9 Rosie-Dozy-Ding-Dong

CHAPTER NINE ROSIE DOZYDING DONG *12° F ROSIE SHOOK HER head at Simon's name suggestion. But that didn't stop him. Simon kept shouting names as we worked—and Rosie shook her head after each one. We used more duct tape to secure the bottom edges of the burlap all along the wagon's sides. It was starting to look like a sagging, badly shaped bubble.

"Raging Rosie!" Simon exclaimed. "Like the Raging Inferno monster truck!" It took a little time to tape the front by the wagon handle, but we figured it out. "Rosie's Winter Wagon!" Rosie and I made a vertical cut in the burlap at the back of the wagon. That was how we would get in. While we did that, Simon tested some sandpaper on a gardening stake that we didn't use. He wanted to see if it got warm like the coat hanger had. "Whoa!" Simon said when he touched the metal. "This thing is hot!" "That's why we'll wear the gardening gloves," Rosie said. "They're rubbery on the palms, so we won't burn our hands."

We poked holes along both sides of the back seam. "We need to close up this seam," Rosie said and twirled her hair. "I'm on it," Simon said and went over to a cardboard box against the wall. Rosie and I knew what was in there—a bunch of his old, beat-up sneakers. When we cleaned the garage in the summer,

Simon wouldn't let us throw them away. "You're going to let us use your sneakers?" Rosie asked, surprised. "But what about all your special memories?" Simon hadn't let us throw them away because he remembered doing certain things in each pair. He loved his sneakers. "Not the sneakers," Simon said, bringing two pairs. "Just the shoelaces." As we took the laces out, Simon told us what was special about each pair. "I caught a wicked garter snake when I was wearing the black ones," he said. "It was green with a

yellow stripe." "What about the red ones?" Rosie asked. "With those, I slipped on a wet rock down by the creek and cracked my head against another rock," Simon said casually. "It didn't hurt that much, but I

got a bad cut. And I had a lot of blood on my cheek." "That's a special memory?" I asked. We had the laces out now. "No, that's not the special part." Rosie asked, "What is?" "When Mom saw all the blood, she felt sorry for me," Simon answered. "She got me some gelato for the first time. Have you guys had gelato? It's delicious! It's way better than ice cream!"