floor. In a duplex, everyone was on the first floor because some other family was on the second floor, and you shared a room with your sister Alicia, who thought you were a baby because you were eight. Like Alicia had never been eight.

  Eleanor thought a lot of things, but most of them were about how she didn’t want to live here.

  “Eleanor?” said Dad. “I really think you’ll like the house.”

  “The duplex,” said Eleanor.

  “Fine. Yes.” Dad walked toward the house, then turned back to her. “There’s a boy living upstairs who is almost the same age as you. He’s seven.”

  “I’m eight.” Seven was not even close to the same as eight.

  “Maybe you can be friends.” He sighed. “People are flexible, Eleanor. You can adjust. You can even learn to love a new home.”

  Eleanor turned and paraded down the sidewalk. This time she hummed the Darth Vader tune, in a very somber way. By the time she turned back, her dad had gone inside.

  They don’t care, she thought, about the old house or the old neighborhood, and they don’t care about Scrumpy the Fourth or about me. There will be a funeral—at the old house. She held the goldfish bowl aloft, like Darth Vader might hold a lightsaber (except she had to use two hands because she didn’t want to spill), and she tried to make her voice deep like Vader’s. “I swear to you, Scrumpy the Fourth, that I will bring you back to your rightful home and bury you beside your family.” And, she added to herself, I’ll move back there. Because I’m not staying here. She buzzed the laser sound to make it all official.

  “That’s not how you hold a sword,” said a high, light voice.

  Eleanor looked. Almost hidden under the big pine tree on the edge of the yard, a small boy sat cross-legged. He had light- brown hair and glasses. Probably the seven-year-old. Probably only a first-grader.

  The boy said, “I mean, if that’s supposed to be a sword, you’re doing it wrong.”

  Chapter 2

  Owen

  As soon as Owen said, “You’re doing it wrong,” he realized it was probably not the right thing to say to someone he was just meeting for the first time. Maybe it was even rude.

  The girl, taller than him with black curly hair and dark-brown eyes—and lots of glittery pink stuff everywhere else—seemed to think he was rude. She huffed. “It’s not a sword. It’s a lightsaber.” She held the goldfish bowl higher, and the water sloshed, the fish floating at the top like it was sleeping. “I’m training to be a Jedi, so I know how to hold a lightsaber. This is exactly how.”

  “Um . . . okay,” said Owen.

  “Anyway, are you only seven?” asked the girl, glaring at him like it was a really important question.

  “I’m not only seven.” Owen’s little brother was only five. “I’m already seven.” There was a huge difference between only and already.

  “Huh. Are you going into second grade?” She said it like it was a bad thing.

  Owen could never remember what grade he was in. But luckily, just then his mom came outside, carrying a pla
te. “Mom, am I going into first grade, or second grade?”

  She frowned, thinking. “I think by now you’re a second-grader.” Then she turned to the girl. “You must be our downstairs neighbor. I’m Kathleen.”

  “I’m not allowed to call grown-ups by first names,” said the girl. “And how can you not know what grade your kid is in? Is he . . . ?” She paused. “Is he someone you just adopted yesterday, and you don’t know if he can read, so you don’t know what grade he should go into? Or maybe he’s been really, really sick for years and years”—she squinted at him—“or months and months, and he’s missed a ton of school, and you don’t know if he can keep going in his same grade or not? Or maybe . . .”

  “I’m homeschooled,” said Owen.

  “And we don’t think about grades that much,” said his mom.

  The girl looked disappointed. “Are you sure you weren’t maybe kidnapped by a secret society and you just escaped and now you have to start school, later than everyone else, and they don’t know if you can catch up because all you’ve learned is how to talk in secret code and be a spy?”

  “Pretty sure,” said Owen.

  “I’ll leave you two,” said Mom. “Owen, I’m going to introduce myself to . . . what’s your name?”

  “Eleanor,” said the girl.

  “I’m going to say hi to Eleanor’s mom.”

  “My mom went to the store for toilet paper because we can’t find any in the unpacking. Dad’s home.”

  “Well, I’ll drop this off with your dad then.” She left with her plate, but this time to the lower duplex, where she knocked and chatted with Eleanor’s dad before heading upstairs again.

  The girl (Eleanor) still looked disappointed about the homeschooling.

  “I wasn’t kidnapped,” said Owen, “but I do know secret codes. And I take fencing lessons. You know, with swords. I can teach you about sword fighting.”

  “This is a lightsaber.” Then she shrugged and put down the bowl on the sidewalk. “It’s not even the right shape for a lightsaber. Pretty pathetic, really.”

  Owen peered in. The fish did not look good. “Is he . . . dead?”

  “Dead as crushed-up chips,” Eleanor said cheerily. “Which means yes. We’re going to have a funeral. You’re invited.”

  “Oh. I mean, thank you.” Owen had only been to one funeral before, and that was when he was too little to remember. “I won’t have to give a speech, will I?” He didn’t like giving speeches in front of people.

  “No, I’ll give the speech,” said Eleanor. “I was his best friend, after all. You can do the fencing performance.”

  “The what?”

  “Fencing performance. For the beginning of the funeral. It will be like military honors. Like a twenty-one-gun salute but with a sword.”

  Owen was pretty sure his grandmother’s funeral hadn’t had a fencing performance. He would have heard about that. “I think a twenty-one-gun salute is for soldiers. Was your fish—was your fish in the army?”

  “Of course not! He was in the navy. The fish navy. Very secret.”

  Owen wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond.

  “And the fish navy does fencing at funerals,” said Eleanor.

  “The problem is,” said Owen, “I can’t fence by myself. I have to have a partner. That’s how fencing works.”

  Eleanor wrinkled her nose in thought and bounced on her toes, which made all her pink glitter sparkle. “Okay. You teach me fencing this afternoon, and I’ll help you perform the fencing part of the funeral. We can do it together.”

  “Okay,” said Owen.

  “Let me find a good sword,” said Eleanor. She went inside.

  Owen stood in the yard next to the bowl of dead goldfish. He had a lot of questions. A lot. What was the goldfish’s name? Was there really such a thing as a fish navy? (He was pretty sure there was not.) What if he cried at the funeral? (He didn’t think he would, but he’d heard that people did.) After the funeral, would the fish go to heaven? What was fish heaven like? Was it different than people heaven, where his grandmother was?

  And most of all: What was life going to be like from now on, with this strange girl living in the apartment below him? She had just talked Owen into fencing at a fish funeral. What would she convince him of next?

  Chapter 3

  Eleanor

  Eleanor ran inside to find her dad in the kitchen. He swiped crumbs from his mouth. “Hey, want a cookie, corazoncito?”

  “Are those from Owen’s mom?”

  “Yes. Chocolate chip.”

  Chocolate chip was Eleanor’s favorite.

  Dad said, “So, are we having the funeral tonight?”

  Eleanor said, “What is a funeral where you don’t bury someone?”

  “That’s called a memorial service.” Dad kept opening boxes, cookie in one hand. He did not seem to be listening all the way. “When do you want to do the funeral?”

  “After supper. Owen’s doing the fencing.”

  “The what?” Dad was listening a lot now.

  “With a sword.”

  “For the funeral?”

  “Yes. And I’m the minister. And you’re in charge of playing guitar and singing something a fish would like. In Spanish, please. We need to say goodbye in both languages. It’ll be very official.”

  “I can do that.” Dad’s mouth trembled. Suddenly Eleanor realized he must be trying not to cry. She was surprised. She didn’t know he loved Scrumpy so much.

  She patted his hand. “It’s okay, Dad. God is in charge.” It was what the minister had said at Great-Grandpa’s funeral last year. That funeral didn’t have any swords. Hers would be better. “God is in charge, right?” she said. “Even of a fish?”

  “Even of a fish.” He stood next to her at the counter, and they each ate another cookie, and then Dad covered the plate with plastic wrap. “We’d better save some for Mom.” He looked at his watch. “Time for more unpacking.” Aaron’s and Alicia’s voices drifted from the bedrooms.

  Eleanor said, “Owen and I will be outside practicing for the memorial funeral show.”

  Dad’s mouth jiggled again. “Okay, sweetie.”

  But before she could go out, she needed lightsabers. Owen brought the fishbowl inside just as Eleanor discovered—in a kitchen box—the perfect practice lightsabers: lasagna noodles. Uncooked, lasagna was stiff and flat, and if they taped a few pieces together, the swords were the right length.

  In the backyard, though, the lasagna kept breaking every time they stabbed each other (which Owen called “lunging”). The lasagna sabers even broke when they didn’t stab each other with them. They used more tape.

  Finally Owen said, “This isn’t working.”

  Owen was the sword expert, after all. “What should we do instead?” Eleanor asked.

  “Well,” said Owen, looking around, “sticks might work.”

  The yard was full of sticks. Big trees lined the back fence line—and there was the pine tree in the front. Sticks everywhere. And lots of weeds.

  “Who does the yard work here?” Eleanor asked.

  Owen shrugged. “I guess we do. The people who live here.”

  Eleanor frowned. Clearly Owen’s family didn’t have very high standards. “At my house,” she said, “we pick up sticks so that my dad can mow. And we pull weeds,” she added, looking at the dandelions.

  “You mean your old house,” said Owen. “Where you used to live.”

  Eleanor glared. “And there’s a tree house in the backyard. I’m going back there.”

  “To visit?”

  “To live.” Then she wished she hadn’t said so much, because right away Owen wanted to know when her family was moving again.

  What if he said something to her parents?

  “It’s a secret,” she said quickly. “You have to promise no
t to tell, or I won’t tell you any more. In fact, I’ll make you forget everything I already told you.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Promise not to tell.”

  “I promise.” But he didn’t look very happy about it.

  “So the secret is,” she said, swinging her new sword to test it, “I’m going to run away back to my old house. I’m going to bury Scrumpy the Fourth there, and I’m going to live in the tree house.”

  “Your parents will let you?”

  He sounded worried, like he might tell on her. She narrowed her eyes and looked sternly at him. “They will adjust to it,” she said. “After I move back. People are flexible.”

  “You didn’t tell them?”

  “That’s why it’s a secret. And you can’t tell either. You promised.”

  He nodded slowly. “I promised.” Then he said, “What about the funeral?”

  “What about it?”

  “If you’re burying Scrumpy at your old house, why are we doing a funeral here?”

  “It’s a memorial funeral. That’s how they work,” said Eleanor. She wasn’t quite sure that was right. To change the subject, she plunged her stick out in front of her and made a stance, using the words Owen had just taught her. “On guard! Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Let’s fight!” she said. She swished her sword, making the buzzing noise that lightsabers make and standing in the fencing stance she’d just learned. She shuffled forward and swung wildly. He brought his sword underneath and jabbed her lightly in the stomach. As she collapsed, clutching her heart, she said, “Owen! I . . . am . . . your . . . father!” Then she crumpled to the ground and lay still.

  Her eyes were closed like Vader’s when his mask came off, and she could hear the wind rustle in the trees and feel the long grass tickling her arms. Fencing was fun. It was too bad she’d have to stop practicing it with Owen when she moved back home.