Arnold wore a big grin on his face. It was springtime and the sports teams were recruiting. Arnold had a multicolored jumble of flyers spread out on the kitchen table. Arnold examined each, squinting slightly in the dim light before the lamp over head switched on. His Grandpa Phil had used the pull string to turn it on, since Arnold had not.
"Yeesh! What have I told you boy? Don't read in the dark, Arnold. You'll need bifocals! Use the lamp! You know we have one!" Grandpa Phil seated himself across the the boy, then picked up a paper in the pastel shade of blue.
"I'm sorry, Grandpa! I was just so excited I forgot!" Arnold explained. In his one hand, he held up one of the flyers, this one with a large baseball figuring prominently at the top.
"Ah, Little League teams, huh? Well, sports are healthy exercise you know! Helps you work off gas. Had any thoughts as to which one to join? You can't join them all, you know! Hm, hedge clipping? I didn't know that was a sport."
"That's an advertisement for fencing club, Grandpa! Phoebe gave it to me." Arnold took it from his hands.
"Ah, pooh!" Grandpa bluffed. "Unless you're sweet on her, go for a sport where all the eyes are on ya! A real popular sport, like football! Or basketball! Or… well, yeah, there's always your hands-down favorite," Phil said with a sly grin.
"Baseball!" Arnold grinned back with his widest smile. His eyes almost swum in the midst of his dreams and fantasies of being a baseball great like his idol Mickey Kaline.
"Yup! That's the ticket, Shortman! You join one of them clubs and you'll be out the kitchen all summer! I'll finally be able to read my newspapers somewhere besides my porcelain throne!"
"Grandpa!" Arnold admonished the man, the slip of a smile on his cheek. But Arnold bundled his papers up to stuff them in his pocket. Once they were tucked safely inside, Arnold dashed out the front door and down the steps to meet Gerald on the street. On his way, Arnold blew by past Oscar Kokoschka.
"Sorry, Mr. Kokoshka!" Arnold blurted out before he dashed away to where Gerald hailed him. The balding man brushed himself off with a loud, "harrumph," then continued on his way inside the door.
Oscar, the mischievous, some-parts-hated, and reservedly-loved neighbor in Arnold's boarding house walked into the living room first. "Hello?" the man asked. But no one was there, not even an echo. Oscar looked at the clock. Then he rubbed his hands together in glee.
"Oh, good! Three o'clock! Almost time for my poker game with the boys! Hm, but what am I going to use for the prize? Suzy made me deposit all the money from my paycheck into the bank and I haven't got time to take it back out! Oh, I know! I will just look for a brick in the basement and paint it gold!" Oscar chuckled. "It's a great plan!"
In truth, it was a terrible plan but there was no one there to tell Oscar that. Instead, the man ambled down the staircase and peered behind the washing machines. But there was no loose brick to be found.
"Oh pooh!" Oscar complained. But his ever sharp eyes spotted something which decades of boarding house residents had overlooked. The cement and mortar to a brick far to the bottom was more sand than cement, and a slightly different color. Oscar scratched the crack between the bricks with his finger and a stream of sand poured away.
"Hm, this brick seems loose!" Oscar exclaimed as he was able to put weight the brick and make it shift. "Hm, maybe I can pull it out! No one will notice!"
Oscar gripped hold of the edge of the brick and worked it side to side. It popped out with much less resistance than he had anticipated. With the brick loose, a tiny hole was exposed. Inside was a tiny bit of weathered yellow parchment. Oscar's beady eyes caught sight of the parchment immediately.
"What's this?" Oscar said. "The script's so fancy I can't read it! Oh well! It looks old. Grandpa can keep the brick. I'll just use this for the poker game." Oscar returned the brick to its hole then snuck upstairs again, no one for the wiser at the moment for his misdeeds. To be continued.