I raised up on one elbow and gave her a stare.
“He’s OK, Angie. Really. At least he will be after his cracked rib heals.”
“Cracked rib? That man gave Buster a cracked rib?”
“Now calm down, Angie. I told you he’s going to be all right.” Her eyes kept darting this way and that, and I knew there was something else she needed to tell me.
Just then, Reba Lu came in. Her eyes were all red and puffy, and I could tell she’d been crying. Before I could ask her what was wrong, she blurted out, “Gloria’s dead!”
“Gloria? Your little pet chicken? What happened?”
“Somebody murdered her, that’s what.”
“How?”
I barely got the word out before Geraldine poked me hard in the ribs and leaned over close to whisper, “Somebody wrung Gloria’s neck.”
With a sinking feeling I remembered that half-cackle I had heard the night before. I swallowed. It must have been Gloria, getting her neck wrung.
Reba Lu went on. “That’s why she couldn’t warn us that somebody was coming. She was lying there dead.”
“Oh, no. Oh, Reba Lu.”
Reba Lu began to cry. Geraldine joined in, and the two of them got me started. We sat on the floor and wept until Mrs. Adams came running in from the kitchen. She got down on the floor and put her arms around us. She smelled like pancakes. I leaned against her. I wanted Mama, but Mrs. Adams felt pretty good.
“That man did it,” I said between sobs. “I know he did, just like he hurt my Buster.”
Geraldine wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Angie, didn’t you see his face at all?”
I shook my head. “I already told you … it was too dark. I heard his footsteps, and I saw his shadow. I thought he might be Reverend Adams, coming to check on us. But then I saw him undo the clothespins and open the flap. That’s when I yelled.”
I stopped and blew my nose on a tissue that Mrs. Adams handed me. “I never saw his face,” I went on, “but I’m sure it was a man.”
I was glad when Mrs. Adams said, “Well now, your pancakes will be getting cold. We can talk about this later.” Her voice sounded too cheerful, like somebody practicing for a part in a play.
“I should go home and see Buster,” I said.
“Not yet, dear. I promised your mother I would give you a good breakfast.”
Geraldine and Reba Lu had already eaten, but they sat with me at the table and had another glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice apiece. Reba Lu kept sniffing and saying, “Poor Gloria.”
“Charles and Reverend Adams are over at your house,” Geraldine told me. “They went to talk to your daddy about what happened.”
Then she said what I already knew. “Something real bad is happening in our town.”
I didn’t answer, for Mrs. Adams put a plate in front of me. I was surprised to find that I could eat two stacks of pancakes and three pieces of Canadian bacon. As soon as I finished, Mrs. Adams told us to go out and clean up the mess in the backyard.
First we visited the little mound of dirt where Mr. Adams had buried Gloria under the shade of a Cecile Brunner climbing rose bush. We picked some pink buds and stuck them in the soft soil, then watered them good so they wouldn’t wilt quite so fast. Reba Lu wanted to have a memorial service, so we stood around while she said a few words.
“You were a good chicken, Gloria. A true friend. I’ll always remember what big eggs you laid and how soft your neck feathers were.”
She gulped and swallowed. I thought talking about neck feathers wasn’t such a good idea in light of what had happened to Gloria.
“You were a real hero … uh … heroine,” Reba Lu went on. “You would have tried to save us, but you didn’t get a chance to cackle. We’ll never forget you.”
We didn’t talk much while we took down the tent. We were rolling up the sheets and blankets when Geraldine threw hers in a pile and sat on it. It seemed like a good idea, so Reba Lu and I did the same thing.
“So,” Geraldine said.
Reba Lu looked at me, waiting.
“I’m not exactly positive who it was,” I told them.
“But you have an idea,” Geraldine said.
“It’s more of a feeling. There was something about the way his shadow moved. It seemed like he was trying to hurry, but couldn’t go too fast. It made me think of the first time I laid eyes on Jefferson Clement. He was walking funny then, kind of limping like one leg hurt. Just like the man who opened the flap of our tent. And I smelled something spicy. Like aftershave. Mr. Clement smelled that way one day in front of Dodie’s house.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Geraldine said. “Artie Longmire uses that stuff on just about every man in town. Except Willie Jack, of course.”
We sat there, looking at each other. “We know who it was, but we can’t prove it, can we?” Reba Lu asked.
Geraldine made a groaning sound. “Who would believe us if we told a story like that? Don’t you remember how people welcomed him at the Fourth of July picnic? Like he was some kind of hero?”
“Not everybody,” I said. “Mama didn’t want him to sit with us.”
We were quiet a minute. “What are we going to do?” Reba Lu asked.
“Nothing,” said Geraldine. “If we accuse him, no telling what he might do.” She scowled and began pulling long runners of devil’s grass from the tomato bed. I knew Geraldine, and I could tell by the way she yanked at the weeds how nervous she was.
“I wish he’d never come back to Messina,” Reba Lu said. She tried to sound angry, but I noticed her voice trembled.
I was about to get my things together and go home to see Buster when I looked up and saw Dr. Thomas hurrying down the street. “Look there,” I said.
We watched as he crossed over Palm Avenue and began climbing the steps that led to the Clements’ front porch.
I thought about how sharp Buster’s teeth were when he chewed a bone, and how loud the man had yelled last night when Buster got him in the backside. I smiled to myself thinking how much it must have hurt.
“Buster took a good bite out of somebody last night,” I said.
We three sat there looking at each other. Finally, Geraldine said, “If we accuse Jefferson Clement, a lot of people won’t believe us.”
Reba Lu nodded. “And if we accuse him, he might try to hurt us.”
But I had the last word. “There’s no might about it,” I told them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By that afternoon, the word was out that a prowler was loose in Messina.
“Some vagrant, no doubt,” I heard Miss Barnable, the librarian, say. I was in the library waiting to return an overdue book. I had to stand in line behind three of Messina’s biggest gossips: Miss Hallie Harper, my least favorite teacher; Mrs. Eunice Abbott, the mailman’s wife; and Mrs. Mildred Hewitt, who was still talking about being scared by Miss Emma’s snake.
They hovered around the librarian’s desk like three crows picking at dead meat in the road.
“A bunch of tramps are camped south of town in the dry river bed under the sycamores,” Miss Harper said. “Those hobos don’t have anything better to do than stir up devilment. As bad as Gypsies, that’s what they are.” She put her little fingernail between her two front teeth and picked out a piece of her lunch.
“A lot of people are homeless these days,” Miss Barnable put in. “Just because they’re broke doesn’t mean they’re—”
“Imagine one of them getting in the preacher’s backyard and killing a chicken!” Mrs. Hewitt interrupted. She sounded excited, and the way her eyes got big made me think she was wishing she could have been there to see it.
I cleared my throat. I wanted to return my book, but I couldn’t get near Miss Barnable’s desk until they moved. I wasn’t really surprised when they ignored me, so I just stood off to one side and waited some more.
Mrs. Abbott shook her head. “I don’t know, Mildred. There’s plenty of others right here in Messina who wouldn’t
think twice about prowling. Take that Willie Jack, for instance. He’s never been right since the Great War.” She tapped her head and looked like she knew something nobody else did.
“Willie Jack is a war hero!” Miss Barnable exclaimed. “He saved a lot of lives. It’s not his fault that he got shell-shocked doing it!” But those other three didn’t pay any attention.
“I believe you’re right, Eunice,” Miss Harper said. “Willie Jack always was trouble, even before he let himself get shell-shocked.” Miss Barnable tried to interrupt, but nobody could get in a word once Miss Harper got started.
“I had him in the sixth grade,” she went on, “so I should know. He never paid a lick of attention to anything I told him. Not even when I kept him after school. I always thought it was Willie Jack who put the mouse in my bottom drawer.”
Hooray for Willie Jack! I thought. I must have made a noise, for they all stopped talking and turned to look at me.
“Angelina Wallace, you ought to mind your own business,” Miss Harper said.
“I am minding it.” It was sass, and I knew it, but I figured Miss Harper couldn’t give me any more bad grades.
Then I remembered that she was on our list and we were supposed to tell her she was a good teacher. I opened my mouth, but those words got stuck and wouldn’t come out. Instead, I stepped up to the desk and held out the book I was returning. “I’m sorry it’s a day late,” I told Miss Barnable. “I brought two pennies for the fine.”
Miss Barnable tried to turn the book facedown before the others could see it, but they already had. Miss Harper leaned way over and read the title out loud. “Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle? Is this what you allow children to read? An immoral tale of a savage who cavorts with apes and calls himself Lord with a capital L?”
Miss Barnable turned pink. “Her mother lets her read anything she wants.”
“Not anything,” I protested. “I’m not allowed to read the magazines behind the counter at the drugstore.”
“You shouldn’t even know about those!” Miss Harper exclaimed. “Those aren’t nice magazines!”
Ha! If that was true, I wondered how Miss Harper knew about them. I couldn’t wait to tell Reba Lu and Geraldine that I’d discovered another reason for Miss Harper to be on our list of sinners.
“No wonder we’re having trouble in Messina,” Mrs. Hewitt said. “When our young people are allowed to read filth and sleep outside, boys and girls together in the same backyard, they’re liable to make up all kinds of stories.” She looked at me sideways, and I knew by stories she meant lies. “We might not have a prowler at all,” she told the others. “We might have a child with an over-stimulated imagination.”
I almost bit my tongue off trying to keep still, but the words wouldn’t stay inside me. “If you’re talking about me,” I told her, “I don’t make up stories. My folks taught me to tell the truth. And as far as boys and girls in the same backyard—Charles Adams was the only boy and he slept in his own tent, clear over on the other side of the yard.”
My voice was shaking, but I couldn’t make it stop. “We roasted marshmallows and sang camp songs, and our folks were there till it was bedtime.” I couldn’t believe I’d spoken up like that, but I wasn’t a bit sorry.
They looked at me, little cat smiles on their faces, and I knew what I was going to do. “Excuse me,” I said. I walked over to the stacks and chose a new book to check out. I took it back to the desk and handed it to Miss Barnable. She glanced up at me, then opened it quick, stamped the date in it, and gave me the card to sign. I slapped the cover shut so the ladies could get a good look at my choice. Tarzan the Untamed was standing, half-naked, on the cover, one hand gripping a hanging vine and the other on the back of a snarling lion.
I was heading for the door, but stopped when I heard Mrs. Hewitt say, “I hope Reverend Wallace doesn’t let Willie Jack come on the church outing next Saturday. He needs to be kept away from the young people.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Mrs. Abbott told her. “I heard Mr. Clement volunteer to be a chaperone. He’ll keep an eye on things.”
“That’s all right then,” Mrs. Hewitt said. “Jeff Clement is a gentleman. Do you see how he dresses? And that red carnation he wears shows real class. Why, I remember when he began courting Ruth Clement—she was Ruth Mahoney then and stepping out with another young man. Well, let me tell you, Jeff charmed her away from that fellow and married her himself. Yes, indeed. He always knew what to say to make people smile. I believe he could charm the apples off a tree.”
Miss Harper was nodding her head. “I remember him when he was younger than that. He was always so nice and friendly, always smiling at people and never too busy to stop and pass the time of day. Even when he was a boy, he always had a smile on his face and a compliment up his sleeve.” She reached up and patted her hair like a lady does when she wants someone to tell her how nice she looks. “I reckon it’s a good thing for our town that he decided to come home.”
Miss Barnable closed her desk drawer with a sharp click. “Don’t you remember how Jeff got to drinking and carousing? Mrs. Clement said he was a disgrace and she was glad when he left. I can’t imagine her celebrating his coming back.”
Miss Harper’s face got red and she made a hissing sound between her teeth as she headed for the door. The other two followed her.
Miss Barnable stared at the door a minute, then gave a long sigh and turned back to the book she had been reading. I liked Miss Barnable, and I thought she had more sense than those three gossips, even if she had taken a fancy to Brother Otis when he preached at the revival.
Those other ladies sure puzzled me though. How could they think Mr. Clement was a dependable gentleman? I knew Mama didn’t think much of him. Miss Emma was plain scared of him. Even Mrs. Crumper didn’t want to do his laundry anymore. Of course, Miss Emma wasn’t quite right in her head, and Dodie’s mother wasn’t what you could call dependable. But Mama’s mind was perfectly fine, and she had finagled out of sitting with him at the Fourth of July picnic.
Mr. Clement might have been a friendly young man, and he could dress up in a suit and wear a carnation, but I was positive Willie Jack in his oldest clothes would make a better chaperone.
The next morning, though, the prowler was far from most people’s thoughts after Reverend Adams made his announcement from the pulpit.
“The Annual All-Church Picnic will be held next Saturday, July 29, at La Mirada Beach. The deacons have put sign-up sheets in the narthex, and the trustees will hire buses.”
I thought about how the Baptist minister was probably making the same announcement over in the other church at that very moment.
The “All-Church Picnic” didn’t mean a picnic for all the people in one church. It meant a picnic for all the churches in Messina. There were only two, so the Catholics and Lutherans who lived in Messina and went to church over in West Camptown were always invited to come along, too. The “Holy Rollers” were also invited, but they never came. They didn’t believe in bathing suits.
Reba Lu and Geraldine and I did though, and we decided we had to have new ones. That Sunday afternoon, we got together to figure out how to convince our mothers.
“My old one is raggedy,” Reba Lu said, “and the elastic is so loose the seat sags.”
Geraldine wanted a two-piece one so she could get a better tan. “I don’t know how to bring it up without giving Mama a hissy fit,” she confided.
I didn’t much care what kind of bathing suit I ended up with so long as it was blue and brand new.
Finally, we came up with a plan. Reba Lu and Geraldine would tell their mothers, We’ve been invited to go with Angie and Mrs. Wallace to shop for bathing suits. That much was true because I was the one who had invited them.
Then I would tell Mama, Mrs. Adams is busy helping plan the picnic, and Mrs. Murlock is working most of the time, so Reba Lu and Geraldine need to come with us when we shop for my new bathing suit. That part was mostly true.
Wh
en I told Mama, she looked at me hard and said, “What new bathing suit?”
I tried to look surprised. “The one I need for the All-Church Picnic. My old one doesn’t fit anymore.” I hoped this wasn’t a lie. It was almost a year since I’d last worn it.
“Just you go and try it on,” Mama told me.
I went to my room and pulled it out of a drawer. It was the least favorite of all the bathing suits I had ever owned—bright yellow with a three-inch green ruffle around the neckline in front and back. I always felt like a sunflower with wilted leaves when I wore it. When I held it up to me in the mirror, it looked pretty small, but the stretch was still in it. I said a prayer, Please let it be too tight, and stepped into it. When I pulled up the straps, it felt a little snug. I tugged the ends through the metal buckles and it got even tighter. I took a deep breath, felt like I was going to split up the middle, and went to show Mama. She took one look and decided we’d all go shopping.
The next afternoon, we piled in our Plymouth and drove to San Andreas. “I forgot to ask if I could get a twopiecer,” Geraldine said from the back seat.
I turned around and saw Reba Lu rolling her eyes. She and I knew Geraldine wouldn’t forget a thing like that. She knew her mother would say no, so she didn’t bother to ask.
“I can tell you exactly what your mother would say,” Mama told her.
That settled Geraldine’s problem, but I had one of my own. Dodie. We hadn’t asked her to come shopping with us. Guilt niggled at the back of my mind, the way a moth flutters around a light bulb. I was glad when Mama pulled into a parking space, turned off the engine, and said, “Come on.”
We climbed the stairs to the second floor of J.C. Penney and tried on suits in little rooms with curtains instead of doors. We all went in the same room together but were careful to turn our backs on each other when we undressed. Geraldine picked out a two-piecer that was so tight it barely covered her bottom. She didn’t have much on top, so she picked up some tissue paper from the floor and stuffed it into the bra.
When the Crickets Stopped Singing Page 9