by Lesley Kagen
“I got a little something-something waitin’ on you,” Ethel drawls out. That means she’s got something good to eat.
When the first lightning flashes, I can see Troo even more perfectly. She’s got the L&M dangling from her lips so she can use her hand to rub her bad arm that got hurt in the crash. What I should do is take her back into the house, get under the bed and plug her ears with cotton balls like I usually do when a storm kicks up, but I don’t.
I shout back to Ethel, “Be there in two shakes.”
The heck with Troo. If she wants to stay in here smoking and gloating over how Mother and Dave are barely getting along instead of stretching out in Mrs. Galecki’s porch with our other best friend eating a little something-something, then let her. Mother made us sweetbreads for supper tonight and they didn’t taste like cinnamon toast the way I thought they would. I’m so darn hungry. My stomach feels like a wishing well.
I’ve crawled almost all the way outta the teepee when Mother yells out the back window with all she’s got, “Girls? You out there? Get in this house. It’s about to pour.”
Dang.
I call back across the yard, “Ethel?”
“Ya girls listen to your mama. I’ll see y’all on Wednesday. Lessin’ Miss Troo stunts her growth from smokin’ them weeds and shrinks herself to the size of a gnat, then a course it’ll just be you I’ll be seein’, Miss Sally.”
That’s a good one. That makes me laugh. “Sweet dreams, Ethel. Watch out for those bedbugs,” I say, feeling a splotch of rain landing on my bare arm when I turn toward the house.
I call back to her, “Trooper?”
I wait, but nothing comes outta the teepee but a wisp rising through the top like a smoke signal. I know I should go back in there, snub out that cigarette and drag my sister into the house, but I am just so tired of her digging in her heels. All I’m ever trying to do is honor my promise to Daddy to keep her safe and all she’s ever trying to do is run me ragged. I wish . . . I wish the teepee would get struck by lightning and those sparks would come flying down the poles and flow through Troo just enough to make her go woozy for the rest of the summer. I would prop her up on the backyard bench and always know where she was. She could do some jigsaw puzzles with Mother. They could be two peas in the pod again the way they used to be instead of . . .
(Sorry again, Daddy. Mea, mea culpa.)
Chapter Eighteen
Troo and me are at another best place in the neighborhood this morning. The Finney Library. Mary Lane and my sister come up here every Monday so they can check to see how the Billy the Bookworm contest is going. I tag along so I can pick up a new Nancy Drew to read to Mrs. Galecki and to make sure the two of them don’t kill each other. I’m also here because I need to talk to Mary Lane about a couple of important things I have on my mind. We didn’t get to see her all last week because she was up at the new zoo helping out. At least once every summer the rhino steps on her dad’s foot, so she helps him hobble around like his own personal cane.
“Can you believe the nerve of this kid?” my sister says, jabbing at the Bookworm chart the second we come through the library doors. She wants to win the prize in the worst way because she really adores going to the movies and, of course, ending up on top of the chart is another something she can lord over our other best friend. “Look at how high Lane’s worm has crawled! She’s gotta be cheatin’.” If we weren’t in the library, she would hawk a loogie. She still might. “I’m gonna go tell Kambowski on her.”
When Troo storms off to complain to the head librarian at the front desk, I go looking for Mary Lane. I find her right away browsing down one of the aisles and pull her into the lavatory with me.
“Don’t ever let your mother give you a home permanent again,” I tell her once we get in there. “You look like the Bride of Frankenstein.”
“Cool,” Mary Lane says, turning toward the mirror above the sink and making the same face the actress in the movie did right after she got electrified back to life. Head cocked to the left and then to the right, glaring at the doctor with the kind of look that says, What the heck did you do to me, you mad scientist you?
“And you gotta stop stealin’ immediately,” I say. “I’m not jokin’. Dave is hot on your trail for being the cat burglar. I’ll help you get rid of the evidence.” I’ve given this a lot of thought. “We’re gonna tie a rock around your All Stars and throw them into the lagoon. Then we’ll go to all the houses you stole from in the middle of the night. We’ll put their precious things on their front porches, the ones you haven’t already taken to the pawnshop. I’ll make apology notes by cuttin’ words out of a magazine so no one will recognize my handwritin’. The way they do in movies, ya know, like a ransom note only in reverse.”
When I get done with my spiel, Mary Lane laughs and says, “You been eatin’ too many nuts, O’Malley. They musta gone to your brain. You ever seen me steal?” She has a book called Blaze and the Forest Fire and another one called The Terrible Tale of Mata Hari in her arms, so just for a second I believe her, because I mean, I never have seen her steal and there are only so many hours in the day and she’s already pretty busy with her other two hobbies.
“You sure you’re not the cat?” I ask.
Mary Lane sets her books down and boosts herself up onto the counter next to the sink. “I think I’d know if I was breakin’ into people’s houses, don’t you?” She answers so la de da that it makes me go back to thinking she’s lying after all. If somebody accused me of a crime that I didn’t do, I’d get my feelings hurt, but Mary Lane, all she says is, “Boy . . . do I got some juicy news for you.”
I head into the stall, hardly listening to her because I don’t like tinkling anywhere except at home, but I gotta go really, really bad.
Mary Lane says, “This week on Hawaiian Eye Cricket got herself in a real fix, but then she got outta it.” She loves that show. I used to, too, but every time I try to watch it lately all I can think about is finding a leper eyeball in the pocket of one of Granny’s muu-muus. Mary Lane keeps me up to date. “And a man at the new zoo has been showin’ me how to drive the train they got out there, which is not that hard, so I’m thinkin’ if bein’ a fireman doesn’t work out I’m gonna be a conductor aaand . . . you’re never gonna guess who I peeped on,” she says on the other side of the toilet door that has telephone numbers and other stuff scribbled over it. Like who’s available if you’re looking for a good time. (Fast Susie Fazio.)
I rip the toilet paper off the roll and carefully lay it down, making sure all of the black is covered in a crisscross pattern. Troo told me you could get pregnant if you let your private parts touch the seat. She’s sure that’s what musta happened to Dottie Kenfield and even though I don’t agree with her—I think whoever gave Dottie that ruby ring is the culprit—I can see why that makes sense to my sister. It’s nearly impossible to keep a piece of juicy news quiet around here and nobody has said a word to me or anybody else I know about who the father of Dottie’s baby is so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she had an Immaculate Conception caused by a toilet seat. Nothing in heaven and earth is impossible. It happened to the Virgin Mother, it could happen to Dottie Kenfield.
“I was over at the old bottling plant on Burleigh Street the other night,” Mary Lane says. “Scoutin’ it out.”
Scouting it out is the same as saying that she is planning to set that abandoned building on fire the same way she did the tire store on North Avenue last summer. And the old TV repair shop a few weeks ago. She could never put that in her summer story, but I think it’s kinda charitable when she burns those buildings down. They’re such eyesores. They put up a spiffy appliance shop where the tire store used to be. Maybe they’ll open a new dress store where the bottling plant was. Something really fancy. Mother would like that.
“Geeze, O’Malley. What’d ya drink this mornin’?” Mary Lane says. “Peewaukee Lake?”
After I flush, I come out and turn on the sink water. I don’t look so g
ood in the mirror. Sometimes I barely recognize myself anymore. The dark half moons under my eyes look permanent and my hair is so bleached out from all the time I’ve been spending under this hot summer sun, it’s almost white.
“So who did you peep on?” I say, acting interested because that’s the polite thing to do.
“Father Mickey!” Mary Lane says, thrilled and wiggly.
I don’t know why she’s so excited. You’d think this would be getting old to her by now. Her favorite people to peep on are nuns and priests. Last summer, she caught our ex-pastor, Father Jim, dancing around the rectory in a white dress and high heels to Some Enchanted Evening.
“Father Mickey was at the abandoned bottlin’ plant last night?” I ask, drying off my hands on the towel thingie.
“Yup,” Mary Lane says. “He was in a black car talkin’ with you’re-never-gonna-believe-who.”
There is an excellent chance of that.
“Who?” I ask.
“Mr. Tony Fazio!”
What would the two of them be doing at that old plant together? That doesn’t sound right. Mary Lane must be winding up to tell me one of her famous no-tripper stories.
“Did you hear what they were talkin’ about?” I am trying not to sound like a doubting Thomas, but not doing such a good job.
“I couldn’t make out all the words, but Mr. Fazio was yellin’ at Father something about bein’ overdue and then Father started yellin’ back at him,” she says.
Yeah, this is one of her stories for sure. Nobody would yell at a priest. And I have never seen Mr. Fazio at the library, so what does he care if Father is late getting a book back.
Just to be polite, I’m about to ask Mary Lane to tell me what else she mighta heard Mr. Fazio and Father discussing when my sister comes barging through the lavatory door shouting, “Where is that fuzzy-haired drip?” Spotting her, Troo shoves past me and yanks Mary Lane off the sink counter. “You’re gonna beat me on the Bookworm!”
Mary Lane pinches Troo hard on the nose and yells back, “Tough titty, kitty,” and their yelling echoes off all that green tile so loud that Mrs. Kambowski comes rushing in.
“What in God’s name is going on in here?” the head librarian asks. She gets the both of them by the scruff of their necks and gives them a good shake.
Mary Lane mumbles something, and Troo acts contrite and tells the librarian, “Pardonnez-moi,” but the second we get through the library’s front doors, she throws herself on top of Mary Lane piggyback-style and they end up wrestling around on the grass like they always do until I can’t take it anymore and pull Troo off.
“Let go a me!” She shoves me down to the ground next to Mary Lane, screws up her face and screams like a she-cat, “Fuck the both of ya,” then she hops on her bike and takes off without me on the handlebars.
Mary Lane and me watch Troo darting in and out of cars down Sherman Boulevard with held breaths. After my sister turns toward the park and we can’t see her anymore, Mary Lane rubs her leg where Troo kicked her. She’s not laughing like she usually would after one of their wrestling matches. She’s got a hurt look on her face and question marks in her eyes. She’s wondering why my sister has been acting even wilder than she usually does.
I could tell Mary Lane that Troo is acting worse because we’re half sisters now instead of whole ones or because Dave and Mother want to get married or because she’s having a hard time finding Greasy Al or maybe it’s because she’s falling behind on the Bookworm chart, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. I think it’s more than that. Something else is making my sister go around the bend.
Mary Lane helps me up off the grass and says, “What’s her problem?”
I wish I knew. I’d give anything for the answer to that sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
Chapter Nineteen
How I Spent My Charitable Summer
By Sally Elizabeth O’Malley
I went to Granny’s every Friday and washed out Uncle Paulie’s socks, which might not sound like such a sacrifice, but believe me it is. His socks smell like old bowling shoes from not just one person’s feet, but from a lot of persons’ feet, which made me think of Mary Magdalene drying Jesus’s toes off with her hair. That was so nice of her because from walking barefoot in Galilee and around lost sheep, the Son of God’s feet had to be really raunchy. Or maybe they weren’t because He also spent a lot of time walking on water. And I was really charitable to Wendy Latour. I have done so much wicked-witch laughing for her that I lost my voice for a week. I was also kind to her brother, Artie. When his best friend disappeared, I gave him one of my leather coin purses that I made eleven of at camp because that is the number of Apostles minus Judas, who I want nothing to do with. I’d also like to mention here for your holy consideration that my sister, Margaret, also gave Artie a piece of gum and hasn’t missed one of her religious visits with Father Mickey. I helped Mother clean behind the stove, painted her toenails and got her nummies. She has not gotten boils yet for living in sin with Dave Rasmussen the way you told me she would.
That’s where I left off after Troo and me got back from listening to Music Under the Stars over at the park with Mother tonight. I’ll get extra credit points for using Mary Magdalene’s hair and Jesus’s feet and the Apostles. The reason I crossed out that part about keeping an eye on the Goldmans’ house is because even though I am doing that, they are Jewish. Sister Raphael would take off my extra points to even the murdering Jesus score.
When I used the key Mrs. Goldman gave me to go into their house yesterday to turn off the light I saw glowing on the stove and bring her the kitty puzzles, I wound all her clocks, too. A clock that isn’t ticking is as sad as dead flowers. Normally I don’t like being anywhere without Troo, but it felt kinda nice to be alone for a change. I opened a window because it was such a hotbox in there and sat down on Mrs. Goldman’s davenport and started thinking about how sad it was that she couldn’t plant a garden this summer and how charitable it would be for me to go up to the Five and Dime tomorrow and get some seeds and stick them in for her. When she came back home from her trip, that’d be one surprise she would really like. She’d see her blooming backyard and wrap me in her arms and say, “Oh, Liebchen. What a special girl you are. Danke schoen!” And the next thing I knew her cuckoo clock woke me up. I don’t know why, but I felt like I got my hand caught in the brown-sugar cookie jar. I dashed out the door and didn’t stop running until I got home.
When I can’t sleep at night, when my mind goes from one thing to another and back again, sometimes I can stop it for a little while by using some of Ethel’s good advice. I read. Or write. That’s what I wanted to do tonight, add something else onto the charitable summer story under the covers after I got Troo to sleep, but that’s not gonna happen. My sister’s up to something.
“Harder,” she says from her side of the bed. “Over to the left more, between my shoulder blades.” The pages of my notebook that I set on top of our dresser are getting flapped by the fan while I rub her back. They grab her attention. “You’re workin’ on your story already?”
“I thought I better before—”
“You’re such a brownnose.” I can’t see her face, but I know that she’s sneering. (She usually waits until the night before school starts and copies off my story.)
I say, “Maybe you could try to start a little earl—”
“Holy cow, I’m beat,” she says, pulling her back away from my fingers and punching her pillow. “You better turn in, too. Tomorrow is a big day.”
One of the biggest. When we wake up, it will be the Fourth of July.
After we do our butterfly kissing and mentioning of Lew Burdette having a hell of an arm, my sister right away starts breathing slow. She’s trying to fool me, but I can hear her fast-licking her lips the way she does when she gets nervous or excited. That can only mean one thing. Even though she’s stretched out like a cartoon cat, she’s planning on sneaking out of our bed. For a kid that prides herself on her
trickiness, she’s gonna have to try harder. She didn’t even put on her nightie after our bath. She slipped on the same pair of shorts she had on all day and her sneakers are waiting for her next to the bedroom door.
I am going to bide my time by watching what’s going on in the aquarium Dave bought me until she tries to make her move. I adore the angelfish with the feathering fins that glides through the water not paying attention to the littler fish. If they had noses they would be stuck up in the air and if they had shoulders, they would wear a ritzy fox fur draped over them. They remind me of Mother. There is a pirate ship sunk on the bottom of the tank and next to the anchor is a treasure chest mostly buried in the pink gravel. That reminds me of Troo. The skeleton with the Jolly Roger hat reminds me of Nell. Same smile. I called her on the telephone after supper. I didn’t talk. I just breathed heavy so she would think that at least somebody thought she was still lush enough to make a dirty phone call to. Nell cried into the phone, “Eddie? Is that you? Please come home.”
That didn’t work out exactly the way I planned it, so that’s why I’m extra determined that I will not fail Troo. I’ve got important work to do. I’m being a lifeguard.
My sister slowly opens one of her eyes to see if I fell asleep.
“You can stop pretendin’ now,” I tell her.
She giggles and props her head up on her hand. Her hair is waving down the sides of her face like the red velvet curtain over at the Uptown Theatre. She picks up a piece of my hair and twirls it around her finger. That’s another thing she does to help her fall asleep.
I don’t ask where she was planning on running off to because she would never answer that. I ask her something else that’s really been bugging me. “Tell me how come you didn’t decorate anything this year for the Fourth contest.”
If she wants to win the blue ribbon so bad, what is she thinking? Those Kleenex flowers aren’t gonna get folded and stuck on the Schwinn all by themselves. We spent the whole afternoon at the playground-decorating party that Debbie told us about. Troo had every chance in the world to bring her bike over, but she sat next to me with our backs pressing against the school bricks and didn’t lift a finger. Mary Lane didn’t either. She never even showed up. Dollars to donuts, she skipped the party because she didn’t want to give counselor Debbie Weatherly the satisfaction of knowing that she doesn’t have eight bikes after all, not even one.