Never in a million years would I let #1 on my TO-DO list, who I promised Daddy I would take tender loving care of, live the rest of her life in a padded room.
Because I wasn’t BE PREPARED for something like this to happen, I’ve got to come up with a plan ASAP! I’d normally spend hours puzzling over a new list, but I don’t have that luxury right now. I’ve got to act fast, but my usual genius brain is so shocked and stunned that it can only think of four solutions to our predicament off the top of my head:
Stick some of this money in my shorts pocket and the two of us could run away right now to California.
Bring the stolen loot to Mr. McGinty’s shack tonight and beg for his help.
Follow the original plan I had when I found the culprit to stick the money under some bushes at the church and then come across it after Mass this Sunday so I can be a big hero.
Sneak out of the house and return the money to the collection box tonight all by myself.
I reach for my Magic 8 Ball that I keep hidden from Louise in the closet behind a shoe box because it is a sin to ask questions about your future to anybody but all-knowing God.
Q. Which plan should I pick? #1, 2, 3, or 4?
A. When I turn it over, Reply hazy try again later floats up.
Damnation!
We need to act now, not later, and I’ve just about had it up to here with these watered-down answers.
“Tessie!” Birdie shouts from down the hall. “Come practice your dead man’s float!”
Please, Daddy, please help me know what to do . . . what to do . . .
I like the idea of making a run for it, but first I’d have to talk Birdie into it, and that could take forever on account of how much she loves Louise, and I would really miss Charlie so much.
If I involve Mr. McGinty, that could make him guilty of the crime of accessorizing after the fact, the way I am, because I let Daddy drown, and I wouldn’t wish that awful feeling on anybody, except for Jenny Radtke and Gert, and, of course, Butch Seeback, but he probably wouldn’t even feel bad because he has the mind of a maniac.
Hiding the money under the bushes at church and then pretending to find it this Sunday after Mass is too risky. Somebody, say Gert Klement, would start telling everybody how suspicious she thinks it is that Theresa Marie Finley, of all people, was the one to find the stolen money. Dog smells its own dirt first is probably what she’d say.
Yes, returning the money tonight to the collection box when Birdie and Louise are snoozing seems like the best idea.
Thank you, Daddy. Amen.
“Tessie . . . Tessie . . . Tessie . . . Tessie!” my sister calls from the bathroom.
St. Kate’s keeps its doors open all through the night so the workers at the Feelin’ Good Cookie factory and American Motors can stop by when their second shift is over to do their praying, so not getting noticed by one of them is going to be very tricky. I’ll wear my hobo disguise or pull one of the black stockings over my face, and then, when the time is right, I’ll . . .
“What’s takin’ you so long?” the little thief says from right behind me.
I gasp and jump about a foot because I was so caught up in trying to form a plan I didn’t notice that I wasn’t hearing her splashing in the tub anymore. I try to slam the dresser drawer shut so she doesn’t see the money, but one of the T-shirts I piled to the side has gotten caught in the runner, so all that’s left to do is try and shield the drawer with my body.
I very carefully wiggle around to face her, then I say, with a huge smile, “That was a great Gotcha! honey. I think you mighta even scared some poop outta me, ha . . . ha . . . ha!”
“Thank you, Tessie. I wanted to show you my bubble beard!” Birdie strikes a movie-star pose. “Do I look like Burl Ives?”
I don’t know why she loves that movie star so much, but she does. “That’s a doozy of a Burl beard, honey, but you can do better.”
“Can I?”
“Yes, lots, lots, lots, lots better. So you should hurry and get back in the tub and work on it a little more before all the bubbles are gone.”
“What are you lookin’ for in the dresser?” she asks, stepping closer and dripping all over me. She’s trying to peek over my shoulder. She’s such a shrimp that she’s never taller than I am and never will be, except for when I’m on my knees, like I am right now, so I sag over to my right side to keep her from seeing the money.
“Remember? We’re going to visit Mister McGinty tonight, so I’m lookin’ for some spy clothes.” When I’m attempting to sweet-talk her into something, I normally do my Glinda the Good Witch impression, because that gal has the nicest voice I ever heard, but I’m so off balance that I’m afraid I’m going to topple over at any second, and when I do, my sister will see what I’m trying to hide, and then I’m going to have to tell her what she did and that would be the worst thing to happen, so I end up sounding like the Wicked Witch of the West when I say, “You know how important cleanliness is next to godliness is to him. We can’t go over there to return his medal if we’re sinfully dirty, so get back into the tub right this minute or I’ll have to—”
“You found the Pagan Baby money!” Birdie joyfully shouts when she knocks me down and snatches it outta the dresser drawer. “Like you and Zorro are always sayin’,” she sticks her bare chest out and crows, “it’s okay to take from the rich and the church is very rich and give to the poor and we are very poor.” She waves the green wad in my face. “I’m gonna give it all to Mommy so . . . so we can keep our house that still smells like Daddy in the nooks and crannies and she can stop going out on dates with what’s-his-name and . . . we can buy lots of food at the Red Owl and we won’t have to run away!”
O, Dios mio, when she puts it like that, believe me, I am so mucho tempted.
Keeping this money would do everything Birdie said it would, and more, but sad to say, as wonderful as living a life of luxury on Easy St. sounds, my annoying conscience is giving me two thumbs down.
I stand and wrap my arms around my slippery sister the best I can and tell her, “I love you, Birdie Finley, and I am really, really, really, really proud of you for doin’ such a good and kind charitable act that would really help us out.” I am dying to ask how she pulled the caper off, but chances are, she’s gone foggy about the details. “More than anything, I wish we could keep the money, but we can’t.” I try to come up with the easiest explanation that someone with her limited brain power might understand. “We gotta put ourselves in those pagan babies’ shoes.”
“Don’t be so silly, Tessie,” she says with one of her great belly laughs, which, believe me, is really something to behold when she’s naked as a jaybird. “Babies don’t wear shoes.”
Poor kid.
“But those babies do live on the Dark Continent and they gotta dodge poison Pygmy darts and cannibals all day long under the sweltering sun,” I say, “while Crucifix-waving missionaries chase them through the jungle hounding them about converting to Catholic, and . . . and if their parents don’t agree to sign on the dotted line, they get rolled up in one of Missus Tate’s patchwork quilts until they do. So in the long run, that makes those babies a lot worse off than we are, don’tcha think?”
Birdie doesn’t take long to say, “Roger that,” because even the owner of a brain that moves slower than an African tree sloth immediately understands what a disgustingly hopeless situation those babies are in.
Of course, the plan I’ve come up with is way too complicated for my not-very-smart and very forgetful sister to take in, so I just tell her the parts that I think she’ll understand and remember. “So here’s what we’re gonna do,” I say as I steer her out of the closet. “The both of us will get into the tub and after you show me some more Burl bubble beards, we’ll get dressed and head downstairs. You can watch some more television while I heat up our suppers, and after that, we’ll meet up with Charlie and go see Mister McGinty.”
“Ship . . . ship . . . hurray!” she yells, which I 100% knew she wou
ld, because even though she is unpredictable in many, many, many, many ways, I can always count on her gigantic heart and her gigantic appetite to win out. She could never say no to the gummy brownie in the Swanson’s TV dinner and spending time with Charlie and our good friend Mr. McGinty who will have windmill cookies and root beer at the ready, that’s entirely too much deliciousness for my little tweetheart to resist.
21
THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE
So far, everything is going according to plan.
Once Birdie and me were smelling more like Joy than week-old vase water, I hung a red towel out our bedroom window to let Charlie know that we need to meet with him at our house ASAP! And Gert must’ve called Louise to tell her what yummy dessert she wanted her to pick up at Meuer’s Bakery for the meeting tonight, because when our telephone rang around ten times while we were eating—it took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t coming out of the television set, because it hardly ever rings this time of night since bill collectors call during the daytime—it was our mother on the other end of the line letting me know that she would be going straight from work to the Pagan Baby meeting. She was about to tell me something else, something about “shenanigans,” but then she had to hang up because a customer needed servicing.
5:43 p.m. The Mutual Admiration Society is sitting on our back porch steps, polishing off the last bit of chocolate ice cream that I found in the back of our freezer compartment after my sister scarfed down her TV dinner and most of mine.
When the three of us are watching and waiting for Gert Klement to come lumbering out of her house toward her Rambler car, I’m wondering if Charlie gets sadder when he looks at garages because his is where he lost his mom forever, but he probably wouldn’t tell me because he’s such a clam, and anyway, it would be bad timing to ask him now. We need to stay focused on our very important missions.
Because that hobo wig is really starting to smell worse than one of Louise’s “gourmet” dishes, I changed my mind, and Charlie agrees with me, that instead of me returning the Pagan Baby money on a solo mission tonight, we should pick #2 on my list of ideas: Bring the stolen loot to Mr. McGinty’s shack tonight and beg for his help. He is such a good egg, who understands that Birdie can’t help who she is, and he wouldn’t want her to get into trouble any more than I would, but on the other hand . . . because he is also awfully religious and there’s that Thou Shalt Not Steal Commandment, Charlie might be 100% sure that Mr. McGinty will play along, but I’m only 95% sure.
5:47 p.m. After Gert slams shut the back door of her house and makes the short walk to her garage, she noses her white car down the driveway, switches on her headlights that spotlight The Mutual Admiration Society on our back porch, and shouts out of her car window, “I spoke to your mother, girls. She expects the two of you to be present and accounted for when we return from tonight’s meeting.”
“Roger that, Frank,” Birdie shouts back at her.
Same way I put myself in Daddy’s shoes, and the same way I tried to explain to Birdie about putting herself in the pagan babies’ shoes, because I don’t hardly believe anything that comes out of anybody’s mouths, least of all Gert’s, I need to make sure she really is going to the Pagan Baby meeting and not parking down the block and doubling back to watch and see if the Finley ghouls and their faithful sidekick, Charlie “Cue Ball” Garfield, climb over the black iron cemetery fence or sneak down Keefe Ave. to do other shenanigans.
After I hand off the Sealtest carton to Birdie so she can lick what’s left off the sides, I tell Charlie, “Be back in a jiff,” and I run out to the curb to see if the Rambler’s taillights disappear around the block. Once I’m sure the coast is clear, I rush back and give my partners in crime two thumbs up.
Charlie, acting like it’s no big deal, waves the wrinkly brown paper sack that’s got a for-emergencies-only P B and M for Birdie, and the stolen $209—Charlie is very good at arithmetic and he counted it twice—inside. “You want me to be in charge of this?” he asks.
FACT: I was surprised by how unsurprised he was when I told him that Birdie was the Pagan Baby money thief everybody in the parish would like to tar and feather.
PROOF: “Most thefts are committed by people who are in desperate need of funds,” he said with a shrug.
5:50 p.m. After I tell my fiancé that, yes, the Sergeant of Arms of The Mutual Admiration Society should be the holder of the loot, him and Birdie and me make our way across our backyard under the cover of creeping darkness. We shimmy up the cemetery fence easy, which is a big relief, because it’s getting harder by the minute to make out the pointy spears on top. As usual, the cemetery streetlights in this part of Holy Cross aren’t doing their job. (The caretaker doesn’t understand why no matter how many new lightbulbs he screws in, they still flicker, but I think I do. I’m pretty sure it’s Daddy’s way of talking to Birdie and me, maybe in Morris’s Code, which I am intending to learn the second I get the chance.)
As we make our way through the tombstones toward the shack, Charlie asks me, “You remembered your flashlight, right?”
I wrestle my trusty Roy Rogers out of my back pocket, flick it on, and hand it to him. I left the rest of the snooping TOOLS OF THE TRADE in our Radio Flyer wagon, because I knew we’d already have enough on our hands keeping Birdie in line, and we can’t be weighed down if she gets away from us. So my newest BE PREPARED plan has us stopping back at the garage to pick up the wagon that we’ll need to take with us when we roam around the neighborhood to gather information for the dare after we give Mr. McGinty’s medal back to him and figure out a way to return the stolen loot to St. Kate’s.
Because the Finley sisters can’t stay out past midnight anymore now that Louise is going to the Pagan Baby meeting and not staying out to all hours with her lousy boyfriend, we have to follow a strict timetable:
6:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m. Spend time with Mr. McGinty.
7:01 p.m.–8:00 p.m. Work on Kitten’s dare.
8:01 p.m.–8:15 p.m. Try to get Charlie to pucker up again before Birdie and me have to race back from wherever we are so we can beat Louise home.
Now that we know that Sister Margaret Mary wasn’t kidnapped, that means she left somewhere on purpose, so we should start by asking around the neighborhood to see if anybody saw her standing at a bus stop or walking down North Ave. When we were first trying to figure out why she was missing, one of Charlie’s other ideas was that she left the sisterhood for good, so maybe we’ll find out ex-Sister Margaret Mary has a new job. Who knows? She could even be working up at Lonnigan’s, serving cocktails alongside Suzie “That French Slut” LaPelt. Because you can’t see squat under their black habits, all the kids wonder if nuns have boobies or if they got chopped off the same day all their hair was when they became nuns. If our principal does have a bosom, it’d be pretty revolting to see it falling out of a skimpy white top the way Suzie’s do, so just in case, we better also make a stop at Dalinsky’s Drugstore and pick me up some Tums before we stop at the bar. (It’d be so great to see the rest of Suzie. Birdie and me really do miss her. She used to love it when the two of us would get up on the bar and sing the “Sisters” song for the customers.)
Those are all good ideas, but what I’m pinning a bushel basket of my hopes on is finding out some dirt at the Milky Way way before that. After I order us a strawberry Mercury malt with three straws, yeah, it’s a long shot, but The Mutual Admiration Society just might overhear one of Kitten’s snitches blabbing away to another one of Kitten’s snitches about what was in the note Sister Margaret Mary left while they’re waiting for a girl in a shiny skirt and alien antennae on her head to roller-skate out with red trays full of the out-of-this-world food.
“Watch your step, Tessie,” Charlie whispers as we’re tiptoeing past the stretch of Phantom Woods. Just like me and every other kid in the neighborhood, except for my sister, who I have tracked down in a tree a couple of times after a wild streak, the other love of my life is terrified that something or someone is goin
g to reach out of those gnarled black trees and Grimm-ly eat us. (No joke!)
Once we make it past Mr. Gilgood’s mausoleum that is no longer the scene of a crime, and the weeping willow tree where we were supposed to have our Mutual Admiration meeting this morning—we’re close enough to the caretaker’s house that we can see a light shining out of his window—Birdie comes to a sudden stop, cocks her head, and does #1 on the LOONY list: Hearing, seeing, and smelling stuff that nobody else can.
Charlie looks over at the woods—I can see the sweat break out on the top of his pretty lip by the light of my flashlight—and says to Birdie, “Whatever you’re hearin’ that we’re not, please tell m . . . m . . . me it’s not coming outta the woods.”
Instead of answering him, Birdie, who always has got on her side what Modern Detection describes as “the element of surprise,” breaks free of our hands and makes a run for it.
I don’t bother yelling Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! like I usually would when she pulls a stunt like this, because my fiancé and me both know there is 0% chance—he could probably speak “statistically” about this for a good hour—that almost-always-starving Birdie would stop peeling faster than a GI on KP duty toward ex–army sergeant Mr. McGinty’s windmill cookies and Graf’s root beer that he keeps stocked for us in his cupboard.
The Mutual Admiration Society Page 23