Excerpt: Wesley Intrepid

The house was old, empty, large, and probably had mice, but that didn’t bother Wesley a bit. Plenty of nice things, according to him, are old; think of pyramids, mountains, books, and noodles which Wesley knew to have existed for thousands of years—his sister Lydia had told him so.
“Empty” wasn’t a qualification that would last long, not after Wesley, his three siblings, his parents, and Wesley’s beagle Rous moved in, so that was okay too, and even if they weren’t, it’d be fun to pretend it was haunted or a smuggler’s cave.
“Large” was needed for a family of six although this house was even a bit too large for them, but it had been inherited, so that did not bother his parents’ thrifty minds. “Large” meant plenty of closets, a spooky attic, and a spookier cellar that truly was a cellar—not a basement, definitely. Too dirty; it even had a dirt floor. The dirt floor gave the entire house a rustic feel.
Mice wouldn’t be permanent either. Lydia would drive them out in a hurry. Wesley wished that she would not. Mice would make excellent pets. His sister Emma said that in a book a girl tamed mice, and they came when she called. But at least the old and large part would remain.
“Here’s home,” said Wesley’s father, Mr. Dunstan. He sounded a little sad and a little glad. Sad on account that it had been his aunt Lucy’s house; glad because it was staying in the family and large enough. The other house that they used to live in was a bit cramped.
“Bonza!” yelled Wesley’s brother Presto, whose real name was Peter, but he never went by that. Presto ran up the porch and tried to open the door. It was locked. Lydia, Emma, Wesley and Mr. Dunstan followed. Mrs. Dunstan hadn’t arrived yet: she was still at the old house closing up.
Once the door was unlocked, the boys tried to get in the house both at the same time, the result being both entering sideways.
Wesley raced up the stairs that were directly across from the porch door. Turning left, he was soon in a spacious room that doubled as both a dining room and a kitchen. His sturdy legs thumped up another set of narrower stairs which led to the upper floor where the bedrooms were. First the double bed in is parents’ room was flopped upon; then Wesley stood up and bounced in earnest. Never mind if he did leave footprints…they’d wash out. Then he rocketed out and down the stairs into the kitchen, through it and into the family room which was adjoined to what the Dunstans were calling their office, and out again into the yard. Around the yard he ran, climbed a pine tree, rubbed the sap off unto his pants, and dashed back into the house. There Lydia caught him by the arm.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she said. “There’s work to be done. Stuff isn’t going to get unpacked by little angels, you know.”
“I’m gonna do it just now,” said Wesley, which wasn’t exactly true. He was going to do it, but not until he went out into the yard again and pumped high on the swing and jumped off. By then his energy would have been spent enough that he would be able to settle down to necessary things like unpacking. Or maybe they weren’t really necessary….they could live out of boxes like gypsies. It wasn’t like the stuff was dumped loosely all over the floor.
“You unpack your things first. Just put your important stuff into the dresser. We can’t take out too much because we’re going to be repainting. I wish that we could have repainted before we’d moved in. That way would be much more efficient.”
“It won’t take long,” said Wesley and ran up the stairs. He dumped everything into the two bottom drawers. The clothes stayed partially folded. It was good enough, right?
Back downstairs, Wesley bounced around. What is taking everybody else so long? Boxes were stacked on the porch and furniture filled the driveway. The beds were also inherited from Aunt Lucy. Mr. Dunstan had been relieved about the beds remaining. He did not want to haul bed from their old house up the stairs. Mr. Dunstan did not have a particularly macho personality.