Excerpt: CONFESSIONS OF A LOST KID, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 1

 Ford Longfellow was a familiar figure, since his family attended Neighborlee Gospel Church and helped out with visiting NCH every other Sunday. He was tall and bald with enormous, bushy eyebrows, and his long whiskers were in that fascinating transition between dark red and white, meaning they were all shades of burgundy, gold, and silver. He worked with the older boys who wanted to be mechanics and engineers, and Mrs. Silvestri had introduced him to us the very first Sunday as a tinkerer. He made his living finding antiques for people and renovating furniture and houses. Mrs. Longfellow taught the third grade at Neighborlee Elementary and was in charge of the school library.

Their daughter Portia was maybe in her mid-twenties at the time we met the family, and even then there was something visibly not quite "there" about her. I heard someone refer to her as "flaky." She just seemed to flitter from one interest to another. Part of her problem might have been that she was super-smart, like Mr. Longfellow, but she couldn't focus on anything.

The other Longfellow daughter was Lenore, also very smart, and involved in dozens of things, inside and outside Neighborlee. She had graduated from Willis-Brooks College, was taking a bunch of correspondence courses toward a master's degree, and could speak five other languages. She was a lot of fun when she visited NCH on Sundays, and she was about the only person I had met who didn't seem surprised at my reading level. We got along great, and she helped me convince the head librarian at the Neighborlee Public Library that yes, I could handle books from the adult section.

Then there was Jinx Longfellow. He was in high school. I never did learn what his real name was. Somewhere along the line, he had earned the nickname of Jinx, and it stuck. Nobody could ever explain why he earned the name, because he was possessed of the most incredible good luck, rather than bad.

Mr. Longfellow knew Kurt a whole lot better than me, just because Kurt was allowed to go with the older boys to the mechanics' group on Sundays.

"I haven't asked them yet, but I could feel the weight on them when they stepped onto my street," Angela said. "It must be grave indeed, to recruit them so young."

"Recruit us for what?" Kurt said.

"What Miss Angela said before," I said, putting down my mug of soup. "We're guardians. Right?"

"Very right," she said.