Read Online The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky by Holly Schindler - Free Book Online Page A

it.”
    â€œSure, sure,” Gus says, because he’s a sweet guy. He’d never in a million years tell someone that their junk is too junky, even for a trash hauler.
    As Burton disappears back into his house, I smile at Gus. “Look,” I say, riffling through the box. “This toaster still gleams, even if it can’t toast a piece of bread anymore.”
    Gus whistles as he slides the toaster from the box and holds it to the sun. “Sure does, Little Sister,” he agrees. “Almost need a pair of sunglasses to look at it.”
    He frowns as he thinks. “There’s only so much you can do with an old thing like this,” he admits. “It’s not like we can cut it up like the stained glass—”
    Suddenly, Gus stops talking. He flashes a smile so wide and full, it swallows the rest of him right up. “Can’t cut it up,” Gus chuckles through that Cheshire cat grin, “unless you’ve got the tools to cut it with.”
    â€œLike, say, an old welding torch lying around in a shed?” Now I’ve got my own Cheshire grin.
    Burton and his white undershirt appear again, along with the last of his promised boxes.
    â€œYou sure you want this, Gus?” Burton asks, still embarrassed.
    â€œYou bet we do,” Gus says, taking the box out of Burton’s arms with such care, you’d think it was filled with about fifty eggs.
    â€œAnd if you find anything else in there, anything at all, even so much as a pencil that’s been snapped in two, you give us a call,” I add.
    Gus winks at me, his dark eyes shining brighter than the side of the toaster.

• • • 19 • • •
    The door of the shed where Gus keeps his welding tools actually lets out a gasp when we open it. Like it’s been holding its breath waiting for us to arrive.
    I know exactly how that old shed feels. I can barely remember to breathe as Gus lowers one of his masks over my face and puts some fireproof gloves on my hands. I feel myself fidgeting anxiously as he pulls Burton’s toaster out of the box. “When you look at this,” Gus says, “what can you see?”
    â€œA flower,” I say. “With big pointy petals, like a daisy. If a daisy could be silver, that is.”
    Gus smiles. “You got it,” he says. He puts a cutting tip on his torch, flips his own welding mask down over his eyes, and motions for me to stand back. Once I take a few backward steps, he angles the torch, slices the toaster in half, removes the guts, and cuts the outline of a daisy head.
    I watch for a little while, then turn back to the big cardboard box. I pull out an old curling iron. “Here, Gus,” I say. “We can use this as the stem.” I open the iron and point to the part that clamps hair down. “Can you bend this like a leaf?”
    â€œYou bet,” Gus says. He uses his torch to remove the metal barrel from the handle. He exchanges his cutting torch for a welder that uses a flame to melt the daisy head to the stem. And he heats up the clamp on the old curling iron enough that he can bend it the way I described.
    As quickly as Mrs. Pike can pull her twins apart when they start to fight, Gus and I have a whole flower—a silver daisy.
    When we’re done, we rush outside, where Gus holds the daisy up to the sun.
    â€œGus!” I shout. But I have so many thoughts swarming inside me, it’s hard to pull the words apart to make sense of it all.
    I grab some loose-leaf paper from my backpack and some old crayons from my room. I sit down on our front step and start to draw the wild pictures that are exploding in my mind like popcorn kernels.
    I draw a giant rose that hasn’t completely opened. The petals are all swirly and tight, like a family hugging each other at the bus station, crying because none of them want to let go. On the stem, I draw giant thorns so big, they look like nails. I draw a