Meet Jonathan “Merry” Meriwether, and some new youth and young adult fiction

Earl was the last and newest member of our gang of five. He lived across the street and two doors down from Tenspeed and Jinx. Earl moved into the neighborhood last summer from Texas. We liked him first time we met him. He had a cool accent that made all his words sound smooth and lazy. He was easygoing, but quiet sometimes. He also liked to take a lot of naps especially during math time at school.

The four of us started over to Earl’s house. Charlie fell in behind us. He usually tagged along wherever we went except, of course, if Jinx brought the soccer ball. She didn’t. When we got to Earl’s house, we went straight to the backyard by walking down the gravel driveway.

“Oh great,” Booger said in disgust, “there’s Billy with his girlfriend.”

“He’s such a jerk,” added Jinx.

Billy was Earl’s older brother. He was nineteen years old and had a bad attitude. He didn’t like any of us very much, especially Booger. Billy was supposed to be joining the Army or something like that. At least that’s what he always said he was going to do. But most of the time he was either hanging out with his girlfriend, Betty Jo Lefever, or working on his old car which never seemed to run for more than a day or two at a time.

“Hi, Billy!” I said stepping forward to speak on our behalf. I knew what his response would be.

“Shut up,” Billy growled when he saw me.

That was his standard response to any one of us. Then, his next five words were always:

“What do you want jerkweed?”

See what I mean.

“Is Earl around?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not my day to watch him, butthead,” Billy laughed. Betty Jo giggled, too. He used the same stupid comebacks all the time, only with her girlfriends, because she was the only one of them that had a steady boyfriend.

Outside of fixing cars, which he wasn’t very good at, Billy wasn’t too smart, and Betty Jo was about as bright as 40-watt light bulb in a lamp with no electricity. In other words, they were a perfect match for each other.

By now Tenspeed was next to me. He gave me that “this is a waste of time” look.

“We’ll find him ourselves,” I finally said leading the gang to the back door.

“Hey, Jon,” Billy bellowed. I turned quickly only because he called me by name.

“What?”

“Tell butterball there to stay out of the refrigerator,” he said pointing at Booger. “I still want to have dinner tonight.” He laughed hard, slapping his knees with his hands.

Booger was about to say something in return, but Jinx put her hand on his arm to stop him. “I told you he’s a jerk,” she said softly. “Just forget about him.” Booger didn’t say a thing.

As we approached the back door, Earl met us with a kind smile. He was wearing one of his Dallas Cowboys tee shirts. He had about ten of them because it was his favorite football team. The shirt was stuffed into an old pair of jeans with a whole in one knee and a worn spot on the left back pocket where he kept a wallet. Earl was the only ten-year old that we knew who always carried a wallet. He never had any money, but he always had his old leather wallet. We asked him one day what he kept in the wallet if he didn’t have any money.

“Important stuff,” he said seriously, sounding like an adult.

“Like what,” Jinx asked.

“You know, important papers with important information on them.” Earl was dead serious when he spoke. “And I don’t think my personal papers are any of your business anyway.”

Earl wasn’t mad at us for asking. Actually, he rarely ever got mad at anything or anybody. But when he made his mind up about himself or something there was no budging him. So we dropped the whole subject. Yet, we all wanted to know what was in that wallet.

Earl also wore cowboy boots. The whole Dolittle (that was his last name) family wore boots, even his Mom. And they weren’t the cheap kind for little kids that you bought at Wal-Mart. No way. They were the real kind straight from Texas, real leather or snakeskin and real pointy. Earl always said you had to have real cowboy boots to be a real cowboy.

“What’s goin’ on, guys,” Earl said stepping outside.

“Somebody’s moving into the old Kendrick house,” Booger said pushing his way to the front. “We’re going check out it. You want to come along, Earl?”

“Yeah, I reckon so,” Earl drawled. Earl was so easygoing, even this news didn’t seem to excite him one bit.

“Great!” Booger said eagerly. “Let’s go!”

Now that the whole gang was together, we started off. Along the way, we all talked about old Mr. Cornelius Ashland Kendrick and the old house. Every one of us had our favorite story about the old place.

But wait. Since you already met Booger and Earl, I should probably tell you about Tenspeed and Jinx.