Maniac Magge The Lost Year NOT EDITED

     “Talk! Talk, will ya! Talk! Talk! Talk!” Jeffery leaped from the stage, out the door, and into the starry, sweet, onion-grass-smelling night. Never again to return.  Jeffery had enough of his aunt and uncle. They never talked and never got along.  They never did anything together like a family should. Jeffery wanted to hear happy voices and wanted to see smiles on his family’s faces.  He wanted a family that liked to give hugs and tell each other they loved each other and had fun doing things together and helped each other out.  He wanted his mom and dad back.  When they were alive it was always happy times with laughter and he felt safe with them.  But they are dead. So on this night Jeffery decided to run away and find a new family that loved each other and him.  He decided he would keep running no matter how long it took until he found that family.

     Jeffery ran for 3 hours straight.  It was 11 PM and he was tired from all the crying and running so he decided to stop. Jeffery slept on a bench near a park under a tree. When he woke up at six in the morning he saw that someone put a jacket on him while he was sleeping.  He thought, “That’s a loving person to give me something warm to sleep with.  I wish I could have met them”.

     Jeffery was hungry. He put the jacket on and put his hands in the pockets to keep them warm. To his surprise he felt paper in the pocket and pulled it out to see what it was.  It was forty dollars!  He whispered to himself, “Forty dollars?  Well now I really wish I could have met this person”.  He wondered, “Did the person leave the money there on purpose for me or on mistake?” Jeffery remembered that he had two dollars in his pocket, so he spent that on breakfast just in case the person left the money there on mistake and needed it back if they ever found him.  Jeffery found a cheap donut shop called “Sugar Bites” and he bought two maple donuts and a small vanilla milkshake for his long journey ahead of him.

     After days of hitching rides on the back of dump trucks and eating scraps of food out of garbage cans, Jeffery finds himself in a town called Valley Forge.  It is a small village and has a lot of historical areas about the Revolutionary War.  He walked through a park that was putting on some sort of play about the War.  He stopped and watched it for a while and thought of how scary war was back then.  He walked through town and came to a dead end on Quarry Lane.  He saw an old rickety farm farmhouse with a big red barn in the back field.  He thought to himself, “That looks like a nice place to stay, maybe I can sleep there for a while!”

     Jeffrey headed for the barn.  While he was walking across the barn he was noticing some animals.  There were pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep. Then all the sudden a crazy horse came running at him and Jeffery went running down towards the barn and opened the door and slammed it closed just in time before the horse could get him.  Jeffery was in the barn and saw some useful things. He found hay, an old horse blanket and an old barrel of rotting apples, but he managed to find three good apples to eat.
     When Jeffery was in his comfy bed made out of hay and a blanket, he woke up to the door opening and creaking.  Jeffery was worried that the people would see him in their barn and would get mad at him and lock him up somewhere.  So Jeffery was about to climb out the back door when he noticed it was a kid, a kid with jeans and a red shirt and old boots. The kid came in and grabbed a shovel. Jeffery was walking back down to get closer when he fell and the kid saw him!  The kid seemed to be young and around nine years old. The kid wasn’t afraid of him though.  But Jeffery was worried he was going to go tell his parents or someone. But Jeffery didn’t run away because the kid didn’t so he figured he was a nice kid.  In fact the kid asked, “Do you want a shovel and dig with me too?” Jeffery didn’t answer for about five seconds and then said, “I guess I could.”  And the kid gave Jeffery a shovel.

     They walked outside the barn and Jeffrey said, “My name is Jeffrey.”  The kid said back, “My name is Johnny.  Do you know how to dig up potatoes?”  Jeffrey said, “I never have before but I can learn if you show me.”  Johnny and Jeffrey go behind the barn to a flat area of dirt and Johnny puts the shovel in the ground.  He steps on it and pulls the dirt out and four potatoes are in the shovel.  Jeffrey copies what Johnny did and brings up three potatoes.

     Jeffrey notices that Johnny has a black eye.  He feels sad for this kid and asks him what happened to his eye.  “Josh punched me,” Johnny said.  “Who is Josh?” asked Jeffrey.  “Josh is the rich farm kid that lives in the big fancy ranch house on Rock Hill Lane.  He is like 13 years old and hates me because I am poor.”

     “You are poor?  Why do you think that?” asked Jeffrey.  “My family doesn’t have any money now because our work horse died six months ago and my dad don’t have enough money to buy a new horse so we can’t plow our fields and plant crops.  We usually sell our crops for money.”  “But I saw a horse in this field last night,” said Jeffrey.  “Yeah, that horse is ours but he is too wild and we can’t catch him to tame him.”  “Hmmmm,” Jeffrey said.  “Let’s go take a look at your horse.  Maybe I can help somehow?”

     “I don’t think you can,” said Johnny.  “He is pretty fast and really mean!  But I will take you to him.  He likes to eat in the field behind our house.”

     Johnny and Jeffrey start walking and a huge kid wearing a cowboy hat, jeans, a white t-shirt and shiny cowboy boots jump over the fence.  “What are you doing black-eye?” says the kid.  “Leave me ALONE, Josh!” screams Johnny.  “Hey dude, pick on someone your own size! Leave Johnny alone.  He has done nothing to you,” snapped Jeffery.  “Oh yeah, rag boy!  And why should I listen to you?” says Josh the bully.  “Because I am better than you,” says Jeffrey.  “At what?  Being ugly?” laughed Josh.

     “No, at running.  In fact how about we make a bet?  If you beat me at running across this field, you can give me a black eye.  But if I beat you, you leave Johnny alone forever.  Deal?” said Jeffrey.  “Ha! Deal!” snorts Josh. Johnny set the beginning of the race at one side of his farm yard, and the finish at the other side of his farm yard.  Then Jeffery and Josh lined up to race and Johnny says, “Ready? Set, GO!” and both of them shoot off running. Jeffery is of course ahead of Josh by a lot.  Jeffery slipped and fell.  Josh was now ahead of him, but Jeffery got right back up and beat Josh by about twenty feet.  Josh the bully cursed and climbed back over the fence never to be seen again.  Johnny cried, “Thank you Jeffery! You saved my life!” “No problem Johnny now let’s go check out that horse,” Jeffery said.  “Oh first let’s go get those rotten apples in the barn.”

     Jeffery grabbed an apple and walked to the horse very slowly and whispering to the horse.  After about an hour the horse took the apple from Jeffery’s hand and ate it!  Then the horse ran away.  Johnny couldn’t believe it!  He ran in the house to tell his parents that a kid named Jeffery had tamed the mean wild horse!  The parents were excited about Jeffrey’s unusual talent taming the crazy wild horse.  So they invited Jeffery to have dinner and gave him a place to sleep if he would tame the horse for good.  Jeffery agreed and was happy to have a warm bed to sleep in and food in his tummy even if it was just potatoes and corn.  About a month later Jeffery had tamed the horse and had put a saddle on him and Johnny’s dad was using him to plow down the fields.  Johnny’s mom gave Jeffery all of Johnny’s older brother’s clothes who had moved out of the house. The clothes didn’t fit Jeffery that well, but he was still grateful.  Johnny’s dad told Jeffery, “You changed Johnny’s life by getting rid of the bully and you changed our life by taming the horse and we can now make money again with our crops!  You can stay with us and be part of our family.  And I can’t pay you much but you can have a job feeding the chickens and milking the cow every day.”  Jeffrey was happy.  And he became an expert at milking the cow.  In fact he could fill five gallons of milk jugs in just five minutes!  All the other farmers heard about his milking abilities and sometimes hired him to help them on weekends.  He was a milking legend! But after five more months Jeffery chose not to stay anymore because he felt Johnny’s parents needed to be proud of Johnny, their own son, and he didn’t want to get in the way. So Jeffery wrote a letter and thanked the family and in the middle of the night left the farmhouse behind.  He took a potato sack with him to carry his clothes and put the money he made on the farm in his pocket in his jacket.  Now he had $100 since he never had to give back the $40 he found in the jacket.

     The next town Jeffery went to was Phoenixville.  There was lots of smog in the sky and it was gloomy.  It was an industrial type of city with lots of factories such as the Phoenix Iron Works factory.  It was abandoned on the water front and creeped Jeffery out.  He didn’t feel like people were very friendly around here.  He had spent $50 of his money that was in his pocket for food and drinks getting to Phoenixville. He decided he needed to settle down here for a little while to figure out what to do next. He found a small old shed in the Morris cemetery on Althouse Lane. He had slept there a few nights and noticed a couple of buckets and old rags and some cleaning chemicals.  He decided he needed to make more money.  So he decided to use this for washing car windows for money. He would stand on the corners at stoplights and start washing people’s windows. Surprisingly people would give Jeffery their pocket money for payment! He felt like this was a good job for him. Each day after work he would go buy some dinner, eat for the night and go to bed and dream about having a family.  Soon he became very lonely and the cemetery reminded him his parents were dead. He hadn’t made any friends either.  Phoenixville just felt so cold and lonely. So after two months Jeffery decided to pack up his clothes, his pails, and his money he earned and keep moving forward.

     Jeffery was tired of walking.  He had been walking for about two weeks and decided to stop in a town called Leesport. Leesport is a small town on the Schuylkill River and the people seemed to be nice to each other and Jeffery thought he could stay there for a while.  Jeffery crossed the river on Main Street and turned right on Canal Street because he saw a junk yard that he thought he could stay at. When he got there the gate was closed but the chain was cut, so he went in.  Jeffery looked around at all the cars in the junk yard, but was only interested in one car.  It was an old black Mustang.  It had torn leather seats and only one window was cracked which was on the right side in the front seat.  Jeffery always thought Mustangs were cool. This one would be perfect for his new sleeping place.  Jeffery also found an old raggedy blanket on the floor that he could use to sleep with.  Jeffery put his bag of clothes in the car and got his things ready to go to sleep.

     Jeffery was woken up in the morning by someone banging on the window.  Jeffery was shocked by the banging, so he sat up and saw a young black man starring down at him. Then Jeffery got out of the car and apologized for being there.v He noticed the man was in a wheel chair and then he introduced himself to the man. The man was nice and said his name was Chester.  Chester was the owner of the junk yard. They talked for a while and Jeffery realized how nice he was.  Jeffery had told him his parents had died and he was traveling to find a new life.  Chester told Jeffery he hadn’t seen his mom in five years because they got in a fight and Chester said some bad things about his mom so he left.  Jeffery told him, “You should start talking to her again.  I am sure she misses you.  Just think how lucky you are to have your mom alive.” Chester decided to let Jeffery stay in the junk yard.  They became good friends.  They would play silly games and challenge each other.  Chester liked to chew gum, so he challenged Jeffrey to blow a bigger bubble than his.  Jeffrey amazed Chester!  He was always able to blow a bubble that was twice the size of his own head!  It was amazing!  Chester had never seen anyone be able to do such a feat.  Each day for lunch Chester and Jeffrey would go down Main Street.  Jeffrey would push Chester in his wheelchair and they would stop at a little restaurant and eat lunch together.  Usually French fries and a burger.  Jeffery would always just eat half and take the other half back to the junk yard for his dinner.  He was happy here in Leesport.

     Chester warned Jeffery that there was a thief that came around every now and then.  He cuts the chain on the gate and steals parts from cars in the junk yard.  Jeffery said, “You need some Guard Dogs.” Chester said, “I had thought of that, but I can’t walk to train them.” And Jeffery said, “Well maybe I can train them!” Chester liked the idea and offered to pay Jeffery to train and to take care of two guard dogs. Two days later Chester brings two German Shepherds to the junk yard for Jeffery to start training.  Then after about three weeks the dogs and Jeffery are inseparable. The dogs are becoming awesome guard dogs. Chester is happy and so is Jeffery. One night Chester shares that he had called his mom because Jeffery had made him think about how important she was.  She was very happy to hear from him and cried when he apologized.  She had really missed him.  He was planning on visiting her that weekend.

     The weekend Chester left to see his mom, Jeffery had an experience with the thief.  It was late at night and Jeffrey heard clanging down the row of old cars.  He took the dogs with him and saw the thief taking tires off of a truck.  Jeffrey yelled at the thief, “Hey!  You are stealing!  Leave my friend’s junk yard alone…get out of here now!”  The thief looked at Jeffrey and laughed and started putting parts in his bag.  The thief walked over to Jeffrey and said, “Whatever kid.  What are you gonna do?  Call your mommy?”  This made Jeffrey angry and he threatened to set the dogs on the thief.   The thief laughed and walked away.  Jeffrey yelled, “You better not come back!”  The next night the thief came back in the middle of the night.  The light from the thief’s flashlight woke Jeffrey up.  Jeffrey quickly got up and yelled at him, “Here come my dogs!  You better run, thief!”  The thief just laughed but this time Jeffrey sent the dogs.  And they went running and barking straight for the thief.  The dogs cornered the thief and bit his pant legs.  Jeffrey went up to the thief and took the bag of stolen parts from him.  Then he said, “Leave now!  Or my dogs will drag you out of here!”  The thief’s wallet fell out of his pants and Jeffrey grabbed it.  He took out the thief’s ID and said, “Now I know who you are, Henry Stickman, and I will take this ID to the police if you ever come back! Now go away for good!”  The thief shook the dogs off his pant legs and ran through the fence never to be seen again.

    The next day when Chester came home, Jeffrey told him what happened.  Chester was so proud of Jeffrey and thankful for what he did.  But Chester also told him that his mother was sick and he had decided to sell the junkyard to move in with her and help take care of her.  This made Jeffrey sad but he understood.  He was happy that Chester had his mom back.  A month later Chester sold the junkyard and they had to say good bye.  Jeffrey was sad to see his good friend and the dogs go.  There was nothing left for him here at the junk yard anymore.  So Jeffrey packed up all his things and headed down the road again.  About a week later, Jeffrey crossed the Schuylkill River into a town called Two Mills.

     Amanda noticed a little kid jogging toward her, the soles of both sneakers hanging by their hinges and flopping open like dog tongues each time they came up from the pavement.  As he passed her, he said, “Hi!”  He ran down Hector Street and turned left at Birch Street to the East side of Two Mills, which was her side of town.