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    The Deep End Gang
    The Deep End Gang
    The Deep End Gang
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    The Deep End Gang

    By Peggy Dymond Leavey

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Twelve-year-old Martin Jessup, teller of tall tales and other untruths, cannot understand his sister’s objections to the family’s move from Winnipeg to small-town Ontario. With Dad in the military, moving is a fact of life. Settling into his new home, Martin is intrigued by a deserted house across the street and by an unfriendly neighbour, who seems to be waiting for something to happen. Martin and new friends Granger and Holly form a club that meets in the deep end of an empty swimming pool. The friends tell Martin that the deserted house is all that remains of the Govier estate and about an unsolved mystery — the disappearance years ago of Victor Govier. One night, Martin sees a light in the deserted house and the adventures of the Deep End Gang begin. This gentle small-town mystery will appeal to admirers of Peggy Dymond Leavey’s Silver Birch Award-nominated Sky Lake Summer.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateApr 1, 2003
    ISBN9781459717213
    The Deep End Gang
    Author

    Peggy Dymond Leavey

    Peggy Dymond Leavey's previous books include Sky Lake Summer, The Deep End Gang, and The Path Through the Trees, all of which were nominated for the Silver Birch Award. Recently, she published Growing Up Ivy, Mary Pickford, and Laura Secord. Peggy lives in Trenton, Ontario.

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      Book preview

      The Deep End Gang - Peggy Dymond Leavey

      childhood

      One

      I knew the first time I saw the house across the street, the day we moved here from Winnipeg, that there was something strange about it. It just didn’t seem to fit in. I’m usually the one in the Jessup family who notices these things. The others say I have an overactive imagination, but I ask you: What’s a spooky old house with a yard full of weeds doing in the middle of a modern subdivision?

      Everyone knew we weren’t going to live in Winnipeg forever, that someday, usually within two or three years of arriving, we’d be leaving again. So why was my sister Susan making such a big noise about it?

      Our old friends in Winnipeg would get along just fine without us, the way they had before we arrived. And we’d make new friends in Ontario. We always did.

      But Susan was acting really weird this time, sniffling in the back seat of the van as we pulled away from the house on Waterloo Street, hauling the camper behind us.

      Hey, Susan, I cried, spotting a couple of my sister’s friends coming out of the variety store at the top of our street. There’s Brittany and Rebecca.

      Yo, Britt! I yelled, my head out the window. We’re leaving!

      Brittany’s face wore a bewildered expression, and Susan didn’t even bother to look.

      When we turned the corner for the last time, my friend Nathan was exactly where he said he’d be—waiting out in front of his place, waving goodbye with both arms.

      Nathan had said he wished it were his family that was moving; I’d made it sound like such an adventure. We’ll be going down through the States, driving through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan before we get back to Canada, I told him. It was practically the same route we’d taken two years before, but in the other direction.

      My friend had watched with envy as we packed the van, making use of every inch of cargo space for the journey. There was a plastic tote or a hanging bag for everything—the supply of maps, books, magazines, cassette tapes, travel games, pens and pads of paper. The Jessups had gotten very good at packing.

      Okay, folks. We’re on our way, Dad announced as we sailed down the ramp and out onto the highway. Branch, Ontario, here we come!

      Susan pulled her cap down over her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. I think she planned to stay like that all the way to Ontario.

      In the past, my sister and I had both looked forward to moving again. What would the new house be like? Would there be kids our age living next door, cool things to do in the new neighbourhood? But that day last April when Dad had come home and said he was posted back to Ontario, Susan had erupted like a volcano, surprising us all. There was no way she was going!

      What about my friends? she wailed. I can’t leave them. You can’t ask me to! She would stay in Winnipeg, live at Rebecca’s, if she had to.

      You can always make new friends, I told her, in my most mature tone.

      Susan said she didn’t expect a boy to understand. "You’re such a child, she sneered, with a toss of her red hair. Actually, I’m twelve and a half, barely two years younger than she is. Of course, you’re glad to be going, my sister snorted, after all the lies you’ve told here."

      I was crushed! I didn’t tell lies! I just exaggerated a little. It was nothing more than a habit.

      Come to think of it, though, I’d had a couple of close calls. Like the time I said Lulu, our Labrador retriever, was from the same litter as the dog belonging to the American president—at least, the man who had been president when we got Lulu. I nearly got caught with that story.

      Susan and her friend Rebecca were out in our driveway one Saturday in March, grooming the dog. I was collecting the chocolate-coloured clumps of hair before the wind caught them and blew them across the snow to the neighbours. Lulu’s big brown eyes were rolled back in her head, in ecstasy. She loves any kind of attention.

      Is it true your dog is from the same litter as President Clinton’s? Rebecca asked, pulling the comb through the hair on the dog’s back.

      As far as we know, Susan said, without even a sideways glance at me. You can see how much she looks like the Clintons’ dog.

      The truth was, the breeder had told us that was his theory for why everyone seemed to want this type of dog lately. I was truly amazed that my sister had covered for me like that. I was filled with love and respect for her at that moment.

      Love and respect was not what Susan was feeling when she pinned me to my locker at school a few days later. Don’t you ever do that again! she threatened, green eyes all squeezed up, mean-looking.

      Do what? I stammered.

      How could you tell everyone that we used to live in a packing case? she demanded.

      But we did! I tried to wriggle free of the iron grip she had on the neck of my T-shirt. Just ask Mom.

      Oh, Martin, a storage shed, not a packing case! Mom laughed out loud when I asked her for the true story that day after school. Temporary quarters. And it was just your dad and me. We were newlyweds, and when he arrived at the base where he’d been posted, with a wife, he couldn’t stay in barracks.

      But don’t you remember you told us the place was so small there was no room for a Christmas tree, even? I pleaded. That you got a little one anyway and set it on the kitchen table? I’d always thought that story illustrated how easily my parents adapted to new surroundings. Dad had attached a rope and pulley to the tree, and when they needed to use the table for meals, they were able to pull the Christmas tree, fully decorated, up to the ceiling, out of the way.

      That’s true, Mom concurred. But it had been a storage shed. And we were only there a few weeks, just until they found a house for us on the base.

      I liked the story better my way, I mumbled.

      Get your facts straight, Martin, Susan hissed, before you go spreading them around. I don’t want everyone, especially my teachers, thinking my brother is a liar. Even if he is!

      My story about the packing case had developed when our sixth grade was doing a study on habitats, and we’d got talking about unusual homes. There was one guy somewhere who lived in a house made out of aluminum cans, and a family in Vermont whose house was buried in the side of a hill. I considered that I’d lived in a few unusual homes myself. From there, the story just sort of snowballed.

      As a result of this incident, my sister decided to get to the bottom of what she saw as my problem with the truth. We were both in the kitchen making our supper one night later that week, our parents having gone out to dinner and a movie.

      So, why do you do it, Martin? Susan asked. Why do you make up fantastic stories like that?

      I don’t know, I shrugged. I was shaping meatballs for the frying pan from a blob of ground beef.

      Susan set the jar of spaghetti sauce down on the counter and turned to face me. Do you tell these lies so people will like you?

      I don’t think so, I said. Maybe.

      Why can’t you just be yourself? Don’t you think just being you is good enough?

      I don’t know, I admitted, puzzled now myself. I never thought about why I do it.

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