I’ve got to pay more attention. I’ve got to concentrate. She rested her hand on her forehead and gazed down at her 76. I’ve got to earn some money. I feel old.
It seemed to Dotty that just beneath the edges of her memory were hiding many valuable lessons she’d learned but had, for the moment, forgotten. In her head was stored a wealth of knowledge, but she couldn’t figure exactly how to get at it.
Beside her, Janice hummed a little tune. She shuffled her papers noisily and allowed one of the papers to slip from her grasp and slide across the floor to Dotty’s desk, where it lay, face up.
She poked Dotty, pointing down at her paper. “Get it for me, will you?” she whispered. Wordlessly, Dotty clomped her shoe on it and pushed it back to Janice.
“Thanks,” Janice breathed. “I wouldn’t want to lose this. I’m going to take it home and set it up in the kitchen. My parents will be so proud.”
She tossed back her hair, which was held in place by a pink ribbon which exactly matched her pink dress, and smiled her cross-toothed smile at Dotty.
What a waste.
To her rage and frustration, Dotty felt her eyes fill with tears. Only this time they weren’t like Katharine Hepburn’s in Little Women. They were like Dotty Fickett’s in Real Life.
A different thing entirely.
CHAPTER 8
Somehow, against its will, the day spun itself out. The bell rang at three out of habit, and Dotty put on her green wool jacket, the knitted hat of many colors she’d made for herself, and her galoshes and headed for home. Jud dragged behind her. It was Friday. The snow still held off.
“Don’t forget the store,” Jud reminded her. She had forgotten, but she didn’t say, “Thanks.”
“Hello there, missy,” said Mr. Evans, the store owner and a church vestryman who never missed a Sunday and was not well liked in town. “What can I do for you?” His large red nose was crisscrossed by tiny lines that reminded Dotty of rivers marked on a map. His sleeves were rolled above his elbows, and his filthy, stained apron stretched itself taut against his middle. His hands were enormous, red and cracked, like his elbows. Dotty wondered if he was red all over, and didn’t suppose she’d ever find out.
“They catch those robbers yet?” Mr. Evans leaned on his glass case, his voice jovial. “Imagine those boys are way over in the next county by now.” He was not a jovial man, but he worked at it. Frequently he was heard hollering at his wife and kids at day’s end. Being jovial when it’s not your nature must be a strain, Dotty figured.
“What can I do for you?” he repeated in a sharper voice.
“I want a pound of hamburger, a quart of milk, and a loaf of bread. It’s for my aunt,” Dotty explained. “She said to tell you she wants the hamburger to be lean. She said last time you sold her some it was fatty.”
“That aunt of yours is a caution.” Mr. Evans threw back his head and laughed as if he had said something vastly amusing.
He put some meat on the scale and began adding to it, his hands the same color as the hamburger. While he was busy, Dotty sidled over to the magazine rack to see what was new. She kept close tabs on the movie magazines, careful not to miss anything. Photoplay was her favorite, with Motion Picture running a close second. They printed articles about what the stars ate, wore, showed pictures of the cars they drove and the rooms they slept in. Here was a picture of Carole Lombard’s kitchen! Somehow the idea that Carole Lombard had a kitchen had never occurred to Dotty. This one didn’t look as if it was ever used, but there was a picture of Carole, smiling, smiling, and whipping up what they said was an omelet. Imagine. And on to Joan Crawford’s bedroom. Everything here seemed to be white. White rug, white bedspread, white sofas and chairs. Imagine keeping all that stuff clean. Still, Joan had maids and butlers to do the dirty work.
A thin woman wearing a hat that looked like a mushroom came in and asked Mr. Evans how much a stewing chicken cost. Mr. Evans took a chicken from his case and held it up by its feet. The chicken looked so much like a skinny little person that Dotty had to turn away in embarrassment.
The woman protested the price, but she said, “Cut it up and mind you don’t leave out the giblets.” Dotty went on to the Saturday Evening Post, which advertised on its cover an “Exclusive! New Pictures of Dionne Quintuplets!” Jud was leaning against the penny-candy case, breathing circles on the glass and drawing faces in the circles. It was a good thing Mr. Evans was busy cutting up the chicken.
Dotty opened the magazine to the right page. There were the Dionne quintuplets, five girl babies born all at the same time to a lady up in Canada. Entirely too much fuss was being made over those babies. You’d think they were one of the seven wonders of the world, the way folks were carrying on. There they were, ten beady eyes set in five fat faces, staring out at her. Dotty couldn’t help wondering what Mrs. Dionne did if all five of those kids had a load in their pants at the same time. Mr. Dionne didn’t look as if he’d be much help. He was a wispy little man whose face wore a look that seemed to say, “Why me?” The Canadian Government had taken over the babies as wards of the state, it said in the magazine, which meant they’d pay all the bills: food, clothing, shoes, the works.
If there’d been five of me, Dotty thought, Daddy wouldn’t have a thing to worry about. The idea of five Dotty Ficketts was astounding, even awe-inspiring. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.
“Here’s your groceries,” Mr. Evans said. “You want one of those?” he asked, poking a red thumb at the magazines.
“I want one but I don’t have the money.”
“Well, then, I guess that does it. That’ll be twenty-seven cents.” Dotty handed him the quarter and the dime and he gave her back seven cents. A nickel and two pennies. She counted it twice to be sure.
“I gave you thirty-five cents,” she said. Mr. Evans wiped his hands down the front of his apron, leaving tracks, as if a dog had walked there.
“So. I gave you your change.”
“You’re short a penny. Twenty-seven from thirty-five leaves eight. You gave me seven. See?”
Mr. Evans’ mouth fell open in amazement. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Some smart girl you are. Head of your class, I’ll bet.” He slapped another penny into her outstretched hand. “You tell your aunt that’s the leanest hamburger she’ll ever see. Tell her I killed the cow special for her.” His laughter bounced off the ceiling.
Jud leaned against the penny-candy counter. “I’d sure like a licorice stick,” he said.
“Two for a penny,” Mr. Evans said, his red face redder than before.
“Don’t got a penny,” Jud said, studying his shoe.
“Me either. Let’s go.”
“Shut the door after you!” Mr. Evans shouted.
“You had a penny,” Jud said accusingly as they went out into the cold.
“Move, slowpoke. It’s not mine, it’s Aunt Martha’s.” Dotty pulled up her collar and pulled down her hat so only a thin slice of her face showed.
“My hands are cold,” Jud said.
“Put your mittens on.”
He foraged in his pockets, his face gloomy.
“Got ’em?” Dotty watched as he put on the mittens. Then they climbed the incline leading to the highway, which went north. This route took them way out of their way. They took it only on Fridays, when the weekend and hours of free time loomed ahead of them. Dotty enjoyed watching the speeding cars going to Lord knew where, sometimes traveling as fast as forty, forty-five miles an hour. It was the only paved highway in these parts. The other roads were single-lane, bumpy dirt roads, which anyone who was in a hurry to get anywhere avoided like the plague.
As they reached the top, where they could get a good view of the traffic, a big black car zoomed by, going lickety-split. Up ahead, about fifty feet, loomed a sharp curve where there’d been several recent accidents.
“They better slow down or they’re going to crash,” Jud said. The car kept going, the driver hunched over the wheel. As Ju
d and Dotty watched, an arm appeared at the window on the passenger side and threw something out. In a minute the car had disappeared.
The wind swooped down on them and tried unsuccessfully to carry them away. Dotty’s knees knocked together and Jud’s teeth chattered.
“Whwhwhatt was thththattt?” he asked.
“What was what?”
Jud’s fists were like hard little rocks pounding on her. “You saw!” he shouted. “You saw somebody throw something out of that car and you know it!”
“You’re seeing things,” Dotty said in a bored voice. “Go on home. I’m going to take my time. You go on home before you freeze.”
But even as she walked toward the spot where whatever it was they’d thrown had landed, she was certain she’d find something special, something she’d never seen before. Or would ever again.
CHAPTER 9
Whistling “The Rose of Tralee,” Dotty set off in the direction the black car had taken. Some days she could whistle pretty good. This wasn’t one of them. The sound that came from between her pursed lips was a dismal sighing sound that might’ve been a lot of things, none of them “The Rose of Tralee.”
When she turned to look behind her, Jud was standing where she’d left him, arms folded across his chest, eyes boring little holes in her head.
She had known it wouldn’t work. “Oh, all right,” she said. “Come on. But it’s a waste of time.”
“The robbers are still at large,” Jud said, catching up. “The radio said they were. That means they’re still out there”—his arm swept a large arc—“fixing to shoot somebody. The man said they had cruel eyes, mean like. Eyes like to cut you in two.” He watched her face.
Dotty thumped her fists on her hips.
“You ever hear of Sally Rand?”
“Nope.”
“She dances bare at the World’s Fair.” If that didn’t take Jud’s mind off the robbers, nothing would.
“Bare?” he whispered.
“That’s the truth. Nothing between her and you except a big fan made of feathers. A gigantic fan made of feathers that’d float away if a big wind struck ’em.”
She resumed her walking. He was behind her, quiet, thinking. Lord knows she’d given him something to think about.
They trudged along the shoulder of the road, careful to stay off the pavement. Presently the sound of a car, going even faster than the first one, reached them. They stood back until it passed. That car was going hell-bent for election, two men in front, two in back, all staring straight ahead grimly.
That car stirred up so much wind it made Dotty’s galoshes flap against her legs.
“You see who that was?” Jud asked, his eyes huge. He made a pass at his mouth with his thumb. In times of stress Jud’s thumb was a comfort to him.
Dotty glared at him. “Don’t start that business now,” she said. “I don’t have time for a partner that sucks his thumb. No time at all.”
Stunned by her use of the word “partner,” Jud thrust his hands into his pockets to avoid temptation and stomped behind her.
“It’s got to be about here,” Dotty muttered. She tramped in a small circle, head down, studying the ground, widening the circle as she went, beating down the dead gray grass, the mass of weeds.
“What’re we looking for?” Jud asked, doing everything she did.
“If I knew that, it’d be easy, wouldn’t it?”
“That was the sheriff’s car,” Jud said. “Him and his deputies were chasing somebody, I bet.”
“Oh, they were probably just out for a ride,” Dotty said airily.
“You know what? You got on your lying face. You know that was the sheriff good as me, and he wasn’t out for any old ride. He was chasing somebody, and I bet you dollars to doughnuts he was after them robbers in that big black car.” Jud’s mouth clamped down. He was tired out, unaccustomed to making such a long speech.
“You keep your nose down and keep looking, otherwise go on home.” Dotty made such a fierce face at him he cowered behind a pine tree for a minute.
Dotty retraced her steps, around and around, back and forth, and found nothing. She worked her way to the spot in the highway where the road curved. Whatever they’d tossed out they’d come back for. She was certain of that. Whatever it was, they didn’t want anyone to find them carrying it.
“Suppose they come back?” Jud was so close to her she jumped. “Suppose they come back looking for what it was they threw out of the car? Suppose they find us here?” His voice faltered and died.
Dotty kept her head down. “They won’t,” she said firmly, not entirely believing it. “They won’t. Keep on looking.” If they came back and found me and Jud here, tramping around, searching for something, they’d probably kill us. They’d shoot us dead.
“We could look farther in,” Jud suggested. “In from the road. Maybe that guy threw it way far in.”
It was a thought. “I was just thinking that,” Dotty said. They traveled back in and resumed their search. The light was fading fast.
“We better go home. I’m cold and I’m hungry, and besides,” Jud said, “they might come back, and if they do, I don’t want to be here.”
“O.K.” Dotty didn’t want to be there, either, if they came back. Even as she spoke, her foot touched something that didn’t feel like weeds or grass or an old beer bottle or anything like that. Whatever it was it was solid. Dotty knelt down to see better.
“It looks like a box,” she said. The box lay partly hidden under a scraggly bush.
“Open it,” Jud said softly, his breath tickling her cheek. “Open it quick.”
“All it is is an old box,” Dotty scoffed, her heart beating madly. “I wouldn’t give you a nickel for it.” She ran her hand lovingly over the surface.
Jud leaned down to look, his nose almost grazing their find. “Never saw no box with a handle on it,” he observed. “Looks like a suitcase to me. Is anything in it? Is it heavy? Lemme see if it’s heavy.” He tried to take the box away from her, and Dotty warned, “Hands off!”
“You’re not the boss!” he cried, beginning to jiggle the way he did when he had to go to the bathroom.
“Pick it up. See what’s inside,” Jud said, jiggling madly.
“Go on behind that tree over there,” Dotty said. “I won’t look.”
Jud scuttled behind the tree. Quick as a fox, Dotty worked the clasps on the box and the lid sprang open.
Even in the dim light she could see what the box held. She heard Jud coming back and slammed the lid shut, fastening it with shaking fingers.
“What do we want with an old box …” he began, then stopped.
“There’s a car coming,” he said.
Dotty stumbled to her feet, clutching the box. “Are you sure?”
“Listen yourself.” He put a finger to his lips. “Can’t you hear it? It’s coming this way and it’s coming fast.”
Dotty strained her ears. He was right. There was a car coming. “Come on!” she whispered. Crouching low, she ran. Jud followed. They ran as fast as their legs would go, carrying them away from the highway, away from the approaching car, into the woods.
CHAPTER 10
“Listen here,” Jud panted behind her, about twenty minutes later. “I got to rest. That’s all there is to it. I got to rest.” He made heaving noises, and she saw him put his head down between his knees. Nothing came up.
Dotty had a bad stitch in her side. It hurt something fierce. She leaned against a big old elm tree to get her breath. Then she stood taut, listening. In the distance behind her, there was no sound except the sighing of the wind.
“We forgot the hamburger,” Dotty said at last. “Oh, my. Won’t Aunt Martha be mad!”
Jud raised his head, and for a moment he looked very old and very wise.
“No, she won’t,” he said. “I got it.” He tapped his bulging pocket. “I got it right here, but I couldn’t fit the milk. I had to leave the milk.” He smiled, revealing the empty space in his gums t
hat had recently held two teeth.
Dotty felt herself getting calmer. She held the suitcase close to the stitch in her side, as if it were a hot-water bottle and would help to ease the ache.
“Good for you,” she said reluctantly.
Jud noticed the way she held the suitcase, the way she kept her eye on it, and he knew there was something worthwhile inside, no matter what it looked like.
“What you got there?” He pointed. “Let’s have a look.” He tapped his pocket again. “Don’t forget. I remembered the hamburger. Just don’t forget that.”
“As if you’d let me,” Dotty said sarcastically. “Wait’ll we get home and I’ll show you. Let’s get home while there’s still some light left. Come on.”
They set out again. The tops of the trees stood out against the sky. There were no stars, no moon.
They walked for what seemed like miles, and although they stopped often to rest, the suitcase was getting heavy. She longed to put it down for another rest. Blood drummed in her ears, making a racket like the ocean pounding on the shore.
If only we’d come to a place I knew, Dotty thought, and there would be our house. Just as if we’d never left it. Smoke coming from the chimney, wash hanging on the line, Daddy’s old car leaning on itself the way it does. If only.
Jud was beside her. “Up there. It’s a light. I seen it.”
“Where?”
“Right up ahead. It’s gone now, but I seen it. I know I did.”
“I have never been lost in my life,” Dotty said indignantly.
“Me neither,” Jud replied. “But there’s always a first time.”
“You make me sick.” She turned on him. “You make me mighty sick.”
His face assumed a slick, crafty look, full of guile. He was in charge, for a change. Wordlessly he patted his pocket that held the hamburger. Then he ran ahead.
“You know what?” he shouted. “It’s the highway, that’s what! We’re back where we started.”
He was right about the highway. Oh, Lordy, Lordy! Dotty came up behind him. “It’s not the same place. There’s no curve up ahead,” she said in a scornful tone, glad to contribute something.
Dotty’s Suitcase Page 4