Life's a Beach by Claire Cook Page B

at least one original here.”

    “Dad, is that more stuff?”

    “Toots, you would not believe what people give away at the Take It or Leave It.”

    “Dad, did you bring those back from the dump?”

    My father shrugged. “Don’t look at me. Your mother’s the one who keeps loading up the car and sending me over there.”

    Marshbury still had a landfill, and “going to the dump” was a big part of the town’s social life. Politicians campaigned there, Girl Scouts sold cookies there, and hordes of seagulls dined there on a daily basis. It was pretty disgusting if you stopped to think about it.

    Take It or Leave It was just what it sounded like, a section of the dump where you could drop off the junk you no longer needed, and help yourself to other people’s junk. Which, of course, you didn’t really need either. It was the most popular part of the Marshbury landfill, and there were people who seemed to hang around all day, and would even come over to help you unload your car when you pulled up. It was possible that my father was turning into one of these people.

    I took a few steps over to my bathroom and pushed the door open. There were so many garbage bags jammed into my little square shower that it looked like some new style of Dumpster. I wished it were an oversize trash compactor instead, since at least then I’d stand a better chance of taking a shower in the foreseeable future.

    I turned back to my father. “Dad,” I began.

    “Listen, Dollface, this is no time to be a party pooper.”

    I sat down on the floor between my father and my cat. At least my father was wearing two white socks today, though one had two bands of hunter green near the top, and the other sock was circled twice in brown. In front of him were several old toys and what appeared to be a hose from a vacuum cleaner. “Dad,” I began again.

    He leaned forward and picked up one of the toys. It looked like an earless plastic cat collapsed on a wooden guitar. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that what we’ve got here is an authentic Tailspin Tabby.” He pointed to a string. “Here, pull this.”

    I did, and the earless cat stood up. “Amazing,” I said. Boyfriend ignored the imitation feline and started licking his paw.

    “I know,” my father said. “It’s one of the original Fisher-Price toys. Early 1930s, I’d say. It drives me bananas to think this could have fallen into the wrong hands. It’s a piece of history, for crissakes.”

    “Well, it is a little bit broken.” I picked up the hose. “What’s this for, Dad?”

    “A vacuum cleaner. The rest of it’s still in the car. Just the ticket if yours goes on the fritz.”

    It was highly unlikely my vacuum would ever be overworked enough to do any fritzing. I nodded at the jack-in-the-box and the rusty red scooter leaning up against my couch. “Dad, what’s Mom going to say when she sees all this stuff?”

    “Your mother,” my father said, “is nothing but an old fart. She wants to move me into a place with a julienne balcony. What the heck am I going to do with a julienne balcony?”

    “I think it’s called a Juliet balcony, Dad.”

    “And those devil friends of hers in those red hats of theirs. One of them tries to kiss me every time she comes over to see your mother. On the lips.”

    A car backed out of the garage underneath us. My father reached for the scooter and used it to push himself back into a standing position. Then he climbed on and took a wobbly ride over to the window. “Looks like the coast is clear. Grab a flashlight, we’re digging it up.”

    For what it was worth, I tried playing dumb. “Digging what up, Dad?”

    My father parked his scooter over by my door. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s move.”

    It was easy to tell where to dig, since a circle of grass sat on top of the hole like a hat. My father shoved it off to the side with the tip of his shovel while I held the flashlight and looked over my shoulder a few times