Listen to the Words

Chapter 22

He stuck his paper plate into the trash, rinsed his hands, and went to the living room. His mom sat on the floor with Cameron, watching some sort of cartoon teddy bears bounce off each other on TV.

"Are we going to clean the basement now?"

She watched the screen. "Well.... Why don't you go down there and see what needs to be done?"

He went back through the kitchen, and down the basement stairs. Light bulbs had been stuck into the usually-bare sockets, and the entire basement was illuminated. His stepdad was in the corner by the workbench, throwing things through the air. A pair of snow boots hit a wall and tumbled to the floor. Murphy went back to the living room.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked.

"Well, I'm going down there."

He waited. "Should I do something with all the clothes?"

"What clothes?"

"The clothes that are all over the basement."

"Well," she said, "just wait till I get down there. I want to see what it looks like first."

He went back to the kitchen. He stood by the door and watched the clock. When his mom finally came into the room, he went down the stairs and she followed.

An angry and filthy mutter came from his stepdad, and then a football helmet flew across the basement. It landed on the floor with a thud.

"You're going to break all that stuff, John."

"What do you want me to do?" Murphy asked.

"Well..." she said. She looked into the laundry quadrant, her hands on her hips. "I guess this does look kind of bad, doesn't it?" She glanced up and down. "I guess we can just take it all upstairs for now. Put it on the pile in the dining room."

"Okay." He gathered a smelly bundle of clothes in his arms and started up the stairs.

"Wait," she said.

"What?"

"Just wait." She glanced around the room. "Well.... I guess you can take that on up. Just don't lose anything."

He climbed the stairs and crossed the kitchen to the dining room. A mound of dirty laundry lay on the floor, and he opened his arms and dropped the heavy bundle on top. T-shirts and balls of socks rolled through the archway. Murphy grabbed and re-stacked the fallen clothes, and hurried back to the basement.

His mom was in the corner by the workbench. She and his stepdad were arguing about a dusty clock that was nailed to the wall but no longer worked. Murphy hoisted another mass of clothes into his arms.

He went up and down, again and again, until his legs were tired and he really started to see a difference in that part of the basement. The only clothes that remained hung from pipes on the ceiling. Murphy pulled off a few shirts by their plastic hangers and laid them over his arm. When he started up the stairs, his mom came over from the other side of the room.

"Oh, I don't think you need to take all that up," she said.

"But -"

"Some of it can stay down -"

"No it can't. Other people don't have clothes hanging from -"

"Then what do they do with them?"

"They put them in the closets in their bedroom."

"Well... all right, Murphy," she laughed. "You do what you want."

He carried the clothes up the stairs.